Spoilers for most recent episodes.

I have been thinking about Davis and Dennis. They have now set Dennis up with Ryan and Davis seems to be getting set up with Elliott's dad. I am so not invested in either of those relationships and am actually annoyed about them.

One thing in particular that annoys me is how they portray them as so "sexy," with slow motion and romantic music. I have whiplash from how much this show has jerked me around with these two having different pairings and all the will they/won't they. Like I get that they might date other people and maybe never find their way to each other, but we are expected to find those scenes sexy or romantic?!

In reflecting on this though, I have come to the working conclusion that their arc IS realistic. The show is called Good Trouble, so things aren't supposed to be ideal or perfect. Although neither are their difficulties "good."

This in turn led me to the realization that I don't find these characters themselves realistic in some way. Like I very much see them as CHARACTERS rather than real people, and therefore expect them to have a "story" rather than just ...life. In real life there are situations like this, where a seemingly Great Love just kinda ....fizzles out due to miscommunication and bad timing.

But somehow this show makes the characters seem fictional, at least to me, so I don't necessarily expect their arcs to be realistic (although side note, that scene with Isabella crying and begging Gael not to leave her was super powerful and IMO one of the most realistic, human scenes on the show so far).

I thought about how this contrasts with eg Friends, which I grew up watching. That show was in many ways much less realistic than this one, though I didn't know it at the time. People living in huge apartments in New York on waitress and massage therapist incomes, for example. No characters of color or sexual diversity - in New York! This show is more realistic about diversity and financial struggle and social issues (to an extent). Yet the way the story is told is so stylized sometimes that it feels very removed from reality. Then the realistic storylines like Davia and Dennis don't seem to 'fit' with the stylism of the show.

For me. Subjective impressions. What do you think? How does this show compare with shows from other eras, particularly in terms of realism?