#and hopefully we get to see Kessell and Ambrose again

[novelconcepts]

Sort of feels like the writer’s strike gave the team a lot to ruminate on and a lot of pivots came out of that. Want to be clear: I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. It bums me out that we’ve lost characters and actors I adore, but that was always going to be this kind of show. And they’ve proven they were willing to let the narrative breathe from the start: that’s why we had Laura Lee so long, it’s why Adam wasn’t Javi, it’s why Van got to grow up. I love that. I love writers that don’t get so cemented in their initial plan that they can’t evolve.

Where I do get a little finicky is everyone insisting it’s a “trade” for Swank, or that “a background character did this!” Melissa’s been getting fleshed out all season. You think that was an accident? Shauna’s paranoid murder of one lover looked crazy in season one, but now we’re in season three and we find out this is a pattern. Paranoia. Hard-and-fast ill-advised love affairs that turn vicious. Building her own enemy out of an innocent. Adam truly couldn’t see it coming, but Melissa gets decades to dwell. Melissa, who was introduced as someone who thought cannibalism wouldn’t be the worst thing. Melissa, who stood at Shauna’s back until it proved bad for her specifically. Shauna’s always been the heart of the story, the teammate whose eyes we stare through. Of course it’ll all come down to her. And of course she needs someone to go head to head with. She thinks she’s only haunted by Jackie, so obsessed with this ghost that she forgot (well, I guess didn’t realize, due to Faked Suicide) she fully crafted a very-alive haunting of her narrative. You don’t escape the awful shit you’ve done. It will follow you. That’s the whole point of this character. Do I want her instead of Van? Obviously not. But for this story of never forgiving, of carrying your sins home and being eaten alive by them? Yeah, I get it.