Que Sera, Sera
Episode 4 of Modern Love begins with a couple at counselling and having issues. We then jump back six months to see them living together after their kids have moved out. Sarah worries that their relationship is done while Dennis sits without answers to how to resolve their problems. At counselling they decide to give tennis a go as a common ground activity. Unfortunately it fails in the worst way as they bicker the whole way through the game. This continues through to a second session too which only opens a larger rift between them. After their session, Dennis heads off with work friends but when Sarah tries to join in with their conversation, he shrugs her off. This leads to even more drama to ensue in the family, spilling over to the attitude of the kids too. Sometimes a relationship just doesn’t work no matter what you do. Sensing this, both Sarah and Dennis decide to break up at counselling but outside they can’t follow through and head back out together and go for drinks. There, they spill the cold, hard truth about how they’ve been feeling about one another. After finally being on the same page, we cut forward two years to see their eldest son heading off to college. Dennis and Sarah embrace before heading off and playing tennis again. This time they play properly and as the scene closes out, we see both of them finally getting along. While the tennis match is obviously a metaphor for Dennis and Sarah’s relationship, beyond that there just isn’t a whole lot else to get excited about here. I actually wish the episode had ended with Sarah and Dennis still loving one another but separated as I feel this would have given an extra dimension to the episode and made the early fights meaningful. As it stands, it all feels like toxicity ready to bubble over again and having been in this sort of volatile relationship before, this sort of love gets better for a little while and then devolves into the same ugly, tense feelings as before. Still, there’s enough here to make for an enjoyable episode nonetheless but this episode is certainly not one to write home about.
