25 of TV’s messiest meltdowns

Chris’ Letter Campaign to Dick — I Love Dick

This Amazon series didn’t get near enough of the attention it deserved. It was smart and wry, and uniquely captured a female experience like no other, that experience being rejection and humiliation. The main character, Chris, develops a crush on the poet leading the workshop her husband is attending, and what happens when her feelings go unrequited.

Chris tags along with her husband to an exclusive writer’s fellowship, and quickly develops an intense crush on the rugged sexy poet leading the work. Of course, the sexy poet, Dick, is played by Kevin Bacon, so everybody gets why she would fall desperately and inappropriately in love with him. It’s Kevin Bacon.

Chris takes her crush to her husband, who then reveals his own feelings for Dick. They use their mutual feelings to bolster their own sexual relationship, but her feelings quickly outgrow this private arrangement. She then does something that had the entire audience screaming “No! Don’t do it!” at their television sets. She sends him the letters she’s been writing him, and also posts it publicly around the town.

This act of self-destruction is mostly because Dick rejects her advances, but she claims it’s art — performative and antagonistic. Although a scorned woman is capable of almost anything, I’m still not sure most of us would have the nerve (or self-sabotaging tendencies) to actually do something like this. I totally understand the inclination, though. That rage has to go somewhere.