“they could have sprinkled scott and kip’s scenes throughout the episodes”
sprinkled where? how? in the first two episodes alone, we saw the first six years of shane and ilya’s careers and story while scott and kip meet and “break up” within the four months between the first time ilya goes to shane’s place and the olympics.
sure, they changed things up a bit (for the better imo) but still, both in the show and the book scott and kip date for a couple of months before That Scene. regardless of where their story is placed in the timeline, how can you sprinkle a subplot that lasts a few months within the major plot that lasts years without making major changes? you simply can’t, not in a way that feels smooth and seamless at least and that does both pairings justice.
the only other solution would have been to stretch scott and kip’s story even further by introducing kip sooner and have them date for longer so their scenes could properly be sprinkled evenly throughout the first 2 or 3 episodes. but that would drastically change skip’s story and their purpose.
the whole point is that everything moves a lot faster between them, the contrast between skip and hollanov is supposed to be obvious.
i understand people’s criticism, but i do believe jacob tierney’s solution was the best option. i feel like people mostly say they should have sprinkled skip’s scenes because they believe that would have somehow made their screentime shorter, but i doubt that would have been the case. every scene was there for a reason, they didn’t waste time by adding useless moments, we would have gotten these 45 minutes either way. so what do you lot really think is best 1) jacob changing skip’s timeline completely and have their scenes “interrupting” hollanov and their flow every 10 to 20 mins in most episodes or 2) skip “interrupting” hollanov’s story once to give us all the context we need for That Scene?
These are the jeans I was wearing on that day when I was assaulted on the bus.
I keep meaning to throw them away, but for some reason, I can't. Every day I feel more like myself and like that's great, but sometimes, it feels like even when I'm doing something I love, It feels like I'm still wearing them. Like it never goes away.
people keep assuming that ostark leaked the script because he’s cruel and was mocking us, but i don’t think it’s fair to jump to that conclusion when he’s always been pretty careful with what he says in regards to the show.
we should start considering that maybe bobby coming back was part of the original script but tim cut it and the leaked script was either a genuine mistake or a warning of some kind.
mind you, in an interview tim went on about how he realised he’d never get a chance like this again so he took it and just killed him off. but there’s been many “perfect” chances to kill bobby over the years, so him having a nde couldn’t be what tim was referring to. instead he meant that he had the perfect set up, with a funeral and all, he just had to remove the bit where he’s buried alive.
they originally shot a welcome home party with bobby and up to the funeral shoot the cast was begging tim not to kill him off. they knew there was still a chance to reverse it, probably hoped tim would listen and only after the shoot realised it was really happening (this could potentially explain why they were all having fun at the funeral).
and no, i don’t think it’s all because peter did something to anger tim. after all, according to angela, ravi was supposed to die at first, so are we going to start saying anirudh also did something bad or can we just accept that tim is egocentric and bad at his job?
i just think tim decided he wanted to kill someone off on a whim, chose ravi bc he’s the only non main on the team we care about, then he chose bobby but made it fake to be careful but eventually got the creative, bold and genius idea to make it real bc he realised he’s some god that can do what he wants. or who knows, maybe both were supposed to happen but he felt like it would be too much to have a fake bobby death and a real ravi death, so he scrapped the latter and made the former an actual death. or it started with fake bobby death, scrapped it for a real ravi death and then that’s when he backtracked and realised he had an opportunity to actually kill a main character by removing the buried alive bit.
regardless of exactly how things went, i dont get why people are trying so hard to blame the cast (both for this and buddie) when we have very clear common enemies: tim minear, kristen reidel and abc.
it feels like tim comes up with things he wants/needs for the show and then finds the quickest and often laziest ways of having them happen. for example, he needed chris to come back to la, and by doing what he did he killed two birds with one stone. he avoided having to think of proper scenes leading up to his return and also found a quick way to end the conflict between eddie and buck — and im assuming this is also why chris couldn’t come back for the funeral instead.
most of the events of this season either happened (1) for convenience’s sake, (2) bc tim was setting something else up, something that of course went nowhere in the end, or (3) bc tim chose so.
with the recent changes, they had to get rid of some sets, so buck had to leave the loft and athena sold the house. also, selling the house and burying bobby in minnesota, which is a disservice to his character and story, allows the writers to fully move on and erase him from the show. they needed that shocking and totally unexpected baby name reveal (such an ugly name too) as the final scene, so they speed ran maddie’s pregnancy even tho it didn’t match the timeline of events at all. they couldn’t end the season without hen getting something too, so they simply added the adoption in the final montage. tim desperately wanted bobby to die, so it didn’t really matter if the sudden “realism” made no sense. chim had to become captain, esp after bobby died for him, so they had hen turn down the position bc of her family when chim is the one with a newborn (and a wife with a history of ppd). eddie and buck both made the decision to leave offscreen, smth that didn’t make much sense after the last ep, just to allow chim to give that speech in the end. during said speech, chim also made for eddie the decision to stay, despite having it spelled out for the audience that eddie never chooses things for himself and should learn to do that, all bc doing more than that would have taken too much time and effort. and these are just some of the things i could find some sort of explanations for, but there are also many things that seemingly happened for no reason at all, like whatever “storyline” buck had for example.
