#6x01 opening is my one exception

[vasfasan]

i HATE season six captainswan with a burning passion yes, the pancakes, and the proposals, and the wedding too

[unproduciblesmackdown]

appreciation for winston's watch wednesday. all the little buttons on it

[chasingfictions]

the amount of time season 6 is going to take me to blog through bc i havent even gotten past the opening credits of 6x01 yet and there's already so much to SAY???

but like, the way season 6 and season 7 are different because fundamentally they exist in reaction to the trauma of previous seasons in like, a way no season has since season 3, except even more concentrated bc of the way the trauma of 5x22 compounds upon and multiplies the trauma of 2x22 ....

it's the way we start in pure chaos and we start in the dead of night and there's no Breathing room there's just immediate pandemonium (hell pun n demon pun intentional) and it's the way s6 has this in media res feeling bc s6 isnt telling its own story, s6 is telling the aftermath of season 5, s6 says, okay "the gift" was a perfect television finale but then the story has to keep going. (@smellingwormholes not to keep torturing us both with buffy-lotr parallels BUT) there's something like, the scouring of the shire about it, it's that the story Ended the big story finished but now there are just these people and their home and their lives on a small scale that isnt any less dire even if it's less about the grand scale of history, and what does it mean when the heroes are gone and you still have your home to contend with and scrape for.

and once again it's about the 3x01 parallels of it all, about a season that start in the wake of the trauma and loss and grief of the previous season finale. it's the terror of, oh god, is this every day? and the way 3x01 has this desolation that buffy's never going to come back, will this be life forever? but of course in 3x01 buffy is coming back and in 3x01 she's not dead, just missing, and it's about what you think terror and loss feels like before it hits even bigger. because 6x01 to me is just this feeling of terror. it's despair. it's, nothing is every going to get better and we're stuck like this and she's gone and it's helplessness and it's the way grief is this thing that sticks in your throat and never leaves because you can't even. understand it.

but of course!! that's all from the perspective of people who aren't buffy. and i think the most interesting part of the 6x01 cold open is this stinger right before the credits:

thbecause they're talking about the buffybot but all of th hs can really be extended to buffy. like i've taken a decent-sized break in between finishing s5 and starting s6 partially bc life has been very busy and partially bc i really just wanted to like, sit with the feelings of the end of s5 and gather my thoughts bc there's so much to take in?

and like, one of the overarching themes of buffy s6 is about coming back wrong. and like, if s5 is about, among other things, the mounting presence of adulthood grasping you before you realize what's happened, s6 is about realizing adulthood has changed you? like, dfjsdfk insert former gifted kid discourse here like, buffy as someone who is supposed to be able to do things and be the hero and save the day and be brave and she just can't do those things anymore .

it's willow's "and I will therefore fix it" & xander's "if we want her to be exactly—"

it's xander as buffy's heart, it's xander in his "hell's bells" demon vision that his life and his marriage falls apart after buffy dies for real, it's anya in "i'll never tell" saying when things get rough he just hides behind his buffy and xander as the person who brought buffy back the first time. it's xander as the guy whose family growing up was always falling apart and he needs his family, his found family, his chosen family, as an adult, to work, he needs to save and be saved, he needs it to be exactly, because it's all he has, and he is so destabilized by the loss of buffy he can't even announce his engagement, he can't go forward with forging a new family because the person whose heart he was in the family he thought he had is gone and he needs the buffybot to be exactly so he can be exactly too.

and the way willow wants buffy to be exactly too! she wants buffy to be the friend she knows, the way willow in "primeval" is buffy's spirit and that leaves her the most destabilized by buffy's death because what is she without her? it's willow bringing buffy back from the dead and getting the buffybot up and running and refusing to live in a world where there is not some version of buffy there, and willow like, physically programming the buffybot, willow molding this version of buffy, trying to make her exactly but the problem is that exactly is a false paradigm. buffy herself never is nor was exactly. because people aren't exactly. but willow doesn't know that, all of s6 she doesn't know that, it's her demanding buffy thank her for being resurrected it's her telling giles not to mess with her it's her telling tara to keep her mouth shut, willow wants things to be exactly she wants everyone to be exactly and it's about how she's not allowing herself to be a full person because she needs to come into this role as buffy's replacement, she needs to be larger than life, and she IS, she starts the season at this high vantage speaking into everyone's minds. it's oz's "earshot" monologue — if buffy knows all his thoughts she becomes him, he ceases to exist. and in a way willow is trying to do that, she is inside of everyone either by telepathy or by programming the buffybot or by her magic entering buffy's body and giving her life. it's the way at the close of s5 willow saved buffy by entering her mind and wrenching her out of her catatonia and at the start of s6 willow is still operating on that paradigm! if she can just wrest herself into buffy, make her come back, she can fix everything. and you can even see this metatexually in the credits!! willow is the feature character now, she's the person with power, she's the significant actor, she's a focal point, and that's so much pressure

it's about willow wanting everything to be exactly is a false paradigm, because exactly is static. exactly doesn't exist. exactly implies that anything has a fixed state. but life isn't like that. willow isn't letting change happen, she's not letting people exist as fluid changing beings, she's not accepting that time is moving forward. because she needs things to be exactly. and if they're not, she'll fix them.

and then!!! it's spike!! spike's "she'll never be exactly."

the way spike in season 6 is the one person who buffy feels she can relax around, it's "the only person i can stand to be around is a neutered vampire who cheats at kitten poker" and that's a joke line but i also think the neutered vampire aspect is relevant there, because spike is also someone who has been changed irrevocably from who he was and who he is supposed to be, he's a defanged vampire and she's an undead slayer and both of them came back wrong. it's that she can be alone with him there and he can get a grin and she can tell him she was in heaven because he doesn't have any expectations of who she is or is going to be. he knows exactly doesn't exist and has never existed and life is so much more interesting without it

because spike is fundamentally a creature of change and love and those two things let him be this understanding and accepting party for her. like, her's a creature of change in the he has a trigger a soul and a chip? of it all and spike btvs as this argo of a character, how much can we throw at him and have him still be the same person, and spike as change in that he is a vampire who embraces human culture and human society and lives full throttle in the moment and spike as change in that he is a vampire who changes the definition of what it is to be a vampire by seeking a soul. and spike as love!! the way spike is all change always but "fool for love" reminds us that the core of him stays—he is a lover. he is devoted. he's literally a family man lmao. he loves his mother and cecily and drusilla and buffy and dawn and this world. the fact that buffy in season 6 hates herself because she's not the person she's supposed to be. she's not exactly. so she goes to the person who she knows will love her no matter what. it's that spike is buffy's shadow and her going to him when she thinks she is unworthy of love is her going to the place in herself that knows, deep down, she is worthy of love. she can't admit it, but she still wants it, needs it. it's buffy in "as you were" asking spike tell me you love me. tell me you want me.

and it's also tara!! the only really real buffy is really buffy & it's giles' "and she's gone"

the way tara is the other person who buffy can rely upon and be free with is tara! the only really real buffy is really buffy. there's no exactly here, there's no expectation. there's just, buffy is real. buffy is a person, she will only ever be no more or less than just what a person is. it's tara's radical acceptance. it's tara's "it's okay, if you do love him" and tara's "i promise there's nothing wrong with you" and tara's acceptance that being alive is change, that buffy didn't come back wrong, she just has a deep cellular tan, because that's what bodies do and people do. they change.

and then it's giles' simplicity. "she's gone" and so is giles, he's gone from the credits, gone from the main cast, the way giles in 5x22 is trying to save buffy, how he knows buffy can save the world by sacrificing herself but he won't tell her because all he wants is to save his child, and it's that giles' worst fear in "nightmares" is buffy's death, and it's the deep tragedy of burying your own child, and giles as this depleted person who can't give any more. it's the rest of the scoobies debating what does and doesn't make buffy really buffy and giles can't play that game. because for him she's just gone. and the way he's internalized that reality, giles is buffy's mind, and there's something about him leaving in 6x08 that parallels buffy's catatonia in 5x21. he's leaving because he got his slayer killed even though she's alive now, buffy's retreating into her mind because she got her sister killed even though dawn's not dead.

anyway i feel insane i feel INSANE s6 is INSANE ??????? literally this is a knockknock joke. literally they put all of this inside of a fucking KNOCK KNOCK JOKE

[zieeeeegler]

Thinking about 6x01 cold open.

It’s very Citizen Kane. Orson Welles was repeatedly talked about as a tragic disappointment, his achievements somehow held against him, as if he had culpably outlived his own genius. This feels like the Gene we meet, reminiscing about the Jimmy/Saul he was. We as the audience feel a tragic loss for the man Gene once was.

Memories often have a rose tinted authenticity that we put on them, so when Gene is remembering the Jimmy/Saul times he remembers them fondly. And the tequila cork tells us that Saul/Gene feels for Kim still absolutely and completely. He has always held a torch for Kim, and I think honestly that won’t ever go out no matter what — think back to the black and white Gene cold opens and we see mementos of Kim everywhere in his world.

I also wonder about the significance of the fact that these people — who are meticulously packing Saul’s mansion — let the Zafiro cork go unnoticed. They have slowly and painstakingly packed everything. The ties, the shoes, the paintings, even the fucking CC Mobile bouncy balls — all packed methodically.

Does it mean Kim gets away, slips out of sight of authorities/Jimmy/Lalo/Fring and co? The fact it falls from the dresser into the gutter, it just wrenches my heart and it can only mean bad things. A fall for their relationship, a leaving behind of one by the other. But it also feels like a baptism. There is so much religious iconography in this house, it feels like a cathedral. A cathedral of justice, except no justice here.

[enigmaticxbee]

S6 Rewatch - Misc Observations

Apartments: We don’t see Scully’s apartment all season aside from a brief glimpse of Scully’s bedroom when she’s woken in the middle of the night in 6x20 Three of a Kind. I suspect they just never rebuilt the set when they moved production to LA. We do see Mulder’s apartment a lot this season, in 10 episodes (although one is just a glimpse of a message being left on his answering machine). Scully’s at his apartment in 7 episodes, including with Morris Fletcher-as-Mulder in 6x04 Dreamland/6x05 Dreamland II, at the end of 6x06 How the Ghosts Stole Christmas to open presents, in 6x18 Milagro, and in both of their hallucinations in 6x21 Field Trip. Mulder has a memorably terrible morning in 6x14 Monday. And speaking of his waterbed, Mulder has a bed and a bedroom! Love the way the show transforms his apartment - getting ready for the season 7 soss 👀

Nudity: We see Mulder dancing in his undershirt and boxers in Dreamland! And shirtless in his yellow pjs in Monday! And shirtless, changing, in 6x15 Arcadia! And... Both of them. Naked. In the Decontamination Showers in 6x12 One Son. (And we see Scully’s bra in Padgett’s fantasy in Milagro. I ranted about this in my Milagro episode post.) But most importantly, they check each other out in that decon shower - very clear eye flicks if you closely examine the footage, as of course we all have.

Crying: Not a big season for tears. Scully cries while hugging Mulder after her attack in Milagro. And in her hallucination in Field Trip she cries over Mulder’s death (it DEVASTATES me when she tries to brush away her tears while talking to Skinner). No crying from Mulder at all.

Inappropriate Touching: Memorable touching includes: Scully grabbing Mulder’s hand while quoting his words from the FTF hallway back at him in 6x01 The Beginning; the worst lit KISS in history with 1939!Scully in 6x03 Triangle and his hand on her HIP in the hospital 👀; the handhold in the hospital in 6x10 Tithonus; Scully stoking his face as she holds him after he’s been shot at the bank in Monday; all the undercover cuddling in Arcadia; Scully clawing at Mulder’s back as she sobs at the end of Milagro; baseball lesson cuddling in 6x19 The Unnatural and hips before hands (why does his hand on her hip affect me this way!); their hand hold in the ambulance at the end of Field Trip. Great stuff, great, great stuff. Except for a mid season lull around Two Fathers/One Son when they are on the outs they are pretty touchy all season and Mulder’s back to touching her as they walk.

[darkpoisonouslove]

@supersonichero1 asked:

if you were to write the trix' fight scenes for the show post season 3 how would you show their powers further developing and them having complete mastery of them. With them having been seniors in cloud tower in the first season and subsequently working with pretty much every high ranking villain since and receiving power ups and then losing them do you think they trained enough to make up the power difference in losing all their forms like gloomix, disenchantix, dark sirenix etc. Basically is their regular witch form through training making up the difference? Because they have unfortunately lost all their power ups once the villain that granted them were defeated. In season five tritanus actually blasts the trix 3 times: once to grant them access to their powers again because while they still had them they were blocked as they were in underwater jail (which if you think about it is a really messed up way to punish someone because they were surviving underwater through their own magic because their signature colors and auras were active making me believe that the guards for this prison somehow figured out a way to block a magical person from using any offensive and defensive part of their powers while allowing prisoners to still use and feel their magic but only to breath underwater which would also probably constantly drain them of magic if they have to focus on channeling limited magic just to not drown). The second blast from tritanus was to strengthen the trix base magic so it was a power up without a costume change and the third and last blast was to give them dark sirenix. However they do still have access to their dark witch forms from season 6 because they gave themselves that. (Regarding season 6 transformation I absolutely live their glow up clothes wise and also that no one can take this power away from them)

I’m gonna start this backwards because it will be easier that way.

I think that they not only still have the season 6 “transformation” that they gave themselves but also their dark Sirenix because that was never taken away from them either. They still had it in 6x01 even though Tritannus was gone (twice if you count the third movie) and I think that can only be taken away from them if it gets sucked out like Tritannus did with Daphne. However, since their season 6 form is more powerful, they just keep using that.

I noticed the thing about the underwater prison as well. It was my first thought when I saw them underwater that it’s kinda fucked up that they are imprisoned where they need to use their magic non-stop in order to just be able to breathe. But then they said that they don’t have their powers anymore and I was just absolutely baffled. Like... how?????? So I have two possible explanations for that. Either everyone that gets imprisoned is put under a spell that allows them to breathe underwater (Layla has that one) but that doesn’t make much sense because what is the source of that spell? And besides, I highly doubt anyone would bother. Also, in order to be a threat big enough to be imprisoned there, it is highly likely that you have your own magic so it is much more probable for them to be using their own magic to breathe. Which, like you said, means that their ability to use attack spells was taken away in order for them to be unable to escape but they were still left something to allow them to breathe underwater. That and the color of their magical auras suggests that it is their own magic that keeps them breathing. And yes, I think that that would be draining aka they probably have their magic reduced to the bare minimum so that all they have left is exhausted in the spell for breathing and they can’t do anything else. That is very fucked up indeed since what happens if their magic fails for whatever reason? They’re gonna die. But it doesn’t look like anyone gives a damn about that because they’re evil.

Regarding the power-ups, I don’t believe that they put that much effort into developing them themselves post season 1. They simply didn’t have the time. At the end of season 1 they were imprisoned in Light Rock where they didn’t have magic. Darkar instantly gave them Gloomix when he freed them and they had that for all of season 2 until it disappeared between seasons two and three (it was still on the MegaTrix after Darkar was destroyed and Realix started falling apart so it was probably removed by an outside force once they were collected from there to be sent to Omega). Valtor was shown to boost them but only enough for it to be helpful to his plans. There must have been some development in season 3 because they were trying to impress him and Icy noted that Stormy has improved her abilities to open portals. So perhaps they did some developing for their powers back then. Then Disenchantix was an actual joke that lasted for 2 minutes tops. After that they were sent back to Light Rock in 3x25 which means their powers were taken away again. I believe the Ancestral Witches freed them from there because they needed them to conduct their plan. That was when they might have again had the time and chance to develop their powers, which I believe that they did because they knew Winx were stronger with Enchantix (even if they didn’t know about Believix) and I doubt that the Ancestral Witches could or would give them a boost. So they must have developed their powers back then because they were almost holding their own against Winx at the beginning of Magical Adventure and it was 5 against 2. They must have boosted their powers and, like I said, I doubt that that could have possibly come from the Ancestral Witches. After their defeat at the end of the second movie, however, they were sent to the underwater prison where they were stripped of their powers and that I believe really set them back a lot when it comes to power level because it happened immediately after they were possessed by the Ancestral Witches, which I think weakened them in another way as well. And then they got their power boosts from Tritannus which leads us to their own power-up in season 6. So I don’t believe that they really had that much time to develop their own magic except for those moments in season 3 and between the first and the second movie. However, that seemed to have been undone by the time season 5 started either way.

As to how I would write their fights, I would actually make them rely more on strategy. Post season 3 it has become clear that they are at a disadvantage towards Winx because they always lose. So instead of trying to power through so that they can overcome the Winx in the power of their magic, I would have them develop a different approach to their fights. I would have them studying their past battles against Winx so that they can figure out where they fail and where the Winx succeed and adapt a scheme on how to increase their own efficiency while decreasing the Winx’. They are basically made to charge at Winx like mindless bulls instead of actually trying to figure out a way in which to beat them after it has become that the power advantage lies with Winx and that is just ridiculous. They know better than that. Or at least the first three seasons of their selves would know better than that since seasons 5 and 6 Trix just keep doing the same thing and expecting different results (aka the definition of madness according to Einstein). Also, I would have tried to come up with a more diverse ways for them to use their powers. In that regard season 5 was actually pretty good to Darcy especially and Icy (not so much to Stormy). They got new powers that looked cool and weren’t the generic beams and blasts. I loved that and wish the writers would have tried to be more creative with their powers. Those are the two major principles on which the battles between Winx and the Trix are built and that is where they fail. So touching that up a little and mixing things up could have made for more interesting and original fights with higher stakes when they are based on personal approach against any and all Winx girls.

[dawnquafam]

FINE after months of seeing you reblogging stuff about dc shows i have decides to cave in and watch them so how many shows are there, what are they called, and in what order should I watch them? how dare you make me curious via gifs and enthusiasm

JOIN ME IN MY JOY AND SUFFERING (also this is gonna be a Lot more than what you were probably expecting, bear with me lol)

Ok, so there are seven shows: Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, Batwoman, and Superman and Lois. That list is in order of premiere date (though Flash has a backdoor pilot in Arrow 2x08-2x09, plus the intro of two other leads in 2x19; Legends has its backdoor pilot in the 2015 crossover; Batwoman in the 2018 crossover; and Clark and Lois had a few appearances in Supergirl and a couple crossovers before Superman and Lois, but there was no official backdoor pilot), so if you wanna take it by oldest first and watch one show at a time, that’s your watch order.

(Little note: I think Black Lightning technically didn’t become part of the Flarrowverse until the titular character’s cameo in last season’s crossover, and since this season is its last, I don’t really know how much that counted for. It’s the one show on that list I never got into, so I can’t say much about it. Additionally, Supergirl s1 was on a different network, so her involvement started off a little funky, but she moved to the CW for s2, so in s3 she was fully integrated.)

However, as you've probably guessed by now, this universe is very interconnected. There’s plenty of minor crossover like references and cameos, a couple smaller crossovers and those backdoor pilots, and then every season (except this year for obvious reasons) there’s a big universe-wide crossover. So watching one by one like that might not be the best way to do this.

