#honestly i might do some stuff for mia - she's easier to hide

[xx-rememberthepast-xx]

[evakuality]

Mia, episode seven

Sorry, don’t read this if you like Mia.  I am not a fan of hers in this episode.

1.  Ugh.  I do not like that there is no recognition here of the conversation with Kiki.  I don’t get it - if you’re going to have that conversation and make it feel like a wrench for Mia to ‘give up’ Alex, why not address it properly?  Even if this comes up again later, I dislike that when she arrived there was no discussion about the Kiki thing, and now it’s all about sex with no recognition that she is now literally lying and going behind Kiki’s back.  Worse, it was Mia who told Kiki she would do whatever it took to keep her friendship, so she lied about that too.  I’m really disappointed in where this went.  She didn’t have to tell Kiki she would give Alex up - they were having a really honest conversation and she could just have said ‘I fell for him even though I know I shouldn’t’ and I don’t understand why they made that choice.  I don’t remember the og on this at all so I don’t know if they got it from there, but even if it is in there, they could have chosen to not have Mia deliberately and specifically lie to Kiki’s face and then act like she has no compunction about it at all.

2.  Okay so they’re finally talking about Kiki, but Mia dismisses that with ‘it’s not about Kiki’ and ‘I already talked to her’?  When that conversation literally ended differently, and now she’s lying to both Alex and Kiki?  Yeah, this isn’t doing it for me at all.  And to think, I actually did like Mia before this.  But the end of the last episode and the start of this one has really revised my feelings on her.  It’s not just Alex who’s being a dick in this situation.  I also don’t like that we’re supposed to be feeling sorry for Alex here because he has ‘problems with his parents’.  I know, assuming this is like the og, that there is a deeper thing here with the sister, but even so.  How on earth can they have a relationship when it’s based on lies and hating each other’s family circumstances?  I still don’t understand what they see in each other.  If it’s only sex, then there are SO many more people out there and nothing so far has sold me that either of them genuinely likes the other as a person.

3.  And yet another clip with Mia knowing she’s being an asshole and choosing not to address it.  I know she has this need to be in control and I know she’s doing something that’s for her for once and that’s probably both exhilarating and scary, but ugh.  The amount of lies is really building up.  Most of the other couples in our little world have communication issues etc, and many are hiding things, but actually lying on purpose like this isn’t as common and Mia is just casually throwing them out there like it’s easy.  Also ‘why me?’ ‘because you know who I am’ - ummmm, no she doesn’t Alex.  You’re literally hiding stuff from her as well!!  Unless you mean, she knows you’re an asshole and gives you the time of day anyway?  Plus, it’s not believable - Alex clearly started stalking/pursuing/gaslighting her well before she showed that she ‘knew’ him.    Like it’s nice that they’re trying to ‘communicate’ here, but if they’re just going to keep lying it’s not actually going to help.

4.  I get what they’re going for with this little bubble the two of them are in.  But Mia literally is avoiding her life and the more time she spends not connecting with her friends, the more likely they are to be concerned.  This bubble can’t last and I dislike that this whole thing is built on such a fragile and unbelievable base for them as they pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist.  It’s strange that I’m okay with it with Matteo and David and their fake vs real thing, but I think it’s because the issues are different and there were no specific promises to other people not to connect.  Keeping things private is different from lying outright.  Plus, neither Matteo nor David was an actual asshole and I still don’t believe that Alex isn’t the guy he showed through 1.5 seasons, and the one who was so awful to Kiki.  

5.  And of course, as expected, Kiki finds out when she’s trying to do something nice for Mia.  And of course she’s now more hurt than she was before.  So, now Mia thinks ‘I can’t do this to Kiki’?  Not a few days ago when Kiki was vulnerable and open with her?  No, it has to be now after she made things 500% worse.  It’s funny - I don’t usually find myself in a situation where I dislike the PoV character in these shows.  But here I am.  I actually dislike Mia in this episode.  I can usually get where a character is coming from even when I can see them totally stuffing up, but here she’s made conscious and deliberate choices and I don’t have any sympathy that they’ve come back to bite her.  I usually have some sympathy for the struggles, but not today.

6.  I know, from things that I’ve seen around, what this bunch of all-caps texts from Alex are about.  But again, Mia has no reason to know and respond the way she does.  It might have helped if we knew ahead of time what is going on with him, even if it was mentioned casually before maybe.  But instead, we have her jumping to her feet and rushing off to him for no real reason.  This is, again, the big problem Druck always has - pacing and making the story beats believable as an entirety rather than as discrete clips.  Even looking at the time for this episode - we had the entire build up and destruction of their relationship within the space of half an episode and now less than a minute later it’s all back on because of this panic attack.  It’s too fast, no time to breathe.  Skam and its offshoots always work best when things are allowed to develop organically and at a pace that isn’t this rushed.  The clip format is half to blame for this, but even with that it should be possible to develop this whole thing at an easier pace that builds tension and makes sense.

7.  Pacing, pacing, pacing.  Ugh.  Just this episode Mia explained why she’s not ready for sex, and now when Alex is or has been in a vulnerable state, she’s all ‘hey you know what would be a great idea?  Sex’  Why does all this stuff all have to be in one episode?  Why did we need so much of Alex being an asshole at the start of the season only to cram so much of the important relationship development stuff into one short episode?  I know they had to cut it down from the og (thank goodness, that one was far too long), but there are ways they could have done it while letting all these plotpoints breathe a bit.  It’s too crammed into one episode when it didn’t have to be.

8.  Yes Hanna, express this stuff for me: ‘all this happened in the last 3 days?’ Exactly.  Also this scene proves once again why Mia and Hanna should be a thing.  They have real, genuine conversations in which no-one ends up feeling belittled.  And they have great chemistry.  Seriously, Mia should have looked in this direction.  But honestly, in terms of pacing, Kiki finding out at the end of this episode and then this whole part being the focus of the next one would work better.  This whole business with Carlos is cute and all, and his advice is actually pretty decent, but again it’s all so rushed.  Again, I know this was released clip by clip and so the format is a bit different, but it should probably also work in an episodic format.  I feel like I’ve lived 3 episodes all in one go and now we have the other girls showing up and being disapproving as well; it’s too much.

9.  I don’t like that two episodes in a row (and after such a LOT in this one) we have a ‘Mia trying to be open with Kiki’ scene.  This excuse ‘I wanted to protect you’ is unkind and we already saw on more than one occasion how Mia protecting Kiki was a bad thing for Mia.  Also ‘I didn’t understand that it’s something serious between Alex and me’ is such a huge problem for me.  She literally lied to Kiki’s face and then went to Alex immediately afterwards.  So either she did know how serious it was or she didn’t really care that much and didn’t need to go back to him at all.  This is so frustrating because we’re supposed to accept all of this at face value when actually on any sort of consideration it doesn’t hold up.  So even though Kiki’s little speech is really good and does highlight all the issues I have with Mia, unfortunately a) I already disliked her because of it and b) because it’s all so rushed, I don’t care about any of it.  Except Kiki.  Which, considering how awful and racist etc she has been is a huge feat.  And effectively, Kiki has moved herself aside and allowed Mia to have Alex if she wants.  All of this in one episode!  

Basically I did not enjoy this episode, there was too much crammed into it (I have this same issue with some of Nora’s in s5, and it is one of the biggest issues I often have with Druck compared to the og) and so while Kiki’s speech should have been a turning point allowing us to see a way into Mia’s future, I am actually left disliking our main character and not all that inclined to watch the rest of the season.