it’s sad how it’s almost impossible to find something from this season that was done because it actually benefited and further developed a character. i keep asking myself what was even the point of season 8, and honestly i can’t find an answer.
you don’t understand how badly i need karen wilson in every episode of this show.
she’s close enough to everyone to understand the dynamics between the other characters and have important conversations with them, but also detached enough from their world to offer a necessary third party’s perspective.
how people continue to miss what eddie means when he says buck makes everything about himself is beyond me.
even during that kitchen fight, once eddie opens up about his own guilt, buck’s immediate response is “so you think i didn’t do everything i could to save him?” when that’s clearly not what eddie is trying to say.
eddie knows buck. he’s seen multiple times how, whenever something bad happens, buck’s abandonment issues and overall guilt kick in and eventually make him spiral. buck’s main goal is to fix things to make everything go back to normal, something that can’t always happen. the issue is that buck’s too blinded by his insecurities, fears, guilt and desire for normalcy to clearly see how his actions are actually effecting others sometimes.
in this scenario, when it came to dealing with his own feelings, he decided to go to church which allowed him to talk about it without bothering anyone (and it also made him feel connected to bobby), and when it came to the others, he tried to gauge how they were doing by following a quiz he found online. however, that’s not what his friends needed.
eddie needed buck, and buck was there for him but not in the way eddie actually needed. eddie didn’t bring up the night he got the call as a way to make things about himself, he was trying to get the conversation he wanted out of him and to also make a point. buck asked him all those questions in that test but didn’t ask him the one question that mattered the most to him, and even after that whole speech buck missed the point.
sure, in an ideal world eddie would have gone to buck to tell him honestly and openly how he felt, but we know eddie struggles with asking for help. he was also figuring out how to have another important conversation with buck.
and sure, maybe buck wasn’t ready for that conversation but i’m certain eddie would have preferred him simply admitting that over buck suppressing it all and spiralling.
and lastly sure, eddie knows how to cut deep with words, and even he knows he went too far that trials and tribulations comment was fucking wild but i find it interesting how easily ppl excuse buck’s actions bc of whatever he’s going through, but not eddie’s.
after this last episode, part of me still thinks bobby may be alive, but i’ve also come to accept that not even him coming back could fix the mess this show has become.
i just couldn’t help but notice how season 8b in particular has been about giving fans the opposite of what they want, and it makes me scared for the direction the show is going towards.
fans want buddie? we get a bunch of scenes to bait us keep us entertained but it all leads nowhere in the end. and if 8x16 was a way to tell people “move on bobby’s dead” im afraid of what 8x11 meant.
ravi main? now that eddie is away, ravi is back but he was initially supposed to die instead of bobby. so the original plan was to bring him back just to kill him.
hen getting some spotlight? she gets an episode about everyone forgetting her birthday.
and what about chimney? he’s only relevant when something tragic happens to the ones closest to him (first maddie getting kidnapped and now bobby dying).
ok then, what about eddie? gets shipped off to texas with a bunch of shit happening off screen and all of his scenes revolve around chris, buck or both.
more scenes about 118 and their bond like the various dinners and parties? we get a halloween party just for them to put denny through hell. it’s as if everything has to be dramatic, we can’t just have fun for too long.
everyone’s tired of bad characters getting redeemed? the writers saw that and thought “good! let’s bring back tommy, gerrard and bobby’s mom in the span of one season to shove them down people’s throats”.
fans grew to love the show’s whimsy and lack of realism? too bad bc the show runner decided to kill a character in the name of realism just to throw realism out of the window again the following episode.
fans also loved emergencies from earlier seasons like the tsunami, the bomber, the earthquake etc not bc of how big they were, but bc they directly involved the characters and had some sort of character development and butterfly effect that we got to see through the following episodes. but nope, somehow the writers think the bigger an emergency is the more we’re going to love it.
fans love the concept of found family? what’s that? bc the writers clearly don’t know what that means. it almost feels like they created the perfect found family without meaning to and have been trying to give every character their “real” families back in one way or another.
i’m definitely forgetting some stuff but i guess that’s the issue, there’s so much stuff they’ve been doing that goes against what fans want that it’s hard to keep track of it.
i understand showrunners not wanting to bend to their viewers’ will, but there’s a fine line between doing what you think is best while also keeping fans happy and getting so petty that you completely ignore your audience or even go against it, and i think that with this season, tim crossed that line.
even when we get what we want (may and ravi coming back, eddie and chris reuniting, athena and hen acting like the besties they used to be, bobby healing etc), we have to suffer for it.
