Community: S3E2 Reaction Post
at first i was not impressed by the J/A let's-admit-our-feelings-and-take-a-step-forward scene because i wasn't getting the J/A ~chemistry~ vibes that drew me to this ship in the first place. i mean, i loved every word Jeff was saying, but it didn't seem like he was making some sort of great admission, he was just talking.
so i decided to review previous evidence instead of relying on my memory. i went back and watched a few key scenes from the past two seasons to see if i was just imagining how electric they seemed before, but, no, all the magnetism from before was still there. so then i thought, well maybe Joel wasn't really feeling the scene and that's why it seemed flat to me. but then i had to remind myself that this is TV and that everything is intentional (and also i remembered what "actors" actually do for a living).
this brought me back to the question at hand: why was i bored with the scene? well, i supposed, i was comparing it to almost every other notable J/A scene without taking into the consideration the contextual differences between them. in the past two seasons we get a lot of brief moments and aborted conversations, and tonight we got actual adult words coming from Jeff himself. he wasn't thrust unexpectedly into i situation where he could choose to act instead of talk. he came prepared with at least a vague outline of what he wanted to say, and he said it. so when Annie asks 'can't we', as in 'can't we continue pretending to be really good friends and nothing more?' Jeff pauses and looks at Annie -- really looks at her -- and no, it's not wide-eyed and flustered Jeff from Debate or confused, but action-oriented Jeff from Pascal's Triangle Revisited, or even unexpectedly interested Jeff from that one scene near the end of English as a Second Language that i love so much. no, this is a Jeff who sees Annie as more than just someone who will disconfirm his insecurities. so maybe there's no sizzling tension between them during that long gaze (or, hell, maybe there is and i'm just missing it entirely), but i've come to the realization that that particular interaction is about more than sexual chemistry. it's about honest feelings and the expression of them, and it's beautiful just the way it is.
so i decided to review previous evidence instead of relying on my memory. i went back and watched a few key scenes from the past two seasons to see if i was just imagining how electric they seemed before, but, no, all the magnetism from before was still there. so then i thought, well maybe Joel wasn't really feeling the scene and that's why it seemed flat to me. but then i had to remind myself that this is TV and that everything is intentional (and also i remembered what "actors" actually do for a living).
this brought me back to the question at hand: why was i bored with the scene? well, i supposed, i was comparing it to almost every other notable J/A scene without taking into the consideration the contextual differences between them. in the past two seasons we get a lot of brief moments and aborted conversations, and tonight we got actual adult words coming from Jeff himself. he wasn't thrust unexpectedly into i situation where he could choose to act instead of talk. he came prepared with at least a vague outline of what he wanted to say, and he said it. so when Annie asks 'can't we', as in 'can't we continue pretending to be really good friends and nothing more?' Jeff pauses and looks at Annie -- really looks at her -- and no, it's not wide-eyed and flustered Jeff from Debate or confused, but action-oriented Jeff from Pascal's Triangle Revisited, or even unexpectedly interested Jeff from that one scene near the end of English as a Second Language that i love so much. no, this is a Jeff who sees Annie as more than just someone who will disconfirm his insecurities. so maybe there's no sizzling tension between them during that long gaze (or, hell, maybe there is and i'm just missing it entirely), but i've come to the realization that that particular interaction is about more than sexual chemistry. it's about honest feelings and the expression of them, and it's beautiful just the way it is.