#cathy hiatt

[becabeale143]

[143bc]

[jdsmineralwater]

i need ye all to hear me out on this

jegulus tl5y au

[mad-mcd20]

I don’t think we talk about the last five years enough like conceptually and musically with the parallels in the songs and Jeremy Jordan

This is coming from me having watched the movie again

[the-sparkling-diamond-satine]

Jamie "it's a challenge to resist [the] temptation [of cheating on my partner]" Wellerstein,

Fuck you

[tofangirlonly]

Send an ask with a song from The Last Five Years and I'll share my thoughts during that scene. 👀

*thoughts may be Thoughts or may be ahhfkydrdxofyoyxd. Both are good.

(Inspired by @meiloorunsmoothie's first watch thoughts only I have watched it...a lot. 😆)

[miss-galaxy-turtle]

Good news: The Last Five Years is finally gonna be on a Broadway stage!!

Bad news: they cast a fucking goyim as Jamie Wellerstein

[thatnerdinthecorner]

Reason I HAte Jamie No. 46849

'If I hadn't believed in you I wouldn't have loved you at all' from If I Didn't Believe In You

so much of this show is Cathy thinking about her insecurities. Jamie is so successful and she isn't, and throughout the show we get her talent confused with her insecurity: in Climbing Uphill we see her unsuccessful audition and how terribly it goes, and we as an audience are supposed to think she's a bad actress/singer, but she spends the summer touring, and we know that this is something that she does regularly:

'Is it just that you're disappointed To be touring again for the summer?'

Touring isn't a bad job for an actor. It's not Broadway, it's not her dream, but it's a good job and it takes work and talent. Jason Robert Brown got sued by his ex, and consequently had to change parts of the show because it was too close to the reality of their marriage. In other words, the writer is Jamie, the entire show is told by Jamie, and even the songs from Cathy's perspective are written and told by Jamie. Given everything else in the show, I'm not particularly inclined to trust Jamie's account if he's the one telling us that she's bad at her job.

In If I Didn't Believe In You Cathy doesn't want to go to one of Jamie's work parties. She's feeling frustrated about her own career and doesn't feel like spending the evening faking it to appease Jamie's colleagues. So Jamie digs into that. The entire song is very manipulative, but with these lines it fits into a continued theme throughout the show of saying that because Cathy hasn't managed to reach the pinnacle of an incredibly competitive field that she is automatically bad at her job and completely unskilled. Which we know isn't true, because otherwise she wouldn't be touring.

When Jamie says:

'If I hadn't believed in you I wouldn't have loved you at all'

what he's really saying is if I didn't think you would be successful, I wouldn't love you. But because her success is constantly conflated with her talent, when Jamie is talking about her success, he's also talking about her talent, so he's also saying that his love for her is dependent on her being talented, which he is measuring by her success.

Also, for the rest of the song Jamie says 'If I didn't believe in you' not 'hadn't'. I'm probably simplifying this a lot, but in this context, 'Didn't' works in the past and the conditional present tense. 'Hadn't' works in the past and conditional past tense. When Jamie switches to 'hadn't' at the end, he's saying that his belief in her is in the past tense. When Jamie says 'I wouldn't have loved you' that's in past tense too. His belief in her, and his love for her, which are intrinsically tied, are both in the past tense, because she has failed, because she is untalented. The song ends with him confirming all of her worst insecurities and saying he no longer loves her, and the next and final line is:

'Now why don't you put on your dress and we'll go, okay? Cathy? Can we do that, please? Please?'

In other words, the last few lines of this song is Jamie saying telling his wife yes, you're right, you don't have a good job, and you'll never get a better one, you'll never be successful, because you're not talented, and I don't love you anymore, because I only loved you because I thought that you could be successful one day, so why don't you just shut up, stop whining and do as I say, and come to my party to celebrate me and my work and my success.

I hate this man more that I can say.

[amberpriceenthusiast]

I’ve listened to I Can Do Better Than That like 5 times today

And I’m going to listen to it more

[your-daily-dose-of-quotes]

No one can give you courage. No one can thicken your skin. I will not fail so you can be comfortable, Cathy. I will not lose because you can't win.

- Jamie Wellerstein, The Last Five Years

[whatevertheywant]

What she says: I'm fine

What she means:

You know what makes me crazy?

I'm sorry, can I say this?

You know what makes me nuts?

The fact that we could be together here together

Sharing our night, spending our time

And you are gonna choose someone else to be with no, you are

Yes, Jamie, that's exactly what you're doing

You could be here with me or be there with them

As usual, guess which you pick!

No, Jamie, you do not have to go to another party

With the same twenty jerks you already know

You could stay with your wife on her fucking birthday

And you could, God forbid, even see my show

And I know in your soul it must drive you crazy

That you won't get to play with your little girlfriends

[becabeale143]

[143bc]

Sunday serotonin 🌹♥

[jdsmineralwater]

listen, ik the point of tl5y is that they are both flawed and it was a both sides thing but come on everyone has a favourite

[mad-mcd20]

The tonal whiplash from ‘if I didn’t believe in you’ to ‘I can do better than that’ in the last five years movie is crazy

[the-sparkling-diamond-satine]

Rewatching The Last Five Years for the 2847373727th time and OUGH. Cathy Hiatt my beloved!!!!!! Babygirl’s happiness truly doomed by the narrative :/ it hurts so good!! I am so upset and yet I can’t stop watching