#so many roy angsts happening. so many jamie angsts happening as well

[sighonaraa]

Sid! I’m already obsessed with your 17 year old Jamie goes to Richmond fic! Does it have a name?

ash! i am so happy to hear you’re already obsessed with the 17 year old jamie goes to richmond fic! it’s one of the gift fics for @asteria-argo bc once many moons ago the two of us tossed a brain cell back and forth about the ripe potentiality of such an au (also inspired by @altschmerzes’s absolutely stunning “wriggle up on dry land”) and i’ve simply been chomping at the bit to write it for eternities since.

it does NOT have a name yet i am sorry to report :(

HOWEVER. it may end up being saw something they can’t take away from taylor swift’s “you’re on your own, kid” if only because that one particular song makes my heart hurty in the most jamie specific way.

[altschmerzes]

Thoughts on the new ted lasso episode?????? I have so many conflicting opinions re: zava

well first of all this is how i enjoyed it:

i will be repeating the experience weekly. cannot more highly recommend cosymode ted lasso.

as for the episode itself- [shrieks into my hands] i'm gonna put some thoughts under a cut, both generally and re: zava specifically, thank you for asking. these thoughts are not going to be at all organized and mostly composed in run-on sentences i am so sorry.

IM ALSO.... CONFLICTED ON ZAVA I THINK though it's interesting bc as i was watching the episode i kept getting like, OUTRAGEOUSLY distracted by..... [checks notes] not knowing what his first name is. this is not a joke. it was ACTIVELY distracting for me. i kept telling myself sometimes people are like this. like cher. you don't need to know his first name. and then two minutes later someone would mention him again and i'd be like What Is The Man's Fucking Name Though. it was so bizarre lmaooo.

honestly re: the man himself i'm like!! idk!!! jamie is clearly already way in his feelings about this and i can only imagine it's going to get worse which is gonna be. fucking delicious if we actually get to spend some time with and unpack it because 'i feel like i'm being replaced and i'm getting anxious/upset/lashing out about it' is one of my favourite sources of Angst Plots. we shall see. i am as always a combination of hopeful and anxious.

the dude playing him really did a great job striking a very specific and identifiable vibe for someone who had like Three Lines of dialogue and whose face we saw clearly like once.

i feel like i have two diverging paths in front of me with this guy's arc and it's either gonna be 'i'm riveted and having a great time' or 'please get this dude out of my face' and no in-between

and now for some general thoughts:

didn't realize this was the chelsea episode and somehow still had 'chelsea dagger' on repeat while cleaning up and getting ready to go cosymode. (i am stealing that song from its association with the chicago hockey team. it whips too hard to be left to them.) enjoyed the accidental reference when i turned on the tv and saw the title. also kept remembering a couple irl friends who are chelsea fans and having myself a giggle.

speaking of 'great time' vs 'get this out of my face' how relieved am i that they've now bait-and-switched me TWICE with fucking. love triangle bullshit. with roy and keeley and jamie. when he followed roy and not keeley i was like. oh thank fuck. the ensuing scene was both very sweet and very funny. they are welcome to continue bait and switching me on this as long as the switch Continues To Happen but if this goes in a Direction i am not gonna be thrilled.

something is brewing with keeley's company. it's not gonna....... go well, i think. something is gonna come to a head there, i got the feeling from the drop, and i'm not sure what or how yet but something's gonna give with that. all those scenes have this weird like. tension to them that i can't quite put my finger on and im intrigued to see where it goes.

i actually really like the CFO woman? she seems like a very interesting character and i think she and keeley could balance each other very well.

my jamie and dani besties agenda is flourishing. so is dani's hair. it's fantastic and i want to braid it.

oh speaking of hair back to zava for a second. beard pulled up the footage of him and i literally said out loud, pronouncing the letters not the word 'motherfucker': "oh this mf has my haircut"

AND SPEAKING OF DANI when he said "fuck off trent crimm" i think i shriek-laughed so hard the whole block heard me. dani my fucking beloved. i adore you.

y'know who else had a good episode here? isaac. his body language thing was so good. it made me laugh and also was a SPECTACULAR look into him as a person. every time we get a scrap of characterization on one of the secondary richmond player characters i dance around like the soot sprites with the candies in that ghibli movie i can't recall the title of off the dome.

i probably overblow this in my head, right, because everyone thinks their own perspective is like Super Unique or something but i really do think being an enormous irl sports fan is enhancing the experience i'm having with this show so much. watching the fans unfurl that banner for roy and cheer for him like that was like... immediately a half dozen welcome back tribute videos and player homecomings i've watched raced through my head and i was literally in actual physical tears. both bc of what was happening on screen and bc of All The Rest Of That in my head.

