Enlightened

2011
Enlightened

Seasons & Episodes

  • 2
  • 1

EP1 The Key Jan 13, 2013

Looking for the key to ruin Abaddonn, Amy forms an alliance with charming journalist Jeff Flender.

EP2 Revenge Play Jan 20, 2013

Tyler scrambles to find a scapegoat after Amy's breach of security is exposed.

EP3 Higher Power Jan 27, 2013

In Hawaii, Levi escapes Open Air with a pair of fellow malcontents for a night of drugs and debauchery.

EP4 Follow Me Feb 03, 2013

Amy gets inspired by social media; Dougie has second thoughts about reporting the security breach to HR.

EP5 The Ghost Is Seen Feb 10, 2013

In an effort to dig up dirt on Abaddonn's CEO, Amy, Tyler and Dougie try to befriend his assistant Eileen.

EP6 All I Ever Wanted Feb 17, 2013

Amy daydreams about building a relationship with Jeff after the two find gold in Szidon's personal emails.

EP7 No Doubt Feb 24, 2013

Amy gets an unexpected meeting with Charles Szidon; Dougie goes off the rails.

EP8 Agent of Change Mar 03, 2013

On the precipice of bringing down Abaddonn, Amy prepares herself and those around her for the inevitable fallout.
7.6| 0h30m| TV-MA| en| More Info
Released: 10 October 2011 Canceled
Producted By: Rip Cord Productions
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.hbo.com/enlightened
Synopsis

After a very public breakdown and a subsequent philosophical awakening in rehabilitation, Amy tries to get her life back together.

