film / tv / substack / social media / lists / web / celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / substack / web / celeb

beverly-bad-mom.jpg

Beverly Goldberg Has Ruined 'The Goldbergs'

By Dustin Rowles | TV | February 16, 2023 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | February 16, 2023 |


beverly-bad-mom.jpg

I’ve spent entirely too much time over the last six months trashing a sitcom in its 10th season that probably doesn’t deserve the attention I give it. It’s bad, but so are a lot of other sitcoms, although this is the rare sitcom where the creator actually hates it now. It’s not just that it’s lazy, it’s that it’s disrespectful to the original iteration of the series.

For the first six seasons or so, there was a certain formula to many of the episodes: One of the children would try to gain independence and Murray would look the other way while Beverly smothered the children. This would create tension between Beverly and the child that would be resolved in the end when the child expressed appreciation for Beverly while Beverly agreed to relax her control over the child. It was a family sitcom about the push and pull between an overprotective mother and children who were trying to blaze their own paths. Beverly did not discourage the path blazing. She encouraged it; it just made her sad because it meant that her children were one step closer to independence.

It’s been 10 seasons! The kids are still living at home, and Beverly is still smothering her kids, including a daughter who already has her own child. There is no independence! Talk about a failure as a mother: Her daughter is living at home with her husband and their child; her oldest son is living at home because he’s impossible to live with and can’t keep a roommate; and her youngest son still lives at home because he decided to defer enrollment in college so that he could stay home and work in a diner. But does Beverly let up? Does she look at the results and decide to take a new approach? She does not!

An interesting thing has happened over the last several seasons, but this one in particular: Beverly has evolved from an overbearing mother to an outright villain. She’s emotionally kidnapped her granddaughter, terrifies her son-in-law, rewards Barry’s bad behavior, and enables Adam’s worst instincts. Also, she farts.

This week’s episode featured one of the more egregious examples of Beverly’s villainy. In it, Erica met the mother of another young infant, and after spending some time with her, the two bonded over parenting difficulties. When Erica invited the new mother over, however, she was appalled that the house had not been babyproofed, that Beverly mixed the baby’s formula with Boo Berry cereal, that she gave the baby a chicken bone to soothe her, and that she gave the infant a prawn to gnaw on before she’d been tested for a shellfish allergy. Rather than listening to Erica’s new friend, Beverly decided to … sabotage their friendship.

Here’s the villainous twist: In your typical sitcom, Beverly realizes she’s gone too far and apologizes to Erica for trying to break up her friendship and stepping on her toes as a mother. That’s not what happens here. On last night’s The Goldbergs, Erica goes to visit her new friend and discovers that, despite the baby-proofing and her decision not to bottle-feed her infant formula and Boo Berry cereal, her new friend is struggling as a mom. Erica somehow sees her friend’s struggles as validation for her mother’s outdated methods. She actually goes home and apologizes to her overbearing mother for not listening to her, for not using chicken bones to soothe her child, and for babyproofing the house like some insane hippie!

“[Your questionable parenting tricks] make me the luckiest daughter and mother, ever,” Erica tells Beverly. Beverly was horrible to Erica, and Erica not only apologized to her mother but insisted that she was lucky to have her. This is a textbook abusive relationship. If it weren’t for the upbeat Queen song playing over it, the third act of the episode would be mistaken for tragedy. It’s bad writing, and it’s bad TV.