velvetpinkbanana

[velvetpinkbanana]

Something REALLY interesting about this scene

At the beginning of the scene Miles confronts Gwen about the 'small elite strike-team' comment.

Gwen lies and plays it off, saying that most of them are part-time anyway.

IMMEDIATELY after that in the next line dialogue, Hobie confronts Gwen and asks her 'Gwendy, how much have you told him about his place in all this? - Maybe not enough.'

Hobie is expressioning disappointment towards Gwen. He doesn't approve of her lying to Miles, knowing what's gonna happen to him. He doesn't agree with them keeping him in the dark - which is why later in the scene he says

'I haven't gotten a Scooby Doo, mate. But that's what they want.'

He's warning Miles that they're keeping in him the dark, on purpose.

ONCE AGAIN Hobie showing foward thinking and outwardly disapproving of the obviously unfair treatment that Miles is given. He's not angry at Gwen, but he's willing to tell her straight up that she's not doing or telling Miles enough to protect him.

Miles deserved to know Miguel's motives BEFORE meeting him. That's why he pointed it out then.

He's ALWAYS looking out for Miles

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oh and don't even get me STARTED on the scene w the guidance counselor trying to help miles be more palatable to ivy league schools

here they are, miles and his parents having this argument and after maybe twenty seconds she immediately throws out the "son of an immigrant from a struggling family" template

and both miles mom and dad oppose to it because. its really not true. and thats not who miles is. this guidance counselor says she wants to "know" miles but she doesn't. she just wants to know what elements of miles background will pander to universities.

I loved that it called out that specific toxic pattern inherent to those institutions AND I loved that it tied into the underlying theme in the movie about how tragedy doesn't define you

tragedy is not who you are. ur circumstances do not define you. you define you. simple as that.

[velvetpinkbanana]

so I put on Prom Pact (2023) while preparing lunch earlier as background noise initially, but it turned out to be really cute and fun and I know I'm a full-grown adult saying this but I can't lie—I really liked it. sure, it's predictable and all because it follows the usual John Hughes teen movie formula but it was done very well so it feels like a proper homage to those films. there's the smart and very judgy girl on her way to Harvard, the jock (pardon, he prefers the term 'athlete') who's actually more than what the girl thinks of him, the really sweet and pretty class president-slash-homecoming queen, and the cute loser who gets tongue tied when he's around her. so yeah, it has all the classics. but more importantly, the cast has great chemistry and what more could you want from a teen romcom than that?

it truly might be the best one I've watched of the genre since the first To All The Boys I've Loved Before movie. also, that kid Milo Manheim is going places. he's what Noah Centenio thinks he is actually lol 🤧

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One of my favorite metaphors of Glass Onion is the Mona Lisa vs the Glass Onion.

Miles is constantly comparing himself, whether directly or indirectly, to the Mona Lisa. He wants to be “forever remembered in the same breath” as her. He plays up the mystery and the complexity of the painting, the artistry, the skill and the knowledge that went into it; All traits that he wants others to see in him.

But when Miles is describing the painting, who gets the closeup shot? Not Miles, but Helen. Helen is the one who gets multiple shots throughout the movie mirroring the Mona Lisa- same pose, same unreadable expression.

Because Miles isn’t the Mona Lisa, however much he wishes he was. Miles is the Glass Onion. Something trying to look complex and layered on the outside, when in reality, the center is in plain sight. Miles isn’t some enigmatic genius, he is exactly what he appears to be at first glance: an idiotic, rich, egotistical, shithead.

He didn’t make his own puzzles, he didn’t write his own murder, he didn’t create his own art, he didn’t even come up with the idea for his company. His island is filled with things made by other people. He isn’t even the person who did the thing that will forever connect him to the Mona Lisa. The thing that will forever tie him to Helen Brand.

Helen is the one with complexity. Helen is the one surrounded by mystery. Helen is the one who’s more than meets the eye. Helen is the Mona Lisa, and the Mona Lisa destroyed herself to take down Miles Bron.

