Goodbye, Being Erica. Hello, Being Erica. Being Erica s04e11
PreS. Maybe the conclusion to draw is I need to move on from LJ...
Trepidation. I have had it.
PS. This is "The One in which I'm Pretty Damn Sentimental."
6 cups of coffee, 3 cloves, many, many, a dehydrating quantity of tears later, and despite all the ups and despite all the (many... ;\ ) downs this show has had, the finale?
Gave me everything I always wanted, and more than I ever expected.
I have my coffee, I just went out and had a cigarette. I'm smoking again, just a little, just to get me through when I'm en route to something. I was sitting on the steps watching silent woods and thinking about Home Depot.
The Garden Center is defunct now, but during the summer half the guys who worked out there knew me on sight. They knew me because I was there every few days, hauling hundreds of pounds of brick. I was one of THOSE customers: I know how they work, I know exactly what I want, I know how to get it and aside from actual check out and scheduling queries, I could do it all myself - and did. Even now I walk in the front door and brush off help - I can't understand why a grown man would need aid finding water and flashlights (it was a storm, not Armageddon, and who doesn't have flashlights anyway?) and I can't understand why someone couldn't figure out how to install a doorknob by themselves (the instructions are right there on the package.)
It's the same with Being Erica. I know how it works, I know what it is, and what it is not. I know what I want from it and how to get what I want. I know who to talk to and what we'll say, but that all comes in the aftermath. Every new episode and it's a brand new store, the layout is subtly different and it turns out as much as I like being one of THOSE fans, I think (I KNOW) that I'll miss being kept off balance even more.
Cigarette, finsihed.
Coffee, check.
Previouslies:
How do you Previously 4 years?
The stairs (Tardis-like space in a benign little building, the world of T3 in a world to small to hold it.) Leo, barely here lately but the driving force for the first part of our journey. In Training, a leap past alll of Group, but then Group wound up a technicality, a prop to introduce Adam rather than a stage in our journey (still so sad, I want to live in there for a while, spec out what might have been.) Family, memories shifted. Fiction department (but not 50/50... this is random, actually, her under-supported love of fiction never really solidified.) DrT, leaving. He was guiding her through the Previouslies, pulling her along and now drifting off.
Are there fans out there who aren't gutted by this? Whose fascination has been with Erica from the start, who haven't been tied up in the Erica/DrT dynamic far more than any other storyline? I know why I'm invested and the reasons are particular, but there's no way I'm not meant to be gutted, or this would never be endgame.
Show.
Another bed scene with Erica and Adam. -sighs-
Talking about beginnings and endings, referencing morning to night, summer to fall. The problem here is that while internally these ARE beginnings and endings, they are also cyclical events - my favourite metaphor being the spring - a coil. We repeat, we end up back where we were, almost the same but a little offset. DrT leaving is an ending, full stop. Unless we consider that he and Erica knew each other in other lives, will know each other again, but since this was NOT in the show, it barely exists. I feel cheated.
Unless we're talking about Adam and he drops dead during the episode.
Then the ceiling randomly falls down, a pipe is dripping, and some more ceiling falls down, as some sort of violent sign - more of an opportunity really - for Adam to invite Erica to move with him to, presumably, something larger than a tinderbox.
I'm eye-rolling, but otherwise just, meh. We're giving Erica beginnings, and I guess I should be okay with that because she's ending her old life in favour of new things, and so is DrT. Instead I feel a little condescended to, and don't think Erica really deserves any of this given she's still selfish and self-righteous and Julianne happily let Erica take 50/50 in a new and dangerous direction, even though Erica has now almost sold 50/50 out from under Julianne, almost destroyed Julianne's hard-won relationship, and generally been rude to everyone who wasn't her immediate concern.
Thanks for the reminder, show.
-positive thoughts-
How was he planning on asking? I'm assuming here that he didn't cause the ceiling to fall (the sky is falling!) firstly because that is probably illegal but mostly because we have reason to believe that his handyman skills stop at the front door.
HAHAHA! Yes, I am ROFLMAO here and no sarcasm, this is just perfect as hell and I'm not even sad that my ongoing half-belief that the entire show was a book penned by Tom, locked away in his office (or a mental institution. …Apparently that is a common enough plot line where I hang out that like zombies, it springs to mind at every possible opening.)
To keep us on the same page - Sinyor is pitching the novel, which has to be about what was pitched for the show. I'm assuming that guy is Martin, can't substantiate without some googling, but I'm distracted by the fact that he looks a hell of a lot like an RA I had in college. Only my RA was a sports photographer and it all makes me think of the riots after that Yankee/Red Sox game because he was there, camera out, when the cop killed that girl, and how I only knew any of this when he bugged off to avoid people trying to get the picture and how, that night, I wouldn't go home because apparently I am not one of those people who will run to a riot but stays away. (I lived a couple blocks from Fenway, I would have heard them from my bedroom, if nothing else.) Everything about this show reminds me of something in my past, but so few of those memories are actual regrets...
Sinyor and guyX are playing married, and the character is consistent - last time we saw her he and Dave had dated before, and that still stands. Hubby is jealous. Of a gay guy. Who just got married.
A point made, but as soon as we hit "gay" Erica swooshes into an insightful head space only it's not useful so much as confusing and violent and weird depressing shades of gray. We're looking through bars, someone crossing off days on a calendar, throwing magazines, having a fit on a bed.
WTF?
I'd be going back to the mental institution thing except I don't know if bars are a great idea.
And the hair on the woman, looks more like Erica's, though it was flashes, otherwise I'd guess Sarah, maybe? In jail?
Okay, that was really cool. The edge of dark and disturbing that has been sorely lacking since the last DrT episode.
Going to Goblins is maybe a bit of a poor choice given how Dave is a heated issue, but for Erica is doesn't matter because DrT is there to provide some context.
I'm still on how cool it would be if this was all a dream of a disturbed woman, and now that the dream is hitting a good place, steady state, it starts to fail as a cathartic release and is collapsing in on itself.
So this was Erica first connecting with a patient (what did DrT see with her?) and THIS IS A RATHER ABRUPT WAY TO ANNOUNCE THAT DOCTORHOOD IS UPON HER.
Appropriate though, and it's nice that we're getting this before the Previouslies, so much, actually, before the previouslies, so that we can work through it in what little time we have left. I'm ignoring the fact that this is the one thing DrT was waiting for before he could quit - there was never any doubt (I don't think?) that he would quit before Erica graduated. Maybe not even if she had still been in Group, but certainly not when she was so close.
Beginning of Doctor, end of Mentor. Still squinting at the fact that what, DrN is now Erica's go-to when she needs a bootkick? It's so much less a transitional moment when you consider that a Patient never really stops being a Patient.
Erica is understandably overwhelmed and confused, I like her in this moment, it's her as she was (the innocence) at the start of the show. DrT shares that it was like that for him, same reaction, tells her what DrN said - "when the Doctor is ready, the Patient appears." Very similar to what he said when Erica pulled him out of quitting, back in 2x01.
This is him going personal again, rare event but a bit more common once she'd graduated from Group. The thing is now I don't know if he's sharing because they're essentially colleagues, or because he knows he'll be leaving soon and is looking for a little bit of connection first, give her something of himself in return for what she's given him.
See, starting to cry a little bit. Because this isn't going to end well but then it also feels like it's heading in that direction I always wanted it too, because I hate "happy" endings because I don't believe in them.
BTW, her patient probably was in jail, we saw a uniform go in. But this whole Doctor thing is pretty violent, if she's going to be seeing disturbing flashes for a while (and it'll get worse) until she sees them hit rock bottom. Is this to increase sympathy? To "feel" the slide and thus know how to approach?
Can we go back to "you are your patient," where I thought it was literal, and in which case "you are not your patient" is relevant because she is so much more capable, sane, therapized?
"Metaphorical death." Erm. But everyone we've seen has been more of an "actual death," or at least strongly hinted as such.
Oh, right. Do we need to revisit DrT's rooftop? She asked him once if he was a ghost, an angel... and he noted that "the time for that answer has not yet come." Was it just a vague reference to the mysteries of Doctorhood? I was hoping it was more of a literal statement about her finding out what happened to him. His state of life was always a question, since you can recover from an overdose but not so much from going splat. And the papers said he was talked down by an unknown woman...
Likely to be DrN, but a girl can hope.
"You can "whoosh" like me... no limits." CUTE. Also, confirmation that she's his equal, in terms of power and status. Beginning of that, but we know from the conversation with Erica43 that he always expected this to be a real beginning, of a friendship they couldn't have while she was a patient, but which always lurked at the edges of the relationship they did have. Only now, his life is forcing him to make a decision that would destroy that future almost as soon as it begins.
And invites her to take them somewhere. Which I'm hoping is her office because we still don't know if she finished decorating or been back since that first time. I also like it because while I assume he'd go with her anyway, since she needs to practice, it reminds me of her free-for-all Doctor day, when she had to go figure it all out for herself, with DrT periodically picking up the pieces.
And... I like it because it still feels like a last goodbye. She has no limits now, and giving up control and letting her take him somewhere is a lot like a one-sided goodbye. She doesn't need him to guide her, he's the first one she guides. The first of anything is always special. He was the first one in her office.
I cry a lot. At media. Cathartic, you know - I very rarely cry at real life. I mention this, rather belatedly, because yes, tears again. Should's seen me with Dragonheart. Four minutes in and I knew the endgame and proceeded to cry through THE ENTIRE DAMN MOVIE.
Ooh, they ARE starting with her office, though at his …
Back up a second. When she asks if she should to it right then, he says yes, or rather "why not" in a breathy tone, another hint that this is going to be a goodbye, and it's happening faster than he can hold on to the moments.
...suggestion. She was asking him again, looking for guidance on where to go. I remember the hallway, she can't choose, can't take a lead (maybe she'll be better with her Patient but never with DrT, she's been looking to him for too long.) She followed him to his office, and now he's having her take him to hers (again, the first one to go there? A moment to imagine him as patient, roles reversed?) But it's more than that - her office is the place where she will always need to begin, and it's wrong to have her start "whooshing" from his office. It's a place where he's in control, his space.
I want him to give her something from his office. His office won't be there anymore anyway, so it'll be the last bit of him, aside from memories, in the T3 world. The last bit of him entirely if everyone forgets about him, though I still don't believe that will be true because it's just too problematic.
Tears.
I plan (always planned, I guess, more so now) to leave these reaction posts public, because there've been more than a few times with more than a few shows where I've needed... something... and glommed onto one person who wrote a lot about it. Never said anything but read through it. Comforting to know someone else someone else... does... I guess. And this fandom is small enough and I'm not quite anti-conceited enough to believe that no one (but ya'll I know) reads these or will read these. But I'm a little... something... over what the heck they'd think about me. I don't know what picture I paint.
Ooh, she's aquired walls! And a window! And everything else that makes a room, including what looks like a whiteboard wall (the most awesome things ever) and a fish. An amazing space, though I don't see her hanging chair. It's worn walls and muted dusty red and green and not a whole lot like her home décor. Someone help me parse this please?
Why did OO give my "décor" a little tick over the e, but still tell me it's misspelled? o.O
There's tissues on the Patients side of the table, with an uncomfortable looking wood chair ? Books stacked on hers. A blue book and pen on top - for the regrets of her first patient? A candle on a stand by the window, and all I can think is the mushroom lamp standing before the window in DrT's office.
All the books on her shelves are too brightly coloured and I don't see titles on the spines. Is this intentional? Because they look decorative rather than functional. I see a bit of brick wall like in 50/50, grungy walls like from Group. Very large words on the white-board wall, including the word "payment." I'm sure we'll be screencapping and analyzing what we can read later. Tall metal fat in the corner.
On the wall, in letters fading away, is a quote from C.S. Lewis: "With the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere." Referencing beginnings. Again. I love, because two C.S. Lewis quotes have been previously used, only I only remember the one about friendship.
