#like in the earlier episodes of s4 especially the sHoW Me SoMe ReSpEcT scene | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dramaticviolincrescendo · 4 years

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Rewatching Shameless and i just watched 6x1 jail scene. Can I request a meta if its not too much trouble? I feel like reading a really good meta about that scene and you're one of the best we've got so.....

It’s never any trouble at all! That’s so sweet to say—thank you so much! <3 Kind of coming to terms with the idea that anyone cares about my opinion over here. You guys are too much!

This scene is actually extremely important to me because it and the response to it were what made me start writing Shameless fanfiction, specifically when I saw that my views regarding Ian’s behavior and how Mickey received it were so vastly different from what I initially read. (Insert shameless plug for “That Milkovich Reputation” here.) Now, I know you’ve told me not to do this before, but based on the controversial position in which this scene resides, I feel the need to present a couple of disclaimers for our audience at large.

I first fell in love with Shameless last March, a couple weeks before quarantine began. I didn’t know what it was prior to that and therefore was not present when Noel left the show, so I didn’t experience the disappointment of a beloved character leaving in a potentially permanent way and didn’t engage in the fandom or see how deeply upset people were by that until after I finished the series. I also don’t subscribe to the theory that there was something going on behind the scenes or any animosity between Noel and the creators, as I have not seen any relevant evidence from reliable sources to support that what happened was anything other than decisions made in pursuit of career goals on both sides. As such, my analysis of this scene has only ever taken the content and context of the story and characters into account. I have no interest in speculating on the motives of people I do not know in writing it or portraying it this way, and even if I did, this scene made perfect sense to me as it was written and performed.

I understand and appreciate that this is not a popular position to take and urge everyone to pass this post by if my position on that matter is offensive or upsetting to you. I do not mean to tell anyone what to think or believe, only to explain how I view this scene and the context in which I do so.

That said, let’s begin.

When Last Seen: Mickey

As in all things, context is important. Prior to the prison scene, the last time we saw Mickey was when Ian broke up with him and Sammi interrupted their heartfelt moment, which basically sums up her character in a nutshell. That was a rough couple of days for Mickey. He saw how devastated Ian was to hear his family talk about him as though he were just like Monica; was distressed in his own right to return for him and discover that he’d left the base with Monica; buried his frustration and sadness by sleeping around with other people, which seemed to exacerbate those emotions because those people weren’t Ian, nor had he and Ian broken up when he did it; and came running when Ian called him, only for Ian to end their relationship.

Mickey is a very sharp man—we know this. He can read people like books and manipulate or intimidate them accordingly. He knew Ian had feelings for him in s1 when he showed up on his doorstep seeking comfort rather than going to any number of other people he trusted. He was well aware that Ian loved him in s3, and that made what he felt he had no choice in doing that much more painful. He heard what Ian said and knew what he was doing in 5x12. Of that, I have never had any doubt. It wasn’t like Ian tried to hide that he didn’t want to break up but thought that that was what would be best. In fact, the way he initially framed it always made me think that one of his highest priorities was not dragging Mickey down with him, especially in the aftermath of being called “destructive” and similar to someone who “put them through hell.” That’s why Mickey’s response wasn’t to call him an asshole or get angry or beg. It was to reassure Ian that he was there for the long haul, that he loved him and wanted to take care of him no matter what that meant—and that they could make that work. All the sentiments Ian had tried to communicate before he got married, Mickey was reciprocating in his own way. Had they not needed to temporarily write Mickey out of the story and Sammi hadn’t shown up right that second, I believe that he wouldn’t have given up so easily. We do have confirmation of that being the case in the prison scene, but we’ll get to that shortly.

When Last Seen: Ian

Ian isn’t a selfish character. We know this, too. However, Ian needed to be selfish by the end of s5. What he had to come to terms with wasn’t something that anyone could fully help him with, much as Mickey desperately wanted to. To Ian, the enemy was within. It was inside him, in his brain, telling him what to do even if that destroyed himself and everything he loved. It’s terrifying. I’m not bipolar, nor do I suffer from any other diagnosed mental illnesses, but I admire and respect everyone who wakes up every morning and tackles these things. They’re heroes every single day. But by the end of s5, Ian doesn’t feel much like a hero. Instead, he feels like the villain, and he’s lost touch with who he even is anymore.

That’s not a healthy mindset to have in a relationship. Relationships require a level of give and take, and that used to be something that Ian and Mickey already struggled with. Ian gave more in s1-3 because he was able to, while Mickey had a limit on what he could openly give because of the environment in which he lived and the manner in which he was raised. In s4-5, those roles were reversed: Mickey was able to give so much more, but Ian was gradually falling apart. Neither of them are at fault for any of those situations. It is what it is, and they have a stronger relationship for it. Ian is a giver, though. He’s always been a giver. To be in a position where he doesn’t feel like he can give anything to Mickey because he doesn’t even know who he is was truly heartbreaking for him, and objectively, he needed to take a step back so that he could focus on himself. He knew it. Based on Mickey’s understanding of Ian’s reasons after watching him deny that he had a problem for so long, I think Mickey knew it too. This hurt both of them—Ian to say it and Mickey to hear it—but they’re not fools and they’re not naïve. In some ways, they know each other better than anyone.

Jimmy said that when you’re on a plane, they tell you to put on your mask before you help anyone else with theirs. Ian needed to put on his mask. His heart can’t keep beating if his lungs don’t work.

Starting Season 6: Mickey

Unsurprisingly, Mickey has settled into prison life just fine. We’ll focus on his interactions with Ian in a bit as that’s the meat of the scene, but there are major implications inherent in his discussion with Svetlana beforehand.

1. Mickey has accepted that this will be his reality for the foreseeable future. What else is he supposed to do? Besides, he’s known for a long time that the likelihood of ending up in prison was pretty high for him, as he alluded to in s2. He was a street thug. He stole from local stores, sold drugs, ran guns, operated a rub ‘n’ tug, created scam companies, and was a generally violent presence in the neighborhood for years. He was in juvie twice during the show, perhaps more beforehand. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that it would have been more surprising if Mickey didn’t get locked up at some point than that he did.

2. Ian has visited Mickey before. We won’t get too deeply into this yet, but he thanks Ian for “coming back.” The other times, he wasn’t even paid to do it. So, as far as Mickey can tell, nothing has changed. Ian is focusing on himself right now, but his love for Mickey hasn’t dulled at all. That’s an encouraging thought, and it certainly puts a smile on Mickey’s face.

3. Ever the opportunist and entrepreneur, Mickey really is doing just fine in prison. He runs a business, if you will, that appears to be quite lucrative already. This isn’t surprising either. Sadly, it’s a bad move. He’s already going to be in prison for somewhere around a decade, give or take a couple of years depending on his behavior. But his behavior isn’t good. He’s hurting people for money, and if he gets caught and brought up on more charges, not only will he serve the full fifteen years, but he could get more time added onto that.

4. Ian is aware of this arrangement. He has to be if he’s been going there with Svetlana, and they weren’t exactly hiding what they were talking about. Ian has been very consistent throughout the series: he’s not as concerned with the moral implications of Mickey’s behavior, just how it could potentially impact their ability to be together. He still cares about Mickey at the start of s6, and Mickey can see it on his face when he won’t say it out loud. (More on that shortly.) Once he’s in a better spot mentally, maybe they would have gotten back together had Mickey been on the outside. I’m of the opinion that they would have based on the context of the situation. It isn’t an option, however. This is Mickey’s reality, and he’s not doing everything he can to get out earlier. If anything, he’s tempting fate on not being released at all. (This, in hindsight, sounds rather similar to the issues they’re dealing with right now in s11.)

So, this is where Mickey stands at the start of the season: a prison hitman who is quite pleased that the man he loves has come to see him again, even if the latter is visibly not in a very healthy mental state.

Starting Season 6: Ian

Ian isn’t in most of 6x01. What we do see of him is typically sad or colored by his frustration, outside Carl’s welcome home party at the end of the episode. Even then, there’s an aura of discomfort that accompanies the family’s knowledge that things have changed. Carl came out of juvie a different person—they’re all different people after s5, and they’re not sure how to handle walking on eggshells around each other.

From the very start of the episode, we see that Ian is still struggling even though he’s had enough time to at least partially adjust to his medication, especially if he’s been on and off of it. It’s so sweet how Fiona gently wakes him up—it’s also a bit different. What happened to banging on the bunk bed and yelling for them to come down for breakfast? After behaving pretty normally with Debbie at the bathroom door, she’s almost handling him with kid gloves, and the punches keep coming when she reminds him that he (1) has to get up for work at a place he despises and (2) needs to remember to take his meds.

The kitchen scene is extremely telling of where Ian is at this point, and it partially shows why he’s somewhat standoffish by the time we reach the prison scene. Most of the family is gone or different. Fiona is repeatedly on him about meds and getting to work on time—Ian, Mister Responsible himself who was out of the house before anybody woke up to get to work on time as a kid. Lip is at college. Debbie is absorbed in her unconfirmed but likely pregnancy. Carl is in juvie, and Liam is playing with the switchblade he found under Carl’s pillow before they take him to pre-K. His entire support system is either gone or treating him like he’s broken. All he has is Fiona “going Fiona” on everyone. It’s clear that this is impacting him because he actually derails the conversation to say that they should go visit Carl the following weekend, which was the position Debbie used to be in when Fiona was in jail. Just like Lip shut her down, Debbie shuts Ian down, and he doesn’t say another word as he drinks his coffee—which he can’t finish because Fiona is once again on him about work, so he trudges out the door to another day of being a busboy with no dreams instead of a soldier who has a future.

Work isn’t much better. Svetlana wants him to go see Mickey when he’s determined to stay away. (We don’t have confirmation, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that he wants to distance himself if Mickey is doing something that will potentially get him into even more trouble, especially given some of his reactions at the prison.) Sean is sending Fiona to nag him about not moving fast enough when the diner isn’t even busy. When Otis is chased down by the cops and slammed against the front window, Sean rather condescendingly tells him to, “take your rag and wipe the blood and snot off the window.” Ian—West Point-aspiring, ambitious, courageous, caring, intelligent, hardworking Ian has been reduced to wiping up someone’s snot by a boss who’s living in his house with a sister that’s treating him like he’s shattered glass and a family that is growing further and further apart these days.

That is the day Ian has had before he even arrives at the prison. Odds are that that is how most of his days have gone for quite some time, minus the blood and snot. …Maybe.

The Prison Scene

Now we come to it: what you actually asked about! It’s taken this long to get here because we can’t possibly interpret this scene effectively without incorporating all of what came before it. Mickey’s position is regrettable, but he knows that Ian still loves him and is at least handling his situation with all the grace and competence that we can expect from him. Ian is a bit of a mess who’s had a bad day and is now faced with the man he loves, who he is telling himself he can’t be with, sitting behind glass—where he’ll be for a good long while.

I’m going to divide this analysis into two sections. For a scene that many prefer to forget, to me, it’s a masterpiece of storytelling.

Physicality

The body language in this scene is remarkable—phenomenally blocked, phenomenally directed, and phenomenally portrayed.

When Mickey first appears, he’s visibly chomping at the bit to get to the visitation area. He’s peering out there while he’s still behind a locked door, and he only diverts his gaze to the guard because he’s waiting for him to unlock it. He’s cool about the whole thing—he’s very cool—but he’s obviously also here for one reason and one reason only. That reason is where his eyes go the moment he sits down at his stall and spots Ian’s coat where the latter is pacing behind Svetlana. Throughout their entire conversation, we see his eyes darting to Ian as he attempts to get the business out of the way so that he can indulge purely in the pleasure. It doesn’t matter to him that Ian is visibly tired and reluctant to be there or that he plays with Yevgeny instead of actively joining their conversation. It’s Ian, and all Mickey has to look at in here is a bunch of fellow thugs he hasn’t loved since he was too young to know what that meant. Damn right, he’s going to shamelessly watch him.

In Ian’s pacing, where we can’t see his face, I find it interesting that he keeps himself angled away from the glass. We see more of his back even though he’s moving side to side rather than away. He doesn’t want to see this. He doesn’t want to be there. In s7, he told Mickey how hard it was to see him behind glass—that wasn’t an excuse. He wasn’t falsely trying to make it sound like he was suffering at their separation just as much as Mickey was. We can see that that’s the case right here in 6x01. Ian has never had a problem sitting still through difficult moments, not even when a potential court martial that would further ruin his life was on the table. But this? He can’t sit down. He can’t face that.

The first time he turns directly towards Mickey’s location is so that Svetlana can hand Yevgeny off to him, and Mickey is visibly loving the view. His expression gets a bit softer, and he ducks his head a little so that he can catch a glimpse of Ian’s face. He follows Ian with his eyes even though Svetlana tries to get his attention. What a blast from the past, right? Ian there with his son, taking care of him while he and Svetlana figure out their business? And just like before, he offers Svetlana all of the attention and input that he deems her worth—next to nothing. Ian’s over there. Ian’s keeping the kid entertained, playing with him and rocking a bit in their seat and leaning over his little shoulder to make sure he’s doing okay—but forget that, Mickey’s eyes are examining him from red hair to beat-up shoes. He only glances back to Svetlana because he has to in order to get the information for their next paycheck. Even then, he’s still back and forth, up and down.

And Ian? He can’t keep pacing. He can’t stay turned away, but he won’t look. He occupies himself more than Yevgeny because now he’s low enough that he won’t just see an orange jumpsuit—he’ll see Mickey, and he’s had a bad enough day with his family making him feel more alone than ever without adding that pain on top of it. (This is the third time Mickey’s been locked up for something directly or indirectly related to Ian. I’m sure it’s not unreasonable to suspect that he also feels somewhat guilty about that, especially when it happened right after he broke it off.)

When Mickey asks if Ian is going to sit back there the whole time and not interact with him, Svetlana turns around and presumably says something to get his attention. Their eyes meet, and Mickey gives him a look that clearly says, “What the fuck, man?” This isn’t the behavior of a man who is heartbroken at their relationship ending or questioning Ian’s love for him. This is the behavior of a man who wants the love of his life to get his shit together enough to come say hi to him—or at least look at him—because he can’t pretend that he doesn’t want to see Mickey as much as Mickey wants to see him. It’s impossible to hide that when Ian has let Mickey see so much of his heart over the years.

Ian’s response is so fascinating because he does meet Mickey’s eyes, and he holds that connection for a moment. Then, reading what Mickey is trying to tell him, he actually turns further away again so that Mickey gets his shoulder. This sets the stage for the rest of Ian’s development from now through s9. He’s doing what Ian does: he’s compartmentalizing. He’s taking the emotions he can’t deal with right now, wrapping them in tissue paper, and neatly stacking them in a box that he’ll put up in the attic where he can pretend they don’t exist. But they do. They really do.

If they didn’t, he wouldn’t have spent their entire conversation trying so hard to focus on literally anything but Mickey, because as we saw in the Hall of Shame flashbacks and as has been obvious since their first fight-turned-fuck, once they look, the battle is lost.

Dialogue

I’m going to be real with you guys: I adore this scene. I’ve watched it more times than I can count even though I haven’t rewatched much of the season in its entirety. There was so much said with so few words, and while I was sad at the end, I was also hopeful. This was an impossible position to be put in on both sides, and I truly believe that this was the best resolution they could get at the time. And yes, it hurt. It was painful. But why was it painful?

Because they’re so visibly, obviously, irrevocably in love.

Mickey’s tone when he tells Svetlana to leave because he wants to talk to Ian isn’t as harsh as it’s been for the rest of their visit. There’s such a disconnect between his words and tone: roughly telling her to scram while actually sounding a bit younger at the idea of speaking directly with Ian. Svetlana could tell. It’s so clear, and her smirk is super knowing. In that moment, we’re seeing the woman who stood in the doorway of what was supposed to be her bedroom and watched him make eyes at this unconscious boy she didn’t really even remember. Not in the tears and realizing she was in big, big trouble if he left her, but in the understanding that his heart isn’t in the body on the other side of the glass—it’s sitting behind her. There are a lot of things I don’t like about Svetlana as a person (as a character, she’s amazing), but since they reached their agreement in s4, she’s never had a derogatory thing to say about the love those two share, and I respect that. It’s actually a bit cute how she takes her time and is almost teasing in giving him what he wants. A bit.

As I have this scene running on repeat so that I don’t miss anything in writing this, I paused to type and ended up on such a meaningful glance at Ian’s face. Svetlana just took Yevgeny from him, and he hasn’t gotten up yet. He’s staring straight at Mickey, and he looks hesitant. Scared, almost. Then he looks up at Svetlana, nods a bit, and reluctantly moves into her spot.

Is it overkill to take this one exchange at a time? Probably. Am I going to do it anyway? Hell to the yes.

1. “Thanks for coming back.”/”Yeah… Svetlana paid me.” – I know that people hate this line and think this is painful. I know that it objectively is painful. I still laugh every time. Not because Ian agreed to come if he was paid. (He’s got medication to afford and no insurance. I can’t begrudge him wanting to make a few extra bucks any way he can.) Not because of the words, but because of what accompanies them. Ian will not look at Mickey—he’s lost so many battles lately, and he can’t lose this one too. Not when he started this one himself. He’s hemming and hawing, not looking up from the countertop and then twisting around to see if Svetlana is still there or anyone else is listening. It’s so stupid, because literally no one cares, but it gives you this sensation that Ian sees himself as being under a microscope the whole time. That’s his life anymore, at home and at work and now here. And Mickey? He doesn’t look terribly broken up about Ian accepting payment in exchange for coming. He gets this expression that I interpreted as, “Seriously? You’re playing it like that?” Then it settles into disappointment that Ian won’t open up or look at him like he normally would—that the glass interferes with the magnetic pull between them. But don’t worry, children. Uncle Mickey has just the thing to fix that: himself.

2. “You look good.”/*awkward silence* – I mean…what do you say to that? I actually felt so bad for Ian there because what must he have looked like these last visits if Mickey is telling him that he looks good now? What kind of mess was he then when he’s still sort of a mess today? And he can’t even return the sentiment because how can he? Mickey is in prison. He’s in a jumpsuit looking at being here so long that he’ll probably have a few grey hairs starting to grow in when he gets out. I don’t know how to respond when people tell me I look good on an average day, so I can only imagine how that must have felt in his position. And still, he won’t do more than glance in Mickey’s direction. Well, if that didn’t work…

3. Mickey chuckles and says he got a new tattoo. Ian’s eyes immediately shoot upwards, and Mickey slouches a little so that he’s in their direct line of sight—to hold them there, because once they look, the battle is lost. And Ian does lose. For a while there, he can’t look away again. First, because Mickey is courting some pretty nasty illnesses with his improper use of needles. Seriously, Mickey, a beautiful gesture but holy crap. Second, Mickey has his name (or a very close approximation to it) tattooed forever right over his heart. Ian had asked if Mickey was going to marry him, and Mickey told him to fuck off, but everything he’s doing points in the opposite direction. He promised sickness and health; now he’s made a permanent mark on his body for everyone to see. Mickey, who wouldn’t be seen in public with him once upon a time, has plastered Ian’s name onto his body. Ian tries so hard not to let that impact him, but it’s over. He’s lost the battle already, and he falls further and further. He’s smiling when he tells Mickey it looks infected, he teases him about the misspelling (which I think says more about how much that tattoo must have hurt than any inability to spell on Mickey’s part—I’d have a typo too), and he laughs at Mickey’s irritation that he messed it up. And it’s this sweet little laugh, not cruel or hurtful or mean. The wonderful thing about humor is that it can be used to cope with difficult emotions. We’ve seen a lot of people on the show start laughing when they’re in a bad place. Ian has been trying so hard to accept his life as it is even during the shitty day he was having. He tried so hard not to let himself fall into the trap of letting his love for Mickey rule his actions in the scene so far. That’s a lot. That’s denying himself to the point where I’m sure it hurts. And so he laughs, because Mickey did this crazy, absurd thing for him and yeah, it came out wrong, but he did it. This was all Ian wanted once upon a time (minus the felony), and now he has it—but he can’t have it. So he laughs. He immediately moves to hide it, but he laughs. He smiles more and has to bend away to pretend that he’s not—and Mickey lights up like a goddamn Christmas tree. This is the moment that keeps me from seeing this scene or Ian’s actions as being cruel. They’re both hurting, and this is an awful position to be in. But Ian loves him so much, and Mickey was doing everything he could to make him show it. Not exactly how he saw that going, I’m sure, but he’ll take it.