[velvetpinkbanana]

rian johnson has managed to evade all common ethical problems in his screenwriting and i want everyone to know that the knives out mysteries are a perfect representation of how to write about a certain community respectfully AND simultaneously not make a big deal of how good you are at being a diverse writer.

in knives out and glass onion, both main characters are women who have been wronged by the other main character(s)—in marta's case, she experiences xenophobia from the thrombey's constantly; in andi's, she came up with a billion dollar idea which was stolen by a white man. when she took him to court for it, her entire friend group sided with this man; this directly affects helen after andi's death.

andi and marta's stories specifically represent real experiences for women who are minorities in america, but the stories are told without being too ham-fisted or obvious about it. these aren't stories about racism, xenophobia, and misogyny, they're stories involving racism, xenophobia, and misogyny, which i feel is something you don't often see. they're not triyng to prove a point by telling these stories, they're just stories being told—it's a difference that's hard to describe, but you know it when you see it. it's got less of a looking-into-the-camera-for-emphasis vibe.

alongside this, benoit was never a white/male savior to neither helen nor marta (respectively). he helped helen when she came to him about andi and he stood behind marta when he saw the tox report, but he never took over the case and they were never treated like damsels in distress. in the end, helen and marta took control of their own revenge and benoit nudged everyone else to the side while they did it. benoit is not the hero of these stories, helen and marta are.

this is good fucking writing!!!! i need film bros to be positively insufferable about rian johnson NEOW

edit 12/26/22: i've been told that ana de armas is a white latina. genuinely i did not know, she always looked brown to me and i haven't seen her in anything other than knives out, that's truly my bad. i've updated the post now to change the language about marta, other than that everything remains!

[velvetpinkbanana]

Pop culture reduces It's a Wonderful Life to that last half hour, and thinks the whole thing is about this guy traveling to an alternate universe where he doesn't exist and a little girl saying, "Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings." A hokey, sugary fantasy. A light and fluffy story fit for Hallmark movies.

But this reading completely glosses over the fact that George Bailey is actively suicidal. He's not just standing there moping about, "My friends don't like me," like some characters do in shows that try to adapt this conceit to other settings. George's life has been destroyed. He's bankrupt and facing prison. The lifetime of struggle we've been watching for the last two hours has accomplished nothing but this crushing defeat, and he honestly believes that the best thing he can do is kill himself because he's worth more dead than alive. He would have thrown himself from a bridge had an actual angel from heaven not intervened at the last possible moment.

That's dark. The banker villain that pop culture reduces to a cartoon purposely drove a man to the brink of suicide, which only a miracle pulled him back from. And then George Bailey goes even deeper into despair. He not only believes that his future's not worth living, but that his past wasn't worth living. He thinks that every suffering he endured, every piece of good that he tried to do was not only pointless, but actively harmful, and he and the world would be better off if he had never existed at all.

This is the context that leads to the famed alternate universe of a million pastiches, and it's absolutely vital to understanding the world that George finds. It's there to specifically show him that his despondent views about his effect on the universe are wrong. His bum ear kept him from serving his country in the war--but the act that gave him that injury was what allowed his brother to grow up to become a war hero. His fight against Potter's domination of the town felt like useless tiny battles in a war that could never be won--but it turns out that even the act of fighting was enough to save the town from falling into hopeless slavery. He thought that if it weren't for him, his wife would have married Sam Wainwright and had a life of ease and luxury as a millionaire's wife, instead of suffering a painful life of penny-pinching with him. Finding out that she'd have been a spinster isn't, "Ha ha, she'd have been pathetic without you." It's showing him that she never loved Wainwright enough to marry him, and that George's existence didn't stop her from having a happier life, but saved her from having a sadder one. Everywhere he turns, he finds out that his existence wasn't a mistake, that his struggles and sufferings did accomplish something, that his painful existence wasn't a tragedy but a gift to the people around him.

Only when he realizes this does he get to come back home in wild joy over the gift of his existence. The scenes of hope and joy and love only exist because of the two hours of struggle and despair that came before. Even Zuzu's saccharine line about bells and angel wings exists, not as a sugary proverb, but as a climax to Clarence's story--showing that even George's despair had good effect, and that his newfound thankfulness for life causes not only earthly, but heavenly joy.

If this movie has light and hope, it's not because it exists in some fantasy world where everything is sunshine and rainbows, but because it fights tooth and nail to scrape every bit of hope it can from our all too dark and painful world. The light here exists, not because it ignores the dark, but because the dark makes light more precious and meaningful. The light exists in defiance of the dark, the hope in defiance of despair, and there is nothing saccharine about that. It's just about as realistic as it gets.

