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hopevalley · 4 years ago

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Season 8, Episode 10: Old Love, New Love, Is This True Love

All right, so...like I said, work has picked up and my eyes feel like old marbles from staring at numbers (the woes of working in accounting I guess) so I want to get this written up and tossed into the nether before I lose steam and motivation to do it. The interesting thing about these little write-ups is that as the week goes on they just get harder and harder to write...

I do apologize in advance to those who like the long-winded write-ups. I’m just not up to it at the moment. Still feeling kind of bleh from the episode.

Let’s go back to an old format, shall we?

The Good

We might as well start out with the things about this episode that I enjoyed!

Gossip Hour with the Men was one of the best openers they’ve had on the show in a while. It was genuinely funny without being meanspirited. Nobody looked like the bad guy. Everyone just calmly talked about it alike it was a normal thing to maybe call off the wedding. Bill calling out Carson for giving marriage advice was pretty funny, Mike was a delight. I don’t know what to say. I’d watch a whole episode of The Boys just hanging around spending time together.

Florence’s worry that she’s ugly was...not a terrible idea for a storyline, but the actress is too good-looking to pretend to be ugly (I saw her in this pretty yellow dress on Instagram a couple years ago and she was smashing)? Also, it’s not like Ned is a handsomely aged gentleman (like Henry lol) so it makes even less sense for the characters. I think they should have gone with Florence feeling she’s “plain” and that dressing up Super Nice makes her feel uncomfortable because she just doesn’t feel like Herself and worries maybe it’s projecting a false sense of Who She Is or something? I guess overall I still liked that an attempt was made to add some depth to Florence and her difficulties in choosing a dress/hairstyle, so...it goes here.

Ned asking Henry to be his best man was nice, too. I can forgive the shoddy pacing and weird placement of this request (like I do with almost everything in the show) but only because the scene was just...so incredibly wholesome.

I like how Henry just casually is like, “Well maybe today’s just not the day.” I think it eased Ned’s mind just a little that he CAN back out if he really wants to.

I think it’s worth thinking about the fact that Ned and Henry would have always worked very closely, since the mercantile would have been a company store before the mine closed down... I like Henry and Ned as pals.

I’m glad the “investment” thing with Jesse and Clara’s savings was brought up in a way that...makes sense. And also, glad it wasn’t forgotten.

I really liked Molly and Florence in this episode. I’m a little sad Florence married Ned because I AM SORRY BUT I WANTED TO KEEP SHIPPING MOLLY AND FLORENCE TOGETHER UGHGHGHH

But their relationship is so good and maYBE Elizabeth will learn something from them.

Hey Elizabeth...you see that?

YOU SEE THAT?

Just saying.

And then later...

“You are the sister I never had, the mother I forever wanted, the friend I have always needed. From the depths of those dark and terrifying coal mines you’ve walked beside me, picking me up whenever I’ve stumbled along the way.”

AAAAAAAAA IT GOT ME.

I’m...really liking Fiona and Mike’s relationship, whatever it is. I kind of think they’re not headed toward anything romantic. Everyone thinks Mike is really into Fiona but at the end of the episode we realize he likes talking to her about business; it’s almost like they have this shared passion for numbers/ideas and he likes infodumping to her (and vice-versa).

I think they’re going to end up being “just friends” and Fiona will end up paired off with the man Elizabeth doesn’t choose. They hinted at Nathan briefly in this episode (with Allie’s hair), but who knows? I’m over trying to speculate on where the triangle is going at this point, but I actually like Fiona’s relationship with Mike so much that I’ll be disappointed if she fades into the background with Nathan or Lucas. Mike deserves more screentime.

Ned and Florence sharing their fIRST KISS. My husband got emotional over this. And I admit, it was starting to get to me, too. I can’t NOT root for them.

I said it before and I’ll say it again: I WOULD DIE FOR THE CANFIELDS.

The wedding was nice. I liked that Bill and Joseph officiated it together; it gives Joseph a li’l trial run of pastoring and finally Bill gets to use some of that power of his to officiate a wedding.

“Please, if you’d like” is such a Bill way to say that they may kiss LOL.

Also, I have to admit that I did enjoy Lucas calling Nathan out about Allie. She wouldn’t be caught in the middle if he’d leave Elizabeth alone AND HE IS RIGHT LMAO.

The last good thing: Elizabeth telling Nathan she doesn’t blame him for Jack’s death. Nice. Good. Thank you. He probably needed to hear that.