Aha. Thank you Tumblr. This is, in fact, the second Lewis quote (unless there's another one.) Which is a permanent, worn in piece of DrT's advice, only I still want him to give her something physical because someone else's words isn't quite enough, and would only be unconscious nod to goodbye.
There's another quote behind her, probably more on the walls we don't see, I wonder if they're all from things he said, which stuck with her? There's no way to imagine every detail, I'm thinking Erica gave the room a start and then it pulled from her to complete forming itself. Esp as she seems surprised, looking at it.
I think I'm also having a teary situation because apart from impending goodbye, this is the first time they've had significant and open screentime for like, a year and a half, and that was probably the single most significant source of my ongoing discontent. I can handle a lot, I can take both sides of any other argument and groove with the Erica/Adam endgame, but the separation of these two broke me over and over again.
Confirmation - her subconscious did it all, which is sort of the same thing considering her room IS herin a sense. Thus, we can postulate that a Doctor's office is a space they open from themselves to give their Patients an outside, reassuring space from which to tackle their own issues.
DrT compliments her room, which feels more intimate than maybe it should, probably because when it says "it's lovely" in a quieter tone I'm predisposed to think he's also talking about her subconscious, herself, whatever.
Of course he's the first one to call her "Dr. Erica," for real, once she really is one. Sealing it. Strange. A second ago, in his office, he said she was almost one, but now that she's... In her office? Has moved herself and someone else? She's officially made the transition.
I still sort of want to have seen more of Camilla. But not. The thing is that I've always wanted to see other patients in order to compare the way he and Erica interact. But it would only be partial knowledge since everyone is different, and we've generally held too close to Erica - the only way to watch someone else would be to fit it into a DrT arc, which would be tricky.
Awww. DrT is acting all weird and uncertain and offers to leave her alone and I'm waiting for her to take up that challenge and drag him back to the concert she missed before.
What we're seeing is a full transition. Erica is Doctorfied, she's in her office, she's sitting at her desk. DrT has no more immediate place in her life, no reason to still be there now that she's delivered. There's something else he wants to say, but she'll have to pull it out of him.
I don't want him to quit because there's too much unresolved between them and there's no way they can get through it in one episode, especially with so many other arcs to tie together, except maybe there is because this show moves pretty speedily when it wants to. Tears. I know, I'm just making myself cry. If I could turn my brain off I'd be fine. I'm not sure I want it all resolved anyway, it would be way too final, closing it all out. We can never know everything about someone, even less when under constraints (a character in a book, even a character in a show, a friend, a lover, a parent, a child.) It would be dumb to think anything could really wrap things up, and loose threads at least tie the heart.
So the same episode that Lewis quote comes from (probably) gives us this: "Insecurity. It’ s in all of us. That voice inside that tells us that we can’ t do something, that we’ re not good enough, that we shoudn’t even try. And when we listen to the voice we hold ourselves back in ways we don’ t even realize. All because we’ re scared to take a chance, to face our fears, to see what we’ re really capable of."
That feels a lot like DrT right now.
He keeps talking after the "you want me to leave?" thing. If he's stopped there she would have said no, but he gave her so many reasons that it would be awkward to ask him to stay. Off he goes, still looking like this is really not what he actually wants, and it's a nice shot with him crossing from the left, Erica fuzzy in the background behind her fish and desk (so much space between them, moving farther apart.) She's framed between two windows (almost industrial, I have a thing for industrial windows) and I don't know if there's something to read there. ?
He does touch the back of her Patient chair (still, I think it should be more comfortable, is this her subconscious manifesting a lack of comfort with the idea?) As if... He wants to sit and chat? He's imagining someone sitting there? It represents the fact that she is no longer in this seat, but at the other side of the desk?
I was expecting, based on his face and direction that the camera was going to pan him as he walked into DrN's office to get some advice on how to say goodbye - DrN, no matter what else, knows that he needs to let go of Erica, and needs to let her have a goodbye as well. And it's in him to talk himself out of all of it and just walk away. Which wouldn't be good for either of them.
But before we can do that Erica calls to him, still using the "honorific" even though technically, I guess, it's appropriate to just call him Tom, though as he's her Doctor it's probably typical to keep that relationship in many moments. They aren't at friend level until she calls him Tom, though.
There are words on the other side of her windows too, and based on seeing the one behind her (an abbreviated form of "Learn to be what you are, and learn to resign with good grace all that you are not. -" Henri-Frédéric Amiel) - I think all the quotes are DrT quotes. Lodged in her subconscious (she exchanged one with Adam, recognized the diamonds quote... we know she remembers them). That's awesome, he's all around her. Echoes, at least.
Except it's also like a graveyard. Other people's words carved on tombstone walls, ghost of a man. Too many graveyards in my dreams - I've been hiding in The Pretender and every other fic (literally) has someone long dead or newly dead, dying or about to die. The show spends so much time in them as well.
But it's true.
It's like Erica can feel him slipping away, though at this point it's probably the old clinginess. Checking to see if he'll still be there (for her.)
Rewound a bit and I think the hand on the Patient chair was more of a crutch to get him turned around and thus out the door.
She's begging for reassurance and he's inches from saying he can't. This is, I guess, the thread holding them together, and holding him back, as he finally says "of course." She's a Doctor and this is the point where he quits. But he can't say goodbye. If left on his own, would he not leave at all? Is she holding him back? Is he holding himself back? Is Amanda pulling him away?
He turns again, more conflicted than before, and NOW it's DrN's office of his own, and if it's his own he'll be pacing, or looking out the window. I think.
His office.
From the other side of the door, which is nice. Necessary, given we were to the side of him before, but the only time I can really remember standing here before was in 1x12 when Erica saved Leo and he grabbed her. Which makes me want to see Erica grab him and hold on (metaphorically), only I guess that's what she's doing, albeit unwittingly.
He stops in the middle of the room and looks around, almost like he doesn't feel he belongs there anymore, or he's considering if it's worth it to stay. Has he said goodbye to everything (everyone) but Erica?
I didn't see airholes in that bag. How does Julianne not already have opinions on the dog that Brent knows about. And OMG doggie daycare? LOL! Why can't she stay at home, and he can zip out at lunch for walkies? (Our old dog, we just left in the morning and came home after work/school and he was fine. So I find it weird. Granted, current doggies have been spoiled into thinking they need to go every 3 hours, so I guess I can't talk.) All in all, finally explains the behind-the-scenes photos with a puppy.
I am also still amused to see that Goblins is still running on the old-style travel cups. Completely awesome, and totally makes sense both from the production standpoint (already had them made up, can't afford new ones) and internally Goblin's standpoint (same rationale.)
GASP OMG.
I WAS WATCHING DOGGIE. Who, BTW, is obviously very chill and well behaved and probably avoids the advice to never work with animals. I picture my own in that situation, and the result would be unfortunate for everyone. Actually one would probably be okay, though he'd be looking very concerned.
Back to the GASP. DrT walks into the door pretty fast, and this is just.... It's DrT walking into 50/50. I mean. Whoa. OMG. I don't know if he meant to be there, or he just went to wherever Erica was and didn't bother to sneak around the back way to catch her alone (or at least in a crowd.)
I was all set to not see him for a couple scenes, since we just had a long one.
Does he know something? And that's why he's there? Like, did he find out that Sarah is Erica's Patient? Or finally steel himself to tell her he's quitting, DrN is her goto?
We just never see him in Erica's life, beyond a guy at a door or that once a faux neighbor, in front of Jenny. A interviewee for The Sex Book. Okay, we have seen him, but in situations where it was natural. This is not. This is strange.
I'm a bit overwhelmed and need a half-ciggy break. Journey through the episode. It's justified. I'll quit after Holidays, when everything (the stressful things, the deadlines and endings) are over.
Mr. Tom. LOL!
He was looking and Brent and Julianne when he came in, like he didn't realize they'd be there, was trying to figure out where he was. He's looking major confused and upset and of course they don't end up in Gobins but go into his office and it's funny to think that Jent are thinking they're just in the coffee shop. A secret world, instead.
Erica is concerned. We're all concerned. He couldn't even wait for her to go through a door or pop her into his office (respect for her Doctor status?) Only no, he had to go get her because this isn't a session. This isn't her trouble, it's his.
He's trying to get her to sit, just sit, Patient again, give him the control, he's out of control because he's upset and he doesn't know what to do and she pushes and he's looking away and trying to gain control and gather his thoughts, steady himself and
He yells. A little bit. Like he always has done with upset and out of control.
At least he apologizes, and there was a Please, in there
"Okay, I've gotten off to a bad start here." Ya think? I think he hadn't planned this out very much.
I'm nervous and upset because this is all happening up front and I take that to mean that the middle of the episode will have them dealing with other things and I want them back and together throughout the episode. If they have to separate, for good, at the end, I want them together for as much time as possible now. Make up for all the episodes they weren't, sent them off with whatever stretch of friendship they can have.
BTW, I'm still wanting, very much, that hug I've been waiting for since way to early on. Please? The dance was a lot but not a replacement.
He doesn't sit down. He wants to pace. He isn't a Doctor here, even though he's trying to act like one even though he's not talking to her like she's a Patient.
He's talking himself in circles, phrases inside of phrases, leaving his decision (the goodbye) at the outside of his panic outside of his attempts at context. Because he needs her to understand? Because he wants her to know?
He did want to tell her earlier, and maybe he would have if she had asked him to stay. But he made it difficult for her to do so, just like he wanted.
Walks up to the chair, I thought he was going to sit on his desk (he's done it before) and asks her to "come here," which... huggles? Strange time for it. Is he taking her to see something, instead? And it's easier if she's standing and he wants them to end up close together so he can talk to her about whatever it is?
"Just, uh, look at me." Uh. Brain meld? Travel through eye? Which they don't need to do from so close, and the "look at me" is interesting a) because he's been specifically NOT looking at her for so much of the time they've been together this episode and b) because it, combined with proximity, is again, intimate (and no, I don't mean in the romantic sense, I still don't ship them in canon and ship them in fanon half because I like to prove a point to people who would never consider the pairing.)
Wow, it IS brain meld! That's kind of cool, and kind of intimate. Words are one thing, he could explain the facts and that would be enough, but instead he's giving her all of it, I guess like he's a Patient, that sort of knowing. Which, okay, mostly just tears but now it's a bit of the unavoidable sobbing kind.
BTW I get the Kleenex advice. The sleeve of my oversized sweatshirt is pretty damp. Probably better, tissues can be pretty rough on the eyes after the first dozen.
So apart from this being his life in T3 rather than the whole thing (she knew the important bits anyway, this is context, I guess, but it's more - he's seen Erica through T3, known everything she's done and been through, watched it happen. And he's giving that to her in return. Which is just them, if he'd done it with Camilla it wouldn't be so hard. It's just because he's leaving. If DrN had done it with him he'd know she was married, for one.
Again, is it just context so she'll understand why he's leaving, and forgive him? Or is this a shortcut to the friendship they won't have, everything she'd have known about him, if they could have had that? Years compressed into a few minutes?
BTW, is part of this in here the bit where he went to find her in 2019, or the fiasco where he saved her from The Purple Door?
This is mostly Amanda, I'd think he'd want to slip in more about him and Erica because, yeah. Coming across a bit heavy on the weird. Though it does catch her up on what's been going on half the time they've been distant.
Young-Amanda still reminds me of Scorsone, which still weirds me out.
Well, at least we didn't go to sex because THAT would have been both weird, and very much TMI.
I find it ironic, in a watery way, that we left mind-meld with the "don't want to be left again" thing, even though what we have here is DrT leaving Erica. I also want to note that I still think Amanda might leave him because they aren't exactly suited to one another, that or she's just dull so I don't care about her either way, and Erica would NEVER leave him. Partly because she's clingy, but she's also loyal, have to give her that.
Why is he doing this 11 minutes in? Do we get more between them, or are we going to be left with this bomb while we try to watch things happen with other characters? I'm not sure, really, that I can shift my focus. Not even for Jent.
