Oh, OK.
It’s obvious after SurrealEstate Season 1 Episode 5 that my attempts to see into Luke’s future are a major fail.
It seems that at every turn, Luke is shown that he’s got to face his past demons no matter how eager he is to run away from them.
It never dawned on me that Luke was running again and not facing his demons when he left his nasty mother in the Donovan House dust.
It was so easy to get wrapped up in what a monster she is to allow Luke his decision to put himself first and skedaddle out of that witch’s way. After all, Megan is a sweet woman, and they’ve got a thing.
That’s another reason not to get himself muddied by chasing his dead mother and allowing her to speak so poorly about him right to his face.
Sadly, it seems as if Luke still needs to understand his mother. He’ll never run far enough to escape the pain she caused him.
Of course, his pain — and understanding that he has it — helped him to help a lost little boy who, like Luke, just wanted a mother to love him. But not a Mother Superior. (Oh, come on. That was good.)
But before we dig into George’s story — and Phil’s, for that matter — Luke’s dad added insult to his son’s injury.
The guy is dead, and he’s still keeping secrets about Luke’s mom. Why?
Luke has read the writing on the wall. Hell, he didn’t need to read it. Mommie Dearest spoke it loud and plain right to his face.
She left because Luke was such a disappointment. She didn’t want anything to do with him.
No, I don’t think it’s that easy, but if dear old dad thought by making light of Luke’s feeling, it was going to make him feel better, he was barking up the wrong tree.
Luke asked him straight out, and dad sloughed it off. But the look on his face and the speed that he used jokes to bury Luke’s question proves that he’s hiding something.
If I were Luke, I’d think I was spot on and that mom told me the truth. How could a father hear that his dead wife told his living son she left them because of him without offering some comfort?
At this point, it seems like even Luke’s relationship with his dad wasn’t everything that Luke believed it to be. Sure, he was toying with Luke about having naughty magazines in his possessions, but it was really bad timing.
I’m eager to hear what you think is going on with Luke’s parents.
Now, on to the latest house and all that it uncovered.
The story is certainly sad, but blaming the Catholic Church is the easy way out. Society itself was to blame for what happened to unwed mothers.
If regular people accepted women under those circumstances, there wouldn’t have been a need to hide them in places like the Catholic charity home for unwed mothers.
Families didn’t welcome the unwanted pregnancies, and girls felt shame for getting pregnant. If pregnancy itself was deemed dirty and shameful, imagine the poor kids.
Anybody who watched Dirty Dancing knows how messed up things were for young women, while men skated happily by as if women could get pregnant on their own. There simply weren’t many options for women.
Enter the Catholic Church and other organizations that made money off the suffering of unwed, pregnant women and their children.
There have always been families that need to adopt. Sometimes, even those families chose not to share that they had adopted as being infertile was another reason to feel shame.
It’s a messed up world, my friends.
But Phil had a reputation, and when he visited the Church to get records on Cortana House, he met a young Sister, Yasmin, who tried to remind him that not everything about the Church was shameful. They really do provide helpful and caring services.
Being a product of the times is always unfortunate, but hopefully, individuals and organizations move away from it as times change.
In the meantime, being Catholic was a significant part of Phil’s life. He got a lot out of his relationship with God. Being turned on by the Church put him off on the Church and God, possibly without justification when it comes to God.
As a former Catholic, it was easy to understand what Phil was saying about the ritual and tradition of thousands of years brings to a place like the Catholic Church.
Even if you rarely attend, when you walk in, as much as things change, they stay the same, too. The music might be different, but the mass rarely digresses. It’s comforting.
It’s kind of like coming home.
Phil’s conversation with Jesus was sweet, and you could tell how much he got out of talking to him again, even if he thought he was doing it in jest.
If all goes well, maybe we’ll get more about Phil and his time in the clergy. It’s an interesting topic and ripe for discussion.
Working with spirits makes it a perfect match, too. Having an understanding about what comes next would comfort those they help, and maybe it would even work to soften the angriest of spirits.
I can’t wait to hear what you thought about this episode.
Please share your thoughts in the comments!
Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic. She’s a member of the Critic’s Choice Association, enjoys mentoring writers, conversing with cats, and passionately discussing the nuances of television and film with anyone who will listen. Follow her on Twitter and email her here at TV Fanatic.