...THE BAD

Carson and Faith. UGH. UGHHHHHHHHHH. BREAK UP ALREADY I HATE YOU BOTH.

I appreciated that Carson had the ring ages ago, and I did like his conversation with Minnie—or more accurately, her advice to him. I felt like she was nudging him toward, “Remember why you became a surgeon in the first place.” If he became a surgeon to help people, then there’s no reason he can’t help people where he is. Sure, he might not be doing state of the art procedures but with Faith working alongside him, he can afford time to learn new things and go to doctor conventions or even take a specialized class now and then. No other doctor could get away for very long but he has that chance!

And he’ll arguably be doing more good in the middle of nowhere than in the city. All the doctors want to live in the city. Nobody wants to barely get paid for their time in the countryside.

We had a whole episode that made it clear that Faith and Carson don’t make a lot of money and do a lot of charity work. They also work for trade goods (mostly food). So it’s like...a pretty big difference in lifestyle?

Half the reason I can’t get invested in these characters is because I really can’t stand Paul Greene. He just...annoys me on every single level imaginable. But he’s a decent actor and I can’t help but feel that his character was a massive waste of space for the past few seasons through no fault of the man himself. Imagine introducing a character like Carson and then leaving him to rot before you try to make him interesting with a romance plot that nobody asked for.

Yes, some people really like Faith and Carson, but as a whole I think the fandom didn’t buy into them as a ship due to the lack of chemistry.

It really is a shame. This episode didn’t do a thing to endear me to either character. Please, Carson. I am begging you to leave town.

This one particular line of dialogue almost enraged me.

WE KNOW WE KNOW WE KNOW WE KNOW WE CAN SEE THAT FOR OURSELVES. WHY DID THEY HAVE ROSEMARY SAY THIS LIKE IT’S AN EPISODE OF A CHILD’S TV SHOW?

Elizabeth.........

How could Katie have...looked up to her? She was never in her class? That was? Never part of anything? It was just something they threw in here to force Elizabeth to make 1% more sense in the role she’s in but IT STILL DOESN’T WORK.

I felt like I was back in Season 5 again with Lori and Elizabeth putting their nose in everyone’s business except it’s just Elizabeth!! The whole plot, which was boring and contrived anyway, should have gone to Molly, since she’s Florence’s best friend and another woman from town that Katie would have known as a child.

AND ALSO, MOLLY WOULD HAVE KNOWN KATIE’S MOTHER AND WOULD REMEMBER THE GRIEF THAT NED STRUGGLED WITH.

I know they wanted to make Elizabeth give advice so that she’d Realize that she needs to, I don’t know, make better choices or something, but it was too on the nose for me and I hated it.

GinithePooh on Reddit made a good comparison to Elizabeth in this episode by saying she reminded them of Clippy from Microsoft Word, always popping up and offering to help when nobody really needs or wants advice.

To honor their incredible idea, I opened Photoshop and created this gem, which I will also be posting separately so that people can reblog it if they wish to.

I also don’t think I need to say also filed under The Bad is the fact that Elizabeth didn’t even apologize for being awful to Rosemary and then gave her unsolicited advice to other people for two days straight. I can’t believe they wrote that?

All I can say is that her apology to Rosemary, when it comes, better be good.

And I didn’t like this either:

I wish it had been followed up by literally anything: Nathan saying he’s sorry he didn’t tell her sooner or something to make the hand-holding actually be a little more innocent.

As it is, it just seems so deliberate?

Maybe the next episode starts off right in this scene and we’ll get that? If so, this might actually end up being fine. I just don’t think it is if it doesn’t get a little more direct attention.

& THE UGLY

I debated on putting anything in here, because I’m not ready to talk about my feelings on this matter, at least not fully. But I’ve been pretty quiet all season so far, and...eh, why not just mention things in advance? What will it hurt?

Let me preface this section by saying I’m biased and I doubt hardly anyone on this site will agree with me, so feel free to just ignore this part if that’s the case.

There are two things that I really didn’t like in this episode.

I hate the slanting toward Bill/Molly.

I like Molly just fine but I don’t like her with Bill. I’m biased as all getout and also worried about the future/potential Season 9 with regards to this. I don’t want to see it. Like at all. Why, you ask? You should know why if you follow me. I’m super transparent.

It’s because I like AJ AND I WANT HER BACK LOL.

