Finally got around to watching this ep, and wow do I ever have a lot of feelings. There's gon' be some tl;dr up in this bitch, fair warning.
First off: Will and Emma. I think, in this case, (and mind you I'm speaking as someone who hasn't been in this position so I may be completely off-base) he was in the right to speak up. The way I read it (both off the way it was shot and off of Emma's characterization in the past), at the dinner scene, Emma wasn't going to speak up. I think the fact that she never mentioned this situation to Will shows some pretty strong denial/residual pain, and I don't think she would have said anything. I think, as someone who 'loves' Emma (and I'm using apostrophes there because I don't really believe that Will loves Emma so much as what she represents to him, for the most part, but he does care very deeply for her, imo), in that place it was okay for him to say it and to support her. The difference between this and, say, Jean's funeral in The Episode Which Shall Not Be Named, for me, is who is involved and how they react. I could buy Will thinking it was fine for him to step up and take over for Sue in the eulogy, because he's got a hero complex a mile wide and he's oblivious as fuck to boundaries and what's acceptable and what ain't, but I absolutely could not buy Sue's reaction at school afterwards. That's what cheapened that one for me: they played it off like it was an appropriate thing to do, when Sue was being wildly OOC. At the dinner scene, with it being Will and Emma, I could accept that he would see it as his place to step in, but I can also buy that Emma wouldn't tell him to back off or that he was out of line, and that she would appreciate it. Does that make sense? I'm running on next to no sleep right now so it might not.
The dinner scene was incredibly, incredibly dark, and I'm impressed that they went there, in a way. I, like you, expected this to turn into a "lol ginger supremacy" thing, kind of like the "GINGER" BTW t-shirt. But I think it explained a lot about Emma's character up to this point, a lot about the way she's reacted to things (sort of like the Lucy reveal for Quinn, although more so). Up until now, I've been pretty pissed with the way Emma was written because her motivations were pretty unclear, imo. I mean, we knew she was struggling with OCD and she was in love with Will and she gave bad advice to kids, but there wasn't any backstory or depth, iykwim. I wouldn't say I like her any better as a person, but I think she's become a very interesting character over the course of this episode, and I'm actually interested to see where the writers will take her from here.
The last thing Imma say about Will/Emma, and I can't believe I've written this much about them, holy shit, is that IA that the prayer scene was well handled. It was nice to see Will acknowledge that he can't "fix" Emma, and that he can't be her saviour because he doesn't know what to do. Can we call that character development? I think we can, tbh. Shocking, I know!
OKAY SO MERCEDES. This storyline hit me hella hard, negl, and so my take on it is gonna be really subjective and maybe totally different from how you read it. I'll start off with some personal shit: I've been really into theatre, specifically musical theatre, for a very, very long time. I've been singing since I was in elementary school and, although I'm by no means very good, compared to the kids at my high school I was. I wasn't a terrible dancer (I didn't have any formal training, but I had decent muscle memory and physicality because of taekwondo/soccer/etc), and I was a decent actor. For my high school, that was pretty good. But despite it all, I never once got the part I auditioned for -- I was pushed into the background, smaller parts with fewer songs, to make way for kids who couldn't keep on-key or who couldn't play any emotion other than happily in love (and when you're doing Sweeney Todd that just doesn't cut it, tbh.) And it killed me. This was the one thing I did for myself. Everything else was academics and sports, but this was all for me. Singing was one of the few things I enjoyed and took pride in.
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timeasmymeasure
lol part 1
Date: 2011-10-08 01:56 am (UTC)First off: Will and Emma. I think, in this case, (and mind you I'm speaking as someone who hasn't been in this position so I may be completely off-base) he was in the right to speak up. The way I read it (both off the way it was shot and off of Emma's characterization in the past), at the dinner scene, Emma wasn't going to speak up. I think the fact that she never mentioned this situation to Will shows some pretty strong denial/residual pain, and I don't think she would have said anything. I think, as someone who 'loves' Emma (and I'm using apostrophes there because I don't really believe that Will loves Emma so much as what she represents to him, for the most part, but he does care very deeply for her, imo), in that place it was okay for him to say it and to support her. The difference between this and, say, Jean's funeral in The Episode Which Shall Not Be Named, for me, is who is involved and how they react. I could buy Will thinking it was fine for him to step up and take over for Sue in the eulogy, because he's got a hero complex a mile wide and he's oblivious as fuck to boundaries and what's acceptable and what ain't, but I absolutely could not buy Sue's reaction at school afterwards. That's what cheapened that one for me: they played it off like it was an appropriate thing to do, when Sue was being wildly OOC. At the dinner scene, with it being Will and Emma, I could accept that he would see it as his place to step in, but I can also buy that Emma wouldn't tell him to back off or that he was out of line, and that she would appreciate it. Does that make sense? I'm running on next to no sleep right now so it might not.
The dinner scene was incredibly, incredibly dark, and I'm impressed that they went there, in a way. I, like you, expected this to turn into a "lol ginger supremacy" thing, kind of like the "GINGER" BTW t-shirt. But I think it explained a lot about Emma's character up to this point, a lot about the way she's reacted to things (sort of like the Lucy reveal for Quinn, although more so). Up until now, I've been pretty pissed with the way Emma was written because her motivations were pretty unclear, imo. I mean, we knew she was struggling with OCD and she was in love with Will and she gave bad advice to kids, but there wasn't any backstory or depth, iykwim. I wouldn't say I like her any better as a person, but I think she's become a very interesting character over the course of this episode, and I'm actually interested to see where the writers will take her from here.
The last thing Imma say about Will/Emma, and I can't believe I've written this much about them, holy shit, is that IA that the prayer scene was well handled. It was nice to see Will acknowledge that he can't "fix" Emma, and that he can't be her saviour because he doesn't know what to do. Can we call that character development? I think we can, tbh. Shocking, I know!
OKAY SO MERCEDES. This storyline hit me hella hard, negl, and so my take on it is gonna be really subjective and maybe totally different from how you read it. I'll start off with some personal shit: I've been really into theatre, specifically musical theatre, for a very, very long time. I've been singing since I was in elementary school and, although I'm by no means very good, compared to the kids at my high school I was. I wasn't a terrible dancer (I didn't have any formal training, but I had decent muscle memory and physicality because of taekwondo/soccer/etc), and I was a decent actor. For my high school, that was pretty good. But despite it all, I never once got the part I auditioned for -- I was pushed into the background, smaller parts with fewer songs, to make way for kids who couldn't keep on-key or who couldn't play any emotion other than happily in love (and when you're doing Sweeney Todd that just doesn't cut it, tbh.) And it killed me. This was the one thing I did for myself. Everything else was academics and sports, but this was all for me. Singing was one of the few things I enjoyed and took pride in.