I imagine others have been talking about the Dan plotline too but man...
I kind of really like how neither Dan nor Bernadette are depicted in an entirely flattering light, but it's still more nuanced than either of them being tacitly in the wrong.
I think it would have been easy to lean into either trope for the dynamic - of Dan being the deadbeat man-child adult son who takes advantage of his mother, or Bernadette just being entirely a cruel, overbearing parent, and while the latter is possibly more prominent here there's obviously more going on.
She does evidently care about him, and wants to support his interests, even if in doing so she's also enabled to be a helicopter parent and given unfettered access to him.
For an older woman with an autistic son in the internet era, it must be hard, especially when... you wouldn't really know how to keep him safe or necessarily have a good grasp on the degree to which his audience might take advantage of him for entertainment, nor how this might impact your own relationship with him.
But she isn't outright dismissive either, even if she doesn't get it, like, she earnestly seems like she wants to engage with his interests.
Clearly she also has a lot of problems with her own that she's dealing with, too... Something I do feel like I understand as an autistic adult is that the parents of neurodivergent kids always have an easy excuse to prolong their interactions and try to impose themselves, because in mind's eye having someone who has these unusual behaviours and doesn't meet social benchmarks entitles them to more heavy-handed parenting.
That very easily carries into adulthood. I've had these conversations with my own mum where she can both scrutinise me for not "acting my age" and also tell me I haven't earned being treated like an adult. It's a dynamic that's extremely easy to fall back into, over and over.
Similar with the coercive physical contact... It's easier to tell someone who's subordinate to you that they have to, without making it a choice.
But also like... sometimes they're doing that because they need to be comforted, not because you need it. They just can't admit that.
I think just from context, Bernadette seems really isolated - so does Dan, but, I think she takes comfort in that neither of them have to be alone. Like I don't think it takes a huge stretch of the imagination to see why a black mother - presumably single mother? - who appears to be fairly house-bound (she could be disabled, maybe Dan's father passed or it was a rough break or it wasn't a serious relationship to begin with, I wouldn't be surprised if she also had some ASD that was never addressed) might be struggling to be more "well adjusted". Dan could easily be the closest thing she has to a caretaker, meaning that if he left, it could be catastrophically bad for her.
But, she can't really admit that outright. Instead of having a more difficult line of introspection - that might not even guarantee she can get the help she needs - it's easier to draw from something that already exists and already "works".
I also kind of like that Frankie doesn't pull punches when it comes to letting each beat of Dan's story land on some really awkward, uncomfortable notes.
I think there's also like, a feeling of... disbelief when Dan pivots so abruptly. It throws you off balance.
Like... was Dan also just exploiting the relationship he has with his mother to keep his audience engaged? In any other story, this would either be the "mask off" moment or the "emotional breakdown" moment where Dan reveals his true intention and/or his "real" feelings, but the vibe is a lot harder to pin down.
That does track a lot better to an autistic character, though. Falling back into the pattern of seeing himself as an entertainer is also easier than coping with whatever else is going on, and it's almost... more earnest than if he'd just broken down completely. Uncomfortably earnest, because his ability to express those emotions doesn't extend too far into his ability to perform them in a way that might be "more convincing" (but wouldn't strictly be, well, less performative...).
The comfort of that familiarity is also a kind of denial. You might think that, well, because your mother is always watching your streams, if you just continue to do them the way you always do, she'll still be watching... right?
She can't just be gone, can she?
idk, also thinking about like... black trauma being exploited by the entertainment industry is also such a pointed topic, and this fuzzy line where people begin to lose themselves to some horrible, predetermined role. It's possible that Dan and Bernadette both played up their "characters", or were encouraged to, and that only further entrenched them in this dynamic. Their tragedy was also a spectator sport.
We know how easily this can happen with internet scapegoats and their interpersonal traumas being made into public spectacle. It's especially hard for vulnerable people who are susceptible to being treated this way and not having an "out" from it.
I think the smoking gun that this is more than just entertainment, though, is that apparently in one ending Dan quits streaming altogether if you've done this quest. So while he might not always appropriately express his emotions, clearly it was deeply affecting. It was enough to make him rethink his relationship to streaming altogether. I think that does show that he is very much capable of introspection, even if it doesn't always come easily.
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