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Colin Firth as Mark Darcy BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY (2001) dir. Sharon Maguire

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i'm not sure if these subtitles are entirely accurate but assuming they are and he is really begging her to come back to his place.......... that's what she deserves!!!

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Gereon Rath and Charlotte Ritter in Babylon Berlin 4.08

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But I can come back if you want. I beg you to.

CHARLOTTE RITTER and GEREON RATH in BABYLON BERLIN S04E07 and S04E08

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charlotte and gereon in babylon berlin 3x09

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CHARLOTTE RITTER and GEREON RATH in BABYLON BERLIN Season 4 Finale

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Mothering Sunday(2022)

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Operation Mincemeat (2022)

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best of Charles Brooks and Liza Miller || Younger 2015-2021 ❤️‍🔥

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🔥❤️

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Younger Season 7 finale

Spoilers ahead on the finale and final season.

Stop now if you don't want to know.

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There are those great final seasons and great finales where everyone gets closure and you feel all the characters really did get a proper ending. But this wasn't one of them, sadly. And this was a show that I loved and looked forward to for many years.

I am trying to think of a positive thing about the finale and the most I can come up with is the fashion. I enjoyed the locations as well. I love the cast of actors. But everything else, not so much. Everything was undone in the last 10 minutes and it made zero sense if you watched the full story for 7 years.

My main criticisms which I will detail are the punishment theme, moving past the stale triangle, lack of consistency, ignoring character growth, and letting a villain win. This is mostly about the finale, but encompasses the whole season of storytelling.

1. Why are we punishing our protagonist for a lie that was forgiven, done because of ageism, and was said by the showrunners that we have "moved past the lie and onto her being herself authentically".

Why say this if it isn't true, and you intend on punishing her through a terribly written play, losing the love of her life, and having a villain triumph by getting one last dig at her in an email she sends as revenge.

The depressing mood of the final season should have been over starting with the 11th episode through the finale. There were very few funny moments the whole season. The villain should have been overcome in the finale. It was bad enough that everything was ruined that were the best elements of the show, but giving the illusion that the main character would be redeemed and get her career and her relationship in the terms she defined was the worst.

They could have used that moment of conflict where Liza put Charles into consideration for the retreat, and didn't tell him, to show that even though she did it secretly, he loved her anyway for helping make his dream come true. But instead, there was unnecessary punishment from a play that consisted of several actual scam artists and a person (Liza) just trying to get a job. But the worst insult was that after she went on about how much she wanted to be with him, wanted a partner, and they agreed to forget marriage, be together no matter what, the writers decided to arbitrarily punish her over nonsense.

2. Why did the writers say the original love triangle was moved past, if it really wasn't?

Why write an entire seasonal arc where you are showing how right two characters (Liza/Charles) are for each other episode by episode, just to have something completely resolvable come between them? She didn't tell him about this one thing that she did when they weren't even together to try to help him with his book. Why would something like this not be talked about with them, or later in counseling, and why would he let her run the company and go to the retreat he was so upset about? The writers deliberately show how they confide in each other about personal things like possibly having a secret child from an affair, how they work well together, have amazing chemistry, respect each other, love each other (this was said maybe 15 times during this season alone?), agree to forget about marriage and just be together, and then this arbitrary nonsense is the deal breaker?

Were the other seasons even watched before writing? Why say "nothing worth having comes easy" and then break up over something such a non-issue? She didn't commit embezzlement. She didn't even leave the company to do what Kelsey wanted. She told the truth about everything. Yet, we are to believe that this is insurmountable for them at the drop of a hat. There wasn't any, "let's talk about this later when I get back." It just isn't believable, even for this show.

After all that, we are to believe that a character who she hasn't interacted with in several seasons (Josh) has "always been there by your side." Nope. He wasn't . During this entire season, he was MIA. In previous seasons, he was there. But what he said were things like, "you don't know what's real" ,"you are a liar and a cheater" and "you owe me so lie for me so I can get married", and also "you owe me to be here for my baby" and "you are lying to yourself". All of this on repeat, along with punching people and guilting her into getting a tattoo and doing things she wasn't comfortable with. So, how is this being there by someone's side when the message is that whatever she thinks is wrong, and he knows her better than she knows herself? That is a feminist message? If you wait around enough and be hot and available, she will come back and look at you adoringly in a bar one day? I'm sorry, but no. Even if you like Josh (which I did at the beginning until he told her she didn't have enough experience with men and needed a free pass), why would writers accept that this is even possible after she told him she didn't like the personal pics he sent her of himself a few episodes earlier?

