#even if ej handled the summer differently rina was still going to happen

[starrrbakerrr]

"Gi, you are literally the easiest person in the world to root for." (4x03)

[rinisbowen]

with all the new information that's come out today my expectations for portwell making it out of this season unscathed has gone 📉📉. Now with Gina as the female lead plus Ricky as the male lead (of the show), add that to the fact that EJ is graduating and they're back at school next season AND val purposefully written to be his age and also childhood friend. I've seen ships come back from worse places than rina and still end up together so.... it's not looking good for them unfortunately ://

Ik the graduating thing might not be a huge deal if they keep EJ around SLC, but even still I can't see the writers wanting to put a junior Gina w someone who doesn't go to the school, especially when Ricky will still be at East.

tbh it's a hard thing, predicting what's going to happen... in this show or any show honestly. i think one of the biggest things that makes this all so challenging is the fact that people on every side of the issue speak with such certainty, and that makes it hard to know what to believe when you don't have such strong convictions.

i do get why your confidence is shot, a lot of rina shippers have had theirs pushed to what is probably an all time high for this wait between seasons so far, and that makes it harder to stick to your own feelings about things. i'll say this, you're allowed to have hope, everyone is! that's the fun thing, none of us knows what's going to happen.

--

i don't think you have to say for sure right now that they can't make it out of the season unscathed. i don't yet think it's outside of the realm of possibility that they stay together. unscathed is also relative, because they're definitely in for some SUBSTANTIAL drama. now that olivia rodrigo's officially at recurring status, and rini's unable to share the burden... i think for portwell, any hope gina and ej had of being more on par with say big red and ashlyn in the couple drama department is gone.

ej and gina aren't together yet, and this season they're going to explore what it means to be together. it's almost like a stress test, seeing what they can handle in this smaller incubator that is summer camp, before facing the real world when school starts in the fall and they find themselves in different schools this time.

i think it's going to have its highs and lows. rini is the only blueprint we have so far for how this show is willing to treat the "a couple" of the season, and right now that's portwell. they're going to go through a lot. i think the bulk of that does surround college and then his other relationship experiences. whether val is a love interest or not is a tough conversation to have with so little information, but i'll say this. (ngl i only just now realized this while writing it). her being his childhood friend could actually be a point against ej and val as a couple, because that's rini. childhood friends to lovers is their thing. i don't think another ship mirroring that is necessarily meant to work out.

but regardless of whether val is ej's secondary love interest this season, she's going to help put them through these issues, just by nature of her position. this comes in two parts, firstly, she's a college student and has experience with this new life ej's headed for, combined with the fact she can help him consider his options in that regard. val could very well help show ej what he could have outside the walls of ehs and outside the borders of what he's thought he wanted as modeled by his parents.

secondly, with val being ej's childhood friend, she's probably seen ej with a solid few girls, whether they be girlfriends, crushes, or flirtations. i think ej being gina's first kiss, first boyfriend, etc. and her being far from his own, though potentially they'll have him tell her she's the first to really matter, is potentially going to weigh on gina to some extent. and while this experience thing is the aspect of the potential portwell conflict i'm less anticipating we'll see, i think it's a dynamic they could use to bring in more issues between them. if they use it it would be a smaller aspect of their drama, but it's something. i don't think this second issue is going to have any weight over the potential breakup, but it's something to add pressure.

all of this could make them stronger, if they are able to work through it. none of this conflict has to be a death sentence for the ship. they don't inherently have to break up from this. oftentimes, conflicts build up until the straw that breaks the camel's back, you just have to hope they either catch it before it reaches that point, or that they're able to nurse the camel back to health, to extend the metaphor.

what i will say is i personally have sort of determined that if they break up this season, unless they break up and get back together within this same season, it's done permanently. (unless in the case of a seventh season, but i've said it once and i'll say it again, i don't think anyone truly wants seven seasons of this show).

--

i do want to give you some bit of reassurance, admittedly, because i don't want you to feel wrong about your opinions, or wrong to have hope. ej and gina don't have to break up this season. the narrative, even with the points i've brought up here, doesn't actively necessitate it.

i won't say they won't break up, because well- your points are all things i've been thinking about myself when contemplating what the plan is here. gina and ricky are the main characters going forward, and with ej going to college (regardless of the location of that college), it still takes him outside of ehs.

gina's going to be a junior in high school this fall. being a junior in high school puts you in quite a different place than a freshman in college. i don't think the show has an issue with the age gap, and that's been clear, but i do think they will have to be cautious about their handling of it going forward in season 4 if they want to keep viewers on board with the ship. they may just take the out instead. the experiences they're going to have are going to be different.

ej's also probably going to have to have his role reduced in a potential season 4 because of not being at east high, and that's not ideal for him as a genuine love interest for gina either. that one year between ricky and ej is something i see debated a lot, because ricky will also inevitably graduate before gina, but it's as you say, ricky is still at ehs in this hypothetical season 4, and ej isn't, even if he is in salt lake. proximity is incredibly beneficial to a relationship, and ricky's is going to be greater in this case. that doesn't have to turn into something, but it could. only time will tell.

--

i said this to another anon, but as a last note, i think portwell is fairly safe to end this season together if the show operates on the assumption that this is the last season. it's easier to live in the hypothetical promise of we can keep doing this even when things get hard if you don't have to actually face it. (this sounds much deeper than i mean it to be lol) if we don't have to see ej and gina struggle with the college thing, we as the audience can be more inclined to just believe it makes sense for them to stay together despite that incoming change.