Grey's Anatomy: Arizona's Season 9 Story
I'm breaking my Livejournal fast (an accidental one but none of you noticed so . . . whatever) because I have a lot of fandom feelings about tonight's episode of Grey's Anatomy and Tumblr just isn't the place and I don't feel legit enough to post in the Callie/Arizona community here on LJ. So I'll post here in my own journal.
Okay, so Arizona's lost her leg. And she's obviously very traumatized. Not only has she lost a limb but she's lost a lot (if not all) of her faith. In a way, I think that what might have her the lowest is that she equates losing her leg with Callie giving up on her. In the second episode of the season, irrational and kind of crazed, she actually says to Callie, "Don't give up on me" before she says "Promise me you won't let them take my leg". Arizona sees the amputation as Callie giving up on her and that's why I think she's so mad. I mean, she'd be mad anyway, but I don't think it was an accident that the order of her begging went the way it did.
Okay, so we got about 30 seconds of Arizona in the first episode. Which was expected. We knew she'd probably be the big reveal at the end of the episode. In the second episode we got a good chunk and it was pretty great because she was the last chunk, which indicated the importance of her story.
So here we are, going into episode three, and I'm fucking pumped, because it's been a two week hiatus and Arizona's positioning in the second episode set her up for this amazing arc and tonight the episode finally came on and I was like, "WTF? This is it?"
She had three scenes. One without dialog.
I'm okay with Arizona struggling. In fact, want her to fucking struggle. I loved seeing her yell at Callie. I loved seeing her on the bathroom floor sitting in her own urine. Why? Because it'd beyond ridiculously compelling storyline. It's ripe with opportunity. And Jessica Capshaw is seriously underrated as an actor and she deserves a chance to shine.
But what I don't love is that it feels like, already, her storyline is being given less importance than everyone else's. And that pisses me off. It's not like Grey's hasn't gone out of the hospital before. They leave the hospital all the time, so I don't understand why we can't see more of Arizona going through this grieving process. We know she's cycled through home care nurses, but we don't get to see it? She's gotten to the point where she's out of bed and sort of a zombie but we didn't get to see that process? How is she handling Sofia?
Why don't we get to see any of her struggle?
She's a huge bitch right now, and she should have that right and opportunity to be so but it makes it harder for me, as a view (and, I might add, as a gigantic Arizona fan) to sympathize or empathize with her plight when I don't get to see any of it. Right now, actually, her storyline is morphing into Callie's storyline and as much as I love Callie, that's not cool with me. I do want to know that this is a struggle for Callie and I do want to know that it's a struggle for their relationship. But I do not want to know that stuff at the expense of understanding what this is like for Arizona.
And I get that we'll see more of her next week and we'll see her have her struggles in PT. But already this thing feels rushed. And since we aren't seeing Arizona on her own but only with Callie, I can't understand her thought process. Her motivations. They're lost on me. And Arizona deserves to have her point of view shared with the audience. And after three episode? Two of which she was barely in? She's already at the point where she's ready to go to PT? They haven't proven to me with what we've seen that she's anywhere near that kind of ready.
I want to watch this character's journey but I refuse to be happy with it if Arizona's storyline is taken over by another character, even if I love that other character to pieces. Next week's episode better fucking rebound because I was horribly let down by tonight's episode and I was so ready to be optimistic.
Okay, so Arizona's lost her leg. And she's obviously very traumatized. Not only has she lost a limb but she's lost a lot (if not all) of her faith. In a way, I think that what might have her the lowest is that she equates losing her leg with Callie giving up on her. In the second episode of the season, irrational and kind of crazed, she actually says to Callie, "Don't give up on me" before she says "Promise me you won't let them take my leg". Arizona sees the amputation as Callie giving up on her and that's why I think she's so mad. I mean, she'd be mad anyway, but I don't think it was an accident that the order of her begging went the way it did.
Okay, so we got about 30 seconds of Arizona in the first episode. Which was expected. We knew she'd probably be the big reveal at the end of the episode. In the second episode we got a good chunk and it was pretty great because she was the last chunk, which indicated the importance of her story.
So here we are, going into episode three, and I'm fucking pumped, because it's been a two week hiatus and Arizona's positioning in the second episode set her up for this amazing arc and tonight the episode finally came on and I was like, "WTF? This is it?"
She had three scenes. One without dialog.
I'm okay with Arizona struggling. In fact, want her to fucking struggle. I loved seeing her yell at Callie. I loved seeing her on the bathroom floor sitting in her own urine. Why? Because it'd beyond ridiculously compelling storyline. It's ripe with opportunity. And Jessica Capshaw is seriously underrated as an actor and she deserves a chance to shine.
But what I don't love is that it feels like, already, her storyline is being given less importance than everyone else's. And that pisses me off. It's not like Grey's hasn't gone out of the hospital before. They leave the hospital all the time, so I don't understand why we can't see more of Arizona going through this grieving process. We know she's cycled through home care nurses, but we don't get to see it? She's gotten to the point where she's out of bed and sort of a zombie but we didn't get to see that process? How is she handling Sofia?
Why don't we get to see any of her struggle?
She's a huge bitch right now, and she should have that right and opportunity to be so but it makes it harder for me, as a view (and, I might add, as a gigantic Arizona fan) to sympathize or empathize with her plight when I don't get to see any of it. Right now, actually, her storyline is morphing into Callie's storyline and as much as I love Callie, that's not cool with me. I do want to know that this is a struggle for Callie and I do want to know that it's a struggle for their relationship. But I do not want to know that stuff at the expense of understanding what this is like for Arizona.
And I get that we'll see more of her next week and we'll see her have her struggles in PT. But already this thing feels rushed. And since we aren't seeing Arizona on her own but only with Callie, I can't understand her thought process. Her motivations. They're lost on me. And Arizona deserves to have her point of view shared with the audience. And after three episode? Two of which she was barely in? She's already at the point where she's ready to go to PT? They haven't proven to me with what we've seen that she's anywhere near that kind of ready.
I want to watch this character's journey but I refuse to be happy with it if Arizona's storyline is taken over by another character, even if I love that other character to pieces. Next week's episode better fucking rebound because I was horribly let down by tonight's episode and I was so ready to be optimistic.