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orangeisfab · 6 days ago

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Thinking about how Lex Foster views responsibility.

Which is a crazy thing to say, I know. We meet Lex as a disgruntled teen smoking 'a bud' outside her job before her shift starts. Normally, this is based (it still is), however we get hints that she has had issues with this habit in the past AND the background that not only has she picked it back up, but she is now supplying her mother as well.

In her very first appearance we hear that when Lex was in school she struggled, seemingly with grades and attendance. Enough that Tom points out in a positive light that she was 'back in school' and 'on top of her classes'. Lex meets this flippantly, initially saying that she was hardly valedictorian, and when pushed, goes on to say the one class that Tom has proof she was doing alright in, is extremely easy and anyone can get an A.

This was the very same class that as soon as the teacher stopped showing up, her raised grades seemingly dropped low enough that her GPA tanked to a failing grade. Lex attributes her choice to drop out as being inspired by Tom so she just stopped showing up completely.

Keep in mind, Lex wants to hurt Tom here. She wants to see if any part of him actually ever cared about her. That still doesn't erase the fact that if Tom is correct, and Lex was doing better, she saw someone she respected deem school as not an important enough responsibility and moved on.

She didn't give up. This is important. In this first scene, Lex dropping out is supposed to be seen as just a teen who doesn't care about her future making a selfish decision to give up when things got hard.

But that's not the full story.

Because the musical shifts perspectives. We aren't following Tom anymore, we follow Lex. Something important to note here, is that we already know Lex arrived not only on time, but early. She had time to casually smoke outside and have a conversation with Tom before going inside to meet with her boss. I want to come back to that, but right now we're in the process of finding out more about Lex's work ethic.

"You know you've got a real attitude problem. You're snippy with customers, your no good boyfriend's always hanging around, you'd think a drop-out with a record would be grateful to have a job."

Look. Frank's not a good person. He's not meant to be. He is meant to show us how the rest of the town views Lex. Tom greets Lex with hope and positivity until she pushes him back. Then we see the themes of greed start to set in place as he tries to use her to guarantee himself a Wiggly. It establishes a complicated relationship between these two characters. (One I absolutely adore.)

Frank's opinion of her is clear from the beginning. He views her as a delinquent and makes that clear even as she tries to keep things between them light. She's patient and almost playful with Frank up until the moment he starts lecturing her. Of course we learn more about her through his expositive lecture, but we also learn just as much through her reactions. When Frank starts his lecture, there is a moment where Lex looks genuinely surprised and taken aback. It switches quickly to irritation the moment her mother and her past is brought up but importantly her demeanor only changes to hostile when Frank mentions the part of the puzzle we haven't seen yet.

Hannah.

(Quick interruption because I will always credit incredible talent when I see it, all of this is conveyed completely silently through Angela's acting. Lex doesn't have a lot of lines in Black Friday, but she's still one of the most fleshed out characters in the entire musical. The way she genuinely looks pissed and ready to swing the moment Hannah gets mentioned is insanely telling and we haven't even learned the why yet. While I'm here, the back and forth between Corey as Frank and Angela as Lex is top tier. I don't how these two managed to perfectly capture the begrudging love/hate relationship you have for your coworkers, especially in retail, but they did.)

Up until this point Lex has been sarcastic, cruel and defensive. We get an idea of how bad her home life is, but not the full story. We know she's got some sort of criminal record and we know she's dropped out of school. In the next scene, we find out she's not above stealing either.

So now let's get into meeting Ethan, and more importantly, meeting Hannah.

Because, and I know it's hard to remember, this post is about Lex's views on responsibility. As of right now, we are set to expect Lex not to be responsible. She dropped out. She's got a record. She steals. She is sarcastic with people looking out for her interests and defensive against people calling her out on her behavior.

The first thing she asks her boyfriend is: Where’s my sister?

It's established immediately that once her shock and excitement at seeing him passes her first concern is: Hannah.

We also hear this concern is not just a knee-jerk realization. She's been telling Ethan every day for 4 weeks straight that he needs to pick up her sister.

The line is glossed over quickly, because of the introduction and the way in which Ethan reassures her almost immediately that he hasn't forgotten.

But I want you to think about it for a minute.

It's clear by even this seconds long introduction scene of Ethan that Lex cares about him. We see her genuinely smile for the first time the entire day and rush over to him. Yet, her concern for her sister is still very present. So present in fact, that she's been thinking about this one moment, this one instance she trusts someone else with Hannah's wellbeing, for a month straight. We know Lex trusts Ethan. She trusts him to clear everything with the buyer. She trusts him on fixing up his car to get them out of town and across the country. She even trusts him to be the 'smarter' of the two and takes his word on how to spell 'liar'.

The fact that she has been pestering Ethan about this for as long as she has tells us Hannah is an exception. Because the rest of those things she can handle being wrong on, losing control on.

Hannah is her responsibility and we'll end up seeing just how important that responsibility is to Lex in every single appearance we follow her character.

