TV Tuesday
I had it all planned what show/relationship/moment I was going to talk about here. But then I realized I no longer had the video (it was previously on MegaVideo, which is obviously defunct, and I can't find my original copy to upload somewhere else.) So I will save them for next week.
Today's TV Tuesday is dedicated to another of my favorite shows and relationships.
But before I get into that, I just want to say something about That Awkward Moment When... "That awkward moment when you realize you've been watching too much Guilty Pleasure because you recognize the creator's voice offscreen during a phone call scene." Yeah... Shut up.
So. Anyway. A good show. I've been watching the end of Season 4, and it's been difficult. I can't really explain it, but I just don't really like season 4. And because of what happens at the end, it makes me not want to watch season 5, either, even though there are more moments I enjoy there than in S4.
I was watching the finale on Friday, and while there are some moments I greatly enjoy in the last few episodes of the season, and the finale, part of it makes me want to reach through the TV and smack a certain someone (well, two someones, but mostly her) for being so stupid.
Backing up. I loved "Last Week Fights..." for many reasons. I love the Luke-Jess respect and affection that's coming out of all the years of clashing. And the years of clashing were because Jess didn't have a real parent until he was 17. Luke did the best he could with what he was given, and did he make mistakes? Of course he did! I'm going to point out a parallel here with another show. A girl, about 17, didn't have the most attentive parents. They moved, and she stayed in town, ending up staying at a friend's mom's house while he was staying with his dad. (That's a whole other story, but the point is the girl.) The mom (not the girl's mom, but the boy's mom, who the girl was staying with... am I confusing you yet?) sat the girl down and gave her a list of ground rules for living in that house. The girl hugged the mom and said something to the effect of "It's just like having a real mom!" Because she needed that discipline and to be treated like a teenager, and she never was before. It's the same for Luke and Jess. Jess needed that parent in his life, and he was a bitter teenager whose mom, in his words, was a "whack-job," and he only had Luke. So he rebelled as expected. But he came back and realized that Luke was doing what's best for him. "I'm here, Jess, I'm always here." That just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside! I love the two of them!
And then. And then he shows up at Yale. And I started a story about how this might have gone differently, but it's going to be forever unfinished. Again, not the point. I think this should have gone slightly differently, because I think that while the question was asked without a lot of thought put into it, I think the response was also a little too quick. In case you're not sure what I'm talking about, I mean this scene. "Come with me! Don't think about it! I'm ready now!" While I think he thought he was ready, and he was certainly more ready than he was a year prior to that, it wouldn't have actually worked. What I do think is that when he said "Don't say 'no' just to make me stop talking or make me go away. Only say 'no' if you really don't want to be with me," she shouldn't have been so quick to say no. I think that she was scared. She was ambushed. She didn't know what was going on in his mind, because he didn't tell her (and that, by the way, is the downfall of their entire relationship). But maybe she should have taken a second to think about why she should say no. Because she was just saying no to make him stop talking and make him go away. And oh, my heart, it breaks. When she sits down on that box in the dark and puts her head in her hands, it's an "What did I do? What just happened?" moment.
I also will never stop believing (I should rephrase that so you don't start singing Journey and stop paying attention...) I will always believe that what happens at the end of Raincoats & Recipes with Rory and Married Dean is a direct result of Jess's visit here. At least on her part. She says at the beginning of the episode to Lane about how Jess was always unpredictable and kept changing his mind (though he didn't; he always meant what he said--he didn't always say exactly what he was thinking, and he was often sarcastic and evasive, but he wasn't flighty.) She kept saying about how Dean was safe and he really loved her (Jess loved her too; he just didn't know how to show it or what to do with those feelings) and she really blew it (because her feelings for Dean changed and she didn't know how to handle it) and so on. Her reaching for Dean's "friendship" - and I use that term loosely - throughout season 4 was because she was away from home for the first time, single for the first time in three years, and things were difficult for her for the first time in her life. So she was reaching back for something that made her feel better. Like when Lane was staying at the dorm--it made her feel safe and like her life wasn't so overwhelming and she could hold on to a piece of when life was simpler.
So Jess shows up and shakes up her world and she reacts as such: goes back to Dean. All she needed to hear was "It's not working between me and Lindsay." They were going to go there anyway; she just felt like she had to hear it to make it okay. And it's just... oh. At the end of 4.21, "all my creys" - and in 4.22, I just want to smack them both for being so utterly stupid!
Dean, too, is far from blameless. It's not as if Rory seduced him against his will. It was never going to work with him and Lindsay- she was a rebound, not a wife.