speaking of. oh my gd my heart hurt so much for roy as soon as he pulled that fucking. newspaper clipping from his wallet. i liked that he ripped it up at the end but i do wish it had come a little harder. he's been carrying that thing around for 20 years i'd have liked to see a biiiiit more of a battle over letting it go. still. holy shit and the bit at the end? about leaving chelsea? winded me. WINDED ME.

to be honest this was a rough one for him all around. i cannot imagine everyone i know making my breakup front page news in THEIR life too. which is like- they mean well and it's obviously coming from a good place and the people talking to him directly - jamie, ted, etc - are like. trying to be kind and supportive but if i were him i'd want to run away and also die in a hole about it so. big #felt that whole thing. even so, i do also have to say-

the roy's hyperbolic violence/threats thing is Back With A Vengeance! we know how i feel about this. i had a whole post about how i feel about this. it's a Bit, i know, it's a goof, this being a comedy show and roy being The Angry One but still i just. i feel like they take it a liiiiiittle past the pale in this ep, in general and also with jamie specifically. roy flying at him in the locker room during the big 'who's on first' round robin was a Bit Much for me - and i know i harp on this a lot but i maintain my stance here - given their history to this point. ted saying to roy near the end of the episode that like, he needed to get his act together or he'd be ruining more than one match was a good touch that did a lot to defuse some of my unease with this running thread but. it was still there and i was still a little [oh boy.gif] about it.

anyway so now i'm knee-deep in a fic about That.

overall it was spectacular, i really enjoyed it. knocked out of the park episode thank you so much.

i have many more discrete thoughts but i have to clip it here my keyboard is starting to lag lmaoooo

[organic-guacamole]

I've got a lot of thoughts on this finale.

starting with the length.

27 minutes? really?

I'm not asking for a 2 hour episode but cmon, at least give us something closer to 40 minutes.

next, the characters

the characters just didn't feel like themselves, especially portwell.

all season long we saw how much potential they had, how well communicated they were, how good they were at being a proper, healthy couple, and now they just can't talk to each other?

it doesn't feel like them.

portwell had arguably the best set up of all the other ships, they showed us how good they had the potential to be only to throw in a cheap plot to wrap it up? I would understand that they want some angst to make the ending all the more satisfying, but this was pathetic.

there I said it.

of all the ways to add drama in a ship, don't use the one that completely contradicts their entire development.

paired with the length of the episode, it seemed even more poorly written.

here I made a lovely, handy dandy homemade graph to represent how I see portwell's storyline:

as i said before, we saw the build up being nearly perfect. they peaked during episodes 9-11 because they just had the chemistry, the communication, and the most potential to be the endgame couple.

they just got eachother.

then we get Jamie popping in for 10 seconds and erasing a lot of that, only for mediator Ashlyn to jump in and solve their problems.

then there's the "kiss".

I know that Sofia is underage and that even if she/her legal guardians consent to the kiss, the writers can still decide not to show it, but still. In my opinion, if you're not going to show the kiss, then don't bother.

there are other ways to establish a relationship that would work better in this situation. Of course if they get together they'll have to kiss sometime, but one way they could postpone it is by having Gina be a bit more reluctant to give away her first kiss like that. it could also show how accomodating EJ is.

I like to think that Gina is very meticulous when making decisions so she'll probably want to be very sure of the relationship before giving him her first kiss. perhaps she'd stick to cheek kisses until she's ready, and then she kisses him and he's surprised.

that would've been, in my opinion, a sufficient way to hold off the kiss while still wrapping up portwell until season 3 when Sofia would be 18 (assuming they get picked up for S3 this summer then start filming fall-winter. Sofia will be 18 in January).

as my friend @rtcosley (idk why it's not letting me tag them, so their page is linked) said,

"They created like 10 plots

And instead of wrapping it up

They added 4 more"

there's just so much more they could've done...it's the season finale for crying out loud.

I get that seblos already had (what I assume is) their storyline for the season, the fight and resolution. Ignoring the fact that that only lasted for 2 episodes and didn't have anything to do with what we were expecting, (i.e.the financial differences between their families, as mentioned in episode 1, the fact that everyone treats seb like he's stupid, this being carlos' first show and the drama that the stress of that caused, etc.), seblos had to purpose this episode than to stand next to eachother and be gay.

I get that they're not part of the core four or anything, but the poster for season 2 has all of them, as opposed to season 1 just being the core four.

They deserved better, just like redlyn and kowie.

redlyn's arc was pretty early in the season compared to the other ships. they had Ashlyn confessing her insecurities in episode 3, antoine stirring the pot of confusion and causing a bit of distance between them briefly, and then big red confessing his goals and plans for the future in episode 8 and for the rest of it, we just see them getting closer and more comfortable with each other and caring about each other more and more.

they had a good arc together.

but that's just it. I wanted to see them have their own arcs. but then again, this show can't seem to balance multiple storylines. I think it is possible, but not when they keep adding new characters that don't contribute anything much to the story(more on that later).

kowie's storyline is... confusing.

