#IT'S CAUSE I SHIP STENDAN

[facelessfrey]

Roswell New Mexico Season 2, Episode 13

- I’m sure that wasn’t supposed to be comedy but I literally laughed through most of that and I’m still laughing at the last scene. I can’t. I just...I can’t. I mean what the fuck even was half of that?!?!?

- I mean that episode was WILD. I don’t even know where to begin. This is going to get long...you are forewarned. 

- Let’s start with the EXTREMELY RAPID conclusion of last week’s mortal peril. Yep....let’s just do some CPR...not even have to break out the alien defibrillator powers and oh look Max is just fine. I mean...thank god cause I could not go through a repeat of last season although...considering the last scene...that might be preferable. (I’m still laughing...like full on cracking up and my roommates probably think I’m nuts). Then we’ve got Liz dumping the contents of some top secret recipe giant ketchup bottles on the alien console and oh...yep....melted. Glad that crisis was averted. Then we have some random shots of people going to the hospital and oh look...everyone’s alive and fine except...Jesse Manes. I mean...don’t get me wrong...he’s a monster and I’m not sorry he’s dead by my god what a pitiful end to a character that should have been a really good villain but instead was a guy who limped around in the background most of the season until suddenly in one episode it turns out he had been putting together a dastardly plan to show the aliens as the monsters they are and then murder them....sure. Why not?!?! Well...I guess it’s nice that that barely three episode arc of Gregory Manes wanting to stand up for Alex got some closure. I just...it’s so dumb!!!!

- Oh wait...I forgot...not shocking cause it was literally two seconds, but hey...Helena randomly went back and saved Charlie and proceeded to yell at her for getting chained up and not leaving while she freed her. Cool. 

- Right...so that’s all wrapped up in the opening five minutes...let’s just move on...we’ve got a lot of other insane junk we have to throw into the next 35 minutes. Yep...still laughing. 

- Let’s just kick things off with Michael and Maria...and now I’m laughing again. I did ask the show to prove me wrong earlier today and well...I mean....they half did?!?!?!! Except it was literally insane so I don’t even know what to say. So...Maria’s just fine cause you know she was only half alien so that’s cool and great and then oh wait...she just happens to have a magic plot box dropped off by Mimi. Thanks Mimi...you still have no real purpose in this story except to occasionally move the plot forward but thanks for the box. But Michael doesn’t trust Mimi’s plot hints so he doesn’t want to open the box. Instead....he goes to hang with Alex and they destroy the shed together, which admittedly was a very nice scene and totally gave me Stendan in Dublin vibes and I quite liked it. 

- But it was also all so they could find a literal skeleton under the floorboards. Gotta get those callbacks in eh? Hahaha. And of course it’s Tripp! Who else would it be? And of course...he’s got the magical key so it turns out Mimi really is tuned into the plot and read ahead in the script and knew that box would be important! So back to Maria he goes after having this super cathartic scene with Alex that tied into their emotional past together. I mean...par for the course...and I was fully ready for the whiplash that was going to make me crazy and you know...I was not disappointed because they started out being all “hey I love you” and I was like “eye roll knew that was coming” but then! She just up and breaks up with him because that’s what you do after a mutual I love you that’s based on zero relationship development over the past twelve and a half episodes. And once again...I am laughing. 

- I mean...I’ll say this...I’m glad it was her that broke up with him and in part because she totally knows he’s in love with Alex and we have been saying that literally all season so like I’m glad she noticed. But I literally died when she was all “I’ve learned so much from this relationship”. What?! What did you learn? Did you get motivation in your script direction that we weren’t privy to because I still have literally no idea what either of you were supposed to be getting out of that relationship but hey...who cares cause it’s over now and Maria just decided that so it’s all fine. No heartbreak there. And you know...Michael seems totally cool with it. Barely even put up a fight. Hahahahaha. Again...I can’t. 