4. “Been thinking about you.” – Knowing that he lost that one, Ian looks away again. While the end of this scene will hurt for both of them, especially Mickey, think about the pain he must be feeling in that moment simply because he’s not. He’s not hurting. For the first time that day, he feels good. This can’t last. Mickey isn’t coming home with him when time is up. This wonderful emotion that filled him up enough for him to laugh and smile after such a bad day will be gone the second he hangs up that phone. Then he’s going to go home and have Fiona breathing down his neck with nobody else for support. And Mickey will be here—behind glass. He can’t handle that, and he pulls that box out again and starts tearing off the tissue paper. He has to get rid of this feeling. He has to be the one to put it away before it kicks him to the curb. He’s stubborn, and Mickey can see him shutting down but also knows that he’s knocked enough bricks out of Ian’s walls to say something softer, something emotional and closer to the heart. Something he is willing to say where the other inmates can hear, which I don’t think is lost on Ian since he immediately looks up again. He doesn’t look away either, not even when Mickey asks if Ian thinks about him. He glances to the side and opens his mouth a bit, but nothing comes out. Mickey knows the answer.

5. “Gonna wait for me?”/”You’re here for fifteen years.” – There’s this thing Mickey does after he first says that. He chuckles, because he knows that that’s pretty unreasonable to ask and has already predicted Ian’s response. His comment about being out in eight is lighthearted, a serious matter spoken as a joke because…this isn’t juvie anymore. They’re not going to see each other in a few months. This is Mickey’s version of what Ian was just doing, only where Ian tried to withdraw and escape within himself, Mickey is making it more humorous. He’s always done that, make light of pretty serious things to avoid looking at just how messed up it is. But I didn’t get the feeling he was really asking for Ian to wait that long. Instead, I got the feeling that he was testing the waters, seeing if Ian would shut him down—which he didn’t. He offered the bullshit excuse that Mickey tried to kill a member of his family, and Mickey saw through that immediately. I think he knows that he can’t ask Ian to seriously wait and never be with anyone else for fifteen years, or even for eight. I think he knows what he’s saying is a touch absurd. He also knows that Ian’s excuse is extremely absurd, and he doesn’t buy it for a second. It gives him a little courage to do something…well, a bit absurd.

6. “Will you? Wait? Fucking lie if you have to, man. Eight years is a long time.” – I think the important part of this isn’t that Ian says he’ll wait when he doesn’t mean it, which is the popular take. For one thing, I don’t think we can ascribe that level of calculated behavior to Ian in this instance. There are a few things about this part of the scene that mean a lot to me: (1) Ian doesn’t get up and go. He doesn’t even move in that direction. He sits there with the phone after the buzzer sounds and before Mickey tells him to lie. His mouth opens and closes like he’s not sure what to say. Because what can he say? If Mickey serves the maximum, Ian will be in his mid-thirties by the time they can be together. At that point, he was either nearing eighteen or just turned. I still can’t fathom what I’ll be doing in my mid-thirties, and I’m a whole lot older than that. Ian looks just a little terrified here, and that’s because he knows he loves Mickey but has no clue what he’s supposed to do with that in the impossible circumstances they’re operating under. (2) Ian can’t even see himself moving on yet. He’s still trying to figure himself out, not think about a relationship. He has a job he hates, and his family is a different brand of chaos these days. He feels alone, yes, but not in a way that has him openly desperate for a relationship. Based on what he says to Mandy about Caleb, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be in a serious relationship at this point or even in a position for more than casual sex anytime in the near future. How can he say that he’ll wait when he doesn’t know where he’ll be whenever Mickey does get out? Maybe he’ll feel better. Maybe he’ll be out of his mind, roaming all over the place like Monica. Maybe he won’t just be standing on that bridge. It’s a huge question, one that has a lot of ramifications no matter what his answer is, and Ian clearly has none. He’s blindsided by that, which Mickey sees. That’s when he gets serious about those eight years, about how absurd their situation really is. That’s perhaps the first and only time in this scene where we can see that, for as successful as he is at navigating prison, his freedom means something to him. His freedom means he wouldn’t have to coax a glance out of Ian—he could kiss his dumb ass and make him stop being stubborn about how much he loves Mickey. But he can’t. He won’t be able to for a long time. And I think that is what really breaks his heart in this scene, not…

7. “Yeah. Yeah, Mick, I’ll wait.” – Did anyone else notice how Ian swallowed hard before he answered? How his voice gets hoarse when he first speaks? I paused again to type, and the video is sitting on his face staring at the counter before the second part of what he says. He looks like he might cry. He looks like his heart is breaking just as much as Mickey’s is, because he can do what he’s asking this time—reassure him with a lie. Not because he doesn’t intend to wait, but because he is buried so far under what life has piled on top of him that he can’t see the light these days, and he doesn’t see waiting or moving on. He just sees the daily struggle of being this shell of a person. Of being without Mickey even if they’re not technically together. (Admittedly, I think he knew they would be if Mickey weren’t in prison at that moment. Ian has no real self-control where he’s concerned. Lip told him as much, and he’s self-aware enough to realize it, hence his behavior in this whole scene.)

When Ian hangs up the phone, he doesn’t get up immediately. He looks at Mickey—really looks at him—and each of them watches the other’s heart shatter. I don’t see it the way a lot of people do, though. On Mickey’s side, I don’t see it as being because Ian lied. I think it’s so much bigger than that.

Ian looks at him when they can’t hear each other anymore, and if he didn’t seem ready to cry before, he looks it now. Why? Because there’s nothing he can do for Mickey besides that. Ian, ever the giver, can’t give him anything. At that point, he couldn’t even help himself. He can’t be what Mickey needs in that moment, just like he couldn’t be what Mickey needed while he was sick, and it kills him. It kills him to know that by the time Mickey does get out, he’ll be older than he can fathom being and has no idea if he’ll even be around that long. It kills him to feel like even if he is, he’ll still have nothing to offer because, in his own words, this is where he lands. And it kills him to have to walk away and leave what he loves most behind glass.

Mickey is watching this. He knows Ian, and as painful as it was to get exactly what he asked for, it’s even more painful for him to see what him being here does to Ian. Where Ian is a giver, Mickey is a fixer. He makes things better. When stuff is broken, he puts it back together. When there’s a problem, he resolves it. Ian was going to leave because he couldn’t be an unacknowledged number three in Mickey’s life anymore? He jumped to solve the problem by coming out. Ian was acting strangely and wouldn’t get out of bed for so long that Mickey realized something was wrong? He immediately went to hunt down Lip, who he knows is closer to Ian than anyone else in his family. Fiona tells him that Ian is sick and needs to be cared for? He jumps in to do it, even to the point where it did more harm than good. Sammi caused a problem that Mickey couldn’t solve? He fixed the problem of her being there at all. But here he sits, behind glass, watching Ian that whole time and knowing that he was trying to maintain some emotional distance—and, because it’s Mickey, knowing why. There’s nothing he can do about this. He can’t fix it. For the first time since s3, Mickey is absolutely helpless to fix a problem. He takes a breath as Ian walks away as though he’s about to say something, but what can he say? What can he do? Nothing. He can do nothing but hang up the phone and weather the storm.

In the end, the heartbreak in this scene isn’t about them hurting each other, from my perspective. It’s not about Ian being callous and cruel or purposely trying to hurt Mickey. They know each other too well for that. They’ve been through too much. To me, this is about two people who love each other more than anything not being able to be what the other needed when they needed them—and that’s a whole lot more painful.

#shameless meta #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich

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madsdefencesquad · 4 years

Note

Pleaseee make a list of the foreshadowing that the baby mama is Madison! I'm so interested in finding all the hints because I have a feeling they've been hinting for quite some time 🤯

HIIII yes, okay this is a complete info dump so bear with me here. I tried my best to make sure that the evidence talks about her becoming the baby mama or them being endgame because that it also HUGE. Like huge. Even more than the baby mama, to be honest. So, without further ado:

Season 4:

Strangers Part Two - obvious pregnancy and minor details like Rebecca’s deathbed and that decoration hanging above her bed like Madison has at her house (could be red herring but it’s such an odd choice of decoration for these days and only Madison had that shown). Also, Madison confirmed as Kevin’s “stranger” is the most telling here.

Clouds - Madison telling Kate why she slept with Kevin in the first place because he saw her for who she is without needing to be “perky or appealing”. Also note that Kevin pretty much slept with her for the same reasons because he was just allowed to be sad and not judged for it; just listened to and consoled. Madison wanting the intimacy of marriage that Kate and Toby has and the most telling: preparing for marriage by listening to lots of relationships of podcasts hoping “she’ll need them someday”. Well, yo girl’s gonna be the fiancée so she’ll definitely need them sooner than she thinks.

Cabin/HOAW:Part 2 - showing that it’s not just Kevin who gets “annoyed” with her, she also gets annoyed with him too when she opened the door and she saw it was him. But then she invites him over for tea and that being referenced in the 40th birthday flash-forward as a way to alleviate her morning sickness. Coffee was a thing with Zoe (teaching him how to brew) and Sophie (inviting her for coffee) but now it’s tea with Madison. Also, both of them migrating to Madison’s house and spending pretty much the rest of the day/night together means that there was a connection there even if they didn’t know it yet. Also, the dismissal of them “falling in love” or whatever is obviously the writers trying to make us think they’re never ever going to, so that just makes it even more compelling that they are.

The Pool: Part Two - As per the gif, when Kevin gets a call about doing a movie in Chicago and then resumes to go and fill up the clipboard for their activity but he got distracted when he heard baby Jack cooing in his crib and he goes in and it cuts straight to Madison listing the things she put on her clipboard. Was it necessary? Nope, but now we know it’s a clue. Apart from the s2 finale when Kevin returned to L.A. and held Jack, this is the first time Kevin and Kate bonded with baby Jack and Kate saw how good he was with him. And now he’s going to be a dad with damn fudging Madison. Also, this may be reaching but if you watch closely when Madison first arrives and Kate opens the door, Kevin briefly looks at her at the door. It may, of course, be because the scene needs to move forward with Kate and Madison’s talk but LITTLE.THINGS.

Light and Shadows - Kevin in the middle of his “finding his great love” phase just before he met Sophia Bush’s character at the coffee shop: who comes in just before the grand gesture happened? Madison with the pineapple string lights and his look is telling enough that he still finds her cute and amusing but he’s like nope, definitely not this girl right in front of me who’s been here the whole time. My love story is going to be grand like my parents, etc. Yeah, whatever Kevo. Also, isn’t it cute that Kate and Toby found out that Jack can “see” shapes and lights because of the very pineapple string lights? It’s adorable and shows the subtlety of Madison’s significance to the family without her (or them) consciously knowing it.

Earlier Seasons:

Brothers - Madison finally became “part of the family” as Kate’s best friend when, lo and behold, she found out Kate was PREGNANT. This makes even more sense for Madison to react so joyously even just after they were screaming at each other because, as we realise in s4, she couldn’t get pregnant. So, knowing someone is, made her so elated and supportive to the point that it can be misconstrued as craziness but now we understand why.

Vegas: at the Bachelor/Bachelorette parties, they showed Kevin entering Toby’s suite then Madison straight after and then lingering on her, cutting between her and Kevin as they both talk to Kate and Randall respectively. Why do they keep making a parallel between her and Kevin and lingering on her if she was really just going to be a minor character in Kate’s life?! Also, reaching, but Kevin loved the “Ptero-Jack-tyl” joke that Toby made and who was the first person who made those name puns? Madison. In fact, Toby hated it when Madison called him “Tobe-lerone” but loved it when she called him “Toby Bryant”. He obviously learned from the best.

The Wedding: obvious sexual attraction and the first time they met each other properly. She enters the cabin just as soon as Kate leaves and Rebecca and Randall look at her like “Who is this?” and Kevin acknowledges her with obvious attraction and amusement at her antics. Kevin singling her out when the bridesmaids were getting ready. Like, the “supermodels” comment? Yeah, Kev, that was all for Madison, we get it. Also, he wanted her to come on their search to find Kate but Randall says no. More lingering stares and flirtation. Most telling: “Don’t let me sleep with her” because he knows that’s not a good idea given that she’s Kate’s good friend. Also, last shot of them with Madison grabbing him and pulling him on to the dance floor and yet he ends up with Zoe in the end because if they did end up sleeping together afterwards, then Madison would just be another girl in Kevin’s long list of has-beens. But obviously, she’s more than that and will be more significant in his life. AKA BABY MAMA/FIANCEE/WIFE

Clooney - When she got dizzy and hurt herself revealing that she has Bulimia and needs genuine help, we realise she’s not just some ditzy weirdo who goes to ED group for laughs. She genuinely needs it to get better. Now, she’s actually pregnant and the “fiancée” has “morning sickness at all hours of the day” which ties in with her bulimia and a story to tell there with the pregnancy and how she’s gonna cope.

The Waiting Room - Madison saying herself that she’s not part of the family and who calls her out? Kevin, which is ironic now that she’s going to be permanently part of the family. Most telling: Miguel and Madison chat. Was the chat for Miguel? Nope, it was for Madison, but we were distracted because Kevin was still with Zoe. Also, first person she sees to come out of the lift? Kevin, looking a little remorseful that he hurt her feelings by telling her to go away, but she was like “nope”. We think it’s the end for them. But NOPE.

The Graduates - At Kate’s “graduation” party, Madison comes in and offers Kate and Kevin a non-alcoholic drink. Most telling: her knowing he was on the “sober” trail (even though he actually wasn’t at that time) and when she left, Kevin’s gaze lingers on her briefly, almost taken aback that she offered him a non-alcoholic drink. Why did they include this scene? It could’ve easily been omitted and just left it with Kate and Kevin chatting but NOPE. They just had to show Madison’s significance in Kevin’s life as someone who knows at least the important parts of him even if everything else is “strange” and “unknown”.

And that’s pretty much most of the per-episode ones but there are HEAPS more, I’m sure so feel free to add some more there especially from @the–big–three (loving your analyses and pointers too). I’ve got another draft of why Kevin and Madison are so so good for each other so I’ll post that later. Hope this helped in some way and illuminates the incredible foreshadowing to Madison as the baby mama/fiancée/wife.

#this is us #kevin pearson #kevin and madison #this is us madison #the fact that I can write this much about these two means so much yo #team madison #no h8 for my girl

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idonthaveanydamnidea · 5 years

Text

third and last part of the translation of assa and maxence's interview

ah shit, here we go again (84 years later i’m so sorry djhbfdj)

O : So I would like us to talk about important scenes of the season, like for in season 3. The one that impacted me was the swings scene, we already talked about it, where Imane talks with her brother... Tell me a bit about this scene. I’m asking you everytime to tell me about this scene! I love it

A : Yeah everytime! I don’t want you to ask me anymore! No no but yes this scene is very beautiful and very important, bacause it’s the moment when she tells her brother that it’s really hard to be young, muslim, to be a woman, to be black in France, and that their parents don’t really understand because they’re not at their place, well they didn’t have the same life as us, they didn’t grow up in France, that means they don’t understand some points, and I think it was very beautiful to talk about that, and the fact that she’s this close to her brother too it’s very beautiful, cause on screen it’s rare to see a complicity that strong in between siblings. Usually when a big brother is represented he’s kind of superior to the little sister, “no you don’t do that, you don’t do this”, while here the big brother is completely listening to his little sister and he wants her happiness before everything else, and I found that really beautiful to show.

O : Yeah, that’s why I loved this scene too, it’s really the complicity in between the two and especially, holding that message, saying that actually yeah, when you’re black, muslim and young, it’s not that simple.

A : That’s it.

O : What about you, anoher scene that impacted you?

J : No, I don’t have a scene in particular, but what impacted me was more... Imane’s loneliness. I was finding her lonely all the time, and we really feel it in every episode, and i found her really lonely. And even when someone was reaching out to her- well either she was alone because people were isolating her, or she was isolating herself. Right. It’s loneliness, for me, this s4. I was hard for her I think.

A : Yeah it was super hard. The fact that she doesn’t feel understood, actually. With everyone, her friends, her parents... At some point she’s closing herself off and she’s actually mad at herself. She’s mad at herself and she.. I don’t know how to... She’s shutting down, she’s shutting down to everyone, and then she doesn’t know how to react.

J : Yeah she doesn’t know, I feel like she doesn’t know either, how to talk. Welle yeah she does, but-

O : She doesn’t know how to talk.

A : No she doesn’t know how to talk

O : You don’t know how to talk Assa

A : I don’t know how to talk. Right

J : No but yeah, we feel that she not used... She’s secretive

A : She’s not used to- She’s very closed off. And she doesn’t like to talk about her life, well she does... Well, for me, it’s always- like David always says during screenings- actually when you have a group of people and you see the person that’s really at ease, really confident, they’re actually the least at ease, that is... How can I explain, it’s a real shell.

J : So finally in this season she’s confronted to... It’s the first time that she’s confronted to a problem in herself that would require her to comunicate but since she’s not used to it... It’s complicated for her.

A : She doesn’t know how to.

J : She doesn’t know and she learns during season 4.

O : No she’s gonna learn during season 5. Learn Imane, learn

A : She has to learn how to talk

O : This really hurt your feelings! “Imane doesn’t know how to talk!”

A : I’m shocked!

J : I didn’t say that she didn’t know how to talk! I said that she didn’t know how to communicate about her feelings.

A : She has trouble expressing how she feels

Max : She has trouble expressing how she feels, yeah.

J : You cut me in the middle of my sentence, you little demons (whoah there lady) Respect is dead!

O : Sorry sorry. Uh, another impactful scene for you in s4?

Mar : For me it’s the scene in the park with Lucas. Where finally Imane is expressing herself and she says what she thinks, and someone is listening to her and hearing her, and I think that’s important.

A : Yeah, this clip is super important. It was important too. Well there are a lot of clips in season 4 that were super important that’s crazy!

Max : See? That’s hard uh?

Mar : We really feel her anger coming out, her letting go

A : Really yeah! Really.

Mar : I think it’s nice.

J : The relationship with Lucas is nice

A : Yeah Lucas and Imane

Max : I like this relationship a lot, I love it. And it’s cool, cause it’s really something that links s3 and s4, where you help him then he helps you, i find it super interesting.

A : I love it so much!

J : They’re sort of best friends actually.

Max : Yeah, without really telling it to each other, but it’s...

A : Well she was here for him like he was here for her, and it’s...

Max : And during moments... Hard moments

A : Where they really needed it! But it’s so good, th scene where she arrives in the hallway, in front of the lockers and she sees the girls, and he’s just behind her and telling her- She doesn’t even need to speak, he tells her to come directly, you see, he understood, and that was crazy, it’s great.

O : And you, do you have a scene that impacted you?

Max : So, for me it’s beyond the message and everything it’s really about cinematography, the scene with the little stars.

A : Oh yeah!

Max : I saw it, well during a screening, i really discovered it at the screening, and I was not here during s4, I wasn’t a lot on set, I didn’t see Assa and Lais act a lot, and i saw this scene and it slapped me in the face. Be it about the aesthetic, cinematographically, where Xavier aced it, and even you guys with your glances. I love scenes with no dialogue. I love scenes that talk with the eyes, and you guys are- you were excellent, I found you really excellent, it gives me chills just to talk about it! Because really it’s very very beautiful, and in the end you get your slap, and... For me that scene is really beautiful because you’re going from... I was like “fuck, everyone says s3 is a great love story and everything but that scene right there smashes all that we did”. It’s so...No but it’s true! It’s really cute, but at the same time it gives off a vibe... Also I’m very into stars and stuff, so I love it, and so, I found it so cute, but at the same time yeah, the moment where she gets her slap, where you start crying- well, yes, this scene, I found it...

J : See, that would work on me!

O : What?

J : The stars

Max : Oh yeah, really!

J : More than the cave

O : We didn’t talk about Lais’ flirt but he’s got game!

J : Oh yeah no but Sofiane... Very high level

A : Yeah Sofiane...

Max : Yeah he’s got game. Very technical

J : A gentleman

Max : Very straightforward, very... All that you want, yeah

A : Yeah that’s it, for me it’s... When you asked me earlier, well it’s a Sofiane. Except the little thing he went through with Manon, but yeah.