3. Lack of consistency was evident throughout the last season.

Good writers tell a story and go where they are going with the right finish. Example: if you are telling a story where a person falls off the mountain because the wind is there pushing them the whole time, make that wind be present throughout, otherwise it is pointless and cruel. You don't throw in "oh yeah, it was windy and the person fell down". The initial lie was forgiven years ago. They were past it. The issue was marriage and being on the same page with this type of commitment. That was resolved with Charles saying "forget about marriage. " It doesn't make sense to bring up a resolved issue like a lie that was forgiven and moved past.

The writing seemed to want to have it all, but failed miserably. There was the buildup of the couple (Liza and Charles) the story was set around for years, and that airport moment that should have been the closing scene to their relationship. But if they weren't going to be together, they shouldn't have bothered with the Quinn story at all. She could still be there, but not in that context. It makes no sense to lead viewers there. If it was supposed to be about work triumphs, make the story be that way. Show her running the company and him writing his book earlier in the season. Maybe they are together or maybe not. Or if the intention is for her to be with Josh, show that growth - how Josh doesn't want to tell her she is a liar anymore, and is accepting her unconventional ways without putting his feelings on her. But no, we didn't get any of that.

4. Ignoring character growth is another criticism. No one really was any different at the end, and this is just bad writing.

Everyone's growth was undone. We are supposed to accept that Liza is a liar and will never change. We are supposed to accept that Charles is stubborn and old-school and will never change. And apparently we are supposed to accept that Josh knows Liza better than she knows herself, and was right about all her feelings and intentions being wrong. They bring him in like some messiah that was there "the whole time" when really we know as faithful watchers that his previous behavior was pretty terrible. But we are told to ignore that, because the crowd that likes him needs their moment. Don't get me wrong, he should have gotten a good ending. But do we need to reward telling a woman her feelings are wrong repeatedly and he knows her better than herself with that moment at the end?

Josh could have been with Claire or even Lauren at the end if it was really about Liza's career. But no, we have to keep that triangle alive until the very last second even though there was no story to lead it there.

Kelsey gets what she wants, despite being terrible to both Liza and Charles repeatedly. She essentially stole the idea for her own company that Liza thought of, and Liza let it go because she didn't want to be bothered. So another person was rewarded for bad behavior. Kelsey never changed . She never really grew to understand why the people in her life were so important to her success. She gave a great speech, but not much else.

Maggie was given Cass, a person who was given redemption despite doing something far worse than what Liza did. Maggie never really changed either. Lauren is the same too, ending in an interesting situation, leaving her party she planned for the company she works for to be with her two new men.

5. A villain shouldn't win. This is a villain no one wanted (Quinn). And in retrospect we didn't need her there. Why do this to people who have no interest in this character? We didn't really care if she could be nice every once in a while. If you bring a villain in, don't let them win. This is the number one rule of writing. They get a comeuppance. That doesn't consist of getting unceremoniously left at the airport and then sending an email to screw over the protagonist (hero of the show).

The problem is this: When an ending is plot driven, what you get is something that doesn't make sense.

It is like the final episode was written years ago and everything else plopped in place like an ill fitting set of gears that won't turn because it was cheap and poorly constructed.

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“Home is not where you are from, it is where you belong. Some of us travel the whole world to find it. Others, find it in a person.” ― Beau Taplin

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Ness™

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I just want to say that I am 29 years old. I am a millennial. You know what my boyfriend (now fiancé) and I have done for fun the last 5 years (since I was 24)? We sit at home and watch movies together. We cook together. We do low key things around town. Sometimes we go on adventures, but more than anything we just spend time being in each other’s presence. It’s not very sexy or super exciting and we aren’t dying to jump each other’s bones every time we make eye contact, but we LOVE each other deeply. We treasure the time we have together. We don’t need to do anything special or spontaneous or super exciting to make our relationship feel valid or to keep it interesting. We have been together 5 years and still never run out of things to talk about. So is being in love and stable boring because we aren’t doing “young people” things? Maybe it is. I also don’t know anyone between the ages of 26-29 who is a real adult and in a relationship who does “exciting” things on the reg. Literally everyone I know is content to just be; we don’t have to “do.” We aren’t afraid to go outside our comfort zone and do spontaneous things, but it’s just not the norm. That’s just how people are.

Now I say all that because Younger has been rubbing me the wrong way with the implication that Charles + Charles and Liza are boring because they.....aren’t out at bars every night? Going to music festivals? They’re just spending time together and doing what they want? But they also do things like the seaglass carousel and role play in the museum? That’s boring though? I don’t understand it. And I think it makes zero sense that a 40-something woman who craves stability and honesty would rather be with someone whose behavior is unpredictable and not suited to her interests. At one time, that was something she needed, but ultimately not what is best for her long term; everyone has to grow up eventually. It doesn’t mean you stop having fun, it just means what is fun changes and “extra” fun things are special treats.

Maybe Liza is meant to be with Josh. But the idea that she is meant to be with him instead of Charles because Josh is a free spirit and alive while Charles is safe and boring is absolutely absurd.

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