- So then we go back to Alex and Michael and Isobel who is all of a sudden team Malex this episode when previously she was inventing emojis for Michael’s Maria hearteyes so yeah...all of this is just really confusing. But hey! The box has Tripp’s journal in it and descriptions that make Michael squirm but also....Tripp and Nora’s love was...wait for....COSMIC! Hahaha. Oh this show. It’s drunk on it’s own absurdity. So anyway...we’re filled in on the rest of Tripp and Nora’s story...well...sort of. We know she tried ice cream and liked it and there was talk of the mystery bad man that wasn’t Noah but uh...more on that later. Haha. Well...I guess we know Harlan killed Tripp and we unfortunately saw Nora die so that’s a wrap on the 1947 flashbacks I guess?!?! Sure. 

- Oh god and the song...since we’re on Malex anyway. I mean...I liked the song and yeah....he got all the references in there. I never look away...cosmic...sure. And I knew once Forrest was there that kiss was going to happen but my god...are we really setting up season three where now Alex is the one in a random relationship and Michael is trying to be happy for him and we repeat season two’s nonsense?! Are we going to have another threesome just for funzies because you know...that was still LITERALLY the dumbest and most pointless plot point of the season. But anyway, I’m happy Alex felt comfortable enough to sing a song about a guy and kiss a guy in front of a crowded bar but there was literally NO REASON it could not have been Michael. He and Forrest literally had like four scenes together this season compared to Malex who had this whole emotional arc but no...gotta make it complicated. 

- Props to them for managing to have one last break up without actually even having a conversation this time. TALENT. LEGENDS ONLY. 

- I guess at least now that there’s just a minor character in the way and they probably can’t actually kiss again due to coronavirus restrictions, there’s probably some hope for Malex next season?!?! Maybe they’ll find a vaccine by the time there’s a Malex reunion. Maybe good things come to those who suffer. Hahaha.

- Right...let’s move on to Max and Liz. So uhh...Max spends the whole episode seeming like he was hopped up on drugs again or desperate for a fix. What is in that antidote?! Once again we gloss over the “darkness” in Max because like who needs real follow up to the first five episodes of the season. Not this show!

- The whole “Max destroys Liz’s lab” plot was nuts. Just the sheer speed of it from Diego magically appearing at the diner with the Generyx woman to Jenna’s super spy disguise to Max just blowing up the lab as Diego and co drive up and then they just exit stage left super fast except for the fact that Liz is still seemingly going to California but like...why? Did Generyx woman still agree to give her a grant based on her exploding lab?! Did she just feel bad that she didn’t have a lab anymore?! 

- Sidebar to Steph...fucking Steph...whose apparent entire purpose this season was to be sick enough to inspire Liz to do science and break up her and Max over it and then survive after Liz randomly finds time to give her some kind of half baked medicine from her lab BEFORE it exploded??!?! Or does she just carry that shit around with her? And for the love of god SOMEBODY SAVE KYLE from this EXCRUCIATINGLY BORING story!!!!!! Please don’t subject him to more of this next season. Let them break up during the pandemic and give Kyle a clean slate and allow him to reenter the narrative in a way that allows him actual screen time and scenes with the group. Sigh...at least he got to hug Liz and have a brief scene with Alex where Alex told him he was proof of redemption. Look at that character arc that was literally told in two scenes this season! Yeah...see they can be concise when they want to!

- Anyway...back to Max. OH MY GOD WHAT WAS THAT FINAL SCENE?!?!?!??! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA?!!? I don’t even know what I was expecting but it WAS NOT THAT! What even?!?! WHY AM I BEING SUBJECTED TO TWO MAXES?!?! ONE WAS ENOUGH...sometimes MORE THAN ENOUGH. This is just really mean and so was forcing me to look at that HIDEOUS beard! I just....I really can’t handle it. HAHAHA! What drugs were they on when they wrote this?! Also...NONE OF THIS ANSWERS ANY QUESTION AT ALL!!!!!!!!!

- Let’s see...what else...

- I’m glad Jenna and Charlie FINALLY had a scene together because when Jenna first said that Charlie had disappeared again, I got so mad because it was just inexplicably dumb. So I’m glad they got to see each other. 