Dude: "I could feel, what you're feeling." Which is like DrT is putting himself as her first patient, because presumably that information is useful in sussing out how to help someone. And tidy, because she sort of acted as his Doctor that time he left her (the first time.) Then, DrN had given her some visuals to help her get it, he gave her some words and tears. This time he's given her everything, and none of that was his relationship with Erica which, hello, would be pertinent here unless he's deliberately withholding that now and will share it later.
Because I would think that when dumping someone forever like this, showing them that you're in love and in conflict is ultimately less comforting than showing them that you do care for them and (love) them and will miss them.
So we have a friendshippy moment, but are missing the part where he tells her he's leaving because of it. This pause, where she's adjusting and being happy for him, is a tentative touch of friendship, pretty much as much as they'll have.
He's going through this bit too easily. Was his anxiety earlier about showing her? About her reaction? And once she was okay with that...
IDEK. What's going on?
A little emotion now, softed music cue. He's circling down to goodbye's from the most general to... "I'm going to have to say goodbye... to you." I don't find that phrasing particularly gentle, and will now assume that he'd planned THIS out and is reciting it as rote as much as letting himself feel.
We're back to "permitted." Well, remember how that worked out last time? (With Leo's non-death.) Only I think that the way Erica gets around this one for her act of rebellion (always with DrT) is Erica43's little visit to DrT. Which is almost not breaking the rules because it was a time in which he was still a Doctor. And if Kai could come warn Erica about her future, a benign little conversation isn't too out of line.
At least he looks a little upset now. It also occurs to me that he would try not to fall apart in front of her anyway.
Huggies now?
So this speech took place with DrT behind his desk again, which is one issue I take with it. He's reestablished the Doctor/Patient relationship, him in control, a giant desk (space) between them. It disrupts the emotional closeness, we can't end with that.
Fade to black, and I thought we were skipping to a scene elsewhere, but yay! Still in office.
Erica's turn to talk, though she'll be confused and lost for a while yet, eh?
Right. THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR SWOOSHY ADVERTS.
I'm fine with the damn things, usually overlook them (though the zombie avatar Erica still creeps me the hell out) but AVOID THE EMOTIONALLY WRENCHING SCENES PLEASE.
DrT keeps saying it was a hard decision, a struggle. But it's like the flashes of his Amanda-related life - there's nothing about Erica. He's not saying he'll miss HER, or what she meant to HIM... It's, weird to say, impersonal, even as it's highly personal.
Erica's following his lead, trying to be reasonable and mature... She's already told him a couple times what he's done for her, reached out a little here and there. He always rebuffed her. And they're still doing that, not having the one conversation I (we?) want them to have. Erica will leave, he will let her, one will have to find the other before it's all over. It could be over now (after this goodbye.) She's a Doctor and there's nothing holding DrT to T3. But I think he won't quit until they get a real goodbye, and I think Erica will be there when he does.
He watched her come into the world of T3 (witness a beginning) and she needs to watch him exit the world of T3 (witness an ending.)
Erica brings up the practical question (they're being impersonal, practical) about who will replace him. And DrT doesn't even know? "Someone will step in." He didn't bother to CHECK?
This concludes their obvious business, she'll go (yes?). Ah, not quite yet. "Someone..." It's meant to be a "not you," I think, but comes across more as an accusation that he's leaving her along and adrift. Like he didn't care enough to make sure his Patients were going to be taken care of.
"I should go, and then I'll come back..." If he's gone before she can come back EPIC NOT COOL.
At least I'm crying with her (well, crying a bit earlier than her, same diff), so she and I are in the same place, again.
Waiting for DrT to cry too, I want them to cry together, she leaves (asks permission first, she normally doesn't choose her own exits and there's still ritual between them) and a tear slides down his cheek. I hope this doesn't mean he's lying to her again, saying he'll be there but he won't be.
I'd be more impressed except DrT cries a lot, and Riley cries more than any other actor I've seen.
So I'm happy, but not, that he was near crying while she was too watery to notice, and is finally showing that the whole conversation was as hard on him as it was on her. She means more than that to him, which we knew, but it's unclear how explicit that's going to be.
Been waiting for DrT/DrN scene. He knocked, so he's not in a rage.
Ooh, definitely affected him, since he's now in there panicking.
Why does "panicking" have a K, but "panic" does not?
He says he's abandoning "her," so yep, further confirmation that it's Erica. Not so pleasant that we're running to the Sarah comparison, because I've never bought it and thought it was an overly convenient and overly simplistic way to think of it. Especially when it's "proof and fodder" for all those fans who I will presume to say are viewing the show in a shallower way.
I mean, he emotionally abandoned Amanda, and Marjorie (if he ever was there at all) and has ignored his father... He runs from everyone to protect himself and why can't we bring THAT up?
So we went with "When the Doctor is ready, the Patient will appear." Yeah. So. Erica is the Doctor, she's ready, Tom will appear as Patient?
DrT can't let Erica go, but now it's all tainted because I'm supposed to think that he sees Erica as a surrogate daughter which is only vaguely true. .>:[ I do like that he's fighting himself and his decision and all of T3 over her. Even though now it looks like Erica is going to convince him to leave. Fitting, but...
Eww that is so gross. At least in the workplace, no dog should be licking your mouth. Germs. Strange things off the street. Eww. Just, eww. Clearly what Julianne is thinking , though she has the layer of knowing she kissed his mouth too. Doggie spit by proxy ewwwwwwwww.
I suppose this is our levity in a heavy episode. Out of place, don't like it. Sorry.
Why can't the dog sit on a cushion? On the floor?
At least he didn't try to kiss her (Julianne). Though that would have been funny.
I think now that Julianne is going to lose the dog, and have to go find it before Brent gets back.
Or it will eat her purse?
Erica is in her office crying, as real world time passes. Huh. How then do they make no time pass? Preplanning? Only doable with patients in tow?
Now that we're here, something has to happen. Will Erica use this opportunity to go somewhere, or is DrT barging in to rescind, or is DrN going to come in and explain a few things and tell Erica she's the one who has to get DrT to let her go?
I'm trying to pay more attention to music cues. There's a quasi-urgent drumming thing going on. Is that new?
Ah, Patient-view time. Out of jail, on the streets buying drugs. Hair still much like Erica's which I still find confusing. And sucky for Erica, because already upset and now shaken, she has to want to talk only DrT is nominally no longer there (the only thing they'd have to talk about is... goodbye?) so where's she going? DrN? (How would she know to get there? She's only gone to her office.)
Nowhere, right now. Slight pacing, self-soothing with arms wrapped in self-hug. She's feeling alone, abandoned, and abandoned in the sea of T3, when she has no idea how to row the boat (Doctorhood).
Ah, she doesn't go anywhere, but finds she can bring someone to her. That person is Adam, who presumably is easier to snag because she knows him, and also the only comfort she could have right now, him being boyfriend and in on T3. Convenient that he was walking through a door.
Funny how he was all confused, looking around going WTF am I? BTW, birdcage. Vaguely remember DrT having one? Dressform on other side.
Whoa. DrT told Adam DAYS before? Did he tell all his Patients, BTW, or just Adam? Pretty sure he didn't do the whole mind-meld thing, but then Adam (and (most) of the others) wouldn't be so gutted. And so Adam's just been walking around, pretending everything is normal, waiting for DrT to drop the bomb and Erica to "take it badly?" WTF BTW? She's not taking it badly, she's taking it like she should be taking it.
Little whooshy as Adam leaves, and I was worried we'd follow him (into DrT's office or something, not back to work.)
Erica sits for a moment, gathers her head, and strides purposefully for the door. Which is what DrT tends to do when super upset, and like that one time he was chasing her, I mostly expect Erica to end up in DrN's office. After all, DrN is officially in charge of her, or she wouldn't have told DrT that Erica was no longer his concern.
Yup.
"Final lesson." Eh? But... there are always lessons after lessons.
"Fix this." I don't like the tone. Aside from asking him to still be there so they could finish a conversation after she stopped sobbing, all she's done is sob, which is a perfectly reasonable response. It's his own damn fault she's keeping him there, maybe DrN too since she's the one who entangled them during the Leo!gate fallout.
Erica can't let him go, but he can't let her go either, and they're for his own sake, not just consideration for hers. Though I concur that Erica is the only one who can convince him to move on.
And a past-lives argument would be somewhat effective here. I'm not going to get over that tidbit. Graphic novel please?
Time for the rest of that ciggy. During which there was a not-so close encounter with a couple of deer who reminded me not-so-little of the dance we're playing now between Erica, DrT, and viewer. It involved watching, waiting, and walking away.
Erica is in a hallway full of identical white doors. Any choice here isn't nearly so clear as in our hallway before.
My thoughts are that Erica is going to wind up on the roof, play through for real the conversation with Tom, about being an angel, becoming the person who talks him off the ledge. And whether DrT is listening or the other Tom turns into him, for a last goodbye... IDEK. Full circle time. And the memories DrT shared started there.
She picks one, just to the right of the door she started in front of. The door DrT walked into that first time, spacially speaking, to go to his office. The one Erica went through to follow him.
She watches herself on a regret. Leo is in the hallway - somehow I forgot he was in this episode. Distracted, immersed.
Weird.
So this hallway is Leo's life, doors lead to parts of it. And Leo lives in there now, and for him only days have passed. Is this time distortion or is eternity only a little while, near frozen?
Same door, different day. Confused. But then, the number of doors that encompass the days of a lifetime would be a) a lot of walking and b) expensive for the set guys.
Little Erica runs with little Leo, and the girl watches and then the grown up Erica watches. Is this meant to be reassuring? Like, a goodbye now isn't a goodbye later, you will have your life forever and so holding on to things isn't necessary? This is thin reassurance at best. The entire point of T3 is to not get lost in memories, but use them to strive forwards. Unless the point is you are eternally in every moment, nothing is ever goodbye forever. The slide theory of quantum mechanics.
Ah. Leo is stuck, and Erica needs to help him let go and move on. Which is yes, what she needs to convince DrT to do.
I get it, but I'm fighting to tell myself it's not the same, because Leo is not moving forwards but it's not so clear cut for DrT.
For someone who spent so much time enjoying her past, no matter how sad, Erica jumps to the gray door of "the next life" pretty fast. She partially opens it, blinding white light, and when Leo pulls it shut (what would happen if she went through?) we see it's a shoddily made door because the light pours through all these cracks (cracks made BECAUSE she pulled it partially open?)
Knew that was going to happen. Leo resists, and when Erica tries to follow she's back in DrN's office.
If we're saying Leo will be ready to move on in his own time, why is DrN telling Erica to FORCE DrT to move on? Fishy.
Erica uses a DrT quote: "There is no constant, but change." Well, we know my perspective is that DrT and Erica's relationship will change, and this is all a little forced and iffy and it would be just as logical to finagle it so that DrT could have it all. Though yes, narratively speaking, he has to to chose one (Amanda) and move on. I'm having mental and emotional dissonance.
And I think that yes, DrT is resisting the beginning with Amanda. But I REFUSE to believe that he's not also resisting an end with Erica. It's an insult to four years of intense and rule-breakingT3 for Erica, four years of my investment, to leave me with that. Even though yes, Erica is also resisting becoming an autonomous Doctor without his support (she's clingy.) It is NOT necessary for a Doctor to disappear for that transition to happen.
Oh, I'm silly. She said they were "resisting the end." Got tied up a bit on DrN there. Sorry. Thank you!
Brent is holding the dog and pissy. This is a manufactured argument, I'm, oddly enough, tired of them. Or at least, tired of this one because it's so trivial in comparison to DRT LEAVING FOREVER.
It is funny though. Julianne "didn't know that" the doggie was over in Goblins (how'd she get through the dooir?) She called Dutchess an "it." And now she'spulling out the psychic assist to play "I don't hate her, she likes me." She did eat the purse. (Dutchess did, it would be really weird if Julianne did.)
