*Episode premise spoilers.*
Great episode! The show is firing on all cylinders with this one—excellent drama, compelling character interactions, and good moments of humor to bring a bit of levity to a hard story.
Maeve’s mom’s funeral is today. As Aimee rallies their friends to show up and Otis tries to be there for her, Maeve does her best to hold it together and deal with her complicated feelings. Eric tries to address some friction with Otis while also seeing Adam for the first time since their breakup at the end of season 3. Jackson struggles to stay present at the funeral with an important doctor’s appointment hanging over his head. And Cal has been getting closer to Aisha, but an unwelcome surprise during a make-out session throws them for a loop.
Everything about Maeve’s mom’s funeral is done so well. The busy celebrant who says everything in the right tone of voice but continually demonstrates her lack of attention and care. Maeve worrying over whether her brother will even show up, then what he’ll do if he’s there. Being grateful to have friends in attendance, yet nervous about them witnessing the dysfunctional family dynamics. Wrestling with the fact that her mom was an addict who caused Maeve a lot of pain, but still wanting to give her a proper sendoff. There’s also a beautifully moving moment with a character who’s often been shown as comic relief throughout the series—it's a wonderful, emotional scene, and I love it!
Jackson deals with anxiety anyway, and it’s really difficult for him to be going through this health scare while also continuing to go about his normal day. In this episode, he’s awaiting test results, and he keeps having disturbing fantasies that freak him out. And while Viv wants to be a supportive friend, it’s getting harder for her to balance her friendship with Jackson and her new boyfriend’s insecurities. I think the show has been doing a really good job with her boyfriend Beau, laying groundwork in fairly subtle ways—the red flags are there, but it’s also easy to see why Viv might not be picking up on them, or why she’d talk herself out of her own instincts.
Cal and Aisha circled around each other in the first half of the season and are now seeing each other. I think their storyline together has been a little underwritten, but it’s clear how much Cal likes Aisha. In this episode, while the two of them are getting intimate, Cal is hit with a strong dose of gender dysphoria that gets in the way of being able to enjoy the moment. It’s an emotional scene that’s well-acted, and I’m looking forward to seeing where things go for them.
I was never the biggest Eric/Adam fan, but I like their interactions at the funeral. Both of them have been exploring themselves a lot since last season, and it’s interesting to see them talking to each other here. While there are definite hints at a potential reunion by the time we get to the finale, I like how they relate to each other here as exes who still care about each other. When Adam asks about being out without “being ashamed,” Eric has some lovely words of encouragement for him. He says, “You have to believe you deserve good things. And Adam, you have to love yourself.”
For me, though, the more interesting part of Eric’s story is his conflict with Otis. It seems these two have a significant fight roughly once a season, and it’s often about Otis’s bad case of Main Character Syndrome. While he’s attentive and caring with his therapy clients, Otis doesn’t have the best track record of being there for Eric in the way that he needs.
This time, the fight comes about when Otis expresses hurt over Eric ditching him for the popular kids. And that right there is telling, that he views it as him not being cool enough for Eric’s new friends, rather than Eric very understandably enjoying the new, exciting experience of having a diverse group of queer friends. But for Eric, it’s especially frustrating, given how often Otis has neglected their friendship in favor of his own stuff (in particular, how often he’s ditched Eric for Maeve.)
Ncuti Gatwa plays the hell out of these scenes. Eric is being firm about his feelings here and not backing down, but at the same time, he’s so careful. As they get deeper into their argument, you can feel how delicately he’s choosing every word, how hard he’s trying to just get Otis to understand what he’s saying. This exchange sums it all up:
Eric: “I’m just trying to say that we’re very different, and we don’t really talk about it.”
Otis: “Okay, but why are you blaming me for that?”
Eric: “I’m not blaming you, I’m just trying to say how I feel.”
There are bigger things going on in the episode with the funeral, so it makes sense that these issues need to take a backseat without being resolved, but Eric knows there’s always something bigger going on, something else that’s going to take precedence over him. It’s interesting because it’s almost a meta storyline—the struggle of being the gay Black best friend to the straight white protagonist and fighting against the subordinate role you’re constantly placed in. Like I said, this isn’t Eric and Otis’s first rodeo on this subject, but with only two episodes left to go, I’m anxious to see where they end up on this.
No comments:
Post a Comment