John Tinker rewatched the series so we know he wouldn’t have missed that hanging plot thread—especially since he didn’t forget any of the other things that were brought up this season! So why didn’t she appear this season? The love triangle absolutely needed to be a focus or it would have never ended, so that’s part of it, but I’m also pretty sure Josie Bissett wasn’t interested in doing any filming last year during Covid. My only “proof” is that Wedding March 6 wasn’t filmed last year even though it was scheduled to be filmed, but it makes sense. Last year was chaos.

THAT SAID, Jack Wagner posted on his Instagram the other day that they are actually filming Wedding March 6 now, so... I guess AJ’s re-appearance in Season 9 wouldn’t come as too much of a surprise if they wanted to write it.

You’d think I’d be hyped about that, and I kind of am? But it doesn’t come without its share of worries, too. We just had the worst love triangle in the history of love triangles and I really don’t want another one, especially if it makes any of the characters in question look stupid or mean.

I fully admit a well-written love triangle could be a LOT of fun for them* (low stakes because they’re not front and center characters), but I saw how Nathan was written so far this season and I really, REALLY do not want to see that happen to Molly, Bill, or AJ.

Anyway, not a fan of the Molly/Bill stuff. No chemistry. I don’t want it.

*I would totally write a fanfic like this lmao.

And finally...the part that everyone will hate me for:

I DO NOT WANT TO SEE ABIGAIL COME BACK. And I specifically do not want her to come back ‘cause I do not wanna see Henry/Abigail happen.

I fully recognize that a lot of you like it and ship the heck out of it, and that’s...good. I’m glad you enjoy it. I loathe it, though, and I worry that all these hints (more like...mentions) are leaning toward...something. Like, either they’re:

1) Sending Abigail off/tying up that loose end with Henry (since nothing was ever clarified either way), or

2) Warming up the audience to receive Abigail back on the show.

I’m pretty into the idea of one-sided Henry/Abigail. Hindsight is 20/20, regrets, that’s all some juicy stuff to give a character like Henry. Some things can’t ever be made right again. He had too direct of a connection to the death of her husband and son for me to ever want to see them together. Forgiveness? Yes. A careful but meaningful friendship? Yes. Romantic relationship? Uh...no thanks.

I liked the Abigail mentions at first because I felt like...the character still mattered (as she should) but I’m at a point where I feel like they’re trying really hard to steer the fandom’s view a certain way and not knowing where it’s going is extremely unsettling to me.

I’ll probably talk more about the things that bother me when the season ends, because I’m hoping to have a better idea of where things are going to be headed, but for now just...know that I feel very apprehensive.

And keep in mind that I primarily watch this show for Bill these days, since all my previous faves (AJ, Frank, the old Abigail, Dottie) have exited, stage left. I also always really liked seeing Henry. So as you can imagine, seeing plotlines I hate for the only two characters I’m invested in? Is making me consider dropping the series next year.

My husband told me I should hate-watch it, but I don’t know if my heart can take it. I’ve been following this series for so long...it just...kind of hurts to feel let down like this?

But sometimes an ongoing series ends up going where you...didn’t want it to, and it becomes something that’s no longer right for you. I hope that doesn’t happen, but last night’s episode makes me feel like...it might be happening for real this time.

I guess if that holds true it’ll be back to fanfiction for me. Will that novelization I planned ages ago end up getting written? Will I write the best love triangle fanfic known to man? WHO KNOWS.

For now, we’ll all have to wait and see! Two more episodes left. I’m really curious to see how they resolve some of the open plots right now. :>

#when calls the heart #long post #character studies and information #analysis and meta discussion

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haloud · 5 years ago

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mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird

-ao3-

1. Michael dreams like this:

There is a woman, a very tall woman, and he doesn’t want to look at her face, so he stares at her knees instead. The woman gets angry at him for not listening, but she doesn’t shout; she just kneels on the shimmering purple floor and puts her strong hands on his shoulders. Her eyes are red like she’s been crying.

“You’re brave, you’re a brave boy,” the woman says, but he isn’t brave, because he still can’t look at the woman, apart from her eyes there’s just a blurry smear where her face should be, and if he was brave he would squint his eyes at it and try and see right through, but he won’t, because he’s not brave. He doesn’t even want to be.

“Be good, be good for your mother,” the woman says, but he isn’t good, because if he was good the woman wouldn’t be sending him away; if he was good, she wouldn’t be crying again, because he would make it all better. His mother likes to tell him he’s good, likes to tell him he does, but if that was true then everyone wouldn’t be sad, and they wouldn’t be leaving, and they wouldn’t be leaving the woman behind.