Though, here's the thing. If a dog is growling at someone, you don't just explain it away as something the dog does. You work on it. I've watched enough Caesar to know that. Brent's being oblivious, and probably using the dog as a barrier as much as Julianne is. He does finally point out that she needs to work on making their relationship more equal.
Erica is in her office, staring at a fake window with scenery, rather than words.
Unless DrA comes through the door, which seems unlikely, I think DrT will. To talk about something and Erica will cut him off with goodbyes? Too soon.
Or she'll come to conclusion and find him. To convince him to say goodbye. Too soon.
Literally. We're only 30 minutes in.
This is cool. We pan upwards to watch Erica from the top as she goes through her door.
Also noting: some of the quotes are on crumbling plaster. As if, were time not stopped in her office, they would eventually fall away. Be gone. The last echoes of her Therapy with DrT, except for what's in her head. It's poetic but a little too sad.
DrT's office, still downwards shot. Like we're... The viewer, watching this all play out from our omniscient perspective? Like peering into a dollhouse?
We move down to watch her, she's the moving force, but we don't cut to see DrT's reaction, just hear his level greeting "Erica." It's almost possible that he's not there at all. And then we do cut, which is reassuring. So has he been waiting there, does she walk in to a time he IS there? How's it work? Could she have ended up in an empty office and he'd be called to answer it and walk in?
Yeah, he's talked himself into staying and now she's going to talk him out of it. ;'(
He IS sticking it all on her, until she's ready, and I don't believe it. He's either waiting until he's ready to let go of her, or there's something seriously mucked up about what is apparently now a one-sided relationship.
He's taking this kinda too well. Resettling in his chair a little. So earlier he did a bit of crying. I wanted it to be about having to say goodbye to her, but what, it was... disappointment or sadness over her not wanting it?
I don't think we've seen her regrets notebook closed, so I didn't actually know what it was when he picked it up. He reads through a few of the entries on her list, and there is laughter, joking, sharing. DrT is really good at impersonating Lozar. Since he never expressed any sort of judgment on these regrets, is a peek into him, that he has had these thoughts, paid attention to moments in her life, been through them WITH her.
I don't think they've ever laughed together, in a real way. Which I'd never really thought about (unless I have, I've had so many thoughts and conversations it's hard to remember, sometimes, everything.) never really thought about but laughter can be as binding as a hug. Sharing amusement.
Hold on - so are we going to 2019 at all?
Shared laughter is a good time for a goodbye, but fine, I'm sentimental and/or selfish, but I think I can only handle DrT leaving at the end, not now, with 10 minutes left to do... what? Can they go on one last trip/regret together? One last hurrah, as something other than just Doctor/Patient (which isn't all they've been for a long time, or at least, there was always potential...)
He's been dotting off all the regrets she's done, and I think we can get a screencap and read 'em to see.
He hands her her book, and we already know she'd need to turn it over to DrN or "someone." Symbolic though. As is her trying to hand it back. For what purpose, I have no idea. To remember her by, I guess, since we've just established that it contains a list of shared memories.
I keep saying I want him to hand her something tangible to keep with her in her office, but I kinda didn't realize I want her to give him something (more than memories, if he's allowed to keep them) to keep with him.
And NOW we get talkies. Thank you. "Thank you for changing my life." "And thank you for changing mine." And he finally tells her that she's special to him, which is what he has failed to say on many occasions. This admission effectively belies the "hey Adam, I'm leaving, Erica might freak out" thing - that act itself (along with the wait) was because he was freaking out too.
Nice Buddha quote. Incidentally, I popped back on Twitter recently and it turns out I follow the Dali Llama. There's something poetically right, but oh-so-wrong that this thing is possible.
Okay, moment here where DrT leans forwards just a little and am I the only one who suddenly went "um, is he going to kiss her?" During that moment it ambiguously looks like his eyes drop, like to her mouth, so I think it was legitimate confusion (and I'm waiting for a hug here so it's not like an attack of shippy glasses.)
It'll be done in fanfic though.
Well, crud. Goodbye time. I don't need to see beginnings you know, I'm fine ending with the end. Poetic.
He does the "let's hug" shrug, and at least it's a smiley kind of tears here because yeah, I've always felt - always KNOWN, that it (that they) had to end like this.
Only I thought it would never end. It's always that way, until it does. Everything always seems like it will last forever.
Mutual crying, long hug, goodbyes during hug. I mean, pretty much perfect, and by pretty much I'm qualifying for the bit of me still saying "circumvent the whole ending thing, it shouldn't end, not here, not now."
He just extricated himself and, offscreen, exited. We hear the door, that's it. He needed to be the one to leave, he is the one leaving T3.
Intriguingly, this leaves Erica in his office, which probably shouldn't be there since he's cut his last string. Only it would be weird to vanish her so I'm guessing his office is there
BTW, giving her her own list, even though it has his dotted checks, isn't really the tangible thing I wish she had. Can she pinch something? Did he leave something with her name on? Leave something in her office?
I'm guessing his office is going to be there until she leaves, and then will be gone forever.
Nope, it does start to go, bits at a time. Literally erasing before her eyes - hey, we can kinda see the painting on the mantel. It's artifacts of someone who's gone, the office is going, reverting to a blank slate? All that will be left is the door, if she waits that long. I think she would. Bearing witness 'til it all fades away.
Yup, all white, like he was never even there.
I wondered why Adam and Jenny were at the condo until I realized that Jenny is a real estate agent and of course they would use her.
I get that this is a beginning here, and she needs to take it. But... Can't there be some mourning, some wallowing? Clean breaks just don't happen and in a very real way DrT has essentially died (to her.)
She goes directly to the condo, which should look funny to Jenny as Adam just texted. It's pretty freaking huge space. Jenny proves a decent friend (and much better dresser than she used to be) and notes that Erica has been crying.
I like that as Jenny leaves them to talk condo, they're talking DrT. Did Adam know that Erica was the only thing keeping DrT there, or was he just thinking that Erica herself needed to come to terms with a foregone conclusion?
Is 50/50 doing that well that they can afford the space? I don't know real estate prices in Toronto.
Ooooh. It was Ivan and Dave providing the cookies. I thought it was like, strangers, and that would have been weird. Brent should have brought biscuits.
The dog shouldn't be on the table. People eat off there. It's unsanitary.
Julianne dressed up the dog, who looks to be wearing a chain as a collar which I find dangerous.
She then goes insecure to find out who he loves more, her or the dog. And Brent realizes that the dog needs to adjust too.
Erica is sitting up late, in bed, reading something (submission, I guess.) Weird music, we must be on her Patient again. Who I forgot. Because for me this episode is about endings, not beginnings, the beginnings are indicated, and I'm good with that being that.
Patient's hit rock bottom, I'm assuming that was injecting... uh, crack? Heroine? To be honest I'm iffy on what the difference is, or if they're roughly the same thing. I may or may not have done a lot and a variety of drugs in my time, but those were never even a possibility. Never ever. Hell, I even kept away from meth after watching several friends go through hardcore stretches.
And that's funny because all the stereotypes of meth addicts is soooo not what I saw. Makes a difference when people are simultaneously working on high level engineering and math problems. Getting off it is mostly the same, I imagine, only with different conversaitons.
Our new Patient looks a lot like Sarah, and the jail and the drugs would fit. Only that's too weird. I have bad facial recognition, need more differentiation here.
Ah, so THIS is why Erica is in hospital. Too bad on the "Adam is dead" front. And sorta relief on the "Tom quit and was immediately struck by a bus/heart attack" front. No, I don't really want Adam dead. It was just a thought to giggle over. Whenever I'm feeling pro-Kai.
My facial recognition was fine, or at least reasonable. Seeing as how it IS Sarah. And here it becomes weird, because clearly DrE couldn't be treating Sarah while DrT was still HER Doctor. But she was having flashes before DrT quit - but I guess Sarah was assigned (Doctors can't choose their first patient?) when DrT was GOING to leave.
This is in many ways worse. Because Tom will never know, and because DrE will now see Tom all the time in the past, but never be able to talk to him. She'll see his dark periods, more than she has, and he'll never know. And I don't think she can tell Sarah that her father was Erica's Doctor. Which will be tricky when Erica looks at past!Tom and remembers...
I mean, if Tom had a choice, when he wanted Sarah In Therapy, he'd want Erica to be it.
But this is just wrong.
Someone explain to me why it isn't wrong. I mean, it gives Sarah an out, but not EVERY arc needs to be tied up this neatly, not when it causes so many tangles.
The only thing it give us is Erica running through bits of Tom's past, before the "everything" he showed her in the mind-meld, so they'll at the end of it all know each other. But, again, to what end?
Clearly Tom and Marjorie were super non-effective there though.
Heroine. Is it a methodology? I know crack pipes are popular, I have one myself for other reasons, and presumably that's a delivery system...
DrE's card has a suspicious lack of address on it.
Leo is in his hallway. Sorry, but after not really mentioning him for so long, I'm just sort of "so what," over this.
So if Tom remembers T3, which I don't see how he can't do, Sarah will be making amends eventually. Will he recognize that she's in Therapy? Will he ask? Would it break rules to ask? Will he feel Erica in his past? Will Sarah mention her Therapists name? He can't have contact with Erica, or anyone from T3, but could he hear about her, know she's there? He couldn't pass messages along, but could he know she's still in his life, however peripherally?
Conclusion:
They laughed together, they cried together, they hugged (together, it would be weird if they hugged apart.) I hated the handshake but I loved this, it was everything I ever needed and I can't in good conscious say that I want (in canon) for Erica to seek him out, or for Tom to come back.
Except for that little break of the rules, when Erica43 steals for a moment back into his life. More pain and tears, but at least we know, for her, they might move on but never be over.
...I guess that means DrE never see's Tom at all, and he never finds out she was Sarah's Doctor... I'm okay with that too.
That's all I can really say, for now.
For my part, two conclusions. Well three, the third one being that "Streets of Gold" really is a perfect song for Being Erica, and I want to commit the ultimate faux pas of trying to vid it.
The first: I've been thinking for a while of changing my name. I adopted it when I was about 14 and just entering fandom, and rife with the usual teenage melodrama. It's still perfect in the same logical ways, but has been feeling too young for me - over a decade on I'm in a much different place on various levels. And now the name is on a fake book cover on a show that I love to pieces, would have loved anyway, but to be honest I've been pushing myself in the fandom because for the sake of my academic career, I needed to fully commit to a fandom and have that in my background. There were even a couple other fandoms that were larger and might have (almost) taken my attention, only they didn't pan out. If they had... I don't know.
It's still pretty awesome, and now that the show gave me (in the end) everything I always wanted, I can say that without feeling conflicted, since it felt like the show liked me more than I liked it, which would be a highly guilt-ridden place to end. I've abandoned enough shows, if I had to (see, I was right to trust them) but if I had to, I could have abandoned this one as well.
I think I could anyway. Though I'd be leaving a piece of my heart behind.
The thing is, with all that, and the show coming to a close, it feels like a good time to close out the name and start with something new. It's a good place to end. Only I don't want to change, and I don't know if it's a fear of moving forwards or I'm just taken the musing too far and changing would be me running from committing to what I always have been. If the name isn't as much who I was, as who I can be.
The second: Canon is at an end. Being Erica is at an end. It'll never end in the sense that all the episodes are still there and I can watch any bit at any time (in that hallway with every minute behind a door, just turn the knob and walk through). But I've always been about the first viewing - it's new, it's not dead, I wouldn't be watching at snails pace and writing these things if I didn't fully believe that.
The show's at an end, complete, on its own terms. And what's the beginning? Fanon. Derivative works. Rewatches and new connections and speculations and ideas and what ifs. Fandom says this is a new life, after the door of bright light. Even if fandom fades when new episodes aren't there to hold us together, and it'll just be threads as we move on to different shows and different conversations in different places with different people.
See, I'm at the beginning of "a tattered rose" all over again. Melodrama all the time, drippy prose. Obsession and investment and no holds barred. Maybe in the ways that were always important to me, I haven't changed at all. Or, you know, it's just a spring, and this is one thing that will never change.
