In this episode, we discuss the deeply suburban and highly neurotic dark dramedy American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes. We follow Lester Burnham, an everyday executive, as he experiences a midlife crisis that tears at his familial bonds, while he falls deeper into his twisted obsession with his daughter's friend. Meanwhile, his materialistic wife Carolyn and alienated daughter Jane both grapple with their own suburban dysfunction. This middle-class tale from the turn of the millennium explores how warped self-fulfillment, rampant materialism, and spiritual imprisonment create a darkly hilarious combination in the form of a loneliness epidemic that breeds negativity beneath picture-perfect facades.