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El was distant from normal human life for 10 years. What she needs is general human affection. Friends. Family. Not boyfriends. That's too early and too delicate. And certainly not the way they wrote to make it look like her life depended on romance with Mike.

Max gave her friendship. Will and Joyce and Jonathan gave her family. Dustin and Lucas and the others also gave her real sense of a team. Belonging. This was wonderful. Non-romantic love is more desirable for a traumatized human being like her than anything else.

it could be the same with Mike. What I'm saying is that El doesn't need Mike that way. The best state for El and Mike is Platonic with a capital P.

[velvetpinkbanana]

Bail Organa being Leia’s father across Star Wars media in: Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005) Bloodline (2016) Leia, Princess of Alderaan (2017) Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)

[velvetpinkbanana]

the "his name is ed" scene is my absolute favourite scene in the entire show for so many reasons but I think the biggest thing that gets me is how in that montage of stede thinking about all the things that make him love ed, every single moment they used is one that could have been considered a throwaway shot before being put in this context. like, mary saying "I'd call those things love" is superimposed over a shot of ed and stede just sitting on the deck laughing together. it's the way that love is framed as something so simple, almost mundane, so easy and natural that you don't even notice it. how there's so many epic grand gestures of love between these two throughout the show, from "you wear fine things well" to ed literally saving stede's life multiple times, but the times that stede retains best and ends up thinking about when he realises what love means to him are these little moments in between. and I can't help comparing that with calico jack, and the way that he held the fact he saved ed's life over his head - because ed has saved stede's life, many times over, and yet that's not what defines their relationship. that's not what made stede fall in love with ed. stede doesn't love ed because he did anything as grand as saving his life. he loves ed because ed made his life worth living.

[velvetpinkbanana]

protagonist bias is a funny thing bc if you look at what izzy and stede's first few interactions are like from izzy's perspective it's like:

you bought some nice british hostages with your own money from a tribe as a way of supporting local businesses. when out of nowhere some stupid british aristocrat jumped out of the bush, broke your friend's nose, and stole one of the hostages that you paid for

moving on from this, your boss doesn't say much other than mock you for being bested at swordplay (even though it was an ambush and completely unprofessional) before telling you to go invite the little asshole onto the ship. presumably it's to kill him (the uszh) for fucking up his business, but honestly you just wanna wash your hands of the whole thing and move on

your boss, god rest his half insane soul, insists though and that you specifically need to go when you'd rather just send one of the boys. so you go out to a bar that you fucking hate and find the obnoxious man from before to let him know that your boss wants a word

everybody knows who your boss is. he's fucking blackbeard for fuck's sake! except for stede fucking bonnet apparently who immediately responds to your polite invitation by accusing you of stealing his hostages (which you paid for!) and calls you iggy

so fuck this guy, right? blackbeard's gonna kill him anyways, and if he wants to make it worst on himself by not having the manners to even listen for two seconds to explain who your boss is, then that's on him!

"so i'll tell my boss you're declining then"

"tell him he has terrible tastes in flunkies and that he can suck eggs in hell!"

well fine then! you will!

once again, you just want to be done with the whole thing, and maybe you omit a few facts as you relay the news to your boss. did stede know that your boss is blackbeard? well, it seems like stede fucking bonnet knows everything in this entire fucking world so yeah you suppose he did

you don't understand your boss's orders most of the time, but in the end you still follow them so when he says attack the spanish you attack the spanish. he must have it in real bad for this guy if he wants to kill him personally, and honestly it doesn't seem worth the effort to you, but who the fuck are you to complain?

and when things are all done and set, you're ready for this whole ordeal to be over. you know the steps from here. repair the ship, kill the crew, move the fuck on until your boss gets some other insane idea in his head and makes you track down another random bloke for the fun of it

but no... you're going through the motions, but your boss is fucking around and playing with toy ships and screaming about being bored and wanting to try dying. you wait for as long as you can, coaxing him into thinking of a plan and moving on, but it seems he's finally snapped and is really set on you all dying

also he's playing dress up. for some fucking reason he's playing dress up while you're only hours out from certain death because it's too late to run now. even as you try to explain the seriousness of the situation your boss continues to brush you off because he's definitely truly actually crazy now! this is it! the man has snapped and think he's an aristocrat running around in tights and waiting to die!