The big crossovers are as follows (with the eps listed in watch order):

2014 - Flash 1x08, Arrow 3x08 2015 - Flash 2x08, Arrow 4x08 2016 - Supergirl 2x08, Flash 3x08, Arrow 5x08, Legends 2x07 2017 - Supergirl 3x08, Arrow 6x08, Flash 4x08, Legends 3x08 2018 - Flash 5x09, Arrow 7x09, Supergirl 4x09 2019/20 - Supergirl 5x09, Batwoman 1x09, Flash 6x09, Arrow 8x08, Legends 5x01

(Additionally, The Flash and Supergirl have a couple crossovers of their own: Supergirl 1x18, with a tiny follow-up in Flash 2x17, and Flash 3x17, with a little lead-in from Supergirl 2x16. There might be others between the other shows, but if there are, I’ve forgotten them lol)

The 2014 one started things off pretty small and simple, but, as I mentioned, 2015 was Legends’s backdoor pilot, and they only got bigger and more involved from there, up through the 2019/20 crossover bringing about Arrow’s ending and leaving lasting repercussions throughout the Flarrowverse. I didn’t start watching Supergirl until s3 was over, so you can miss out on a show or two and still enjoy and understand what’s going on for the first few years at least, but once you hit that 2017 crossover (maybe even the 2016 one), if you’ve only seen one or two of the shows it would probably really start to detract from your viewing experience. So I think I would recommend this:

Start with Arrow s1-2. You could probably throw in Superman and Lois too, if you wanna get that going since it’s only got 2 eps rn (it airs Tuesdays) - the pilot opens with a recap of their story, and I don’t recall any references to the other shows yet, so you should be fine. But from then on, I’d take it in half seasons - watch each show up to the crossover, then watch the crossover, then finish out the seasons, adding in each show as it premieres. For example, once you finish Arrow s2, watch Flash 1x01-1x07 and Arrow 3x01-3x07, then the crossover, then keep going with the rest of their seasons. It makes binging more complicated, but more background knowledge on the shows and characters makes for fewer spoilers (though if you’re jumping in based on everything I’ve reblogged, you probably already know plenty of spoilers lol) and a more enjoyable viewing experience.

That leaves you with a watch order something like this:

-Arrow s1-2, 3x01-3x07; Flash 1x01-1x07; optional Superman and Lois s1 -2014 crossover (Flash 1x08, Arrow 3x08) -Rest of Flash s1, 2x01-2x07; rest of Arrow s3, 4x01-4x07; start Supergirl s1 here if you want -2015 crossover (Flash 2x08, Arrow 4x08) -Rest of Flash s2, 3x01-3x07; rest of Arrow s4, 5x01-5x07; finish Supergirl s1, 2x01-2x07; Legends s1, 2x01-2x06 -2016 crossover (Supergirl 2x08, Flash 3x08, Arrow 5x08, Legends 2x07) -Rest of Flash s3, 4x01-4x07; rest of Arrow s5, 6x01-6x07; rest of Legends s2, 3x01-3x07; rest of Supergirl s2, 3x01-3x07 -2017 crossover (Supergirl 3x08, Arrow 6x08, Flash 4x08, Legends 3x08) -Rest of Flash s4, 5x01-5x08; rest of Arrow s6, 7x01-7x08; rest of Legends s3-4; rest of Supergirl s3, 4x01-4x08; start Black Lightning s1-2, 3x01-3x09 here if you want -2018 crossover (Flash 5x09, Arrow 7x09, Supergirl 4x09) -Rest of Flash s5, 6x01-6x08; rest of Arrow s7, 8x01-8x07; finish Legends s4; rest of Supergirl s4, 5x01-5x08; Batwoman 1x01-1x08; finish Black Lightning through 3x09 -2019/20 crossover (Supergirl 5x09, Batwoman 1x09, Flash 6x09, Arrow 8x08, Legends 5x01) -Rest of Flash s6-7; rest of Arrow s8; rest of Legends s5-6 (7 hasn’t premiered yet); rest of Supergirl s5 (6 hasn’t premiered yet); rest of Batwoman s1-2; rest of Black Lightning s3-4; and finally Superman and Lois s1 if you waited for them

Which I know looks like a mess, but it’s probably the closest thing to watching all of them together as they air. Granted, I don’t know how well this works, because I’ve been into this universe since Arrow was the only show and have watched most of the others from day one, so I’ve never really had to catch up like this. So if there’s another, simpler way you wanna watch, go for it! Whatever works best for you. This universe is worth the effort of getting caught up.

The one thing I would not recommend in any watch order: Don’t start with Legends. Not only is the 2015 crossover its backdoor pilot, the majority of its original cast started as side characters in Flash and Arrow. You’ll be missing a lot of backstory if you jump in there. Every other show has largely original characters, but in its first couple seasons, Legends really built on what Arrow and Flash started.

(Additionally, if this affects anything for you: Batwoman and Superman and Lois will never be on Netflix. (American Netflix, at least, not sure about internationally.) Every season of the older shows is/will be there, but due to the debut of HBO Max, the two newbies got different deals.)

[meeraria]

Hii, I'm so shy asking this but I read somewhere you have a list of upstead moments, would you share it with me? If it's not too much 🙈

I am very sorry I just saw this!! I hope you haven’t sent this a long time ago. I’ve finished the last season recently but I haven’t done this one yet. and pls don’t be shy!! I am so happy you asked. not many people like them.

I don’t have time stamps just some shorthand notes to remind me of the scene. and every instance they call each other by their names (I had this idea to gif them or make a video etc.) but all the moments are in chronological order so if you see the third moment before the first one when you’re watching an episode that means you skipped the first two. the list is under the cut.

ps. there might be some other moments that I liked that are not necessarily upstead.

4x21 first time at the back of a van

4x22 jay on haileys desk

        erin is the one who calls her hailey for the first time

4x23 hailey meets will

        hailey looks after jay when he leaves

5x01 jay touches hailey on the shoulder for bust

        hailey calls him jay for the first time, to Kev and Ruz

        look at each other at the hospital

        if you need anything

deleted scene: jay I got your back. he is quick to escape her. pats her back. she respects. he’s with his brother

5x02 looks at jay when he starts lying to suspect

        sits on her desk

        jay checks out hailey in the interrogation room

        jay calls him upton. for the first time

5x03 they open doors to cupboard at the same time

        butchers blade-look to each other

5x04 sb assumes hailey is ruzek’s gf

        stops a witness from prosecuting ruzek

        ruzek calls her hailey cause he thinks she’s gonna snitch, jay tries to stop him

5x05 hailey puts her hand on jay’s shoulder jay looks and she recants

        they save the kids look at each other

5x06 Le Snob (he’s not in love yet-doesnt look at her)

        jay brings her jacket

        mcgrady you run the log hailey they look at each other

        their hands touch when jay gives her the camera

        j: is this really about the case? h:see u 2morrow

        jay(grabs her shoulder): u sure u ok? let me know if you need anything

        how’supton? jay: idunno  

5x07 look at each other to open door

        voight: you got a take hailey? neutral

        microphone up (first time saying jay 2hisface)

        looks at hailey so she’d start the fight

        iknowwhathesaw, was what u said true. jay is pissed

        first fight: voight says hailey. she denies jay’s request

        jayx4 points the gun at her

        hailey calls him, he rolls eyes

5x08 first time calls her hailey (don’t need no babysitter)

5x09 hailey texts him, rolls eyes

        I’ll stay with the suspect hailey

        big potato talk (she’s driving)

        flirty let’s check out his alibi

        he looked at her and then they look at each other but it’s fast (questioning junkie)

        they take a selfie, he puts arm around her she wants to but stops herself

5x10* camila episode

        introduces her as hailey - but she’s gay

        we’re gonna talk about her, now (calls her jay) I’m fine lie.

        you can’t talk to her - jay you’re not thinking straight

        thinks she betrayed her

        “back off jay”

         looks at him over camila’s shoulder

         they look at each other - after camilla’s dismissal

         hailey is worried about him

         she threatens camilla, saying I - his real name is jay x2

5x11 if you’re not serious I need a new partner (shoulder tap)

        he wants back to therapy cause of ultimatum

5x12 “jay come back.” platt’s birthday (shoulder punch)- lookateachother

         he uses her desk like he doesn’t have one

         she pushes jays back to get to voight

         they’re hiding together

5x13  look at each other at restaurant

         how’s therapy going?

         “jay!” - spots the suspects

5x14  flag dispute

        look each other when they get shots fired

        sits on hailey’s desk

        I used to be a soldier-looks at hailey x2

        she admires that he respects the kneeler

5x15 she puts arm on his shoulder

        sits on hailey’s desk about q

        italian guy flirting, women are more loyal then men

        jay, you got her?

5x16 bomb-she falls down he grabs her

       he sitting on her desk

       cF(6x13) calls her to ask about voight

5x17 he’s sitting on her desk

        uh-oh i just saw a rat arm tap

5x18* titus episode: jay also calls adam ruz?

        how do u know this guy?

        looks after she explains

        i pitch jay as a potential buyer

        you look like a real couple

        hailey, thought he bit but

        you were hailey’s case officer, she’s my partner

        hailey, we gotta talk about this, did he rape you

        i can handle this jay- I said the same thing u called me out (shoulder tap)

        touches her arm, booth notices

        he asked me if i slept with her,

        hailey you’re way too emotional

        jay: me too. hailey’s solid,hailey’s gonna callme

        he reaches for his gun when booth gets handsy with her

        5 time hailey, please (grabs her shoulder)

        looks after her when arresting

        comes to her house, hailey u got him

        two deletes scenes: therapy is over

        you’re incredibly aloof about your private life

5x19 sitting on hailey’s desk, gives her jacket

        looks at homeless jay

        saves her life, you good? good.

5x20 look at each other during shootout

        talk about erin

5x21 he and kevin fight and she calms them

        h:I just talked to halstead

        sarge if you need sth - she’s same to everyone

        he’s sitting on her desk

5x22 hank x trudy hug (personal ship)

        jay comes back from crying grabs her shoulder, she grabs his hand

        jay sits on her desk

deleted scene: pushes her out of line of fire

6x01 trudy comes to see hank (personal ship)

        “jay” go be undercover junkie

         gets his jacket to him

6x02 look at each other in morgue

        she uses his computer

        she looks at him worried before they go busting

        damn it jay. jay, I almost shot you

        need me to talk to u. I don’t need anything jay.

        innocent man, jay. second fight? keeps looking at him

        jay, back off. she pushes him hard, grabs his chest

        she grabs his arm to pull him back

        “you’re too close jay” I’m done being your punching bag -his eyes never leave her

         he’s shot, she’s distressed jay x 4 (she checks his body)

         Hailey, I’m sorry. touches his knee as she gets up then cries

deleted scene jay I thought you were with will, pats arm working this case?

6x03 halstead calls her. she slept with adam

        I gotta meet jay

        you’re like never late. he looks at her after she dismisses him

        checks to see if she follows

        gonna grab halstead and dig in

        look at each other

6x04 greets her when nobody notices

        she gets  the suspect by jumping on him (gay moment for me)

        ready? eye contact

6x05 she knows how to handle idiots

        makes way for her like the first time they met

        I don’t care if we’re sleeping 2gether talk to voight (to adam) LOVE HER

6x06* voight learns about upzek

        i dont do violence

        adam undermines her, she gets angry

        look at each other when talking to voight

       keeps looking at jay when he talks

       hailey we gotta talk. I confirmed his alibi

       hailey you did what you have to, she cries to him about her guilt adam interrupts.

       nothing good comes from workplace romance (he has some feelings?)

       even when he’s debriefing; he looks at hailey. adam doesn’t

       I know u don’t wanna talk about it flirting. she’s sad

       tries to explain to adam: this halstead thing

6x07* looks at him when they’re listening to wire

        he wants to help kev, she grabs his arm to stop

        legally blind witness flirting

        bomb goes off - are u ok? grabs her

        va is dead, she checks on him, he look at her. all with eyes

        pushes her in the room, through her shoulder

        u got me? yeah.

        burqa woman incident. jay x2 , hold on. hailey x7, stop

        we’re not mind readers hailey. *whispering softly you’re not in war anymore*

        look at each other, in the interview

        she doesn’t believe the guy he does.

        sits on her desk

        introduces her as upton to racist woman

        save the commentary and scroll look

        this thing between us. I screwed up hailey. I have bias (her hand on his shoulder)

        looks at her when they walk (feelings maybe?)

6x08 u know she’s with me right?

        adam compliments, jay looks at her

        steals a pen from him in the background when antonio is on the phone

        kev’s suspect calls her out look each other.

        kev asks to talk to snitch, she taps jay to leave

6x09 when adam talks about commitment she gets scared

        jay calls everyone by surnames except “hailey”

        flying blind is fun flirting

        “jay” spotted a camera

        sweeps the house, touches her arm

        suspect pushes her, he catches her and adam punches

        she dresses kim’s vest (gay shriek)

6x10* hailey, come on x2

        she’s angry. looks at him. he look to voight

        voight: trudy. ride with me to the scene (personal)

        asks his opinion on ruzek and iad.

        he catches upzek. she’s upset he saw.

        “a guy I’m dating upzek talk with voight”

         we’re always gonna be good talk

6x11 kelton comes. look at each other.

6x12* he gets agitated, she supports him with her looks, he checks for support

        “jay you allright” kelton denied funds. hailey, we got him rn.

         looks at the bus stop. supporting love. looks.

        she catches him over the body “jay, you ok?” hailey arrived after me.

        she’s angry and he looks at her.she leaves he stays. head salute.

        hailey, what’s up. jay you went dark. is that what you think? jay…

        voight warns him. she’s worried behind.

        she looks you ok? he looks yes go. first nonverbal.

        voight compliments him.

        long week. u can’t right every wrong “jay”. flirting then adam calls. go..

6x13 surveillance flirting about kev

       what the hell look at her

6x14 kim catches upzek

        she gets kidnapped he’s worried

        he’s ok with voight’s tactics cause she’s missing

        he fights with ruzek.

        she’s proud of kim. (personal)

        ruzek goes to kim first.

        he stands up when he sees her. he’s so sad and angry

        she checks jay. he’s upset

6x15* he’s talking to her on the phone

        check if he’s coming behind her

        pushes back her chair to sit on her desk

        “Hailey he’s headed to you” “squad advise my partner ” x 2

         upton are you copying? copy jay are you ok? hailey he’s armed.

         jay! we’re coming in!

         you good? yeah you? yeah

         she’s driving

         jay we’re good. “do what your ladyfriend tell you to do”

         looks at her before he gets out

         they look at each other, he says no she listens

         she keeps checking on him, he assures her after

         he has a hunch, she supports him. he thanks with eyes, she says np with eyes

         he defends his hunch, she silently supports him. then look at each other for thx

         eyes talk: come with me? right now? ok?

         suspect says he’ll snitch, they look at each other we got it

         I’ll follow you blind talk. (she half-confessed her feelings to him)

6x16  “sarge what you don’t let me and hailey go?” “hailey?” and gets her jacket

         I’m halstead and she’s upton.

         I’ll catch up with you, forearm grip

         he waited at the entrance

         serial killer talks to her, he gets nervous

         runs to the car/him, “I got Hailey”

6x17 sitting on her desk

        looks at her, checking out buildings

        “oh yeah good one” arm pat

        looks at her when she’s not looking and looks away when she turns

        throws usb to him, he catches

        they judge the juvie guy together

        voight offers himself to suspect he checks her face to see what she thinks

        they look at each other this time when they been judgey

6x18  sitting on her desk

         hands on her desk when she’s not there like it’s his :)

6x19 towering over her while she looks at the footage

        jay! blue buick

        she tries to help the victim and looks at jay to see if she can he looks no

        she supports kim no qs ask when kim barges in, normally follows the rules

        ruzek keeps checking on kim-believes her immediately  like jay and hailey

        he was sitting on her desk since before hank came in

6x20 she doesn’t wanna meet ruzek’s family?? i dunno

        pats her arm after she’s shot at

        they shadow ruzek but she calls it off. jay doesn’t interfere & looks the whole time

        ruzek wants answers he tries to cover and supports her and tell ruz to let it go

        ruz thinks it’s cause of burzek but it’s not.

        “jay talked to”

         she holds off the op he’s worried a little in the car.

         upstead communicate silently and without questioning

         she checks on jay while he fights the suspect

         she questions her relationship with adam, platt says if he’s not the one end it

         she breaks up with ruzek, and admits they’re not the one for each other

6x21 she’s a bit cocky to the suspect and he smiles a little whilst he turns???

        TRUDY AND HANK what could have been

         they sit at their desk together

         “hailey tell the port supervisor…”

6x22* voight explains the plan, they look at each other worried

        he breaks into the car so fast she flirting

        “jay you close”

         she crashes to save him

         “I’m going where you go” they’re both surprised he said it

         he protects her first when they’re shot at in the van, ‘we’re good“

         she looks at her happily when there’s a lead

         they arrest their shooter together, “me and my partner”

         he’s pressured, she notices. “you’ll forget about me” “hailey” never.

         he want to confess sth but she stops him?

         adam kisses platt :)

         he’s sitting on her desk

[unfolded73]

Fiancés (1/1) -schitt’s creek ff

The fourth in the Labels series. David and Patrick visit the Brewers during their engagement. Also ended up being a sort of reaction fic to 6x08, at least partially. (ao3)

WARNING: This fic references a homophobic relative of Patrick's, and explores Patrick's fears about members of his extended family not accepting him. Also it explores some of the mistakes that Marcy may have made in the past, even though she's fully accepting now. In my headcanon, Patrick's reluctance to come out to his family had a reason.

Rated Teen, 3823 words. Previous fics in this Labels series: Boyfriends; “I Love You”, Partners

Other Season 6 reaction fics: 6x01, 6x02, 6x04, 6x06, 6x07, 6x13, 6x14

__________________________________

Fiancé, n. a man engaged to be married

~

He’d tried to prepare himself, but really nothing could have prepared Patrick for the incongruity of David Rose standing in the middle of the living room he’d grown up in, examining the pictures on the mantel with a crooked smile.

David was in an outfit that, for him, was toned down — a white sweatshirt and a simple pair of black jeans. Patrick wondered if his fiancé was consciously trying to round off his edges in front of Patrick’s family. After all, the last item of clothing he’d seen David buy off the internet was a skirt that looked like someone had partially disassembled a pair of jeans and called it a day, so in comparison, this ensemble was positively dull. It made Patrick sad, if that’s what was in David’s head. He didn’t want David to feel like he had to hide who he was. He wanted David to be as comfortable with the Brewers as he was at home.

Not that Patrick was feeling especially comfortable either. At least his skin was back to its normal pallid colour after the engagement picture debacle the previous week, but the whole thing had left him feeling a little off. On top of that, he and David had agreed to this weekend trip under duress. Patrick had a lot of family, some of whom wouldn’t be able to make it to the wedding, so Patrick’s parents had convinced them to squeeze in a weekend trip in spite of all the other things they were juggling: visits to caterers and florists and taking care of the store, plus they had the joint bachelor party that Stevie was planning for them coming up soon. It was a lot.

Not to mention, Patrick’s one request for the weekend — that a few members of the family do an escape room together, a recent family tradition that Patrick really adored — had been nixed by his parents because they couldn’t include everyone. He’d complained to Stevie about it until she got fed up and left the store while he was mid-rant.

So here they were, and in a few hours the entire extended Brewer clan would be congregated in the backyard, scarfing down hot dogs and judging his choice of a life partner.

“You were very cute,” David said, pointing to a picture of Patrick at around seven years old. “Look at those curls.”

“Yeah, my hair still does that if I let it grow too long,” Patrick said, joining him next to the fireplace.

David looked at the top of his head. “I’d like to see that. I bet it would be devastatingly sexy if you let it grow out a little bit.”

“It’s not, trust me.”

David pressed his lips together, visibly holding in his argument. “Okay.”

Patrick raised his eyebrows. “Okay? You’re not going to insist I grow it out before the wedding?”

“No,” David said, reaching out and petting Patrick’s hair a few times. “I was going to wait until after we’re married and then insist on it.”

“Hmm.” Patrick closed his eyes, David’s touch soothing as always. They’d driven all day yesterday, arriving at Patrick’s parents’ house too late to do more than say their hellos before collapsing into exhausted sleep in the guest bedroom, the room that used to be his. It was only upon waking that Patrick had given some thought to the teenage boy he’d been, and what he’d think to see Patrick now, in bed with a man in his childhood bedroom. He’d curled around David under the thick blankets and for several minutes just savored the fact that he was allowed to have this: a family who loved him and a man who wanted to share his life.

“Boys? Breakfast is ready!” his mother called, and David’s eyes lit up.

While they were eating, David and Marcy talked wedding details, and Patrick couldn’t help but remember similar conversations between his mother and Rachel. At least this time, listening to these discussions wasn’t giving him an anxiety stomach ache.

