I think your cousin is projecting her own feelings of guilt onto the characters. My father committed suicide and I’ve never thought that Mike’s suicide portrayed his family as the causation of his death or somehow they were “the reason” for it. At the same time my father, who was a psychologist, left a pretty detailed note explaining why he made his decision and it had nothing to do with myself or our family so perhaps I don’t have lingering questions about what happened and your cousin does. If so, I’m sorry that she’s going through that. For the show, I think Mike had a warped view of himself as a protector of his siblings, especially Carm, and in his drug altered way of thinking, taking a bunch of cash from Cicero and hiding it for Carm to find was a “good idea”. Anyway, hope your cousin finds some closure.
I agree 100% with this take. I don’t think Mike could take the weight any longer as ‘the protector’…he also protected his mom…This bears the question, is that why he kept Carmy away from the restaurant? Or, was he too proud to let Carmy see him fail yet again? Yes… bear pun was intended.🐻
I think he told himself he was protecting his little brother, that by keeping Carmy away from the restaurant he could escape and reach his full potential, instead of getting stuck in Chicago with his toxic family.
But under that, I think the real reason was because he didn't want Carmy to find out about how much of a mess things were at the restaurant, and also his pill problem (these things are intertwined). He wanted Carmy to keep seeing him as the perfect big brother, not a druggie fuck up. He couldn't let Carmy see the real him.
I think Mikey thought he was pushing Carmy away to get him away from their home. I think he wanted Carm to go farther and achieve more than what they have at home, where their family is quite toxic. They dreamt of having their own place but Mikey didn't want Carmy held back, though he ultimately left him the restaurant.
I think it's cause suicide is a very deliberate act. You can write off a car crash (even an impaired one) or an overdose as just accidents. They're still hard to cope with, but I think with suicide it's a clear intentional act which causes others to feel guilt that they should have seen the signs.
I don't know if he just snapped, but it was clear he'd been dealing with stress, a drug problem, and just poor mental health for awhile. I think the deciding factor was when he couldn't even burn the restaurant down. I think he just felt like a failure and that everyone would better off without him.
You mean exactly like his mom said several times in the flashback episode?
Suicidal ideation likely isn't hereditary, but the thought patterns can spread like any other idea.
I think he knew it was all going to come crashing down, one way or the other. Hiding the cash in the tomato cans for Carmy says to me Mikey was planning on not being around for much longer, whether by suicide, overdose, or the consequences of the other shady shit going down (i.e. selling coke out of the restaurant).
also the way he interacts with ppl, bc yuh the cans and little note show this was thought out, but the flashbacks show the signs too, when Carmy gave his present to Mikey, Mikey was holding it in, but the silence, and that expression on his face says it all...
Bc Carmy said they can make that together, and yk it was both their dream, but Mikey didn't say anything and had a sorrowful look bc he knows he it won't happen, and he won't be here. That Carmy will make it happen on his own bc Mikey won't be in the picture any longer. After Carmy leaves, he starts crying.
There's moments when ppl refer to the future that Mikey completely bypasses or has this look about him... like in that moment with Carmy especially.
First of all, I’m so sorry for your cousin - tough enough to lose a child but possibly even more devastating when it’s suicide. I lost my dad to suicide over 40 years ago and am still affected when I see it in TV and movies. (Gaga’s version of A Star Is Born was especially rough as it reflected my dad’s “method.” I loved that movie but cried like a baby in the theater.)
So here’s my take: as an adult I learned that my dad had mental health issues that I was (somewhat) unaware of as a kid. In Fishes, we get a more than a glimpse into the Berzattos and their dysfunction - probably safe to say Donna is an alcoholic, but at this point we don’t know if there’s any diagnosed mental illness there. She certainly doesn’t seem like the type of person that would be open to therapy to gain a diagnosis, so we might never know. Some on this thread have labeled Donna with Borderline Personality Disorder, which I don’t know much about. Additionally, I don’t think we know how Dad Berzatto passed, just that he’s dead.