and maybe you're a bit rough when you ask stede how the ship is stocked, but now isn't the time for niceness. unfortunately, the man's a fucking idiot and has no idea about any of the basics of running a ship because he's the worst pirate captain you've ever met (and that's including calico jack for fuck's sake) you are surrounded by incompetency and it's all stede fucking bonnet's fault because the man couldn't honor a fucking business transaction

and then things are fine. because yes, your boss is crazy, but no, not that crazy (yet.) you're embarrassed for snapping and slink off to resign like you said. you even apologize for the harshness of your words, but you get that you acted out of line

but you don't go. because your boss asks you to stay. the only reason why you don't go is because your boss asked you to stay. because he's depressed and he's tired and he can't keep doing this pirate shit anymore and you know that. so when he says he has a plan to 1. leave piracy and become a wealthy aristocrat 2. make you captain once he's gone and 3. kill that fucking twat. yeah, you're all in baby

and you know what your boss does instead?

he fucks stede bonnet right on deck out in the open because stede bonnet is a menacing, seductive, slut

[velvetpinkbanana]

I think one of the best things ofmd did was start episode 10 with mary’s pov. It was so important to see how trapped she also was in the marriage and how she was flourishing on her own and that she is truly her own story’s protagonist and if we hadn’t just spent nine episodes following stede we would absolutely be cheering for her to murder her deadbeat husband who had the audacity to abandon her and then try to take it back like it was nothing. She’s such a cool character and I’m so glad she was given the same complexities as stede especially since media is often so quick to vilify female characters in her position and I’m so glad and that we were able to see this glimpse into her mind

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I find it morbidly funny how in the show the Mandalorian is just... constantly getting objectified?

Like he is this big powerful lone samurai type but because he is like the 1 person in the galaxy who does not seek power everybody just treats him as a resource. A commodity. A consumable. Wherever he goes everybody either wants his labour or straight up strip him naked to sell his shiny clothes and/or get to his squishy center.

He walks into town and everybody stares and licks their lips. He slays entire armies and yet every slovenly tiny burgeoisie junkyard owner looks him dead in the helmet and does that "I altered the deal , pray I don't alter it any further" - bullshit and he just groans and throws up his hands ik frustration.

It's the employer gaze, basically.

[velvetpinkbanana]

There seems to be some evidence that while Din is extremely committed to being a Mandalorian, is is some what insecure about his place in Mandalorian society or at least holds himself in a very socially isolated place in said society. I’m led to believe this based off the fact that even though Din is a fully mature man in at least his late 30s he doesn’t seem to have any deeply personal connections, particularly Mandalorians. We see other Mandalorians interacting in a friendly, personal way, but Din doesn’t visibly interact with anyone other than the Armorer. Some of this might be because he’s allowed out differently than the others, but the one interaction we see is hostile. Yes, he and Paz are later supportive of each other and Paz seems friendly, but there’s no indication that Din and Paz are actually friendly. Also in their altercation, Paz seems to hit Din right where he’s sensitive by questioning his integrity as a Mandalorian in a way that could have been interpreted by Din as a challenge of whether he belonged or not. Yes, Din does have a job that seems more suited to a loner, but the part that strikes odd to me is that he seems to have no deep connections. He’s well into the age where he could have a family and kids, yet keeps himself distant from other Mandalorians. He has no clan, which would indicate that while he might have been taken in by the Mandalorians, he doesn’t have a deep personal family connection to anyone there. He still seems to see himself as the kid whose family died in front of him. Din has an incredibly solitary place in Mandalorian society. The saddest part of that is the fact that Din is SOFT. If anyone has a capacity to deeply care about someone and BE loved, it’s Din. Some of his awkwardness with the baby isn’t so much him being Mandalorian as it is him being ALONE. He doesn’t always know what to do with another person to think about, particularly a baby. He tries. Lor does he try. But he has the righteous panic of “what no I’m not ready for this”  of a new father when the Armorer tells him YOU ARE THE FATHER and shoos him on his way with the baby. I’m not saying the distance is something necessarily cultivated by the Mandalorians (though face hiding armor can’t help), but could be more a symptom of Din’s trauma. There’s a push and pull to Din that seems to want to connect, yet also seems scared of that or at least unsure that he’s worth connecting to. There’s a casualness to his own well being that is possibly more a trait of Din’s than Mandalorians on the whole. Yes the whole group is sort of just balls out insane, but Din takes the isolation and lack of self preservation to extremes sometimes. You’re left wondering if Din has put himself into the position he has to try to cut down on the pain of loss. If he doesn’t allow himself to personally deeply care about people, perhaps the risk of losing them won’t be as big a factor for him. He takes the murder of the covert hard, but there’s no evidence he knew anyone on a deep personal level. He bonds with the baby fairly quickly, but there’s no evidence he ever bonded with a bounty before. He honestly considers settling with Omera, but that’s only after he thinks he’s going into witness protection of sorts. Every indication is of a man who has such a huge heart and really cares about things in a deeply moral way who is running scared of people caring about him. It took his interaction with the pure baby guilelessness of the child to scratch the surface of the fact that sometimes you need to let yourself be cared about and loved. 