Patrick’s phone chimed, and he pulled it out to see a text from Stevie with a link to the spreadsheet where they were tracking RSVPs for the wedding. while you’re there can u get a final y/n from the rest of ur relatives? her accompanying message read. Patrick clicked to open the Google sheets app on his phone, scrolling through to see which names still didn’t have a reply marked.

“Hey, Mom? It looks like we haven’t gotten a reply for the wedding from Aunt Chrissy,” Patrick said.

His mother’s eyes widened a little, and then she looked down at his kitchen table. “Oh, I… I don’t think she’s feeling well enough to travel.”

Patrick frowned. “What do you mean, well enough? Is she sick?” It wouldn’t be the first time one of his relatives got seriously ill and his mother didn’t tell him right away. When he’d been at college, he’d gone days without being told that his grandfather was in hospice. To this day, he wondered how long his parents would have gone without telling him if one of his cousins hadn’t mentioned it in an email. Would they have kept it a secret through his death, and beyond, so that Patrick would have come home for Christmas and asked about granddad, with no idea that he was dead?

“Oh! No, she’s… um…” Marcy was looking anywhere but at Patrick. “She just can’t make it.”

“Will she be at the party today?” he asked, frowning at his mother’s demeanor.

“No. She won’t be here today,” Clint said, and there was something dark in his voice. Patrick sensed David tense up at his side.

“I mean, we didn’t even get an RSVP card from her, and she used to send me a birthday card every year without fail. It’s not like…” And then it dawned on him, and his stomach plummeted to the floor. He felt like an idiot. “This is about about me being gay, isn’t it?”

Marcy gave him a pained expression, and that was all he needed to know the truth.

Patrick picked up his breakfast plate and stood, his chair scraping the floor and making Marcy jump.

“The thing is,” Marcy said, “she’s gotten even more religious as she’s gotten older, and—”

“Uh huh.” He didn’t want to talk about this. “It’s fine.”

“Honey—” David started.

“It’s not fine. Believe me, we had a very heated discussion with her,” Marcy said.

The last thing Patrick wanted to think about was his mom defending him to her sister in a ‘heated discussion,’ but he couldn’t help picking at it a little more, like a scab before it had healed. “What did she say when she got the wedding invitation?” he asked, facing the sink. David came over and put a hand on his back, a hovering presence at his side.

“I don’t know. We haven’t spoken since before your invitations went out,” Marcy said.

Patrick spun around and gaped at his mother. “You haven’t spoken.” He could remember them talking on the phone constantly when he was a little boy, his mother with the house cordless phone pressed between her ear and her shoulder as she cooked, and then later, the little flip phone with the pull-out antenna that was his mom’s first cell phone. She talked to Chrissy all the time, and his father used to gently rib her about it. Marcy and Chrissy, two sisters only a year apart in age who had grown up thick as thieves in a house with two brothers.

“If she isn’t going to accept my son and his partner, then I can’t have a relationship with her,” Marcy said, suddenly fierce, a mother bear protecting her cub. “It’s as simple as that.”

“What did she say about us?” he asked, and he didn’t want to know, except he desperately did want to know what could have made his mother so angry.

She shook her head. “Just some ugly things. I don’t want to say any more about it.”

Ugly things, Patrick thought. He could imagine the gist of it. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Clint said.

“Nothing,” his mother confirmed.

Clint slapped his own knees and stood up from the table, an obvious ploy to pull the ripcord on this conversation. “I’m going to start getting things set up out back. David, can you give me a hand?”

David grimaced, looking to Patrick to see what he needed. “Go ahead,” Patrick said. “I’m fine.” David squeezed his arm, his eyes filled with worry and sympathy. “I’m fine,” Patrick assured him.

“Are you sure?” David asked, visibly torn between being a model son-in-law and doing as Clint asked, and staying by Patrick’s side.

“I’m sure.” Patrick forced a smile. “I know you want some input into the whole backyard barbecue aesthetic.”

“Okay.” David hesitated another second, then kissed his cheek and followed Clint outside.

At a loss for what else to do, Patrick started washing the breakfast dishes, but his mind was like a dog with a bone. This was exactly what he’d feared, what had kept him from coming out to his family for so long. He wasn’t that close with his aunt, but she and his mother had been two peas in a pod. Was it really possible that they’d diverged so completely in their thinking? Or was his mother just doing a really good job of pretending she accepted him and David together?

When he turned around and grabbed his mother’s plate, she took hold of his arm. “Patrick, you know we support you a hundred percent, right?”

“Yeah.” But something made him add, “I mean, I’m sure a part of you wishes that I’d stayed in town and married a nice girl and had a couple of kids.”

The hurt look in his mother’s eyes stabbed him in the heart. “Of course we don’t wish that. It’s your happiness that matters.”

Patrick knew he should drop it. He knew it. His engagement party was today; now was not the time to air out the effect of his upbringing on his sexuality. But it was like now that he’d cracked the door open, or maybe now that his Aunt Chrissy had cracked the door open, everything was going to spill out and he had no power to stop it.

“Do you remember my friend Karen from high school?” Patrick asked, looking at the plate in his hand without really seeing it.

“I… your lab partner in biology?” Marcy asked.

“Yeah. She came out as bisexual that year, and when I told you that her parents were giving her a hard time about it, do you remember what you said?”

Marcy’s eyes were wide. “What did I say?”

“You said, ‘surely it would be easier for her just to date boys.’”

His mother opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. “I don’t remember saying that.”

“I never forgot it,” Patrick said. He remembered questioning his sexuality at one point in college and then deciding it would be easier not to go down that road. That road led somewhere difficult.

“Sweetheart—”

“And look, you said plenty of tolerant things too. You watched Will & Grace, and you shook your head disapprovingly at hatred from others. But there was always a layer of what-a-shame, isn’t-that-sad… I don’t know, tragedy to it. Like being gay was an unfortunate disease that needed our support. Like it was cancer.”

Marcy looked positively stricken. “Patrick, I didn’t feel that way. Why would you think I felt that way?”

“Because you never said anything to make me think otherwise.”

Tears slid down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I never meant… Patrick, I’m so sorry. If I indicated any sadness about someone being gay, it was just because the world was such a hard place for gay people. But things have changed. I’ve changed.”

“I know.” He set the plate back on the table and rubbed his hands over his face. “God, I didn’t mean to stir all of this up now.” He swallowed around a lump in his throat, hoping David and his father wouldn’t come back inside to find them here like this.

“No, I’m glad you told me,” Marcy said, reaching out and squeezing his hand. “I know we made mistakes, that we didn’t give you the space to be who you are, and I’ve spent so many nights lying awake thinking about that—”

“I don’t want that. And I don’t want you to sever your relationship with your sister on my behalf. You don’t have to do that.”

“I do, sweetheart. Chrissy knows she’s welcome to reopen communication with me if she accepts my son for who he is.” She plucked up a napkin from the napkin holder in the center of the table, dabbing at her eyes. “Until then, I can’t have her in my life.” She took a deep breath. “Now,” she said, clapping her hands as if to dismiss their heavy conversation, “let’s get this kitchen cleaned up. I’ve got a million things to do to get ready for the party.”

Patrick nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

~~~

When he was sufficiently motivated, David Rose was quite capable of turning on the charm, Patrick thought, watching him presiding over a table of Patrick’s cousins.

He was already aware of that, of course. David was impolite when he didn’t care what people thought of him, but Patrick had seen this version of David emerge before, particularly with vendors. He imagined this must’ve been what David was like when he ran an art gallery in New York, full of sparkling conversation. Everyone seemed to adore David, but it bothered him that it was this fake version of David they adored, not the one Patrick knew.

Picking up his tongs, Patrick opened the grill and nudged all the sausages to flip over.

“Hey, Pat,” his cousin Dennis said, bumping his shoulder. “Want another beer?”

Draining the bottle he’d been holding, Patrick tossed it into a recycling bin. “Sure.”

He watched Dennis pull two bottles from a cooler and open them. Patrick and Dennis were the same age, same grade in school, played on the same hockey team growing up. There was a time when Dennis was the closest friend Patrick had. He felt a sudden pang of regret that he’d let the family gossip tree and a couple of Instagram posts do the job of coming out to the rest of his family, even to Dennis. It had just been too exhausting, after finally telling his parents, to think about having to do it all over again with everyone else. Now he wondered if that had been a mistake, at least in the case of his former best friend.

Dennis handed him one of the bottles and then clinked their bottles together. “Working the grill at your own party, huh?”

“Dad needed a break,” Patrick explained.

“How are you doing? You look good, man.”

Patrick glanced down at himself, at his ordinary jeans and t-shirt, wondering what Dennis was seeing. Well, perhaps he was in a tighter t-shirt than he used to wear, now that he thought about it. And he knew he was in the best shape of his life — David’s appreciation of his arms was a powerful motivator. Patrick adjusted the ballcap on his head. “Thanks. You too.”

“You still playing hockey?” Dennis asked.

“Yeah, there’s a league I play in,” Patrick said. “And baseball too.”

“Oh, cool. That’s cool.”

An awkward silence settled, and Patrick couldn’t help but notice that Dennis hadn’t congratulated him, or mentioned David at all. Maybe Dennis also wasn’t okay with who he was, and was just being polite and trying his best to ignore it. Maybe Dennis was looking at Patrick’s cosmopolitan, effeminate fiancé with his demonstrative hand movements, and thinking how tragic it all was. Their poor little Pat, being regularly sodomized. Patrick wasn’t going to delude himself into thinking that there weren’t other bigots among his aunts and uncles and cousins. That there wasn’t judgement hiding behind their polite smiles.

“You know, if you’d told me when we were kids that you were gay,” Dennis said, “I would’ve been in your corner.” Patrick’s eyes snapped to his cousin, and he was awkwardly scratching the back of his head. “I hope you know that.”

The hulking homophobic creature Patrick had been conjuring in his mind dissipated into smoke. “Dennis, I didn’t know I was gay when we were kids. It was a… much more recent discovery.”

Dennis looked relieved. “Oh. Okay, I was kind of imagining you suffering in silence all that time. I felt really bad about it, man.”

“I mean, I guess I was suffering, but I couldn’t have articulated why.” He opened the grill and stuck a probe thermometer in one of the sausages, then started putting them on a clean platter.

“Yeah.” He put a hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “I’m really glad you’re happy now.”

Patrick smiled his first genuine smile all day. “Thanks. I really am.”

“I mean, you should be. Your fiancé is… how’d you pull a guy that hot, Pat? He’s way out of your league.”

“Okay,” Patrick grumbled, taking the platter over to the food table. “He’s not that far out of my league.”

~~~

“Your family is very nice,” David said as he returned from the bathroom, his face freshly scrubbed and moisturized, his coziest pajamas on.

Patrick looked up from where he was sitting at the foot of the bed, staring down at his hands, and he offered David a small smile. “Yeah.”

“Hey, are you okay?” David sat down at his side, and then wrinkled his nose. “You probably should go shower the charcoal smell off.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna…” Patrick took a shaky breath. His heart was racing for some reason. He couldn’t understand why. And why he couldn’t seem to haul enough air into his lungs. “I’m…” He heaved another breath, and a weird noise came out of his mouth along with it. Almost like a sob. “I…”

“Oh, honey,” David said, and Patrick felt his large, comforting hands on his shoulders, smoothing down his arms, his back. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Patrick managed, a tear splashing onto his jeans. Then another. “I don’t… I don’t cry.”

“No, I think we’ve established that I’m the crier in this relationship,” David said, his hands pulling Patrick into his chest. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“It’s just…” Patrick heaved another breath, shaky. “It’s all of it, the stress of the wedding planning and this trip… I’m just tired. I’m really tired. And the thing with my aunt, and it made me wonder… who else in the family thinks… thinks I’m…” More tears were falling, running down his cheeks and soaking into David’s sleep shirt.

“I don’t know the answer to that, but I know that I met a lot of people today who adore you and are genuinely happy for you.” David was rubbing comforting circles on his back. “And also, fuck your aunt.”

Patrick hiccuped out a small laugh. “Yeah.”

They sat there for a while, David rocking him and rubbing his back and it was so good, it was exactly what he needed, to have someone to lean on, to shoulder all of this because he just couldn’t fucking carry it all anymore.

“My mom and her sister aren’t speaking, and it’s because of me. Because of what I am,” Patrick whispered. His darkest thought. If he couldn’t say it to David, then he couldn’t say it to anyone.

“But you know that’s not your fault. It’s hers.”

“I know that intellectually, but deep down it still feels like… it feels like my fault.”

“Yeah, you should have just worked harder to not be gay,” David said.

“I know. It’s stupid.”

“No, it’s not stupid. It’s human to feel that way. You just have to keep telling yourself that you are who you are and that anyone who doesn’t like it can fuck off.”

“I’m not used to feeling this way. At home, it feels good, being gay. Like I know who I am, and that I can… I can be proud.” Patrick’s stomach twisted, uncertain if he should say the next part. “I think it’s why the spray tan thing bothered me so much. It made me feel like you weren’t…” Patrick sighed and pulled out of David’s arms.

“Honey—”

“Like you weren’t proud to be marrying me. That you wanted me to be someone I’m not.”

“Patrick.” David’s face was stricken. “You think I’m not proud to be marrying you?”

“I mean, my cousin Dennis did say you’re way out of my league,” Patrick said with a smile, trying to lighten things up with a joke.

“Patrick. I couldn’t be more proud to be marrying you. Look at you! You’re so fucking smart and talented at literally everything and you’re just stupid hot—”

“Okay, David.”

“I literally tripped over my own feet the other day because I was distracted by your arms, and… and you sing and play multiple instruments, and sports—”

“You don’t care about sports.”

“I don’t, but I love that you’re good at them. You’re the one that’s out of my league. Patrick. I want to shove you in the faces of everyone who ever thought I wasn’t good enough.” David’s eyes turned glassy, and he blinked rapidly. “I want to say, look, if this amazing man thinks I’m worthy of spending his life with, then I’m… then I’m not nothing.”

“David. You’re not—”

“I couldn’t be more proud that you want to marry me.” A tear slid down David’s cheek.

Patrick leaned in and kissed him softly on the lips. “Me too.” David put his arms around Patrick’s neck, and Patrick dragged his lips over to kiss his favorite spot on David’s neck before sinking more deeply into the hug.

After an amount of time that Patrick couldn’t quantify, they finally pulled apart. Patrick picked up David’s left hand, his fingers running over the gold rings.

“I figured planning a wedding with you would be better than planning one with Rachel and it is, but there are parts of it that are still stressful.”

David laughed. “Yes.”

“It’ll be a relief to just get to the part where we’re married already.”

David pulled his hand back. “You aren’t… looking forward to the wedding?”

“No, I am. I mean, not the stressful mad dash of it, not the logistics. Not whatever disaster we can’t predict that’s going to throw everything into chaos.” He took David’s hand again and looked up and smiled at the grimace on David’s face. “But standing up there and putting a ring on your finger? Saying our vows to each other? That part I’m looking forward to. And do you know why?”

“Why?”

Patrick squeezed David’s hand in his own. “Because I’m proud.”

[atavisticenthusiast]

S6 thoughts and SPOILERS

... under the cut. This includes information from 6x01 and 6x02 (I’ve seen both), so don’t read on if you’re avoiding spoilers. Lots about (Bellamy’s) psychosis.

Can I just say first that I am shocked, SHOCKED, by how much Bellamy and Clarke’s relationship has been foregrounded this season? Not that it hasn’t always been central to the show, but as I die-hard science fiction fan, I tend to be equally invested in characters AND their surroundings. The new world is gorgeous, mysterious sci-fi GOLD, and (to me at least) it paled before the character dynamics. These episodes - 6x02 especially - delivered on the emotional front, unlike S5, which foregrounded the action. Now relationships have BECOME the action.

Clarke and Murphy’s relationship stands out. He’s the only member of Spacekru to whom Clarke gives as well as she gets. She accepts most everyone else’s criticism. He’s also one of the few other people who have, at one point or another, been suicidal and isolated from the group. Since he’s the only person who witnesses Clarke’s psychosis-induced suicide attempt, he’ll be crucial in helping her address her mental health. And I do think that scene marks a turning point in their relationship; something in his expression softens when he realizes what she’s trying to do, and he immediately starts to talk her down. Which isn’t to say all is forgiven, but he might be closer to forgiving her than anyone but Bellamy. (Though maybe Bellamy hasn’t forgiven her as much as he wants to believe. More on that later.) Murphy’s also a loose canon, and between alluding to Clarke’s drawings of Bellamy, pointing out that the eclipse causes people to hurt those they love, and suggesting that he can’t shoot her because “Bellamy would hear,” he’s unwittingly propelling them towards confronting their feelings for one another. Thank you, Murphy.

It’s clear that Bellamy and Clarke are squarely on the same side when the season begins, and he doesn’t hesitate to speak up when Spacekru criticizes her. (Neither does Echo. Cheers.) In 6x01 and pre-psychosis 6x02, he actually seems a few degrees warmer towards her than he did in last year’s finale (and that includes the one-armed hug). He’s the only person that waits for her to leave the main ship for the drop ship. He touches her arm when they land and Shaw snarks at her and smiles. Then of course there’s the radio conversation (so much smiling, both sides) and tosses his radio awkwardly (doesn’t know what to do with his hands) when she walks out, suggesting that he didn’t get what he needed from that conversation. 

And then the toxins begin to affect him. I’m not sure any of us will be able to explain this properly until the characters address it themselves (hopefully in 6x03, x04), because we only hear CLARKE’s experience of the psychosis (Abby talking to her). All she says aloud is “shut up,” and all we hear from Bellamy is the equivalent of “shut up” - we don’t hear what he hears. But we can speculate. When Bellamy begins to experience the effects, he is trying to enter the room that Emori and Echo have locked themselves into because he thinks Murphy will try to kill Emori. Though he shouts for Echo to open the door, the content of his shouting doesn’t have anything to do with Echo, interestingly enough. (Not to say he doesn’t care for her, we know he does, but maybe that he’s focused on protecting people who need protection.) Clarke, meanwhile, is trying to coax him back to the school house so she can secure him before he gets worse. He rounds on her and says, “Maybe you haven’t noticed, Clarke, but I don’t nEeD you aNyMorE.” Yes, his voice breaks on those words. 

I have several thoughts here: 

First, this is setting up a parallel line later in the season. We know they don’t technically need one another to survive any more, but that they do want each other. I can see this being addressed later in the season in a, “It’s true - I don’t need you. But I choose you,” kind of way, but then, we also thought they’d have a “what does your heart say” moment last season to parallel the “what does your head say,” so who knows. I like this concept though - you shouldn’t need someone to love them, it’s not healthy to be that dependent. But to want them? Even though you know you could survive without them? That speaks DIRECTLY to “Life should be about more than just surviving,” and Monty has told them to live. That is HEALTHY. That is ROMANTIC.

Second, he’s saying the opposite of what he feels (because he does still love her deeply, and right now he doesn’t have any other word for it than “need”), and this is an attempt to make her as insecure about their relationship as he is. We’ve already seen ample evidence that he is uncertain how Clarke feels about him. In these two episodes alone, he fidgets around her (tossing the radio when she bails on their talk to watch Murphy sing) and is still thoroughly shocked that she radioed him every day for six years. So saying that he doesn’t need her is his addled way of evening a playing field that he perceives as unbalanced (she sent him into MW alone, she chose the Grounders and he lost Gina, she aimed a gun at him, he poisoned Octavia and Clarke left him to die, etc.) It’s simply not true.

My third thought is a bit more of a stretch but takes their surroundings into consideration. He has JUST been talking to Echo through the door when he is distracted by Clarke, and “maybe you haven’t noticed” suggests that there is something evident about him that should prove to her that she’s no longer needed. To me, that says, “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I have a girlfriend now, so I don’t need you anymore.” Again, it’s more of a stretch than the other two, but YOU GUYS. He could be comparing her, again, to his canon girlfriend (and we know there’s a long history of him only having romantic relationships when Clarke is MIA) and suggesting that whatever he feels for Clarke he now feels for this other person. Non-platonic feelings. Still lying to himself, but he does want to believe it’s true. I also think the “maybe you haven’t noticed” is hilarious because (except for the night Echo defected), he has missed all of Clarke’s jealous expressions when she watches them together, and might think that his relationship doesn’t bother her when we know it does. So saying what he says could also be a way to elicit a reaction.

