"The Matthews moved into the penthouse in, oh, '78, '79? Lottie lived here till the divorce. After that, she went off to Jersey with her mama. Mr. Matthews lived in the penthouse ever since. A real Wall Street titan in his time."
This Lottie lore drop from Cliff the doorman in 3x5 makes me go absolutely feral. It runs contrary to popular fanon, but I personally think that's a good thing, because it adds a much more intriguing dimension to Lottie's backstory.
Lottie didn't grow up with the team since kindergarten, she lived in New York City at least until she was 10 (when the near car accident happened) or older, and she endured the whole new kid experience at school.
Malcolm Matthews isn't the local bigwig well-known around Wiskayok, he's a yuppie finance hotshot living in the city and probably never bothered to set foot in town because tossing money at his kid and her soccer team is parental contribution enough.
Emilia Matthews isn't a trophy wife extension of her husband, she has her own opinions that were strong enough to lead to divorce and primary custody of their kid, and she may very well be a working professional in her own right.
I'm excited the show fed us some complex Matthews family dynamics, and I'd love to see it considered more often in analysis and fic and headcanons, because there's so much to sink your teeth into!
God I wasn't expecting this Malcolm Matthews minor redemption, that hurt me a lot. I cried. Young Lottie in his visions, that man is old as fuck and a product of his times but he did love his daughter so I've changed my mind about him a lil and damn he didn't get the cult shit either but was okay with it so kudos. He seems like an okay guy at closer glance.
Even before s3 gave us some tasty backstory that complicated Lottie's family dynamic, I didn't vibe with the way popular fanon settled into a depiction of stereotypical white wealth for the Matthews. You know what I mean. The stuffy old money family obsessed with appearances and legacy, surrounded by staff, stalwart features of the country club scene, endlessly jet setting, etc. All that WASP shit.
Personally, I never got old money from them. Malcolm is so yuppie it hurts, and Emilia almost certainly knows the immigrant experience, either coming to the US as a kid or being born to immigrant parents. That said, I don't want to shit on anyone's headcanons. I think having Lottie grow up in an old money WASPy environment could be interesting, but definitely not when it's just a copy pasted Rich White Girl experience (and unfortunately it usually is that).
Not only has that kind of story been told a thousand times, it doesn't even make sense to approach Lottie from that perspective. She's mixed race and visibly Not White, and that would be just as othering for her as her mental health is. If you're going to drop her into a space that's reserved for the white elite, it's absolutely worth considering the ways she'll never be able to fit in and be fully accepted into that space, and how that's contributed to her feelings of alienation.
If Lottie and her mom are rubbing elbows with rich white people at country clubs in the 80s and 90s, they're surely encountering casual racism, exoticization, resentment, and implicit messaging: this is not for you, you don't belong here. It's inevitable that there would be uncomfortable racial baggage tied up in their proximity to wealth, even more so post-divorce when Malcolm's whiteness isn't there to shield them and offer a measure of justification.
Obviously people can do as they please and are free to write Lottie with a default rich white girl experience, but I personally don't see the appeal of it. I just find it so much more interesting and satisfying to explore the implications of Lottie's mixed race identity and how it impacts her relationship with wealth, as well as her overall experience.
I don't much care for the Gilded Age-ification of the Matthews family that happens in a lot of the popular fanon. The WASP old money high society thing, with debutante balls and sprawling estates and a herd of hired help. I'm just not interested in projecting such an intrinsically white experience of wealth onto Lottie, and I think there are other depictions that make more sense and are more nuanced to her identity.
Like, Malcolm Matthews absolutely screams workaholic yuppie. That man is not old money. He grew up in the middle class suburbs, classic postwar baby boomer style. He was probably the first in his family to go to college, and he became a finance bro that made a fortunate on Wall Street. Emilia is an immigrant or the child of immigrants, also the first in her family to get a college education, and she went into a high-paying profession like law.
So you've got Malcolm the nouveau riche yuppie, and Emilia the high-achieving immigrant. Two variations of upward mobility, the promise of the vaunted American Dream realized. They're moving up in the world with booming careers, and they cross paths at work, and there's a spark. They have a whirlwind romance, with marriage and a baby soon following, and Malcolm buys a penthouse as a testament to his professional and domestic achievement.
But it doesn't take long for the cracks to show. Malcolm and Emilia don't actually have that much in common, outside of being obsessed with their jobs and having a taste for the finer things. They especially clash when it comes to raising their child, and it only gets worse as Lottie's peculiarities become more apparent.
They send Lottie to a fancy private school in the city with other rich kids, and a lot of those kids do come from old money. They pick on her for not knowing the arbitrary rules of upper class social etiquette, for having the wrong pedigree and looking different from them, and most of all, because she's just weird and hasn't learned how to mask it yet. The bullying just exacerbates her issues and sense of isolation.
Malcolm and Emilia eventually divorce, and Lottie knows she's the biggest motivator and internalizes it as her fault. Emilia gets primary custody, and she moves Lottie to Wiskayok. She can't afford penthouse living in the city as a single mom, but between her well-paid job, the divorce settlement, and child support payments, she's able to buy a McMansion in the Jersey suburbs and hire a housekeeper, maintaining some of the lifestyle she's grown accustomed to.
It's a strange transition for Lottie, trying to adjust to a town in the suburbs and being the new kid at public school. In some ways, it's a fresh start. Her sudden appearance as the mysterious rich girl from the city gives her a certain mystique and glamour among the students, and she develops a good reputation and even makes some friends, primarily with her soccer teammates. But the feelings of loneliness remain.