I could go on for days about this and I have. But that's enough for now.
Today's TV Tuesday is dedicated to another of my favorite shows and relationships.
But before I get into that, I just want to say something about That Awkward Moment When... "That awkward moment when you realize you've been watching too much Guilty Pleasure because you recognize the creator's voice offscreen during a phone call scene." Yeah... Shut up.
So. Anyway. A good show. I've been watching the end of Season 4, and it's been difficult. I can't really explain it, but I just don't really like season 4. And because of what happens at the end, it makes me not want to watch season 5, either, even though there are more moments I enjoy there than in S4.
I was watching the finale on Friday, and while there are some moments I greatly enjoy in the last few episodes of the season, and the finale, part of it makes me want to reach through the TV and smack a certain someone (well, two someones, but mostly her) for being so stupid.
Backing up. I loved "Last Week Fights..." for many reasons. I love the Luke-Jess respect and affection that's coming out of all the years of clashing. And the years of clashing were because Jess didn't have a real parent until he was 17. Luke did the best he could with what he was given, and did he make mistakes? Of course he did! I'm going to point out a parallel here with another show. A girl, about 17, didn't have the most attentive parents. They moved, and she stayed in town, ending up staying at a friend's mom's house while he was staying with his dad. (That's a whole other story, but the point is the girl.) The mom (not the girl's mom, but the boy's mom, who the girl was staying with... am I confusing you yet?) sat the girl down and gave her a list of ground rules for living in that house. The girl hugged the mom and said something to the effect of "It's just like having a real mom!" Because she needed that discipline and to be treated like a teenager, and she never was before. It's the same for Luke and Jess. Jess needed that parent in his life, and he was a bitter teenager whose mom, in his words, was a "whack-job," and he only had Luke. So he rebelled as expected. But he came back and realized that Luke was doing what's best for him. "I'm here, Jess, I'm always here." That just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside! I love the two of them!
And then. And then he shows up at Yale. And I started a story about how this might have gone differently, but it's going to be forever unfinished. Again, not the point. I think this should have gone slightly differently, because I think that while the question was asked without a lot of thought put into it, I think the response was also a little too quick. In case you're not sure what I'm talking about, I mean this scene. "Come with me! Don't think about it! I'm ready now!" While I think he thought he was ready, and he was certainly more ready than he was a year prior to that, it wouldn't have actually worked. What I do think is that when he said "Don't say 'no' just to make me stop talking or make me go away. Only say 'no' if you really don't want to be with me," she shouldn't have been so quick to say no. I think that she was scared. She was ambushed. She didn't know what was going on in his mind, because he didn't tell her (and that, by the way, is the downfall of their entire relationship). But maybe she should have taken a second to think about why she should say no. Because she was just saying no to make him stop talking and make him go away. And oh, my heart, it breaks. When she sits down on that box in the dark and puts her head in her hands, it's an "What did I do? What just happened?" moment.
I also will never stop believing (I should rephrase that so you don't start singing Journey and stop paying attention...) I will always believe that what happens at the end of Raincoats & Recipes with Rory and Married Dean is a direct result of Jess's visit here. At least on her part. She says at the beginning of the episode to Lane about how Jess was always unpredictable and kept changing his mind (though he didn't; he always meant what he said--he didn't always say exactly what he was thinking, and he was often sarcastic and evasive, but he wasn't flighty.) She kept saying about how Dean was safe and he really loved her (Jess loved her too; he just didn't know how to show it or what to do with those feelings) and she really blew it (because her feelings for Dean changed and she didn't know how to handle it) and so on. Her reaching for Dean's "friendship" - and I use that term loosely - throughout season 4 was because she was away from home for the first time, single for the first time in three years, and things were difficult for her for the first time in her life. So she was reaching back for something that made her feel better. Like when Lane was staying at the dorm--it made her feel safe and like her life wasn't so overwhelming and she could hold on to a piece of when life was simpler.
So Jess shows up and shakes up her world and she reacts as such: goes back to Dean. All she needed to hear was "It's not working between me and Lindsay." They were going to go there anyway; she just felt like she had to hear it to make it okay. And it's just... oh. At the end of 4.21, "all my creys" - and in 4.22, I just want to smack them both for being so utterly stupid!
Dean, too, is far from blameless. It's not as if Rory seduced him against his will. It was never going to work with him and Lindsay- she was a rebound, not a wife.
I could go on for days about this and I have. But that's enough for now.