Where I am confused, admittedly, is when Bellamy tries to kill Clarke (and Murphy) and shouts that he is protecting an unspecified person or group of people. Does he mean that he is protecting Clarke and Murphy by killing them, or that he is killing them to protect other people? The two things that set Bellamy off are Clarke and his feelings for her, and his need to protect people (Emori + whoever else he’s protecting by killing Clarke). Saying things like “you’re going to die for real this time” seems like an odd manifestation of his fear of losing her again (maybe), whereas saying things like “how many times have you tried to kill me” left me confused ... she only left him to die once? When and why did this become a revenge killing? (Would LOVE to get some peoples’ thoughts on this ... though like I said at the beginning, I think there are some things we won’t understand for sure until the subsequent episodes are released.)

Then we see Abby, Raven, Jordan, and the Sanctum woman waking them up. Raven asks CLARKE what happened to Shaw (interesting - it wasn’t accusatory so does she think she’ll get a straight answer from Clarke and not the “he died a hero” story that Bellamy concocted?). Then Bellamy looks at Clarke with dawning horror, and although she’d been touching his arm, she releases it now. I think that, although he may have forgiven her, he is painfully uncertain about where HE stands with her and THAT is what we see during his psychosis. And Clarke now knows that all isn’t forgiven/forgotten, and hearing him say those things to her while she was hallucinating about all the people she loved and lost certainly took a toll. I wonder if she'll be worse off emotionally in 6x03, before experiencing some of the positivity we saw in the trailer. Also - I just watched the trailer again and there are a couple of scenes where it looks like she has some bruising around her neck ... namely, when she meets JR Bourne and when she’s in the blue dress at the rave. Would love a second opinion.

Anyway, there’s a lot more I’d like to discuss about the episodes but this got loooong so I’m cutting myself off. If there’s anything else you’d like to know, my Ask box is open.

[annakie]

Notes on a Blog Cleanup (& some other stuff) Part 4

Made it all the way back to  to page 1000. 

Started with 3021 pages.  Currently have 2954 pages, adding in posting 10 - 13 times a day for the last month... deleted somewhere around 87 pages of posts (or around 1300 total).  I’m in April 2015.  So it took two and a half years to do 50% of my posting here and nearly another year and a half to get that down to 2/3rds. It’ll just speed up from here.

Anyway, here’s a bunch of words about tumblr, fandom, and Doctor Who.

I’ve found myself deleting more news articles lately.  There’s almost no cringe-y stuff left. If I go back and do this again it’ll be even more deleting current events stuff unlessI connected to it somehow.

A LOT of the content creation I ever did happened in this time.  I did so much giffing for Who’s Line, a lot of video game stuff, especially Mass Effect, cause you know, it’s me, and a lot of edits and such.  Some way better quality than others.  I was also getting thousands of notifications a day from the few things I did that were really popular back then (still sometimes get notes on that Whose Line/Elmo/Game of Thrones gifset to this day).   

I know I’m not like, the best at gifs and edits, but hey, I think some of it is like, pretty good?  There’s a few things I’m a little sad about that just never took off, but I bet all people who try and post OC on Tumblr feel that way about some of their stuff.  A few things I made did surprisingly well, though.

I still will make the odd gif/photoset there that’s more than just “here’s some nice screenshots I took slightly edited” but honestly, I feel like these days it’s so hard to get many notes on tumblr at all?  Like there’s just so fewer people making stuff, and even less reblogging gifsets/photosets?  Idk, maybe it’s something more specific to my overall followers and who you all follow?  But I made a joking post a couple of days ago about my dash feeling weird because not everything is specifically tailored to me after scrolling through my blog, but on the OTHER hand, I also feel like, overall Tumblr has become just yet another place to post memes and text posts and has the big problem of the Reddit/Twitter/Tumblr/Instagram (+TickTock) circle where each place is like 50% screenshots/reposts of content the others?  This obviously isn’t a criticism of any actual people, but just... what tumblr has become the last year or two?  Is it just me?  Like you can find some gifsets and such with a couple thousand notes here and there but... just not as much is being produced now?  Does that make sense?

Like a month or two ago I spent a couple of hours specifically looking for good general fandom blogs specific to several fandoms I’m in and... it’s hard to even find those blogs anymore.  Like, “fuckyeah” type blogs that are someone’s sideblog about a specific topic.  And hey, believe me, I’ve created and abandoned several of these kinds of blogs on my time here (and at least one I’d keep up with but.. it just doesn’t have any content being generated for it so it’s just... sparse) so I get it.  Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places, I don’t know.  

I keep wondering how much longer I’m going to keep doing this little project, and then every 10 or pages I come across a post I didn’t tag properly that’s now been found, or something I just really wanna get off my blog and I’m like “Welp, when I stop finding these, I’ll stop looking.  So maybe in like, 2018. :p  LIterally finding posts I forgot I ever made in the first place and like has made it worth it.

Notes on TAH Fandom

This was also the phase of being heavily heavily like SO heavily into The Thrilling Adventure Hour.  And I have a lot of thoughts on that, too.

Literally, one of the best decisions of my life, tbh.  Not every moment of being like a SuperFan of this thing was sunshine and roses, but most of them really were.  Honestly, I made such good friends.  I had some extraordinary experiences, doing things that I wouldn’t have otherwise done, for sure.  I traveled to Seattle, Chicago, New York twice, and LA three times, hanging out with new friends, and getting to know the cast of a thing I loved so much, and also somehow getting to be known by them as well.  There were things that happened that I didn’t blog about here because I never wanted to come off as braggy, or just to keep a confidence.  There were a few not-as-great things that happened during that time, but basically, 2014 through mid-November 2015 will likely go down as one of the best time periods of my life, for a lot of reasons, but a good chunk of that was the experiences I had through TAH.

Hoo boy though, I blogged about it a LOT.  Like, it felt like almost as much as early blog was about Doctor Who.  I was, uh, real enthusiastic and am now kinda regretful about some of those early fandom tags.  Also turns out some of the TAH people looked at my blog more than I knew, I think, so a little yikes there thinking back on it now.  But also I was kind and helpful a lot, so all of that was good.

This is a good recap post of all of the awesome stuff.  And even that glosses over a lot of the really cool stuff, or skirts around some of it, just to try and stay brief about it.

One of the big things I learned from that experience was that being a very involved person in a fandom is such a double-edged sword.  For one thing, it honestly became somewhat of a second job for me, which I 100% put upon myself.  But running FYTAH (with Shannon!) and admining/writing a large percentage of the TAH Wiki (with Ange!), working in the booths at conventions (with Jena + Shannon/Kitty/Jamie/Dani) and being available to help in a variety of other ways was A Lot.  Which again, I took on willingly.  And Ange warned me about it several times but I was like “No I want to do this.”  So then it also kind of turned into like a customer service job even outside of working at the cons.  After awhile you gotta smile and be nice allllll the time. I ended up taking a lot of things offline to a small subset of friends.  And most of that came from other fans, not from the show itself (except like, feeling like I couldn’t show my true disappointment when the show was ending, or feeling like I couldn’t air any criticisms I had about the show except in very private conversations.)  

At one point I was having an email conversation with a couple of those friends and realized that, for the first time in my life, I was like a “popular kid”, which was weird.  And I tried my damnedest to be as welcoming and inclusive and not to let anyone feel left out.  But also there’s a point where like, you can only take on so much, and you can only be actual friends with so many people?   You can be kind and welcoming and enthusiastic and all, but you only have so much time and energy to give away.  There were so many messages I never answered still sitting in my / the FYTAH inbox or in email and some on twitter because I just didn’t have the bandwidth to give away sometimes.  It was a weird lesson to learn because I knew it so well in general in my personal life, but had never had to apply it... in this way before?  Does that sound weird?  Or braggy?  I feel like I’m walking on land mines with this one.

For a more specific example of what I mean, in March, 2015 ten of us rented a house and lived in it for a long weekend for the TAH 10th anniversary show + a fun getaway vacation. Everyone invited was someone I knew or were close with someone else in the group.  A few more people had been invited but couldn’t afford it, so word got around a little bit.  And it was AMAZING.  But I later heard that there were a few people, most of whom I didn’t really know, were hurt that they weren’t invited.  Jena and I spent dozens of hours and put a lot of financial risk into being the custodians of the trip for even the ten of us, and it was a huge undertaking.  It was never meant to be a thing for the entire fandom, just a group of people who were already friends.  But there was still a small kerfluffle from a few people about it.  Which, I TOTALLY get feeling bad about being left out but... it was always supposed to be a relatively small thing, never any kind of “Official Fandom Get Together”.  And we definitely didn’t have the time/money/ability to host an “open call for anyone to come” type thing.  Just coordinating 10 people (and about 25 - 30 overall getting together to hang out at designated times over the weekend) was... more than enough.

At one point sometime later people started suggesting that we organize and hold an actual TAH-Con and I... let that one pass me by without really talking about it.  It was definitely too much, and even then I knew it.  And I mean, the shadow of Dashcon was still hanging over all fandoms heavily in those days.  I wasn’t about to become the next Dashcon.  It never got past a few emails being passed around.

So yeah, to be honest, if I could go back and do those years again, I absolutely would, it was like 95% awesomeness.  But I think in regards to some of the fandom-specific things, I’d be a little less of a doormat, and I’d be a little more careful about spreading myself too thin.

So now that the show is “back”, I am enjoying listening to it, and I’ll reblog some things or post big news on FYTAH, but I’ve been lazy about even helping out with the wiki (I keep meaning to get back to it, Ange is still doing great) because... although I’m still a HUGE fan, I also am gonna be more laid back about it now.  

I also haven’t REALLY loved a thing in the same way since TAH.  The closest there has been is Critical Role, and I’ve been real careful to stay out of any actual fandom stuff there.  I really love the thing, but I’m gonna keep with my group of 5 or 6 other fans I already know (all from other fandoms) who love the thing too, and stay out of wider discussions.  With some of the stuff happening there lately, it was a good decision.  

Wow, that was a lot of words.  Sorry. 

Hey one last thing to catch up on.

Doctor Who Rewatch 2019!

I’m now already at 6x01, into the Silence episodes.

So I did finally rewatch the Desert Bus episode that I hated so much before and like... this time... it was fine?  Cheesy and all, but not so bad that I should have hated it as much as I did?  Also noticed the Doctor doing the classic “gonna hit on this girl really hard in the beginning then drop her so quick at the end” thing to the companion of the week.  Ah, Ten.  The most bi-polar of all Doctors.  I’m gonna be honest, I decided to skip on through Waters of Mars because I realized I was just ready to be done with Ten at that point.  I’ll probably go back to it at some point but I wasn’t ready for another Ten Temper Tantrum, maybe the worst one of all, in that episode.

So I finished Ten (and oh man that whole two-parter to end Ten with... like the whole Master plotline is such a stinker.  The first half, in particular, is so bad, the only really good scene is the one in the cafe with Wilf.  The rest of it... wow.  Wasn’t that whole thing written like the week before filming and never really edited or something? IDK.)  The last half hour or so is really good though, with Ten’s sacrifice (after a tantrum) and then all the companion goodbyes (except Joan Redfern’s granddaughter, bleh).  

But yay, on to Eleven and Amy and Rory and more River!

Season Five is... wow it starts off strong and really stalls there in the middle for a bit.  Picks back up a bit with Rory returning, then somehow has two great episodes without Rory and ends strong, though the first pretty nonsensical Moffat-era “this doesn’t make sense but it looks and sounds so good you don’t care, right?” season arc and ending.  Season six, I’m already remembering, is way, way worse for that.  But anyway.  Rory remains my second favorite companion ever.  And episodes with Amy, Rory and River continue to be my favorites.  Also? Matt Smith is so good.

But even early on in season six I’m remembering how really dumb the overarching plotline is... Moffat is great at “Oh man this will be cool so I’m gonna throw it in there! (and it really is some very cool stuff!) and hope it all makes sense later!  Or just don’t think about it too hard!”

Honestly though, despite all the quibbles, most of the episodes work on an individual level if you don’t think about the the overall arc Moffat is trying to do.  Even those that are a bit sloggy, like the Cold Blood/Hungry Earth two-parter, have enough great moments to justify watching them.  (Ambrose is still maybe one of the worst “regular people” characters to ever be on this show, though.)  There’s still no “Fear Her”.  And that’s pretty good.

Also?  The blog itself is now about as Doctor Who oriented as it is in the last year.  Like... oh the season is airing?  There’s a lot more good stuff to reblog, I’ll reblog good stuff.  Season not airing, a scattered post here and there.  It’s a much better place to be.

After Amy and Rory leave, that was about the end of my true like “Doctor Who Obsession” phase.  On my Blog we’re in the break between Amy and Rory leaving and Clara showing up. I never really clicked with Clara, I think like a lot of people.  Like I really liked the season with Danny, but after that season I never really rewatched episodes, so I’m looking forward to getting there and experiencing some stuff again for the second time.  

[unproduciblesmackdown]

fairly extensive billions dream scene surely influenced by 6x01 b/c there kept being similar contexts

taylor was going around in a place like if a mall food court had a bar and was trying to do some groundwork for a potential new strategy to pursue by asking people if they had News about [subject], namely, printed information. they mentioned to this one older guy that they knew earlier he had been like “oh i’m never gonna talk to you again” out of being pissed off about axe’s Losing and taylor’s role in it, but that guy was now like, still grumpy but less mad at them in particular lol like aw i was just lashing out....i in this scenario was like, a nameless tmc employee, and had the True To Waking Life thought like “is this how someone thinking about a financial strat in billions would go about collecting news, really?? going around asking for publically available info they and anyone could just pursue directly anyways?” but the point is even unconsciously i cannot be bothered to come up with more billions accurate scenarios with any details i guess lol, so it was like, okay, there’s taylor with a stack of papers seeking more of that printed info just by going up and asking people if they have any. at one point they were just standing there with that stack and generally asking like Papers? and i went “is this just like newsies?”

through the magic of insider It’s My Dream knowledge, i got the notion that taylor was considering getting Directly into fracking? through the magic of “and i still have some of the kinds of billions reflections i’d have if i were awake,” i was a bit confused by this like, it’s been a while and now of all times it seems weird that this is what taylor’s looking into, but okay. i, with that generic unnamed tmc employee role, found a newspaper with a headline with an article that seemed to be relevant, and was like, again surely a printed newspaper where this is on the front page isn’t gonna be the cutting edge knowledge that they hinge any decisions on, but hey. i offered them the newspaper like, this is relevant to what you’re looking for right? i will only tell other tmc employees and ask them not to tell anyone else in turn, don’t worry. except f for me, because then i realized like oh wait this is a completely irrelevant headline about a casual like local piece about queer people’s favorite rock music and similar genres to tune into on the radio. like well :/ sorry taylor maybe it’s a fun read anyways

in the midst of this there was like, a Cut to a winston scene wherein he was also doing some Consideration Of The Future apparently in that he had like a dating site open in one tab and a search for “single at 34″ open in another, the latter of which i again had the True To Wakefulness reflection of “uh unexpected implied age specification when we’re pretty sure he’d be a Twentysomething in a range of maybe +/- 2 yrs re: taylor’s also imprecise twentysomethingness. but ok” and the former of which i was like “oh he likes rian but guess he’s looking less for Will We Won’t We rn and pursuing something that can become more We Will, Presently” and i was also like “oh, so he’s lonely :/ :(” and furthermore naturally he was doing this at work and someone comes up with a “hmm i’m critically assessing you at any time” energy such that winston was simultaneously a bit flustered about having these things up on his computer and also somewhat put out about Not having impressive work things in front of him, and whatever else the person was talking to him about re: work things

[travllingbunny]

The 100 rewatch: 3x01/3x02 – Wanheda Part One and Two

My rewatch will have to be sped up so I could finish it before the season 6 premiere. I’ve seen up to 3x08, but from now on I have to watch more than one episode a day. I hope to be able to finish season 3 by the end of this week. Which means I’ll have to try to make my next posts shorter than this one, which I’m pretty sure is my longest rewatch review so far. Maybe I could try covering several episodes in one post to try not to repeat myself in the following reviews?

Season 3 is definitely my least favorite season of The 100, and so far, having rewatched half a season, I haven’t changed my mind on its quality. But, except for one instance of really lazy writing (which will, sadly, turn out to be something the writers like to do, since they did the same but in an even worse way in season 5), this two-parter was a solid opening to the season, which, unfortunately, started going downhill right after it.

Also, I only realized this on rewatch…. Clarke is Rapunzel?! Or anti-Rapunzel.

*These rewatch posts have spoilers for everything up to the end of season 5, and I may also mention stuff from the season 6 trailer. No spoilers for 6x01, and please don’t mention any if you reply or reblog with comments, I’m trying to avoid them (good luck to me on that).

3x01 Wanheda, Part One

Timeline: This is one of few episode reviews where it makes sense to start with this, because it’s the show’s first time-jump – it starts almost 3 months after the season 2 finale, or specifically 86 days,. In most other shows, this wouldn’t be considered a time jump, but most of The 100 episodes take place just a day or a few hours later (which was the case with the time that passed between the season 1 finale and the season 2 premiere), sometimes just a few minutes later (season 3 finale/season 4 premiere). It’s even notable and relatively rare when there is a week, or just two days between episodes. Although this is obviously nothing compared to the time jump in the season 4 finale (and, to an extent, season 5 finale – which was technically much bigger,, but only really counted for three characters), this time jump is still twice as long as the entirety of seasons 1 and 2, which lasted less than a month and a half.

The starting sequence is great, with Murphy with long shaggy hair and a beard, in a state of desperation after being locked up in the bunker for 86 days, to the point that he almost decides to shoot himself in the head. Similar to how Clarke almost shot herself in the head in the flashbacks in 5x01. Even the greatest of survivors come to the point when it’s just too much for a human being to bear. Clarke reached that point after a month of being not just all alone on a desert, radiation soaked planet, but likely to be all alone for at least 5 years, and even more likely to die of hunger, thirst or exposure. Murphy took 3 months, but was in situation where he didn’t lack food or drink or comfort – but isolation, without any human contact or entertainment, other than videos of a guy committing suicide because he felt responsible of the end of the world, has to be unbearable.

Introduction of Becca In one of the videos is good as we get more crucial info practically at the beginning of the season (and at the same time, not so good, because I can’t stand Becca and I’m really not fond of the entire storyline about the chip/Flame/Commanders).

Scenes in the mansion with Jaha and ALIE are really creepy, as we see just how much Jaha has become removed from reality and immersed in the City of Light. When Jaha explains the concept of COL, the prospect of getting rid of pain, hate and envy,  Murphy has maybe his best ever line, and pretty much his defining quote: “Pain, hate, envy… those are the ABCs of me. Take that and there’s nothing left.”

Getting thrown right into Camp Jaha, now called Arkadia, after 3 months, to see how much everyone’s lives have changed, works well for the most part (with one exception – see below). Jasper’s new look and attitude are shocking, but make sense. I don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion, but I think Jasper’s storyline was one of the best things in season 3 and even season 4, and I think it’s great that the show, for once, didn’t shy away from showing the consequences of emotional trauma (these people are teenagers who have been through terrible things in an extremely short time, it’s hard to believe everyone would soldier on and no one would break), and that they didn’t try to make a depressed person be more “likable” by being nice, even if it resulted in so many fans calling Jasper “annoying” and now showing any understanding for his mental health issues just because he wasn’t depressed in a nicer, more palatable way.

