Younger: Why ‘Marriage Vacation’ Feels Like a Missed Opportunity

Younger Season 5 starts with the release of Pauline Turner Brooks’ novel Marriage Vacation. Pauline, of course, is Charles Brooks’ wife.

In Season 1, it was revealed that Pauline left her husband and two daughters in a desperate attempt to find herself and escape the pressures of her marriage. Now she’s back, armed with a fictional manuscript of her adventures that Liza loves so much that, despite her own involvement with Charles, she champions the book’s release.

On Younger, Marriage Vacation is poised to be a hit for Millennial Prints. Reese Witherspoon even picked it for her book club.

But you don’t have to use your imagination to figure out what’s inside. In reality, it’s a novel by Simon & Schuster, and it’s really good.

Kate Carmichael is Pauline’s fictional alter ego in the novel. She’s the wealthy wife of the head of a publishing company, who realizes she’s lost her sense of self while at a wedding.

Her old best friend convinces her to go on a trip to Thailand to find adventure again but never manages to find her own way to there. Determined to rediscover her passions, Kate stays on the trip anyway, and it changes her life.

She starts working at a clinic for women refugees and is inspired to write stories about the women she meets there. The project helps her find a bigger purpose and her love for writing again. Her adventures and the people she meets make her start questioning if being a wife and mom is enough for her.

For a fictional turned actual novel that originated on a TV show, Marriage Vacation explores surprisingly deep issues related to motherhood, love, and even poverty. Spoiler alert…Kate decides to go home and work on her marriage.

But what does that mean for Pauline and Charles?

Younger does a great job writing Liza’s relationships on the show. I’m not solidly Team Josh or Team Charles for Liza, and after reading Marriage Vacation? Honestly, I ship Charles and Pauline too; or at least them trying to work on their marriage.

So, I was disappointed by Younger Season 5 Episode 3, “The End of the Tour,” more than any other episode. I wasn’t exactly hoping for them to be endgame, but I at least wanted the plot to include them trying to work things out. That isn’t going to happen at all.

Pauline’s character is also dismissed by having her admit that her marriage was over before she left on her trip. What is the point of the book, then? And to go a step further, what is the point of Pauline as a character at all if she’s going to make things so easy for Charles?

The book could’ve been the catalyst for such unique storyline. It’s disappointing to have this wrapped up with a bow.

Assuming Kate and Pauline had a similar experience and only Pauline’s ending is up in the air, she needed this trip.

If the tables were turned and Charles went away — first for a few weeks, and then for longer as he discovered a bigger purpose and people who needed his help — I suspect he’d expect Pauline to be waiting for him when he got home.

Are mothers really supposed to sacrifice all of the other aspects of who they are when they have children? Are women exempt from mid-life crises? These may be really deep questions for a comedy to tackle, but after reading the book, they are the ones I have.

I absolutely love that a TV show was a catalyst for an actual novel, but because of that novel, Younger now has some responsibility to answer our questions. After the most recent episode, it seems they’re going to ignore it.

They seem to be leaning toward a Charles/Liza reunion right now (albeit after an “I’ve been keeping a secret about the secret you think I don’t know” reveal.) But would it be so bad to tell a story about a couple working on their marriage?

Frankly, dramas use divorce too frequently as a plot device for shock value. Someone needs to break the mold and write a story about a couple really working on a broken marriage. Seeing that in a half hour comedy would be refreshing.

Pauline has been written as a villain of sorts on Younger; someone to root against. But I’m here to say she’s not a bad person for wanting to fight for her marriage. Though we’re admittedly not sure Charles deserves her.

I don’t love Pauline or hate her — she’s kind of just there. But she’s supposed to be the author of this amazing novel (the physical book doesn’t even say anything differently) — I want to know more about her.

In the novel, the character of Kate is a pretty incredible woman, with a pretty incredible love story (see page 58 for proof.) Charles fell in love with a version of that woman. I love Liza, but that love doesn’t just disappear because she exists. Or it shouldn’t.

The book made me see that Pauline isn’t a spoiled wife who ran away from responsibility and stayed there. She needed a break, and then she met people who needed her help, and then she rediscovered a passion. All the while, she was trying to stay in touch with her family.

“The End of the Tour” kept driving home that the book is fiction. That’s fine. But it is based on her experience, so Pauline should get the chance to tell the viewers what parts were based on truth.

Charles didn’t make the same effort as his wife to try to save the marriage on screen.  He checked out of it when things got hard. Pauline is not innocent at all. But, the marriage debris she came home to is not solely her fault.

Now that she’s a character on screen, it’s time to tell viewers more details about what went wrong.

So far in Season 5, Charles is just mad. Mad at Liza, mad at Pauline and giving up on vows, and just getting away with being unpleasant as the two women in his life mope at his heels waiting for him to feel better and answer their questions.

I absolutely love Younger. It’s a rare, bright half hour of fun, flirty, comedy. But, since the decision was made to publish a novel based on Pauline’s trip, now the show has a responsibility to tell her whole story, and not just from the easy sides: villain and then victim of her angry husband.

I’m disappointed in how quickly this storyline has ended. But this show has surprised me before, and there’s still plenty of time to give Pauline’s character depth. I hope she stays around.

I promise Marriage Vacation is worth reading, even if you can’t tell from watching Younger.

Have you read Marriage Vacation? Do you plan to? And do you want to see more of Pauline on Younger? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Younger airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on TVLand.

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