J : Sofiane is straight forward, but not heavy

O : That’s true that he often says “yeah i understand, i’ll leave you”. He’s letting it pass, I noticed that often.

Max : I think that it’s still a little technique. Like “yeah, yeah!”

A : It’s the boy thing, “make her love it, she musn’t completely get that you...” Yeah!

J : I make her love it then I go away

Max : Because actually, you feel that when we goes away he’s not happy about it. He’s all disturbed

A : He’s salty

O : Are we moving to the debate or not?

J : Yeah we’re doing a debate, a new debate about s4. So i hope this will be better than the debate about s3.

Max : Do you want me to do it?

O : I think he wants to do it, since earlier he has been wanting to take your notes.

A : He wants to take your place! Since earlier, he totally wants to take your host place

O : Earlier he said “you can leave, i’ll continue the show”

J : You won’t be the first one to try, my little buddy.

Max : Good luck to progress in your job

O : Always higher!

J : So we’re doing a debate, well precisely we were talking about Manon, we’re going to talk about the crew. Was it good enough to Imane, There was a bit of a debate on social media

A : Yes!

J : There were a lot of people thinking that Imane was not very well suppported by her friends. Did you take it like that, did you feel it like that? Because I felt like yeah, they didn’t always know how to understand Imane or to help her, at least in the beginning.

A : I think that they didn’t pay attention. In fact, they told themselves- they think that Imane is a strong girl, she hasn’t... She’s really strong, that means that she can’t be hurt, for them it’s like she can’t be hurt, like she doesn’t have a heart, like she can’t be sad sometimes and like she can’t have issues too, and the fact she doesn’t show them... Well I think they didn’t pay attention to her, they didn’t tell themselves “oh Imane..”, while it shows! It shows in the scenes, we see that Imane is...

O : She’s feeling bad

A : See? I don’t know, we can see it, everyone can see it but they don’t, while they’re her friends, they’re with her 24/7, and it’s true that... But then, it’s not easy when you’re... When you’re a person that really keeps things to yourself, people aren’t concerned, they’re used to seeing you pretentding there’s nothing all the time and showing nothing, well then they don’t pay much attention anymore, and we can be mad at them as we can not be, it’s a bit complicated.

O : Especially given that Imane is dropping the mask but when she’s alone. So did her friends really notice, in fact...

A : That’s it! Exactly, yeah. There’s that too

O : I asked myself that question.

J : But still...

A : But still, there are scenes where we can see that she’s really mad, we can see that some things hurt her, well I don’t know I...

J : No but she has small reactions, small sentences like this that she drops, still.

A : Yeah, she’s throwing little things to pick up on.

Max : People that... I find it very true, what you said- people that are very solar (is that something that you would say in english?), very strong, etc, when they’re alone they can drop the mask and having a hard time. And what I find great with Skam, all seasons, is that actually we meet human beings, who make mistakes. And I think that about the crew, what is great is that Imane makes mistakes, like she’s internalizing everything so there’s necessarily a moment when, even when you have Imane’s shoulders, you still can’t carry everything, and she makes the mistake to project her discomfort/unhappiness on her friends, or on Ingrid a lot also, you see

O : Ingrid especially yeah

Max : Especially yeah. And her friends, they’re high schoolers you see, they’re 16,17 year old girls, and it can also be normal not to see signals of... someone who’s feeling down, etc, and... So, for me...

A : We can’t really...

Max : It’s not really a question about being good enough really, it’s about the fact they’re human beings and you make mistakes/dumb stuff, even with your friends, you see.

A : But there’s one thing, only one thing that... About the fact that- when Ingrid entered the crew, they really took Ingrid’s side we’re not gonna lie

Max : No it’s true, that is true

A : We’re not gonna lie, and there... And even, Imane gave them many things to pick up on about Ingrid, she made it clear that she didn’t like Ingrid, well not thta she didn’t like her but that she didn’t like her being here and that it was a real problem for her, and the girls, despite this, they didn’t care. The scene where it moved me a lot, is when they went thrifting, and then... It was in the middle of Ramadan, and the girls drop her, with Ingrid, they leave with Ingrid and she’s finding herself alone and telling herself “oh yeah...”. And even there... I don’t know, usually as a friend you see that and tell yourself that... I don’t know! I don’t know if you get what I mean

Max, J, O : We do

J : It’s a lack of... I think they’re a bit in their world, also.

A : That’s it, they’re a bit in their world, that’s why during the moment when she speaks with Ingrid, when she apologize, she says “I was scared cause to me, you guys were more alike in the way you see things and stuff”, it was more about that. And you see, she says it herself.

J : But then, we’re getting back to Imane’s issue, that she “doesn’t know how to talk”. No but the wrongs are shared

A : Yeah that’s it the wrongs are shared

J : I think that you’re right, often with people that seem very strong like that, they’re not forgiven anything. We’re thinking that whatever, it’s gonna go well. And often, very strong people are throwing things to pick up on, it’s like “I’m not able to tell you I’m not alrigt but here, here’s something, analyze it”.

Max : “And if you analyze it the wrong way, I might get very mad”

J : So yeah, I think they lacked a bit of... They were a bit blind. Well Marine, we were talking about it earlier and you were saying that they’re also a bit each in their own love stories

Mar : Right, and they’re going out, they’re with their boyfriends... So they’re not... very mindful of...

J : They’re a bit self centered, but because they’re in love

Max : I found that... Well it’s dumb but I found that... The scene with the ice cream, precisely, it happened to me too many times with friends, you see. Like in my class, I have three friends that fast during Ramadan, and sometimes during the break I was like “so guys where are we eating”, but too dumb... No but I find that good to show it, well on this one it leads to bigger consequences cause you find yourself alone etc, but I actually find that super human, in fact I think that your season is really showing every side thta a friendship can have, because all of these conflicts- well here it’s more of an internal conflict thta extends to the group- but it’s never all black or white you see, everyone has their part of responsibilities, and I think it’s very well represented in your girls crew.

J : And also... No but yes!

[they’re all laughing and I don’t understand why but have fun i guess?]

Max : You wanted to get your revenge but you couldn’t, is that it?

J : That’s it. Every moment, I can leave

O : He’ll finish the talk show.

Max : Yes!

O : He’s here for that.

J : Also, the email to Manon. Would you have done it or not? The email to Charles, sorry.

Max : That no

O : That’s rough

Max : Very very rough

A : I could’ve never done it. And I’m trying to understand, I told myself “girl?”, how could she do this? No but I’m asking myself, what’s the trigger, I basically told myself that it was a pile of things, but what’s the trigger because, even when Alexia talks to her, when she tells her “where’s the Imane that would never betray her friends?”, I think that... For me that sentence was super harsh, I told myself “oh yeah, Imane is losing herself in her thing”, that’s why... Love can really make you...

Max : Love can really make you go wild

A : Love can really make you go insane, really, and it’s at this moment that I told myself... Imane would never usually have done that, and then... Why did she do that, I’m wondering, I’m telling myself that...

Max : No but you know, i’s the kind of thing... I remember when I was in.. In première (second year of high school) or in terminale (third and last year of high school) I think, I went through my girlfriend’s phone. Because she went on a weekend to Paris with a guy and stuff, and I was not peaceful, you see. And I discovered that they had hooked up, reading something in her phone

J : You were right then

Max : Yeah, but in fact not at all, cause if you do that kind of thing- and you know it’s stupid, cause if you find something well you’re fucked, cause you violated the privacy of the person and stuff, and if you find nothing, well you look stupid cause you betrayed the trust of the person you love and you get fucked, but, you still do it. There’s a power that’s stronger than you that pushes you to do it

A : Yeah, stronger than you. That’s because of love

Max : Right. So that’s something you’re telling yourself that you would never do, but then at some point, like Imane in that episode, well you’re pushed to do it. And I’m sure that your character sends the email, and right after goes like “oh fuck, it’s super dumb, cause someone is necessarily gonna find out”.

A : Yeah but she knows, because even tho she sent the email, when Charles arrives, all the girls are shocked and she’s like... She knows, she knows what she did, and you see she’s mad at... I don’t know, I don’t know

J : I was surprised about Imane. Cause in other seasons, she’s very rightful and honest, even if she has trouble communicating about her feelings she still knows how to tell what’s fine with her and what’s not, so I was very suprised, it doesn’t look like her.

A : It shows that basically-

Max : Everyone has their weakness

A : Everyone has their weakness.

Max : It’s very important

A : She’s a human being

Max : No one is like, perfect. It would be boring. It wouldn’t be nuanced, it wouldn’t be...

A : Everyone makes mistakes, so...

J : And Manon, did she know? (of course she did all she needed to was half a braincell)

A : Manon knew, no, that’s it, she knew. Stop, stop.

J : At Manon’s place I would’ve understood

A : I would’ve understood too. Frankly, in Manon’s shoes, I would have understood right away. Especially, when they have their talk in the cafeteria, and she asks “do you like him”, she can see it very clearly how Imane is! Like th girl is smiling stupidly, you see, you can see it, I don’t know, you know. Well, okay she didn’t tell you, but like...

Max : Yeah but Manon isn’t stupid

A : Yeah Manon’s character, she’s really not stupid, you see, Manon is really smart, so. I think she knew, but that she didn’t really care. At that point she was in a mood where she was like “as long as she doesn’t tell me it’s fine”

J : You think?

A : It was more from this point of view. I think.

O : She just wanted to forget about Charles

J : You think? I told myself that it was more... I felt like the girls were working on the assumption that Iman didn’t want to be together with a boy.

A : Yes, you’re right, there’s that too

J : So they told themselves, “anyways Imane doesn’t want to be with a boy so...”. They didn’t have that...

Max : It’s interesting

A : Really interesting

J : I think they told themselves that anyways, even if she likes him, she won’t get together with him so they weren’t going to “refrain themselves”. For example Daphné, well with all the clumsiness that makes Daphné, tells her all the time, well it’s a bit violent that too, but we feel that she really works with the assumption that for Imane...

A : That she can’t fall in love

J : That she can’t fall in love. But even if Imane wouldn’t have wanted to go further than to be in love, it’s still... You have to be careful, not to hurt your friend’s feelings, but I felt like they just told themselves that. “For Imane it won’t go further so we’re not going to get bothered with that”. But well, in the end everything ends well with the crew. And that’s what’s important right?

Max : And cut!

O : No there’s not the end word, there’s the following! Season 5!

J : We’re moving to season 5

O : Spoil please

A : Maxence I’ll let you talk about season 5

O : She’s drinking her water!

Max : Uh, well I won’t be in it so... I can talk about it but it’s gonna be... No I’m joking [funny how no one around the table had the slightest reaction when i almost got a heart attack]

O : You know that I was shocked

Max : The guy drops a bomb like that

O : I was happy, I was like “we have exclusive news, that’s crazy”. You’re in it, right?

Max : No, I’m in it, everyone is in it, everyone is there. Uh, well it will be about Arthur. And... That’s all. That’s all I’m going to tell you.

A : Yeah, well that’s all I know.

Max : We can’t...

J : No, we have to say, we don’t know either

Max : I’ll drop one thing. It’s not huge news- it’s gonna be a very choral season. That is to say that even if it’s about Arthur we’re gonna see everyone a lot (i guess that means every subplot for Daphné again love that for us). That’s all. And I don’t even know, I might get fucked cause I said that. No, I don’t think so. I don’t think so. It’s really- in fact, we built- it started to be sucessful thanks to our fans, thanks to all of these people supporting us, we managed to get the rights to start real creation with Skzm, which is something we would have never dared to dream of while filming seasons 3 and 4, so for us what’s happening is magical, and we really carried this project all together, and I think that we’re going to keep carrying it all together. That is to say that season 5... Season 5 may be about Arthur... Fuck I can’t put the sentence into words in my head. Season 5 may be going to be about Arthur but-

J : While season 5 will be about Arthur (it’s very difficult to translate grammar mistakes jfdbdfbdgh)

O : There are three french levels!

A : Come on, go ahead. While season 5 will be about Arthur...

Max : While season 5 will be about Arthur, we’ll all be here. (i don’t even know if that’s proper english sos)

J : But to make it clear to people that are going to watch, we don’t know more. We can’t... We don’t know

O : We’re guessing

A : Even us don’t know

J : Everything that we’re gonna say is only fiction and imagination in between us. Because we know them, they’re gonna be like “oh but they said this...maybe it’ll be about that” again. We don’t know what s5 will be about.

Max : No, no but even us, we had no script, we don’t know.

J : Us either, we just know it’s gonna be about Arthur.

O : This Arthur choice, first of all, it’s surprising isn’t it?

A : It’s suprising but it’s so cool (rt)

J : I’m happy, cause Arthur is character that i like and I’m hapy to get to know him a little better.

O : Yeah I love him too. And the only thing that we know, the only thing I noticed during the show is that he’s hooking up with older women. He says it during the mural scene. It’s the only thing we’ve got on him.

Max : Well he hooks up with Alexia too a bit

O : Yeah Alexia!

Max : Let’s not forget, he hooks up with Alexia

J : That’s what I want to see. I want- Alexia is my favorite character, she’s really my favorite character, so well I’m a bit sad, cause I would have loved to have a season about her but it’s nice, it’s nice that we have a season about Arthur, and I hope things are going to happen with Alexia so I’ll see her a bit more

Max : Okay. So we’re supposed to keep a poker face?

O : Well it won’t be the case! So I would like us to do a little quiz.

Max : Okay

O : Presented by Marine

Mar : Yeah. Exactly

O : He wanted to do it! So question 1?

Mar : So it’s questions that you weren’t asked about the show I think, and it’s really to test your deep knowledge of it.

Mar : Obviously if people want to participate and drop their score in the comments... Well, Eliott you’re starting? Maxence?

Max : Let’s go

Mar : So, in the first ep of s3, you buy a candy bar in a vending machine. What’s that candy bar?

Max : Crunchy... The red bars with the red paper...

Mar : And the price?

Max : 80c. And I have the 3 at home.

Mar : Is that true?

Max : Yeah. I have the 3 originals, cause basically in ep1 there are 2, for real there were three cause it was really long, to do it three times, and the three of the thing are in my closet

Mar : No but don’t look at the answers!

Max : No no, no no, I’m not looking at the answers. Actually I’m having money issues and I think i’m gonna put the three chocolate bars on ebay. So the link will be in the description...

Mar : What price?

Max : It’s 80c in the vending machines? So let’s say 800 bucks, something like that.

O : The worst thing is that there were probably be people to buy them

Mar : That’s half of a good answer

Max : Half? It’s not “crunchy”? Tell me why

Mar : It was “crunchy choco”, and it’s 50c

Max : Oh it’s 50c

Mar : So 500 euros

Max : 500 euros

Mar : The name of the bus stop where you talk with Lucas for the first time

Max : Oh, they asked it... Fuck, they asked it on saturday

A : Oh I know!

Max : St Benoit something

A : St Benoit yeah

Mar : St Benoit, great. How many times is the word “chelou” pronounced during the ep 1 clip. When you’re at the bus stop with Lucas and Chloé joins you

Max : So... 5 times

Mar : I counted 8 times

A : Yes!!

Max : 8 times?

Mar : It was not how many times you say it, but how many times in the conversation

Max : Ah! Okay

Mar : Well

A : Too late. You don’t get the point

Mar : How much was Eliott asking to create his Polaris project?

Max : 1500 euros

Mar : More

Max : Oh yeah? 3000 euros?

Mar : 3200. What did you want to do with all of that?

Max : Uh... Oh, you know. Many projects, many projects. Beers, joints...

Mar : Down your appartment in the show there’s a restaurant. It’s a...

J : Can I, miss, can I?

Max : Go ahead go ahead

J : Sushi restaurant

Max : Here you go. I was gonna say a turkish restaurant but oh well

Mar : Oh yeah, well

Max : Yeah, it was not...

Mar : What’s the hint that you send to Lucas to make him guess the weekend on the boat? You send him a text. It’s on a conversation. You had to pause the episode

Max : Whoah... yeah...

A : the questions are so hard!

Max : You’re currently freaking out

A : Yeah, like crazy I’m freaking out like crazy! What is she gonna ask me, that’s tough

Max : Uh... Get your swim suit ready? Is that it??

Mar : No. Yeah, and your buoy. No, “I hope you’re not seasick”

Max : Yeah, that’s it. Swim suit, seasick...

Mar : You weren’t far away. And then, in the last episode of s3

Max : I keep...

Mar : You’re wearing a grey sweatshirt, with written on it...

Max : Romance

Mar : Yeah, that’s right. So for the both of you.

O : How many points does that make?

Max : I have... 3?

Mar : 3/8

Max : 3/8?? But there weren’t 8 questions that’s weird, you don’t know how to count

O : The dude is becoming mean

Mar : You don’t talk to me like that!

J : Maxence is actually super mean!

Max : Me? Not at all!

A : I don’t know how to talk, she doesn’t know how to count... We’re gonna take lessons together. No but the “you don’t know how to talk” I still have it here, I will never forget it

Mar : So, what are the three books studied in french class? You say...

A : Wait what, what, what?

Max : Ah! I can’t say it?

Mar : Yes you can!

A : La princesse de Clèves no?

Max : La princesse de Clèves, Madame Bovary and...

A : Antigone

Max : Antigone

Mar : Perfect. Who’s Mrs Rigaud (useless fun fact : my mom is a teacher too and has the same last name)

A : The french teacher. No, the bio teacher

Max : The bio teacher. With the big breasts

Mar : You go and find a couch for the foyer. What size?

Max : We agree that these ones are for her?

A : No no for the both of us

Max : Ah okay

A : 3 places?

Mar : 2 places

A : 2? Ah okay

Max : But there are the arms and stuff

Mar : Yeah, it’s almost 4 finally

A : 12

Mar : Almost 5 with the back

Max : That’s it, yeah

Mar : Quote at least one slogan to protest for the foyer

Max : Kiffance, kiffance! A slogan to protest for the foyer...

Mar : Yeah, when the headmaster wants to close it... there are several signs, and on these signs, is written...

Max : Ah! “Our foyer”... Wait, there’s one that goes... “our foyer”...

A : No one touches our foyer? No

Mar : No, there’s “our foyer, our pride”

Max and A : Here you go

A : Yes!

Max : That was this one that I had in mind

Mar : Or “foyer, liberty, equality, fraternity”

O : That one is meh

Max : Hello to the decoration team

O : No but young people are supposed to be the one who did it

Mar : What’s your instagram account in the show? [to Assa]

A : goodgalimane

Max : Fortunately you don’t ask for mine...

Mar : What color is Alexia’s hair at the start of s4?

A : Pink. Oh no, sorry, blue! Blue blue blue sorry, I was still in s1

Mar : What’s the name of the stuffed animal you were operating as a child in the show

A : Nono

Mar : And it was a...

A : A tiger

Mar : To what football player does Idriss compare himself?

A : Mbappé

Mar : What’s the name of the game you play with Sofiane? When you thrwo the ball. It’s written in big on it

A : Uh... I forgot the name, uh...

Mar : It’s in two words.

J : The ch... The chamboule-tout (i have a total of zero idea about how to translate that)

A : Oh, yeah the chamboule tout.

Mar : What is the title of the email sent from Charles to Manon, to which you answer?

Max : Whoah, here’s your fucker question!

A : Oh yeah! Uh...

Mar : It’s in three words.

A : Meet me up?

Mar : Meet me up?

Max : I miss you?

A : Yeah... Isn’t it “i miss you” or something like that?

Max : Yeah that’s what I thought but apparently not. “Come back to me pls”?... Everytime I bite!

Mar : “I am sorry”

A : Oh yeah that’s true!

Mar : Your grade on the last french exam? And the subject?

A : 7/20

Mar : Yeah

A : And the subject.. Oh shit!

Max : Fuck, girl!

Mar : It’s about one of the books that you study

A : La princesse de Clèves

Mar : Yeah. The nurse’s diagnostic to your symptoms? She’s telling you “oh it’s probably the...”

A : Uh... oh!!

Mar : Which is kind of impossible

A : Menopause!

Mar : Yeah. Here we go, well congrats

O : There’s another one after no? After the menopause it was someting even more serious

Mar : An orphan disease

A : yeah, an orphan disease

Mar : Now a second game? Are you ready?

A : Yeah. How many points did I get?

Max : Shhh, nothing. She doesn’t know how to count, don’t you remember?

A : Oh yeah that’s true I had forgotten!