Trepidation. I have had it.
PS. This is "The One in which I'm Pretty Damn Sentimental."
6 cups of coffee, 3 cloves, many, many, a dehydrating quantity of tears later, and despite all the ups and despite all the (many... ;\ ) downs this show has had, the finale?
Gave me everything I always wanted, and more than I ever expected.
I have my coffee, I just went out and had a cigarette. I'm smoking again, just a little, just to get me through when I'm en route to something. I was sitting on the steps watching silent woods and thinking about Home Depot.
The Garden Center is defunct now, but during the summer half the guys who worked out there knew me on sight. They knew me because I was there every few days, hauling hundreds of pounds of brick. I was one of THOSE customers: I know how they work, I know exactly what I want, I know how to get it and aside from actual check out and scheduling queries, I could do it all myself - and did. Even now I walk in the front door and brush off help - I can't understand why a grown man would need aid finding water and flashlights (it was a storm, not Armageddon, and who doesn't have flashlights anyway?) and I can't understand why someone couldn't figure out how to install a doorknob by themselves (the instructions are right there on the package.)
It's the same with Being Erica. I know how it works, I know what it is, and what it is not. I know what I want from it and how to get what I want. I know who to talk to and what we'll say, but that all comes in the aftermath. Every new episode and it's a brand new store, the layout is subtly different and it turns out as much as I like being one of THOSE fans, I think (I KNOW) that I'll miss being kept off balance even more.
Cigarette, finsihed.
Coffee, check.
Previouslies:
How do you Previously 4 years?
The stairs (Tardis-like space in a benign little building, the world of T3 in a world to small to hold it.) Leo, barely here lately but the driving force for the first part of our journey. In Training, a leap past alll of Group, but then Group wound up a technicality, a prop to introduce Adam rather than a stage in our journey (still so sad, I want to live in there for a while, spec out what might have been.) Family, memories shifted. Fiction department (but not 50/50... this is random, actually, her under-supported love of fiction never really solidified.) DrT, leaving. He was guiding her through the Previouslies, pulling her along and now drifting off.
Are there fans out there who aren't gutted by this? Whose fascination has been with Erica from the start, who haven't been tied up in the Erica/DrT dynamic far more than any other storyline? I know why I'm invested and the reasons are particular, but there's no way I'm not meant to be gutted, or this would never be endgame.
Show.
Another bed scene with Erica and Adam. -sighs-
Talking about beginnings and endings, referencing morning to night, summer to fall. The problem here is that while internally these ARE beginnings and endings, they are also cyclical events - my favourite metaphor being the spring - a coil. We repeat, we end up back where we were, almost the same but a little offset. DrT leaving is an ending, full stop. Unless we consider that he and Erica knew each other in other lives, will know each other again, but since this was NOT in the show, it barely exists. I feel cheated.
Unless we're talking about Adam and he drops dead during the episode.
Then the ceiling randomly falls down, a pipe is dripping, and some more ceiling falls down, as some sort of violent sign - more of an opportunity really - for Adam to invite Erica to move with him to, presumably, something larger than a tinderbox.
I'm eye-rolling, but otherwise just, meh. We're giving Erica beginnings, and I guess I should be okay with that because she's ending her old life in favour of new things, and so is DrT. Instead I feel a little condescended to, and don't think Erica really deserves any of this given she's still selfish and self-righteous and Julianne happily let Erica take 50/50 in a new and dangerous direction, even though Erica has now almost sold 50/50 out from under Julianne, almost destroyed Julianne's hard-won relationship, and generally been rude to everyone who wasn't her immediate concern.
Thanks for the reminder, show.
-positive thoughts-
How was he planning on asking? I'm assuming here that he didn't cause the ceiling to fall (the sky is falling!) firstly because that is probably illegal but mostly because we have reason to believe that his handyman skills stop at the front door.
HAHAHA! Yes, I am ROFLMAO here and no sarcasm, this is just perfect as hell and I'm not even sad that my ongoing half-belief that the entire show was a book penned by Tom, locked away in his office (or a mental institution. …Apparently that is a common enough plot line where I hang out that like zombies, it springs to mind at every possible opening.)
To keep us on the same page - Sinyor is pitching the novel, which has to be about what was pitched for the show. I'm assuming that guy is Martin, can't substantiate without some googling, but I'm distracted by the fact that he looks a hell of a lot like an RA I had in college. Only my RA was a sports photographer and it all makes me think of the riots after that Yankee/Red Sox game because he was there, camera out, when the cop killed that girl, and how I only knew any of this when he bugged off to avoid people trying to get the picture and how, that night, I wouldn't go home because apparently I am not one of those people who will run to a riot but stays away. (I lived a couple blocks from Fenway, I would have heard them from my bedroom, if nothing else.) Everything about this show reminds me of something in my past, but so few of those memories are actual regrets...
Sinyor and guyX are playing married, and the character is consistent - last time we saw her he and Dave had dated before, and that still stands. Hubby is jealous. Of a gay guy. Who just got married.
A point made, but as soon as we hit "gay" Erica swooshes into an insightful head space only it's not useful so much as confusing and violent and weird depressing shades of gray. We're looking through bars, someone crossing off days on a calendar, throwing magazines, having a fit on a bed.
WTF?
I'd be going back to the mental institution thing except I don't know if bars are a great idea.
And the hair on the woman, looks more like Erica's, though it was flashes, otherwise I'd guess Sarah, maybe? In jail?
Okay, that was really cool. The edge of dark and disturbing that has been sorely lacking since the last DrT episode.
Going to Goblins is maybe a bit of a poor choice given how Dave is a heated issue, but for Erica is doesn't matter because DrT is there to provide some context.
I'm still on how cool it would be if this was all a dream of a disturbed woman, and now that the dream is hitting a good place, steady state, it starts to fail as a cathartic release and is collapsing in on itself.
So this was Erica first connecting with a patient (what did DrT see with her?) and THIS IS A RATHER ABRUPT WAY TO ANNOUNCE THAT DOCTORHOOD IS UPON HER.
Appropriate though, and it's nice that we're getting this before the Previouslies, so much, actually, before the previouslies, so that we can work through it in what little time we have left. I'm ignoring the fact that this is the one thing DrT was waiting for before he could quit - there was never any doubt (I don't think?) that he would quit before Erica graduated. Maybe not even if she had still been in Group, but certainly not when she was so close.
Beginning of Doctor, end of Mentor. Still squinting at the fact that what, DrN is now Erica's go-to when she needs a bootkick? It's so much less a transitional moment when you consider that a Patient never really stops being a Patient.
Erica is understandably overwhelmed and confused, I like her in this moment, it's her as she was (the innocence) at the start of the show. DrT shares that it was like that for him, same reaction, tells her what DrN said - "when the Doctor is ready, the Patient appears." Very similar to what he said when Erica pulled him out of quitting, back in 2x01.
This is him going personal again, rare event but a bit more common once she'd graduated from Group. The thing is now I don't know if he's sharing because they're essentially colleagues, or because he knows he'll be leaving soon and is looking for a little bit of connection first, give her something of himself in return for what she's given him.
See, starting to cry a little bit. Because this isn't going to end well but then it also feels like it's heading in that direction I always wanted it too, because I hate "happy" endings because I don't believe in them.
BTW, her patient probably was in jail, we saw a uniform go in. But this whole Doctor thing is pretty violent, if she's going to be seeing disturbing flashes for a while (and it'll get worse) until she sees them hit rock bottom. Is this to increase sympathy? To "feel" the slide and thus know how to approach?
Can we go back to "you are your patient," where I thought it was literal, and in which case "you are not your patient" is relevant because she is so much more capable, sane, therapized?
"Metaphorical death." Erm. But everyone we've seen has been more of an "actual death," or at least strongly hinted as such.
Oh, right. Do we need to revisit DrT's rooftop? She asked him once if he was a ghost, an angel... and he noted that "the time for that answer has not yet come." Was it just a vague reference to the mysteries of Doctorhood? I was hoping it was more of a literal statement about her finding out what happened to him. His state of life was always a question, since you can recover from an overdose but not so much from going splat. And the papers said he was talked down by an unknown woman...
Likely to be DrN, but a girl can hope.
"You can "whoosh" like me... no limits." CUTE. Also, confirmation that she's his equal, in terms of power and status. Beginning of that, but we know from the conversation with Erica43 that he always expected this to be a real beginning, of a friendship they couldn't have while she was a patient, but which always lurked at the edges of the relationship they did have. Only now, his life is forcing him to make a decision that would destroy that future almost as soon as it begins.
And invites her to take them somewhere. Which I'm hoping is her office because we still don't know if she finished decorating or been back since that first time. I also like it because while I assume he'd go with her anyway, since she needs to practice, it reminds me of her free-for-all Doctor day, when she had to go figure it all out for herself, with DrT periodically picking up the pieces.
And... I like it because it still feels like a last goodbye. She has no limits now, and giving up control and letting her take him somewhere is a lot like a one-sided goodbye. She doesn't need him to guide her, he's the first one she guides. The first of anything is always special. He was the first one in her office.
I cry a lot. At media. Cathartic, you know - I very rarely cry at real life. I mention this, rather belatedly, because yes, tears again. Should's seen me with Dragonheart. Four minutes in and I knew the endgame and proceeded to cry through THE ENTIRE DAMN MOVIE.
Ooh, they ARE starting with her office, though at his …
Back up a second. When she asks if she should to it right then, he says yes, or rather "why not" in a breathy tone, another hint that this is going to be a goodbye, and it's happening faster than he can hold on to the moments.
...suggestion. She was asking him again, looking for guidance on where to go. I remember the hallway, she can't choose, can't take a lead (maybe she'll be better with her Patient but never with DrT, she's been looking to him for too long.) She followed him to his office, and now he's having her take him to hers (again, the first one to go there? A moment to imagine him as patient, roles reversed?) But it's more than that - her office is the place where she will always need to begin, and it's wrong to have her start "whooshing" from his office. It's a place where he's in control, his space.
I want him to give her something from his office. His office won't be there anymore anyway, so it'll be the last bit of him, aside from memories, in the T3 world. The last bit of him entirely if everyone forgets about him, though I still don't believe that will be true because it's just too problematic.
Tears.
I plan (always planned, I guess, more so now) to leave these reaction posts public, because there've been more than a few times with more than a few shows where I've needed... something... and glommed onto one person who wrote a lot about it. Never said anything but read through it. Comforting to know someone else someone else... does... I guess. And this fandom is small enough and I'm not quite anti-conceited enough to believe that no one (but ya'll I know) reads these or will read these. But I'm a little... something... over what the heck they'd think about me. I don't know what picture I paint.
Ooh, she's aquired walls! And a window! And everything else that makes a room, including what looks like a whiteboard wall (the most awesome things ever) and a fish. An amazing space, though I don't see her hanging chair. It's worn walls and muted dusty red and green and not a whole lot like her home décor. Someone help me parse this please?
Why did OO give my "décor" a little tick over the e, but still tell me it's misspelled? o.O
There's tissues on the Patients side of the table, with an uncomfortable looking wood chair ? Books stacked on hers. A blue book and pen on top - for the regrets of her first patient? A candle on a stand by the window, and all I can think is the mushroom lamp standing before the window in DrT's office.
All the books on her shelves are too brightly coloured and I don't see titles on the spines. Is this intentional? Because they look decorative rather than functional. I see a bit of brick wall like in 50/50, grungy walls like from Group. Very large words on the white-board wall, including the word "payment." I'm sure we'll be screencapping and analyzing what we can read later. Tall metal fat in the corner.
On the wall, in letters fading away, is a quote from C.S. Lewis: "With the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere." Referencing beginnings. Again. I love, because two C.S. Lewis quotes have been previously used, only I only remember the one about friendship.
Aha. Thank you Tumblr. This is, in fact, the second Lewis quote (unless there's another one.) Which is a permanent, worn in piece of DrT's advice, only I still want him to give her something physical because someone else's words isn't quite enough, and would only be unconscious nod to goodbye.