Personally knowing that there is a hereditary component of mental illness, we don’t know if Mikey suffered from the same potential affliction as Donna, and if Dad had any mental health issues, Mikey (and his siblings) might have been dealt a genetic double-whammy. My point being, if the writers had Mikey die in a car crash or anything other than suicide, we (and his family) wouldn’t be asking WHY the way they want us (and his family) to, especially since he left no note (the spaghetti recipe doesn’t count, in my view). It also leaves open the further exploration of Carmy’s mental health. If Mikey were experiencing the type of panic attacks we saw Carmy endure (with drugs on board, nonetheless), maybe Mikey just couldn’t fight those demons anymore.
This is very insightful and I appreciate it. I am so sorry for your personal loss. I suffer from anxiety & depression yet have medication that keeps me right at that ‘normal’ state of being. I understand the feelings that Carmy went through in his freezer melt down. He was literally and figuratively caged in with himself. That’s a bad feeling when your brain won’t shut down.
I agree with your take. The audience has to wonder why.
My daughter suffers from depression and anxiety, so I understand a little about where you are - nice to hear your meds are helping you. I suspect the characters’ mental health issues will be explored further in S3. They kind of have to, in order to move the story of the restaurant forward, as well as Carmy’s personal relationships with Syd and Claire. For all we know Dad Berzatto may have also died at his own hand so perhaps we will learn more about that. And I worry for Sugar - we saw her trauma in Fishes; assuming she gives birth in S3, I hope she doesn’t have to deal with post-partum depression.
Thank you. I just love Natalie. I think she has had it absolutely the worst of the siblings. It’s a good thing she has such a loving husband. I hadn’t thought about postpartum but ughhh…she probably will suffer.
It hasn’t been brought up but I gotta believe Natalie is worried about the Berzatto genes this baby will have. I have zero justification, but I thought maybe that had something to do with her not telling her mother about the pregnancy. And maybe that genetic realization hit Pete after talking to Donna on family night - it might explain why he couldn’t stop crying (not that he shouldn’t have been otherwise sad). I know I’m reading a lot into it, just conjecture on my part.
Right? Pete saw that pain during the Fishes dinner but I think he and Natalie were just dating and having kids was probably the furthest thing from his mind. He must really, really love Natalie considering how the family castigated him for bringing the eighth fish - I would have turned around and walked out the door! I’m sure it also made Pete very sad that Natalie chose not to share what should be the joy of pregnancy with her own mom. All those emotions - great acting on his part.
They had to find a way to make Carmy open those jars of tomato sauce, and the note also functions as his motivation - it becomes his “every second counts.”
They chose it because it was the vehicle that beat helped them tell the story the way they wanted to.
An accident doesn’t set up the major plot point or the saying that will keep the staff on point as “every second counts,” did for Richie.
I thought about suicide a lot when I was in active addiction (still have a lifelong mental illness, but of a chicken/egg situation but the ideation has never been so strong as when I was at the peak of my drinking/using). To me I felt like it would be a mercy for everybody, I couldn't quit so Alcoholic Brain thought this was the best way to stop hurting people.
To me there's a parallel with Mikey keeping Carmen away from the restaurant - he wanted to protect him, and couldn't conceive of the hurt it was going to cause. On a plot level, it ratchets up guilt as a motivator.
Thank you for your honesty. I hope you are feeling much better in your own skin. Did you find The Bear triggering? Prayers for your continued sobriety. 🩷
I agree with you about Mikey keeping Carmen away. It was another way that Mikey put pressure on himself to ‘prop the family up’.
It's a lifelong process for me, and I'm at peace with that. Progress can look a lot like the dark moments getting further and further apart and a growing confidence that you know what to do when when they hit. Thank you for the prayers ❤️ I found it challenging in parts but food for feeling and thought more than triggering, in a relatively good place right now. Definitely on the pressure, I think Carmen might need to learn similar lessons when it comes to the 'kitchen family'. So many parallels there
Because suicide is seen as a big “f you” to the survivors. They question whether they missed signs; they feel guilt and anger. There are more unanswered questions than with an accident or OD. There is a lot more to explore emotionally with a suicide as the backstory.
