HBO’s ‘Divorce’ episode 4 review: Telling the kids

It feels like every episode of “Divorce” contains some sort of new revelation that makes the character of Robert all the more unseemly, whether it be locking Francis out of the house, admitting to having an emotional affair (even if he refused to call it that) with an old friend, or tonight’s new episode, where he seemed to care more about his future finances than almost anything else.

When Robert learned that he was worth effectively nothing, we started to see things go a little bit haywire for him. He refused to buy sundaes in order to ease what he and Francis were about to tell their kids, and instead of cluing them in, he ranted extensively about a botched “value meal.” Eventually they did tell the kids, but predictably they had figured it out some time ago because they’re kids and well … kids are a lot smarter than they often tend to let on.

What makes Robert more unlikable than any of this is how he tried to loop in various people on an “investment opportunity” as a last-ditch effort to get more cash, and he eventually turned to a divorce attorney, thinking that he would get a lot more money out of Frances that way to better secure your future. Apparently, divorce does terrible things to people, and that seems to be the message that this show is passing along at this point.

Is there any hope at all that these two could reconcile? It seems hard to see that, since there’s no real effort on Robert’s part especially to change that. Instead, the show remains a fairly consistent cycle of depression, one that is fairly light on comedy — beyond Robert trying to use store credit as a gym store to buy an entire display of PowerBars when he realized he couldn’t get his money back.

Grade: B-. This episode didn’t have the emotional resonance of the one that aired the week before; it needs that if it’s not going to be giving us much in the way of comedy.

Next week – We’re going to see the battle of the attorneys escalate. Head over here if you do want to get some more news all about that. (Photo: HBO.)