“I’ll see you, I’ll see you when this is all over,” the woman says, but someone is pulling him away, and he turns his head to look at the woman until she’s gone and his neck hurts, and his eyes hurt too, because the room they take him to is too bright. The pod rooms always are, and he hates it, and he tells his mother so, and she smiles and pulls him into her chest and kisses his forehead and says:

“Just close your eyes, baby, you can take a nice long nap soon, and when you wake up it’ll be better, we’ll be in a better place—”

Except it won’t be better, because the woman won’t be there, and he knows his mother knows that too, because her tears are dropping into his hair and he can feel her sadness in how tightly she’s holding him. He wants to tell her lying is bad, because that’s what the woman tells him when he says he didn’t push Zan into the mirror pool again, and it makes his mother smile when he repeats the things the woman says. He wants to say he’s not a baby, just tired and confused and sad, but she’s already crying and he doesn’t want to make it worse.

“We’re going on a long, long trip, and when you wake up it will all be better,” his mother says again.

Then she kisses his forehead and calls him her wrath and puts her hand against the nearest pod.

When he wakes up he’s face to face with the stars, cold sweat soaking through his sleeping bag. He can’t remember a single second of the dream, but he knows that he is angry.

2. Michael dreams like this:

“Vilandra, give it back!”

Zan stamps his foot. His fists are clenched at his sides; his face is bright red. He, Michael, though that isn’t his name yet, hasn’t yet been given to him ‘cause M was the next letter of the alphabet—he rolls his knuckles on the cool marble steps where he’s sitting and flicks his eyes back and forth. Landra seems like she’s getting taller every day but Zan hasn’t grown that much, even though they’re twins. It’s her new favorite thing to tease her brother about. Michael tells Zan that it’s okay—he’s still taller than Michael, at least—but Zan stomped his foot then too and said it wasn’t the same.

Landra takes advantage of her new height now, holding Zan’s new book over her head so he can’t reach it. “Ask me nicer,” she taunts, and Zan’s face goes bright red with anger.

They do this a lot. Michael’s mom laughs and says it’s just because they’re siblings, and they’ll grow out of it, then she tells him a story about some of the things she used to do to her brothers when they were Zan and Vilandra’s age. Michael guesses it’s okay if it’s normal, but he still doesn’t know what to do in the thick of it. If he’s supposed to protect them, how does he go about protecting them from each other? And they always end up fighting on days like today—nice days, where they’ve been let out early from classes, and they’re allowed to play in the courtyard with the mirror pool in it with only one guard and Michael, so it’s really easy to get away with stuff. Michael would rather be helping them plan to steal desserts from the kitchen than listening to them yell at each other again.

“If you don’t give it back, you’ll never see this again,” Zan says, and he holds something up that sparkles and makes Vilandra shriek with fury.

“You took Nana’s necklace?” She screams, bursting into noisy tears—but nowhere near as inconsolable as she’d been the other day when she noticed the necklace was missing. Michael spent three whole days helping her look for it, but neither of them even bothered checking Zan’s room. Why would he do this? It was a gift, it was Vilandra’s gift, their grandmother gave Zan a gift of his own, so why’d he take this one? Michael doesn’t understand, and he’s mad too, but he doesn’t want to get in between the twins while they’re yelling at each other.

Then, still howling, Vilandra throws Zan’s book on the ground so hard that Michael can hear the crack of the spine from where he’s sitting. Plus the ground is muddy from the recent rain, and the pages crumple up from the dirt and the wet, and it’s definitely ruined now. All three of them gape at it for a second, like they have no idea what could have happened. Then Zan turns on his heel and throws, as hard as he can, their Nana’s necklace, which twinkles in the bright sunlight as arcs up high and then falls with a plop into the center of the pool.

For a moment, a shocked silence falls over the courtyard. Even the guard, who had been lazing in the shade of one of the pillars across the yard, stops to stare, open-mouthed, at the rippling water.

Zan and Vilandra both start crying, then, and it’s too much, Michael is supposed to protect them, that’s what he’s made for, and that’s what everyone says. So he kicks off his shoes and runs down the steps, past the twins, and throws himself into the pool.