Raven’s story in seasons 3-4, which is also pretty good, also gets set up with a conversation with Abby about her pain, where Raven refuses an operation and they end up saying bad things to each other, as those two sometimes do. Raven calls out Abby on trying to hide from her own pain, too (over losing Clarke), which is a major theme this season. She also tells her she’s bad as both doctor and Chancellor, and much as I used to love Abby in S1 (and still like her) I’m afraid that this is least half-true since she’s sucked at politics most of season  2and 3. As a doctor, she’s good at healing people, but her bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired.

The show gets rid of the Raven/Wick romance plot (which had to be jettisoned due to Steve Talley being a terrible person IRL and tweeting racist “jokes”) in the best way it could, by referring to it in one line (according to Abby, Raven pushed Wick away) and never having him appear again.

They used “Add It Up” by Violent Femmes! And even Shawn Mendes’ cover worked well – his was a sad and plaintive ballad, as a contrast to the original, which is an energetic rock song. (I had no idea who Mendes was when I first watched this, but his cameo didn’t feel weird or out of place).

A huge plus because Emori makes a return. Also, Otan is introduced, who actually is her brother (it’s not just a classic thief/swindler thing where partners in crime are like “I’m an innocent damsel in distress and this dude is totally my brother…” thing).

There are several character introductions of characters that are varying degrees of interesting or not so interesting. Roan’s is especially intriguing right from the start, and there’s also Niylah, Becca and Gideon, and Gina. Speaking of…

My biggest problem with this episode is how weird and jarring it always felt that we just get introduced to Bellamy’s new girlfriend, a random character we’ve never met before and who doesn’t get developed at all. We know she’s nice and really into him, and he likes her fine enough, but there’s very little about their relationship that goes beyond very basic relationship-establishing stuff. This was all the more jarring because Bellamy had never previously been shown to have an actual girlfriend (rather than friends with benefits/fu*k buddies, which he had quite a few in season 1), and by what we know of his backstory and what we was like in season 1, I had always assumed he had never had a serious relationship or even a serious friendship, because he could never allow himself to trust people on the Ark, and he was too focused on protecting Octavia and keeping that huge secret. So for him to be a real relationship was a new development that I would have loved to actually see. And in general, how weird is it that the show seems to treat the love life of a major character – second protagonist as an afterthought, to the point that his relationships get developed completely off-screen and just get a few perfunctory scenes to establish “there was a time jump, it happened, this is a thing now, that’s all you need to know” (which was all the more jarring when Gina then got fridged just 3 episodes into the season). Hey, and just how weird would it be if the show did this TWICE? I have an idea why this happens – because neither of his relationships with Gina nor with Echo was ever treated by the show, as genuinely important or something we need to be invested in, but If I ever believed that Clarke and Bellamy were really totally platonic BFFs (because one major platonic relationship is not enough for Bellamy, who is one of the very few characters on the show who actually has a sibling, and his relationship with Octavia is also a major one the show focuses a lot..) and that the show wasn’t doing something else, I’d be really puzzled by such weird narrative choices.

·Raven teases Bellamy that Gina is “too good” for him. That may be because she is aware that he was “never as devoted to Gina” (compared to Clarke), as she taunts him as ALIE!Raven in 3x11.

Gina gives Bellamy Iliad as a gift, because his mother used to read it to him… an epic whose main theme is a warrior hero’s rage and all the mess it causes?

The Ice Nation aka Azgeda, after being referenced before, finally gets introduced (though Echo will get retconed revealed to be one of them), and I have very mixed feelings about this, because the oversimplified way the show tried to suddenly establish “Trikru=good Grounders, Azgeda=bad Grounders” in season 3 was kind of grating.

·Everyone is still bad at dealing with people with PTSD and mental health issues in general – as seen in the fact that they made the mistake to bring Jasper with them on a mission. This time, Bellamy had an inkling it was not a good idea, but Monty thought it would do Jasper good… and again, it didn’t end well.

Indra has changed her views a lot and is now the liaison between Trikru and the Arkers and o very friendly terms with Kane.

The relationship between Trikru and Arkadia is at this point kind of a mixed bag – they have a truce and cooperate, but there’s a problem of limited trade routes and ability for Arkers to get food, the Grounders are not happy with the prospect of them using Mount Weather, and Lexa has issued a kill order on Lincoln (which is why he has had to stay in Arkadia even if he didn’t want to – though it seems he does want to) just because he went back to help Arkers against Mount Weather (any disobedience of Commander’s orders, no matter how justified, is apparently punishable by death).

Something that’s annoying, but expected and in character: Octavia complaining about Lincoln wearing an Arkadia uniform and trying to integrate into the Arkadia society. It’s like she was so happy to be rebellious and have a cool Grouder boyfriend, and now she’s disappointed.  She tells him he will never be one of them (oh, the irony of this coming from Octavia, who says “I’m a Grounder” every second episode – which I don’t get, does she think being a Grounder is a lifestyle you can choose?) and even lectures him about the culture he grew up in: “At least you still speak our language” (meaning Grounder speech). LMAO

Octavia suggests they go off on their own and find Luna and her people – one of the many, many references to Luna going all the way back to season 1. No character has been set up so much long before they appeared.

It takes quite a long time for Clarke to actually appear in the episode, right after the revelation that she’s the titular Wanheda everyone is looking for.

About the nickname itself: Clarke herself hates it, of course (though she will kind of ‘reclaim’ it in 5x12) – because she feels deeply guilty and hates herself, but I’m sure that, for Grounders, “Commander of Death” an expression of awe and fear, not any kind of judgment, which wouldn’t make sense – we’ve seen multiple times that Grounders take the “kill them all If we can’t kill their leader” approach to their enemies, so I can’t see them being bothered by her killing all the Mountain Men. It’s the fact that she was able to destroy their old, powerful enemy that gives her a mythical aura. If you can kill the Mountain Men, you must be able to command death itself. They would also assign it all to Clarke, because, for starters, they weren’t there to know about Bellamy’s or Monty’s role, and secondly, Grounders tend to give all credit or blame to the leader, and they perceived Clarke as the sole leader of Skaikru during season 2.

This mythical status, however, merely makes Clarke a symbol and prize, due to the belief that killing someone means taking their power. (Which should also mean that she took the enormous power of Mount Weather in the eyes of the Grounders?) Does Queen Nia actually believe that she would literally take Clarke’s power if she killed her? I don’t know, but she probably just knows that people would perceive her as more powerful if she managed to do it.

Indra also explains that another reason the Ice Nation feels bold enough to make another move against Lexa/Trikru is that Clarke made Lexa look weak – which makes perfect sense, of course that’s what people would think after Lexa walked away from the battle and Clarke went in and killed the Mountain Men.

Seeing Clarke’s new look and persona was weird as hell the first time, but I don’t know how to feel about it as a plot point. I like it when characters’ traumas are not ignored, and it makes sense that, in her state, she wants to be anonymous and leave all she was behind. But Clarke as a great hunter after 3 months, making a living out of killing large animals? That’s a bit hard to believe. It’s not the first time the show is giving her unrealistic or, rapidly learned skills (overpowering an experienced warrior like Anya in a fight, apparently learning to ride a horse off-screen in a day, being such a good shooter to kill the MW sniper through Lincoln’s shoulder – after the short training she got from Bellamy in S1..) I complain about that with Octavia, so I should about Clarke, too (though it bothers me a lot more with Octavia since her being a great warrior  – with her few months of training -  is such a big part of her arc, while these skills are never supposed to be Clarke’s main strengths and don’t get much focus. But I like that she tells the panther “Your fight is over” while killing it.

Niylah, looking at Clarke’s back: “No kill marks”. Clarke: “My back is not big enough.”

Clarke sees Niylah has a wristband from one of the Delinquents, which is going to be a plot point in 3x11.

It’s nice to see someone expressing gratitude to Clarke for defeating the Mountain Men – Niylah says she appreciates it because her mother was a victim taken by Mount Weather. It would make sense if many more Grounders actually felt like that, but we don’t ever see many ordinary Grounders say anything about it. Usually it’s just Grounder leaders trying to make Clarke feel guilty over Mount Weather to manipulate her or excuse their own actions.

Clarke’s one night stand with Niylah is the first f/f sex scene in the show. It’s also, as far as we know, only the second time Clarke has had sex with anyone (the first one was way back in 1x04). At this point, Clarke can only bear to have physical intimacy, or any kind of human contact, if it’s not with anyone she has any stronger feelings for (and asks Niylah to stop talking before initiating sex, because she doesn’t want to risk any real intimacy). But at least Niylah is really nice and helpful, doesn’t cause drama and treats her better than any of her romantic partners have.

The first time I watched this, I found it funny that Clarke’s f*ck buddy got more screentime and development than Bellamy’s supposedly serious girlfriend.  But I didn’t know that the latter would die in two episodes, while the former will remain on the show into season 6 and get to have a role beyond that of Clarke’s occasional friend with benefit.

This turned out to be much longer than I wanted it to, but that’s because this episode juggles so many storylines and characters (and a bit of nice blatant fanservice, too – like the scene of Bellamy and Lincoln sparring shirtless, or a celebrity cameo).

But how about the one plot point that was completely ignored in this episode and the rest of season 3 (and 4, and 5, and we can assume will be ignored forever)? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE REAPERS?? Did they get cured, as the plan was originally? Abby was supposed to cure them when the alliance was still on. Did they get killed – and how, and by whom? Were they still roaming around in season 3 and 4? Why is there not a single word about any of that after season 2? Indra even recognized one of the Reapers in 2x15, it was obviously someone close to her, maybe a family member, maybe her husband/Gaia’s father? The show dropped that plot like a hot potato as soon as season 2 finished.

Body count: 

3 Ice Nation scouts killed during the confrontation (2 shot by Raven and Miller, one shot by Bellamy in the arm and then killed by Octavia)

Rating: 7/10

3x02 Wanheda, Part Two

This episode benefits from focusing on just a few storylines and characters and not featuring any of the poorer storylines.

Most of it is an exciting and intense action-adventure episode that revolves around Roan kidnapping Clarke ad trying to bring her to Lexa, as it turns out in the twist ending (after both Clarke and first time audience thought he was taking her to the Ice Nation Queen Nia), while a group from Arkadia including Bellamy, Kane and Monty are trying to rescue her.  

More new characters are introduced, including one with a huge role this season: our group (including Bellamy, Monty, Kane and Indra) has a surprise encounter with a group of survivors from the Farm Station, including Charles Pike and Monty’s mother Hannah. It was a weird meeting as it started as an ambush, before they recognized each other. Who did Pike’s group think they were ambushing and capturing? Some Grounders who stole clothes and weapons from dead Arkers? It doesn’t seem they were aware that there were any other survivors from the Ark, or else, they’d have tried to reunite with them. But it also can be seen as a sign that their terrible experiences on the ground and almost 4 months spent in the woods as guerrilla fighters have made them inclined to see enemies everywhere and mistake friends or allies for enemies.

We get the immediate “trouble ahead” warning moments when Pike calls his people “Grounder killers, all!” and they cheer, and our group looks uncomfortable because Indra is there, and then when Pike looks at Indra with animosity as soon as he hears she’s a Grounder and expresses distrust when hearing that they’re allies. But really, there’s nothing surprising about his attitude, at all, and I’ll never understand fans who are like “but why is Pike such a dick”? The show told you why, right from the start. Most of our protagonists had a similar attitude to Grounders in season 1 and early season 2, when their experiences with people on the ground consisted mostly of those people attacking them and trying to kill them. And Indra (just like many other Grounders) had the exact same attitude towards Sky people in early-to-mid season 2, as Pike has to Grounders now – when we first met her, she was constantly asking for all Sky people to be killed and trying to dissuade Lexa from an alliance, especially after Finn killed 18 unarmed people, mostly civilians, in a Grounder village. But these characters all got to have different kinds of interactions with each other and have character development since. Well, Pike and the rest of the Farm Station people have had only terrible experiences – being attacked by the people on the ground right after they landed, seeing over a hundred of their people killed in front of them, including 15 children, and they’ve spent all the time since fighting in the woods, with zero positive interactions with any Grounders. It’s really not surprising that they’re the ones with most extreme views.

Kane, however, tries to convince them that it’s all Ice Nation, they’re the bad ones, Trikru are their allies. When Pike asks for details about how that alliance happened, Bellamy gave him the shortest and nicest-sounding possible version: “We had a common enemy” – “What happened?” “We won”. Bellamy obviously doesn’t want to talk about any of it, since he’s tormented over Mount Weather even though he may not be showing it the way Clarke does. But we see that Monty later told Pike about everything that has happened, though we only see the end of that story, how they got out of Mount Weather. We can assume, however, that he did tell him all including Lexa’s betrayal, because Pike later references both that and Finn’s death in 3x08. Somehow I don’t think that hearing “well, Trikru tried to kill the kids in our camp, so we burned 300 of their warriors, then we made an alliance with them to fight the people from Mount Weather who were trying to kill us all, but they betrayed us and left us to die and we had to save ourselves on our own” helped change Pike’s opinion on the Grounders in general.

Having Zach McGowan on the show is always a good thing, and his screen presence helps make Roan an intriguing character. At this point he’s a mysterious kidnapper with a backstory about his banishment from Ice Nation which I really wanted to learn BUT THAT WE NEVER LEARNED (what the hell was up with that?) and (twist!) we learn in the last scene that he’s the Prince of Azgeda. Clarke and Roan had quite an interesting dynamic throughout the show – thank god for once that the show didn’t try to do an “Enemies to lovers” storyline (though I bet that’s just because the show already had two popular Clarke ships to juggle) but rather “Enemies to allies who are not exactly friends, definitely not romantic at all, who kind of bond and respect each other but are constantly trying to politically manipulate each other”.

Bellamy wanting to immediately run to save Clarke, the moment he saw that she had been kidnapped, and then dressing himself as an Azgeda warrior and going into enemy territory to rescue her, is a far cry from his behavior in 1x12 when he was able to be calm and rational about Clarke (and Finn and Monty) being kidnapped and presumed dead. It shows how much his feelings for her had become stronger since. In season 1, only the concern for his sister’s safety could make him have such a reaction. But he typically doesn’t make his best decision when he lets his emotions completely rule him and acts that impulsively, and in this case, his unsuccessful rescue attempt only made things worse, as it alerted Roan he was being followed, and made Clarke stop fighting and let Roan take her to his destination.

But it’s not just Bellamy who would “do anything for her, to protect her”, Clarke is equally determined to protect him at any cost, and we’ve seen evidence of that many times, including this time – when she begs Roan to spare Bellamy’s life and promises to do anything and stop fighting if he does. At the time, she believed Roan was taking her to Queen Nia to be executed, so she was basically ready to offer her life for his.

When I first saw that scene, I thought “Oh wow, show, you are really doing this? This must be the most romantically-coded scene in anything ever.” Before even starting to binge the show, I was always spoiled on the fact that Clarke and Bellamy are not a romantic couple to date and that people debate whether they’re just friends or not, and I always knew people shipped them, but that didn’t mean much since fans will ship anything (Broadchurch fans even ship the leads from that show, and they are genuinely nothing but platonic partners). So one of the bigger surprises of my initial binge was that the show is so blatant about this romantic subtext (which is more like text, a lot of the time), and has been since season 1, but they were relatively subtle with it at first and then more and more obvious as seasons went by. Maybe it jumps at you more when you’re binging it. In any case, this scene – the soft music, Bellamy touching Clarke’s hair, the way they look at each other after meeting for the first time after 3 months, Clarke begging for his life – it all looked like it was straight from some epic medieval-themed romance. I later heard people compare it to Tangled, but I’ve never seen that movie (it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen any Disney cartoons). But I’ve recently happened upon gifsets that compare that scene to a scene from Tangled: 

` Woah, they really did this. They modelled that scene after the scene where Rapunzel’s love interest tries to rescue her. And it’s not the last time they keep doing that and have used every goddamn romantic trope for the Bellamy/Clarke relationship. Is Jason Rothenberg for real? How do you do stuff like this, over and over, and then go in interviews: “Weeell, it’s Rorschah test, you can see this or you can see that, I mean maybe, but maybe they are just best buddies, ya know?” LMAO

Knowing about the Tangled reference suddenly makes me realize, they’re kind of doing this whole story as Rapunzel in reverse. We have our golden haired heroine who’s a target for her supposed special powers, and. Clarke finds herself as a literal Princess in the Tower at the end of this episode, and remains that for half of season 3. But while Rapunzel was trapped in the tower to begin with and wanted to escape and be free to see the world, Clarke was running away from the world, then got kidnapped and brought to the tower, and then decided to stay there.

 And what a freaking huge tower it is – I didn’t know the full significance of it (that it’s the former Polaris space station) when that reveal was the last moment of the episode. This thing must have been a great strategic asset, you’d have seen any army approaching from miles away.

I love the last scene, which is the first meeting Clarke and Lexa after season 2, because Clarke’s rage – spitting into Lexa’s face and yelling that she’s going to kill her, while she’s dragged away – is such a fitting and relatable reaction to the betrayal at Mount Weather, and, maybe even more, to the way Lexa starts talking to her without apologizing or even mentioning their history, being all business instead and talking about the current political situation and how Clarke can help her in that department. I didn’t even notice this before, but while Clarke just glares at Lexa at first and stays silent, it was when Lexa said “I need you” that Clarke spat in her face and went ballistic. It’s interesting to compare that to 3x05, when Bellamy had a bad reaction to Clarke telling him “I need you” in a similar context. It’s not the same thing, of course, because Clarke had not betrayed Bellamy (even if he may have kind of felt otherwise), but it’s a similar “I’ll just ignore our history – there’s nothing personal and painful to talk about here, la la la  – let’s instead just talk about how you can help me stop the war” approach.

I now love that scene even more because it’s the last time Clarke shows anger for the next two seasons. Or rather, she shows the same anger early on in the next episode in her conversation with Lexa and then when she was planning to kill her before changing her mind, but from that point on, there’s a shift in Clarke’s characterization that I’ve never liked. She was always smart, pragmatic, caring, vulnerable and good at using her words to convince people, but she also used to be vibrant, edgy, held grudges before finding a way to forgive people, and could be very impulsive. But in season 3, after the first couple of episodes, she kind of became a lot mellower and blander, and remained that way throughout season 3 and in season 4 (even though there’s otherwise a lot I like about her arc in season 4), where she would do ruthless things and feel sad about it and say “Sorry” a lot while other people told her she sucks, she would cry and look sad, but never ever show any anger herself. I really found myself wishing for her to finally show some anger at some point, at anyone, for any reasons, or go off and stop repressing her feelings and scream about her pain, break things, do something. I finally did get some of that – in 5x01 when she screamed at fate for taking everything away from her, and then, boy, did I get what I was wishing for in 5x09 – her slapping Bellamy and her silent but deadly rage/heartbreak at what she perceived as his betrayal, was the first time she had that kind of reaction to a person since her rage at Lexa in 3x02/3x03. (Unpopular opinion: I prefer season 5 Clarke to season 3 Clarke. Sure, season 5 Clarke was a total mess and reached rock bottom in many ways, but she was a more interesting and edgier mess. )

The B storylines were good, too. This is the first time we actually get to see what “the City of Light” looks like and learn about how it works. After Gideon, the big dude with a facial disfigurement, is killed by Emori in self-defense, we see him again in the “City of Light”, where he’s removed his disfigurement and can be a “normal” person rather than a “freak”. In later episodes, we see that Otan has done the same, but only Emori will not change herself physically, because she doesn’t have a problem with her body, just with the way others react to it, making her an outcast over it.

Nice to see Nyko again, one of my favorite minor characters. Unlike so many other people in this show, he’s always both nice and rational. When Abby, Jackson, Lincoln and Octavia took him to Mount Weather to find resources to cure him, and Lincoln was concerned because Grounders could have a problem with Arkers moving into Mount Weather because of their history with the place, Nyko pointed out “Places are not evil, people are.” The whole idea of the Arkers not being allowed to move into Mount Weather is stupid, knowing that the place had all those resources.