Mar : We’ll watch the rush and we’ll count

Max : Yeah

Mar : So... the other game is, Eliott and Imane did things in the show. Have you done the same in real life. Some kind of never have I ever

A : Okay

Max : Okay... (boy is not peaceful dkjfhdjgd)

Mar : I never wanted to finance a personal project via a participative platform

Max : Never did it no

Mar : Okay. Listening to dubstep

Max : I’ve done it

Mar : Being seduced by someone playing an instrument

Max : I’ve done it

Mar : You’ve been seduced, then

Max : Yeah i’ve been seduced. No, I’ve been seduced by someone playing an instrument.

Mar : Touching someone’s hair-

Max : It was violin, by the way

Mar : Oh yeah?

Max : Yeah. Touching someone’s hair?

Mar : Touching someone’s hair to make them understand that you like them

Max : No. Too obvious (excuse us sir some of us can’t even see clear signals)

Mar : Kissing someone while watching somewhere else

Max : Watching someone else?

Mar : Yeah

Max : No

Mar : Leaving a note on the pillow

Max : Yeah

Mar : Imagining parallel lives

Max : Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Mar : Playing with paint

Max : Uh... Yes

Mar : Oh yeah?

Max : Yeah. But uh... Not in the sense... No no no I was working in a day care center, so we were doing paint fights

Mar : Yeah it was not sexual

Max : No, we had our clothes on, I was 18, the kids were 6, it would’ve been weird

O : It’s becoming creepy

Max : Oh yeah, it went wild guys!

Mar : Uh... You lost me

Max : Well listen!

Mar : Having shady/hazy relationships

Max : What do you mean?

Mar : Well, Eliott is...

Max : Uh, yeah. When I was... When I was, when I was... Something like 19, yeah

Mar : Okay. Sharing intimacy in high school

Max : Sharing intimacy in high school?

Mar : Yeah, intimacy being an understatement (she said oxymoron but i guess she mixed up? it makes more sense)

J : Intimacy, understatement

Max : Ah, inside a high school? What level of intimacy?

Mar : You tell me. Well...

Max : 1,2,3? You... Well, yeah. Go ahead, yes.

Mar : Talking about marriage with your girlfriend, with one of your girlfriends.

Max : No

Mar : No? Okay

Max : That’s it? Phew, can I go?

Mar : You can leave! [to Assa] Have you ever organized a clandestine party in high school?

A : No

Mar : Have you ever confided to the school nurse?

A : Yeah

Mar : Oh yeah?

A : Yeah

Max : So cute

A : Yeah, well, the first time I got my period

Max : Oh, so cute

J : So cute

Mar : Not responding to someone giving you a hug. What you do in the show

A : Well actually

Mar : Like someone taking you in their arms and you staying completely neutral

A : Oh yes, yeah

Mar : Told your friends they were talking too much about guys

A : ...No

Mar : Have you ever done a race in a potato bag?

A : No! No

Mar : So it was the first time?

A : Yeah it was the first time

Mar : Is it nice?

A : I’s okay, well it’s funny

Mar : Have you ever asked advice to google

A : Yeah, like crazy, my whole life

Mar : What was your last question?

A : Uh, well, everytime I’m sick, but that’s the worst

Max : Oh yeah, we all do the same, it’s something never to be done!

O : Never!

A : When i’m sick and i’m looking for something, i’m like, “what happens when you hurt...” and it gives you something, cancer of who knows what. But yeah, I look a lot at google i admit

Mar : Have you ever deleted the contact of someone you liked a lot?

A : Yeah

Mar : Yeah, you blocked them and everything?

A : Yeah, everything. Bye.

Mar : And have you unblocked them since?

A : No

Mar : We’re thinking about you...

O : Kisses..

J : Whoever you are!

O : Whoever you are

J : Wherever you are!

Mar : Have you ever talked shit about your siblings’ girlfriends and boyfriends? Like you talked shit about Ingrid...

A : Yeah

Mar : Oh! Okay

J : Me too

A : No but not a lot, but I’ve done it... I’ve thrown a few comments yeah

Mar : And would you be able to chose a vacation destination blindfolded?

A : Oh, I don’t know...

Max : You’re not a player!

A : I would love it, I’ll admit, I would love it. I would love it, a lot

Max : If you land on a cool destination

A : No, then it’s lame, then it’s lame. No, but I think, if it’s about a story with friends, I could I think, I could

Mar : Well, it’s over

Max : It was nice

A : They were nice, the little questions

Max : Totally

O : And even the talk show is over, by the way.

Max : Oh no!

O : I’m sorry

Max : Well yeah, I have nothing left to drink guys

O : He drank everything! Fuck, I didn’t even finish my thing

Max : Do you want me to drink it for you?

O : Go ahead

J : He dropped everything

O : At the end, at the end

Max : Come on

O : Well, it’s the end

A : I’ll take he opportunity to tell you Marine, I love France Tv Slash’s stories. It’s dope, I love it

Mar : Thank you!

A : Big up to France Tv Slash

Max : Yeah, to sexy soucis (it’s a program they have on france tv slash talking about sex life basically)

O : “Sexy soucis” is great

J Yeah, it’s true that you love sexy soucis!

Max : Yeah. And you see, it’s funny, I had a debate ith a friend in a bar on tuesday, and- a friend, uh, and it shocked me... I told him “go and watch sexy soucis dude”

J : What was it abaout?

Max : Because, it was uh... We’re not going to get into the details but it was a bit sexist, it was a bit mysoginistic around the edges. And he’s a guy that I love, and who’s very open minded about all other topics, but this one not at all, and I told him “fuck, go and watch sexy soucis”

O : He must watch all other programs from Slash!

Max : Of course, of course! Uh....

J ; Moonwalk

A : Moonwalk...

O : Volcano, there’s everything! You have to watch everything

Max : Skam...

O : Skam, season 5 soon... Well, anyways thank you both, it was super cool

A : Yeah it was very nice

Max : Very very nice

O : And, so, the end word : thanks to you for watching, don’t hesitate tot subscribe to that youtube channel

Max : You have to click on something down there, no? Youtubers are all doing this

O : Click here!

Max : On replay, that way it is...

J : And especially, comment!

A : And share

O : Tell us also who you wanna see around that table in the net one, domment, do the- well no, the quiz, they will have seen it already it’s useless, uh... Anyways yeah thanks for watching

J : By the way- because you forgot to tell it earlier.

O : What did I forgot to tell?

J : People can also comment about s5, what they wanna see...

O : Yeah, who you wanna see in s5...

Mar : And do’t hesitate to send me messages, I read everything

J : And send messages to Marine!

Max : That despair!

O : Yeah, thanks to all!

Max : Thanks a lot

J : Bye!

#skam france #assa sylla #maxence danet fauvel

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yiangchen · 5 years

Text

my favorite scene from every season (only s1-5 since s6 is still airing) in gifs...

s1: i love this, and not just because of blarke. the power in this scene is insane, and i just love how you really get the sense that bellamy and clarke have fully taken on the responsibility of caring for these <100 kids who have essentially become their family.

s2: best plot twist of the entire show.

s3: raven waking after everyone came together to save her? that right there was what s3 was missing until that moment. bellamy, clarke, monty, and jasper all in the same place, at the same time, working together to save one of their own (raven) and the sheer relief and happiness that they feel when they do. the sheer relief and happiness that raven feels because she can finally feel pain again. i couldn’t find the right gif, so here’s monty with one of his best lines, reminding octvia, but also the audience, what this show is really about. the 100 (+bellamy and raven) surviving together. we’re your people. you’re one of the 100.

s4: can i choose the entirety of praimfaya? because the whole fucking episode was gold and i can’t narrow it down to my favorite moment.

s5: ok, i can’t find the right gif for the life of me, so i chose this one because right after this bellamy goes “how so?” because he’s already 100% done with his sister’s cult lmao and it’s amazing, but anyway, my fave scene is a little after this when bellamy stands up against octvia. i just love it so much. in a season where bellamy tried so hard to suppress his emotions, he actually wore his heart on his sleeve during this one. earlier in the episode, octvia’s guards pointed guns at bellamy and octvia didn’t tell them to stand down right away. she wanted to use them to intimidate him. to threaten him. in my fave scene, he just doesn’t care about that. because of you, we’re stuck between razor blade winds and burrowing parasitic bugs. because of you, we’re at war, bellamy. only if you insist on fighting it. fight or die, that’s all there is. you don’t understand, i get it, because you’re not one of us. is obika one of you? because you’re about to end his life like he means nothing. i understand that. oof, that whole interaction right there gives me chills. he’s not backing down, not even when one of her warriors tells him to “show some respect.” ironically, clarke is the one to be more “the head” in the scene, and she says, “bellamy,” in a warning tone. she’s able to see clearly that bellamy standing up against octvia only puts him in danger. bellamy, on the other hand, doesn’t care. god, i fucking love him. wow, i’m upset now. the blake conflict here was so interesting to me, and then jroth went ahead and gave octvia a leg to stand on in 5x06 because of fucking e.cho and completely diluted everything to being about blecho and NOT bellamy’s valid feelings about how shitty his sister has been, especially to him.

#bellamy blake #clarke griffin #raven reyes #monty green #jasper jordan #octagon #s1 #s2 #s3 #s4 #s5 #the 100

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lightsandlostbells · 6 years

Text

Skam France season 3, episode 5 reaction

The opening clip gave me flashbacks to this SNL Totino’s commercial, another classic of gay cinema, so I FULLY expect to see some hot pizza roll action later this season.

Episode 5

Clip 1 - Still no yellow curtains???

Dramatic music. Lucas and Eliott are passionately kissing. The camera swoops over parts of their bodies. Eliott is smiley, Lucas gets in a kiss to Eliott’s nose. The level of intimacy is very strong, that shot of their legs tangled together is nice. I think it’s great that they didn’t back down from the kissing and physical contact in this scene; it’s not that it needs to be very explicit, just respectful and on par to what they’d give for a het couple, and they filmed Lucas and Eliott about the same as they did Charles and Manon last season. Skam was so good in how it depicted intimacy between Isak and Even; I consider it one of the defining features of S3, setting it above other gay romances in media for its lack of skittishness and double standards, and it’s been a consistent concern of mine that the remakes will be a step back in that regard. This clip was definitely reassuring.

Eliott asks Lucas if he’s his first guy, and Lucas just snorts so Eliott takes that as a yes. Lucas asks the same question and Eliott replies with this Even-worthy eyebrow raise, so Lucas is like, oh, I see! They laugh. So I that wasn’t an actual answer, lol? But I took it as Eliott having some experience with dudes. Could be a variety of things from kissing a boy to hooking up with one to a full-fledged relationship with a guy. Or the Mikael incident, if they include that in S4. They’ve apparently changed a huge amount, but that’s actually one detail that doesn’t need to be changed the way the bus storyline has to be, for instance.

We get some whispery voiceover as Eliott asks Lucas what he thought of him when he saw him the first time in the common room. We cut to them lying shirtless, so this is later in the day, after things got more heated. The lighting is very warm and golden, it’s a very romantic staging. Like there might as well be white curtains billowing in the breeze. (The curtains are white, but not billowy.)

Eliott volunteers that the first time he saw Lucas wasn’t in the common room, but on his first day in the corridor. Basically he describes the trailer to Lucas. Lucas didn’t see him but he was all Eliott saw. So that revelation happened fast. Not a surprise to anyone who saw the trailer (or you know, saw OG Skam) but it cuts out some of the mystery for Lucas - like Isak was doubting Even’s interest through much of the season, especially in this episode and afterwards, and when Sonja said the relationship was fake. Isak was so taken aback by Even revealing it in the last episode in part because he (and the audience) had doubted it so often. But Lucas has this reassurance from Eliott right from the beginning. Lucas just has so much more to go off from Eliott at this point: Eliott is more upfront telling Lucas how great he is, Eliott has said he wants to break up with Lucille and have a relationship with someone else who’s not necessarily a girl, Eliott didn’t choose plans with Lucille over a day with Lucas, Eliott told Lucas he wanted the double date to be just the two of them. Even when Eliott disappeared for a few days, he followed it up by apologizing to Lucas and saying he was sick. And that’s nice for Lucas, that he’s not doubting himself as much, but I have to wonder how this will affect the story? Or their relationship trajectory? When Eliott cuts off their relationship, it will come out of nowhere even more than in Skam.

Lucas whispers about what Eliott would have done if he didn’t go to the common room, or Lucas came to the bus earlier or later, as they lay there in their underwear with Eliott on his back, in between lots of kissing. The camera keeps cutting back and forth between kissing and talking, different angles, lots of pans, etc.

Eliott saying that he imagines two paths when he has a choice to make, but it drives him mad when he doesn’t know the outcome of the one he doesn’t take. So Lucas brings up parallel universes. (Piano music starts playing at this point, which seems to happen at significant Lucas/Eliott turning points, like the first time Lucas saw Eliott, or when Lucas played piano for Eliott. Like in OG, this conversation might have a huge effect on Eliott and how he sees himself and their relationship.) When Lucas makes a choice, there are all these other Lucases making other choices, like he’s surfing in Bali or in he’s in a NYC skyscraper signing a deal. I don’t know if these are things Lucas actually would like to experience in his life, or of they’re just examples of things that are so far and distant from his present reality, fun fantasies.

Eliott asks if maybe New York businessman Lucas didn’t jump off the building because he burned out. Lucas says that’s awful, Eliott asks if he’s ever thought about it? That’s good foreshadowing, a good hint as to Eliott’s state of mind.

Eliott says he doesn’t believe in parallel universes, though he doesn’t explain why (like Even say it made him feel lonely). Lucas says there are Lucases and Eliotts in other universes who are together right now. Lucille calls and Eliott groans, then says Eliott #425 can go talk to her, heh. Lucas #1 is very happy with that decision. They lie on each other and it blurs as the clip ends, as they fall asleep.

This is one of those clips that I completely get why people would love it, it’s very apparent, and I don’t think it’s bad, not at all, but at the same time it’s just personally not my thing. I’m sorry! Again, I understand why this clip blew up. It’s just ... similar to how I feel about cupcakes. People love cupcakes. I love some cupcakes! But I don’t care for a lot of cupcakes, like the really fancy ones with tons of frosting, because most frosting is too sugary for me. Do I get why people like the cupcakes with mountains of frosting, though? Or why people prefer the frosting to the cake itself? Absolutely.

Most of my issue is with the editing. There had so many cuts and jumps and I don’t think it served the mood or purpose of this clip. Actually, I found it really distracting. I could never just relax into the moment because of how the camera was spinning and panning and cutting between different points in time, something that has been done in various scenes in Skam and the remakes, but not usually with weighty dialogue happening at the same time? I found it hard to focus on what they were saying.

On that note, I don’t think the way it was shot was the best way to demonstrate to their chemistry. I think they have quite good chemistry! But there was so much moving around and cutting between moments that it began to feel like a series of poses rather than two actors working off each other, if that makes sense.

It just felt a bit too much like this clip was a perfume ad, lol. It’s very heavy and sensual and romantic, and it’s beautiful, but it’s not what I prefer from the Skam universe. It takes away some of the rawness and vulnerability of this kid’s coming out story - something that they’re still integrating into the show by keeping many of Isak’s struggles in Lucas - and makes it more full throttle OTT mature romance. Like - this feels like a romance between adults, not teenagers, and I don’t mean because of the level of intimacy/shirtlessness, more like the level of confidence, the way it doesn’t feel like they’re figuring things out, but that this is familiar territory (and for Lucas at least, it is not). And well, another some of that is because the actors are adults, too.

There’s some more stuff I can say but again, it’s just not my style for this material. In other contexts I would eat up this hardcore French romanticism, lol.

Clip 2 - Guess Who(’s not staying for dinner)

Lucas wakes up alone at 14:34 on Saturday. It’s later that day, so what’s his excuse for missing Basile’s party? Eliott is not actually there to keep him occupied. Is he just going to lay in bed and smell Eliott’s pillow or something? I realize he’s distracted but isn’t he going to be receiving texts from the guys?

Eliott left him a note on the pillow. It’s a hedgehog in bed, but when you open the note it’s a raccoon and a hedgehog in bed together with a little heart. AWWWW. That’s so cute. It’s so cute I won’t make any interspecies erotica jokes. The note says “Eliott number 3546 is a lucky guy” and that Lucas is handsome when he’s sleeping. Lucas looks bummed, though. I mean, I would be if I went to bed sleeping beside someone who looked like that and I woke up alone.

Lucas goes into the kitchen where everyone else is. Manon has been up early cooking, because she slept on the couch and got woken up by the neighbors. Lucas is like, oh sorry, forgot I’m not in my room anymore. WHY ARE YOU APOLOGIZING, IT’S YOUR ROOM. SHE HAS NEVER LIVED IN IT. (Also, I don’t think she meant anything by it, but her mentioning that she woke up early hearing the noise from the couch comes across as oddly passive-aggressive.)

But Manon is OK with it, because Lucas needed his room more! Eliott seemed super cool! UMMMM this is kinda weird. I know Eskild said the same thing but the situation seemed less pointed, like Manon’s borderline suggesting I know you needed the bed more than I did, Lucas, because of all the gay sex you were having last night.

The roommates all met Eliott when he left and Lucas covers by saying he’s a good friend who got too drunk so Lucas offered him a place to sleep. Manon is all “OK!” in a way that is too casual to be truly casual, if you know what I mean. Lucas gets on the defensive and says what, we can’t bring friends over here now? Now Manon is all, “OK...” in a way that says calm down, dude.

Mika eyes Lucas as he leaves. I don’t think they’ve really built that relationship in a substantial way, but at least they added that brief glimpse to show that Mika has Lucas on his mind?

Clip 3 - Cake!

Lucas and Manon walk into school, Lucas carrying baked goods made by Manon. Manon gets a call from Charles and ignores it. There needs to be a substantial Lucas and Manon heart-to-heart at some point. They’ve set up too much between them - I feel like their dynamic is more developed than Lucas and Mika, or Lucas and Yann this season.

The girl squad + Lucas sit around and eat cake. Well, the girls eat cake, Lucas is sitting back in his seat with his arms crossed. I know you are thinking about Eliott, dude, but there’s this thing people do called “eating our feelings” that works ... not very well in the long-term, but provides short-lived distraction and satisfaction. I recommend it!

There��s a mattress in the common room now and Manon asks, “Don’t you stop napping after kindergarten?” and I like Manon fine but she must have put some crack in that cake. Lmao, what human being is going to be like NAPS??? AN ABSURD TRADITION MEANT FOR TODDLERS. Like when you’re a little kid, you don’t want to nap, you want to run around and keep being an asshole; it’s when you grow up and become miserable that you start to appreciate the art of shutting your eyes in the middle of the day. Anyway, Daphne said the headmaster gave the students the right to nap in the common room. You know, that is a legit quality use for the common room, tbh. Everyone would use the nap room.

The downside is, as Lucas accurately points out, people are going to bang on that mattress. Well, I guess they could like … require the door to the room to be open at all time or something. Or put up a giant sign saying THERE ARE SECURITY CAMERAS IN THIS ROOM AT ALL TIMES. They don’t need to install security cameras for real, just use the sign to dissuade people. (Who am I kidding, none of that will stop the students from banging on that mattress.) Daphne is incensed at the notion, but Imane’s like, hookup-land is what’s gonna bring people here. LMAO. Again, not wrong.

They talk about the ugly mural some more (God I still do not get why everyone treats that mural like it’s a nude painting of one of the orcs from Lord of the Rings, it’s just a somewhat outdated mural, my eyes would glaze right over it). Lucas says he’s waiting for Eliott about the mural and Manon does a little “mhm” so he hurriedly changes the subject (good subtle detail).

They discuss getting WiFi in the room and one of the nerd dudes who showed up to the first meeting, who has been sitting in the corner, starts talking about how they can get set up WiFi. The nerd dudes have the password. Everyone is happy! But nerd dude says he would like compensation. Daphne assumes they are talking about her breasts as she is showing ample cleavage. Nerd dude says no, they were talking about the cakes. LMAO. I like this guy. Manon hands over a cake, the other girls are sad at the loss of cake. Understandable, but it seems like a fair trade to me. Also, there are multiple cakes and baked goods on that table, just scarf it down before the nerds come back for more.