I really like their dynamic, how carefree and happy Kourtney gets around him, how she's remaining true to herself and managing a million and one things, plus a relationship in her own without losing herself to it all.

but the main issue I have is that the entire development was never shown.

we went from strangers, to coworkers, to friends that flirt, to lovers that text constantly and went on numerous dates (and Howie met her mother at some point). but all of that, was off screen.

it's like the writers made every episode with them in it kind of thrown in at a new stage of relationship progression and said "here, accept this, no questions asked because we don't have answers"

I just wish we could've seen more of howie trying to get in her good side again after episode 7 because it seems like that's when a lot of it happened.

I appreciate the Rini scene in this episode, seems to be the very end of them, for good this time.

i'm happy about that.

Ricky especially deserves to be free for a while to focus on his development, and Nini has the chance now to really shine through her talents and make a name for herself.

The Rini storyline is the only one I'm fully satisfied with.

now, that being said;

what the heck are they trying to pull with Lily and Ricky rn???

just like that.

after lily being the villain this whole season, they're just gonna not redeem her and then have her confess her feelings to Ricky, a guy she barely knows and only talked to to harass and intimidate, and for him to reject her publicly then call her afterwards?

please I hope it's just to say "you dropped something, here it is and never contact me again, thanks." /hj

speaking of the villains, this season was promoted as the season of rivalry between North and East High right? so why did that plot idea only progress in about 3 out if 12 episodes?

we got Zackey Roy in there for a few episodes then he disappeared, Lily just caused Gina to stay true to her friends in episode 2 and 7 and then basically did nothing else?

this is what I mean by the new characters providing nothing to the show.

the writers can't manage having so many characters and plots at once so they start so many promising arcs, only to kick them aside later on.

we already know that the first half of the season felt like filler episodes, so I think they could've cut those down to leave room for the more important plots to take root, rather than have them pop up and get rushed at the end of the season.

all that, and they just add 4 more plots at the end of the season.

this post sounds very negative looking back...but if I'm being honest with myself, I'm just very very disappointed.

I love this show so much and I really expected better for the season finale, especially if they don't know if it's getting renewed or not.

given the IMDB ratings of this episode so far, I don't have very high expectations for the renewal, but I'm still hopeful because this show is a great thing, one of the best things that happened to me over the course of this quarantine. I've become so attached to this show, the cast and the friends I made through it, that I don't know what I would do if it just ends like this. writing these reviews and posts about this season has been so fun for me to do and thinking that this may be the very last one is a painful thought.

I'm sorry if you were expecting this post to be as light-hearted as my other posts about the episodes, I just had a lot to say about this episode in particular.

all my episode posts are tagged with "#guac's episode text blocks :)" in case you wanna read through and reminisce the simpler times🥲

[hacash]

ted lasso 2x09 thoughts

ARGH

those are it. those are my thoughts.

Ok, slightly more coherently…

Sam’s getting recognition! Sam has his own chant! I love that for him. Love it all. It’s obviously so good that Sam is becoming an in-universe hero when we’ve loved him from his first scene - however, that also comes with the caveat of not wanting him to move anywhere from Nelson Road. I’m curious to see where they take it though, because I obviously can’t see Toheeb Jimoh leaving the cast before the show finishes, but at the same time this offer is so good for him?? I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.

(If, on the other hand, Toheeb is being written out because he’s going on to star as a lead in another show where we could see more of his beautiful face and stellar acting every week? I would find that acceptable.)

Screeners’ reactions for this episode had me thinking something cataclysmic and dreadful was going to happen between Sam and Rebecca with them reuniting and it hitting the papers - and it ended up being fine?? Of course she’s torn about him leaving. Even if they end up never being together again Sam clearly represents something wonderful to Rebecca - possibility and the sense of being treated right - and those feelings don’t just go away.

I expected a bit more reaction from Ted about the whole Sambecca thing, but that little look in his eyes after their conversation did have me curious - does he disapprove more than he lets on? is he secretly pining for Rebecca already? only time will tell. also I did notice Ted was once again basically saying whatever Rebecca wanted to hear and agreeing at every single line - he might be going to therapy but he’s not out of the people-pleaser woods yet.

Another bombshell next year? OH COME ON. If that’s not a prediction of some sort of confession of love I will go out and buy a hat just to eat it.

SHARON. How I am going to miss thee. But it was a lovely and understated farewell to a character that I’ve really come to love - Sexy Mother Fucker; he stole my move, yaas - showing how much she and Ted have helped each other grow and I just *tear*. Also I’m a Tedbecca shipper through and through, but Jason and Sarah do have such lovely chemistry together.

Also the pub regulars basically pleading for free therapy? Aww.

