#anyway in case i havent said it today yet. s/imone you deserve better i love you

[ladyintree]

i have to rant about this because i'm tired of seeing it 20 times a day in my personal activity, and i probably have already ranted here, but anyway --- 1) sammy was not in tai's care to begin with, he was with simone's parents, so even if tai hadn't left suddenly, he would not suddenly go back to her. i promise he is not still waiting to be picked up from school. 2) she was elected as senator literally a week ago, she has not been sworn in to office yet, she is not skipping out on her job, i promise her being elected as senator is still very relevant to her motivations + her ongoing arc.

mostly my frustration is the claim that "the show just forgot about tai's family" because i think that misses the point of tai's arc, which is that she literally did just ghost them. the point is that she did not care and that she, selfishly to her family and her team and to v.an, skipped town without warning or explanation because she needed help but wasn't willing to do it anyone else's way. we are supposed to be left wondering how her family is doing because tai made the selfish choice.

it's only been a few days too, but regardless, they're still mentioned throughout her arc and the show has not "forgotten" about them. she breaks down to v.an about desperately needing help because she put her family in danger, she opens up to l.ottie about this other version of herself wanting to hurt her family, she jumps when the phone rings thinking it's the hospital, and her voicemail notes that her in laws are rightfully angry with her. they're still very much a part of her arc and her motivations.

there are plenty of criticisms to give her that she absolutely has earned. she felt so threatened by simone's continuous attempts to support her + get her help that she crashed the car with her in it, then ultimately left her behind without knowing if she was going to recover. even though sammy is not in her care, she could have been there to support him through a very scary time, but she wasn't. her assistant was trying to help her prepare to eventually take office but she took her car and left it on the side of the road without giving her any explanation. but her immediately leaving town without warning, without explanation, and without actively checking in constantly herself is not the show "forgetting" about these things, it's the show making a point to what kind of wife, mother, and leader she is. she is selfish, her motivations are selfish, and it's okay to admit that because that's what her arc is telling us.

i would like a resolution about simone's recovery, but i don't think it fit into season 2 -- partly because we ended the season with tai still at the compound and she does not have a resolution herself, so it makes sense that viewers wouldn't either --- but more importantly because it seems like her season 3 arc is set up for her to try to get her life back in order, starting here. it can't be as simple as she wants it to be, but what she wants is for everything to be "perfect" again, to get her wife + kid back not out of love but out of fixing her life to make it seem right again. it can't go back to that, her family doesn't deserve to just be an accessory in her life, and it's not what's right for tai either, but that is her whole goal this season despite having left them --- she fucked up with them and she has to face her problem head on so she can circle back and make it right again, using v.an to her own benefit in the process, but tai's definition of 'making it right' is not what's right for any of them.