People who had known real, abject poverty had suddenly been handed platinum credit cards.
A lot of that original series, and even more of Going Forward, is rooted in the abject bleakness of real life.
Most Americans hardly know Malawi from Maui and have never seen real, abject poverty: if Bono and Bill Gates so much as teach Americans to know and feel deeply for those outside our borders, they've done our country a tremendous service.
But that made sense: murder would have been too real, too abject there and, given Dexter's aesthetic of murder as an intellectual riddle to be solved in front of a pretty English backdrop, Morse could hardly be expected to wander down those mean streets after a pint of authentically warm bitter at the Perch.
Everything was rewritten: never mind that Jade had been admired for being so genuine and unfiltered and real - her abject apologies and tears were dismissed as calculating, even though, seen now, they are obviously nothing of the sort.
He said the photographs were "abject, an abomination and a real insult to all victims of terrorism".
A fan added in the comments: "The real blame lies entirely with those abject Indian chicken farmers, the Venkys, and those members of the FA who deemed these idiots sufficiently competent to own a team in English football.
Bell, abject in the first innings, had practised with real intensity before play and his first ball, from Imran Khan, was met with a positive stride and the very middle of the bat.
A consequence of the Trump election is a growing bipartisan concern over the abject incompetence of an administration that poses a real and present danger not only to the country but to the world.
Clear cases of abject animal suffering are being played for laughs, but you can bet real chickens don't think it's funny.