[velvetpinkbanana]

absolutely mind-boggling that favreau created a character as good as din djarin

[velvetpinkbanana]

This story is amazing 😭❤️😍 It needs to be made into a film rn

Chapter 11: Strange

“This is ridiculous!”

“Hmm.”

“I mean both of them could be in danger.”

“Yes.”

James Potter didn’t seem to be taking this seriously.

“Meanwhile, we’re sitting here like useless fools, twiddling our thumbs- “

“I’m not sure twiddling one’s thumbs with handcuffs on is a possibility.”

Sirius Black’s eyes lit up in challenge, as he leaned forwards.

“Yes, yes it is, see?”

“Well, you may be able to twiddle your thumbs, my dear chap, but you’re still a fool,” Dr Potter said, twisting around at an angle.

“What the hell are you doing, Prongso? Do you think that vehicular contortionism is going to get us anywhere useful?” the duke sighed irritably. “Stop faffing about like an idiot! We need to come up with a plan!”

“We don’t need a plan, Padfoot, if you could just- “

“Look here, I am not staying in this damned car while- “

“Oh shut up and sit still for a minute, will you?” Dr. Potter said with a haughty air, as he removed his handcuffs and rubbed his wrists.

The duke stared at him, stunned.

“How the hell…”

“Lupin pressed this into my hand when he sat me down,” Dr Potter twirled a small key in his hand.

“But why did he give it to you?” he bristled at the offending item.

“Probably because I come across as far more capable and competent,” Dr. Potter said, grinned with delight.

Continue on ao3

[velvetpinkbanana]

One more proof that Greta’s early script was way better

I’ve talked about Laurie’s proposals in the book, but in this movie we don’t really see any proposal to Amy. However in an early script the kiss scene has much more substance and I just don’t know why Greta decided to cut it. Surely the scene could have had one more minute if you took out that stupid letter from Jo. Sorry I just can’t get over it.

Anyway, let’s go back a bit to the scene were Aunt March tells Amy that Laurie is gone.

Now, the 1994 movie has a very similar scene with Laurie sending a note so maybe that’s why it got cut. However there’s a significant difference. This is the note from the 1994 movie:

My darling Amy. It is you I want and not your family. I’ve gone to London to make myself worthy of you. Please, do not do anything we shall regret.

Notice the difference? In this script 2019 Laurie is not asking anything from Amy, while 1994 is basically asking her to wait + that thing they did when Laurie says he only wants to be part of the family. I guess 2019 Laurie had already asked her not to marry Fred, but still.

2019 Laurie is only informing her that he’s off to work in London. And this is really important because in the movie we never see Laurie better himself and realizing that he want to be a productive member of society. Furthermore, he talks about their friendship, not a romantic relationship. He knows he hurt her, he knows she’s been loving him for years and he’s aware that he screwed up. So he might not have Amy as a wife but at least he expects her to maintain their friendship. I just think it’s very mature of him to do that.

Onto the kiss scene. This is what the early draft had:

Do you see? Do you see the difference? The beauty of this scene compared to what we got in the actual movie?!?!?! Why?!?!?!

It starts identical but then he says “I love you”. We never hear him say it in the movie! And I love how Amy is shocked and didn’t even hear him the first time he says it. She can’t believe it’s happening.

And again in a movie about parallels this would have been a perfect contrast to his proposal to Jo. He also tells Jo repeatedly “I love you” but the intention is completely different.

