Testing 1, 2, 3--Review
This thing between us. . .it's over.
That's what I want to tell Shonda. Because I really believe that she is less invested in her show than I am. Drama is a love triangle. There's the author/playwright/writing team. There are the actors. And, the part Shonda has forgotten, the audience.
The writers have a responsibility, from the time the lights go on and the first words of dialogue are spoken, to lay the foundations of art. If I go watch a play, any well written play, I should be able to understand the last scene in the play in terms of the first scene of the play, and all the scenes in between. It's true for Shakespeare. It's true for Neil Simon. It's true for whoever will win this year's Tony for script. (It's true for any literature; the first chapter of a book should give you understanding of the last, and the first line of a poem must make sense in light of the last.) In terms of series television, any episode should make sense in terms of the first and subsequent episodes. When it doesn't, when a show has lost it's way, that's what viewers call "jumping the shark."
Does anyone hear motorboats revving up?
The blog for Testing starts off by saying ". . .terrible things happen on Grey's. . .wonderful things happen, too. . ." Really? I mean, I know terrible things happen. Things that wouldn't happen in real life. But I haven't so much noticed wonderful things. And the terrible things? Are all happening to Meredith. (Other terrible things that are going on, people are doing to themselves. Cristina/Burke, George/Izzie. Those are self-inflicted.) Since the ferryboat arc, it's been a month or so of elapsed time. And her mother died. Her fake-mommy died. Her newly found father disowned her. For a few hours, her career was over.
If it were me or you, we'd be in the fetal position in the corner, rocking, muttering, And that's pretty much what we saw last night--Mer, staring, in the waiting room. And the people who love her, who have been there for her all year, cam and sat next to her. Talked to her. She didn't much answer. But they knew her, and pushed a bit to get her to start to breathe on her own again. Oh, except for the one who got pissed that he was being left out. Shut out by Meredith, Dark and Twisty Meredith, who can't share with Derek.
Except Derek was the one who inflicted a huge dose of dark & twisty on Meredith for the 7 months of TVLand time that were Season 2. The one who abandoned her. Lied to her, first off. And abandoned her.
And Derek is the one who, over and over through the course of this series, we've been told is Meredith's soulmate. Her knight in shining whatever. Addison tells us. The chief tells us. Derek himself tells us. He made promises. Dead Denny, who supposedly knew things--how Cristina's dad died, whatever he was going to say about Alex--said that what Meredith and Derek had was special.
But Derek is trashing it.
Yeah, Meredith isn't helping. But--hello--the death of a single parent can put a person in the corner. Particularly a dysfunctional parent. Add to that the death of Fake Mommy, the rejection by Thatcher. . .she had made steps in "The Other Side of This Life" but regressed. To have expected more or different out of Meredith would be unreasonable.
From Season 1, we've been building to what Dead Denny said to Meredith. That they are soulmates. That losing her would kill him. That he would be there for her. That he truly loves her, in a way (according to Addison) he didn't love Addison. Soulmates. Love.
They keep saying those words, it's like they aren't real words any more.
Or, to put it differently, "You keep saying that word. . .I do not think it means what you think it means."
Just because the love is true and your soul has found its mate doesn't mean it will be easy. And if Derek is the type of man who is lazy enough to watch his soulmate go through a series of devastating events--any one of which could bring anyone to her knees--and react by getting his feelings hurt that she didn't reach out to him. . .sounds like my three year old.
I've been sold a bill of goods. A pig in a poke. The McDreamy is only skin deep. He has no clue of how badly he hurt Meredith by lying (omitting the truth) and by choosing Addison. He doesn't get that she has a hard time trusting him after that.
And she should. Have a hard time trusting him.
Again, I'm not saying that Mer is quite as self-actualized as she should be. But neither am I. Or you. But she's never promised Derek something, and then failed to deliver so spectacularly as he has. To tell her he can't breathe for her, and then expect her to share openly defies any logic. So obviously, she's doing what she can not to ask him to breathe for her. And that's not what he wants either. Derek, drop a pair and tell her what you want.
And he didn't hook up with Barfly Lexie why? Oh, because he was with friends. Not because his soulmate was having her soul slowly but surely crushed by the writers.
I'm still hoping. But really. . .I have a busy life. I could do other things on Thursday nights. I like a little consistency and truth to my characters.