Manon signs off with, “Bye, bitches!” The others talk about how weird she’s being. Well, yeah, but I’m wondering how her Charles-related sadness translates into her saying, “Bye, bitches!” Trying to put on a super happy and lighthearted facade? Would go along with all the baking.

This scene is cute and all, and I assume there will be relevance to something in the plot later on but ... what does it have to do with Lucas’ story or his POV? Other than a brief look at his closed-off body language (which didn’t last long since he was very engaged in the conversation) and a brief mention of Eliott and the mural, something that has happened before? There just didn’t feel like a point to his story in this clip, whereas every scene in Skam S3 felt like it had a point to Isak’s POV and advanced his storyline, telling us something about his mental and emotional state. I know that the other seasons of Skam didn’t have such a narrow focus, but usually there was some tie-in to what the protagonist was feeling. IDK, is this to foreshadow him and Eliott fucking on the couch? More hinting at Manon being off her game and having Charles problems? My guess is that they felt like they needed a girl squad scene sometime this week. If they had unlimited time for these episodes, I wouldn’t care if they had clips like this, but they do have a time limit, and so I think it’s fair to question if they’re making the best use of it.

Daphne is by no means required to have a boyfriend, I still root for lesbian Daphne at the end of the day, but that nerd dude who asked for cake instead of cleavage is already a better option than Basile.

Clip 4 - Lucas out of the loop

Lucas waits for Eliott outside of class, but instead it’s his bro Raptor Alex who exits. Lucas asks if the guy in his class is there. You know, the guy. Clearly the only guy who matters in Alex’s class.

Alex says Eliott isn’t there much, he freaked out in class the other day and doesn’t go anymore. Oh no :( I wonder what he means by “freaked out” though, like hopefully people weren’t gossiping about whatever happened? It didn’t make its way to Lucas, in that case.

The boy squad comes around the corner. Lucas completely phones it in when he apologizes to Basile. Not that I care about hurting Basile’s feelings, as my opinion of him is well-documented, but Lucas does, and he’s not even trying to sound sorry. And the family excuse is lazy and not believable at all, like with Isak it was also predictable but he put a smidge of effort into it. Lucas says the excuse like he’s on auto-pilot. The boys just let the excuse roll by, uninterested.

Lucas asks what happened at the party and Arthur says Basile went into the bathroom with Daphne and he won’t tell them what happened. Basile say she stayed on her knees in front of him for a long time. Which I take to mean she was barfing and Basile was holding her hair back. Also her hair smelled good according to him. SIGH. I’m sure this is the start of Basile/Daphne or whatever, but you know, it would be easier for me to buy that Basile is really a good guy if he did not describe Daphne in such an objectifying way. If you’re a fucking gentleman, why are you making it sound like she sucked your dick? I know toxic masculinity, ~it’s realistic, blah blah. They could’ve had Yann and Arthur make the crude jokes and Basile get serious and tell them not to talk about Daphne that way, it would’ve been character development. (Actually, now I’m wondering if there will be a moment like that later in the season. I can’t support Basile/Daphne at all at this point, but I feel like if they want to make him worthy of her in the slightest, he’s going to have to renounce his sleazy, perverted shtick very clearly.)

Lucas looks back after the boys as they leave him behind, not interested in telling him more, barely caring about his absence. He’s just not part of the gang right now. IDK, I think they should’ve directed Axel to play this more remorsefully - not his fault, I feel like they rushed this scene for time reasons? For instance when he sees the boys and apologizes to Basile, there wasn’t time for anything to land, like he didn’t care much, not even that he was disappointed in himself for forgetting. Just this look from Lucas at the end signals what he might be feeling.

Also, very weird choice to put this clip on Tuesday and the one with the girls on Monday? It makes way more sense to switch the two, because basically Lucas must not have interacted with his friends at all yesterday. Even though we’ve seen he has a class with Arthur and we’ve gotten a clip of that class on a Monday (although I don’t know how French class schedules work).

Clip 5 - Argh

When I started to watch this clip, I noticed it was 2 minutes and 43 seconds long and was like … are you kidding me? If this is the scene, we’re going to just fly through it? What in the fresh hell?

For comparison, the OG clip was 4 minutes and 36 seconds. And it didn’t have the end credits as this scene does, and it didn’t have this opening part with Lucas and Imane (or Isak and Sana).

Without the credits, this clip goes to 2:22. Eliott and Lucas meet outside starting at :55. Meaning there was about a minute and a half for the conversation that defines that second half of the season. Yikes.

Lucas and Imane are in class, I think they’re taking a test. She helps him out when he forgets something. There’s a lot on his mind and he’s not doing the best he can, I guess. Anyway, thoughtful of Imane to help him cheat (if this is a test)?

He gets a text from Eliott - is this a test or not? It’s not terribly important but LMAO at this teacher who (correctly) notices two of her students passing drugs under the table before class, but fails to notice the same two talking during an exam and one of them whipping out his phone during a silent class period. Cheating must not be a main concern of hers. Eliott is waiting outside the room, grinning at him through the window. So we have students talking to each other, looking at their phones, and non-verbally communicating with other students through the window. Now I’m really surprised that the teacher noticed the weed.

Lucas gets up to meet Eliott outside. Lol, really, dude? He’s going to get a bad grade just because he can’t wait a few minutes. I mean, the desperation is funny, but Lucas is not the brightest here.

Although I laughed a lot when Imane said he wasn’t done and Lucas was like, “Minimalism, Imane. Minimalism.” That might be the best line he’s had on this show.

Imane seems concerned but I’m not sure if she suspects anything’s up with him or if she’s just like how did I get partnered with such a dumbass.

So this clip was ... not good. Bad. It was bad.

This is the kind of content I feared we would be getting from Skam France based on the first two seasons. Luckily it’s been better than this on average, I really do think the show has improved! But not here. It’s such an important scene that I’m disappointed this is the one they bungled. There are multiple things that are ill-advised or underwhelming about it.

I’m aware that I can be harsh/nitpicky/critical about these remakes, but I really don’t intend to come from a place of default negativity, or like, FUCK THIS SHOW FOR EXISTING. And I don’t want to crush people’s buzz if they enjoy something! The reason I get so nitpicky is because I feel like it helps me better understand film-making overall. If a clip just doesn’t feel right, then I want to try to parse out why it didn’t work for me.

For starters, choosing to place this extremely intimate, private, honest, confessional scene outside. And not in some isolated space, but where tons of people are. You can fucking see students walking around behind Eliott when he’s glancing in the window at Lucas. As Lucas exits the classroom, you can see a girl headed in the same direction as him. I mean … what?? They are not remotely alone? Not only does it ruin the atmosphere of the scene, it tanks the plausibility of it.

Because Eliott’s waiting for him outside, and holy shit, gives Lucas a kiss on the mouth. Dude! People will definitely see you. He knows that he’s Lucas’ first boy(friend) per their conversation in bed, so what is he doing? I guess it’s cute but also, not a great idea to out Lucas like that Lucas hasn’t been with a guy before, Lucas has been deliberating no-homo-ing their interactions in front of his friends, Lucas has been trying to play up his relationship with Chloe (for instance slinging that arm around her when Eliott came to talk last episode, not to mention, you know, dating her while flirting with Eliott) so it’s a completely reasonable and likely assumption that Lucas is closeted and doesn’t want people to know he likes guys. I don’t think Eliott is a bad person for doing this, but it seems weirdly insensitive of him. (Even tried to kiss Isak in public in episode 8, but it was while he was manic, and I don’t want to make that same assumption of Eliott here.)

Eliott wants Lucas to leave with him but Lucas says he can’t ditch classes. Eliott says he’s told Lucille. He’s really brimming with confidence here, like he just swoops in for the kiss, he brings up Lucille without hesitation, he seems completely sure of himself. Lucas looks a little uncomfortable, though. Eliott is like, doesn’t that make you happy? Lucas says it does, although he doesn’t look that happy.

Lucas: “I just don’t want you to be sad if it’s my fault.” No offense because this is a tiny thing but this is one of Skam France’s typical flaws from S1 and S2, which they have largely improved on in S3, but here it creeps up again: adapting something from OG without retaining the context that makes it effective.

That’s a line from Isak, and it made sense in context for him, because Even was looking and acting very, very vulnerable when he said that he had told Sonja about Isak. Nervous eyes, hesitant voice. Holding back on his normally demonstrative body language - Even is very tactile but you can tell he’s very restrained at the start of that conversation. He speaks slowly and is very focused on Isak’s reaction, because he really didn’t seem to be sure what Isak would say. It was when Isak said, “Cool,” that Even started to relax, his eyes start to light up, because Isak responded positively. And when Isak said, “I hope you’re not sad,” it was to fish out what Even was feeling, because he needed that confirmation of how Even felt. Isak wanted to know Even wasn’t sad as a way to determine that Even really truly wanted to be with Isak. It’s a nice, subtle bit of dialogue.

Which makes zero sense here because Eliott is radiating happiness. He kissed Lucas on the mouth as soon as Lucas came outside! He’s smiling, his eyes are shining! It’s not subtle! LMAO WHAT. I guess you can take this as Lucas being insecure, but it just feels so bizarre and dense for a character to project joy as strongly as Eliott does and to ask whether he’s sad. However, maybe we’ll assume that Lucas really is just fishing for confirmation. The thing is, Lucas also has little reason to think that breaking up with Lucille would make Eliott sad. Eliott hasn’t said anything about not being able to break up with Lucille; he has made it clear that he would like to move on and have a relationship with someone else, not necessarily a girl. (Compare to: Even talking about how he felt like he was growing apart from Sonja, but saying he could not dump her, as well as not hinting nearly so heavily that he wanted to get into an actual relationship with Isak.) Eliott didn’t choose Lucille over Lucas the other Saturday when Lucas wanted to hang out, he was just busy, not necessarily with Lucille. (Compare to: Even saying he had plans with Sonja, essentially choosing her over Isak that day.) Eliott straight up told Lucas that he hoped their double date was just the two of them, that was his plan. (Compare to: Even feeling basically the same way, but not telling Isak outright in words.)

And throughout the season, Lucas has been even bolder in some ways than Isak was. He’s done more to go up to Eliott and try to chase him, he’s stolen a class register to find him. On Saturday he felt very confident about making out with Eliott and taking their shirts off. So you could take this as Lucas being insecure, but it doesn’t make a ton of sense even with Eliott ghosting the past few days. I don’t think it matches with the characterization. I think it’s just lazy writing, sorry, especially since much of the other dialogue in this scene is copy+pasted from OG. Or maybe more vulnerability and uncertainty was meant to come through at the beginning of the scene, but the directing and acting didn’t match up with that intention. Whatever happened, this is just an example of why this scene wasn’t very well-adapted. (Also, if Lucas is so insecure he can’t notice that Eliott is smiling happily and kissing him, then how did he get so confident within like 30 seconds to move in for a kiss in public? Overcoming both his internalized homophobia and his doubts to that degree in that short of a time?)

I do want to acknowledge that in Julie’s original script, the scene played out more like the one here, with Even kissing Isak at the very start and having his happiness and desire for Isak more visible. But in Julie’s notes, she also acknowledged that it was a hard scene to figure out and that the changes from script to shooting benefited the scene. Ultimately, this line felt right and fitting to the tone of the OG scene as it was filmed, but here it felt off. I didn’t get why Lucas was asking except because it was in the original show.

We get Eliott asking if Lucas would tell his parents, and at this point I was flabbergasted that they really were going to rush this hugely important, amazing scene to this degree. No room for buildup or mood, just cranking out the dialogue as if it’s obligatory. We get this conversation similar to OG where Lucas explains his dad feels guilty for leaving so he’s not going to say anything, and his mom is crazy so he doesn’t care. There is one nice moment where Lucas tells Eliott not to worry and Eliott says he’s not worried, but immediately asks why Lucas doesn’t talk to her. So you know, he is worried. That was a good, subtle moment. Eliott has a clear sad reaction to Lucas saying he doesn’t need crazy people in his life, and IMO it’s pretty obvious to viewers (though not to Lucas) but I still think Maxence did a decent job here.

Lucas is pulls out the drawing made for him, but Eliott just says Lucas is going to be late for class, all his warmth gone. When Lucas goes in for a kiss, Eliott ruffles Lucas’ hair instead. LMAO. Well, it’s not really funny at all in context of Eliott’s feelings, but it’s also just such a clear shutdown that I can’t help but find it amusing. Lucas does not find it amusing, stands there in surprise and confusion, looking down at his drawing.

Also, Eliott ruffled Lucas’ hair in episode 2, at the end of their lovely evening together, with a lot of sexual tension between them, so this is an unpleasant reversal. That moment felt like a “hello, I’m looking forward to getting to know you.” This moment is a goodbye.

Anyway, this scene was a mess!

Was there a reason why they were outside? Did someone see them? Is there going to be gossip? Why did Eliott kiss Lucas outside when he knows Lucas is closeted? Why did Lucas go in for a kiss at the end (more on that in a minute)? If there is a bullying/rumors storyline as people suspect, that could just as efficiently be done with, for instance, having them meet in an empty classroom and someone walks in on them or spies on them, or secretly takes a picture of them looking close. Maybe they don’t even see the person in the clip themselves, or they hear a noise but by the time they turn around, the person is gone. That way it would be more believable that they would kiss when they think they’re in total privacy, but could also lead to a storyline where the rumors get out. Or, you know ... there were rumors in OG because of Emma, so just have that escalate with Chloe. She fucking yells that Lucas is gay at the end of the episode. There’s just no need for this scene to be outside, it defies logic, and it kills the mood of the clip. It destroys the feeling of Lucas and Eliott having a secret relationship, it ruins the intimacy of making their feelings so clear to each other and of Lucas’ confession about his mom. It’s a really big deal for Lucas to tell someone about his mom! Overall the setting should reflect the content of the scene and this was just strange. Lmao, they didn’t even seem to go very far, weren’t they talking right outside the classroom? Is Imane going to look up and be like, hmm, there’s Lucas and Eliott having a conversation through the window?

I saw people be happy that Lucas moved in for the kiss at the end, and I mean, I get it, that’s the ideal outcome, for Lucas to be out and proud and comfortable with himself. I’m not going to rag on people for being happy about that. But I don’t buy it. He’s startled Eliott kisses him at the beginning of the clip. Then 60 seconds later he’s moving in to initiate a kiss. In public. Like … what is that doing for Lucas’ character arc? Is the only reason he didn’t want to kiss at the beginning of the clip because he didn’t know what Eliott had been doing, and not because of his internalized homophobia? How did he become okay with kissing him outside where people could see in just a minute? It just seems terribly weak for his characterization, and unrealistic that someone who’s so deep in the closet that he goes around flinging homophobic slurs and romancing girls can undo part of that in such a short time. (Especially combined with the Pride clip the next day.)

On that note, Lucas did not ask Eliott where he had been the past few days, there was no acknowledgment of all that Eliott had been gone, so if that was a problem for Lucas, it got swept away. Not as big of an issue as others, but it seemed odd that it went unmentioned when Lucas spent time looking for Eliott and trying to talk to him.

Why was this scene so short? I know there are time restrictions for the episodes, but why in the world was the cake clip necessary over more time allotted to this incredibly important clip? Just because they’re required to include the girl squad? Does the entire squad have to be in every episode, and was there no better way to include them? For example, instead of this clip, what if we opened with the girls eating cake and talking about the common room, but Lucas gets a text from Eliott and excuses himself, then meets and talks with Eliott? If there was anything relevant about the cake clip for future episodes, start with the girls talking about that, then Lucas gets the text and leaves. Seems like a way better use of time.

I don’t mind Eliott being frostier with Lucas at the end, turning away from the kiss, but he does such a complete mood change in such a short time span that it feels a little ridiculous that Lucas didn’t notice. Eliott up until he asked about Lucas’ parents: smiling his ass off. Elliot when Lucas said that thing about his dad: still a tiny smile, receptive to what Lucas is saying. Eliott when Lucas goes in for a kiss: not having it. There is one thing that they talked about in between Eliott’s mood change (or two, I guess, with Lucas mentioning hedgehogs). The mystery element is made less, well, mysterious and more obvious for both viewers and Lucas. Even still gave Isak a goodbye kiss, a parting affection, meaning that it’d be harder for Isak to immediately trace the source of the breakup to that conversation; Eliott is done with Lucas right that fucking second. I get that Lucas isn’t the brightest, but I’m also like … he’s really not going to connect the dots even a little? Even if he doesn’t understand the whole scenario, doesn’t that stick out to him? (Even when Raptor Alex said something like Eliott freaked out the other day?)

Eliott asking about Lucas’ parents was such a jarring transition, and it’s because of pacing. Even just asks it of Isak, too, in a way that could be jarring, but because of the slower pace, the more vulnerable atmosphere, the acting, it doesn’t feel like a 180-degree scene change, it feels more like a natural direction for their conversation to take. The boys tentatively began the scene and were somewhat walking on eggshells toward each other; Even’s question therefore has a kind of fragility that’s in line with the atmosphere, he’s testing out whether Isak will be OK if they date. There’s a lack of vulnerability in this scene, at least up until that point: Eliott is perfectly fine and dandy, Lucas is apparently conflicted but it doesn’t really land. So the transition of topic just feels sudden rather than fitting the mood. It’s just a hugely weird execution.

Stuff I feel bad about saying but I’m going to say it in the interest of honesty: I think Axel has improved a huge amount from earlier seasons and has done good work in other scenes this season. But it felt like Lucas was bored during this scene. I got zero sense of say, wistfulness from him talking about his mom. He didn’t even seem that happy once Eliott told him things were off and they were bumping foreheads? It could have been a much more layered performance. Like … I just don’t feel happiness for Lucas once Eliott tells him it’s off with Lucille, because Lucas himself doesn’t seem to care. I think his parting look of confusion was good, but during the conversation itself, it was lacking. Is it just because Lucas is putting up a front and not trying to show how much he cares? Then how does that work with him trying to go in for a kiss at the end? Like with the previous clip with the boy squad, I blame this a lot on the clip being rushed and not having time to really sink into Lucas’ emotions. But it was just unfortunate because the material in this scene is so complex.

Another thing I feel bad about saying but have to admit: Their chemistry has been good so far, but in this scene, it felt off. Like when Eliott went in to bump foreheads? Super awkward. He’s beaming and Lucas is not into it. And you can say that’s because he’s still not sure what’s going on, sure, but there’s no sense of like … wanting to lean in to the touch but feeling conflicted, or the gesture calming him or convincing him, it’s like Eliott is on a completely different plane than Lucas, and that doesn’t really make sense before Lucas drops the bomb about his mom. You can’t avoid that this scene between Isak and Even made such an impact because the actors were so in sync with each other. That scene felt overwhelmingly intimate, like we were spying on them in a private moment (which it was). The lack of intimacy here in what’s essentially a soul-baring moment is disappointing.

Just. Not good.

Clip 6 - Pride

Lucas is lying on the couch, his new home. Mika plops down and talks about how awesome the couch is, especially if someone like Eliott sleeps over again. Again, it feels jarring because there is zero buildup to this conversation, Mika says it right away, no easing into the conversation (and again, I know that there are time restrictions with the episode, and I’m sympathetic but that doesn’t make it feel less weird - not to mention I have quibbles with how they’re allotting their time). However, Lucas is like “seriously?” and Mika does seem to reconsider, saying that he’s there if Lucas wants to talk and getting up to leave. It works in the sense that Mika’s not been portrayed as sensitive to Lucas as Eskild was to Isak, so I can buy him being inelegant with bringing it up, but still, feels more like a necessity of them having to cram in this scene rather than a conscious character choice.

Lucas does decide to tell Mika about Eliott, and Mika seems pleased. Lucas wants to keep it under wraps, though, saying he doesn’t want to scream that he’s with Eliott or walk hand in hand with him. Which feels off considering he was ready to kiss Eliott on the mouth in public yesterday, which would scream he was with Eliott to anyone watching - again, why I feel that moment was inconsistent. Mika compares it to when Lucas was with Sarah, and Lucas says it was fake with Sarah. I like this bit comparing the two relationships. Mika is chill and happy for Lucas. Despite their relationship not being depicted in the strongest way IMO, it’s a nice moment.