- I’m glad Rosa is going back to rehab and that she both got to tell her mother that she loved her and tell her to stay the fuck away. 

- I’m just laughing at the fact that for like one episode Helena was suddenly the big bad or at least a main antagonist or at least some kind of main player for the season and then just as quickly was COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT and is probably just going to leave now?!??! WHY?!?!?!? 

- Can Isobel please get something legit to do next season that doesn’t just involve her going into people’s heads without asking and maybe involves her getting a love interest of her own? Please?! I mean...I’m glad she got learn about her mother this season but also I feel like she didn’t do much and I think she deserves more than that. 

- I guess I’m glad Maria is embracing her alien side and trying to be true to herself or whatever but also....she was literally just in this episode to “not be dead”, to give Michael a plot box and to break up with him so she’s no longer a shipping obstacle. And then we never saw her again the rest of the episode. I really sincerely hope they do more with her next season in a way that actually serves her as a character because this season did not do her many favors. I’m glad she finally knows about the aliens and they delved into her own alien identity but I hope she really gets to do something with that next season and not just exist to save everyone else at the end with no thanks for it. I mean literally no one was on screen visiting her except Michael just so she could give him a box and break up with him. Liz and Max were literally at the hospital. But no...Liz had to see irrelevant Steph so she could save her for some unknown reason. Sigh....Not even her cool aunt Isobel came to see her. 

- I don’t even know what else to say. I’m still laughing. I still feel like I know LITERALLY NOTHING about what was going on this season. I had hopes for this season at the end of season one but honestly I have zero hopes for season three because I’m sure it will be a clusterfuck but an even weirder clusterfuck than normal cause everyone will be standing eight feet apart. Maybe that will make them tell a tighter story and not try and shove 75 different plots into 13 episodes??? Probably not. I’m sure it’ll still be batshit crazy and make no sense at all. I’m gonna treat the show as a comedy from now on. 

- Well...it’s been fun all. Thanks to anyone who made it through this whole nonsense post. You deserve a prize. Maybe a plot box or a skeleton under a floorboard or a journal telling you your relatives’ love was cosmic too. 

[onlymywishfulthinking]

Just read the articles BK chats and really has no idea what fans want, I mean he killed/destroy jarry and that now something gonna happen with james and john paul. Plus that stupid who shoots merecdes sl, aslo Ive barely seen any positive comments about scott and Mitchell but he's magically seen loads. Feel like he kinda explain why he killed harry/jarry though cause he doesn't like love story with a villain and he seen james as a villain

It’s very clear that James is one of the most popular characters on the show and Greg is their best actor. James was part of a ship that had the biggest fandom since Stendan & McDean and BK destroyed the character, killed the ship and Greg’s best onscreen partner all in one go! For what?? So James can be a suspect in who shot Mercedes??? And then go back to dating JP?? unbelievable 

BK has zero comprehension of what the fans want to see. BK has tunnel vision and only sees what he wants to see and then latches on to 1 positive comment and blows it out of proportion. It’s clear as day that he has his favourites - Ste, Mercedes, Warren, Maxine, Sienna, Scott and JP and he will always talk about them positively and barely ever mention someone else. 

BK was going WAY overboard when praising the Scott/Mitchell actors -  In my opinion (and I know many other’s too) the guy that plays Mitchell is a really bad actor and Scott’s actor isn’t much better. Their ship had a few positive comments on Social Media and BK pretends like the audience loves them. Same goes for Sienna/Brody.

The Jarry fandom has had a HUGE social media presence online for over a year now. Yet BK has never said a single thing about Jarry, not a thing about James and Harry’s characters and relationship and nothing about how extremely popular they are. 

The HO media team aren’t blind. A lot, if not the majority of their top likes and comments have been about Jarry. Same goes for all the spoiler articles from DS, RT and Metro. But BK obviously dislikes Jarry and doesn’t care about them or James and Harry as characters, no matter how popular they are with the audience.

The only thing that BK has said about Jarry is that he found it refreshing that Ste wasn’t the bad guy for once, during the Jarry affair storyline!! And that should tell you everything you need to know. 

