#carmy thinks he's escaping his mother by turning his pain more inward than out but it's still pain....

[bartonbones]

it's so telling and upsetting to me that the thing that sends mikey off at the end of fishes is lee saying something about how they all knew this was going to happen and now it's over, so it's fine. the thing that bugged me the whole episode was how many jokes everyone else made about donna--is she gunna do something crazy, you know how donna is!--vs how seriously the berzatto siblings were feeling and taking it. like when pete comes with the tuna and they're all laughing, except that carmy isn't. he isn't mad cause pete doesn't understand their traditions, he doesn't say: why would you do that on seven fishes? he says, why are you doing this to me? he says don't let her see it. the thing that is distressing to carmy isn't that pete is an outsider, but that he's not taking their mom seriously, and no one else is. people keep coming into the kitchen and stressing her out increasing the burden on them. donna isn't doing something psycho on christmas to them, she's hurting them. she's breaking their house. she's verbally abusing them. and it's not just a funny thing she does at holidays--this was their life, every day, there's no other family they go back to where they can relay the crazy things donna did this christmas. everyone will leave and they'd still be there. it's not over for them !!