The show tried to give us bad vibes about Arkers moving into Mount Weather (which they absolutely had right to – they conquered it, so by the very rules of a warrior culture like the Grounder one, they could lay claim to it) with the talk from Octavia and Lincoln about how Grounders would have a problem with it because of bad memories. But that was just a red herring. Moving into Mount Weather turned out to be bad for a very different reason. We now know that at least the leaders of Ice Nation didn’t give a damn about their bad history with the Mountain Men, since they were working with Emerson.

What the heck was Abby thinking when she took Jasper to Mount Weather? She’s not a psychiatrist (did they even have psychiatrists on the Ark?) but I don’t think taking him back to the place of his greatest trauma is a good way to help his mental health. At least we get a nice scene for the Octavia/Jasper friendship, where she is comforting him while he remembers Maya, looking at her favorite painting, Second Circle of Hell by Dante. (The second circle of hell is for those guilty of lust... Is that why Jasper said it was ironic? Because he and Maya just kissed once and never got the chance to have sex?

Timeline: It seems that Parts One and Two lasted a little less than two days – Part One started during the day, Clarke spent a night with Niylah and immediately left in the morning, and Part Two took place during the following day.

Body count: 

Three Ice Nation warriors killed by Roan

A bounty hunter killed by Bellamy to save Niylah

Gideon, killed by Emori– but still “alive” in the City of Light

I don’t know if this counts for this episode, since it actually happened after the Farm Station landed on the ground, so somewhere around the season 1 finale and early season 2, but we only learn it now: about 120-130 people from the Farm station were killed since they landed (there are 63 Farm Station survivors, but Kane said the station initially had three times that number). A lot of them, including 15 children, were killed by the Ice Nation right after they landed, and Monty’s father, who saved four children, was killed when trying to save another one. I assume that some of the Farm Station people died fighting the Ice Nation in the woods, and that they also killed an unknown number of Azgeda people during that time. (Technically, this all happened during the timeline of season 2 and between the seasons.)

Rating: 8.5/10

[daisytachi]

Just saw the 6x01 of The 100. I had lot to say about it until I just forget it. All the incoherences of the episode let me a bad taste in my mouth. There is so much to say about it, I just don’t even know where to start.  Attention SPOILERS! 

(don’t read it if you don’t want frustration against Clarke, Octavia or Raven)

Anyway, after putting all this frustration about them and about the faves I’m really done with in a corner, it’s easy to think this new episode is about a new start in a new planet with new challenges for the characters. Except, when we’re talking about new start, it’s cool to also think about the conclusion of what was done before. A lot of scenes were about this theme. Bellamy forgive Clarke and gives her a second chance, same to Miller but that doesn’t mean he forgets what they done, he just gives them a second chance. I also like the Mackson’s conversation about it but also what Shaw said to Clarke. It’s easy to say “I”m sorry” but the actions are better proof than words. We can talk a lot about Clarke. Before getting to me by saying I hate her, I don’t like her but something I appreciate about her was in season 4 when she actually applies what Shaw told her. Back in season 4, she was ready to kill Emori and she made amend by giving her helmet after she tested the nighblood. Her action was amazing and it shows how much she regretted what she was about to do to Memori. I hope the Clarke’s journey will use this point and proves how much she was really sorry for what she done in season 5. Unlike Octavia, she knows what she done, she is honest with it and she doesn’t search any excuse to make or to justify herself. We know her reasons and she knows them but that doesn’t justified what she did to her friends, It’s something I really appreciate. 

And they are the ones who can’t move one. The ones who are too focus of themselves to see the new chance they get to be better. Octavia, Octavia, Octavia… Except blaming people for what she done, except for saying she is a hero and everyone is a traitor, there is nothing to say. I don’t like her either, I won’t hide this.  I don’t like the way JRoth forces me to feel sorry for her after seeing the ¾ of Wonkru dying of her watch. He told us she did it for her people but she murders people to feel better (aka season 4, it’s who she is after all (4x09)), that she broke wonkru in the 4x12 and suddenly she returns to her “look I’m the savior”’s thing. It’s very frustrating.   Even if I get her pain, even if I really understand how it feels to be in such pain, to grieving, i can’t feel sorry for her and to her megalomania. She loves power! Dioyza told her that in the 5x13 and I thought they would explore it in the 6x01 but well, I guess using all the pathos they get for her and for Clarke was all they get. Also, she gives all her focus to take back her brother, so we will see.

Raven is not better, she is as self-centered as Octavia. Only her pain matters. I would also feel sorry for her if she asked to Abby what happened in the bunker instead of making her a lesson about pain in season 4. Here, she continues to think she is better than people. I get her perfectionism is a big trait of her character. She wants to be the best person ever, to better than anyone else but she isn’t and that makes her more judgmental than being a moral compass for the show. I really hope she will impress me this season because for now, and since s4, it’s the “néant” with her.

There are the stories who are ending. Shaven and probably Kabby. I think the Abby’s story this season will be the on let it go her pain and maybe Kane. The scene when she is saving him, keeping him alive and when she puts him in cryo is fantastic and probably ones of the best scenes of the episodes. Not only, it was an emotive scene but it mirrors her demons, be like Vinson in season 5. The blood on her mouth, being the cannibal doctor, her addiction turning as keeping Kane alive… All the images to portrays what and who Abby becomes during these six years in the bunker and during season 5 are very well done. 

Finally, there are the ones who are embracing their second chance and enjoy it. Memori and Mackson were fantastics here. Murphy, knowing Emori in still in love with him, is seducing her again. I’m also worried for this boy who continues to put his life in danger more than keeping it safe but seeing him flirting again with Emori to get her back is very cute and shows how much he really wants to prove she is right to give him this second chance. The conversation between Mackson talking about letting go the past to move on is really cool for them because it shows Jackson forgiving Miller and supporting him for the future. 

I will end this long text by saying Luisa is just an AMAZING actress. The ending reminds me Far Cry and I do think the 602 will remind me it too.. But her last scene when she stabbes Murphy or when she talks about flying the ship are incredible, powerful and sweet (for the last one). I want her name in the opening sequence!! 

PS: I get Jroth think the word “fiction” is more important than “science” in “science-fiction” but seeing kane talking, walking just after a surgery and an injury in his neck is ridiculous. + Abby wanting to give him PILLS.. as if he could swallow them.  And that without talking about Shaw walking as if he wasn’t tortured by McCreary in the 5x13. Oh and the algea. While they showed us in season 5 the algae could had been dangerous and put people in a coma (poor Murphy and Octavia), it’s now the senzu of the 100. It  can not only feed you, it also heals you. Well, well, well 

[summerseachild]

Summersea’s GoT Season 6 Tumblr Spoiled First Time Watch 2019: Part 1

So I was going to rename this a “hatewatch” now that I’ve gotten to a whole season I hadn’t seen before, but let’s be honest. If you’ve seen me reblogging things from later seasons, it was never going to be that. There are things that I knew I was going to enjoy VERY MUCH, and I wasn’t wrong. There were also things that, if I let them, would have had me frothing a the mouth in rage. 

But then I reminded myself that I’m vacationing in Castle Not Giving a Shit while I watch the back half of the show, and things were much better after that. I’ve mostly left my in the moment reaction except where I’d had too much wine to be coherent.

Season 6

Hot on the heels of season 5 i still have a third of a bottle of Chardonnay left let’s DO THIS

6x01

1. Lol it’s still in the credits so they continue to pretend like they care about Dorne????

2. Ghost howling 😢😢😢

3. So Davos went straight from staning one dour person to another... he has a type.

4. Some dude in the night’s watch re Melisandre: who’s she? Davos: oh just some lady Who spat a shadow out of her vag once LETS TRUST HER

5. Wow Olly aged a lot over the past five minutes since he killed Jon!

6. Edd please don’t die here. I don’t remember how you go but don’t let it be here

7. Boo hoo poor little psychopath lost his gf. No one cares, Ramsay. Myranda deserved what she got AND SO WILL YOU

8. My soul left my body like three times during that chase scene where Theon and Sansa are running from the Bolton men. POOR COLD BBS

9. That hug where they’re just CLINGING TO EACH OTHER THIS SHOULD NOT MAKE ME SHIP IT BUT HERE WE ARE

10. THEON SHOWING HIMSELF TO TRY TO KEEP HER SAFE I CANNOT HE KNOWS WHAT IT MEANS IF THEY CATCH HIM AND HE DOES IT ANYWAY SO SHE MIGHT HAVE A CHANCE 

11. IT’S BRIENNE OF MF-ING TARTH OMG YAY

12. Also go Theon killing that dude

13. UGH THE SWEARING FEALTY SCENE WITH SANSA AND BRIENNE AND ALL OF THEIR FACES AND SANSA LOOKING TO THEON BEFORE ACCEPTING AND POD REMINDING HER OF THE WORDS IT IS PERFECT 

14. Give me the AU where Theon lives and stays at Winterfell because he wants to be near her and they understand each other and Brienne is in her Queensgiard I AM NOT ASKING MUCH

15. Meanwhile in other trauma hi Cersei

16. UGH LOOK HOW SHE RUNS ACROSS THE COURTYARD TO SEE HER DAUGHTER

17. So... that scene with Jaime and Cersei where they talked about seeing Joanna’s dead body and she... Doesn’t blame him??? For Myrcella? Like I thought she would??? And she tells him about the prophecy??? And they hug??? Yeah that’s in contention for my fav Lannister twin scene ever? Top five at the very least. (And another member of the “Jaime writes his siblings’ dialogue” club.)

18. For all of his false kindness and gentleness the High Sparrow is just as bad as any of them, and When I’m not seething with anger I can appreciate how nuanced Jonathan Pryce’s performance is.

19. Wtf Ellaria and Tyene murdering Doran.

20. OMG TRYSTANE and I call Sand Snake Character Assassination here they are just SO BITCHY and without honor and the Dorneish are SO HONOR OBSESSED ugh why I hate it Also was that Myrcellas ship? Are there two bitchy Sand snakes just chilling in king’s landing now?? 

21. Tyrion and Varys among the people is kind of fascinating. Also what’s up with that Red Priest? Another who thinks the lord of light chose Dany?

22. Oh no the ships... Varys and Tyrion running TOWARD trouble says a lot about them.

23. Did the showrunners... forget Jorah would know the word Khalasar? Why would he say horde?

24. At least the Khals believe Dany is Drogo’s widow?

25. Ok so the waif is fascinating and her movements are just so... Succinct. A++ physical acting or whatever the word is.

26. Whoa that’s Melisandre without the necklace?? Cool story bro but why did she choose then to take it off? What does that tell us about her as a character or her powers? Just wanted to show some crone boobs? IDEK that was a weird ending.

6x02

1. The trailer reminds us that BRAN IS IN THIS SHOW

2. Remember this kid? He’s a Stark! He’s VERY IMPORTANT! He’s GONNA BE KING, but he wasn’t in all of season 5. He matters WE PROMISE.

3. The older generation of Starklings!!! I would be lying if I didn’t say seeing Lyanna and Brandon and Ned and Benejen And Nan and bb Hodor didn’t give me a LOT of feelings. (Also Bloodraven is the Worst Ghost of Christmas Past Ever.)

4. Cross fandom wish: I want to see Hodor, Groot, and Rocket have a conversation where everyone understands every word.

5. So... Meera and Summer have been hunting so that they all stay alive, right?? Otherwise WHAT ARE THEY EATING

6. Ok I take back what I said about them only having the Children once, but that was WEAK. “Help Bran, Meera. Because I said so and I’m a creepy magical person whose motivations are unclear”

7. YEAAAAAH WUN WUN SMASH THOSE TRAITORS. Good on you too Edd for taking charge.

8. Ugh every bar has one like that asshole talking about Cersei. And I don’t think he’s long for this world

9. I LOVE BEING RIGHT HI GREGOR

10. Why would Tommen keep Cersei away from Myrcella’s funeral. OH GODS HE WAS TRYING TO PROTECT HER.

11. Ugh Jaime is tired of keeping vigil over his dead family members GIVE HIM A BREAK

12. Also Jaime promising never to let Cersei be in a cell again while he’s there AAAAHHH YES 🦁 ❤️

13. There’s nothing more dangerous than a fanatic who fears nothing, Jaime. But him threatening the High Sparrow was made of sex.

14. SEVEN HELLS did Tommen just give Cersei the idea to blow up the sept

15. Dany’s council meeting in absentia is kind of neat. I was wondering how those crazy kids were doing. 

16. Lol I drink and I know things is ABOUT TYRION KNOWING ABOUT DRAGONS 🐉 I DID NOT KNOW THAT AND I LOVE IT

17. Tyrion being like “please DO NOT EAT THE ALLIES (me)” to Viserion and Rhaegal is amazing

18. Viserion is all ME TOO LET ME GO HERE’S THE CHAIN SMALL HUMAN when he shows Tyrion his neck.

19. That was a rough test Jaqen

20. Yes Ramsay please march North I dare you

21. Roose KNOWS what Ramsay is and tries to steer him out of it but I don’t think he truly understands how deep the crazy goes

22. HOLY SHIT RAMSAY JUST STABBED HIS DAD and everyone either is too scared of Ramsay to do anything about it or was in on it. LOOKING AT YOU KARSTARK ASSHOLE

23. Oh Walda you sweet trusting soul he is going to feed you and your baby to those dogs isn’t he. I DON’T like being right. Have I mentioned that?

24. Brienne recognizing Sansa’s choices were hard ❤️❤️

25. Ugh Theon talking about all the things he’s done and Sansa hugging him anyway aaaaah my soul

26. It’s hard to hear someone else say they forgive you you when you don’t think you deserve forgiveness, and he’s definitely not ready to hear it from Jon. (But he’s ready to hear it from Sansa because of what they’ve been through together? I like that explanation and I’m sticking to it.)

27. Oh right Pyke exists the show doesn’t remember that unless it’s convenient.

28. HOW DARE YOU REFERENCE THAT PINECONES LINE SHOW YOU HAVE NOT EARNED THAT

29. Ok at least Yara cares about her people and we get to see it.

30. OMG Euron? He’s the one who kills Balon?

31. ...and he’s kind of got delusions of Grandeur? “I am the drowned god” wtf sir.

32. Gotta admit Iron Islands burial customs are kinda neat

33. We get the Kingsmoot? I’m listening, show... you’re on notice but I’m listening.

34. Depressed Melisandre is depressed. Wait... has she never done the raising from the dead thing? SEVEN HELLS SHE HASN’T.

35. A pep talk from Davos might snap me out of my crisis of faith too.

36. Thoros can do this in the language of Westeros, but I guess if Valyrian works for you...

37. I love Tormund peacing out of the room with Mostly Dead Jon like “I have had enough of this south of the wall bullshit”

38. Did Melisandre reach the lord of lights answering machine and it took him a while to get back? “If you would like to leave a resurrection request for R’hllor, please press one...”

39. Ghost’s eyes open AND SO DO JON’S hey bro

6x03 this episode is called Oathbreaker ARE WE ABOUT TO GET TO SEE THE FLASHBACK TO JAIME KILLING AERYS PLZ TELL ME

1. He liiiives! Poor Jon... what did you see while you were gone I wonder?

2. Oh jeez it was nothing. At least he has the most comforting sensible person in this series to help him through.

3. I like that Jon gets to come downstairs and HUG TWO OF HIS FRIENDS and none of the nights watch or the wildlings bat an eye or seem to think less of him for it. LET MEN HUG. 

4. Oh jeez Sam’s taking Gilly and the baby to Horn Hill? Do we get to meet his mom? (No one cares about Randylll but I think we might get to meet him too?)

5. BB Sam is SO CUTE HE HAS HAIR NOW.

6. Wait is Gilly pregnant again?

7. That is the Tower of Joy and I AM NOT READY

8. HOLY SHIT HOWLAND REED KILLED ARTHUR DAYNE?

9. Sword of the morning indeed WHAT A BADASS (somewhere in my soul Jaime is waving an “Arthur Dayne Rocks” banner) there’s no way Ned could have won that fight without help and now Bran knows that??? I don’t really have anything interesting to say here I just love the idea of a kid getting to see the truth of a family story that’s radically different from what he thought he knew.

10. Past Ned HEARD BRAN? FASCINATING?

11. Oh right Dany is about to meet all of the other widows of the Khals this could be cool but knowing d and d it won’t be because it would involve treating WoC with nuance.

12. Not impressed so far.

13. So this girl Varys is meeting with is in league with the Sons of the Harpy? Good my memory is intact.

14. all this with Varys actually TRYING to take care of Meereen is fun...

15. Tyrion being like OMG I AM BORED PLZ TALK ABOUT SOMETHING to Grey Worm and Missandei is the most him thing ever. I feel you Bro. He’s a people person deep down and just wants to be friends so badly.

16. Qyburn with all of Varys’ little birds and making kids’ abusive parents disappear is PRECIOUS.

17. Don’t poke the Mountain, Jaime

18. LANNISTER MUSICAL CHAIRS PART 2 also Jaime is ON THE SMALL COUNCIL NOW??? Who gave book!Cersei three wishes??? Him actually being in her corner and working with her as a team must be like a wish come true...

19. “Grand Maester Pycelle would you sanction that starement?” 😂 Lena’s delivery of that line made me laugh so hard we had to rewind to hear the dialogue.

20. No no don’t leave the three of them together they’ll plan murder. Well, Cersei and Jaime will. Gregor will nod.

21. Tommen confronting the high sparrow fascinated me. He has some of the I WILL KILL YOU family traits on display here but it’s understandable given what his family has gone through at the high sparrows hand. I’d be threatening murder too if I were him.

22. What are you playing at mr high Sparrow? Because I don’t trust you farther than I can throw you, and I don’t even have a good arm.

23. The Hound was not on her list any more 😢 that whole scene with Arya recounting her life and learning to fight blind is NEAT.

24. Wait faceless men are immune to the poison in the water?? Cool.

25. Is that supposed to be Greatjon Umber’s son who refuses Jon? What an ass.

26. My wife adds, “THESE LOSERS are the people Sansa is supposed to be queen of?”

27. OH SHIT OSHA AND RICKON AND SHAGGYDOG HOW DID THAT EVEN HAPPEN? (Please let Sansa Find out who did that and who helped and give them what they deserve... there’s no way anyone took down that wolf alone.) I HATE THAT WE ARE NEVER GOING TO GET CLOSURE ON THAT PROBABLY.

28. Oh shit Jon has to hang the traitors that’s gonna be hard on him.

29. At least Alliser is consistent.

30. Jon did what he had to do... just like Ned in the first ep.

31. Wait WHAT did you just hang those men and then LEAVE? Isn’t leaving just as damaging to the order as killing the lord commander? That seemed overly quick and weird but ok????

32. Guess Jon was the Oathbreaker.

6x04

1. If anyone deserved an I JUST DIED crisis, it’s Jon. Also, the vows say, “it will not end until my death...” so technically...

2. Brienne got them up to the Wall QUICK. She is nothing if not efficient.

3. Sansa and Jon are like, “so... how cool are we going to play this? NOT COOL AT ALL LETS HUG” so sweet.

4. “Where will WE go?” Yes stay together Starklings because family is important certainly don’t scatter to the four winds or anything 🙄

5. I kind of love that Sansa’s the one who insists on taking back Winterfell and is all “help me or not I’m doing it”

6. I’m Brienne of Tarth and I HAVE A LONG FUCKING MEMORY. Wait... wrong show. (She DOES, though...) 

7. Wow Petyr lying about Sansa being forced to Marry Ramsay... he’s playing the lords of the Vale like a fiddle.

8. That’s a lovely bird he got Robin. What a pretty boy.

9. Missandei staring daggers at Tyrion is Excellent Content. The “Tyrion tries to be a little more diplomatic but this involves dealing with slavers” problem is... a bit oversimplified, but at least they’re addressing it? Still not great. 

10. Jorah and Daario are off on a secret mission and I cant stop hearing the Galavant song.

11. The older widow of the Dosh Khaleen is more interesting than the show will let her be.

12. Is that Lazareen widow Dutch from Killjoys? IT IS!!!!

13. Guess what high Sparrow NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR SELF RIGHTEOUS CONVERSION STORY LEAST OF ALL ME (guess who has some issues with organized religion it’s meeeee)

14. Way to act your heart out, though, Jonathan Pryce.

15. So idk if I’ve made a big deal about this but I’m SUPER QUEER and seeing Loras broken like that made my heart stop for a second.

