Were EJ and Gina in Love?
This was supposed to be a reblog to @hattathehattxr, but it got unwieldy — and, yes, I know I talk about this a lot (and write therapeutic fanfics) but I keep on thinking about all the ways that this could have gone. Tldr: I’m fine that the writers wanted to end PW and start R*na. I could probably be very happy for the other couple and watch the show just fine. I am just completely miffed at the choice of events in S3 that got them to that conclusion.
My theory is that EJ and Gina are/were in love, but just weren’t ready for the demands of the “real world”. EJ needed to figure out his future (outside of Gina) and Gina needed someone who could be present in her current life. We see this because of the way they look at each other at the start of S3 and the expectations of a future they both seem to have. EJ was “all in” (trusting in their relationship even though he did see the interactions between R/G) and Gina was wanting these perfect moments together (framed as “love” and time with someone she cared about). Their break up wasn’t for a lack of desire or a lack of wanting to commit to each other. Their break up was because Gina didn’t see an immediate future for them based on S3 camp events. Gina saw an EJ who, when having responsibilities outside of her world, she wouldn’t be a priority or didn’t fit in her high school framework. This, unfortunately, translates to EJ as him not fitting in her life. Plus, EJ was written into a corner - he couldn’t offer her any assurances of the future and he couldn’t go back in time to make up for being absent during camp moments now that he realized what they meant to her and he certainly couldn’t go back to being in high school.
Key S3 Structural Problem: Two Weeks of Camp
The problem is that they created such an artificial set-up for it to end in the two weeks of S3 that the break up served absolutely no one - not Gina, not EJ, not PW fans, and honestly not even R*na.
Possible Solution: EJ and Gina should have dated canonically for 2 months
They didn’t need to show it, but they should have suggested that EJ and Gina dated for 2 months before camp. He took her to prom; she saw him graduate. (The narrative reason I think they didn’t do that is because they wanted “Camp Prom” to be more meaningful and have the option of a more meaningful future Prom. If so, maybe she couldn’t go to his prom. In Everyday of Our Lives, I had her have a cold. In How Deep Is Your Love, she went but it was awkward and she didn’t have a good time because she only knew EJ. They should have stated that they didn’t go together or that it was their first prom together in the promposal for extra significance.) The reason they should have had them date for two months is to give them a sense of their own time (and give fans the canonical satisfaction of a romance that reflected their S2 arc - even if we didn’t get the satisfaction of seeing it).
Camp could have then been many possible things. Maybe they already decided it was a summer romance or a last hurrah because EJ had to do post-high school stuff (further fueled by not having time as a director and trying to get out of leadership school) and Gina was still at East High for two more years.
Maybe they wanted camp to be a “test”, but the writers made it seem like they started dating at the start of camp and that felt incredibly…off? What exactly was being tested? How long have they dated? Seemed like they transitioned from friends to lovers fine, but both had pretty high (and differing) expectations for a relationship that supposedly just started. Gina literally got to sum it up as “five minutes” (which I wish they hadn’t done because it feels kind of offensive, relationships aren’t always about the amount of time and we saw their feelings develop before they even started dating).
Additional Issue: Rehashing S1 and 1.0 Themes, Characters as Caricatures,
It also didn’t help that writers went for the miscommunication trope and the 1.0 versions of their characters too. I think this was to heighten the “drama” but the cost was S2 growth. Not only were there some pretty cruel antics, the characters sometimes felt like caricatures - Gina as “girl who has never had a boyfriend but is figuring out what she needs” and EJ as “distracted guy too invested in a future with the girlfriend and not enough in their present”. Plus, narratively it gave us the sense that they forgot they had been friends first? The antics made it feel like S2 never happened, that EJ and Gina could have gotten together after S1. That Gina didn’t give EJ the benefit of the doubt that he was going to tell her about the letter (because she observes him in S2 as someone who tries and fails a lot) or, honestly, bring it up to him directly (because Gina can be straight forward) seemed out of character. That EJ - who we saw buy her a plane ticket, pick her up at the airport, get her flowers when she got her lead role, and is repeatedly shown as understanding how incredible she is time and time again, including very visibly at the start of Camp Prom - made her feel not a priority and him missing that last dance is plot convenience and character assassination. Maybe everyone is asking him last minute things before Opening Night and he gets distracted by that and forgets or the dance is messing things up for the show and he’s running around trying to fix things. Him telling Maddox a dance is important and then walking away…?
That S3 ends with R*na is also why the rehashing is so problematic. We all know that Gina had a really tough time with liking Ricky in S1. In S2, we saw her incredibly pained by those events that she would want to leave the first stable place that she had in years. The onus was on the writers to have Ricky prove out to her that he was worth a second look/chance. Being a good friend is great, but it’s also the bare minimum. Not telling her about his crush while she’s still in a relationship with his friend is called not being an a-hole. It is 2022. Can we not aim for more than this? Can Ricky - who we know is adverse to change and speaking up until it is absolutely necessary and sometimes too late (looking at you, Nini and Lily) - not have been changed enough to even just ask her out in the jump cut?
Additional Issue: Break Up Speech - Confusing Messaging and Shifting Perspectives
You can argue that with “maybe” usage, Gina was referring to how she felt about herself with EJ’s lack of plan and his actions during camp, but I would argue that Gina was also upset and angry about the last dance and the entirety of camp being disappointing to what she envisioned for herself and EJ (re: Gina and the Trouble With Rom-Coms). Camp Prom is the second-to-last-day of camp (conveniently, for drama, the day before opening night). At that point, the last dance = last straw = last chance, etc. etc. She argued that she was working towards their future, but she was actively pressed about present-day moments of camp specifically and about all the moments she had foreseen them having at the start of camp. She looked back to see camp as a (failed) picture of their possible future and then wanted to “jump ahead” to an ending she had determined for the both of them.
