Made it to Sunflowers on my rewatch and MAN. Watching this episode with the context of the James Tartt is just truly mind boggling. Jamie is acting genuinely manic, jumping all over the place in way that mirrors how he acted in his whole “I’ve lost my wings” monologue, channeling a lot of James’s own mannerisms and behaviors all leading to the horrific revelation about what James did to him when they came to Amsterdam together.
And I just. Can’t reconcile this episode with how the season wraps up. This episode seems fully aware of how deeply fucked up what happened there was. So how on earth could they go from this to “well he’s in rehab and everyone deserves a second chance??” While alcohol can certainly lower inhibitions and cause people to act out violently, that 1) doesn’t excuse it and 2) doesn’t remotely explain a father facilitating and paying for the rape of his child. James Tartt didn’t do that because he was drunk, he did that because he’s a controlling, abusive piece of shit who didn’t want his son to be “soft.” (And man there are just. So many layers to that and the way that it so closely reflects corrective rape. Not that I necessarily even headcanon Jamie as queer but like. Jesus. What else do you call it).
I don’t know. This show has always been a little weird about abuse, but this side of it I will never understand. Because it’s obvious season 3 was chaotically written and haphazardly thrown together, but the way they so easily could not have included the sexual abuse angle but still chose to knowing the resolution of the arc is just. What the actual fuck.
And the worst part is I truly love this episode as a standalone. It’s by far the strongest episode of the season, and even though I still definitely have my problems with it it’s maybe the only episode that evokes the same feelings as seasons 1 and 2 did. It’s also one of the only episodes that doesn’t feel like it’s completely riddled with character assassination. And I remember watching it when it aired and thinking man, maybe the season had a rough start but it’s coming back around now. But all I feel this time is. Sad
god that episode is so… yeah it’s easily the best of the whole season and it’s honestly an incredibly good episode on the whole. it’s the only time they managed to successfully convince me that ted has a real connection to kansas and to his home outside of like missing his kid. the scene with the painting just bodied me and still does whenever i think about it.
and the bike ride with jamie and roy is just. god it’s a gorgeous scene. the way they stumble through communicating with each other. the genuine care and support they’re showing. it’s a really beautiful sequence that gets at some of the things i most enjoy about their dynamic.
the team scenes were genuinely very cute and funny, they were very good.
but my god yeah the whole thing with the sexual abuse is just… like… it makes me crazy honestly because given the specifics of how exactly it was orchestrated and enacted has me like easily able to see a world where they didn’t understand just how severely fucked up what they wrote was. like they could have not realized that was a rape. except that they specifically went for fourteen, which is EXTREMELY young, and the ‘that must have been traumatizing’ and jamie’s response including not remembering what happened is… like. it really muddles it a lot for me and makes me think they DO know that what happened there was really fucking bad. i don’t know if they realize it was the parentally facilitated and arranged rape of a child, but they know it was bad. so what… what?
(i had always personally had some thoughts about jamie having experienced sexual violence when he was young, that’s why it’s a factor in my fic history rhymes even though I had started planning that out WAY before s3 started airing, but i did not ever expect the show to go there. and while personally to me I always read jamie as an aromantic bisexual, there’s definitely a lot of… very particularly loaded stuff packed into the things about him that james targeted, things associated with femininity and queerness, regardless of anything about jamie’s actual identity.)
don’t even get me started on the rehab thing. i think it’s fair to conclude jamie’s dad is an alcoholic but like. the way that’s presented as Well He’s Fine Now See! and also it’s not something they previously established? he takes a swig from a small flask at a match that he shares with two other people. something many, MANY people do. there’s no line from jamie about how it gets bad when his dad drinks, no shots of him drinking to excess, it’s just sort of shoved in there as a convenient excuse for how he’s not like - well he just needs to stop drinking and the abuse can be compartmentalized into Well Haha He Has A Drinking Problem! a lot of people interpreted it that way before s3, especially given some of jamie’s moments of seeming a bit weird about alcohol, but it’s just not established to be a factor there at all. so using that as shorthand for see the demon’s off his back so he’s a safe and smiling and positive presence in jamie’s life now, look at our gold hued montage scene about it, is like. it’s atrocious writing and a really disrespectful and disconnected from reality way to write about child abuse.