16. “Not setting off” fanatics, huh Pycelle? I think Cersei has other ideas 😈 🔥

17. Tommen is TALLER THAN CERSEI NOW

18. Cersei and Jaime trying to get Olenna and Kevan on their side against the High Sparrow is... smarter than I thought it was going to be when they walked into that room. They had a united front, they were clearly working together... WHAT IS THIS I LIKE IT

19. Theon looks like a ghost of himself. :( And Pyke looks all creepy.

20. Jeez Yarra go easy on your little brother his psyche still has cracks in it. I guess it’s understandable that she’s pissed given the failed rescue and the timing of his arrival. I kept just waiting for him to say “I want to be home,” when she yelled WHAT DO YOU WANT but he didn’t and that makes me sad. (Home should have been Winterfell or wherever Sansa was just saying.)

21. Oh Osha don’t try it... shit. Well, you tried

22. And Tormund’s epic crush on Brienne begiiiiiins

23. SHIT RAMSAY TELLS JON HE HAS RICKON

24. Sansa insisting on reading the rest of the letter from Ramsay is... made of steel. I’m here for her being the driving force behind this attempted rescue.

25. I didn’t realize that so many Dothraki knew about how Dany lost the baby and Drogo.

26. DID DANY JUST KILL ALL OF THE KHALS? Girl knows how to make an entrance? The optics here are sooooo problematic but she looks DAMNED impressive the plan in and of itself is sound - gets rid of the men who don’t respect her and shows herself to be indestructible in one power move...

6x05 OH NO THIS IS CALLED THE DOOR I THINK I KNOW WHAT IS COMING

1. Is it just me or are d and d writing more and more episodes themselves?

2. Sansa has had enough of Littlefinger’s bullshit. Making him face up to what HE LEFT HER TO WHEN HE MARRIED HER TO RAMSAY AND ABANDONED HER YES GOOD.

3. When he says “did he cut you” and Sansa talking about Ramsay not caring as long as she could give him an heir... does that mean what I think it does? FGM? I hate that I even wonder. (Still not sure about this, but I don’t put it past them to imply something horrific like that and then not come back to it.)

4. The more I see the waif fight, the cooler she gets.

5. Faceless men founded Braavos? Right I KNEW that.

6. Ok the play is fun... complete with sound effects. So interesting to see what people in Braavos think of everything that happened.

7. So... I would Lady Crane’s voice anywhere. Hi Phryne!

8. Oh wow look at all the CotF

9. THEY MADE THE WHITE WALKERS I did not know that and for YEARS before this season came out we had an au idea where that was true and I AM SCREAMING

10. AND THEY DID IT TO DEFEND AGAINST THE ANDALS AND WHAT THEY WERE DOING TO THE TREES

11. Yara’s speech was lovely, Theon supporting her was sweet, but Yara shouldn’t have needed a dude’s support to get that reaction from the crowd. She’s been on Pyke and being badass ALL HER LIFE. That being said, I like to think Yara would have been Queen in this version of things if Euron hadn’t showed up. What a Dick.

12. How does Euron go from wanting to marry Dany to allying with Cersei? I guess I’m about to find out.

13. Damphair knows cpr, idiot showrunners. don’t just let Euron lie there.

14. YES GET AWAY YARA AND THEON AND... a lot of the fleet? Good on them.

15. Jorah trying to leave Dany and her not letting him and commanding him to find a cure aaaahhhhh my feelings 😢

16. In the real world Tyrion would have been a great campaign manager.

17. If they wanted someone local... why get a red priestess from Volantis? Is this supposed to be the same woman? Do any of the people of Meereen even follow the faith of R’Hollor?

18. Varys having no time for the red faith’s bullshit is SO GOOD. It’s ok Varys you’re probably the most famous eunuch in the world right now. And whoop de doo a sorceress knows a story about a sorcerer it’s a small magical world don’t let her cow you.

19. ...whatcha doing, Bran???

20. Well that’s not creepy at all. Soooo many wights. Were there only... four white walkers including the night king? I’m so confused.

21. “The Umbers gave Rickon to Ramsay they can hang” YES SANSA

22. Why did she lie about getting info from Petyr? (And GOOD ON BRIENNE calling her on it)

23. Brienne calling Jon “a bit brooding” is the most hilarious thing ever. Somewhere Jaime Lannister is laughing his ass off. 

24. Yes wolfy clothes for everyone.

25. Awww Edd forgetting he’s acting lord commander is hilarious.

26. SO MANY WIGHTS DON’T DIE MIRA

27. Why are the children and the white walkers on opposite sides? Are these just about rogue CotF? EXPLAIN SHOW EXPLAIN

28. Cool visuals though... the night king walking through that fire was AWESOME.

29. Rickard LOOKS like a stark in that flashback.

30. RIP Bloodraven... glad you didn’t have to see how pointless all of this was.

31. Wait wait plain old wights can KILL THE CHILDREN? Dumb.

32. SUMMER NO I AM NOT OK WITH ANY OF THIS not Leaf either she’s a nice little tree person even if her motivations are unclear.

33. So Bran warging into Hodor in the present and in the past at the same time is what messed him up? Or something about the time folding and Bran BEING THERE?

34. That was upsetting as fuck about Hodor and I AM SAD EVEN THOUGH I KNEW IT WAS COMING

And... tumblr won’t let me post the whole thing. I had A LOT to say about some later episodes. Remember when I was going to keep this to three bullet points for each episode? Yeah me neither. 

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 2x13-- Day 492

FINALLY DONE WRITING THIS. Recap under the cut! Also, as soon as I post this, I’m going to work on updating my meta page where you can find links to posts about EVERY SINGLE EPISODE of TGW and TGF. 

Dear writers: I’ll forgive Timeline Fuckery when it’s beyond your control. I understand that you’re shooting outdoor scenes in March/April when in the show it’s supposed to be late May, so there’s snow on the ground and everyone’s in coats. Fine. You can’t change the weather. And I understand that the Day ### titles are more symbolic than literal. But what’s your excuse for opening this episode with the date (May 27th, 2018) when you didn’t need to?

For one, May 27th, 2018 is a Sunday—and thus not a work day. Any calendar will tell you this. For another, Lucca goes into labor “two weeks early,” we’re told. In 2x06, she said the birth date was scheduled for May 22nd. Why do you do this, writers?! You didn’t have to give dates. You didn’t have to OPEN THIS EPISODE WITH THE DATE. And, if you’re going to use dates, at the very least, write them down somewhere!!!!

See, now I’m starting off the episode in Nitpick Mode (to be fair, I am usually in Nitpick Mode) when I could be starting off the episode simply happy to see the wonderful Lucca Quinn.

Lucca’s in court arguing a case about filming in Chicago. We saw this client earlier in the season—he’s the one who thought Lucca kept needing to use the bathroom.

Lucca and opposing counsel are standing really close to each other and I don’t know why.

Maia’s on this case now, too.

Lucca stops mid-sentence because… she’s going into labor! The client thinks she has to pee, then he thinks it’s a lawyerly trick (Lucca screams in pain as she says “all white facilities!!” which is hilarious).

The judge asks if Lucca needs a moment. She pretends she doesn’t, but that lasts all of a second before she screams “Yes! Yes! Recess! FUCK! Fuck!” and grabs opposing counsel to stable herself. Ah, that’s why he was standing so close to her.

Now Maia’s speeding through the city, with Lucca in the passenger seat with her legs up. Lucca complains about all the cases she’d planned to work on this week as Maia frantically pushes buttons on a cellphone. Bluetooth, Maia. Use Bluetooth and then you can keep both hands on the wheel and look at the road.

Maia has, and is using, Lucca’s phone, and Lucca doesn’t know it. Does Lucca not have a passcode?

Maia calls Colin and instead gets Francesca because I guess Lucca’s number for Colin is not his cell but rather… his mom’s house? But I don’t care, because Francesca is in the practice of answering her home phone with, “Morello Residence, Down with Trump.” I know Colin’s not going to be a regular next season, but can we keep Francesca around as a guest star?

Francesca is shocked that Lucca’s in labor because she thought they were inducing in two weeks. Yes. Because babies always arrive exactly when you schedule them.

Next, Lucca wants to call Diane.

When Diane tells Julius that Lucca’s in labor, Marissa overhears and freaks out.

“Listen, can you take Lucca’s place on the Violence Committee?” Diane asks Julius. (Not going to find another associate to do it? Only a partner? I guess Lucca is doing very well.)

“No! I have to get to the hospital,” Marissa replies before Julius can say anything. This is so Marissa—thinking a question that is OBVIOUSLY not directed at her would be directed at her. “Not you! She means me,” Julius corrects, but Marissa’s already run off.

When did Marissa and Lucca become so close? I know Marissa/Maia/Lucca kind of have a Workplace Friendship Trio thing going, but I feel like we’ve had a lot of Marissa/Maia and a lot of Maia/Lucca, and not as much Marissa/Lucca. I’m accepting it only because I like the idea of the Workplace Friendship Trio and if the show wants to give me Marissa/Lucca scenes, it can go right ahead.

Diane, meanwhile, is being interviewed by FBI agents, one of whom is the Gravedigger from Bones/Rhonda Pearlman from The Wire. At first, it seems like a standard background check, since Kurt’s applying for a position with the FBI. But they seem to be fishing for something related to people who’ve spent the night at Diane’s apartment.

In the last 6 months, Maia spent a few days at Diane’s apartment during the scandal. What? Not only does that timeline not make sense, but shouldn’t we have seen it if Maia was staying with Diane instead of living behind a clock during the scandal? I’m more upset we were denied that than I am about the timeline. This season—and last season—needed more Diane/Maia scenes to make Maia’s presence feel necessary and believable.

As soon as the agents leave, the score from 6x01 kicks in and suddenly I’m having lots of Cary Agos feelings. Diane walks slowly down the hallway, caught up in her thoughts.

“Hey. Is Lucca really giving birth?” Liz stops her, overjoyed. Awww!

Diane asks Liz if she has a minute. She explains her situation with the FBI, says she’s worried about one of her answers, and then does that thing people on this show do where they exchange a dollar to hire a colleague as a lawyer. Then Diane tells Liz she’s worried about someone else who stayed overnight: Tully.

Diane calls the FBI agent and mentions other people who stayed in her apartment, then sneaks in Tully’s name.

LMAOOOOO GUYS THERE IS WHAT APPEARS TO BE A PORTRAIT OF COMEY IN THE BACKGROUND OF THIS SCENE AND HE HAS DEVIL HORNS AND AN EYEPATCH LOLLOLLOLLOLLOL

“You’re fine,” Liz tells Diane when she hangs up. Diane isn’t so sure.

A man talks directly into the camera. “Kill all lawyers. That’s been the anthem for six months of copycat killers and assaulters. Well, today that ends,” he says. That’s a little meta. He’s talking to Adrian and Julius, so I guess this is the violence committee that Lucca was meant to be on and now I wish we’d gotten to see it with Lucca.

The mayor’s put together a committee to address this. Apparently, the best people are on the committee. They’ll get to spend ten million dollars. When Adrian and Julius walk into the room, it’s not what they’d expect. It’s Trump Appointee Trig (incompetent judge), Mr. Elk (whose name is Ted Willoughby but I will forever call him Mr. Elk because of the time he said, “things of that elk”), and… wait for it… the Peter Florrick loving drama teacher. This show has never met a guest star it didn’t want to bring back. (Well, I suppose that’s a lie: there’s always Nick Savarese.)

Mr. Elk is now on Fox News, which doesn’t make sense given that he was introduced as someone who would be friendly towards the Florricks, but does make sense given… well, HIM.

Adrian and Julius quickly realize they’re in a room with a bunch of idiots, and they don’t mince words in saying so. Adrian literally calls them “functioning idiots”, which they are. (The drama teacher is the smartest of the three.)

Adrian’s advised to just go with it and persuade them.

Marissa runs through the hospital trying to find Lucca. When she arrives, Maia is on the phone with Colin, Francesca wants to know how Colin’s doing (no sense of urgency…), and Lucca wants drugs. Marissa cannot figure out how to use a door.

Colin’s now on his way to the airport. He swears out of frustration with the fact he’s not there. “God, it’s good to hear someone swear, other than me,” Lucca replies. “FUCKING HELL,” she exclaims in pain.

“COCKSUCKER!” Francesca replies. Maia, Marissa, and Lucca stare at her. “MOTHERFUCKING COCKSUCKER!” Marissa joins in. “Fucking asshole!” Maia says (she’s more hesitant than the others). Then they all start screaming cuss words and this is why streaming services exist, guys. To bring us hilarious scenes where women in maternity wards scream vulgarities at the top of their lungs.

Kurt’s being interviewed by the FBI next. First question is about the Rindell fund. Second is about the neighbor who spent the night. Third is Tully. They make a point of mentioning he stayed overnight. “Does this apartment have more than one bedroom?” they ask. Oof. They aren’t even trying to be subtle.

Diane’s at aikido and she has a missed call from Kurt and a mysterious letter in her bag. “Conspiracy carries a life sentence. If you want my help, leave a flower pot in your office window and I’ll meet you at your parking space,” it reads.

Diane asks Liz if she’s noticed the Trump mask people. “They dance, and have sex wearing Trump masks.” Liz doesn’t believe her. “I think that’s an insurance firm,” she laughs. Who knows, these days? (That’s the point!)

Then the phone rings. FBI again. They want to ask Diane a question in person.

The FBI agents aren’t thrilled to see that Diane’s brought along a lawyer. “This isn’t adversarial,” one says. Right. That’s what they always say.

Their question: Tully’s made threats against the president and wants to know what Diane knows. They won’t reveal their sources. And they’ve subpoenaed Diane to testify at a grand jury.

Back at the office, Diane picks up a vase of flowers and the camera follows it to the window. Once Diane sets down the vase, it morphs into the vase from the credits. Of course it does. Robert King directed this episode. (This isn’t as awesome as the graphic match in 5x01 (Alicia in profile) but it’s still pretty damn cool.)

The cast list for this episode is insanely fantastic.

The violence committee is exactly as farcical as you’d expect. Killer bees, fake news, a rendition of Annie Get Your Gun with puppies instead of guns… yeah.

Adrian’s idea: a gun buyback program. No one understands this (except maybe Julius). Trig instead wants an “I HEART LAWYERS” ad campaign. Oh my. Mr. Elk suggests a jingle, and No 1 Florrick Fan begins to sing. “I love lawyers. They’re employers.”

There’s calming music playing in Lucca’s hospital room now, but it’s not working. Oh, and Lucca’s mom’s on her way. Francesca’s excited to meet Lucca’s mother, and Lucca’s not at all excited.

Maia tries to change the subject to make Lucca feel better, and Marissa provides a new discussion topic: Lucca moving to D.C. Lucca says she’s not sure she’s going and Francesca acts like it’s a done deal.

Diane goes to her parking spot for her secret meeting. Her new friend announces herself with a ringtone that goes “Fuzzy fuzzy cute cute” because… the Kings wrote this episode.

Diane’s new friend—a young, well-dressed blonde—tells her she’s being targeted because of her firm’s involvement with the impeachment suit and the pee-pee tape. (Side note, I discovered a few days ago that two of my friends had never heard of the pee tape???? Sometimes I think I underestimate just how niche the audience for some of the jokes on TGW/F is.)

“So, what do I call you? Deep Throat?” Diane asks. “No, I don’t do deep throat. Just double penetration and girl-on-girl,” she replies. BWAH. “You’re a porn star?” Diane asks. “I direct now,” she replies. Diane starts to turn away, but New Friend has a point. Trump is terrified of her, and she’s covered by an NDA. “Follow the women,” she advises. The women are the weaknesses of powerful men. Diane looks around and she’s gone. Only not really, because she’s just made her exit to the wrong side of the parking garage and has to double back. Heh.

Liz finds Diane’s mysterious encounter hard to believe. “I know. I’ve spend the last six months in a haze of not knowing what was crazy and what was not. I still don’t know,” Diane states.

Jay shows up, asks about Lucca, and then switches over to helping Diane (continuity is good). Diane notes that the same prosecutor (though I thought he was an ICE agent last ep?) who tried to deport Jay is working on this. Looks like RBL is a target.

Jay’s task is to follow the women.

Tully pulls Diane aside before she testifies and gives her more talk about being rebellious. “Everything I said I am proud of,” Tully offers as an explanation for why he waived attorney-client privilege. The thing about people like Tully—and I don’t mean this because Tully is a radical but rather because Tully is an entitled asshole—is that they don’t care how their actions affect others. Does he care he’s making Diane’s life difficult? Nope.

“Now go give ‘em hell, gorgeous,” Tully says in closing. Adding “gorgeous” really endears me to him. (Just kidding, it makes me loathe him even more!)

Is there some sort of symbolism to Diane’s last name being Lockhart while the prosecutor’s is Basehart? Some kind of doubleing thing?

Diane puts on her Grand Jury face, but it doesn’t work for long because Tully is the worst and also surveillance is everywhere… including Diane’s bedroom. The prosecutor has a recording of Diane and Tully’s conversation about loaded guns from a few episodes back.

And it looks quite incriminating. Diane is pissed. She accuses Tully of taping it, and Tully says Diane has been bugged. Maybe they were listening through her cell phone like they used to listen to Alicia! This is Diane’s next thought too—maybe not the Alicia part, but the phone part—and she destroys her phone’s SIM card.

Jay thinks he’s found a woman to follow. It’s a good start.

“Is this the plan? Blackmailing him?” Liz wants to know. “Yes. Why?” Diane responds like it’s nothing. “Well, it just seems a little sleazy,” Liz warns. Aren’t you the one who suggested making up lies to impeach Trump? (I do not mind Liz being contradictory, because the very first thing we learned about Liz way back in season four of Wife is that she is very good at justifying the things she does while believing everyone else is in the wrong. This isn’t a strategy she concocted, of course she’d question it.) (Also it is sleazy. But not too much sleazier than other things that’ve happened on this show.)

“They’re out to destroy us. If ever there was a time for situational ethics, it’s now,” Diane adds. Did anyone else feel like this episode was dramatic but also not the most dramatic despite how high the stakes are? Maybe it’s just nine years of this or the lack of build-up to this episode or the fact that situational ethics are the bread and butter of this show. (Situational “ethics” perhaps because sometimes… yeah.)

Here’s a fun thought-starter: Imagine a The Good Fight/Wife crossover with The Good Place. Specifically, imagine how Chidi would react to this (or, honestly, any episode).

So I just mentioned lack of build-up, and I didn’t mean that (necessarily) as a bad thing because I think thematically the season was building towards this, and Tully’s been annoying me with his presence since episode 4. On the other hand, the stakes get very high very fast and that never makes it easy to fully understand and embrace just how bad things might be. A fast-paced episode of twists and turns is exhilarating to watch but it never makes me think about just how much all of this would weigh on a person. I’m not really thinking, “wow what would happen if Diane goes to jail” because I doubt that will happen, and I’m not really thinking about how Diane would experience this. Instead I’m thinking about ethics and how often powerful men are skeezeballs and surveillance. And I think the writers are probably more interested in those topics than they are in Diane.

I dunno, maybe it’s just me and my attachment to Alicia Florrick, but I just can’t get inside the minds of any of the TGF characters for more than a few minutes. Diane has been hard to read this season, for me, because so much of her plot is more the Kings reflecting on Trump than an arc for her (and the writers really wasted what was a good arc for her in season 1). Maia’s not interesting enough to spend time analyzing—she’s not inconsistent but I just do not care about her other than to insist that she spend more time working. Lucca and Liz are, I think, the characters I’ve found the most compelling this year… but I want to see more. 

