Bunheads meta: found family shows
Fandom: Bunheads
Pairing: n/a
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,120
Spoilers: through 1x6
Warnings: meta
Author's Note: For hc_bingo for my “abandonment issues” square.
Disclaimer: Everyone here belongs to ABC
Summary: Meta
Abandonment Issues: Found Family - meta
Bunheads is a new show on ABC. I mean new, like there are only six episodes out and nine filmed. It’s about a Vegas show girl named Michelle, who one drunken night, marries a man who’s been courting her for about a year. His name is Hubble. As in the telescope. He brings her to his home in Paradise, California. At the end of the pilot, he dies in a car crash, leaving his home, which is also his mother’s home, in the hands of his new bride.
Bunheads is the ultimate found family tv show. The common interest that brings everyone together is dance. Hubble’s mother runs a dance studio on his property. There are four teenage girls enrolled in dance that the series focuses on: Ginny, Melanie, Boo, and Sasha. And then there’s Michelle. With the exception of the pilot, the reoccurring characters are all female.
Ginny and Melanie are best friends. They appear to be the most normal in the series. They act exactly as one expects two teenage girls to act. However, they spend more time in each other’s company than that of their own families. Ginny is not as confident as she could be, and she needs Melanie to be there for encouragement. The two girls complete each other.
Boo, short for Bettina, is also friends with Ginny and Melanie, and she is sometimes the odd girl out. Boo’s friendship with Ginny and Melanie feels more like she had been adopted like a little lost puppy. Boo is polite almost to a fault, as if she’s covering up her insecurities. Boo’s insecurity about her not-exactly ballet body lends her to a vulnerability that Ginny and Melanie help protect her from. In a way, Sasha helps too, but Sasha has her own, more serious issues.
Sasha is the only child in an almost-broken family. Her mother works nonstop, and her father is gay. It’s the town’s best kept secret that everyone knows. In episode 1x6, we see Sasha’s father cast but not her mother, even though the two are in the middle of a heated argument. This leads me to think that possibly we will see more of Sasha’s father and not so much from her mother.
Sasha is mean. There is no other way around it. She can be downright nasty, yet she still has friends. This puzzled me for the first few episodes; however, now it is clear that these four girls have been friends for a very, very long time… and that Sasha is not always mean. She’s very Queen Bee, but she looks out for her friends as is evident when she steals money to buy Boo new toe shoes. Sasha then lies about the origin of the shoes as not to seem smushy to her friends.
This meanness that Sasha has was analyzed by Boo onscreen. Unfortunately it was also done in front of Sasha, who wanted to save face and blew up in Boo’s. The majority of Sasha’s meanness is attributed to walls she’s built up. Sometimes she can’t help but be mean, though.
Boo said that the majority of Sasha’s problems stem from her family. This was in… I believe 1x3, and we don’t see evidence of this until 1x6. We are privy to glances of Sasha by herself in the studio when Michelle walks in on her practicing late at night. Michelle is dealing with her own problems, so she just sends Sasha home without digging deeper into the problem. Sasha would have deflected anyway. She does not like delving into the nasty bits of her life with her friends, never mind a stranger she just met.
Michelle is the main character in the show. She has never stayed in one place for more than six months. She’d been in Vegas as a showgirl for eight years, but the shows changed and so did her apartment. She refuses Hubble’s advances for a year, because she claims to have “the worst luck with men.” Which apparently, she does. She’s barely married to Hubble 24 hours before he dies. She moves on so frequently so that she doesn’t grow roots, so that she is in control, and so that she doesn’t experience that disappointment.
As the main character, we as an audience know only surface details of Michelle’s life, which is a bit strange. I can only assume that once Michelle takes control the dance studio, we will see a lot more of her. We do know many aspects of Michelle’s personality, though. She’s quirky and intelligent. She is in no way ready emotionally to be in charge of real estate let alone a business. The writers are slowly pushing all these people together, through extensive character development. In fact, it took six episodes for Michelle to begin teaching at the dance school, which she owns.
Then there’s Truly. Yeah, that’s her name. Truly is kinda like the ugly duckling. In fact she makes dresses with duck prints. She owns a clothing store called Sparkle, and makes everything herself. She had her eyes set on Hubble since forever and holds Michelle in extreme resentment not only for marrying Hubble but Truly also blames Michelle for his death. (Hubble had been driving in the rain looking for Michelle when he was in the accident.) However, over the course of the first few episodes, Truly is seen as more desperate for any kind of human interaction. In episode 1x6 with Michelle’s birthday, Truly practically begs to go with Michelle and her friend on their birthday adventure. She does end up with them, partying all the way down to LA to the cupcake ATM and back.
I see potential for Truly and Michelle to become friends, but like everyone in town, Truly is a bit… off. Plus she still holds Michelle responsible for Hubble’s death, which is a huge hurdle.
Fanny, Hubble’s mother, is an interesting woman. She is a flighty artist-type. She doesn’t like Michelle, because she stole Hubble away. Sort of. However, in recent episodes, Fanny has been becoming closer to Michelle. She even admitted that Michelle was her daughter-in-law.
In future episodes, I see the writers forging these characters closer together - as an actual family. This found family is not the most famous of found families. I’m pretty sure that’s the Bat Family, but Bunheads is a lot more functional with more healthy relationships. Obviously, there is a lot more depth to this show than I am going into, because it’s more than just a found family show.
(Plus, at the end of 1x6, there’s a ballet sequence to Istanbul (Not Constantinople) by They Might be Giants. Seriously. Check it out. Favorite song ever!)
