i’ve been seeing a never-ending discourse about how rina’s position in s4 will be like portwell’s, with ricky graduating and gina still a junior and let me break it to you: it’s not the same. and i don’t mean the age gap.
ej and gina started their relationship at the very end of the school year, which means ej already has one foot outside school, while gina still has two years ahead of her. the beginning of s3 makes it clear their relationship is very new (emphasis on “first boyfriend”, “summer of firsts”). so basically, they’re getting together while ej is already entering a new stage in his life, so there is nothing solid about their relationship to hold on to, because this is the beginning of it. if they had gotten together at the start of s2, things would be different, because they’d have a whole semester to build their connection. and don’t say they’ve been friends since s1 and that’s enough, because a platonic relationship is very different from a romantic one. gina expects different things from it.
now, ricky and gina are being honest about their feelings before ricky’s final year starts. they’ll have a whole year to figure out how they work romantically, and they will build a solid base, and later figure out how to keep making things work even after ricky leaves school. and yeah, the stress and fame could break them apart, but it’d be nothing similar to portwell’s downfall. ricky is still a senior, he’s not on the verge of graduating. he will still see her every day, they will be joining the school play together.
and while we’re at it, i’d like to address some very rude comments about gina (and the other kids) being “unfair” to ej during s3. as someone who absolutely loved ej’s arc in s3, because he finally got one rsrs, it’s absurd to me how people fail to see that his friends did try to support him in their own way.
there are two very different visions about ej this season: how the adults see him, and how the teens see him. throughout the whole season, he’s standing in the middle of it, not knowing what to do, but, at the end, he falls to the adult side, because that’s his development.
when ej comes to the camp this last time, he’s a monitor. val, channing, dewey and miss jenn interact with him and give him responsibilities he didn’t ask for because they see him as a young adult, not one of the kids in the camp. do you see val participating in the games? no, she’s not part of any team in color wars, she’s not part of the play. the thing is, ej came to camp thinking he would just have fun, but being a “senior” in camp as well comes with these responsibilities he wasn’t ready for, and the adults are the ones helping him navigate through it because that’s their role. he goes to val for advice with his dad; he goes to miss jenn for advice with the play; he directly deals with channing and corbin when they’re trying to call off the documentary. the fact that val is the one who comforts him in the end of the season shows he made through it. it was a transition.
the east high crew, at first, sees him as one of them; they try to include him in all of the camp activities, and that’s their way of showing they care for him – they want him around, want him to be part of the group. and it takes them a while to understand he won’t be able to, and that it’s not his fault, but neither is theirs. ricky’s jab “are you sure?” to ej on the last episode is more of a “you’ve been pushing us way too hard for a while now”, because that’s exactly what ej was doing, like he was already their teacher or something. when ej says they’re theater kids and will do things their way, that’s him making amends. when ej says to ricky during the premiere “i could fake slap you, but you’re my brother”, that’s him showing once again that he has grown up and will not carry high school grudges with him. it doesn’t mean he’s a “superior person”; only that all of their previous animosity is behind him.
gina tries to be understanding when he promises things and don’t show up. she tries again, and again, to save what they have, but how can you save something you don’t even fully know because it’s still so new? you can say “ej is doing all this so he can stay with her”, but no one believes that – not even ej himself. he’s doing this to prove to his father he can make his own choices and be successful in them. he’s trying to show his father he’s not a kid anymore, to be ordered around. that’s his arc during season 3.
you could also say “yeah, but even if they’re in different stages, the east high crew are still his friends and they still should comfort him” and yeah, sure. but this is a 8-episode teen comedy show, and the narrative tries, and suceeds, to tell the audience that ej has grown up and is moving on. just like they told the audience that nini is not coming back. ej probably will come back, but no longer as one of the kids; therefore, his relationship with them has to change.
gamechangershow
germansingergirl
amandla