What I loved most about The Good Wife was (obviously) Alicia’s journey. I was attached to the other characters, too, but not in the way I was attached to Alicia. And that was fine, because they were supporting characters who got just enough development that I could analyze their character arcs without feeling they were under-developed. And I LOVED the world TGW built and the questions it posed about structures and politics and technology and the present day. I still love that world.

I guess where I’m going with this is that TGF gives me a lot of things I love—mainly more of the TGW characters and world but adjusted for the Trump era—but it doesn’t deliver the same kind of character development. That’s fine. I don’t need TGF to have an Alicia; it’s a different show focused on an ensemble rather than one lead. I still love The Good Fight a lot and I think it’s great television. I just don’t feel the same connection to it that I felt to Wife.

I have no idea how I ended up on this topic. But I think where I’m going with this is that it would never take me three weeks to write a recap of even the most boring TGW episode, and I’ve been putting off writing this. I feel like I have much less to say about Fight than Wife, and most of the times I get carried away writing things that aren’t rants about Maia are times when I’m comparing the shows or… talking about Alicia, a character who was mentioned a total of one time in season 2. I’m sure part of this is that I’ve changed (when Wife was on, I was in college with lots of pockets of free time, a pretty small social life, a much more active fandom to participate in, etc.; now I work full time and don’t always feel like writing long recaps after a long day of work (and I also rarely start up my personal laptop anymore now that I don’t have to write papers), I have friends I see frequently, fandom is like four or five people these days), but I think most of it is that the show isn’t delivering the thing that motivated me to start writing these long-ass recaps.

… and another week has passed. How am I not finished with this yet?

The FBI agents are back for Kurt, along with Basehart. I’m distracted by two things in this scene: the flowers on the trees outside, because they look enough like cherry blossoms to remind me of BrainDead, and the fact that Alicia’s teal box with the white dots on it is for some reason in Diane’s living room. DON’T THINK I DIDN’T NOTICE.

The agents want to know about a gun that Kurt gave to Diane. Kurt, instead of answering, stands up and says “I have no more answers for you.” “Your wife is about to be indicted,” Basehart says. That’s new.

“I don’t like to swear, so understand this is purely for emphasis: Get the fuck out of our house. No. I mean it. Get the fuck out of our house,” Kurt yells at Basehart. Hee.

Kurt phones Diane, and Diane heads home.

In the Violence Prevention Committee, Mr. Elk is showing the others a clip from his show that I’ll call Elk & Friends. He explains that on Elk & Friends they’re told to address Trump because he watches.

Adrian’s almost convinced Florrick Fan to vote with him when Rahm’s advisor guy whose name I’ve forgotten because I started writing this a month ago adds someone new to the panel: a woman who works for the NRA. L O L

Lucca’s doctor arrives at the hospital looking for Lucca’s room. Francesca immediately hugs her, assuming that any black woman looking for Lucca must be Lucca’s mother. “I was just wondering whether your family is from Tanzania or Nigeria,” Francesca says as a greeting, which… oof. “I just got back from a luxury safari in Tanzania,” she adds. Of course she did.

“Here she is, safe and sound!” Francesca loudly announces to Lucca, Marissa, Maia, and… the woman who actually is Lucca’s mother. That’s when Lucca’s doctor finally has an opportunity to introduce herself.

“Oh! You’re not Lucca’s mom?” Francesca asks. “No, that’s me,” Deirdre Quinn says. They got Judith Light to play Lucca’s mom. This show has the best casting. “I don’t think I understand,” Francesca says because she does not understand that it is possible to be biracial.

“Put her out of her misery, mom,” Lucca chimes in. “Danny, we have someone who needs visual evidence,” Deirdre snarks. You can tell this has happened before.

“Hi. Danny Quinn,” Lucca’s father (who is black) introduces himself. “Now I see the resemblance!” Francesca responds because her default mode is casually racist. “I mean, not that there needed to be a resemblance,” she adds.

The doctor asks for some people to leave the room, so Maia and Marissa head back to work. (The captions identify Maia as saying “we have to get back to work” but, fittingly, it’s actually Marissa who says it.)

“Fuck!” Lucca exclaims, and Francesca dives right back in to screaming MOTHERFUCKER even though the only people who understand what she’s doing have already left. I love Francesca. She would drive me crazy. But she is so amusing.

Julius is on Adrian’s side in the Violence Prevention Committee. How long is it before Julius becomes a liberal?

NRA Lady insists that the problem isn’t just guns: a lawyer was also killed in a hit and run. “Majority were shot,” Adrian notes. NRA Lady says she likes the ad campaign but she wants to spend the money to arm and train lawyers. OF FUCKING COURSE SHE DOES, SHE WORKS FOR THE GODDAMN NRA.

NRA Lady has a video to show the men on the panel. It’s a woman in a bikini with a gun. Great point. Trig, Mr. Elk, and Florrick Fan all stand up to watch the informative video. “It was a very hot day, so they had to make do,” NRA Lady adds.

She also has a bullet proof briefcase, which totally would’ve helped Adrian… not. UGH.

At their apartment, Diane warns Kurt not to talk. They turn on loud music and Diane whispers to Kurt, “I think I’m being bugged.” They decide to talk on the computer instead. I would maybe opt for pen and paper here?

“FBI says you will be indicted.” Kurt writes. Diane takes the keyboard: “Grand jury questioning me again in one hour.” Kurt: “They asked me about your gun.” Diane: “What did you say?” Kurt: “Go to hell.” Diane: “I want to fuck you right now”.

UGH I LOVE THEM A LOT AND KURT NEVER CHEATED THAT NONSENSE DIDN’T HAPPEN BECAUSE LOOK AT HOW GOOD THEY ARE TOGETHER.

“Kurt. They may ask you about someone named Tully,” Diane says later, in bed. Doesn’t Kurt already know about Tully? Didn’t they discuss Tully by name two episodes ago? “I need to tell you…” Diane adds. Kurt says no, she doesn’t need to tell him because they’re starting over. Yes, please.

“Epidural. Epidural,” Lucca can’t stop saying. “Those are pretty words.” Her dad corrects her: it’s one word. Heh.

“Are you and mom intentionally not fighting because of me?” Lucca asks, and suddenly I understand a lot more about Lucca’s life. “No, we don’t fight anymore,” her dad responds. “Why’s that?” Lucca asks. Her dad deflects and instead chooses to focus on how Lucca helped Dominic. “That was a bad segue,” Lucca remarks. But she changes the subject, too.

Outside of the room, Francesca and Deirdre are discussing Colin and Lucca’s relationship. “So they’re not getting married?” Deirdre asks. Francesca confirms that they’re not, but “it’s a different time.” “Why is that?” Deirdre asks. Francesca thinks (and I agree) that Deirdre is just looking to fight.

Deirdre is not without her reasons: Francesca immediately asked Deirdre her opinion on Black Panther and sang a Tanzanian song. Francesca remains clueless and asks Deirdre if she’s seen Get Out.

Back at the grand jury, Diane’s asked about her gun. She says she had it melted down after Adrian was shot, and adds that she wanted nothing to do with guns. “I saw what one did to my partner.” (Which partner do you mean, Diane?)

Next question is about representing the DNC, and if Diane argued for the violent overthrow of the government, complete with a recording of 2x07. (No, Maia’s sex tape isn’t mentioned in this episode. Maybe in five seasons.) (While I’m on that note, have I mentioned that I don’t think we need to hear about the tape to hear about Maia’s relationship? I don’t really care if there’s a tape we never hear about again… I’m much more upset that Maia cheated and that was the last thing we got to know about her relationship.)

Liz informs Ruth about the leaked recording. Ruth isn’t surprised. (Ruth is SO good on TGF.) In fact, Ruth was the one who leaked the tape because she’s playing the long-game. She’s basically making an example of Diane in order to show the DNC isn’t biased.

“You fucked her!” Liz accuses. “No, we acted responsibly,” Ruth argues (ummm). “She fucked herself. I’m sorry for your friend, Liz, but I want to win. The Democrats need to stop being such pussies. We have to win.” Ouch.

Colin finally gets to the hospital! Just in time! “Where’s the epidural?” Lucca’s asking. The doctor explains they’ve curbed the effect because it’s time to push. “You motherfucker! You bring the drugs back!” Lucca screams. Hehe. “You cocksucking asshole!” Francesca chimes in. I bet Lucca’s son’s first word is going to be “fuck.” And I don’t think Lucca will mind if it is.

Apparently Lucca’s family is religious, or at least Francesca has reason to believe that.

Oh, yes, they are: Lucca’s mom wants the baby to be baptized and has chosen now to tell Francesca. Colin jumps into action and kicks the parents out.

And Lucca doesn’t seem opposed to the idea of a baptism either, which caught me by surprise (I assumed she was an atheist) but doesn’t really sound too off.

The partners are waiting up to hear if Lucca’s given birth yet. It’s been 14 hours of labor. Why are they waiting for a phone call that might not even come that night? Why would they even expect to be notified the minute the baby was born and not the next day?

Either (a) No one at the firm ever has children so this is a huge event or (b) Lucca’s an extremely important employee. I’m hoping option b is the explanation here.

Marissa and Jay are still working—it’s gotta be midnight by now; maybe the partners are gathered because of Diane’s legal trouble and are also expecting a call from Lucca? Sorry, I am stuck on this. After the way the partners reacted to Lucca’s pregnancy earlier in the season, I would not expect this kind of reaction from them.

Anyway, Marissa and Jay followed the women and found out that Basehart is a good guy (or at least was being a good guy when he helped the pretty young blonde).

The phone rings. Adrian answers. It’s Colin. “Lucca wanted me to call you and tell you that… we have a son.” Congratulations, Lucca!!!! (And Colin lol. I am reading this over and I have realized I congratulated Lucca and not Colin.)

Lucca and Colin’s son, Joseph Quinn-Morello, was born at 1:15 am. Awwwww.

The partners toast to Joseph, and to the future. “May he make a change for a better world,” Diane says. “God knows we need it,” Liz adds. I still don’t buy that this is happening but it’s so sweet I’ll set aside the nitpicking. This scene also contains continuity (I think it’s later that someone comments the champagne is left over from the poorly attended party in 2x04) so yay!

Colin and Lucca discuss how crazy their parents are. “I don’t think I’ll like DC,” Lucca says next. “Give it a year and I bet you will,” Colin says. Lucca doesn’t respond, but she’s not convinced.

The bottle of champagne is gone and Adrian suggests going home. “You know, a year ago… we were looking out at a blacked-out Chicago and I was depressed, and you said to me that the only constant that we have is the law. We’re not a country of men and women; we’re a country of laws. Do you still believe that?” Diane asks. “Yes,” Adrian replies. “That took you a while,” Diane comments. “It’s been a very odd year, Diane,” Adrian says as Liz takes a seat and joins the conversation. (I guess Julius went home to his, er, SIX CHILDREN).

“Yesterday I read that an undocumented pregnant woman was sent back to the country where she was born. There were death threats against her there, and within six months, she was murdered. It was the law to deport her, but, I mean, it wasn’t…” Diane remarks. “Just,” Liz finishes her sentence. “Exactly. What does it matter if we’re a country of laws if the laws aren’t just?” Diane wonders. “What option do we have?” Adrian asks. “Placing justice above the law?” Liz suggests. “Doesn’t justice define the law?” Adrian counters. “Mmmhmm. Conscience does. It has to,” Liz replies. “So then… it’s okay to break the law?” Adrian wonders. Liz and Diane consider this. “If it offends your conscience, yeah,” Liz concludes.

SO MUCH to unpack here. None of these are ideas we haven’t heard before from this show, but they’re coming together in new ways. Diane is well aware that the law is not always just. She’s counted on that to win cases. Wasn’t she always telling Alicia in the early seasons that they follow the law? That their duty is to represent their clients blah blah blah? But she didn’t find it to be a moral offense then—just part of the job. But now Diane questions the structures. I don’t think many of us thought that our systems could fail in the way they’re starting to. And I don’t think many of us were aware of how backwards some of our laws are. Certainly, The Good Wife often hit on that theme (remember how the NSA came to listen to all of Peter Florrick’s calls because Nisa once left a voicemail in tears on the Florrick family’s answering machine?). But there’s a difference between encountering instances of unjust laws and realizing (or coming to feel) that the entire system is unjust. I am not sure if I completely agree with Diane and Liz, but I understand where they’re coming from and why their positions have changed.

(I say changed because I don’t think either Diane or Liz would’ve ever talked like this pre-45. But I do think Liz especially felt this way before. The ends justify the means, and all that.)

(Also, “an odd year” (or “a weird year”) is a line that has been uttered like twenty times on this show. And the idea of ignoring rules that you find unjust is something Alicia LOVED to do, albeit in a different context. I could expand on that comment but then I’d end up writing an essay on Alicia Florrick’s morality, which has nothing to do with the discussion Diane/Liz/Adrian are having and nothing to do with the current political moment.)

One more thing on this scene: I love that Liz is included!!! Liz has worked so well as an addition to this cast.

Diane gets an idea: Lying. She asks Adrian to give Ted Willoughby some scoop at the next committee meeting

NRA lady gets her way (ugh), but Adrian agrees to write the proposal, thinking no one from the committee will actually read it so he can just write his own policies. This seems dangerous, but alright.

Then Adrian slips Mr. Elk the scoop. He knows it’s false, but leaks it anyway to help Diane. I know this is the result of a conversation about ethics and lying, but no one’s lying in court AND this is reminiscent of so many other manipulations on TGW/F that I’m not really sure it feels as monumental as it seems? I’m 99.9% sure Diane’s done stuff like this just to win cases. And if Diane hasn’t, Will definitely did. Isn’t it a very common strategy (on this show) to suggest in court that affairs there’s no evidence of were going on? And didn’t they literally create fake news to sway a jury twice this season? I don’t even have to go back more than a couple of episodes to find an example!  

Lucca’s heading home from the hospital. “So, Colin, huh,” her mom says. “Well that sounds critical,” Lucca replies. “No. He just seems a little more white bread than your usual guys,” her mom observes. Lucca calls him a good guy, and her mom is like, but he wasn’t here when you were in labor. YEAH. TWO WEEKS EARLY. OF ALL THE THINGS TO HOLD AGAINST COLIN WHY THIS ONE?

“I’m going to give you some advice, Lucca. It’s the garage door test. My mom gave it to me, and I’m going to give it to you. Now, if you want to know if a relationship is working, when you drive home from work and you open the garage door, are you happy when you see his car parked there, or are you disappointed?” Deirdre says. “I live in an apartment,” Lucca retorts. “Don’t be contentious. If you see his car parked on the street, are you happy or sad? Do you want to come home and be alone or be with him?” Deirdre continues.

“Mama, I don’t like coming home and seeing anybody there, ever,” Lucca explains. “Well, then there’s your answer,” Deirdre says. “What? That I should be alone for the rest of my life?” Lucca wonders. “No. Wait until you’re happy to see someone’s car,” Deirdre explains. Good advice. And I bet Lucca’s heard it before, because it’s the exact same advice she gives Alicia in the TGW series finale. (I’m not upset that Lucca’s mom is giving her advice she herself has given to others before. I think it makes sense. She had to get that idea from somewhere, and her mom’s probably talked like this many times before, just not directly to Lucca.)

“Are you and dad getting divorced?” Lucca switches the topic. Deirdre’s silence is all the answer she needs. “I love you,” Deirdre says.

On the drive back from the hospital, Lucca looks sad. She’s lost in thought, and she’s realized at once that she’s not with the person she wants to spend her future with and her parents are splitting up.

Colin tells Lucca that Maia and Marissa want to stop by. Lucca smiles at that. And, indeed, there they are, in Maia’s car (just in case it wasn’t clear that they’re the ones happy to come home to!). “I can get rid of them fast,” Colin offers. “No! I want them here,” Lucca decides. “I just realized I want them here,” she says to herself. YES! YES YES YES!

I’m much more invested in Lucca’s friendships than in her romantic relationships. One of the first things we learned about Lucca was that she didn’t have friends, and it means a lot that she’s finally found people who make her happy. Friendships can be fulfilling. Not everyone needs a romantic relationship to be happy, and I love that the show is finally acknowledging this. The idea of a life without a romantic partner that’s still happy and fulfilling isn’t really one Wife ever allowed Alicia to explore for long (if at all), and I’m glad to see that Fight has given its most guarded character the chance to realize there are different paths to happiness. Wife did allow Diane to have a fulfilling life before Kurt came along, but there’s a difference, I feel, between starting off a character in that spot and having a character actively choose friends over a relationship.

(Yes, I’m still bitter that the TGW finale spent so much time having Alicia choose among Peter, Jason, and somehow inexplicably Will when she could’ve chosen herself or her friendship with Lucca. The TGW finale sidelines Lucca when I think it should’ve doubled down on the importance of her friendship with Alicia—which, tbh, I bought a hundred million times more than any of Alicia’s romantic feelings towards Jason.)

Mr. Elk runs the story—we see Diane watching it. Also on the Ted & Friends homepage? “Darkness Before Noon Season Finale Flops.” If I squint, I can read some of the text of the article: “The ??? ??? (highly literal? Liberal??) streaming show found it’s [sic] season finale to be a ratings failure, despite the streaming service not releasing ratings. Inside sources claim the show is on the bubble.” Soooooooo the writers didn’t know if they were getting a season 3, is what I’m getting. Sneaky.

(ALWAYS READ THE TEXT THAT’S ON SCREEN BECAUSE YOU’LL GET SNARK AND ALSO DELICIOUS LINGUISTICS.)

One of the hosts suggests that the president fire Basehart. Diane and Liz smile. Diane moves the flower pot back to the window: “This past month, I’ve been feeling at peace and in control. And I realized that’s not enough. Because people are out to get me. It’s time to fight.”

Soooo the case against Diane is wrapped up if you want it to be and open if you don’t, and there’s a suggested arc for season 3 if you want there to be (a more rebellious Diane). This is classic season-or-series finale writing. If the show stopped here, with Lucca choosing her friends and then Diane declaring “it’s time to fight,” it might not be the best ending but it would feel like an ending. But if the show goes on from here, there are still stories to tell. Between that Darkness Before Noon article and the way the end of this episode feels, I would bet that the Kings didn’t know if the show would be renewed when they wrote this episode.

The closing shot of the season is all of the partners going into a meeting while a computer plays a clip announcing that Kill All Lawyers has given way to Kill All Reporters. Y’all, this is pretty much how they ended BrainDead: suggesting that the main arc was concluded (bugs eating brains of politicians) but there could be more to come (bugs on Wall Street). To end TGF, though, we get an ominous clip of Trump referring to an upcoming “storm.” I don’t know what to say about that, but it’s terrifying!

I’m sure I’ve said this before, but season 2 of TGF feels, at times, more like BrainDead than The Good Wife, and that’s a good thing. I’m eager to rewatch BrainDead. I have a feeling it’ll play differently now than it did in summer 2016.

One final thought: Have you guys heard of something called Trumpy Bear? The other day, I was watching an episode of Younger On Demand, when all of the sudden, what looked like an ad for religious programming came on. “A storm is coming. You cannot defeat the storm. I am the storm. The great American grizzly,” it began. (I think this is a reference to the same quote the TGF finale ended on!) Then confetti poured down the screen. Turns out this wasn’t an ad for a religious show: it was an ad for a stuffed bear with Trump’s hairdo. The bear contains an American flag blanket. The ad shows a bunch of white people cuddling with the bear, taking it golfing, and brushing its hair. I swear to you I did not make this up. You can go on YouTube and find ads for this. It really exists.

But it took me at least fifteen minutes to acknowledge that I hadn’t accidentally taken some of Diane’s psilocybin and hallucinated it. I rewound the program and took a video on my phone. I sent the video or a link to the infomercial (once I found it) to at least ten people. I needed others to tell me this was real because I was staring at the screen in disbelief. When I sent it to some people, I made the TGF reference. To others, I just said, “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?” and three people (100% of the TGF viewers I sent it to without the upfront joke) replied with their own TGF references.

My point here? The Kings are on to something. This season of TGF captured exactly how it feels to be living through these times.

Also, I still need people to tell me that teddy bear is real. I am SCARRED.