Opinion time: what do you guys think of season 4 Jackie and season 8 Jackie?
Jackie was put in a situation the writers could had avoided if they had let her character and Michael’s grow after they’ve been apart. At the beginning it looked like things were going to be better between them but then, they put Jackie as struggling to make homework or to understand it (when previously she’s been shown as a great student), acting dumb in the sake of beauty and fashion (Someone wrote about Jackie forcing herself to be dumb during this season here, you should give it a read)and being even more selfish than before when Michael gets a modeling job.
It’s understandable she would be upset that he would get this job after she had to take a “degrading” one as a cheese maid. And I’m saying this because she’s a teenager and we tend to put every single little thing as a super terrible situation when at the age. But this Jackie should had known better than to abuse her boyfriend because of his job.
She could had quit the Cheese Palace and try another job, that is the logic thing to do. But nope, she stayed in her lesser job and prefered to treat Michael with all the disrespect in the world she could find. This and Michael’s nature drives him away and the writers let go of a good oportunity with him too.
Season 4 isn’t the best for Jackie’s character, but at least she got to experiment what having a real job and real world problems are. She also got to see that being a bad person towards the people you love isn’t good and will drive them away. If the writers had given it more thought, she would had grown even more. Same for Michael.
All characters in this season got a re-write out of their pilot selves. Jackie is selfish, dumb, loud and, some times, rather abusive than good.
Yet she gets to keep her dream career in the sight for a few episodes and forgets her marriage-craziness started in the second half of season 7. This allowes her to have a job that makes her go through difficult times that later help her to deal with her feelings for her new love interest and the career she wants.
She becomes some sort of friends with an adult woman, something that didn’t happen until now. Jackie’s treatment of adult women until Christine is pretty bad. While she doesn’t improve much with Christine, it’s something.
Going to live outside her big house and mother’s money is a good thing too. The characters are adults by now and everyone is struggling with going out their parent’s houses and have jobs, and a stable love life. If the writers could had been better at their job, maybe we could have seen an adult show saying goodbye to us.
By having a roommate, Jackie has to learn to share and it is shown it wasn’t so easy, especially when her feelings for Fez grow and become evident, since she can’t stand having to share him with other women. Her love for him and the experience of having to care for herself makes her try and fight for it. A good thing that was bad written and directed to the wrong man at this point of her life.
Season 8 Jackie is pretty childish anyway, but not everything wasn’t that bad.