Higgins luring Ted back to read Sharon’s note with a well-chosen letter based pun? I love this man to the ends of the earth.

I FUCKING KNEW THAT HIGGINS KNEW EVERYONE’S BIRTHDAY. I PREDICTED THAT SHIT.

Roy and Keeley…I’m sorry, I’m emotional and anxious and hopeful and I do not think they’re going to break up. Relationships go through messy spots and people struggle, and the mark of a good, communicative, grown-up relationship is that you take time and discuss your issues and move past them. Keeley and Roy’s relationship has always been characterised by that maturity, and I just don’t see a couple of ill-timed romance confessions breaking that down.

(If anything, we might get a discussion from Roy about Keeley trusting him - I’m guessing there’s a fair bit of time lapsed between Jamie’s confession and her telling all to Roy, and I can see that being the sticking point that upsets Roy, that she hid this from him for some time. He clearly didn’t feel at all upset by what happened with Nate; it’s the - arguably fair - point that Keeley didn’t let him know that her ex confessed love for her that I think is going to be the issue.)

Also, the ‘are you married’ question - coupled with the fact that we keep seeing Roy on his knees in front of Keeley - makes me think we’re going to get a proposal next episode.

Also I love that we’re seeing more of Keeley’s psyche beyond the ‘cute and supports everyone’ façade - her mother’s experience with ambition and not being able to achieve it is a really interesting little snippet, not to mention the reason she bonds so much with Nate and is able to see how someone seemingly ‘undeserving’ should be able to realise their dreams.

also her and Rebecca’s ‘bleargggggh!’ competition! and Ted thinking he was going to be on the cover of Vanity Fair! return of Biscuits with the Boss!

ok, deep breaths now

NAAAAAATE

WHAT ARE YOU DOOIIIIIIING

Is it bad that I sort of liked the whole thing with Keeley? Not in a ‘yes I want this to happen’ sort of way, but because it makes so much sense that Nate (particularly Nate in his current state) might mistake that level of bonding and emotional support as something romantic. We know Nate is insecure and hasn’t had much of a social life in the past, and that he idealises Keeley for her basic kindness and decency: much like Jamie in 2x10, he’s mistaking Keeley’s kindness as something more…it’s absolutely gutting to watch, and also so human and real that I can’t help but take my hat off to the writers for it.

(Honestly, there’s been so many posts on tumblr about how toxic masculinity fucks men over to such an extent that when they receive kindness and friendship for a woman they immediately think romance - but yeah. this show does tick all the boxes.)

I did see the kiss moment coming a mile away and was really worried that Nate was going to be…uh, very entitled about it, given his current state, but the fact that he wasn’t - that he was immediately horrified and realised he’d fucked up and stumbles away muttering about how he ‘is worried about it’ and ends the scene spitting at himself in the mirror again and looking absolutely disgusted with himself - well, in a way that just hurt more. (I mean, I’m relieved Nate wasn’t all bolshy with it because his reaction does show there is still some of the old Nate still there…but still, owch.)

And then that text from Trent…

Next episode is going to hurt like hell, isn’t it? I absolutely cannot wait for the showdown between Nate and Ted, it’s been a long time coming…like I’ve said, while I think ultimately Nate is going to have a redemption arc, because thematically it makes sense and would send some pretty iffy messages if he doesn’t, I don’t think it’ll come until season three. Right now I just want to see Ted get angry after several seasons of suppressing his anger, I want a full-blown emotional hash-out between them both - basically I want Jason and Nick to have me sobbing before 9AM.

My one question is: are we going to see Nate realising what he’s done, or not? Was this a pragmatic, doing-this-for-the-sake-of-the-club betrayal or a blind, lashing-out-in-frustration betrayal? In short: is Nate Lando or Anakin in this scenario?

I’m very curious as to what show people who say this ‘came out of nowhere’ have been watching. Nate’s been heading for some sort of implosion since mid-season, and we all knew it was going to hurt some innocent bystanders.

I’m saving something light and cheery after all the angst, so let me just say: cinema has never surpassed, and will never surpass, the scene of the Richmond boys dancing along to Bye Bye Bye. Almost made up for the fact that they were criminally underused in the rest of the episode, and quite frankly this had better be redressed in the season finale.

and WE FINALLY SAW COLIN DRIVING THE LAMBO. I don’t know what I find funnier: the fact that it’s some neon lime green monstrosity that every fourteen-year old boy would have dreamt of owning growing up (should my new Colin tag be Colin ‘I Need To Rethink My Relationship With My Car’ Hughes, or Colin ‘More Money Than Sense’ Hughes? enquiring minds want to know…) or as was pointed out to me by @kamillahn, the look of absolute terror on Colin’s face as he begins to drive. Colin, hun, please just buy yourself a Fiat. It’s not worth it anymore.