Lucas says this doesn’t mean he’s gay, it’s fine to be proud of being gay, but he’s not gay as in camp. When Mika asks what he means, Lucas says he’s not going to tell people how many dicks he sucked over the weekend, or dance to pop music, or post naked pics on Grindr (especially damning since we saw Mika do just that a few weeks ago). Mika of course connects it to himself. Lucas tries to backtrack but puts his foot in his mouth further, saying he’s never going to Gay Pride and throw dick-shaped glitter on people just because he liked a guy. Mika gets pissed and the scene happens much like the OG Pride clip, talking about how the guys Lucas is talking about are suffering for just trying to be themselves. Mika gets pissed and walks off.

I’m fine with Mika’s reaction being more focused on anger whereas Eskild seemed more hurt and betrayed. Eskild and Isak were closer so that made sense. Mika seems more distant from Lucas so it works that the focus is more on his anger, less than someone he considers part of the family is degrading him.

This scene is so important in all contexts, all cultures, that I am really glad it’s here. Of all the things I hope that the remakes do include, the Pride clip is one of them - even if it’s not the exact same speech or dialogue, then a similar sentiment or lesson is really needed.

That being said, I do think they could have done this scene better from a storytelling standpoint, just by building up Mika and Lucas’ relationship and by not rushing the conversation. There are some nuances in the OG that did not come across here - like I think part of the reason that Isak started running his mouth about not being gay was that he noted that Eskild didn’t seem surprised, and Eskild didn’t deny it, saying he met Isak at a gay bar, and Isak was feeling some insecurity over being so transparent. That’s just my interpretation, though. However, Lucas also has not been dealing with the issue of stereotypes and generalizations to this point? His “gay test” was over something else, he didn’t call out the dance teacher for being too gay, etc. so this is like the first time he’s brought up this topic. I know we had the issue of generalizations mentioned by Alex and Imane but Lucas barely seemed affected by that incident. They could have built that up more, or preferably, re-wrote this scene to be more about Lucas’ behavior in past episodes, like him throwing around homophobic slurs just to distance himself from being gay. Have Mika call him out on that (like instead of focusing on stereotypes, Lucas says, “I’m not a [slur] just because I like a guy” and that’s why Mika gets pissed).

Side note, but it occurs to me that I don’t think we’ve heard about Mika and Lucas’ backstory at all? Like how Mika came to let Lucas hide in the basement before Manon invited him to take her room. I hope we hear about it in a future episode, because even if their relationship isn’t as important, it’s still something of an unresolved plot issue how Lucas came to live in the cellar last season.

Also, not to make light of this, but kind of awkward now because Lucas is living on the couch and can’t hide out in his room from Mika after this conversation.

Lucas texts Eliott that he told his roommate. I wonder what he was expecting from Eliott - probably support? Happiness? Eliott wanted to know how Lucas’ parents would react, and Mika’s not a parent but he’s someone in Lucas’ life, who lives with him, so it would be important. Instead, Eliott texts back, “That’s cool, I’m happy for you” which is frankly rather cold and detached, especially considering he follows up with the spiel about needing more time and them going too fast. This makes Lucas angry and he smacks the cushions. I think this is a good reaction, different from Isak who seemed just in disbelief that Even could be calling it off after asking to be his boyfriend the previous day. It fits with Lucas being more hot-headed and feeling out of control. He texts the guys about their plans for tomorrow, then throws his phone aside and sits back. Again, more like he’s pissed rather than stunned.

Clip 7 - Really bad night

The other three boys are playing a video game (not FIFA!) and Lucas is sitting there dejected, staring at Eliott’s last text message. The sound goes from happy fun-time boy party to sad droning despair when we cut from the others to Lucas, like he’s so checked out he doesn’t hear his friends, or the game, or anything, he’s just so focused on that one awful text message.

Yann, bless him, notices Lucas is in a bad mood, and has him get up and go to the kitchen with him. Lmao but also OUCH at Lucas wearing a hoodie that says “romance” at the worst possible time.

Lucas is super snotty about Yann not being able to find one of the many beers in the fridge, but of course Yann just wants to talk about what’s clearly bothering Lucas and why he’s avoiding them. Lucas denies there’s a problem, but Yann wants to know whether they’re friends or pretending? Lucas keeps denying and says if there was a problem, he’d tell Yann, and he just wants to enjoy the night. Curious way of showing that, sitting there completely checked out from everyone else and snapping at them.

I’m so, so glad they had this scene, because I think they’ve done Yann a disservice this season. They’ve cut out some Jonas moments, such as Jonas calling out Isak for his comments on the dance teacher (the French boys didn’t call out Lucas to nearly the same degree, nor single out his bad mood of late) and the scene where Jonas talks to Isak at his locker in episode 4 was not there. Basically, other than the scene in episode 3, there haven’t been many clips to this point that indicate Yann has been watching Lucas and growing concerned like Jonas was for Isak. This part is a great addition and I’m happy they had a moment to build up this relationship.

Arthur and Basile run in and say they got a text about a party at Chloe’s tonight, Basile thinks it’s his night to hook up with Daphne. GOD WHY. SHE SAID NO TO YOU. WHY MUST THIS TORTURE PERSIST.

They want Lucas to get them into the party, Lucas says Chloe is mad at him, Arthur says she’s not and it’s all in his head. How would he even know? They haven’t even been talking to Lucas lately. They just want to go to the party. Yann seems to be realizing that the situation is not good, but Basile says Lucas can’t do that to him, Lucas missed his birthday

Lucas agrees to go with zero enthusiasm, Basile wants a high five but everyone ignores him, thank God. Yann seemed happy when Lucas agreed to go, so I guess he thought Lucas was trying to have a good time instead of moping all evening, but Lucas was so blatantly not into it and peer pressured into going that IDK how you can think Lucas is anything but miserable.

The boys show up to Chloe’s house and Basile is already screaming and being obnoxious with people staring at him, but there’s a guy at the door who shoves Basile back and won’t let them in. In Skam, that guy at the door seemed like a total tool, but this guy? This guy is my hero.

Daphne comes down the stairs and Basile yells at her to tell the guy to let them in. Maria sees him and is all, hey, you were the guy who held my hair at the last party! Daphne is like, oh, so you hold any girl’s hair? And she walks off. Oh, fuck you, Skam France. Of course they’re going with Basile and Daphne. Lol at them trying to pretend Basile is a totally new character and not French Magnus when we get this subplot.

Basile is dismayed. Arthur says jealousy is a good sign. GODDAMMIT. This pairing is fucked up, I don’t care if I sound like a humorless uptight meanie SJW. It’s full of sexist tropes. Basile does not take no for a fucking answer, he’s disgusted and bothered Daphne over and over again, but she’s going to fall for him because he held her hair back one time. We’re just going to reward creepy male behavior because the creep didn’t actually rape her, I guess.

Lucas sees Eliott inside the house and shoves his way inside past the bouncer dude. No convincing the guy like Isak did, just shoving, which goes with his larger temper and sourer attitude. He sees Eliott talking to Lucille. But before he can get any farther, Chloe comes up and says he has no right to be here. Lucas starts to apologize for last time, and Chloe says she’s not mad about that, she’s mad that Lucas used her and treated her like a fool when he’s gay.

She outright yells, “You’re gay, Lucas!” in the middle of a crowded room so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone heard. JFC, Chloe. She is understandably pissed considering the way Lucas has played with her, but it is not okay to out someone like that. She’s being extremely careless. He seems like he’s not even totally present or hearing what she’s saying, like he seems in disbelief that she’s saying what she is. It’s a good reaction, like he’s overwhelmed by everything, and numb that she’s calling him out on what he’s denied to himself and others.

I actually could not tell if Eliott and Lucille disappeared, or if Lucas noticed that they were gone before he left the house. The way it’s filmed makes it seem like he was so rattled by Chloe that he just decided to leave. Eliott was already with Lucille so Lucas didn’t seem about to confront him (compared to Even who was not with Sonja until right as she showed up and kissed him).

So Lucas walks out and shoves Yann out of the doorway. Then shoves Basile. Then Arthur drops a comment about Lucas having a family issue, which seems … out of character, kinda. Mahdi and Isak had more of an established friction than Arthur and Lucas, AND Arthur was very supportive when Lucas first told them about his mom in episode 3. Basile was the one throwing a fit that Lucas canceled the party with the girls. I’m pretty sure that’s why people were speculating(/hoping) that Basile would be the one to get punched, because it was Basile with the prior issue. (But honestly, I feel like Arthur hasn’t been given a ton of characterization in the gang, and his primary role has been to egg on Basile’s pursuit of various women. For all people say Mahdi is underdeveloped? We still knew more about him at this point than Arthur, actually. We had more of a sense of his role in the group, and it didn’t seem out of nowhere that Mahdi would say that thing about Isak’s family.)

Lucas shoves Arthur against the side of the house. Yann jumps in, Arthur manages to hit Lucas in the head, which is shitty but tbh, I can’t get too mad at him since Lucas came out shoving everyone for seemingly no reason. Obviously Lucas is going through tons of shit but the boys don’t know the context, only that he’s lashing out at all of them.

And as a final blow, as Lucas walks away from the house, he sees Eliott and Lucille kissing against the side of it. Eliott seems happy and initiating the kissing with Lucille, unlike Even who seemed to only respond and get into the kiss after Sonja initiated (and IMO, had a twinge of sadness in his reaction). So Eliott seems way more suddenly OK with Lucille and satisfied with choosing her. Which is kind of interesting because Even was the one giving more mixed signals to Isak, while Eliott seemed so much more sure he was done with Lucille and ready to move on with Lucas.

Meanwhile, Arthur is yelling about how he wants to slap Lucas and how he’s been acting like an asshole for several weeks. Would’ve been good if we got some clearer signs that Arthur was upset about it? Not super obvious, but IDK, more focus on Arthur’s reactions, or being more passive-aggressive. Obviously he could have been bottling up his resentment toward Lucas, but from a narrative perspective, it feels like there should have been more of an indication. (There is some passive-aggressiveness from him in the SM content but I didn’t feel like it really carried into the clips themselves.)

Lucas storms home alone, then starts punching a door and yelling before clutching his fist and sliding to the ground, crying. His fist is bleeding. Again, way more rage, and it seems like the full extent of all that’s happened sinks in only at the end.

Social Media/General Comments

Eliott posts a drawing of rain on his secret IG with the caption “not scared” on it. No prize for guessing what that’s about, but still, very sweet! Not just in a romantic way but a nice moment for himself, not being afraid to take his life in a new direction.

Also, Lucas posts that he’s listening to a song called “Over There, It’s Raining” which is touchingly sentimental, heh.

Chloe is PISSED and is mad about being stood up alone with a crying Lucille and says she’s not going to forget it this time, he’s taking her for a fool. Which is ominous as hell and makes it seem like her outing him is going to be more deliberate, tbh.

Basile’s party was a busy night.

The boys ask “Where’s Lucas?” on IG and document their booze/grocery shopping trip, noting from time to time that Lucas isn’t there. Dude, why isn’t Lucas there? Eliott left in the late afternoon. Anyway, Yann in particular seemed annoyed about it since he seemed to bring it up. Although they were ready to buy Lucas ice cream.

I mentioned this in the last reaction post, but I have ZERO idea why the girl squad showed up to Basile’s party when Basile has been actively creepy to Daphne and when the boy squad was just shitting on the girls a few days ago when ranking them on IG. Not just being gross and sexist in general, but shitting on Alex and Daphne and Manon in particular. I’m serious, why would you even bother with these dickheads?

Sure enough, Basile tries to get a kiss from Daphne in an IG story and she goes for Alexia instead. Why. Why. (Not her giving Alex a kiss, that’s great. Why must I watch this other nightmare of a pairing happen.)

Basile said his hot cousin was supposed to be there, but it looks like just the boy and girl squads showed up, lmao.

The absence of Lucas is so well-documented in the IG stories from this party that it goes from passive-aggressive to just plain aggressive.

NO, do NOT let Basile and Daphne leave together. Daphne is really really fucking drunk. They’ve been gone for like 30 minutes…. Daphne’s friends just let her wander off with Basile when she’s super drunk and has made it clear she doesn’t want him? JFC.

I did not worry that Basile was actually going to rape Daphne or something, because that would be way too extreme for this show in this season. I did worry that we would maybe get more “comic relief” sexual harassment that the SkamFr crew doesn’t seem to realize is harassment. Plus, in-universe we have had Basile touching girls while drunk, we’ve had him being creepy. So while my knowledge of genre/TV prevented me from thinking he’d assault her, there are completely valid reasons to be concerned for Daphne in this moment.

The Skam France must have seen people’s horrified reactions to the Basile and Daphne content, because they broke Lucas’ POV to have a text message between the two of them. Daphne says “thanks for your help last night, you’re not so dumb (don’t tell anyone I said that)” and Basile is like, you’re welcome, hope you’re feeling better! And like … I’m relieved that this was all it was between them, but I’m still pissed this is where they’re going with it. I hate that Basile “not being so dumb” after all is going to be his redemption or whatever. This dude has been gross enough that it’s a meager consolation. It’s as if I kicked you in the face and knocked you down and then helped you stand up. One nice deed doesn’t make up for everything else.

Not to make generalizations, but: I have lots of problems with Noorhelm/William, in terms of sexist tropes, but there’s something about that storyline and his character that feels specifically like a female fantasy. I can tell a woman wrote it. Taking the bare bones of that romance: handsome rich bad boy falls for strong independent girl and changes his womanizing ways? Classic romantic trope. At its core, it’s not so different from something like Twilight, the “dangerous” guy and the one girl who’s special enough to break through his walls. It’s something that is appealing to women (not all women, obviously, but it’s disingenuous to pretend this isn’t a popular romantic dynamic.) It is appealing to women because the love interest is someone desirable.

The Basile/Daphne thing, though? Male fantasy. I can tell men were behind the camera (even if those dudes are not straight). Because I don’t think women particularly enjoy this dynamic. A gross dude who pursues a girl despite her being uninterested? Not really a fantasy that women have, that their nasty classmate or co-worker will keep trying to romance them until they’re worn down. In fact, many women have to live through this so-called fantasy and know it’s not pleasant. Basile is not portrayed as romantically desirable, and that’s not a value judgment on his attractiveness or anything, just a fact about his characterization. What I feel is that we’re supposed to align our empathy with Basile more than Daphne: the poor unlucky awkward loser who has a good heart, really, he’s just not the most skilled with girls. And that’s why it seems like it’s a male fantasy. The unlucky-in-love guy is the one who will get the girl at the end of the day. It’s funny and relatable to the male writer/director/crew because, no offense, perhaps they don’t get the girl’s perspective. The societal pressure and media characterization is not the same with the genders reversed. Men are socialized not to take no for an answer, to think that they are entitled to women’s affection.

Anyway, I really don’t think they expected some of the backlash to Basile and to Basile/Daphne, they probably figured it would be funny, like Magnus/Vilde, ignoring that Magnus/Vilde did not have the same consent issues and harassment. So in S4 it’s likely we’ll get more wacky Basile/Daphne antics and TMI, since they don’t have time to take the viewer feedback into account before they film the season.

Lucas trying to get Eliott’s attention by sending him a picture of a baby hedgehog is really cute. He also embraces that hedgehog motif by posting a pic of one on IG. I find that really endearing, like he’s latching onto something Eliott said about it, he’s making it meaningful. It reminds me a lot of Even latching onto every single thing Isak did and making it a Thing between them.

Meanwhile, Eliott had a shit time - he didn’t reply to Lucas at all, it seems, although Even replied briefly to Isak after he left, even though he didn’t give clear answers to why he’d gone. Eliott is instead posting pics of My Own Private Idaho alluding to his rough situation, saying everything will be all right, and then showing his raccoon fursona behind a brick wall after Lucas tells him that crap about not wanting mentally ill people in his life. Which is way too sad than anything involving a cute cartoon raccoon has the right to be.

There’s an IG story of Mika and Manon book shopping, referring to their “common passion” and mentioning a gay author, which makes me think they went shopping for LGBT-related books in relation to what’s happening with Lucas. I mean I guess their common passion could just be books in general, but I like the idea of them trying to find ways to help Lucas.

Mika also makes an IG post after the Pride clip about respecting “queens” and LGBT elders for their sacrifices and all the shit they’ve had to go through. It’s a more structured way of what he was expressing to Lucas in the clip and would have made for a great speech, although I think it makes sense for him to be angrier in the heat of the moment, and then this is him gathering his thoughts afterward, when he has more time to think about what to say. Great post, though.

After the end of the episode, Eliott posts some sketches of his raccoon and Lucille the cat being all cuddly, which I think were deleted later because I can no longer see them? But I think they’re the same sketches he had done earlier in the season, pre-Lucas, so it’s like him going back to the status quo, same as before, by getting back with Lucille.

Yann posted a pic where Basile and Arthur are happy and Lucas is so blatantly miserable that it feels like a parody, why the fuck would Yann even post that if he’s concerned about Lucas’ well-being.

I’m not French so please feel free to clarify or correct me if I missed something.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

#skamfr reactions #skam france reactions

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scuttleboat · 7 years

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Do you like Echo? I really want to now that she's a regular but I can't shake my wariness of her. It seems like she's constantly in the antagonistic role for our mains, but then she'll look sad for like 2secs and people will feel bad for her. But I don't. Do you feel me? Im open to her changing and growing with the spacekru, and I hope I like her character next season. But as of right now I don't understand the fascination some people seem to have of her.

An Egregiously Extensive Echo Essay

I’m gonna throw this wild analogy at you: Echo kom Azgeda is James Bond.

She is a dangerous, beautiful, ruthlessly loyal spy. She serves the queen (or king) and has to kill a lot of people. Fanatically loyal, always gets the job done. She gets captured, she makes allies, she lies to people, she gets friendly with the enemy and then later has to fight them or kill them to save her country.

bad difference: she doesn’t get to have smokin’ sex with the enemy officer (yet)

good difference: she feels actual, on-screen, sincere regret and anguish for deaths that she knows are necessary for her people but will nonetheless cause pain to someone she respects. I don’t think I’d personally seen a movie with genuine anguish from James Bond until Casion Royale came out.

So James Bond is a superhero if you’re British, but if you’re Russian or Communist or you work for a well-paying criminal mastermind, he’s basically like a horrific monster who kills your friends and blows up your factory and keeps your homeland from winning the cold war either militarily or economically. Either way, a loyal killer lapdog of the monarchy.

That’s Echo. If you look at where she’s coming from, even the fact that Bellamy helped her once isn’t enough to counteract the belief from her people and her queen that the Sky People represent an extreme danger to the clans and to Ice Nation. So they betray Lexa (who they see as an unfit conqueror anyway), and take out the enemy stronghold (Mt. Weather). To do that, Echo lies to a man who helped her once and saved her life. Yes, it’s a cruel and terrible thing to do. Yes, he’d be in his rights to hate her forever. But that doesn’t make Echo any less of a hero to her people.

((sorry this is getting long, so…. behind the cut))

The way I see The 100, the show goes to extreme lengths to show that everyone has motivations for evil acts. Most of the time, those motives start out “good” (such as self-defense, protection of community, stopping cruelty). In a few cases, it becomes evil when A) the harm done so vastly counterbalances any possible rational good (Dante), B) when someone is just a total sadist (Cage), or C) when ego and neglect and vanity cause the literal apocalypse (Becca/ALIE). Echo does not meet the standards of either A, B, or C. None of the major Grounder characters do (maaaaaybe Luna? !SQUIRREL!). Anyway, Echo, like our main characters Clarke, Bellamy, Kane, Jaha, etc… she’s done terrible things to protect and serve her people. I don’t hate or even dislike her character for that. She just is a character in this universe. And I certainly adore Bellarke, who have done as bad or worse than Echo for the same reason, so I can’t point fingers on the whole military actions thing.

We didn’t get to really know Echo until this season, and I think the show tried hard to put a lot of character building in while not forgetting about what they’d used her for in the past. They did an… adequate job. There’s definitely stuff that could have been handled in a smoother or more complex manner, but at the end of the season I’m generally satisfied with how they brought her into the regular cast. Weak episodes aside, there were several of her scenes I liked, and plenty of points at which I felt sympathy for her, just as you mention in your ask.