There's another quote behind her, probably more on the walls we don't see, I wonder if they're all from things he said, which stuck with her? There's no way to imagine every detail, I'm thinking Erica gave the room a start and then it pulled from her to complete forming itself. Esp as she seems surprised, looking at it.
I think I'm also having a teary situation because apart from impending goodbye, this is the first time they've had significant and open screentime for like, a year and a half, and that was probably the single most significant source of my ongoing discontent. I can handle a lot, I can take both sides of any other argument and groove with the Erica/Adam endgame, but the separation of these two broke me over and over again.
Confirmation - her subconscious did it all, which is sort of the same thing considering her room IS herin a sense. Thus, we can postulate that a Doctor's office is a space they open from themselves to give their Patients an outside, reassuring space from which to tackle their own issues.
DrT compliments her room, which feels more intimate than maybe it should, probably because when it says "it's lovely" in a quieter tone I'm predisposed to think he's also talking about her subconscious, herself, whatever.
Of course he's the first one to call her "Dr. Erica," for real, once she really is one. Sealing it. Strange. A second ago, in his office, he said she was almost one, but now that she's... In her office? Has moved herself and someone else? She's officially made the transition.
I still sort of want to have seen more of Camilla. But not. The thing is that I've always wanted to see other patients in order to compare the way he and Erica interact. But it would only be partial knowledge since everyone is different, and we've generally held too close to Erica - the only way to watch someone else would be to fit it into a DrT arc, which would be tricky.
Awww. DrT is acting all weird and uncertain and offers to leave her alone and I'm waiting for her to take up that challenge and drag him back to the concert she missed before.
What we're seeing is a full transition. Erica is Doctorfied, she's in her office, she's sitting at her desk. DrT has no more immediate place in her life, no reason to still be there now that she's delivered. There's something else he wants to say, but she'll have to pull it out of him.
I don't want him to quit because there's too much unresolved between them and there's no way they can get through it in one episode, especially with so many other arcs to tie together, except maybe there is because this show moves pretty speedily when it wants to. Tears. I know, I'm just making myself cry. If I could turn my brain off I'd be fine. I'm not sure I want it all resolved anyway, it would be way too final, closing it all out. We can never know everything about someone, even less when under constraints (a character in a book, even a character in a show, a friend, a lover, a parent, a child.) It would be dumb to think anything could really wrap things up, and loose threads at least tie the heart.
So the same episode that Lewis quote comes from (probably) gives us this: "Insecurity. It’ s in all of us. That voice inside that tells us that we can’ t do something, that we’ re not good enough, that we shoudn’t even try. And when we listen to the voice we hold ourselves back in ways we don’ t even realize. All because we’ re scared to take a chance, to face our fears, to see what we’ re really capable of."
That feels a lot like DrT right now.
He keeps talking after the "you want me to leave?" thing. If he's stopped there she would have said no, but he gave her so many reasons that it would be awkward to ask him to stay. Off he goes, still looking like this is really not what he actually wants, and it's a nice shot with him crossing from the left, Erica fuzzy in the background behind her fish and desk (so much space between them, moving farther apart.) She's framed between two windows (almost industrial, I have a thing for industrial windows) and I don't know if there's something to read there. ?
He does touch the back of her Patient chair (still, I think it should be more comfortable, is this her subconscious manifesting a lack of comfort with the idea?) As if... He wants to sit and chat? He's imagining someone sitting there? It represents the fact that she is no longer in this seat, but at the other side of the desk?
I was expecting, based on his face and direction that the camera was going to pan him as he walked into DrN's office to get some advice on how to say goodbye - DrN, no matter what else, knows that he needs to let go of Erica, and needs to let her have a goodbye as well. And it's in him to talk himself out of all of it and just walk away. Which wouldn't be good for either of them.
But before we can do that Erica calls to him, still using the "honorific" even though technically, I guess, it's appropriate to just call him Tom, though as he's her Doctor it's probably typical to keep that relationship in many moments. They aren't at friend level until she calls him Tom, though.
There are words on the other side of her windows too, and based on seeing the one behind her (an abbreviated form of "Learn to be what you are, and learn to resign with good grace all that you are not. -" Henri-Frédéric Amiel) - I think all the quotes are DrT quotes. Lodged in her subconscious (she exchanged one with Adam, recognized the diamonds quote... we know she remembers them). That's awesome, he's all around her. Echoes, at least.
Except it's also like a graveyard. Other people's words carved on tombstone walls, ghost of a man. Too many graveyards in my dreams - I've been hiding in The Pretender and every other fic (literally) has someone long dead or newly dead, dying or about to die. The show spends so much time in them as well.
But it's true.
It's like Erica can feel him slipping away, though at this point it's probably the old clinginess. Checking to see if he'll still be there (for her.)
Rewound a bit and I think the hand on the Patient chair was more of a crutch to get him turned around and thus out the door.
She's begging for reassurance and he's inches from saying he can't. This is, I guess, the thread holding them together, and holding him back, as he finally says "of course." She's a Doctor and this is the point where he quits. But he can't say goodbye. If left on his own, would he not leave at all? Is she holding him back? Is he holding himself back? Is Amanda pulling him away?
He turns again, more conflicted than before, and NOW it's DrN's office of his own, and if it's his own he'll be pacing, or looking out the window. I think.
His office.
From the other side of the door, which is nice. Necessary, given we were to the side of him before, but the only time I can really remember standing here before was in 1x12 when Erica saved Leo and he grabbed her. Which makes me want to see Erica grab him and hold on (metaphorically), only I guess that's what she's doing, albeit unwittingly.
He stops in the middle of the room and looks around, almost like he doesn't feel he belongs there anymore, or he's considering if it's worth it to stay. Has he said goodbye to everything (everyone) but Erica?
I didn't see airholes in that bag. How does Julianne not already have opinions on the dog that Brent knows about. And OMG doggie daycare? LOL! Why can't she stay at home, and he can zip out at lunch for walkies? (Our old dog, we just left in the morning and came home after work/school and he was fine. So I find it weird. Granted, current doggies have been spoiled into thinking they need to go every 3 hours, so I guess I can't talk.) All in all, finally explains the behind-the-scenes photos with a puppy.
I am also still amused to see that Goblins is still running on the old-style travel cups. Completely awesome, and totally makes sense both from the production standpoint (already had them made up, can't afford new ones) and internally Goblin's standpoint (same rationale.)
GASP OMG.
I WAS WATCHING DOGGIE. Who, BTW, is obviously very chill and well behaved and probably avoids the advice to never work with animals. I picture my own in that situation, and the result would be unfortunate for everyone. Actually one would probably be okay, though he'd be looking very concerned.
Back to the GASP. DrT walks into the door pretty fast, and this is just.... It's DrT walking into 50/50. I mean. Whoa. OMG. I don't know if he meant to be there, or he just went to wherever Erica was and didn't bother to sneak around the back way to catch her alone (or at least in a crowd.)
I was all set to not see him for a couple scenes, since we just had a long one.
Does he know something? And that's why he's there? Like, did he find out that Sarah is Erica's Patient? Or finally steel himself to tell her he's quitting, DrN is her goto?
We just never see him in Erica's life, beyond a guy at a door or that once a faux neighbor, in front of Jenny. A interviewee for The Sex Book. Okay, we have seen him, but in situations where it was natural. This is not. This is strange.
I'm a bit overwhelmed and need a half-ciggy break. Journey through the episode. It's justified. I'll quit after Holidays, when everything (the stressful things, the deadlines and endings) are over.
Mr. Tom. LOL!
He was looking and Brent and Julianne when he came in, like he didn't realize they'd be there, was trying to figure out where he was. He's looking major confused and upset and of course they don't end up in Gobins but go into his office and it's funny to think that Jent are thinking they're just in the coffee shop. A secret world, instead.
Erica is concerned. We're all concerned. He couldn't even wait for her to go through a door or pop her into his office (respect for her Doctor status?) Only no, he had to go get her because this isn't a session. This isn't her trouble, it's his.
He's trying to get her to sit, just sit, Patient again, give him the control, he's out of control because he's upset and he doesn't know what to do and she pushes and he's looking away and trying to gain control and gather his thoughts, steady himself and
He yells. A little bit. Like he always has done with upset and out of control.
At least he apologizes, and there was a Please, in there
"Okay, I've gotten off to a bad start here." Ya think? I think he hadn't planned this out very much.
I'm nervous and upset because this is all happening up front and I take that to mean that the middle of the episode will have them dealing with other things and I want them back and together throughout the episode. If they have to separate, for good, at the end, I want them together for as much time as possible now. Make up for all the episodes they weren't, sent them off with whatever stretch of friendship they can have.
BTW, I'm still wanting, very much, that hug I've been waiting for since way to early on. Please? The dance was a lot but not a replacement.
He doesn't sit down. He wants to pace. He isn't a Doctor here, even though he's trying to act like one even though he's not talking to her like she's a Patient.
He's talking himself in circles, phrases inside of phrases, leaving his decision (the goodbye) at the outside of his panic outside of his attempts at context. Because he needs her to understand? Because he wants her to know?
He did want to tell her earlier, and maybe he would have if she had asked him to stay. But he made it difficult for her to do so, just like he wanted.
Walks up to the chair, I thought he was going to sit on his desk (he's done it before) and asks her to "come here," which... huggles? Strange time for it. Is he taking her to see something, instead? And it's easier if she's standing and he wants them to end up close together so he can talk to her about whatever it is?
"Just, uh, look at me." Uh. Brain meld? Travel through eye? Which they don't need to do from so close, and the "look at me" is interesting a) because he's been specifically NOT looking at her for so much of the time they've been together this episode and b) because it, combined with proximity, is again, intimate (and no, I don't mean in the romantic sense, I still don't ship them in canon and ship them in fanon half because I like to prove a point to people who would never consider the pairing.)
Wow, it IS brain meld! That's kind of cool, and kind of intimate. Words are one thing, he could explain the facts and that would be enough, but instead he's giving her all of it, I guess like he's a Patient, that sort of knowing. Which, okay, mostly just tears but now it's a bit of the unavoidable sobbing kind.
BTW I get the Kleenex advice. The sleeve of my oversized sweatshirt is pretty damp. Probably better, tissues can be pretty rough on the eyes after the first dozen.
So apart from this being his life in T3 rather than the whole thing (she knew the important bits anyway, this is context, I guess, but it's more - he's seen Erica through T3, known everything she's done and been through, watched it happen. And he's giving that to her in return. Which is just them, if he'd done it with Camilla it wouldn't be so hard. It's just because he's leaving. If DrN had done it with him he'd know she was married, for one.
Again, is it just context so she'll understand why he's leaving, and forgive him? Or is this a shortcut to the friendship they won't have, everything she'd have known about him, if they could have had that? Years compressed into a few minutes?
BTW, is part of this in here the bit where he went to find her in 2019, or the fiasco where he saved her from The Purple Door?
This is mostly Amanda, I'd think he'd want to slip in more about him and Erica because, yeah. Coming across a bit heavy on the weird. Though it does catch her up on what's been going on half the time they've been distant.
Young-Amanda still reminds me of Scorsone, which still weirds me out.
Well, at least we didn't go to sex because THAT would have been both weird, and very much TMI.
I find it ironic, in a watery way, that we left mind-meld with the "don't want to be left again" thing, even though what we have here is DrT leaving Erica. I also want to note that I still think Amanda might leave him because they aren't exactly suited to one another, that or she's just dull so I don't care about her either way, and Erica would NEVER leave him. Partly because she's clingy, but she's also loyal, have to give her that.
Why is he doing this 11 minutes in? Do we get more between them, or are we going to be left with this bomb while we try to watch things happen with other characters? I'm not sure, really, that I can shift my focus. Not even for Jent.