With Jo he was insisting, she was saying “no” and he kept pushing and like to shut her up. And with Amy he’s also trying to stop her but the issue is different cause Amy is going on about forgetting whatever happened between them. She doesn’t want to appear as if she’s trapping him. Since Laurie wrote “friend” in the note, maybe she thought he had second thoughts and he regretted it. And at least I read it as if he were speaking in a very sweet and tender tone. So it’s as if he were saying “no, I don’t want to forget and act as if nothing happened when I actually fell in love with you!”

And then he reassures her that she is not second to anyone!

But the jewel here is:

You don’t have to accept me, but I love you, Amy March.

Those words are so meaningful. Again, he knows he screwed up so he can’t really ask for anything, not from her. With Jo he forced her to listen to him, but here he’s leaving the decision entirely to her. Whether she accepts him or not, his love is not going to change. He’s being so selfless here.

I just love that she starts crying harder. I would have cried with her in the movie theater.

*signs* we could have had it all guys.

Like it would have fixed so many problems from the movie, at least with Amy and Laurie.

[velvetpinkbanana]

i don't understand how amy is your favorite march sister... she contributed nothing. and she was just so annoying. she ruined joe and laurie

okay so i have a rant about this: Amy March is arguably the most changed character in the book right after her husband.

when the book starts she's twelve. what twelve year old is anything other than annoying? she lives in the shadow of the beautiful Meg, the talented Jo, and the kind Beth. And this is the 1860s. she's expected to be kind, and docile, and selfless. but she's not. she's just like any other twelve year old: she's bold and she has dreams and she knows what she wants. she's a little harsh about it sometimes yes, and her big words border on silly - "they label you when you don't have money" - but again she's twelve.

would we really be seeing Amy March as a bitch if this exact book was published in this time period? no. we'd be praising her, shouting yes queen! every time she stood up for herself. she'd be a role model for every twelve year old girl living today.

and she's way more introspective than we give her credit for. she's not shallow. she was able to realize that she's "a little goose" in the first chapter. and she vowed to change that. she gave up the one thing she wanted: colored pencils. just so her mother would have more perfume.

and the thing about Amy? she follows through with her vow in the first chapter. and it shows through the rest of the book. Meg still wants pretty things, and it carries on into her marriage. Jo is still a tomboy, she still flies out at people when she's mad. Beth never got over being shy.

but Amy became so selfless. she left to live with Aunt March because Beth was sick and her sisters had no one to help and she knew that she'd be nothing but a nuisance at home. of course she whined about it. she was thirteen and scared. and she acknowledged that she was hurting Jo by going to Europe, but Jo said it was fine. how was she supposed to know otherwise if Jo was so good at hiding it and her parents were telling her to go?

and the biggest thing? she never got to say goodbye to her sister. and do you know how old she was? twenty two. she was across the world after realizing that she would never be able to achieve her dream and here she is, getting a letter from her family telling her that her sister - her best friend, her confidant, her role model - is dead. and she accepted it. she didn't hold a deep resentment towards Meg and Jo for getting to say goodbye to their most beloved sister. she didn't hate the world. she carried on. she got married. she went home. she did the only thing that was acceptable for her at the time after everything she wanted in her life was taken away.

and as for Jo and Laurie, (and i know that so many people love them so this is kind of controversial) they were never going to be together. They're too similar and they always argue and Jo was never attracted to him.

but Amy and Laurie? they just make sense. Laurie has always cared for Amy. he rescued her when she fell in the pond. he defended her to Jo all the time even though he was Jo's friend. he promised to visit her when she was staying with Aunt March at Plumfield. he comforted her in Europe.

and Amy pushed him to do better, and to be better. she pointed out his flaws and helped him see that he was disappointing everyone. and even at his worst she cared for him.

Jo loved Laurie as a friend. but when things got serious and real, she stepped back. it's not a bad thing, she knew her boundaries, but her boundaries - like her dreams - never aligned with Laurie's. Laurie was a crowd pleaser, wanting to play music and have fun. Amy was a matriarch through and through. she basked in the light of being a hostess. she wanted the latest clothes. she thrived when given the chance to plan things.

Laurie and Amy were the popular couple because they were so compatible, so in sync. Amy was happiest when she was Mrs. Lawrence, planning parties and charity events, teaching the children of the Bhaer School how to paint.

and Laurie - just like Jo had predicted - was happy with someone who wasn't Jo. He was happy with Amy.