The biggest thing I had wrt Echo going into season 4 was “How is her relationship with Bellamy going to be handled?” Because I stan that guy, and she did him dirty. She did him as badly as Lexa did Clarke, except no one was there to intervene and save the sky people this time. I was pretty frustrated with their dynamic in the first half of s4, especially 401, because I thought their scenes really underplayed the anger that Bellamy ought to have been feeling. And then again in 405, their pivotal conversation didn’t feel successfully dramatic to me because I was just asking “WHEN IS BELLAMY GOING TO BE MAD ABOUT STUFF?” Like, Echo was a pivotal agent in a plot that got his friends and lover killed, she lured him into a potential bloodbath to disrupt a peace summit, she held a sword to Clarke’s throat, she mortally injured Octavia, and she advocated for war with Skaikru. Even if Echo was just protecting her own nation, it’s incomprehensible that Bellamy wouldn’t be angry that she used their past shared trauma to personally manipulate him. And then like, basically assassinated his sister.

For most of s4, I was like “????????” about how this was going, but that was more about Bellamy>>Echo than about Echo the character. Luckily, 410 went a LONG way to fix that for me. In 410, we finally saw Bellamy’s rage. I normally am not here for guys choking women on TV but in this unique case it felt really earned as a climactic fight. He almost kills her the same way they killed Lovejoy, the same way Murphy and then ChippedKane almost killed him. I cheered cause WOOOO DRAMA.Bellamy found out Echo was interfering and would try to assassinate his sister AGAIN, so he tried to kill her and his violence took on a form that is indicative of his lessons on the ground. We saw him finally let out that rage that was suppressed during their earlier encounters.

I’m glad he didn’t kill her, and she didn’t kill him, but I think they needed to come close. They needed that release, so the real forgiveness could come. We’ve seen Bellamy forgive–or at least live with–the people who tried to kill him or his loved ones before (Pike, Murphy, Jaha, Kane). Bellamy at his heart is a loving person who is damaged by anger, not made strong by it. Forgiving Echo at least enough to help her survive is absolutely in character for him at this point in the story. That’s what makes him a heroic protagonist. Being a protector is a core trait for both him and Clarke, and part of why they’re ultimately so compatible. Does that mean Bellamy could fall for Echo? Ehhh… They’re in a fairly unique situation and I wouldn’t take sex off the table. I think a delicate strange friendship will come about. But I highly doubt he’d actually fall in love with her. If I was shipping them, that’s a really complex dynamic to write a ton of fanfic about. As I’m not, I don’t care.

“Do you feel me? Im open to her changing and growing with the spacekru”

Anon, I have to say that nope, i do not feel you on this. Specifically, I don’t think she has to “change” if ‘change’ means to go from being a bad person to a good person. From the POV of her journey, she did the right thing by her people every step of the way until 410. The conclave was the first time she went outside her orders and did a dishonorable thing to save her people. Ironically, the Skaikru did the exact same thing that very same evening. A lot of people cheated at that event. But why it mattered to Echo’s character is that honor was the heart of her story–and it was honorable, to her mind, to kill in defense of her nation in s3 and s4. But when she let her fear and distrust drive her to break the rules of this (totally outrageous fucking bonkers) murder game, she violated her own honor. Roan came down hard on her for that, because Roan happens to care a lot about honor when it comes to fighting, I guess. Echo went too far in 410–just as Clarke and Jaha and Miller did. Just as Bellamy has before, as Lexa has before. She was punished for it, essentially ordered to die in a few days time.

I don’t look at Echo’s character and see a bad person who needs to learn to care about things–Echo clearly cared about a fucking LOT. It just wasn’t what our mains cared about. Echo did have to learn a lesson about when to have restraint, but then that’s what everyone on the show has had to learn. Other than that, her being in a antagonist role has been entirely a function of plot on the show. The plot was that she worked for the enemy. Otherwise, she is pretty similar to our heroes, only taller.

We did see, at several points this season, that Echo’s fierce loyalty to Roan and the Ice Nation caused her anguish when it came to betraying Bellamy. She was fully aware of what he’d done for her, and that between them personally he didn’t deserve to be so horrifically betrayed. To be a little callous, that’s more genuine visible remorse than we ever saw from Lexa or Pike or–check this out–Emori. As a viewer, I feel like we’ve been given enough material to see her position and to understand where she comes from. I’m content with her being in the main group. I think she’s one more interesting person in a mix of interesting characters who are trapped together in space.

I mean, I may have a bad reaction if we have to SEE her make out with Bellamy. Like, I hope I don’t have to see that. Otherwise, I’m cool with her on the show. I feel bad when she makes a face like a kicked puppy. I think making deep and meaningful connections with people outside her clan will enrich her as a character.

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shefollowedfires · 7 years

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In Defense of a Death Wish: Abby Griffin

(TW: Suicide, Depression) Listen, I was as shocked as all of you when Abby “Let’s Call It Hope” Griffin asked Marcus Kane to let her die. It came out of left field. It had JRoth’s brand of Shock Value™ written all over it. But... was it OOC? I honestly don’t think so. In fact, it’s my personal opinion that it might be the most refreshing evidence of character development (and, god forbid, an actual arc) Paige Turco has gotten to play with in far too long. Now, I gotta put a disclaimer, here - it makes me extremely uncomfortable to agree with, let alone defend the decisions this show makes for its characters, especially Abby. This season in particular was excruciating to watch as the integrity of her character was repeatedly brutalized. So, no, I’m not going to argue that I trust the writers, per se. And I’m definitely not going to argue that this was their plan all along. What I will argue is that they did, actually, piece it together with the help of a sleeping giant they found amid the landscape of Abby’s character: Just because she can see the light doesn’t mean she doesn’t know the darkness.

She’s often billed (sometimes by the actors themselves) as “the constant”, the one who steadfastly clings to her values and therefore anchors the rest of the characters in their struggles to find their own. But what I, personally, love most about Abby is that all of these romantic notions she preaches, such as her faith in humanity - they’re earned. They’re not flimsy declarations borne out of ignorance. They have weight because she has gone through her own struggle, dug deep into the worst of herself, and then had the courage to challenge it and pull herself back up. But my god, as a stubborn idealist myself, I can tell you - that shit is exhausting. There isn’t a whole lot to support a positive belief system in our world, let alone a world where apocalypse and the literal end of humanity are frequently the order of the day. So it’s (understandably) the rational choice to be a cynic instead - leaving people like Abby to be the minority. Being an idealist is lonely as shit, y’all - it takes an unfair degree of stamina to uphold, which I don’t doubt that Abby has. But having her ideals, her vision of the future, constantly challenged... you can’t tell me that hasn’t taken its toll. Here’s why: Abby “Hope is Everything” Griffin? She can be pretty fucking bleak. In 1x05, after the Culling has been carried out - she’s been alone in her cell, has had time to think, and... she’s come to the conclusion that maybe the gift of another chance would be wasted on them:

Then, perhaps most strikingly, we see this come up again in 2x13; where she’s come face to face with every sin she’s ever committed and the repercussions they’ve had on the next generation. She’s gotten a taste of what her legacy might be, and she’s not sure she wants it:

The heartbreaking thing about this episode (okay, one of many) is that if they’d just stopped with hers and Marcus’ miraculous rescue, she might have taken that as a sign that her faith was well-placed after all. But, unfortunately, this is The 100, so that lasts about a hot second before...

Sigh. Whatever faith she had in the goodness of humanity is run through the damn shredder, with her being directly exposed to the extreme cruelty mankind is capable of - from both sides - for the sake of survival. Season 3 is a little kinder to her, in this respect - albeit, largely because she just... wasn’t.... used.... I’m not bitter. But! Those three months of peace did her a lot of good. Not to mention she’s had Marcus by her side to be a source of strength for her that she didn’t have before - this is so important. And not only does he support her and take care of her - he’s slowly started adopting her beliefs. She has a fellow idealist! She’s rejuvenated by this enough to be able to face the situations with both Pike and Jaha, her own people (and even her daughter, arguably) turning against her, and still be a pillar of encouragement for others. But then. She faces losing Marcus, her support. And suddenly the burden of being the one to “show them the way out of the dark” is hers alone - the weight of which she doesn’t resent for a second, but... that doesn’t make it any lighter?? And she’s been here before, but she’s been through so much more since the last time, and.... she’s starting to lose steam. So, we get this:

And like, Marcus ends up surviving, and he loves her, and all is well - but again, it’s for a hot fucking second, this time before she’s subjected to some of the worst of Jaha’s manipulations to get her to take the chip. From there, we all know the atrocities that she and everyone else were forced to do under ALIE’s control, and we know how much pain she was in when she woke up, but... I’m not going to argue that as being connected to my case here bc that’s just... yaknow... a natural response to the situation. So we’re just gonna go ahead and skip to S4 - because while yes, everyone was angsting hard, the show did make a point of showing that it might be weighing a little more heavily on Abby:

”We focus on what comes next,” Marcus says, reassuring her. And what, exactly, comes next? There is nothing more straining to an idealist than being forced to reduce their expectations. Back in S1, Abby might have had a vision of the future where humanity thrived, working together towards progress and a better world than the one they’d said goodbye to a near-century earlier. She might have nurtured prayers that love would finally win, that even the severity of life on the Ark would be a distant memory amongst the freedom to flourish that they’d find on the ground. They’d learn from their mistakes, and as early as to be within her own lifetime, she’d get to see the rise of the absolute best of humanity. Instead, she finds herself tasked with committing imitations of some of the worst things she’s found mankind to be capable of. The things that she herself has been victim to. The things that have chipped away at her spirit - she’s now doing them to herself. So what is her vision of the future now?

Instead of a bright, brilliant, innovative future for humanity to thrive in... she just wants to be able to take her next breath. Talk about shrinking down. This is a management of expectations that everyone this season has had to do, but once again, it weighs a little bit more heavily on Abby, because "your humanity is your greatest strength” - it’s literally the most fundamental part of her character, and she’s being forced to put it aside just to get to tomorrow. All while she’s in a strange lab on a strange island miles from anything familiar, working to accomplish an impossible scientific feat to literally save all of mankind. And she has brain damage. But because of the pressure of all of the above, she doesn’t feel like she has the time or energy to deal with it; and in pushing forward, she isolates herself from those who might have been a support to her. The task at hand, ethically-ambiguous as it is, becomes the only thing that matters, above even minimal self-care like, yaknow, sleeping. Because of The Cause™. And then she starts saying shit like this:

Like..... when Clarke “I Am Become Death” Griffin is like “EASY THERE, EDGELORD”...... you know things are bad. But then, after all of her sacrifice - the all-important Cause turns out to be a loss. The serum doesn’t work. An innocent man dies horrifically. She’s been completely betrayed by her goal. And then The Cause brings death to hang low over her daughter’s life - and Abby suddenly breaks. So, too, does her faith in the future. Her faith in humanity. Her faith in herself. What does she have left? With 4x11 comes an opportunity for her to come back to herself; if she can rescue Marcus, she can “do better than you did yesterday”. She can give a future to the innocent Grounders they’d selfishly locked out. Maybe there’s still peace to be found between all their peoples. Maybe doing the right thing is still possible. Only.... doing the right thing ends up sending 364 people to their deaths. Now, at this point, I’m gonna come back to the brain damage and just say that I absolutely think it was a huge fucking part of why she wanted to sacrifice herself. Why would she waste a spot if she’s only going to die in a few weeks anyway? Only - at the beginning of 4x12, long before Abby makes her decision, Raven tells her that death isn’t imminent, after all. There’s a cure. But Abby isn’t interested in pursuing it; still keeps Marcus in the dark about it. She sends her daughter out on a doomed mission, and her goodbye feels final. This is where we finally arrive at The Scene. If you trace back through all of the examples I’ve laid out, here, the language Abby uses suddenly makes sense: - “Is it right, Marcus?” - “The things I let myself do in that lab...” - Why “we will find our humanity again” wasn’t enough This isn’t the language of someone nobly covering up their illness - this is a very raw, very honest Abby. And the line that strikes me hardest is this:

This, to me, is the key to this shocking, “out of the blue” decision. Being Abby Griffin used to mean something; but the continual sacrifice of her humanity, her most core value, has taken its toll. She doesn’t know how to steer herself without it. She doesn’t know where she’s even headed, and if she really wants to go there. She’s fucking tired. And even if it does end up being a positive future, she has thoroughly convinced herself over the course of four seasons that she really doesn’t deserve to see it. But. There’s so much more to Abby than disillusionment - as I know you’ve quietly been arguing at me in your head while reading this post. Trust me, I hear you. Our girl is resilient as fuck. She always picks herself back up. And she’s going to do it again - but now that she’s hit rock bottom, it might take her a little while longer. And frankly, I do actually hope it’s a primary thread in her S5 arc?? I’m excited to see that journey play out as the quest to rebuild humanity gets a fresh start. Its already been suggested that S5 is going to center around a theme of whether or not humanity deserves that chance; and I would be so fucking thrilled if Abby got to be at the heart of that, from the perspective of someone who was once a believer who now needs to have her old faith restored. I’m excited to see Marcus be instrumental in that, swapping roles to take up the mantle of being the idealist in that relationship. I’m excited to see how it shapes her relationship with Clarke, who has now spent years nurturing hope for the sake of a “daughter” of her own. I’m excited to see other people support her the way she’s supported them. It’s going to be different. It’s going to be challenging. It’s going to be beautiful. We’re going to get to watch Abby Griffin come back to life.

#long post is LONG #but there are gifs!#does this even make sense #idek anymore #but i've been sitting on these feelings since 4x12 aired and they needed to come out #abby griffin #the 100 meta #the 100 #kabby #meta #kabby meta #kane x abby #paige turco

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likelovelikesuicide · 7 years

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Shadowhunters - Hiatus week rant

Shadowhunters is on hiatus this week because ‘merica... so I give you another rant because I prefer to dwell on this show week after week over dealing with real life...

I would like to start by saying that my opinions, as presented, are in no way a reflection on the writers, actors, or anyone else affiliated with the show. I am here solely for the characters, the stories and while I understand that real people control what happens behind the scenes, I know that no single person is to blame for any of the issues I’m pointing out here and also, I reject reality. Life has a fucked up plot on it’s own, so whatever...

1. Let’s begin with the elephant in the room, the scene that caused the most issue since s2 began - Magnus and Alec in 2.07 - Let me begin by saying that I actually like and enjoy the “first time” scene in the context of their relationship and I think the consent issue was a misunderstanding on the part of the audience. In this scene, Alec goes to his boyfriend, hopeful and intent on moving forward within their relationship by spending a night together (& doing some lovin’) … Magnus, rightfully given his past, expresses his concerns with moving too fast because he has serious feelings for Alec and he doesn't just want sex from this. Alec, being the straight forward guy that he is, tells Magnus that he has nothing to worry about because he, Alec, wants this too. This meaning them, being together. He's not saying he wants sex. He's saying he wants to be with Magnus. - this. Us. - The scene fits their story and so much of the dialogue is context within their overall arc. _ However, the issue with the scene is in how it was framed in the episode. Earlier on we see Magnus and Alec stop a kiss because Jace is making noise with a girl somewhere in their home. Then we see an extended scene of Jace with the girl, being naked, intimate, and frankly vulgar on screen. Especially when Alec enters the room and the random topless girl comes onto him in his boyfriend’s home where Jace is a guest. It made Jace look cheap and disrespectful, and it sets the mood for a “first time" scene that was sent off screen without so much as a raised shirt. From the writer's perspective, I think they wanted to show a contrast of lust vs. love but it didn't work at all and from the LGBT perspective, what was shown made it look like they’re trying to keep us behind closed doors. And fuck that. ---This was also demonstrated in 2.13 when Alec and Magnus’ make-up kiss is panned off screen to show Maia lick Jace’s abs for no reason whatsoever and it needs to stop. Either stop showing it or show it for everyone. They aren't filming Malec in the same way they film the other couples. And they know it. Cut the crap.

there’s more but I’ll but it under a read more to safe your dash

2. Timeline. Tone. Episode themes. These things are needed to maintain a story, and right now they are truly all over the place - I mean, has it been a month since S2 started? Six months? A week? A year? We don't know. (season 1 was a month fight me on this) The impossible timelines make watching the episodes jarring in a way that is not entertaining, it’s uncomfortable. (Ref. Glee s4/s5. All of LOST, teen wolf, etc.) Overall this is an issue of pacing in scenes between the various pairings...Raphael and Izzy got a 5 minute scene of them cooking and sharing blood that could have been done in a forth of that time, plus several scenes that actually should be talked about regarding the consent issue… Magnus and Alec got the build up… ish… now they get a minute here, a kiss there. Their time together is implied, referenced... their love established through time spent together off screen - Izzy and Sebastian got full scenes of them just talking for the sake of talking and cementing his creep factor… Clary and Simon have multiple, full scenes in a single episodes to display their feelings, support each other and be together publicly as well as separate scenes and stories going on throughout their doomed relationship.… Jace and Simon spent an entire episode messing with each other in a bar for shits and giggles… Maia and Jace banter, Maia and Simon flirt, Izzy and Simon do mean things together while being really nice about it, Raphael and Simon bicker and try to hurt each other like school children on a playdate… Luke and Simon share war stories… (Honestly what I’m getting from this is everyone wants time with Simon, including the writers… which I get… poor Simon...and okay you got my point, there is no balance. I’ll stop now)

3. Alright look, I didn’t read the books and I’m never going to, but I think in some ways the show is written around the idea that you have read the books - thus you know who random people are (Jace’s seelie bitch, Lydia, Imogene, Ragnor, Catirina, etc.) But like, they don’t follow the books, at all. I mean I started the first book and before I returned it to the library because god, no - I read far enough to know that Dot is like, an old lady or something. And the books start when Clary is 16... My point being, they use the story, the world, the ideas without following the books and that’s fine, except like, I don’t know nor do I care who the Herondale’s are so why give Jace this big reunion with grandma (crazy bitch) Imogene scene when there was NO context for it. Also, if I had read the books, as in the case of Harry Potter or Twilight (ya i read it, i loved it. Fight me, New Moon is a great book) I would want to see the books on screen as they were in print because that’s all anyone ever wants when they find out a series they read and liked is being made into a movie or tv show. They want the book, the characters, the scenes, the world translated to screen as they imagined it…. So I get it. sorry book stan’s. Also, is Aldertree always a total douche?

4. So… The show started with Clary and she is presented as a strong female protagonist - physically she is equal to the most elite in her race without proper training, she has special abilities specific to her, but she is headstrong to a fault. She is flighty and rarely listens to advice or reason, therefore she is easily led into traps that harm not only her, but the people around her (didn’t Magnus call Jocelyn out for something like this) … I won’t deny that Clary cares for other people... however, she is an 18 (?) year old and pretty much everyone is blinded by their emotions at that age, her faults are relatable. What I need for Clary is her to remember who she was. She grew up a mundane, she lost her mother... Twice. She wanted to be an artist, she was happy and looking forward to her future. When the show started she was a girl with a plan for her life and okay, maybe art school won’t work… but why can’t she make a name for herself in the institute? In Idris? Why is her story so focused on the men around her? Simon? Jace? Sebastian? This series of love triangles don't interest me at all… How about Clary testifying against her father, Valentine, at a Clave trail and burying his ass? How about Clary supporting Izzy as she rebuilds her strength and realizing first that something's up with this Sebastian dude? How about Clary getting back into her art and learning to control her new skill through her mundane ability? How about Clary understanding that Alec has earned and deserves to be Head of the Institute and refusing to undercut his authority because she respects him?

5. How about Jace doing the same… because Alec is his parabati and that still means something… actually how about Jace takes a nap for an episode cause I don't see another way he's going to keep himself out of trouble and/or keep it in his pants.

6. The continued implications of incest have been unnecessary from the start... I get that it's a theme in the books and that's on the original writer... but in the show it doesn't follow that no one thought to run a DNA test on Clary and Jace in s1? Really? No One? Izzy? … and in a warrior/soldier society like the Shadowhunters, regular blood tests would be mandatory anyway… (which also would have eliminated the whole yin fen issue for Izzy, just saying) But now, of course we have Sebastian, and I know enough about the story to know that he is the real Jonathan Morgenstern and I hope Clary figures that out on the show before any actual implied incest occurs because that shit will cause the show the be cancelled and condemned. Straight up.