Ok. So our delinquent has a soft spot for her sister and a chip on her shoulder about her home life. What else did we learn from this scene?

Let's go over what we know, we know that Lex being back in school is a good thing. Immediately my instinct was to assume that was because of bad attendance that she had to work on improving. However, thanks to the Tarot Cards revealed this year, we finally know exactly what Lex's record officially is. She went to juvie for arson. Now it doesn't eliminate the possibility of bad attendance but it does recontextualize what Tom meant when he said Lex was, 'back in school'.

Importantly, we see that bad attendance doesn't seem to be the case for her job either. She's shown to be on time to her shifts, if not early. Frank lets us know that her boyfriend is always hanging around, implying that he's there often, waiting for Lex. However it's not implied that Lex ever leaves her shift or shirks her work to be with him. In fact, we know Ethan gets up to trouble on his own because the cop later tells us he's not allowed in Lakeside anymore. If Lex was associated with him during whatever trouble he caused to get that ban, we can assume she would've lost her job.

We only hear Frank complain about Lex's attitude at work. Not her work ethic or any other problem we would normally associate to a teenager working a minimum wage stocking position such as laziness, tardiness or absences. Those would all be very easy to bring up to accomplish his goal of reminding her to be grateful she has a job. But he doesn't. He has to pull on her past and her family to really dig into her.

Furthermore, in this scene we hear Lex tell Ethan that he'll watch Hannah until she gets off at noon. THEN they'll leave.

The thing is, Lex HAS the doll. She has enough money to leave right then. They're getting $6,500 more than what they initially planned on leaving with. Finishing up the last few hours of her shift isn't going to make a difference now. That paycheck would not be worth it. And yet? She still doesn't leave. She takes a smoke break and goes back in to what she knows is going to be a very long and difficult shift.

Even after their fight in the loading bay, Lex comes back in with patience for Frank's over-the-topness about this 'holy day'. She holds his hand to lead him out in front of the crowd as if he's a princess, begrudgingly, of course. (The choice to sniff him here is always hilarious.) She even starts dancing with him, looking genuinely surprised and amused as he includes her before willingly making sure he's put back together in time for the doors to open.

Lex's patience for her job is crazy. She's dealing with an overbearing manager (who is acting so weird she had to make sure he wasn't the one who smoked before their shift), and a long, long line of customers. Customers who we already know aren't her strong suit. AND, as a reminder, Lex can leave at any time. She has no reason to finish her shift with a buyer lined up.

For someone who we are supposed to assume is a no-good delinquent, all signs point to Lex being a very responsible worker. For someone who we are supposed to assume is a disgruntled uncaring teenager, we've seen her weirdly caring about the adults who hurt her. Both with Tom who she tries to get to move his car so it doesn't get towed, even after his blatant attempt to use her AND to Frank who very personally laid into her after a few too many jokes.

The narrative to paint her as just another uncaring teenager is quickly falling apart. And we've only known Lex for about 15 minutes.

We know how the rest of Black Friday goes. We know that when her and Frank are taken away by the cult and bound her first thought is about Hannah's safety. How the first time we finally see her drop the tough persona she puts on is when the mob turns to finding her sister, breaking down immediately and begging them to not hurt her.

How later on, when she's told to 'wake the warrior' she goes to the only adult she knows how to trust.

The irony of her story is that she is a kid who should fit the mold all these adults fit into, with holes she doesn't know how to fill. All these worries, all these responsibilities that are dragging these people into going insane, it doesn't work on her.

Because Lex doesn't see her responsibilities as burdens.

Let's talk about Witch in the Web.

We don't see Lex in it. We see Willabella, disguised as Lex. But Lex isn't here.

Yet we still learn a lot about Lex's view on responsibility through this episode. Specifically her responsibility to her sister. In Witch in the Web we meet Duke, aka Douglas Keane. A social worker assigned to Hannah.

We hear from him that Lex has been gone and why. She's in prison. 5 years. Picked up selling her mother's pills.

Only, selling them wasn't her idea. It was Pam's.

Lex could have faced a much shorter sentence, could have argued for her innocence, she goes so far as to confide in Duke this information but still chooses to deny it in court. Duke suggests it's because she was worried about leaving Hannah completely alone. He admits that Lex was more of a mother to Hannah than the horrible woman we finally have the displeasure of meeting in this episode ever was.

There is no nuance to this. It may have been revealed in one small conversation but Lex's love and care for her sister is evident throughout the episode.

It's in the fact that as soon as Lex goes away, the nightmares start for Hannah. It's in the fact that the reason she's able to hold the witch off for as long as she does is because Lex gave her the ukulele. (A gift Pam tries to take credit for, a gift that neither her nor the witch could ever understand. Because it's not about simply about having it. It was always about Lex being the one to give it to her.) It's in the way that Hannah's first safe space she thinks about when she's back in her mind is her room, the one she shared with Lex. In the way the happiest we see Hannah at all in the entire episode is the moment Lex comes in. The moment she comes back.

