It's easier to hate her, than to understand her. How come a very successful, smart woman, full of talent and promise ended up like this? Anthony is the kind of narcissist, con artist that Hollywood would glorify and make a movie about him, starring Leonardo Dicaprio. The kind of man that stole from his ex wife all her money and left her with a newborn (he even suggested to her to kill their child), the kind of man that could convinced every person to give him money, and that takes talent. It's not a surprise he was able to steal and literally suck Sarma's life out of her...
Any survivor of mental or physical abuse is always asked the same question "why didn't you leave?" and only survivors can understand why Sarma made such bad decisions. In the end you end up kind of hating Sarma for letting so many of her workers unpaid and sabotaging so much her life. But to understand who Sarma really is you need to isolate her from Anthony, before she met him.
Sarma before him, was a woman that helped a homeless man, store his winter clothes and became a friend of his, so much that he was the most loyal friend of hers. Sarma was the kind of woman that before Anthony always paid her debts and respected her workers, so much that even after the first closing of the store they all went back to her, still believing she'll come back. The kind of woman that even after the first closing she managed to find investors to open again in an impressively fast way.
Sarma as a teen looked like a smart kid who always felt isolated, alone and with a sense of not belonging in this world. She was brilliant, her only flaw? Her insecurity, and narcissists can smell that, and prepare their next move on their prey. Then her fear of not being able to pay off her 2 million dept came and at her lowest, she met Anthony, who at the time presented himself as her savior, from money problems and existential ones. He saw that weakness, saw her fear of aging, being nobody and her fear of her dog dying (the thing she loved the most) , and he step on that fear giving her an, what could only be a supernatural, solution for her fear. Any victim of abuse knows what it's like to be so manipulated into thinking the day is night, he even convinced her he's fat for a supreme reason, and it's clear that their sex was a result of coercion and not consensual. And it's why Anthony's ex wife was willing to help her more than anybody else, and sended the letter, because she's been there.
It's easy to hate her, to only think of her as an entitled rich white lady who didn't paid her workers. But is it just that? In the end she is responsible for her actions, but form the phone calls and texts it is clear that she was deceived. Any person rich or poor can become a victim of manipulation, and from having a store that celebrities go, ready to expand in the whole word, ending up in cheap motels in bad shape, crying and going to prison. Anthony was a textbook narcissist, he manipulated her, didn't let her to express her feelings by always saying it's not a good time now, isolated her from friends and family (the people that can help you). In the end the only way for a loser like him, could seem superior to her, was to low her at his level, because his whole game was about control. He never loved her, only the way she saw him and the fact that she believed his fake persona. She loved him or thought she did, and that to a person who hates himself, is like a "energy charge", the only problem is that, all the "energy" he draw has sucked out of her...
This show is important if you see it as a warning that your biggest enemy is many times the closest person in your life.