Dude: "I could feel, what you're feeling." Which is like DrT is putting himself as her first patient, because presumably that information is useful in sussing out how to help someone. And tidy, because she sort of acted as his Doctor that time he left her (the first time.) Then, DrN had given her some visuals to help her get it, he gave her some words and tears. This time he's given her everything, and none of that was his relationship with Erica which, hello, would be pertinent here unless he's deliberately withholding that now and will share it later.
Because I would think that when dumping someone forever like this, showing them that you're in love and in conflict is ultimately less comforting than showing them that you do care for them and (love) them and will miss them.
So we have a friendshippy moment, but are missing the part where he tells her he's leaving because of it. This pause, where she's adjusting and being happy for him, is a tentative touch of friendship, pretty much as much as they'll have.
He's going through this bit too easily. Was his anxiety earlier about showing her? About her reaction? And once she was okay with that...
IDEK. What's going on?
A little emotion now, softed music cue. He's circling down to goodbye's from the most general to... "I'm going to have to say goodbye... to you." I don't find that phrasing particularly gentle, and will now assume that he'd planned THIS out and is reciting it as rote as much as letting himself feel.
We're back to "permitted." Well, remember how that worked out last time? (With Leo's non-death.) Only I think that the way Erica gets around this one for her act of rebellion (always with DrT) is Erica43's little visit to DrT. Which is almost not breaking the rules because it was a time in which he was still a Doctor. And if Kai could come warn Erica about her future, a benign little conversation isn't too out of line.
At least he looks a little upset now. It also occurs to me that he would try not to fall apart in front of her anyway.
Huggies now?
So this speech took place with DrT behind his desk again, which is one issue I take with it. He's reestablished the Doctor/Patient relationship, him in control, a giant desk (space) between them. It disrupts the emotional closeness, we can't end with that.
Fade to black, and I thought we were skipping to a scene elsewhere, but yay! Still in office.
Erica's turn to talk, though she'll be confused and lost for a while yet, eh?
Right. THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR SWOOSHY ADVERTS.
I'm fine with the damn things, usually overlook them (though the zombie avatar Erica still creeps me the hell out) but AVOID THE EMOTIONALLY WRENCHING SCENES PLEASE.
DrT keeps saying it was a hard decision, a struggle. But it's like the flashes of his Amanda-related life - there's nothing about Erica. He's not saying he'll miss HER, or what she meant to HIM... It's, weird to say, impersonal, even as it's highly personal.
Erica's following his lead, trying to be reasonable and mature... She's already told him a couple times what he's done for her, reached out a little here and there. He always rebuffed her. And they're still doing that, not having the one conversation I (we?) want them to have. Erica will leave, he will let her, one will have to find the other before it's all over. It could be over now (after this goodbye.) She's a Doctor and there's nothing holding DrT to T3. But I think he won't quit until they get a real goodbye, and I think Erica will be there when he does.
He watched her come into the world of T3 (witness a beginning) and she needs to watch him exit the world of T3 (witness an ending.)
Erica brings up the practical question (they're being impersonal, practical) about who will replace him. And DrT doesn't even know? "Someone will step in." He didn't bother to CHECK?
This concludes their obvious business, she'll go (yes?). Ah, not quite yet. "Someone..." It's meant to be a "not you," I think, but comes across more as an accusation that he's leaving her along and adrift. Like he didn't care enough to make sure his Patients were going to be taken care of.
"I should go, and then I'll come back..." If he's gone before she can come back EPIC NOT COOL.
At least I'm crying with her (well, crying a bit earlier than her, same diff), so she and I are in the same place, again.
Waiting for DrT to cry too, I want them to cry together, she leaves (asks permission first, she normally doesn't choose her own exits and there's still ritual between them) and a tear slides down his cheek. I hope this doesn't mean he's lying to her again, saying he'll be there but he won't be.
I'd be more impressed except DrT cries a lot, and Riley cries more than any other actor I've seen.
So I'm happy, but not, that he was near crying while she was too watery to notice, and is finally showing that the whole conversation was as hard on him as it was on her. She means more than that to him, which we knew, but it's unclear how explicit that's going to be.
Been waiting for DrT/DrN scene. He knocked, so he's not in a rage.
Ooh, definitely affected him, since he's now in there panicking.
Why does "panicking" have a K, but "panic" does not?
He says he's abandoning "her," so yep, further confirmation that it's Erica. Not so pleasant that we're running to the Sarah comparison, because I've never bought it and thought it was an overly convenient and overly simplistic way to think of it. Especially when it's "proof and fodder" for all those fans who I will presume to say are viewing the show in a shallower way.
I mean, he emotionally abandoned Amanda, and Marjorie (if he ever was there at all) and has ignored his father... He runs from everyone to protect himself and why can't we bring THAT up?
So we went with "When the Doctor is ready, the Patient will appear." Yeah. So. Erica is the Doctor, she's ready, Tom will appear as Patient?
DrT can't let Erica go, but now it's all tainted because I'm supposed to think that he sees Erica as a surrogate daughter which is only vaguely true. .>:[ I do like that he's fighting himself and his decision and all of T3 over her. Even though now it looks like Erica is going to convince him to leave. Fitting, but...
Eww that is so gross. At least in the workplace, no dog should be licking your mouth. Germs. Strange things off the street. Eww. Just, eww. Clearly what Julianne is thinking , though she has the layer of knowing she kissed his mouth too. Doggie spit by proxy ewwwwwwwww.
I suppose this is our levity in a heavy episode. Out of place, don't like it. Sorry.
Why can't the dog sit on a cushion? On the floor?
At least he didn't try to kiss her (Julianne). Though that would have been funny.
I think now that Julianne is going to lose the dog, and have to go find it before Brent gets back.
Or it will eat her purse?
Erica is in her office crying, as real world time passes. Huh. How then do they make no time pass? Preplanning? Only doable with patients in tow?
Now that we're here, something has to happen. Will Erica use this opportunity to go somewhere, or is DrT barging in to rescind, or is DrN going to come in and explain a few things and tell Erica she's the one who has to get DrT to let her go?
I'm trying to pay more attention to music cues. There's a quasi-urgent drumming thing going on. Is that new?
Ah, Patient-view time. Out of jail, on the streets buying drugs. Hair still much like Erica's which I still find confusing. And sucky for Erica, because already upset and now shaken, she has to want to talk only DrT is nominally no longer there (the only thing they'd have to talk about is... goodbye?) so where's she going? DrN? (How would she know to get there? She's only gone to her office.)
Nowhere, right now. Slight pacing, self-soothing with arms wrapped in self-hug. She's feeling alone, abandoned, and abandoned in the sea of T3, when she has no idea how to row the boat (Doctorhood).
Ah, she doesn't go anywhere, but finds she can bring someone to her. That person is Adam, who presumably is easier to snag because she knows him, and also the only comfort she could have right now, him being boyfriend and in on T3. Convenient that he was walking through a door.
Funny how he was all confused, looking around going WTF am I? BTW, birdcage. Vaguely remember DrT having one? Dressform on other side.
Whoa. DrT told Adam DAYS before? Did he tell all his Patients, BTW, or just Adam? Pretty sure he didn't do the whole mind-meld thing, but then Adam (and (most) of the others) wouldn't be so gutted. And so Adam's just been walking around, pretending everything is normal, waiting for DrT to drop the bomb and Erica to "take it badly?" WTF BTW? She's not taking it badly, she's taking it like she should be taking it.
Little whooshy as Adam leaves, and I was worried we'd follow him (into DrT's office or something, not back to work.)
Erica sits for a moment, gathers her head, and strides purposefully for the door. Which is what DrT tends to do when super upset, and like that one time he was chasing her, I mostly expect Erica to end up in DrN's office. After all, DrN is officially in charge of her, or she wouldn't have told DrT that Erica was no longer his concern.
Yup.
"Final lesson." Eh? But... there are always lessons after lessons.
"Fix this." I don't like the tone. Aside from asking him to still be there so they could finish a conversation after she stopped sobbing, all she's done is sob, which is a perfectly reasonable response. It's his own damn fault she's keeping him there, maybe DrN too since she's the one who entangled them during the Leo!gate fallout.
Erica can't let him go, but he can't let her go either, and they're for his own sake, not just consideration for hers. Though I concur that Erica is the only one who can convince him to move on.
And a past-lives argument would be somewhat effective here. I'm not going to get over that tidbit. Graphic novel please?
Time for the rest of that ciggy. During which there was a not-so close encounter with a couple of deer who reminded me not-so-little of the dance we're playing now between Erica, DrT, and viewer. It involved watching, waiting, and walking away.
Erica is in a hallway full of identical white doors. Any choice here isn't nearly so clear as in our hallway before.
My thoughts are that Erica is going to wind up on the roof, play through for real the conversation with Tom, about being an angel, becoming the person who talks him off the ledge. And whether DrT is listening or the other Tom turns into him, for a last goodbye... IDEK. Full circle time. And the memories DrT shared started there.
She picks one, just to the right of the door she started in front of. The door DrT walked into that first time, spacially speaking, to go to his office. The one Erica went through to follow him.
She watches herself on a regret. Leo is in the hallway - somehow I forgot he was in this episode. Distracted, immersed.
Weird.
So this hallway is Leo's life, doors lead to parts of it. And Leo lives in there now, and for him only days have passed. Is this time distortion or is eternity only a little while, near frozen?
Same door, different day. Confused. But then, the number of doors that encompass the days of a lifetime would be a) a lot of walking and b) expensive for the set guys.
Little Erica runs with little Leo, and the girl watches and then the grown up Erica watches. Is this meant to be reassuring? Like, a goodbye now isn't a goodbye later, you will have your life forever and so holding on to things isn't necessary? This is thin reassurance at best. The entire point of T3 is to not get lost in memories, but use them to strive forwards. Unless the point is you are eternally in every moment, nothing is ever goodbye forever. The slide theory of quantum mechanics.
Ah. Leo is stuck, and Erica needs to help him let go and move on. Which is yes, what she needs to convince DrT to do.
I get it, but I'm fighting to tell myself it's not the same, because Leo is not moving forwards but it's not so clear cut for DrT.
For someone who spent so much time enjoying her past, no matter how sad, Erica jumps to the gray door of "the next life" pretty fast. She partially opens it, blinding white light, and when Leo pulls it shut (what would happen if she went through?) we see it's a shoddily made door because the light pours through all these cracks (cracks made BECAUSE she pulled it partially open?)
Knew that was going to happen. Leo resists, and when Erica tries to follow she's back in DrN's office.
If we're saying Leo will be ready to move on in his own time, why is DrN telling Erica to FORCE DrT to move on? Fishy.
Erica uses a DrT quote: "There is no constant, but change." Well, we know my perspective is that DrT and Erica's relationship will change, and this is all a little forced and iffy and it would be just as logical to finagle it so that DrT could have it all. Though yes, narratively speaking, he has to to chose one (Amanda) and move on. I'm having mental and emotional dissonance.
And I think that yes, DrT is resisting the beginning with Amanda. But I REFUSE to believe that he's not also resisting an end with Erica. It's an insult to four years of intense and rule-breakingT3 for Erica, four years of my investment, to leave me with that. Even though yes, Erica is also resisting becoming an autonomous Doctor without his support (she's clingy.) It is NOT necessary for a Doctor to disappear for that transition to happen.
Oh, I'm silly. She said they were "resisting the end." Got tied up a bit on DrN there. Sorry. Thank you!
Brent is holding the dog and pissy. This is a manufactured argument, I'm, oddly enough, tired of them. Or at least, tired of this one because it's so trivial in comparison to DRT LEAVING FOREVER.
It is funny though. Julianne "didn't know that" the doggie was over in Goblins (how'd she get through the dooir?) She called Dutchess an "it." And now she'spulling out the psychic assist to play "I don't hate her, she likes me." She did eat the purse. (Dutchess did, it would be really weird if Julianne did.)
Though, here's the thing. If a dog is growling at someone, you don't just explain it away as something the dog does. You work on it. I've watched enough Caesar to know that. Brent's being oblivious, and probably using the dog as a barrier as much as Julianne is. He does finally point out that she needs to work on making their relationship more equal.