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Reviews

tieman64 "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti An HBO TV series written and created by Mike White, "Enlightened" stars Laura Dern as Amy Jellico. Amy works within the marketing department of Abaddon Industries, the company aptly named after the Biblical "Abaddon" (a bottomless pit and place of destruction)."Enlightened" opens with Amy quite literally losing her mind. Driven insane by bastardly bosses and crummy corporate credos, Amy escapes to a "spiritual retreat" in which she learns "hippie values" and in which she has idyllic visions of sparkling waters and floating turtles. Why, Amy thinks, can't the whole world be like this? As such, Amy returns to Abaddon with a new evangel; she will impose upon the world a new reality, a new way of thinking, a new ethos! Everyone else thinks Amy's nuts. Toward the end of its first season, "Enlightened" becomes a comical political tract. Howard Zinn for the "Sex and the City" generation, Amy becomes a revolutionary outfitted in Prada and knock-off Gucci. Amy's original corporate values – a kind of Randian social Darwinism which trumpets extreme individualism and in which the only ethical precepts are those which sanction cutthroat competition – are thus swiftly replaced by more "enlightened" values (love, peace, respect, community, environmental concerns etc). Because Amy's scatterbrained and a little bit confused, these values are ill-defined and only superficially understood by Amy herself. Indeed, Amy initially treats these values as fashion accessories, little trinkets and badges of honour to be worn and displayed. Soon, Amy begins to display all the behavioural patterns of a cult-member, the poor girl clinging to these values in an attempt to be "born again" a "better", "saner" more "humane" person. White even goes to lengths to portray Amy as being hypocritical, vindictive and often angry. So what's great about "Enlightned" is that it portrays Amy's "enlightenment" as being a form of "instability". Her "enlightenment" is not a rational ideological choice, but rather the accidental byproduct of social rejection, social violence, personal stupidity, emotional wounds and of various self-defence mechanisms. In short, it is the world which radicalizes Amy and which then deems her insane for being radical. At the same time, White makes it clear that Amy's "craziness" is in fact a type of beautiful sanity. It is only in the eyes of an insane world that Amy appears a crackpot. As such, Amy is aggressively demonized, mocked and belittled by her "sane" co-workers, all of whom have been fully colonised by Abaddon's logic, jargon and values. These "sane" co-workers, of course, are slowly revealed to be deluded nuts. Or as George Orwell ironically pointed out in "1984": "Sanity is statistical. It is merely a question of learning to think as they thought." Abaddon wants you thinking like Abaddon thinks."Enlightened's" second season watches as Amy attempts to reform Abaddon Industries. She attempts to implement a form of "green", "compassionate" and "sustainable capitalism", which are of course oxymora. When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom profit that loses, and, as activist Lucia Ortiz once said, asking "capitalism to transition to a Green Economy is like asking a tiger to become a vegetarian". Amy's wishes are thus a systemic impossibility; any system predicated upon exponential growth (in production, energy consumption, market expansion, interest based money creation etc) must ignore a variety of ecological, moral and social concerns just to stay alive. Already, for example, Earth Overshoot Day - the day on which we've used more of the planet's resources than it's able to replenish in a year — is steadily arriving earlier and earlier; it now takes an Earth and a half to support our current rate of resource extraction. By mid-century, under "modest" projections for population growth, we will need three Earths (about 85 percent of the world's population lives in countries that are overusing what they're able to replenish).So Amy is ultimately unable to slay Abaddon. Amy and a LA Times reporter (Dermot Mulroney) may run an expose on the company, but her values and its are incompatible and there can never be meaningful reconciliation."Enlightened" finds Laura Dern doing her best work outside of David Lynch. Her character – a wholly original creation - is a roaring mass of contradictions and conflicting emotions, all of which Dern expertly conveys. Unfortunately White's series is a good five or six episodes too long, contains far too much padding and White would arguably have done better to adopt a more comedic tone. Indvidiaul episodes were directed by a number of well-known auteurs, including Jonathan Demme, Nicole Holofcener and White himself.8.5/10 – Daring and sophisticated. See White's "Year of the Dog", which sketches a similarly complex portrait of animal right's activism.
bethany2613 I'll say this show is rather compelling, the plot and characters are easy to identify with in our everyday lives, whether it's friends, family or acquaintances you know struggling with drugs, relationships, work issues or general social ineptitude. The only issue I cannot seem to get past is the main character,Amy ( Laura Dern) is so incredibly obnoxious, pretentious and self-centered. She's increasingly delusional, too wrapped up in her own self-righteousness to see how bizarrely she's behaving. Without any concern for her new co-worker, going on this "mission for a higher cause" she implores him (Mike White) to bend to her will, she constantly puts her needs and her issues first, not just with him, but her mother,ex husband, "friend" Krista; i.e that insanely awkward speech at her baby shower!It's so awkward sometimes I can't help screaming at the TV, or constantly gasping at the outrageousness that is her personality. I don't understand if they're poking fun at her character or if we, the viewers, are actually supposed to feel some sort of empathy for her? Because I genuinely hate her. I've never felt such negativity towards a main character, even despicable ones usually have some underlying likability. UGH NOT HER. Still I have to see what happens..
LeonLouisRicci While watching you will probably feel as frustrated and angry as Amy (Laura Dern) in this made for cable series. Because she is not the easiest character to warm up to and you may feel like shaking some sense into her overbearing and neurotic behavior. That is the point in this rather risky show.The first season of half-hour episodes is a good effort that is an emotional roller-coaster of angst and dark comedy.It may be too sharp and rough going for mass appeal, but it does have that edge for viewers of this type of social commentary and could be regarded as a cry-out to those square pegs trying to make sense of those round holes. The villain here is mostly corporate greed and impunity. It is a David and Goliath story and one cannot help but be on the side of the underdog.The series is populated with interesting offbeat characters and the dysfunction comes from all sides. In Season One There is very little resolution and it has set up a fight to the finish with a very flawed character putting on the gloves and taking on a "Champion" and the odds are heavily against. In Season Two it will have a difficult decision whether to have an upset and crown a new "Crusader Champ", or not. Place your bets.
Dimegirl This woman is just like a person i use to know.She will get under your skin and make you instantly annoyed.She always talks about herself and her issues- never listening to the person she is talking to.She talks about helping others not realizing that she needs help herself.You know the acting is good in this show by how irritate you get when you watch her on TV.The funny thing is that there are clueless people just like that in the real world.It is defiantly an original show i will give it that. You really can't predict it. I think Laura Dern has done it all after this part.