Sarah Jane and Rose: A Nuanced Perspective
Colour me surprised at how much seems to be overlooked when discussing Sarah Jane and Rose‘s dynamic in School Reunion, mostly to the detriment of Rose‘s character. Let’s get some nuance in here, all right?
When Sarah Jane and Rose meet, for the first time, they clash. Rose sees somebody who the Doctor is clearly (very) familiar with:
The Doctor and Sarah Jane arrive from one direction, Rose from another. [...] The Doctor instinctively drops Sarah Jane's hand like a smoking gun.
The fact that the Doctor drops Sarah's hand "like a smoking gun" implies he realises this might potentially hurt Rose; honestly it’s almost giving guilty vibes. It’s interesting how the script pointedly emphasises this.
Because this also implies the Doctor was definitely aware that he was moving into romantic territory with Rose, and his arrival while holding another woman’s hand could potentially be interpreted the wrong way if Rose noticed. Since holding hands is their thing. And notice she did.
She asks the Doctor who she is and Sarah does the same; the Doctor gets the introductions done, and Sarah realises that Rose is the "new companion". And doesn't waste time to attack:
"Oh, I get it. Hi. Nice to meet you, Rose."
(nudges the Doctor)
"You can tell you're getting older, your assistants are getting younger."
And here we have the first attack, coming from Sarah. It's understandable; Sarah-Jane is hurt, upset, and jealous. She got essentially dumped by the Doctor with no word back from him. She waited all this time, thinking he died, only for him to come back, looking younger than ever before and with a younger and prettier girl.
You can tell, her ageing and Rose's subsequent youth is a big insecurity for her, and that's why she digs at Rose's age and intentionally mislabels her as an "assisstant", thus rendering her inexperienced and naive, and implying a much more surface-level relationship between them.[1]
She also dismisses Rose's protest of not being an assistant with a sarcastic remark. Rose is too stunned to counter, and they're off running.
When they find the packaged rats, Sarah-Jane, once again without any provocation from Rose, takes a dig at her intelligence and her (young) age:
"[…]Rats? In a school?"
"Well, obviously[2], they use them in Biology lessons, they dissect them. How old are you, haven't you reached that bit yet?"
It's only here, Rose starts to attack back:
"'Scuse me, no one dissects rats anymore, they have't done that for years. Where are you from, the Dark Ages?"
It's pretty clear that Rose's continous scathing remarks, from this point forward - like the Doctor having never mentioned Sarah - are in defence of Sarah-Jane's lashing out.
So, saying that Rose is acting jealous, clingy and bratty out of nowhere or because she feels entitled to the Doctor would be a gross misrepresentation of what actually happened.
Sarah (inadvertently) hits all of Rose's biggest insecurities. She even realises she's unsettling Rose and deliberately doubles down, or at least, doesn't do anything to de-escalate their fight (which she started).
Like when Sarah shows the Doctor K-9 in the boot of her car, and they both talk about him with such familiarity, she notices Rose's hurt and anoyance, and throws Mickey a look of half raised brows, half derision.
Sarah Jane and Mickey exchange glances.
Before people come at me, I'm not actually mad at Sarah. Everything she does and how she behaves towards Rose in particular is explained by her hurt feelings and own insecurities.
What annoys me is that people apparently can't or won’t extend the same curtesy to Rose because, just like Sarah, Rose's behaviour towards Sarah makes perfect sense in the light of her insecurities and hurt feelings.
You can tell Rose isn‘t even mad about the Doctor being close to anyone else (another popular thing people like to blow out of proportion) if you look at how she talks to him in front of the cafe:
[...]Beat, quieter; she's almost scared.
"But Sarah Jane. You were that close to her once, and now, you never even mention her. Why not?"
This is the issue, right here. She's terrified the Doctor is going to dump her too, one day, out of the blue, forget about her and never mention her ever again. It's something that would put out anyone, but it hits that much harder for Rose who consistently shows she has abandonment issues.
Sarah and Rose's animosity reaches its peak, the next day when they're tasked to work together. They exchange barbed comments, which then escalates to them comparing their merit by what they've dealt with on their respective adventures.
And here, something interesting happens, which is convieniently left out, every time, I read any discourse about them, online:
Rose staring. But then, suddenly, she smiles. And Sarah Jane smiles too.
"God. Listen to us. It's like me and my mate Shareen, the only time we fell out was over a man. And we're arguing over the Doctor!" "He doesn't deserve us."
"And that's the truth."
(beat)
"Sorry."
"Me too."
Rose, as soon as she realises they're being ridiculous, de-escalates the situation, immediately. She's even the first one who apologises.
Then, she immediately starts bonding with Sarah by roasting the Doctor's oddities, and they end up laughing their heads off.
Further, yet; people wilfully ignore the way Sarah and Rose are immediate besties, as soon as they've cleared the air.
A scene in particular highlights Sarah‘s and Rose‘s growth during the episode and blatantly shows their fight is firmly in the ancient history territory, by then:
"Hey you, what's 47 times 369?"
"No idea. It's gone now, the oil's faded."
"But you're still clever. More than a match for him."
Sarah not only compliments Rose‘s intelligence, here, she also states she’s an equal in her and the Doctor‘s relationship, thus rendering her previous assessment of her being a young, vapid assistant null and void.
Rose does the same with her previous accusations:
I bet you thought I was done, but this goes even further because Rose wants Sarah to come with them:
"Doctor..?"
(meaning, ask her)
The script is a bit ambiguous here, but if you watch the actual scene it seems more like Rose and the Doctor actually talked about asking Sarah, before that moment, judging by the looks they exchange.
Which brings me to my final point of Rose seeking out Sarah‘s advice, again subverting their earlier animosity. She trusts Sarah Jane‘s wisdom and judgement:
And they hug. Quiet whisper:
"What do I do? Do I stay with him?"
"Yes. Some things are worth getting your heart broken for."
In turn, Sarah offers support whenever Rose should need it:
"Find me. If you need to one day. Find me."
Rose nods, she understands.
So, where does this leave us? Exactly: Rose and Sarah Jane were two people dealing with the madness that is having that alien completely change their life, and basically ruining anyone else for them, romantically.
As soon as they realised that they’re essentially in the same boat, they also let go of their respective hurt feelings and jealousy, see the other’s value and become friends, almost kindred spirits if you will.
So, casting Rose as a jealous, entitled brat while Sarah Jane gets nowhere near the same judgement for essentially behaving the same way is
a) ignoring lots of context
b) a double standard (and like I pointed out in my earlier post, anti-Rose propaganda).
In the end, the positive outweighs the negative by a ton. The script and the episode itself have much more nuance to it; sometimes fandom discourse, or rather negative bias, can skew things a lot more than we realise.
(All quotes in italics are directly from the episode (script))
Bonus/honourable mention:
The Sarah-Rose-hug is just so sweet!🥰
[1] Since we‘re already on the topic of age, I want to remind everyone that Sarah Jane is the senior adult in this situation. Age-wise Rose has much more ground to behave in a catty way because at this point in her life, Sarah (technically) should have known better. Yet it is Rose who de-escalates, as you will or have see(n).
[2] The "obviously" is emphasised in the official script in italics. I put it in bold here for formatting reasons, so it becomes clear there‘s a specific emphasis on that word in the script itself, and it’s not my own highlight.
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