Talk:Ruthless People/@comment-31022739-20180629015326

Okay, I may be approaching this episode more critically than it deserves, but still...what the heck was that?

I mean, I suppose the whole point of this episode was to show how karma's a...well, you know what. But if that moral hinges off of how wrong it was for Lincoln's side to avoid Aunt Ruth's, then why was the side that was initially supposed to go to Pop-Pop's rewarded for treating the prospect of switching places as a means to an end? Doesn't that fly in the face of the "sticking with family is important" lesson as purported by Rita, the leader of the side of the family that was blessed with good fortune?

If Team Rita knew that staying with Aunt Ruth was something that was worth making a trade for favors for, wouldn't that imply that everyone had a mutual understanding around the prospect that staying with Ruth was the equivalent of getting the short end of the stick? If so, then why is a fair trade (favors for a better location) seen as such a bad enough thing for Team Lincoln to be treated with karmic retribution? And even if it was, then why isn't the other side punished for willingly participating in the whole thing, too?

And then to make matters worse, the episode just...just ends. Team Lincoln learns nothing. It’s as if the episode didn’t feel like it needed to because of how prevalent karma is in the story, and how obvious the message (“Karma’s a...well, you know what!”) didn’t need to tie into character introspection. Okay, well if karma is soooooooo dang important, where the heck was Lana’s karma?

Despite knowing how destructive termites are, she willingly brings them along to someone’s house (the person who’s letting you stay in their home, mind you) and gets nothing from that except more favors from her groveling siblings and a cruise. She does the absolute worst thing of the entire episode and gets rewarded.

I just couldn't enjoy the idea of how one side of the family got unfairly treated. I've honestly never been this annoyed with an episode in a long time. I mean, say what you will about NSL, but at least there a resolution that resulted in some kind of recognition in culpability. Here, the other half of the guilty party gets off scot-free without so much as a slap on the wrist, whether it be karma or a realization that they were in the wrong, too.