TV Underdogs: Where should ‘Mistresses’ season 4 take Karen Kim?
It feels like it has been ages since we’ve had an opportunity to write about “Mistresses” here at CarterMatt, but there is certainly a good reason why: The show simply has not been on the air! Season 3 aired last summer, and for a while it looked like ABC just wasn’t sure what to do with it.
Now that it is renewed, though, why not go ahead and start our speculation! We like to focus on the underrated in our TV Underdogs series, which leads to us today pondering a question about Yunjin Kim’s character of Karen Kim: Where do you go with her from here? How do you find a way to give her something as impactful as what she’s just been through? This is a woman who is coming on the heels of losing someone she cared for in Vivian, and now also has a child with Alec to consider. There’s a lot on her mind, but the same could be said for all of the show’s characters.
Why she’s an underdog – Anyone who has managed to gone through what she has and made it to the other side is worthy of the title. On more of a meta level, we tend to think that Savi was the person who commanded most of the attention on the first two seasons from the press. Meanwhile, much of that shifted to Joss and by extension Calista during season 2. With Calista seemingly gone, could that shift once more? We do presume that Joss will survive what transpired in the season 3 finale, mostly because losing another person from the original cast would be brutal.
Karen’s the sort of character you do want to root for; she also happens to be one who has to fight often for what she wants.
Why we don’t see more of her – In this case, a lot of it is because we’re looking at an ensemble show here, and there are so many people that have to be catered to. She is still in just about every episodes, but when she is not interacting as closely with either April or Joss, it is hard to include her in a scene.
Ways to see more of her – We’d love “Mistresses” to be a tad more experimental, and of the interesting ways they could do this is almost take a page from Kim’s former series “Lost” and tell episodes from individual perspectives. For example, why not focus in on Karen one week, and include Joss and April as extensions to whatever she has going on? You get to see more of her own inner monologue, even if she does not speak all of it out loud. Another way is simply to establish more of the central narrative around her, and by that we mean the one that often leads off the premieres and concludes the finales. Why not have a way to have it incorporate several women at once?
If you missed it recently, head over here to check out our story on whether or not Alyssa Milano could return to “Mistresses” next season. Also, sign up over here if you are curious in getting more TV news on all we cover, sent right to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: ABC.)