I talk a lot about Richie's mom but I have to confess, I've had Max's mom, Skyler, on the brain. In the context of NPMD, and the context of the other grieving families, something about her grief hurts so so bad. Skyler isn't a bad person. She got stuck in a shitty marriage, found comfort in a woman she loves who made her realize she doesn't even like men at all, and her ex husband wants to punish her for leaving.
He makes her look like a selfish cheater, like a deadbeat. That couldn't be farther from the truth. She does everything she can to gain access to Max. He's too poisoned against her because of his father. She tries so hard to connect and teach him to be a better fucking person. He closes off. She's a fallible mother, and so maybe it's naive to think "there's a good boy in there somewhere, I know he is." It's not fair to the other parents who have to watch their children suffer at the hands of a bully who "has some good" buried deep inside beneath the insecurities and aggression. But she has to believe it's possible. Because she loves her son despite it all.
And then Max is dead. In little pieces under the floorboards of a rotting house. And then so are two other kids from the same school, with mothers she's seen at meetings and at school events. They get to grieve openly. It's Hatchetfield, so no one really gives a shit about any of these kids, but they can still grieve.
Skylar doesn't get to grieve. Because all she hears, from the teens AND their parents, is how awful he was. How glad they were when he disappeared. And here comes the mother of the bully, wondering if she has a right to attend the funerals of Richie and Ruth and pay her respects to those families. They don't do the same for her. They won't. They have no respects to pay to a cruel boy who caused their kids hell. It's her fault. She didn't do enough, obviously. It must mean she didn't care and she didn't try. But of course that's not true. She was powerless. She never had a fucking chance. No one gave her one.
Olive, in self-sabotage, isolates herself in her grief. Skyler doesn't need to self-sabotage. She's been isolated by others all this time.