[romeoquinns]

if i see one more person compare jarry or this situation to stendan in any way, i'm going to lose my mind. why would you ever want james to become like brendan, when he was literally abusive towards ste? i dont ship jarry because i want them to have some sort of power imbalance between the younger guy and older guy. i don't ever want jarry to be moulded in to something they're not and i hate that this situation is constantly causing people to compare the two.

[whenthespotlightfades]

I think James shoots Mercedes and they will pair him with JP just so he can be the one to figure it out but if your predictions are right and they do an actual domestic abuse storyline then i'm glad Harry's dead and they didn't do it with Jarry. Especially knowing that Ste will come and save JP in the end. I mean they did some damage to Jarry in the end but it was short and i can pretend that those last couple of weeks didn't happen which i couldn't if it was a storyline that went for months

Very good point. I also think Stendan was an expection the rule, not the norm, when it comes to so many people shipping such a toxic relationship. Though given robr*n popularity more people might like absuvie ships than care to admit it. I could easily see this storyline having been the original plan, but BK realizing not enough liked Starry to want Harry saved by him and maybe the fact that a lot of Jarry shippers are stendan shippers, so it wouldn’t have scared a lot of in the end unless it was done really poorly. I still think James shooting Mercedes would make for a more interesting storytelling, just because he wouldn’t be the most obvious suspect and if I cannot get James killing Breda I will settle for James shooting my personal most hated character on the soap. Pity she’s not dying. I could see the intrigue in that, JP coming back, sort of reconnecting with James and then learning James shot Mercedes and bringing James down as justice for Merdeces. (Cause let’s be real JP not doing that would be even more OOC than him genuinely falling back in love with James). I do agree as much as I love Stendan, I never wanted a repeat of that, so if that is the case with McNight, I’m glad it’s not Harry. This way the love of James his life remains as much in tact as it is now. Though James as a character deserved so much than having been turned into an abusive boyfriend to begin with. 

[vampirenicotine]

I feel like starry fans should let starry go but whateves you do you boo. Just don’t like how so many of them come to our fandom trying to tear down jarry. Not directed at anon just starry fans in general. I hope we do get jarry cause we deserve it, starry fans had 3 years and Harry got nothing out of it tbh. Why should Harry’s character suffer for a ship/Ste when he has character potential with James??

i 100% agree like i mean ship what you want, but starry was never my cup of tea and even if you take my stendan bias out of the equation i never understood what was shippable about ste chasing after a young boy, it was such a set back for his character and their entire relationship just seemed to get worse. like when i tried watching starry i always adored harry & i thought he deserved better than that relationship. it’s like with james he’s finally coming out of his shell and from a harry stan pov, don’t we deserve to see him doing that over seeing him being continuously isolated with ste?

[jamescarstairz]

okay not to be problematic but like maybe a healthy relationship would be great and like sneaky giraffes arent the best at that...

Oh no doubt yeah my issue with Alex isn’t that he’s not Robert it’s that HE’S SO BORING. I could cope with Aaron in a relationship with someone other than the nightmare human Robert J Sugden if the other person were actually on any level as interesting as Robert but Alex just... Isn’t... 

I want Aaron (and Robert for that matter) in a healthy loving relationship but then I remember I’m watching a soap and that just... doesn’t happen??? Aaron and Alex were never made to last they just don’t work together as characters there’s a lot of aspects of their characters especially Aarons that just wouldn't work well with the Alex’ so I’m just choosing to ignore the fact he’s a character cause he’s not lmao he’s a plot device and I couldn’t care less about him tbh all there is to him is that he’s a nice doctor like okay??? Is that it??? 

Yes Robert is a giant mess and he’s not a ‘good person’ but he’s trying to be. He genuinely wants to be a better person and I mean Aaron isn’t a saint lmao people always seem to forget that. 

