“Manolis” might have been the point of diminishing returns for The Slap. It’s as if the show just threw up its hands and said “Fuck it, make everyone unlikable!” The only person I do like anymore, Anouk, was a no-show. Even previously sympathetic characters like Aisha decided to become annoying (watch her condescendingly correct the lawyer: “Dr. Cole”). There were also a bunch of weird stereotypes flying around.
To wit: did you know the Apostolos were Greek? Because “Manolis” is happy to remind you, time and time a-fucking-gain. Manolis, Hector’s father and Harry’s uncle, has some very old world views of himself as a patriarch who will solve all crises (for Christ’s sake, even Aisha calls him “dad”). Kula, Manolis’ wife, serves very little purpose, and seems to exist to generate friction with her daughter-in-law. Never seen that on a show before. But if you think these two are bad, wait until you meet Thanassis.
Thanassis is an old lawyer friend of Manolis’, and Manolis goes to him for advice about this whole slap incident. Thanassis proves that writer Jon Robin Baitz must have had a bad experience with a Greek person at some point, because all this fuckin guy talks about is women, family, women, family, et cetera. At one point he says “Make women your religion,” which doesn’t mean a goddamn thing. If The Slap wants us to think that these men revere women, it failed, because right now it looks like the show thinks that Greek men just like women as window dressing. Also, I’m convinced now that Greeks only drink coffee and wine. Manolis goes to visit a dying friend of his, and even though it’s in the evening, his wife has just made coffee. What the hell.
Anyway, Harry and Hector meet with Thanassis, and Harry immediately takes a shine to him, probably because Thanassis (whose name makes him sound like a boss in God of War) wants to drag Rosie and Garry through the mud, bringing up Garry’s DUI and Rosie’s past experiences with Social Services. Harry, naturally, is against this, and Peter Sarsgaard’s portrayal of a conflicted but fundamentally decent man remains one of The Slap‘s bright spots. (Since we’re on the subject, Brian Cox does fine work as Manolis; the episode requires him to be in almost every scene, a burden he handles with ease, and his knack for accents remains intact.) It’s easy to see the bind that Harry is in, since Rosie is his wife’s best friend.
Which leads me to my next point – how could Rosie be anyone‘s best friend? She’s a shrill, entitled harpy who’s only happy when everyone is bending over backwards to appease her. The Slap has to tell us twice that Rosie and Aisha re best friends, because there’s no way I’d believe it otherwise. I guess I’ll take the show at its word. Right now, there’s serious damage control to be done with Rosie, and honestly I’m surprised that the fourth episode of this show was “Manolis,” because we need a reason to like or at least sympathize with Rosie. That’s a double-edged sword, though, because a Rosie-centric episode means more time spent with fucking Hugo, whose only direction seems to have been “Be the worst! Action!” From the look Gary gives his wife and kid, even he’s getting fed up with the two of them.
It seems like The Slap is painting its characters in increasingly broad strokes. It wasn’t enough for Harry to have an anger problem, which was ably demonstrated in the episode that bears his name – Aisha confesses to Manolis that a few years back, Harry’s wife Sandi showed up at her house in the middle of the night, bruised and cut. Thandie Newton sells the monologue well, but she still comes off as cold; one wonders why she married into the Apostolos if she can’t seem to stand any of them.
“Manolis” was a low point for an already problematic series. I found myself asking, when is something going to actually happen? Rosie and Gary have been talking about suing Harry since episode one, and they finally met with a lawyer – in episode four of an eight-episode series. Chop chop, The Slap.
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