Physical Season 2 Episode 7 Review: Don’t You Have Enough
Physical Season 2 Episode 7, “Don’t You Have Enough,” is probably the best episode of the season to date. Yet, part of the reason it works so well is that it unabashedly doubles down on what a horrible person Sheila is, something that makes it an installment that’s rather difficult to enjoy.
Yes, it gives plenty of reasons for her awfulness — her eating disorder, her need for control, her inability to be honest with anyone, her tendency to use those closest to her for her own ends — but it also leaves, us, as an audience, at a crossroads about how we’re meant to feel about her.
Is this a woman we’re meant to be rooting for? Are we meant to be hoping for her triumph? Or imagining her fall?
Part of the problem is that this show has never really known, at its heart, whether it’s a black comedy where we’re supposed to delight in Sheila’s many transgressions or a dark tragedy where we’re supposed to be horrified at how far and how fast this woman is falling.
And its crisis of identity is glaringly apparent in this episode, which shows us a Sheila who looks as though she’s making legitimate strides forward even as it seemingly asks us to applaud her blowing up her own life for no reason other than she can.
There’s something intensely gratifying about watching Sheila scheme her way out of a contract with a bunch of gross men who don’t value her or the product she’s creating and don’t have her best interests at heart.
But there’s also something tremendously cathartic watching Greta finally lose it with Sheila and say basically everything that the audience has likely wanted to yell at her for the past season and a half.
She calls her out for being a terrible friend, the kind that only calls when she needs something. She points out the uncomfortable power imbalance at the heart of their relationship, how much Sheila uses Greta as the token fat friend meant to boost her self-esteem, and all the other ways she keeps secrets from her even as she claims they’re close.
It’s perhaps the fallout from Sheila’s confession of bulimia that is the hardest to parse. How much does this confession truly mean when she only tells Greta the truth out of anger? Is Greta’s insistence that Sheila’s eating disorder makes her fitness empire a lie true?
I mean she does have a point about women wanting to believe they can look like Sheila if they do her workout. Even Sheila knows that her brand only works if it’s aspirational. And even if it is does Greta have a right to be angry about it?
Personally, I’ve spent a lot of time over the course of this series struggling with how I feel about Danny. Often, he’s the absolute worst—controlling, vaguely stupid, deeply selfish, and a philanderer in his own right. But in “Don’t You Have Enough,” he actually tries, and it surprisingly makes a lot of difference.
He reaches out to Sheila again about her eating disorder, doing his level best to be supportive and encouraging her to get treatment. He does aerobics with her in an attempt to connect with her and try to understand her obsession with it. He even throws himself into brainstorming brand ideas and strategies with her, finally telling his wife how proud he is of what she’s trying to accomplish.
And while Sheila initially seems receptive to this new and improved version of her husband, she ends up doing exactly what she always does when confronted with anything uncomfortable: She runs away.
Only this time she does it under a terrible pretense — claiming that she’s going to a clinic to get help for her bulimia, she’s headed to L.A. instead. For what, we don’t know, but how will Danny react when she comes back no better? (Or worse, when he finds out she didn’t go at all?
Stray Thoughts and Observations:
- In weirder news, this is perhaps the first episode of Physical in which John Breem is actually interesting to me. From his begging God not to punish his family for his sins to his (horrible) urge to confess every sin he’s ever committed to his wife who is, for the record, still in her hospital bed, this is the one time his behavior has actually felt understandable.
- The idea that Breem is attracted to Sheila because she is as broken and awful as he is makes so much sense.
- The fact that Maria forces John to arrange a meeting with Sheila so they can show up at the hotel room (together!) to try and bring her to Jesus is an example of Physical’s uncomfortable weirdness at its absolute best. (Granted, I have no idea how the show wants me to read this scene in the larger context of the show, but at least it’s funny!)
- There’s no Bunny or Tyler in this episode at all, and I truly believe that’s part of the reason this installment feels so bleak.
- Where was Maya during her parents’ drug-fueled business brainstorm?
What did you think of this episode of Physical? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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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.