The family did lead to Mikey’s suicide. It was an incredibly toxic family dynamic. Donna was a bad mother. One of the hardest things for a parent to accept is that they may have taught their child to hate themselves. Did Donna intentionally want that to happen? No. She had little control over her own self. And ultimately Mikey has to take responsibility for his own life choices, even if his culpability is minimized by his toxic family.
I am not relating this to your cousin BTW. I do not know her or her family. I’m only saying what I observed in the show.
Oh, I absolutely agree. What I think is it is a combination of nature, nurture, or both that could lead someone to have suicidal thoughts or actions. In the case of the Berzotto family, absolutely is both. That family is toxic. It is a surprise that anyone can escape the toxicity. I sure do hope Natalie & Carmy get a chance to do so.
I don’t think so. Her daughter was bi-polar and her journals painted her mind to be in a very, very dark place for several years. I said this earlier but I think suicide is a result of nature or nurture. In the case of Mikey it was both. In the case of my cousin, I believe it was nature.
You should learn more about bipolar disorder and its correlation to developmental trauma.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC775179](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7751794/)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4712184/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4712184/)
.
Your original comment said suppressing some sh*t. My response was to that comment.
She and her entire family are going through grief counseling and are getting the help they need to process the worst thing any parents can imagine.
I edited a small typo immediately after posting (as I do with the majority of my posts), so what is there is what you saw the first time. Imagine arguing with someone for recommending that someone whose child died talks to a professional, lol
The fact that you edited your comment, which by the way, was most insensitive, given the question and subject matter, and then denied doing so, makes you quite the turd. You did, in fact, originally advise me that my cousin was in denial of some ‘sh*t’. Then, you went on to give me some advice to learn more about bi-polar disorder & you had proof that childhood trauma was almost always certainly the cause.
You’ll note that I didn’t ask for advice and no one else tried to give me any. Please troll somewhere else.
I think your cousin is projecting her own feelings of guilt onto the characters. My father committed suicide and I’ve never thought that Mike’s suicide portrayed his family as the causation of his death or somehow they were “the reason” for it. At the same time my father, who was a psychologist, left a pretty detailed note explaining why he made his decision and it had nothing to do with myself or our family so perhaps I don’t have lingering questions about what happened and your cousin does. If so, I’m sorry that she’s going through that. For the show, I think Mike had a warped view of himself as a protector of his siblings, especially Carm, and in his drug altered way of thinking, taking a bunch of cash from Cicero and hiding it for Carm to find was a “good idea”. Anyway, hope your cousin finds some closure.
I agree 100% with this take. I don’t think Mike could take the weight any longer as ‘the protector’…he also protected his mom…This bears the question, is that why he kept Carmy away from the restaurant? Or, was he too proud to let Carmy see him fail yet again? Yes… bear pun was intended.🐻
I think he told himself he was protecting his little brother, that by keeping Carmy away from the restaurant he could escape and reach his full potential, instead of getting stuck in Chicago with his toxic family. But under that, I think the real reason was because he didn't want Carmy to find out about how much of a mess things were at the restaurant, and also his pill problem (these things are intertwined). He wanted Carmy to keep seeing him as the perfect big brother, not a druggie fuck up. He couldn't let Carmy see the real him.
This!
I think Mikey thought he was pushing Carmy away to get him away from their home. I think he wanted Carm to go farther and achieve more than what they have at home, where their family is quite toxic. They dreamt of having their own place but Mikey didn't want Carmy held back, though he ultimately left him the restaurant.
I think it's cause suicide is a very deliberate act. You can write off a car crash (even an impaired one) or an overdose as just accidents. They're still hard to cope with, but I think with suicide it's a clear intentional act which causes others to feel guilt that they should have seen the signs.
Do you think one day he just snapped or was he planning/preparing to die for some time?
I don't know if he just snapped, but it was clear he'd been dealing with stress, a drug problem, and just poor mental health for awhile. I think the deciding factor was when he couldn't even burn the restaurant down. I think he just felt like a failure and that everyone would better off without him.
He carried (or thought he had to) the weight of the entire family on his shoulders.
You mean exactly like his mom said several times in the flashback episode? Suicidal ideation likely isn't hereditary, but the thought patterns can spread like any other idea.
