#big red redonovich

hsmtmts families ranked in terms of how dysfunctional they are

8. nini’s and her moms - this feels obvious. we know mama carol has a good relationship with everyone in nini’s circle including her ex, and mama dana has a good relationship with her own mother and brings that stability and love to nini’s life. it also probably helps that they are gay, so nini was most likely meticulously planned and grew up super open minded and tolerant.

7. kourtney and her mom - her mom is SO sweet and supportive and i love her. she’s in kourtney’s corner with everything and thinks the world of her, and i think it’s mutual. she listens to kourtney’s relationship issues and reassures her with the fact that she is a strong and independent woman. we haven’t seen too much of them but they don’t seem to have any issues.

6. seb and his extended family - they ALL came to hsm to see him and are clearly very supportive. they set time aside for him even though they are a working family. i only rank them slightly lower than nini and kourt because he has a lot of siblings which inherently is a little dysfunctional (source: i have a sister)

5. big red and his parents - they seem very proud of him finding his niche with hsm and they were cool with ricky staying over when he needed. not only that, they let the whole drama club rehearse in their basement overnight that one time! big red also works at the family pizza shop and it’s clearly important to him. i knocked off a few points for how him and his mom clash sometimes over scheduling big red for shifts when he already had plans that she knew about.

4. carlos and his family - we know carlos has a couple of sisters, but we also know his parents aren’t super involved in his general life. they came to hsm, but they didn’t have anything planned for his sixteenth birthday. his mom would be willing to press charges if carlos got hate crimed, which is good, but we haven’t seen much of her other than that. we also know carlos planned his sisters’ quinceañeros, though whether it’s because he likes his sisters or just planning parties is anybody’s guess. it might be the money - rich people are stereotypically aloof and stuff, and it could also explain why carlos equates gift giving to expressing affection.

3. ricky and his parents (and todd) - the problem here is that mike and lynne are both doing their best, but their best is… not great and ricky keeps getting stuck in the middle. mike is a nice guy, but he has a habit of dropping big news on ricky at inopportune times, not to mention the fact that he started dating ricky’s drama teacher kinda really fast without talking to him about it in any meaningful way. lynne fucked up BIG time by bringing todd to hsm (clearly ricky does NOT like todd), which she fortunately seems to recognize and regret now, but she also did lowkey skip town and abandon her kid when she went to chicago on business and never came back. again, they’re both nice people and express an interest in ricky’s life (see: lynne asking if he was okay after breaking up with nini again) but they just have too much going on in their own individual lives to really be good parents.

2. the caswells - literally where the fuck even are they? they’re ALWAYS out of town and leave ej with ashlyn. The cousins get along, obviously, but we also know ashlyn has no patience for ej’s bullshit (s1 phone incident). cash caswell is a whole other monster to examine, but we know he and ej don’t exactly see eye to eye, and ej disapproves of his dad throwing their money around. more rich people weirdness.

1. gina, her mom, and jamie - here we have a winner! it’s not even that they’re a BAD family, but none of them live with pr even really talk to each other. jamie’s in LA, gina’s in salt lake, and their mother went from the east coast somewhere to louisiana. they don’t know each other very well, jamie hadn’t seen gina in a LONG time, and their mother impressed some fairly unhealthy mindsets on both of them (if you’re not first you’re a loser, always keep pushing to get what you want, etc). not to mention her dragging gina across the country from job to job, which is not at all a stable home for a young girl to grow up in. jamie obviously left a while ago and probably sends some financial support, but that’s not the same as actually being with family nor did it actually stabilize their economic standing when gina was living with their mom in utah. he and gina are terrible at communication, and we know he thinks little of himself as a sibling, telling ej that it’s probably better if gina has an older brother figure that specifically isn’t him. there’s clearly a lot of love in the family, but they are a fucking mess.