An ever-hopeful Betty reads meaning into every decision he makes. Those problems with listening come up again when Betty is out of the hospital and Dan tells her he wants to break the negative cycle they are in. “I can’t help someone who won’t listen to me or can’t,” he tells her. “I know this wasn’t my idea and I don’t pay for things I don’t want,” she tells her lawyer, who quits representing her soon after. I was invisible! Betty, behaving like a toddler whose favorite toy has been confiscated, seems to be taking the same approach: If she ignores the problem it will go away, and tantrums will get her the attention she so desperately craves. When I was little I used to think if I closed my eyes and I couldn’t see anyone they couldn’t see me either. Dan asking for custody appears to be more about not wanting to pay Betty child support than his love for his children. It’s rare for the father to get primary custody of the children, and I have to think it was even more of an anomaly in the ’80s. The judge also grants Dan primary custody of their four children. Later, the good-old-boy network is on full display as Dan is chatting and laughing with his golf buddies before the judge grants Dan a divorce without Betty even being in the courtroom. When Dan gets a court order to allow the sale of their house to go through, an enraged Betty first considers lighting her beloved home on fire before deciding to crash her car into Dan’s new house with her two daughters inside. Dan calls 911 and has Betty put on a three-day psychiatric hold. Betty’s face is crestfallen when she’s told he said “nothing.” There’s that old adage that the opposite of love isn’t hate but indifference, and it soon becomes clear that Dan is mostly indifferent to Betty while she is still deeply in love with him. ![]() She refuses to go up to meet Dan and anxiously asks her lawyer what Dan said about her being in the car. But Betty still thinks she has a chance at reconciling with her husband. “This is happening, Betty,” he tells her. Her lawyer picks her up for a meeting with her estranged husband Dan and immediately something is off. When we first meet Betty in 1986 she’s making sure her hair is perfectly coiffed, her make-up is flawless, and her outrageously expensive outfit is flattering. ![]() I won’t spoil it beyond that, but suffice to say it does not end well. When Dan finally found financial and career success, he left Betty for his much younger receptionist. Betty was the mom of four who had worked to put her husband Dan through medical school and law school. Most people are at least somewhat familiar with the Brodericks’ story. ![]() (Although Dirty Dan does have a nice ring to it. Connie Britton, who headlined the first season as a wide-eyed woman in love, moves on to the role of executive producer as the second season shifts to tell another ripped-from-the headlines true crime story. Focusing this time on the sad tale of Betty (Amanda Peet) and Dan (Christian Slater) Broderick, Dirty John now refers to the more global concept of a woman done wrong by a man. The debut season of Dirty John focused on one woman’s naïveté in the face of a smooth talker who put up an all-too-perfect façade to hide his violent, criminal intentions. Photo: USA Network/Isabella Vosmikova/USA Network
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