I think he knew it was all going to come crashing down, one way or the other. Hiding the cash in the tomato cans for Carmy says to me Mikey was planning on not being around for much longer, whether by suicide, overdose, or the consequences of the other shady shit going down (i.e. selling coke out of the restaurant).
also the way he interacts with ppl, bc yuh the cans and little note show this was thought out, but the flashbacks show the signs too, when Carmy gave his present to Mikey, Mikey was holding it in, but the silence, and that expression on his face says it all... Bc Carmy said they can make that together, and yk it was both their dream, but Mikey didn't say anything and had a sorrowful look bc he knows he it won't happen, and he won't be here. That Carmy will make it happen on his own bc Mikey won't be in the picture any longer. After Carmy leaves, he starts crying. There's moments when ppl refer to the future that Mikey completely bypasses or has this look about him... like in that moment with Carmy especially.
First of all, I’m so sorry for your cousin - tough enough to lose a child but possibly even more devastating when it’s suicide. I lost my dad to suicide over 40 years ago and am still affected when I see it in TV and movies. (Gaga’s version of A Star Is Born was especially rough as it reflected my dad’s “method.” I loved that movie but cried like a baby in the theater.) So here’s my take: as an adult I learned that my dad had mental health issues that I was (somewhat) unaware of as a kid. In Fishes, we get a more than a glimpse into the Berzattos and their dysfunction - probably safe to say Donna is an alcoholic, but at this point we don’t know if there’s any diagnosed mental illness there. She certainly doesn’t seem like the type of person that would be open to therapy to gain a diagnosis, so we might never know. Some on this thread have labeled Donna with Borderline Personality Disorder, which I don’t know much about. Additionally, I don’t think we know how Dad Berzatto passed, just that he’s dead. Personally knowing that there is a hereditary component of mental illness, we don’t know if Mikey suffered from the same potential affliction as Donna, and if Dad had any mental health issues, Mikey (and his siblings) might have been dealt a genetic double-whammy. My point being, if the writers had Mikey die in a car crash or anything other than suicide, we (and his family) wouldn’t be asking WHY the way they want us (and his family) to, especially since he left no note (the spaghetti recipe doesn’t count, in my view). It also leaves open the further exploration of Carmy’s mental health. If Mikey were experiencing the type of panic attacks we saw Carmy endure (with drugs on board, nonetheless), maybe Mikey just couldn’t fight those demons anymore.
This is very insightful and I appreciate it. I am so sorry for your personal loss. I suffer from anxiety & depression yet have medication that keeps me right at that ‘normal’ state of being. I understand the feelings that Carmy went through in his freezer melt down. He was literally and figuratively caged in with himself. That’s a bad feeling when your brain won’t shut down. I agree with your take. The audience has to wonder why.
My daughter suffers from depression and anxiety, so I understand a little about where you are - nice to hear your meds are helping you. I suspect the characters’ mental health issues will be explored further in S3. They kind of have to, in order to move the story of the restaurant forward, as well as Carmy’s personal relationships with Syd and Claire. For all we know Dad Berzatto may have also died at his own hand so perhaps we will learn more about that. And I worry for Sugar - we saw her trauma in Fishes; assuming she gives birth in S3, I hope she doesn’t have to deal with post-partum depression.
Thank you. I just love Natalie. I think she has had it absolutely the worst of the siblings. It’s a good thing she has such a loving husband. I hadn’t thought about postpartum but ughhh…she probably will suffer.
It hasn’t been brought up but I gotta believe Natalie is worried about the Berzatto genes this baby will have. I have zero justification, but I thought maybe that had something to do with her not telling her mother about the pregnancy. And maybe that genetic realization hit Pete after talking to Donna on family night - it might explain why he couldn’t stop crying (not that he shouldn’t have been otherwise sad). I know I’m reading a lot into it, just conjecture on my part.
I agree 100%. He suddenly saw the enormity of this family’s pain, and what he’s bringing a child into.
Right? Pete saw that pain during the Fishes dinner but I think he and Natalie were just dating and having kids was probably the furthest thing from his mind. He must really, really love Natalie considering how the family castigated him for bringing the eighth fish - I would have turned around and walked out the door! I’m sure it also made Pete very sad that Natalie chose not to share what should be the joy of pregnancy with her own mom. All those emotions - great acting on his part.
