The moment the love goes away
The show: I Love Dick, Season 1, Episode 5 The moment: The string
Chris (Kathryn Hahn) writes frank, confessional letters to Dick (Kevin Bacon) about desire. She’s turned them into an art project and the entire town is responding. A letter written by Paula (Lily Mojekwu), who runs Dick’s art foundation, might go like this:
“My other great love was my mother,” Paula says, in both direct address to camera and in voice-overs over the action she describes.
“My dad died when I was 4. It was just the two of us . . . I followed her everywhere.”
Young Paula watches her mother at the bathroom sink. “I liked to watch her do her nighttime things — put on lotion, floss — while she told me about her day,” she says. “Then, one night, I noticed something: her tampon string. Something in me turned against her.”
We see young Paula leave the bathroom. “Hey, where’s my goodnight kiss?” her mother asks.
This scene makes me want to write love letters to Jill Soloway, who co-created this series. While other shows occupy themselves with banal mysteries — “Who set the prize stallion’s stable ablaze?” — this one explores the only mystery that truly matters: the mystery of love. Where does it come from? Why does it go?
Everyone experiences this moment, when a child turns away from a parent. It’s the essence of drama, made more wrenching by how ordinary it is. Every parent is baffled by it. Every child feels guilt. It’s strange. It’s beautiful. Yet almost no one would consider making space for it in a television series. I’m so grateful that Soloway did. I Love Dick streams on Amazon Prime Video. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.