TVSquad

How much of Swingtown is real and how much is pure fiction? According to Mike Kelley, Swingtown's creator, there are elements in the show that come right from his childhood memories of growing up on the North Shore, a trendy suburb of Chicago. But the sex and the swinging? That's mostly creative license.

So were there really sex parties and swinging in the Kelley home? "You know, it comes from imagination, for the most part."

Inspired by 1976, the era of women's liberation, disco-dancing, the end of the Vietnam War, and sexual freedom thanks to the pill and no AIDS, Kelley balances the fantastic elements with nostalgia.

(S01E03) Consider this episode of Swingtown a case of being betwixt and between. The Millers have been in their new home all of two weeks and so much has happened to shake their foundation; Susan especially seems like the song "caught in the middle with you." Does she want to be the good wife going to church and being satisfied with the way they were, her and Bruce, back in the old neighborhood? Or is she ready to embrace swinging?

She's at first drawn back to Janet and Roger and the old ways. Because she's still perturbed by the business card she found in Bruce's pants from the Playboy Club, the one from Sylvia suggesting a get together, Susan drags her family to Sunday services for a little God-time. Impulsively, when chatting with Janet, Susan announces that she's having a housewarming and wants Janet's help. It's like she's clinging to a simpler past.