Emilia still works in the city, where she commutes and occasionally stays for multiple nights. She's rarely home, leaving Lottie mostly to her own devices. Emilia's under the impression that Lottie enjoys having more independence without Malcolm breathing down her back, but she's really just projecting her own feelings. Lottie would rather spend time with her mom and thought the divorce was going to give them the opportunity to get closer.
Malcolm stays in his penthouse and has partial custody, but he doesn't exercise it as much as he could. He's usually distracted with work when Lottie visits, and he sometimes just cancels all together. In lieu of actual parenting, he spends money on fancy gifts: a birthday Rolex, a car for Christmas, chartering a private jet for Nationals.
Lots of thoughts about that pseudo flashback scene with Malcolm Matthews in 3x5. Shauna is standing in for Lottie, but teenage Lottie has definitely had similar conversations with her dad, and it's the deepest look at their typical dynamic we've seen. Though it's a humanizing moment for Malcolm, he still comes out looking like an absolute knob.
First, for context: the same episode reveals Lottie's parents got divorced, and she moved to New Jersey with her mom. We can assume Lottie doesn't see her dad a lot, and she probably wasn't far off when she said chartering the private plane for the team was "pretty much his only form of parenting." Malcolm likely has some visitation rights, probably the occasional weekend or time during the summer. I'm thinking that's the situation present day Malcolm, in his cognitive decline, is experiencing: post-divorce, Lottie staying for a weekend.
So the scene itself. Malcolm walks to the door, sternly telling Lottie to clean her room. I don't know what he's on about, because the room is so clean. Maybe he's just that persnickety, or maybe the cognitive decline has him perceiving it differently. Whatever the case, his instict seems to be to find fault, even in the limited time he spends with her.
He proceeds to snipe, “Too bad I’m not one of those crazy voices in your head, maybe then you’d listen." What the fuck, Malcolm??? That's such a casually cruel thing to say to your mentally ill kid. We know from his other appearances that Malcolm pathalogizes Lottie and wants her fixed, but this is another end of it, dismissiveness of her struggle. He'll weaponize her condition against her over something as basic as cleaning her room.
As you might expect, it's zero percent motivating. Lottie is just quietly hurt. "Yeah, okay," she says, sitting on the (very clean!) bed dejectedly.
Her subdued response is enough to make Malcolm realize he fucked up, and he tries to justify himself, "I hate it when you don't listen to me." Lottie stays quiet, and she slightly but noticably leans away as he sits beside her.
Malcolm seems genuinely sorry, his tone becoming more gentle, and we get this exchange:
Malcolm: "Look, I'm sorry, all right? I'm trying my best here, Lottie."
Lottie: "Are you?"
Malcolm: "It's not easy. You. Any of this."
Lottie: "And it is for me?"
Malcolm: "I know. I just... I don't get it. I wish I did. But I don't."
That apology fucking suuuucks, dude! I'm trying my best, Lottie, but it's just so hard dealing with you. That is not it, Malcolm. I think most parents would struggle and be frustrated if they were in his situation, but that shouldn't be expressed as if it's the kid's fault. Malcolm doesn't get it and is willing to admit it, but that's where the self-reflection ends. He says he knows it's not easy for her either, but he doesn't really, because he's not putting in effort to relate to Lottie and her experience, and he just ends up shaming her for it.
But also, it's not like Lottie is just sitting there and taking it. She's pushing back. Are you actually trying your best? (Answer: no, probably not.) If it's hard for you, what do you think it's like for me? (Answer: a lot fucking harder.)
(Lottie is asking those questions to her dad, but so is Shauna, and she's actually understanding something about Lottie's experience, and she's thinking about Callie asking her those questions too. Shauna, who deeply loves her kid but is an imperfect shitty parent struggling to connect, also empathizes with Malcolm: "Sometimes it's hard to show love the way we want to." It's equally as true for Lottie, who's often acting out of love in ways no one else could possibly understand.)
Malcolm can't apologize worth a damn, but he attempts to reach out another way, offering to spend some quality time. He asks about ordering food from a Chinese place Lottie likes, and that's pretty good, he's actually considering her. But then he suggests watching a new Scorsese movie, which is... something, I guess. Idk, teenage girls aren't really a target demographic for Scorsese, so I can't help but read Malcolm's offer as being about doing something he likes and was going to do anyway.
So, conclusions. In typical fandom fashion, at least what I've seen in fic, Malcolm Matthews often gets exaggerated into a cartoonishly evil figure that doesn't care about Lottie. In reality, he's not a monster. He's way more mundane than that. A rich white guy, a Wall Street big shot, a man that's used to getting his way, yes, but also a man that loves his kid yet can't connect with her and keeps putting his foot in his mouth.
Malcolm loves Lottie, but he's also an insensitive ass that doesn't put a lot of effort into actually understanding her. He's quick to pathalogize, while also being dismissive of the reality of her struggles. He doesn't like to hurt her, but he keeps doing it, because he gets hard when he isn't in control, and the entire situation with her makes him feel powerless. He feels bad when he says mean shit to her, but he can't admit fault, and his apologies make it about her being difficult to manage. Then he tries to smooth things over and make peace through distractions.
In short: Malcolm, I'm glad you're not the absolute worst, but you can still go fuck yourself.
