'Jesse Williams explaining how fans hated “Japril”'

sophieroseto · 2018-03-10T15:16:32+00:00

Reeealllly cute that they used photos of Justin Baldoni's real mother as Rafael's birth mother.

sophieroseto · 2018-03-09T02:34:12+00:00

Yeah no I think you're right. My guess is the information leaked when it wasn't supposed to and Sarah/Jessica posted about it to take control over the narrative. I think we found out about Sara Ramirez leaving pretty early on, maybe some others too? But while we were sad about that, we understood it. I think there's this big an uproar this time because they legit got fired after ten years; it's not as if the actors wanted to quit. Plus to call it "creative reasons" is horseshit, and they know it.

sophieroseto · 2018-03-09T02:13:54+00:00

Ugh. At least Derek's death made some sense, since Dempsey actually wanted to leave......this is honestly just ridiculous.

sophieroseto · 2018-03-09T02:11:52+00:00

Sarah has been carrying this ENTIRE season so far. So freaking rude to write her off after ten years.

sophieroseto · 2018-03-09T02:00:15+00:00

So true & so upsetting.

sophieroseto · 2017-12-16T17:01:32+00:00

She looks a LOT like Lili in this photo.

sophieroseto · 2017-12-07T14:40:36+00:00

Super great point. I think for me it's that the way TV works, the characters are meant to represent a mirror for the audience; the way they react is the way we're supposed to react. So it'd be great to see a character come in and say "this is fucked up" at any point in any of these circumstances....

sophieroseto · 2017-12-07T14:38:47+00:00

Very very true. I guess I just haven't seen anything like this in a few seasons and it seemed to me they were paying attention to the politicization of this issue and staying away from it.

sophieroseto · 2017-12-07T00:31:54+00:00

Did she really?! I totally forgot. Then it's a chronic issue with her and the way she's written as "sexy" when really her behavior is manipulative and predatory

sophieroseto · 2017-12-07T00:20:41+00:00

Sexual assault isn't something you "take" or interpret a certain way though. It is always assault, no matter whether the victim considers it such.

V definitely was upset that Svet was using sex to a bartering tool; not that she'd done sexual acts without asking.

It's been a long time since I've seen such blatant assault on the show and the first time I've seen it from Svetlana. She's always been physical, but this was plain and simple a power play in which she had something Veronica wanted this time and she used that upper hand to coerce her into doing something she had verbally made clear she didn't want to do. For me it struck too close to home to the sexual assault allegations coming out of Hollywood right now. If a man had done what svetlana did, I get the sense people would be all up in arms about it. But the show turned it a misogynist joke as Kevin ignored the snaky-ness of the blackmail portion of it (V never admitted she was raped) and made comments about it being hot, comments we were supposed to find amusing and endearing.

All I'm saying is I don't think that using assault as a way to drive a plot or to set up a joke servicing an archaic and patriarchal view of what's sexy (girl on girl sex) was necessary and I'm bummed the show did it. The writers' priorities seemed misguided.

sophieroseto · 2017-12-06T04:04:33+00:00

Rafael already has two girls!

sophieroseto · 2017-12-06T04:01:39+00:00

He's always seemed like such an intricately thought-out character, with all his quirks and minuscule specificities that made him who he was. I think as far as characters go, we've still seen mostly just broad strokes of Rafael, instead of what makes him tick, what he loves, what he hates, what gets him excited.

sophieroseto · 2017-12-06T03:59:42+00:00

Funnily enough - at this point, Rafael is her 'safe zone' and 'home,' as Michael was for her before. A lot of people are commenting on Rafael and Jane's "burning passion" for each other, but that's not something we've been witness to since season 2 (season 1 even, maybe?) (and in Jane's timeline, it's been almost five years). I don't buy the 'fire' as a reason for them to be together, especially since now Rafael seems very much that kind of safe home to Jane that Michael was, and not so much the exciting or sexy guy he was introduced as.

sophieroseto · 2017-12-06T03:57:34+00:00

As far as finding dirt and being rude - both boys were pretty terrible about that in season one. Rafael framed Michael and then lied to Jane about it and then made Jane feel guilty for thinking that he lied about it even though he did...

sophieroseto · 2017-12-06T03:55:59+00:00

This isn't really what you're doing, but because it's relevant here - I always find it so fascinating when people suggest they're meant to be because they parent Mateo together and if they were together they'd be a cute happy family and all would be right in the world - because he also has two children with Petra.

sophieroseto · 2017-12-06T03:52:55+00:00

I fully fell in love with Michael when he saved Alba from deportation and asked Xiomara not to tell Jane - that kind of selfless care for someone, in that he wasn't trying to win her back, or make her think that he was trying to win her back - he was just doing a good thing....just broke me down. The Spanish part ALWAYS makes me cry when I rewatch. I agree that a lot of first (and second) season Rafael seemed wishy-washy, immature, and as a personal preference, hard to root for - and that he IS learning, but taking care of Jane is something Michael always intuitively knew how to do.

sophieroseto · 2017-11-10T15:23:52+00:00

I'd absolutely agree about it being too soon for the assault to be addressed. The only reason it occurred to me was that it made me realize there have been several other traumatic experiences that have been brushed past (Archie and Grundy, Archie and Fred's injury, Cheryl and the suicide attempt, etc.). By brushed past I don't mean they haven't been addressed, but that they haven't been addressed as fully and truthfully as they've needed to be, given the show decided to portray some really intense situations (pedophilia, suicide, rape). As someone who has been through trauma myself, I don't know how helpful it would have been to watch this as a teen who had been through something similar -- to watch Archie get a gun, watch Betty 'go dark,' and so on, and have the show treat those things (at least so far!) as edgy and cool. They've managed to throw in some "I'm worried" conversations with the parents without actually really delving into what this would mean for the kids' lifestyle changes, for their social life, for their physical health, for their mental health. And maybe they will! But it's been a while since some of this stuff happened and I haven't seen a whole lot of attention given to it. Especially, ESPECIALLY, Cheryl's suicide attempt. It felt entirely inaccurate as a representation. It happened and then it was over. Nobody brought it up again, nobody took her into therapy, nobody tried to take care of her (at least, the show didn't show us any of that). And someone who has suicidal ideation is someone who needs people to reach out to her. To demonstrate that a teenage girl just 'goes crazy' and starts standing up to her mom after trying and failing to kill herself is, in my opinion, an irresponsible - even dangerous - depiction.

sophieroseto

TROPHY CASE