Erica is in her office, staring at a fake window with scenery, rather than words.
Unless DrA comes through the door, which seems unlikely, I think DrT will. To talk about something and Erica will cut him off with goodbyes? Too soon.
Or she'll come to conclusion and find him. To convince him to say goodbye. Too soon.
Literally. We're only 30 minutes in.
This is cool. We pan upwards to watch Erica from the top as she goes through her door.
Also noting: some of the quotes are on crumbling plaster. As if, were time not stopped in her office, they would eventually fall away. Be gone. The last echoes of her Therapy with DrT, except for what's in her head. It's poetic but a little too sad.
DrT's office, still downwards shot. Like we're... The viewer, watching this all play out from our omniscient perspective? Like peering into a dollhouse?
We move down to watch her, she's the moving force, but we don't cut to see DrT's reaction, just hear his level greeting "Erica." It's almost possible that he's not there at all. And then we do cut, which is reassuring. So has he been waiting there, does she walk in to a time he IS there? How's it work? Could she have ended up in an empty office and he'd be called to answer it and walk in?
Yeah, he's talked himself into staying and now she's going to talk him out of it. ;'(
He IS sticking it all on her, until she's ready, and I don't believe it. He's either waiting until he's ready to let go of her, or there's something seriously mucked up about what is apparently now a one-sided relationship.
He's taking this kinda too well. Resettling in his chair a little. So earlier he did a bit of crying. I wanted it to be about having to say goodbye to her, but what, it was... disappointment or sadness over her not wanting it?
I don't think we've seen her regrets notebook closed, so I didn't actually know what it was when he picked it up. He reads through a few of the entries on her list, and there is laughter, joking, sharing. DrT is really good at impersonating Lozar. Since he never expressed any sort of judgment on these regrets, is a peek into him, that he has had these thoughts, paid attention to moments in her life, been through them WITH her.
I don't think they've ever laughed together, in a real way. Which I'd never really thought about (unless I have, I've had so many thoughts and conversations it's hard to remember, sometimes, everything.) never really thought about but laughter can be as binding as a hug. Sharing amusement.
Hold on - so are we going to 2019 at all?
Shared laughter is a good time for a goodbye, but fine, I'm sentimental and/or selfish, but I think I can only handle DrT leaving at the end, not now, with 10 minutes left to do... what? Can they go on one last trip/regret together? One last hurrah, as something other than just Doctor/Patient (which isn't all they've been for a long time, or at least, there was always potential...)
He's been dotting off all the regrets she's done, and I think we can get a screencap and read 'em to see.
He hands her her book, and we already know she'd need to turn it over to DrN or "someone." Symbolic though. As is her trying to hand it back. For what purpose, I have no idea. To remember her by, I guess, since we've just established that it contains a list of shared memories.
I keep saying I want him to hand her something tangible to keep with her in her office, but I kinda didn't realize I want her to give him something (more than memories, if he's allowed to keep them) to keep with him.
And NOW we get talkies. Thank you. "Thank you for changing my life." "And thank you for changing mine." And he finally tells her that she's special to him, which is what he has failed to say on many occasions. This admission effectively belies the "hey Adam, I'm leaving, Erica might freak out" thing - that act itself (along with the wait) was because he was freaking out too.
Nice Buddha quote. Incidentally, I popped back on Twitter recently and it turns out I follow the Dali Llama. There's something poetically right, but oh-so-wrong that this thing is possible.
Okay, moment here where DrT leans forwards just a little and am I the only one who suddenly went "um, is he going to kiss her?" During that moment it ambiguously looks like his eyes drop, like to her mouth, so I think it was legitimate confusion (and I'm waiting for a hug here so it's not like an attack of shippy glasses.)
It'll be done in fanfic though.
Well, crud. Goodbye time. I don't need to see beginnings you know, I'm fine ending with the end. Poetic.
He does the "let's hug" shrug, and at least it's a smiley kind of tears here because yeah, I've always felt - always KNOWN, that it (that they) had to end like this.
Only I thought it would never end. It's always that way, until it does. Everything always seems like it will last forever.
Mutual crying, long hug, goodbyes during hug. I mean, pretty much perfect, and by pretty much I'm qualifying for the bit of me still saying "circumvent the whole ending thing, it shouldn't end, not here, not now."
He just extricated himself and, offscreen, exited. We hear the door, that's it. He needed to be the one to leave, he is the one leaving T3.
Intriguingly, this leaves Erica in his office, which probably shouldn't be there since he's cut his last string. Only it would be weird to vanish her so I'm guessing his office is there
BTW, giving her her own list, even though it has his dotted checks, isn't really the tangible thing I wish she had. Can she pinch something? Did he leave something with her name on? Leave something in her office?
I'm guessing his office is going to be there until she leaves, and then will be gone forever.
Nope, it does start to go, bits at a time. Literally erasing before her eyes - hey, we can kinda see the painting on the mantel. It's artifacts of someone who's gone, the office is going, reverting to a blank slate? All that will be left is the door, if she waits that long. I think she would. Bearing witness 'til it all fades away.
Yup, all white, like he was never even there.
I wondered why Adam and Jenny were at the condo until I realized that Jenny is a real estate agent and of course they would use her.
I get that this is a beginning here, and she needs to take it. But... Can't there be some mourning, some wallowing? Clean breaks just don't happen and in a very real way DrT has essentially died (to her.)
She goes directly to the condo, which should look funny to Jenny as Adam just texted. It's pretty freaking huge space. Jenny proves a decent friend (and much better dresser than she used to be) and notes that Erica has been crying.
I like that as Jenny leaves them to talk condo, they're talking DrT. Did Adam know that Erica was the only thing keeping DrT there, or was he just thinking that Erica herself needed to come to terms with a foregone conclusion?
Is 50/50 doing that well that they can afford the space? I don't know real estate prices in Toronto.
Ooooh. It was Ivan and Dave providing the cookies. I thought it was like, strangers, and that would have been weird. Brent should have brought biscuits.
The dog shouldn't be on the table. People eat off there. It's unsanitary.
Julianne dressed up the dog, who looks to be wearing a chain as a collar which I find dangerous.
She then goes insecure to find out who he loves more, her or the dog. And Brent realizes that the dog needs to adjust too.
Erica is sitting up late, in bed, reading something (submission, I guess.) Weird music, we must be on her Patient again. Who I forgot. Because for me this episode is about endings, not beginnings, the beginnings are indicated, and I'm good with that being that.
Patient's hit rock bottom, I'm assuming that was injecting... uh, crack? Heroine? To be honest I'm iffy on what the difference is, or if they're roughly the same thing. I may or may not have done a lot and a variety of drugs in my time, but those were never even a possibility. Never ever. Hell, I even kept away from meth after watching several friends go through hardcore stretches.
And that's funny because all the stereotypes of meth addicts is soooo not what I saw. Makes a difference when people are simultaneously working on high level engineering and math problems. Getting off it is mostly the same, I imagine, only with different conversaitons.
Our new Patient looks a lot like Sarah, and the jail and the drugs would fit. Only that's too weird. I have bad facial recognition, need more differentiation here.
Ah, so THIS is why Erica is in hospital. Too bad on the "Adam is dead" front. And sorta relief on the "Tom quit and was immediately struck by a bus/heart attack" front. No, I don't really want Adam dead. It was just a thought to giggle over. Whenever I'm feeling pro-Kai.
My facial recognition was fine, or at least reasonable. Seeing as how it IS Sarah. And here it becomes weird, because clearly DrE couldn't be treating Sarah while DrT was still HER Doctor. But she was having flashes before DrT quit - but I guess Sarah was assigned (Doctors can't choose their first patient?) when DrT was GOING to leave.
This is in many ways worse. Because Tom will never know, and because DrE will now see Tom all the time in the past, but never be able to talk to him. She'll see his dark periods, more than she has, and he'll never know. And I don't think she can tell Sarah that her father was Erica's Doctor. Which will be tricky when Erica looks at past!Tom and remembers...
I mean, if Tom had a choice, when he wanted Sarah In Therapy, he'd want Erica to be it.
But this is just wrong.
Someone explain to me why it isn't wrong. I mean, it gives Sarah an out, but not EVERY arc needs to be tied up this neatly, not when it causes so many tangles.
The only thing it give us is Erica running through bits of Tom's past, before the "everything" he showed her in the mind-meld, so they'll at the end of it all know each other. But, again, to what end?
Clearly Tom and Marjorie were super non-effective there though.
Heroine. Is it a methodology? I know crack pipes are popular, I have one myself for other reasons, and presumably that's a delivery system...
DrE's card has a suspicious lack of address on it.
Leo is in his hallway. Sorry, but after not really mentioning him for so long, I'm just sort of "so what," over this.
So if Tom remembers T3, which I don't see how he can't do, Sarah will be making amends eventually. Will he recognize that she's in Therapy? Will he ask? Would it break rules to ask? Will he feel Erica in his past? Will Sarah mention her Therapists name? He can't have contact with Erica, or anyone from T3, but could he hear about her, know she's there? He couldn't pass messages along, but could he know she's still in his life, however peripherally?
Conclusion:
They laughed together, they cried together, they hugged (together, it would be weird if they hugged apart.) I hated the handshake but I loved this, it was everything I ever needed and I can't in good conscious say that I want (in canon) for Erica to seek him out, or for Tom to come back.
Except for that little break of the rules, when Erica43 steals for a moment back into his life. More pain and tears, but at least we know, for her, they might move on but never be over.
...I guess that means DrE never see's Tom at all, and he never finds out she was Sarah's Doctor... I'm okay with that too.
That's all I can really say, for now.
For my part, two conclusions. Well three, the third one being that "Streets of Gold" really is a perfect song for Being Erica, and I want to commit the ultimate faux pas of trying to vid it.
The first: I've been thinking for a while of changing my name. I adopted it when I was about 14 and just entering fandom, and rife with the usual teenage melodrama. It's still perfect in the same logical ways, but has been feeling too young for me - over a decade on I'm in a much different place on various levels. And now the name is on a fake book cover on a show that I love to pieces, would have loved anyway, but to be honest I've been pushing myself in the fandom because for the sake of my academic career, I needed to fully commit to a fandom and have that in my background. There were even a couple other fandoms that were larger and might have (almost) taken my attention, only they didn't pan out. If they had... I don't know.
It's still pretty awesome, and now that the show gave me (in the end) everything I always wanted, I can say that without feeling conflicted, since it felt like the show liked me more than I liked it, which would be a highly guilt-ridden place to end. I've abandoned enough shows, if I had to (see, I was right to trust them) but if I had to, I could have abandoned this one as well.
I think I could anyway. Though I'd be leaving a piece of my heart behind.
The thing is, with all that, and the show coming to a close, it feels like a good time to close out the name and start with something new. It's a good place to end. Only I don't want to change, and I don't know if it's a fear of moving forwards or I'm just taken the musing too far and changing would be me running from committing to what I always have been. If the name isn't as much who I was, as who I can be.
The second: Canon is at an end. Being Erica is at an end. It'll never end in the sense that all the episodes are still there and I can watch any bit at any time (in that hallway with every minute behind a door, just turn the knob and walk through). But I've always been about the first viewing - it's new, it's not dead, I wouldn't be watching at snails pace and writing these things if I didn't fully believe that.
The show's at an end, complete, on its own terms. And what's the beginning? Fanon. Derivative works. Rewatches and new connections and speculations and ideas and what ifs. Fandom says this is a new life, after the door of bright light. Even if fandom fades when new episodes aren't there to hold us together, and it'll just be threads as we move on to different shows and different conversations in different places with different people.
See, I'm at the beginning of "a tattered rose" all over again. Melodrama all the time, drippy prose. Obsession and investment and no holds barred. Maybe in the ways that were always important to me, I haven't changed at all. Or, you know, it's just a spring, and this is one thing that will never change.