I say it time and time again. I am glad that the writers chose for Gina to be a voice and advocate for herself. And I think the choice for her to be the one to speak up was solid and in character, but the more I think about how that scene happened and the word choice, the more I think it was important for Gina to not only acknowledge herself and her needs, but also that she saw and appreciated what EJ had been trying to do. I wrote Flashbacks and Echoes (Gina recovering/processing from her break up with EJ) as a request. In it, EJ is significant for Gina and she still has to sort through the ending of her first relationship. So while we don’t see it, I think she did take that time before the jump cut to figure out her feelings and come to terms with it ending (I’m not sure what she was going to apologize for that EJ gave her a pass on). However, it was really challenging to write because throughout it, I could only convince myself that it was remotely feasible because Gina could only really understand/see her side of the story and she didn’t fully understand the scope of what EJ went through that summer and her role in his actions. In this version of events, Gina thinks EJ got “what he wanted”, which was that the show did really well and that it was trending in Brazil. That somewhere along the way, the show’s success meant more to him and was the source of his future than she did, because she hadn’t been a priority. While the audience - if we are supposed to believe that he is in love with her - is supposed to see that she’s always been the throughline. EJ could have discovered himself anywhere, including leadership school, but he wanted to stay in Salt Lake for her. But he not only lost the girl, but didn’t even gain his dad’s support and respect. (And the writers didn’t think it necessary for anyone else to tell him he did a good job. Re: Elton John Caswell wanted to feel like enough.)
In I knew you’d linger like a tattoo kiss, the follow up fanfic I wrote to Flashbacks and Echoes, I dig a bit deeper into the above. And in this AU it takes Gina a solid ten years until she realizes that her younger self wasn’t exactly wrong, but only working within her limited scope. In this I bring up that the “maybe” speech was different for EJ. In that, he understood her meaning, but he couldn’t help but hear in her words that he wasn’t going to be enough. There’s what he’s trying to do - which is to just stay in Salt Lake, figuring out a future, and be with her - and then she builds on that with him being essentially outside of high school now and how she can’t see him doing all these high school things that might be dumb but are important to her.
This last framework is significant because while I think it was unfair of EJ to mention Ricky, I don’t think it was unwarranted when Gina brings up Ricky’s Bucket List as a major activity that summer. We see some nice moments of Ricky’s bucket list (which honestly I think they spent too much time on but main character I guess), but we see dumb ones too like him eating 3 pizzas the day of Camp Prom *and* the day before Opening Night. Do we blame EJ for not participating if he has to put on a whole musical for an international streaming documentary (which later became a live stream)? The show tried really hard to make it seem that Gina didn’t emotionally cheat on EJ (and I’m not saying she did, I thoroughly think she did see Ricky as just a friend until she had the emotional freedom/space to think of him as more), but the show also consciously made her spend time with Ricky in a way that undercut/made up for EJ not being there. EJ’s mentioning Ricky wasn’t great, but he wasn’t exactly wrong - she mentioned two things that were specifically about Ricky that somehow was about EJ missing camp because he was too busy having “a different summer”. The jump cut only added to this because it twisted the “maybe” speech into a “yes” speech.
I don’t think these speeches should have been connected. I think the most beautiful thing they could have done for R*na was to just show how nice it was that Gina could forgive him and he could grow and how unentangled they were from Gina’s relationship with EJ. I’m not sure if an apology from Ricky was warranted because Gina’s S1 (S2 flashback) speech to him was just bad timing and she thought she was going to leave so had nothing to lose. They had such a wonderful opportunity to give Ricky growth and change. Maybe if they wanted to play on those words of “yes” and “maybe” - it should have been from him using those words. There could still have been a kiss at the end of it all if they had played their cards right and I honestly would have respected it.
Conclusion - Because this is long and I don’t know how to end these thoughts and I have probably said all these things a million times at this point (sorry tumblr fam)
A couple with such a clear and thoughtful arc to getting together should have a clear and thoughtful ending. I’m not even talking about it being happy? If they’re better off as friends, then maybe they’re awkward as a couple. If it’s just a summer romance, then give them the benefit of that framework and let them live a little - to take that second chance and say that they actually lived it. To some degree, I think the writers liked not having to pick a lane because “messy” and “drama”, but I just keep on thinking “at what cost?” And the cost is always that S2 Portwell glow up that they wrote - Portwell could be endgame and I’ll still be mad. I also just really think it’s so important to see a healthy first relationship portrayed (even if it’s just for a little while and maybe because it’s just for a little while - re: What I love about Portwell is that it was a healthy relationship… ).
So I end on this bittersweet summary: Yes, they were in love and they never got a chance to say it to each other. They’ll probably give it over to R*na in S4 and I don’t really care. S3 gave just enough to see two people who really did love each other. There was so much hope and - even when it faltered - a lot of trust. I’m just sad that the decision was to undermine all that growth for conclusions that could have ended in so many ways. In S2, PW had a miscommunication element before the kiss, both Gina and EJ have to speak up and take chances. He asks her out. Then after the misinformation moment, Gina speaks up. This resulted in them both getting each other onto the same page. And I think, in the end, I just really wanted that for these characters, to be able to leave that page on the same footing.
