Physical Review: Let’s Get This Party Started (Season 1 Episode 4)
Just in case we didn’t get the memo on the series’ first three episodes, Physical Season 1 Episode 4, “Let’s Get This Party Started,” makes sure to remind us one more time for good measure that for all of Sheila’s flaws and various personal struggles, she is twice the person her husband is on almost every level.
Danny’s the one running for office, but it’s Sheila running everything else — from their home to their finances to the bulk of Danny’s campaign. So it’s doubly insulting when he hires Jerry, one of their burnout former Berkeley friends to “serve” as his campaign manager, despite the fact that this guy knows nothing about San Diego politics or issues.
But, hey, at least he’s a man, right? That truly seems to be all that’s needed for his opinion to rate higher than Sheila’s does.
Let me put it this way: While I realize this show actually isn’t an AppleTV+ version of Kevin Can F**k Himself, there’s a big part of me that wishes it was.
It would be one thing if Jerry’s presence sparked some sort of larger discussion, about Ronald Reagan’s America and how life in more conservative San Diego has required both Sheila and Danny to compromise some of the activist values they once held in school.
Maybe it could lead to a conversation about the ways life as an adult with bills to pay and a child to feed means making compromises you never would have considered when you were younger.
Instead, Danny remains completely infuriating in every scene he is in, whether he’s failing to grasp the simplest responsibilities of parenting or abandoning the high-profile donor event his wife has set up for him to do drugs and skinny dip with co-eds.
Truly, why does Sheila stay with this man? Is it because she actually still loves him (why?) or because she’s been conditioned by society that this is the life she’s supposed to want, no matter how stifling and awful it is?
Sure, the fleeting moments where Danny tells her how great she is and how she’s the sun in his life must feel fantastic, especially to a woman whose self-esteem is already as damaged as Sheila’s is.
But is any of that – could any of that – be worth the constant frustration and humiliation she has to endure from this same man who purports to love her?
On the one hand, watching Sheila shine without him, easily chatting with rich donors and selling a vision of her husband that even she knows doesn’t actually exist, is deeply satisfying. She’s good at this, in a way that Danny obviously isn’t, and would clearly be better at the job he’s running to hold than he could ever hope to be.
Yet, on the other, no matter how obvious her skills and success are — or how egregious Danny’s failures may be — her voice will always be dismissed and stifled in her own home. And I hate that for her, so much!
The sequence in which Sheila came home to a raging college party, full of drugs and girls have her age is both frustrating and satisfying by turns.
Infuriating because, again and obviously, Danny gave no thought to what his wife might think of coming home a house full of half-naked college girls and a raging party after he’d explicitly ditched an event he’d promised to attend. (For! His! Own! Benefit!)
But watching Sheila finally unload on him felt so good, even if she forgave him too quickly and was far too willing to listen to the same BS he always tells her. I’m only sorry she just shoved Danny and didn’t actually punch him in the face.
Just, the pure disrespect of this entire half-hour left my blood boiling. What kind of man treats someone he claims to love this way? Why does our society — then and now — constantly insist that his time is somehow more valuable and worthy than hers is?
Truly, there’s a lot that’s wrong with Sheila. She needs therapy and coping mechanisms that help her process some of the anger and trauma she carries. But even with all her flaws — she doesn’t deserve a husband like this.
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- Sheila is just such a terrible friend. I cannot believe that her fitness empire is clearly going to be built on the back of the fancy camera she stole from Gretta’s house!
- That said, watching Sheila verbalize her rage rather than turning it inward by binging — even if it was just this once — was so good. There are ways to process feelings without hurting yourself, girl!
- Are we supposed to assume Danny’s cheating on Sheila with that student? Because rightly or wrongly I sort of am. He got naked somehow after all.
- I sort of wish we’d gotten a few more glimpses of Sheila’s coming fame this week. So much of this episode is about her being — once again!! — beaten down and silenced that I could have used the reminder that she’ll get to claim some sort of power of her own eventually.
- The music in this show! Truly an inspired use of “We Belong.”
What did you think of this episode of Physical? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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New episodes of Physical stream Fridays on Apple TV+.
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Lacy Baugher
Lacy is a pop culture enthusiast and television critic who loves period dramas, epic fantasy, space adventures, and the female characters everyone says you're supposed to hate. Ninth Doctor enthusiast, Aziraphale girlie, and cat lady, she's a member of the Television Critics Association and Rotten Tomatoes-approved. Find her at LacyMB on all platforms.