#did i even explain myself? idk i just blacked out and wrote a 2k essay bc paxton is my special little guy who i cant stop thinking about

[heycoyotegirl]

#i wish to hear more #like i still appreciate the identity crisis #finding who else you could be #but also paxton's struggles with his intelligence and academic competence #i resonated with that #darren said we don't appreciate his book smarts enough !! #we really don't pls (via @dottable)

I think giving Paxton an identity crisis was actually a great idea. Love that for him (in the sense that it's an interesting narrative and gives him opportunities for even more character growth). The writers just took the laziest route possible to get there because they wanted to drag him back to Sherman Oaks asap but didn't actually care enough to give him a well-thought-out character arc.

There are two times in season one where someone insults Paxton for no reason, and he just brushes it off. The first time is in episode three, when Nalini arrives at the hospital, calls him "Dr. Walking HPV Infection", and tells him to get the hell out.

She's rude for absolutely no reason. It’s not like Paxton shoved Devi in front of the coyote to be bitten; he was just the person who drove her to the hospital after the fact. But he doesn’t get upset; he just waves at Devi and leaves. The next episode takes place a week later, but he obviously hadn't changed how he interacted with Devi, otherwise the narration would’ve told us. And he doesn’t hesitate at all to talk to her when he sees her kicking her locker during Ganesh Puja.

The second is in episode five, and, iirc, is actually Paxton’s first conversation with Devi’s friends.

Paxton: I think your mom was our server at Casa Mexico last night. She was cool. Gave us extra chips. Eleanor: What? That's impossible. Paxton: No, for real. Eleanor: No. My mother's an actress on a cruise that's currently docked in the vibrant city of Cancún. Paxton: All right. Well, my mom knew her and talked to her and stuff, but maybe she was confused. Whatever. [ he starts to walk away ] Eleanor, raising her voice: You don't know what the hell you're talking about. [ stammers ] You can't just start a rumor about someone's mom like that. Clearly, you think all Asian women look alike. [ shouting ] You're a racist, Paxton Hall-Yoshida! Paxton: I'm part Japanese. [...] Paxton: Clearly, this is touchy for some reason that I don't care about. Honestly, I didn't really think I'd have to talk to you guys for this long. Let's go.

He was trying to be polite and friendly because he and Devi are friends now, but he doesn’t get upset when Eleanor yells at him; he just moves on.

Even when Paxton finds out that Devi lied about them having sex (which hits his issue about people not really being his friend), it doesn’t affect his self-esteem. He just cuts contact with her for a few days before asking for her help with Becca’s portfolio and reconciling with her again.

The first time we actually see him get insecure is after the conversation with Nalini when he tries to return Devi’s dress.

Nalini: [ sarcastically ] Thank you so much, Paxton, for clearing that up. So, not only did you disobey me by going to this party last night, you were so sober, you fell into the pool, and then did God knows what with this boy in his car. Paxton: All we did was kiss. Nalini: You what? McEnroe: Paxton, these are very unforced errors. Nalini: Oh, Devi, this is just terrific. Great decision making. Why don't you just let this idiot knock you up? Maybe Princeton will allow you to raise a little baby in your dorm room. Devi: He's not an idiot. Nalini: Oh, I'm sorry. Is he an honors student? I had no idea. My apologies, Paxton. McEnroe: Even though Nalini was talking out of frustration more than anything else, Paxton was stung by these little digs at his intelligence. Paxton: I'm gonna go.Nalini: Mmm. You must have a very busy day returning dresses to other smart girls whose futures you're trying to ruin.

After all of that, Paxton becomes defensive in a way that we haven’t seen from him before.

McEnroe: Devi had hoped that kissing Paxton wasn’t a one-time thing, but ever since he showed up at her house, he had been a little bit, how do you say... distant? Devi: Hey. I haven't seen you all week. Paxton: Yeah, I've been busy. Devi: Cool. So listen, I'm sorry my mom was so crazy to you the other day. Paxton: It's fine. I don't really care what your mom thinks.

