Enlightened: Burn It Down (1.10)

"Goodness exists, all around. It's just sleeping." That's all well in theory, and probably correct if you really think about it, but Enlightened's season finale should throw an addendum onto the end of that line. Since goodness isn't so much 'sleeping', but more in a 'decade-long coma', at least within the walls of Abaddonn. Burn It Down follows a similar trajectory to much of this magical first year, with Amy bouncing through life with keen enthusiasm, only for a last-minute plot twist to expose how bad everything really is. What it lacks in narrative surprise it makes up for in thematic resonance: the importance of fighting for something, since real change can never occur just from being nice to people.

Enlightened: Consider Helen (1.9)

The only elderly people we ever hear about are the 'sexy' elderly. You probably know the type, the ones that look relatively young for their age, dress in expensive, fashionable outfits that accentuate the bodies they're still working out in aerobics class or whatever. They're the type of elderly with an enormous disposable income, so much that they have the vacation home and the regular visits to vineyards and safari parks just because. Consider Helen, one of the greatest episodes in television history, is not about those elderly people. Instead it's about a woman in her mid-seventies who lives a very basic, un-showy and mostly solitary existence, the kind that has its own areas of happiness, but still feels mostly empty.

Enlightened: Comrades Unite! (1.8)

Amy spends a lot of Comrades Unite! playing the victim, unable to put her own behavior into perspective and painting herself as somebody hard done-by and downtrodden -- the very type of person she regularly tries to save. It's an interesting perspective in which to hang the episode, one that once again returns to the central dilemma of Amy's denial and her arrogance. But it's also something that continues to make her such a dynamic protagonist. It's easy to side with those around her, particularly when it comes down to Amy's own lack of effort at work and her generally dismissive nature, but Laura Dern salvages her character's earnest, human qualities, too, bridging the gap between somebody who is self-absorbed and somebody merely flawed.

Enlightened: Lonely Ghosts (1.7)

One of the more interesting responses to Enlightened has been the vocal apathy towards Amy herself, and how she's so hideous a character that it's hard to enjoy the show at all as a result. It's something that is explicitly examined throughout Lonely Ghosts, an episode that explores how Amy uses those around her to get what she wants. It's actually a really interesting question from an audience standpoint, since we're living in an age of complex anti-hero protagonists, particularly on cable. And maybe that block between Amy as a character and certain folks at home isn't derived so much from what she is, but instead what she isn't.

Enlightened: Sandy (1.6)

We live in a time in which the definition of friendship has been stretched to such an extent that it's sometimes hard to discern whether your friends are really, honestly, actually your friends. Or if you actually know them at all, and vice versa. Enlightened is a series that says a lot about one woman and her quest for some kind of inner peace, but has also been intriguingly exploring loneliness for most of the season so far. Of course, Amy isn't literally alone, seeing as she has companions at work and lives with her mother, but every one of these relationships is fractured in some way. The people at work she wants to be friends with don't like her at all, she arrogantly positions herself above co-workers like Tyler and doesn't appear to want an actual friendship with them, while both her mother and ex-husband find her suffocating. So she's very much alone, in a lot of ways. Then enter Sandy.

Enlightened: Not Good Enough Mothers (1.5)

People are assholes. That's sort of a given. Especially today, it's not exactly hard to stumble upon somebody rude and obnoxious, or selfish and arrogant. And when you see those kinds of people, it's easy to get pretty angry yourself. What's their problem? Why do they feel the need to inflict their own issues onto somebody else? In that brilliantly observed scene at the top of this week's show, Amy sits on a bus stop as it begins to rain, kindly expressing to the kid sat next her that he must have forgotten his umbrella, too. The kid replies with an immediate "Fuck off!" Then she gets on-board the bus, and she has to ask a lady to move her bag so she can sit down, like it's some huge inconvenience. Her voiceover remarks how people are mean, and how that makes them ugly, and how that in itself makes her burn with hate. And everybody at home gives a collective sigh because this is so ridiculously true to life.

Enlightened: The Weekend (1.4)

A lot of my praise for Enlightened has so far centered on the writing and the acting, but I haven't even started talking about how gorgeous the show looks. I don't think I've ever seen a TV series that makes you want to reach out and touch more than this one. Laura Dern's peaceful voiceover and the tinkly ambient score help, but Mike White's photography so beautifully captures color and texture. This episode in particular, with its river rafting trip and the slow pans across water and rocks and beautiful rose gardens, just leaps off the screen -- surrounding you with nature and a feeling that the world around us is filled with so much beauty. All you have to do is look for it.

Enlightened: Someone Else's Life (1.3)

There's that old saying that there's no such thing as a selfless good deed, and it's something that Enlightened keeps bouncing back to. Amy is a character whose entire mission in life is to give and give, so infuriated by modern society that she feels it is her duty to help those without her good fortune. But as we're getting to know her, it's becoming more and more clear that there's a wall preventing Amy from becoming entirely selfless, as her old belief system can't help but creep out every once in a while. Just look at her timid embrace of a homeless woman this week, hugging her only because it's the sort of thing you should do in those circumstances. The woman leaves some kind of stain on Amy's arm and, soon after, she briefly washes her arm during a trip to the bathroom. It's such a subtle gesture, probably entirely unconscious, but something that says so much about Amy as a person.

Enlightened: Now or Never (1.2)

One of Mike White's greatest strengths is his ability to expose the hidden vulnerabilities that make us who we are, and how we only really express them in secret. It's something that kept reappearing throughout this second episode, which opened with Amy fantasizing about a conversation with her management, one full of environmentally-friendly buzz words ('sustainable', 'renewable', 'compostable') and 'up with people' enthusiasm, culminating in her message having a real effect, not only on Abaddonn itself but her bosses as people, too. Only the really important word there is 'fantasizing', because it's one of those things that just wouldn't happen. It's the next big journey for Amy, slowly realizing that her dreams and ambitions aren't going to be fulfilled overnight.

Enlightened: Pilot (1.1)

Have you ever wanted to just scream at the top of your lungs and say "fuck it!"? It's the most exhilarating thing imaginable, especially when you're stuck in a dead-end job or getting constantly screwed over by the individuals wielding greater power than you. But it's also something that usually only exists within a specific moment. Nobody can realistically become entirely outspoken and brutally honest long-term, because most of us have enough integrity and self-awareness that doing so would be pretty ugly. Laura Dern's Amy Jellicoe is one of those people, a woman who flew so close to public insanity that all she could do to get her life back on track was remove the negativity that had once totally consumed her and left her this perpetually edgy shell of a person. So she became enlightened, making a moment of madness the instigator for an entirely different existence.