I don’t watch soaps for healthy relationships I mean just look at some of my old soap ships like McDean and Stendan they weren't healthy at all but you know what they were? Passionate and exciting and interesting! I’m here for an epic love story that is so over the top I’m looking for a story about two nightmare humans that fall in love who are soulmates who make me still root for them even when they're not together even after everything that's happened. I’m here for Robert and Aaron because I love watching them together and I always will and to quote Robert NO ONE ELSE COMES CLOSE. 

[victoriasugden-blog1]

Unpopular opinion: Stendan were overrated

I liked Stendan and it was defo Ste’s best ship, but I never bought the hype but tbh I haven’t loved any m/m since JP and Craig cause their still the MVP of Hollyoaks ships!

Send me unpopular soap opinions

[dollopheadsandclotpoles]

OK I just discovered ANOTHER blog that blocked me this month.... that's 3 now... honestly wild

[whenthespotlightfades]

Hollyoaks 30 Day Challenge

Day 20. If you could bring back any character, who would it be & why.

Brendan Brady No surprise there. I wouldn’t even necessarily bring him for a whole year. I don’t think I trust the writers not to ruin him in that time span. But we all know if Brendan returns, it’s for Ste’s exit storyline, so if he can come back for a few weeks or 3 months and then whisk Ste away. Yes, Please. I get my stendan happy ending and my current desire to write Ste out of the soap. 

Amy Barnes The soap did her so dirty, my god, did she deserve better and more. She was a smart, fearless girl and a good mother. And in the end she was killed for manpain and to further the storyline of Ste. She was reduced to nothing more but his babymama and she had to go, so that Ste would permanently be in charge of the kids. I mean.... What the hell is that all about?  Not to mention that in the end, the whole who killed Amy storyline was just terrible. (apart from the beautiful Jarry we got out of it)

cr: @hollyoaksloversx

Doug Carter Yes, you can love Brendan and love Doug. I mean can you imagine if Doug had simply left for America and would return soon. He was such a great, amazing character and even though I ship Stendan through and through, Stug was by far Ste’s healthiest relationship and if I have to keep Ste around after his storyline is over, it would have been 100 better if he had Doug to pull him out and remind him what loyalty, love and sincerity looks like. 

Nathan Nightingale

I miss this guy, and I still cannot believe I got robbed of Cleo and Nathan as a couple, which would have been cuteness overload. Not to mention that Nathan in the end never got to meet Romeo, make amends with James and realize who his father really was. I mean okay, he figured it out a bit when he was falling out of window, but... I would flick him back alive in a heartbeat for more nightingales and the return of Clathan! 

cr: @parryglasspools

Kieron Hobbs

Listen, It’s not someone most people think about, or hell even remember, but I love this man okay. He owns my heart. Kieron was pure, sweet, honest and he got so screwed over in the end.  I would bring him back, simply because I love him so much, I wouldn’t know who to pair him with, as no one would fit him at all, but I’m sure the soap could think of someone new, cause this man like Doug, deserved the world and both got death in stead. 

[whenthespotlightfades]

Anon, your message somehow got deleted while I moved from my phone to my computer... I don’t think a lot of fans are leaving because of this, so the fandom will rise again. Most Jarry shippers are stendan shippers, and we���ve been here before. This abusive aspect of a relationship isn’t something new to us and the soap knows that. They know Jarry is the next Stendan and they are using that to their advantages. James being the most popular character since Brendan and the most popular male character on the soap these days, definitely helps.   I know Brendan isn’t everyone cup of tea, but there is no denying he’s one of the best things about Hollyoaks for the general audience. Any poll. ask or post about who should return has Brendan there 100 times more than any other character. James is that character now. If James had died in March, it would have had a massive impact on the soap. Like when Emmett left and they had helplines open and saw the soap take a steep dive in ratings.  To most of us this is a good thing, cause it means the soap isn’t axing Greg until he wants to leave, they might not favour him, but they aren’t stupid. They know James can survive this behaviour and that with the right material people will ship Jarry more than ever before when they reunite. And they will no doubt in my mind about that.  So, I do think this fandom will rise again, from the ashes like a phoenix stronger than before, and hopefully that applies to Jarry as well.