Arts: Enlightened, Season 2

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Tv Club Enlightened, Season 2 Consider Tyler. By Jeffrey Bloomer Posted Tuesday, Jan 15, 2013, at 03:16 PM ET As Amy's manic effort to bring down Abaddon kicked in during Enlightened's season premiere, so did Tyler's reluctance to get drawn deeper into her game. Amy's perennial sidekick—even after she rebuffed his fumbling advances—Tyler often seems even more hapless than our ostensible heroine. Amy tries to plunder more private emails of Abaddon's higher-ups, but he balks, as only Tyler can: "My aunt died and I just found out I got her timeshare, so I'm going to go to the Bahamas for two weeks a year!" Tyler's objections are at once pathetic and hilarious, as so much in Enlightened is. But when he finds out that he will lose his job whether or not he helps Amy, he allows himself to be drawn back into her grandiose, self-centered scheme, apparently because he detects a loneliness in Amy that mirrors his own. "I don't know anything else," he tells her when she asks if he wants to stop feeling invisible. When Amy suggests that Tyler could become Time's Person of the Year, he shares an eye roll with us, but his lingering stare also betrays a sense of longing that clearly gets his wheels turning. If there is any real hero in Enlightened, Tyler has to be it. Amy's enthusiasm for crushing Abaddon arises from a self-professed sense of "obligation" that's clearly her own need for self-renewal. She fits the self-righteous profile we often associate with whistleblowers, but Tyler ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate I'm the Derider The Great Herbalife War of 2013 The Ordeal of Jack and Evelyn	Advertisement
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