“I don’t care what your mom thinks,” he says, while icing Devi out because of what her mom said. This is the first time we see his relationship with Devi be affected by a third party. It’s also the first time he doesn’t either address the issue directly or just immediately let it go.

Eleanor shouts that he’s a racist? Paxton points out that he’s half-Japanese before disengaging. Devi’s mom slutshames him in the hospital? That’s cool; he’ll just head out and talk to Devi later. Devi lies about them having sex and then tries to avoid taking responsibility? Nope, Paxton has enough self-respect that he doesn’t need fake friends who use him for popularity. But he’s also not so insecure or vindictive that he feels the need to tell people Devi lied.

Devi’s mom calls him an idiot? Catastrophic damage to his psyche.

(I also imagine that part of the reason why Paxton iced Devi out is because he thinks Devi might actually agree with her mom. Sure, she argued with her mom when he was there but was that just to save face? Paxton was already so invested that he'd told Becca about their kiss, whereas Devi was keeping it a secret from her family. Did she regret it? Is she embarrassed of him? Does she think that he’s an idiot who will ruin her future?)

In season 2, we get his parents doubting him, saying that college isn’t for everyone and that if he wants to go, he’ll have to work really hard (which, y’know, is a totally foreign concept for him, since it’s not like swimming is one of the most challenging sports or anything).

And while our unreliable narrators insist that Paxton is embarrassed of Devi during the period where they’re together but not public in s2, that’s not actually what’s happening. Sure, part of the issue is the fact that he knows people will judge him for getting back with the girl who cheated on him and ruined his swimming career (he’s still a teenager after all).

But the bigger issue is not just that she cheated, but that she cheated with Ben. Paxton doesn’t know their history; all he sees is them at each other's throats at school. He doesn’t know why Devi would genuinely like Ben. All Paxton knows is that while he and Devi were dating, she found him lacking and started seeing another guy, and the most obvious thing that Paxton doesn’t have but Ben does is intelligence. Paxton says it himself in season 3: He was jealous of Ben because Ben is smart like Devi is, and that’s a connection that Paxton could never have with her.

Even in s3, after he’s been doing better at school for about a year, Paxton is insecure about his intelligence. He’s grown enough to be able to admit that to Ben, but he still snaps when Ben directly insults his intelligence (Ben: Do you not know what an event is? // Paxton: What the fuck, man? I know what an event is.).

In the final episode of the season, he’s visibly annoyed when Shira & co try to say that he’s only known for being hot. And then he gives an entire speech about how he’s more than just the popular guy or the hot guy. He’s learned how to push himself and knows that he can succeed if he works hard.

I think it makes sense that Paxton would feel uncomfortable and not know what to do if he was suddenly unpopular, even if he was sick of being shoved into the “popular and hot” box at Sherman Oaks (though I’m not sure how believable it is that he actually wouldn’t do well socially at college), but I don’t think that—after two seasons of learning to push himself through tough situations—he’d give up after only two weeks.

Obviously it's easier to ignore people who don't like you when you have an established and supportive friend group, compared to when you're social isolated. But at the very least, he would've talked to Becca (who inexplicably vanished this season) or Devi before dropping out entirely. (Which I think is one of the other problems the writers ran into: It’s fundamentally impossible to write a Paxton who is not in love with Devi, unless you strip away a lot of his character development (which is what happened in season 4, for the sake of pairing Paxton off at the end)).

(And, as a side note: The show never actually resolves that plot point. Like, he ends up right back where he started, just with an interest in teaching and a lowkey weird long distance girlfriend (is she seriously not bothered by the fact that she's dating someone who's literally the same age as at least one of the students at the school??). But neither of those things actually addresses the issue of "I panic and bail if people don't like me." What's he gonna do if his roommate at the teaching school also sucks? Who knows!)