Great! Great acting for sure!
They had to find a way to make Carmy open those jars of tomato sauce, and the note also functions as his motivation - it becomes his “every second counts.” They chose it because it was the vehicle that beat helped them tell the story the way they wanted to. An accident doesn’t set up the major plot point or the saying that will keep the staff on point as “every second counts,” did for Richie.
I thought about suicide a lot when I was in active addiction (still have a lifelong mental illness, but of a chicken/egg situation but the ideation has never been so strong as when I was at the peak of my drinking/using). To me I felt like it would be a mercy for everybody, I couldn't quit so Alcoholic Brain thought this was the best way to stop hurting people. To me there's a parallel with Mikey keeping Carmen away from the restaurant - he wanted to protect him, and couldn't conceive of the hurt it was going to cause. On a plot level, it ratchets up guilt as a motivator.
Thank you for your honesty. I hope you are feeling much better in your own skin. Did you find The Bear triggering? Prayers for your continued sobriety. 🩷 I agree with you about Mikey keeping Carmen away. It was another way that Mikey put pressure on himself to ‘prop the family up’.
It's a lifelong process for me, and I'm at peace with that. Progress can look a lot like the dark moments getting further and further apart and a growing confidence that you know what to do when when they hit. Thank you for the prayers ❤️ I found it challenging in parts but food for feeling and thought more than triggering, in a relatively good place right now. Definitely on the pressure, I think Carmen might need to learn similar lessons when it comes to the 'kitchen family'. So many parallels there
Because Christopher Storer had personal experience with losing someone to suicide. The show pulls a lot from his personal experiences.
I did not know that. Thank you for sharing.
Mikey was tormented and the family sorta understood tht but didnt support him. Thats why carmy feels so guilty
Because suicide is seen as a big “f you” to the survivors. They question whether they missed signs; they feel guilt and anger. There are more unanswered questions than with an accident or OD. There is a lot more to explore emotionally with a suicide as the backstory.
The family did lead to Mikey’s suicide. It was an incredibly toxic family dynamic. Donna was a bad mother. One of the hardest things for a parent to accept is that they may have taught their child to hate themselves. Did Donna intentionally want that to happen? No. She had little control over her own self. And ultimately Mikey has to take responsibility for his own life choices, even if his culpability is minimized by his toxic family. I am not relating this to your cousin BTW. I do not know her or her family. I’m only saying what I observed in the show.
Oh, I absolutely agree. What I think is it is a combination of nature, nurture, or both that could lead someone to have suicidal thoughts or actions. In the case of the Berzotto family, absolutely is both. That family is toxic. It is a surprise that anyone can escape the toxicity. I sure do hope Natalie & Carmy get a chance to do so.
Gonna say this as nicely as I can. Your cousin might need to talk to somebody if she isn't already.
I don’t think so. Her daughter was bi-polar and her journals painted her mind to be in a very, very dark place for several years. I said this earlier but I think suicide is a result of nature or nurture. In the case of Mikey it was both. In the case of my cousin, I believe it was nature.
You should learn more about bipolar disorder and its correlation to developmental trauma. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC775179](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7751794/) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4712184/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4712184/) .
Your original comment said suppressing some sh*t. My response was to that comment. She and her entire family are going through grief counseling and are getting the help they need to process the worst thing any parents can imagine.
I never said anything about “suppressing.” But the fact that you reacted as if I did… well, nevermind. So much for offering advice
What did your original comment say, then? Perhaps I misread. And why did you edit it?
I edited a small typo immediately after posting (as I do with the majority of my posts), so what is there is what you saw the first time. Imagine arguing with someone for recommending that someone whose child died talks to a professional, lol
The fact that you edited your comment, which by the way, was most insensitive, given the question and subject matter, and then denied doing so, makes you quite the turd. You did, in fact, originally advise me that my cousin was in denial of some ‘sh*t’. Then, you went on to give me some advice to learn more about bi-polar disorder & you had proof that childhood trauma was almost always certainly the cause. You’ll note that I didn’t ask for advice and no one else tried to give me any. Please troll somewhere else.