Pairing: n/a
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,120
Spoilers: through 1x6
Warnings: meta
Author's Note: For hc_bingo for my “abandonment issues” square.
Disclaimer: Everyone here belongs to ABC
Summary: Meta
Abandonment Issues: Found Family - meta
Bunheads is a new show on ABC. I mean new, like there are only six episodes out and nine filmed. It’s about a Vegas show girl named Michelle, who one drunken night, marries a man who’s been courting her for about a year. His name is Hubble. As in the telescope. He brings her to his home in Paradise, California. At the end of the pilot, he dies in a car crash, leaving his home, which is also his mother’s home, in the hands of his new bride.
Bunheads is the ultimate found family tv show. The common interest that brings everyone together is dance. Hubble’s mother runs a dance studio on his property. There are four teenage girls enrolled in dance that the series focuses on: Ginny, Melanie, Boo, and Sasha. And then there’s Michelle. With the exception of the pilot, the reoccurring characters are all female.
Ginny and Melanie are best friends. They appear to be the most normal in the series. They act exactly as one expects two teenage girls to act. However, they spend more time in each other’s company than that of their own families. Ginny is not as confident as she could be, and she needs Melanie to be there for encouragement. The two girls complete each other.
Boo, short for Bettina, is also friends with Ginny and Melanie, and she is sometimes the odd girl out. Boo’s friendship with Ginny and Melanie feels more like she had been adopted like a little lost puppy. Boo is polite almost to a fault, as if she’s covering up her insecurities. Boo’s insecurity about her not-exactly ballet body lends her to a vulnerability that Ginny and Melanie help protect her from. In a way, Sasha helps too, but Sasha has her own, more serious issues.
Sasha is the only child in an almost-broken family. Her mother works nonstop, and her father is gay. It’s the town’s best kept secret that everyone knows. In episode 1x6, we see Sasha’s father cast but not her mother, even though the two are in the middle of a heated argument. This leads me to think that possibly we will see more of Sasha’s father and not so much from her mother.
Sasha is mean. There is no other way around it. She can be downright nasty, yet she still has friends. This puzzled me for the first few episodes; however, now it is clear that these four girls have been friends for a very, very long time… and that Sasha is not always mean. She’s very Queen Bee, but she looks out for her friends as is evident when she steals money to buy Boo new toe shoes. Sasha then lies about the origin of the shoes as not to seem smushy to her friends.
This meanness that Sasha has was analyzed by Boo onscreen. Unfortunately it was also done in front of Sasha, who wanted to save face and blew up in Boo’s. The majority of Sasha’s meanness is attributed to walls she’s built up. Sometimes she can’t help but be mean, though.
Boo said that the majority of Sasha’s problems stem from her family. This was in… I believe 1x3, and we don’t see evidence of this until 1x6. We are privy to glances of Sasha by herself in the studio when Michelle walks in on her practicing late at night. Michelle is dealing with her own problems, so she just sends Sasha home without digging deeper into the problem. Sasha would have deflected anyway. She does not like delving into the nasty bits of her life with her friends, never mind a stranger she just met.
Michelle is the main character in the show. She has never stayed in one place for more than six months. She’d been in Vegas as a showgirl for eight years, but the shows changed and so did her apartment. She refuses Hubble’s advances for a year, because she claims to have “the worst luck with men.” Which apparently, she does. She’s barely married to Hubble 24 hours before he dies. She moves on so frequently so that she doesn’t grow roots, so that she is in control, and so that she doesn’t experience that disappointment.
As the main character, we as an audience know only surface details of Michelle’s life, which is a bit strange. I can only assume that once Michelle takes control the dance studio, we will see a lot more of her. We do know many aspects of Michelle’s personality, though. She’s quirky and intelligent. She is in no way ready emotionally to be in charge of real estate let alone a business. The writers are slowly pushing all these people together, through extensive character development. In fact, it took six episodes for Michelle to begin teaching at the dance school, which she owns.
Then there’s Truly. Yeah, that’s her name. Truly is kinda like the ugly duckling. In fact she makes dresses with duck prints. She owns a clothing store called Sparkle, and makes everything herself. She had her eyes set on Hubble since forever and holds Michelle in extreme resentment not only for marrying Hubble but Truly also blames Michelle for his death. (Hubble had been driving in the rain looking for Michelle when he was in the accident.) However, over the course of the first few episodes, Truly is seen as more desperate for any kind of human interaction. In episode 1x6 with Michelle’s birthday, Truly practically begs to go with Michelle and her friend on their birthday adventure. She does end up with them, partying all the way down to LA to the cupcake ATM and back.
I see potential for Truly and Michelle to become friends, but like everyone in town, Truly is a bit… off. Plus she still holds Michelle responsible for Hubble’s death, which is a huge hurdle.
Fanny, Hubble’s mother, is an interesting woman. She is a flighty artist-type. She doesn’t like Michelle, because she stole Hubble away. Sort of. However, in recent episodes, Fanny has been becoming closer to Michelle. She even admitted that Michelle was her daughter-in-law.
In future episodes, I see the writers forging these characters closer together - as an actual family. This found family is not the most famous of found families. I’m pretty sure that’s the Bat Family, but Bunheads is a lot more functional with more healthy relationships. Obviously, there is a lot more depth to this show than I am going into, because it’s more than just a found family show.
(Plus, at the end of 1x6, there’s a ballet sequence to Istanbul (Not Constantinople) by They Might be Giants. Seriously. Check it out. Favorite song ever!)