Paxton spends three years working on his insecurities about his intelligence. Three years growing and realizing that he wants to be more than just a popular guy. When he broke his arm in season 2, it only took half a montage for him to realize that spending all his time “partying” with Trent (aka goofing off, blowing things up, and playing video games, not going to constant ragers) wasn’t fulfilling and wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life.

And then all of that growth gets ripped away with two lackluster scenes.

The writers very easily could have given him a plot about finding himself that didn’t hinge on immediately giving up on college! Paxton explicitly says that he doesn’t know who he is in season 3. Ben scoffs and says that Paxton is the only person at the school who isn’t a nobody, but as Paxton points out, that’s surface stuff. They could've dug into that in season 4.

They could’ve given us another montage, shown us that he can’t find his niche anywhere, rather than just having a shitty roommate with awful friends. They could’ve brought his panic attacks up again!

He could’ve been miserable at ASU for a semester and then come back to Sherman Oaks for winter break right around the time when Devi found out her application was deferred (since he didn’t actually... do anything plot relevant until then anyway).

His identity crisis could’ve revolved around academics or his swimming career. He was insanely good, good enough to be courted by Stanford, a school with a 4% acceptance rate, while having grades so bad that he would only be able to get into a two-year or community college. Had he been planning to try for the Olympics? Is he able to get back into shape and start competing again?

Maybe he was planning to get back into swimming, but he realizes that he’ll never get back to where he was before the accident. Then his crisis could’ve been about the fact that he hadn’t actually thought about what he wants to do beyond “education and a career.” That also would’ve tied in very well with Devi suddenly having all her plans for the future ripped away when she finds out her application was deferred. (And as a bonus, maybe we could have explored what Devi wants to do after university, rather than getting a throw-away line in the last episode. Or she could’ve also had a bit of a crisis over realizing that she was so focused on getting into Princeton after her dad died, that she never even considered the future beyond that.)

As I’ve mulled it over, I’ve realized that the fact that there’s so little connection to his established characterization means that it doesn’t feel like Paxton anymore. They erased his emotional connection to Devi in their effort to remove him as a romantic possibility and made him almost completely irrelevant to Devi’s story this season.

The writers will throw us a bone every once in a while (like the closet scene and conversation in the finale), but for most of the season, Paxton could’ve been replaced with an entirely different character. Delete those two scenes I just mentioned, and you could plop Marcus into his role as assistant coach. Make a few more minor tweaks, and it could’ve been Blair coming back to work at her old high school after failing out of Princeton (which would’ve been fun because of how much it would terrify Devi to see).

Devi has a history of being emotionally vulnerable with him when she isn’t ready to open up to others yet. And he has a history of being insecure about his intelligence. It would’ve made way more sense for the two of them to have a conversation about her not getting into any of the colleges she applied for rather than having Ben, someone who agreed that regular admissions are for “gen pop,” be the one to assure her that it wasn't pathetic to be rejected or wait-listed by every school she applied to. (Not trying to discount their friendship; I don’t think Ben would be mean about it, but also as someone who was at the top of my class in high school, I don’t think I would have believed my academic rival comforting me if I had been in Devi’s place.)

And Devi was the one who encouraged Paxton to “swim to San Diego in school.” It would be a perfect parallel for him to return that advice.

The way that Paxton's characterization regressed to pre-season 2 and he just orbits the rest of the story, inexplicably no longer friends with anyone other than Trent and Devi (even though he was friends with the entire group at the end of season 3), makes it clear that the writers didn't know what to do with him. It's very obvious that they just brought him back to keep their Team Paxton viewers around and didn't put any thought into what actually made sense for his character.

ok I’ve figured out the problem with paxton’s characterization this season: they forgot about the internal reasoning for his insecurities

paxton’s actually historically been fine when people don’t like him. it’s when people don’t like him because of his (supposed) lack of intelligence that it becomes a capital p Problem, which is why the beginning of his arc in season 4 feels so contrived