#cut for grumpy overinvested analysis lol

[elainemorisi]

periodically I will remember the two sets of very directly parallel episode plots and I am just... were they actively trying to make the bromance from hell look bad or like what. what were the thoughts. how did you write the same plot twice and make such a nasty, unsympathetic hash of the friendship you were actively trying to push, twice

IT IS! JUST! HOW I gotta assume this is a different symptom of what I am now FIRMLY convinced is the case, namely “WOW your definition of sympathetic and mine do NOT align”, but what IS these writers' definition it is just!!! so????

so like look right. first parallel which is more obvious in that the two episodes are close together. (second parallel is more obvious in terms of literally verbatim lines). first plot goes like such: Julian and Friend suddenly trapped in a life-threatening situation for both themselves and everyone around them. only two options: abandon and so kill everyone else or put full faith in Julian's cleverness, Julian picks door number two Friend picks door number one. When Julian puts his foot down that it will be door two Or Else, Friend We're Supposed To Prefer henceforth FWSTP not only fully ignores that and carries right on toward door number one, but refuses even Julian's offer to let him, FWSTP, actually get out alive, sabotages his work and dooms everyone else. Then follows up by claiming he had no choice and that Julian is the one who should be more sympathetic. Meanwhile Friend We're Not Supposed To Count: makes his argument, heads for the door, and when push in fact comes to shove begins cooperating IMMEDIATELY. And ends by admitting he was wrong without any prompting whatsoever. The fact that one episode had to end well and one badly is insufficient explanation, it’d have been perfectly easy to force Julian to outwit or overpower Garak in OMB, and give Miles reasoning a lot heavier on 'I love you and don't want us to die' and a LOT lighter on the nonsensical space racism (love you AND TRUST OR RESPECT YOU LITERALLY AT ALL).

And that's just wtf enough! AND YET! what do we then do. We ripoff another friendship arc from two seasons ago, down to Friend taking issue with Julian's smug face, only again! one LITERALLY cannot make the sentence a complete insult and the other says it so convincingly that Julian LEAVES. And sure he comes back but there's a pretty large emotional difference between resolving the Traumatized Friend Gets Help plot with a conveniently-timed “literally be interrupted mid-suicide attempt and carefully talked at until you talk yourself down and accept the help everyone has been waving at you the whole time” and “consciously, willfully, with a plausible option (or, arguably, options, plural) to not, not only actually ask for help but reveal closely-held personal secrets in so doing”