(Hi! Another talent appreciation break. Can I just say that I love Kendall's version of Hannah so so much. Genuinely in Black Friday and in WitW she kills it. Even in a format like NMT we see her give it her all and nearly steal the show away from everyone else once again. From something as small and endearing as: 'Hiya Duke.' To the infamous 'Lexi!'. I love watching Nick's little smile as Kendall builds up to the line, I also love watching Angela melt in reaction, breaking character in the most in-character way possible.)

Importantly, we learn through WitW that Lex's responsibility to Hannah is always chosen.

Their dynamic could easily fall into the trope of an older sibling burdened with taking care of their younger sibling because of a failing parent. But it doesn't. Even in Black Friday the precedent that is set that Lex chooses to care about her sister. That she doesn't see it as a burden, but rather one of the only good things she has.

That the love she has for her sister is a need.

At first I didn't know what she was to me. At first I didn't know why I cared, or why I wanted, To hold her and rock her to sleep. Did I need her more then she needed me?

This character makes me normal, I swear.

Let's move into Yellow Jacket.

Though we already knew it in Black Friday, it's more explicitly made clear here that Lex has been diligently working since she was 16. We know that she dropped out of school only a year before Black Friday takes place, but we also hear her say later that she has worked at Toyzone for 2 years. So not only did she struggle with school in general, she also willingly picked up a job while attending, juggling the two for about a year.

Yellow Jacket also reinforces the points I brought up during the breakdown of Black Friday. Lex is a hard worker. She takes her responsibility seriously. So seriously, that we now finally start seeing the cracks forming under the surface.

Lex knows she now has a debt she's going to be struggling under for a long time. She's been working for 4 years and has only managed to put away $4,000 in that time. All of it is immediately gone over the course of a single day.

That very night she pivots into taking on more responsibilities, knowing she has to get another job. Which means picking back up the studying and school work we already know she struggled with in the past. All of this on TOP of working a full-time job with some really shitty hours. We know she's being called in early, but also she seems to be closing multiple nights as well? (I don't know, Toyzone only having two employees is so fucking funny to me. Frank, what the hell are you doing man? What is the schedule? What are the hours?! How the hell are you cutting them if only 2 of you work there?!)

Also, quick aside, Lex had a savings account.

That's it. That's the whole point. I mean what more can I say? We know she's definitely living paycheck to paycheck with what money her and Ethan bring in. Which means that every single extra cent Lex earned she never even entertained the idea of spending it on herself. It was put away to be used in emergencies. We also see that later on in the episode when they DO have the extra money, Ethan is understandably thinking about filling out their new home and Lex can only think about putting that money towards her sister.

I swear I'm normal about this character.

I've already somewhat covered the Happy Birthday Hannah scene, BUT WE'RE DOING IT AGAIN. (This will not be the last time either)

The amount of stress we see Lex go into the day with is crazy. Which makes sense, she has been working her ass off for this test for probably a few weeks at this point. She knows she's forgetting something. Even stressed out and panicked, her brain won't let her forget about Hannah. Not completely.

She only barely gets off in time to make it to the test, and even then she's still late and can't get the full time.

She doesn't make it past the first question.

As soon as she realizes what day it is, Lex throws away everything she's worked herself past exhaustion for. All for a chance of trying to get something together for Hannah before the day is over. She rushes to Partyzone, all the way back across town, to drop what little money she had on something fun only to find it closed. She doesn't give up though. She finds something that could work, anything.

She comes home and waits.

When her boyfriend and her sister do return home, she is genuinely relieved to hear that Hannah had a good time. Because at the end of the day, that was all that mattered to Lex. So much so, that she can't help but blame herself for missing it. For being unable to provide the day she would have given Hannah.

Hannah is her responsibility. It's the one she chooses, every time. Even at the cost of everything she has worked for. Because of that she won't ever come home empty-handed.

Even when the best she can do, is a half-filled, stolen balloon and a lousy cupcake.

Yellow Jacket isn't done however.

Even without this absolute WALL I have typed out, even without yet another instance of Lex still going to work despite having enough money to not have to anymore, I really wouldn't have needed to do anything but point out one single line in Ethan's Letter.

You say you're irresponsible. I am too. I don't know if either of us has what it takes to protect Hannah, but she's my sister, not yours.

I think a lot about how Lex views responsibility. I think about how her character is built around the stereotypical disgruntled delinquent teen. I think about how she should fit into the mold of the adults around her. Bitter about responsibilities that are burdens, riddled with holes they don't know how to fill.

I think about how Lex views responsibility as a choice. A choice that she makes out of care, out of love. That responsibility is sacrifice and it's one she makes willingly.

Lex views responsibility as something she isn't capable of, despite everything she does to prove the contrary.

#i cant do this shit anymore #i too am very normal about this character #and seriously the way angela talks about lex #and when mariah rejoins the call and angela exasperately tells her lex killed hannah in the deathmatch lmao

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