The water is so clear the necklace is easy to see on the smooth bottom. He didn’t realize, though, he didn’t know, how deep it is, how hard he needs to kick to propel himself down and down, how heavy clothes get when they’re soaked with water, how much it hurts to hold your breath until your lungs feel like they could burst. He closes his hand around the pendant and clutches it to his chest and kicks up again, but then a cough shakes him, forces his mouth open, forces water to flood in and choke him, drown him, make him thrash away from it but it’s everywhere, it’s all around him, and—

A strong arm snatches him around the waist. Before he even passes out for real, his head is popping out of the water, but he still can’t breathe, gasping and coughing and gaping, until the guard plops him on the edge of the pool and thumps him on the back until all the water’s come back up out of his stomach and lungs.

The second he takes a good, big breath, Zan and Vilandra are on top of him, fighting for who gets to hug more of him, shouting over instead of at each other this time, and Michael’s too out of it to tell for real what they’re saying. He takes Vilandra’s hand and puts the necklace into it; she makes a fist, and punches him in the shoulder.

“I’ll go with you to pick out another book tomorrow—” Michael blubbers at Zan, and then Zan is punching him too, and then they’re hugging again.

Michael hopes his mother won’t be mad about his wet clothes.

She isn’t.

When he wakes up the first thing he sees is the high ceiling of Max’s sitting room, and a headache pounds sickly behind his eyes. He can’t remember a single second of the dream, but in the waking world Max is dead and Isobel has left, and the (human) heart is divided into left and right sides, and Michael has lost them both.

3. Michael dreams like this:

His mother is singing him a lullaby, but he isn’t sleepy. This is the first time they’ve gone so far out of the city, to where the stars are bright enough to name. He wishes Zan and Vilandra were here, but they’re not allowed to come this far out because it’s “dangerous.” But they don’t care as much about the stars as Michael does anyway, so he guesses it’s okay. Zan gave him a really nice book about star travel for his birthday, and Vilandra bought him a compass, and he has both hugged to his chest as he watches a ship come in low and all lit up, heading for the Royal Port.

“Is Zan and Vilandra’s mom on that one?” He asks when the song finishes and the ship is just disappearing toward the horizon.

His mother strokes his hair off his forehead and is quiet for a moment. “No, sweetheart. That’s probably their cousin come back from Dedameia. The Queen has a lot of important duties far away right now.”

“They really miss her.” The ship has passed them, Michael’s eyes fully re-adjusted to the dark sky, and he blinks in time with the twinkling of the brightest star he can see. When he’s back in the light, he’ll read Zan’s book and figure out which one it is, and how he might go about seeing it someday. “I’d really miss you, if you were gone that often.”

He misses his other mom too, when she has to leave for work, but he’s kind of used to it now, and as long as she calls every night like she promises, it’s not so bad.

“I’d miss you too, baby,” she croons, “But it would be okay. Do you know why?”

“Because I could stay with Zan and Vilandra, and you’d be back before I knew it?”

“That’s a good answer, but it’s not the only one.”

“Because you’d call me, like mama does?”

“I would, baby, I would. Do you have one more answer for me?”

He snuggles back into her and thinks for a second. “Because you’ll always love me?”

She doesn’t answer that one with words; she bends down and kisses the top of his head, and he smiles, because he knows that means she’s happy.

Then she says, “There you go. Now you know it will be okay. Because you see—” She takes Michael’s hand in hers and points their fingers together, tracing three lines in the night sky, connecting the three brightest stars together. “Those stars are called the Triad, and when our explorers see them in the sky and on their sensors, they know they’re almost home. So no matter how far away we may go, if we make each other three promises, we’ll always find each other again. That’s the way it works.”

“That’s the way it works,” Michael repeats, and he smiles, hugging the book and the compass again. He’ll have to think of some really good promises to make with Zan and Vilandra next time he sees them, in case they have to go with their mom on her next trip like the advisors are always muttering about behind closed doors.

His mom starts humming the lullaby again, and he tells her he isn’t sleepy, but she just laughs and says she just likes to sing, is all, especially when she’s with him.

And when Michael wakes, he doesn’t remember a single thing.

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Three towers on top of the castle, Three bright stars that light up the sky, Three ships coming into the harbor, Three baby birds that are learning to fly.

Three planets all spinning in circles, Three times that I kiss you goodnight. Three times I kiss you the next time you wake, Three turns you make and the heading is right.

Three times I tell you I love you, Three gifts I give you to help you to see. Follow this map and I’ll be there waiting, Three times if you promise you’ll come home to me. --Antarian folk song for loved ones leaving on a long journey ---------------------------------------------------

#roswell new mexico #michael guerin #guys #guys im SAD #about michael and especially BABY MICHAEL and BABY ALIENS IN GENERAL #drowning description cw

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