7. Okay, going back to 2a for a moment, can we talk about the whole thing where Valentine captured an Angel?? Like a real Angel? Like a straight up ANGEL? Shouldn’t that be a big deal? Or at least A moment of concern for the Clave? Doesn’t anyone else want to know HOW HE CAPTURED AN ANGEL??? - sure the mortal cup is out there (*cough* Sebastian has it *Cough*) But if no one has so much as seen an Angel in living memory, isn’t it kind of like a hugely dangerous wtf thing that Valentine can capture one??? (I’m sorry this story was so swept under the rug and like, I actually want to KNOW)

8. I think we can all agree that the lighting department is run by vampires and maybe Simon should take over that job on the Malec scenes in particular because LET THERE BE LIGHT PEOPLE

9. Editing seems to be an issue overall - with pacing or scenes cutting abruptly off and I’m sorry but there was a moment in 2.13 where I could have sworn I was watching Criminal Minds and look Shadowhunters air’s on an american family channel at 7pm on Mondays (without parental warnings)… let's leave the gore and raunchy hook ups to the 10pm shows, please. There are children present… also, small additions or subtractions make a world of difference - imagine for a moment that instead of Alec entering Magnus’ loft in 2.13 after the fight and saying “you were right, you never have to prove yourself to me… I love you” - Alec had instead said something like “you were right, you should never have to prove yourself to my bosses. I’m sorry. I love you.” and given back the envelope with the hair in it??? How much more meaningful would that have been. Especially given that Alec was now Head of the Institute - it would show he trusts his boyfriend. It would set up his alliance with the downworld, thus introducing the plot for the next episode… it would have shown Alec’s respect for his partner over what the Clave expects of those they call downworlders… sorry I’m done.

10. What is the overall plot to season 2??? Is it all focused around the war with Valentine? Season 1 was obviously meant to follow Clary as she searched for her mother and shit went down around her… however, season 2 has branched out from that, allowing several other key characters more focus and next week we will hit the final stretch. 6 weeks to build up to another inevitable cliff hanger because they already have a third season and this is when you do that shit. But what will it be? As I said, I didn't read the books, so I only have vague references to the possibilities... but I hope we'll all be able to enjoy the remainder of the summer season before counting down the days till season 3.

#Shadowhunters #shadowhunters 2b #Shadowhunters 2a #Magnus Bane #Alec Lightwood #Malec #clary fairchild #jace herondale #Simon Lewis #clace #climon #sh spoilers #rant #by di

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team-adults-blog · 8 years

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4.06 We Will Rise

Broken up by characters. This was such an awesome Marcus Kane episode we don’t even need to talk about the Jasper quoting Dr. Seuss. It’s the longest one yet. buckle up.

Jaha

[ Arkadia aftermath] Jaha playing with the cult coin piece. He’s probably going to go looking for another site or read into this cult leader dude. It’s clearly important if we keep having short call-backs to it. He’s also the dude that will literally join any cult, so...

(Overhearing speech against Ilian) You ok with all of this?-Monty. They’re just blowing off steam. Blowing off steam? Is that what we were doing when we strung up Murphy for killing Wells? HEAD SNAP. YOU NOW HAVE MY FULL ATTENTION. So Clarke tells Jaha that Wells didn’t make it when he asks about him S1. This is her way of protecting Jaha, her parents’ friend whom she also knows pretty well from her child hood, from the knowledge that Wells died as a result of being his son. The son of the chancellor who locked them all up. The one who was trying to get them to work together. The kids all know that he was murdered by Charlotte, but hate for Murphy was so great they wanted it to be him. This is news to Jaha because “killing Wells?” He didn’t know his son was murdered. The kids have kept much of their early days hush hush from the adults and rest of the Ark aside than fighting with the grounders. Not only was he murdered, but it was Murphy? My John? My sarcastic John that I traveled through the desert with and sacrificed people to a sea monster for before finding ALIE’s mansion and almost destroying everything? That John Murphy? Monty’s tone here implies that it was a mistake, that he didn’t actually do it, but that mob mentality can be dangerous. It’s interesting that Jaha never talks about Wells. Is that guilt for following the law and sending him down on the dropship? Is it grief for the loss of his son he’s still not been able to deal with because of all the other brouhaha going on (I’m home so you can thank my mom for that phrase)? I’m so amazed that after the shock of someone bringing up Wells to him, followed by the murrrrderrrr (which he may or may not have known, I’m saying he did not) results in Jaha turning and saying pour. to the bartender. He’d rather drink to forget his son? Alcohol is not a good coping mechanism for grief (just look at Jasper), you have to work through it and it fucking sucks. Alcohol hides it and temporarily can help you forget it, but it doesn’t make it disappear. Monty is only even bringing up Wells to get a reaction out of you so you’ll DO something to stop these people because they listen to you! And you repress your feelings instead. Say something. (Jaha turns away from Monty and drinks) With all due respect, Your son would be ashamed of you. Jaha stops. Ouch. Monty is 100% right. I really want to know more about Well’s mother because his moral compass is true North and he was a way better man than his father. Then Monty tells Niylah, I’ll go get Kane.

I’d like to take a minute and congratulate myself on predicting Wells would have another moment back after 4.02 -Lexa had her moment in 4.01 and Jake in 4.02, I thought Wells would be next in 4.03. It came later than I thought, which is a better pace. He’s brought up and will probably be a character we call back to every now and then (but less frequently than Lexa and Lincoln because they were around longer and knew/ interacted with more of the current characters) to remind us of our most moral character. Just now thinking of the fact that the most moral and good person didn’t survive and what the show is trying to say there- everyone has a breaking point and has to make compromises and sacrifices. I don’t think they’re saying you have to sacrifice your morals as much as they’re exploring the theme of at what point do you sacrifice them. food for thought. Back to the point: Wells can’t be laid to rest as long as Thelonious is refusing to acknowledge and work through his grief instead of trying to forget he ever had a son.

From the ashes we will rise. Cool. We’re going to join another cult under coo-coo-Jaha.

Kane

YA GIRL CALLED THE ILIAN SCENE WITH KANE PROTECTING HIM OK? It looks like Kane is all alone from the shot and I was like mmmmmm okay, there’s no way he just fought off a mob by himself, but then we see the rest of the guard so I’m cool. BAMF right here. I love him.

Clarke and Kane talk. Oh.My.Frail.Heart. Let’s break down this scene by the important lines that are jam packed with meaning. Go pick up some omega-3’s (because ya eyes are gon be burnin’ after you’re done cryin’ from all the heartwarming stuff here, and you need to replenish your tears for next week. If you don’t like fish oil I hear flaxseed also works).

I’m going with you. You can’t. I’m the chancellor, I do what I want. That’s why you can’t. have to stay here.

I know you’re worried about my mother- I like that Clarke 1) acknowledges this relationship past the 4.01 cheek caress. 2) tries to reassure him that Mom/Abby will be ok. This is important to me because Clarke hasn’t been around for the majority of Kabby’s development. She know’s their backstory of possible friendship turned enemies to mutual respect, but lil’ Clarkiepoo BOOKED IT after Mount Weather (hurting Abby and Bellamy the most). We get Kabby hand holding in the end of S2, but that didn’t necessarily mean relationship! for Clarke watching them on the journey back to Arkadia. So basically she’s been off doing her own thing/ avoiding her mother, hanging around the woods and then Polis while Kabby is growing and developing. feelings. This acknowledgement that yes, you and my mom are a thing, and I’m aware and not objecting to it is super important. Kane knows Clarke is #1 for Abbs, hence why he’s like “to Clarke” in 4.02 when Abby has to leave Polis.

She’s going into space. In a 100 (hundred) year old rocket. Do you have any idea how many things could go wrong? Marcus Kane is 110% right here. He has reason to worry about this plan, and even more to with it being his boo blasting off into space.

Clarke responds with faith™ in Raven followed by faith™ in her momma. She’s had to rely on Raven’s brilliance every season and she’s always pulled through. There’s a lil pause when Kane knows her arguments are right, but he still wants to find a way to convince her to let him go because how on earth do you protect someone if you’re not near them? THEN.

I’ll send her your love.

This 1) Firmly tells Kane there’s no point arguing anymore; he’s staying behind. Mom skills. 2) MEGA CONFIRMS CLARKE KNOWS THEY GENUINELY CARE FOR EACH OTHER TO THE POINT THAT SHE SAYS ***love*** Holy cow my heart broke. Kabby is so lost for each other I have so many feels for this scene especially when Marcus looks down and blinks a few times and says Yes. Please do that. And I’ll make sure there’s something left to save…When you get home. Clarke is the queen of no-chill and calls it like she sees it. She sees the love we all see and calls it by its name, even though Kabby hasn’t said it. Lil’

Marco thinks for a minute, like wow. She just said love. I haven’t said that to Abby yet. But yeah. This is love. I’m so frickin’ LOST (wink) for her. Love is an accurate word for my emotions. Am I willing to admit that aloud to another living soul, much less Clarke? Can I tell her daughter that? Will it be weird? We’ve got 6 months to live. Fuck it. I love Abby Griffin. Tell her that. Tell her you’re cool with it too. Your mom just validated you being bi and that you loved Lexa, validate adults ~50+ still having sexual feelings. The “when you get home part” is so nice because he’s saying he knows she’ll somehow make things work. And he’s hopeful that maybe they can be a fam? When you and my wife come home, that would make me really happy, essentially. And she gives him a little smile like, I’m worried but that would be nice. I’m glad you want me to come “home” to Arkadia because I don’t really feel like I have a home. Clarke’s been off in Polis for far too long before coming back to Arkadia. She needed someone other than Bellamy to tell her this is her home and she should come back and stay because everyone hates her because of the list stunt, even if it’s not an issue anymore. If Clarke skipped me on that list I’d remember.

HUG. AND HE INITIATED IT. CLARKE I CARE ABOUT YOU TOO PLEASE BE SAFE. At first Clake’s feeling... uh this strange to me..but…strangely…nice. She relaxes into it and hugs him back more than the reactionarly ”someone is embracing me I should lightly put my hands on their back and pat to show my discomfort after 3 seconds.” No. she closes her eyes and does a little shift down into his shoulder.

If later Clarke runs to him (upon return) and initiates it. UGHTRHFGHHUGHHHHH. Fetch the smelling salts, amiright. The last time I remember them having a GOOD/ long dialogue with just them was shortly after Clarke and Anya make it to Arkadia S2 and they’re sitting on the steps/ a bench? I recall them talking about leadership and/ or Abby (again! Cool) and Kane had the early scruff look. 10/10. Now I’m having all these flashbacks to earlier scenes where Clarke tells him what to do and he respects her and listens or debates. Throwback to that scene where she’s like hey, Kane I want to do this and my mom doesn’t want me to, help a girl out. He’s got that smug look and is all (step)dad!kane right before Abby comes in and has a fit. (also S2, but EARLY facial hair phase. Minimal scruff, but great hair and I love all phases of this beard who am I kidding. Current S4 hair could use a slight trim because I don’t see the show letting hic go shoulder length hair)

[Monty goes to get Kane after annihilating Jaha]

Kane gets some guards and puts medical on lock down.

MILLER SENIOR sir, maybe we should reconsider….On the Ark we floated people for this. Dude. I’ve loved you since you popped up on screen. What are you doing? Mob rule will not dictate us in this camp. Miller senior with the most annoyed eye roll and head turn. But still subdued, much like your son, not Murphy. Kane is waaaayyyyyyy past “if this happened on the Ark” arguments because. Hello? He’s already made those mistake S2 when he gets to the ground and maintains laws under the Exodus Charter. Abby taught him that the ground can be different. He still got strong-armed into shock lashing Abby, but he sure as hell regretted it. Where were you? Why didn’t you ALSO learn this lesson?

Kane puts the clip in his gun, David Miller starts to freak out and plead with him. These are his people and Miller sees why they’re upset, possibly sympathizes with them.

Octavia lets the people in. MILLER SENIOR SHOCK BATTONS KANE. I actually screamed. Miller, I get it, but this is the chancellor and I THOUGHT. your friend. There are some serious consequences for this. He’s writhing on the frickin’ floor, everyone is staring at you and all you can do is say a super emotionless I’m sorry. With a shrug??? He lets them take Kane’s gun. The only redeeming thing he does is stay with Kane until he’s able to move.

It is wrong to talk about these awesome ladies on the show in the context of the men, but Octavia’s plotlines cross with Kane and Bellamy significantly, so she’s sorta mixed in both. Clarke is everywhere because she’s the main lady. I’m aware of my sin.

Monty can’t stop Octavia. Ilian: Get it over with. OMG my friends and I were yelling about the Lincoln parallels. OH NOW JAHA DECIDEDS TO COME OUT. I wonder whose idea it was to yell black rain. It was a good one, but these two are secretly scheming together like nobody’s business. If Jaha suddenly has this idea, kudos. If they’re planning this the way they said “It worked” when they hugged in 4.01, I’m SUPER interested in their coconspirator relationship. Especially when Kane just wants Jaha to be on his side in the pilot. The fact that Kane says “I don’t know” makes me think Jaha did assess the situation and come up with this on the fly, but he’s got an ear piece in?

He put Lincoln on his knees too. FLASHBACKS. Ugh. The parallels are now blatantly in our faces. Pike stood right there. Nice overlapping screen, good stuff. Right where you’re standing when they put a gun up against his head. I was there.You do this, you do this and you’re no better than he was. mmmmm. Showing Lincoln getting shot again was not fun and turned this interesting way to see into Octavia’s mind and have her reliving his death slightly tacky. Its alright its ok. Octavia, it’s alright. Come inside. My heart hurts. For Octavia reliving that and having to deal with that. For Kane trying to comfort her in the best dad!Kane way he knows how. She pushes him away. ANOTHER punch to my heart. Octavia, wait! Octavia. Hi, I am crying more and more and I don’t know if it’s because it’s 2:30am (whoopsies, I did half the ep and then went and had a real life (crazy I know), and wanted to finish it when I got home) or because I feel so bad that the Blakes can’t both be happy at the same moment. Kane’s barely able to keep one stable at a time. Bellamy was good, so he got to go off, but Octavia is still (understandably) a wreck. He’s chasing after herrrrrr.He stops because she’s runnin’ Wait! Where will you go…? HE SAYS BLINKING BACK TEARS. This man. This man guys. I am hurt. What a great actor such emotion and beauty. He just has to watch her leave, powerless to protect her. She doesn’t even have her sword. I’m all alone with no one to hold me.

PREDICTION: Octavia goes to Indra. Gaia becomes part of the story again.

PREVIOUS PREDICTION: As I said in the 4.02 piece, I thought Wells would be next (and we’re working on that, hopefully), but it was too soon for Octavia to lay Lincoln to rest. I think Octavia will probably be working through her grief (for real, instead of murdering people)

FURTHER THOUGHT: Monty’s mom? He did have to “kill” her twice. If he already dealt with this let me know, but I remember her disappearing from the CoL in the S3 finale but no working through of the emotions. I trust Monty to be doing that off screen with Harper because he’s a good guy. Aaannnddddd he told Jasper that he was dealing with stuff too.

Bellamy

Azgeda is burning trikru as they move through on their way back to Polis trying to keep peace. ½ deserted, Roan doesn’t blame them, it’s a sucky situation.

Bellamy: “do you blame them for burining trikru villages as they go?”

Roan: “that’s funny coming from you”

Kane: “Enough” once bickering’s number one fan. Now saving the day from pettiness and jabs.

What a burn. What a hurtful call back to the mistakes in writing S3 where Bellamy has to spiral to drive a plot point. Due to editing/cutting/rushed storylines, we never got a satisfactory explanation for exactly why. The massacre is part of his character now, but I’m surprised they’re bringing it up again- the Riley scene was his acknowledgement of the massacre. He’s clearly going to be working on forgiving himself and this redemption ark all season.

Let me just go check on my sister before I roll out. She almost died the other day and we had a hug but things are still rocky…

Octavia is dead. She died when you killed Lincoln. Damn. He played a part in this, but definitely didn’t want him dead.

Clarke tells Bell Octavia’s forgiveness will take time. AKA: They talk about his feelings.

What is she doing? Being Clarke. No one else gets out. *proceeds to get out too* classic.

ICE MELT THERE’S A NEW RIVER CREATING A COMPLICATION. What a real thing that could happen with climate change.

They’ve taken the truck. fuel. Clarke. Yep. Clarke. mention the truck and fuel first so Roan thinks you have your priorities sorted, but casually slip in #3.

Bell races ahead to cut Clarke off in the untimate game of chicken with this grounder. He’s such a good shot that he can hit the grounder (and not Clarke) from at least 20 yards away? I guess that’s the magic of tv. “I’ve got this gun, and girl, it don’t miss. It makes baaaabiiieeessss”- J Roddy Walston & The Business. Look it up.

Good job Clarke for braking that quickly. I didn’t.

I’m going to take the Rover back to camp. Clarke: Octavia? Nod. Bellarke with knowing each other so well.

Clarke: She’s your sister, she’s blood. She’ll come around and see how special you are. Incredible look from Bell. ALSO. I’m not sure if this was an intentional word choice (probs because look at the Kane and Clarke Scene. Actually go rewatch it, it was really good.) and if I’m supposed to pick up on “Special” parallels with Clexa where Lexa describes Clarke as “different” and “special.” I’m seeing more and more parallels for Clarke and Bellamy with cannon relationships, namely Kabby and Clexa, so it’s looking like they could go down a romantic path, but not anytime soon. They’ve both got so much crap going on plus trying to save the planet that I don’t think the writers would want to explore that yet. To caution/ dissuade excited bellarke shippers, Niylah is probs more present in the plot right now than she would be (and here in this ep, still nakey for this important conversation about Lexa Lexa would be proud of you) + Niylah stays because Clarke wants her to stay alive. So, naturally, I have to predict her dying. Not because she’s gay, but because Clarke is Wanheda. I don’t actually think she’ll die. I’d rather see her take over the Nyko grounder-medicine knowledge void (RIP. I had so much hope for your character. May Niylah carry on your legacy).

Clarke. If I don’t see you again… // No. You Will. See what I mean? Kabby parallels from the 3.09 Kiss. (also Lincoln died in that ep). She’s doing exactly what her mother did. Stubborn Griffin love is great.

Roan

High School Musical has ruined the phrase “we’re all in this together” for my generation. I can’t not start singing it. And doing the overhead clap.

License plate man doesn’t want Roan to drive behind Clarke because he follows no one. I’m laughing at his license plate armour, but honestly it’s probably really effective.

What could possibly go wrong? Understatement of the year.

License plate man stays behind with Clarke. Trikru killed ‘em.

The whole jumping from one truck to another is crazy hard, but of course Roan would have no problem.

Once we’re all nightbloods do we go back to killing each other?

Thanks for killing the bellarke mood with a problem. Just what they need.

Becca’s Lab: Raven x Murphy x Luna

Raven head bothering her. Murphy annoying her.

Rips him apart. At least I’m not a mental patient like you. Not cool. Raven and the meditation. How does Luna hear but Jackson and Abby stay asleep?

She doesn’t apologize. Harsh. He provokes, but it comes from a place of being insecure and not

Luna is great. She’s saving everyone’s mental health. Murphy is trying to meditate, but he’s got the words wrong. Humorously wrong.

Swim away. Murphy and Luna come up with this idea and tell raven to screw the computer. Murphy! Thanks. Good, Raven. That’s what he needed. It works. Well duh. Did the Ark not have Apollo 13 on their space drive? This is how we land on Earth now (to my knowledge), we only need the fuel for soft other planet landings. 0% cargo destruction! But wait. We are short a barrel. SIEZING GO GET MOM.

It would be awesome if we could get more emotionally invested in some of these plot lines? You know, so they actually hit us and we feel the pain of the characters when things don’t work out? First, Octavia not actually being dead and Bellamy immediately figuring it out. We saw one scene of grief. We know she’s alive, but 12 min later do does he. Now we get a rocket! In the next episode, the rocket solution may not work because of the punctured barrel. High stakes, but low stakes presentation, so what’s the point?

Overall, I liked this episode. Obviously for Kane, but Jaha, Monty, and Luna had interesting things working for them as well. The next episode is called “gimme shelter” so I’m feeling a black rain coming on as well as Clarke and Roan reaching Doctor-Tech Squad.

I also went from writing ~1 pg to this, which is ~6 pgs, single spaced. Half of it was Kane. Shocker. I didn’t need to do a line-by-line breakdown, but they were just so packed and I had so many feelings. Sorry. No editing whatsoever was done past MS Word’s spellcheck as I wrote it.

#4.06 #reaction post #The 100 #just my thoughts #not all of them are good ones #marcus kane #tagged because 50% of this is him #it's 3:35 am #i hate myself

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