We need to talk about this.
Lucas: Acknowledges that while Maya loves to make fun of him, she cared about his safety in Texas (so much so that she was willing to blow up their friendship to keep him safe, if you recall). Maya believed Lucas was someone to be proud of WITHOUT having to risk his neck on the back of a bull he didn’t truly want to ride anyway. Maya didn’t want Lucas on that bull because she cared so much about him and his safety (more than anyone else in that rodeo tent, tbh). In his conversation with Katy, Lucas attributes Maya’s delight in teasing him as well as her CARING NATURE (which is part and parcel of a capacity for love) to her mother’s influence.
Josh: Thinks Maya voluntarily gave up her identity in order to “become Riley” so she could get to know Lucas the “same way” Riley does and “understand Riley’s feelings.” (lol). He thinks Maya did this to “protect Riley” and that it’s evidence of what a great friend Maya is. (Josh isn’t wrong that Maya’s a great friend, but his reasoning is a bunch of nonsense.) Josh attributes this utterly insane scenario to Maya’s father abandoning her. Josh thinks Maya has never “felt that love,” and that’s why her capacity for love was great enough for Maya to “become Riley” to “protect her.”
Josh is basically telling Maya that her positive growth as a person in S2-early S3 (embracing hope, getting up and fighting for the arts, liking a teacher, appreciating what she has, doing better in school, forgiving herself for her father leaving, etc) was simply a Riley impersonation all done in service of “test driving” Lucas for Riley. Josh is saying that everything Maya did in S2-early S3 was about Riley rather than about Maya herself, that it was a product of “being Riley” because Maya was abandoned, and he is ADMIRING that behavior (which would be CRAZY UNHEALTHY if he were actually correct, btw). Yikes.
Josh also believes that Maya talking about Lucas as if he is an object Riley owns is an “adult way of thinking.” 🙄
He also “doesn’t know everything.” He’s also a college student confessing romantic feelings to a 14/15 year-old high school freshman. I get that he feels what he feels and he’s in a weird place and a state of flux maturity-wise at the moment, but this dude clearly doesn’t have the best judgment.
Look: ONLY ONE of these guys can be correct about Maya. Either Maya’s feelings about Lucas (caring deeply about him and his safety even though she loves to make fun of him) are something she learned from her mother and felt for herself in Texas (and before/after), or she was simply “impersonating Riley” because her father abandoned her. Either Maya was herself in Texas (a product of her mother’s influence), or she was a “Riley clone” because her father left.
Either Lucas is right that loving to make fun of him while also caring deeply about his safety is something Maya learned from her mom (and logically felt for HERSELF), or Josh is right that Maya “became Riley” and absorbed Riley’s exact same feelings for Lucas because Maya’s dad abandoned her. It can’t be both.
The writers presented us with both points of a view for a REASON. Logically, they cannot both be correct. It’s either Lucas or Josh. Either Maya has her own feelings and they are influenced by her mother and NOT her father, or Maya “became Riley” because of her father.
Considering how Maya and Riley had POLAR OPPOSITE reactions to the bull ride once the danger became clear, considering how Maya still believed Riley & Lucas to be siblingesque as of Texas 2 even though she’d allegedly “been Riley” since Hurricane, considering the STARK difference in the SL1 movies, and considering that Lucas has been around Maya almost every day for 2+ years while Josh has seen her maybe five times…I’m gonna say Lucas is the one who’s actually got it right.
Too bad Josh is the only one who actually said anything to Maya’s face.
Anyway, unless Disney Channel royally screwed GMW (which I doubt), I’m quite, quite confident that eventually they’ll clear up the contradiction here—in Lucas’s favor.
And no, I don’t think it’s “just bad writing.” I think the writers know exactly what they’re doing—and they’ve got a lot of people eagerly eating up Josh’s insane “explanation” even though Lucas’s take on things makes WAY more sense. “Turning into someone else to feel what they feel in order to protect them because you love them so much because your father left” is not a Thing. That’s not real. Prince Baji isn’t real, you guys—and he’s not sending $30 million.
(And yes: I acknowledge that Maya herself put forward a version of Josh’s explanation in the SL Bay Window with Riley, but Maya searching for an explanation as to why she “became Riley” hinges on it being true that Maya ever “turned into Riley” to begin with. Just because Maya’s been shouted down and talked over into believing her growth wasn’t her own doesn’t mean she’s right to believe it.)
Don’t take an irrational explanation as truth just because it’s convenient to the point of “too good to be true.” Don’t fall for Jexica. Think critically and trust the writers to make things clear/right in the end. They already admitted that the characters didn’t make the right decisions in SL2, and I highly, highly doubt the series will end before the characters learn a big lesson about the consequences of those wrong decisions.
(This post is brought to you by The Campaign to Move Everyone to Brooklyn Until Mr. Jackson Teaches Riley Matthews There’s a World Beyond Purple Cats.)
