#captain fall analysis

[kenbowenbo]

So, guess whos back to talking about Captain Fall again

Though nothing too long, I just wanted to point out (cornplate) how Johnathans parents treat him normally Vs after finding out he got offered to become a captain

Johnathan comes home from being both at work and his classes all day, and the plate his parents give him for dinner after basically keeping him away from the party going down in their actual house is: Two pieces of asparagus, two slices of meat and a singular shrimp. Its noted how much weaker and lankier he is compared to everyone else in the show, especially for being canonically 29 years old, leading me to think he's consistently underfed.

Alongside this, after his ladder is taken away so he wouldn't come down to the party, his father forgets to put it back up in the morning. Johnathan, however, is already prepared for it, tying a bunch of the same colored sheets together to climb down with practiced ease. It's all the same color which makes me think this wasn't a rushed job, but potentially his emergency makeshift rope after being forgotten in his treehouse numerous times.

Comparing that to the morning his mother finds out he got an invite from the Caribbean queen to become a captain. His ladder is in place, and he gets a personal wake up from them before being told to actually come inside for breakfast.

He gets what looks like 5-6 pancakes, two sausages, scrambled eggs and some orange juice (what should've been the standard for him but shhh) and the most confusing morning of his life with his parents playing nice with him. I keep saying "season 2 could've given us (insert thing)" a lot, but this beginning episode, and "family reunion" especially exploring his relationship dynamic with his family were very interesting to me, and I wish we could've gotten more time for Johnathan to really start figuring out (or through my interpretation, be less non-confrontational) to his famliys treatment of him.

[kenbowenbo]

Hello, Mr. Tyrant 🖤

[kenbowenbo]

A shorter thought about Johnathan, but sometimes I wonder if he's always wanted to be a ship captain? It sounds silly to say out loud, and with how he's grown up, maybe he has. Though I can imagine growing up with a family tree of other captains/sailors, including his own brother and constantly demeaning, neglectful, and verbally abusive parents he wanted approval from mighhhhhhht have impacted his career choice growing up.

As nice as I want to be to Johnathan, whether due purely from his parents neglect or something else with him, he is majorly unfit to be a captain, if his grades being the worst in the academy weren't enough, there are scenes where he's crashed into docks trying to park the ship, and one where Pedro has to stay by his side to turn off any buttons or levers he pulls that are clearly wrong so nothing bad happens to the ship. Maybe he has always wanted to be a captain, but part of me likes to believe that when he was way younger, he might've thought of something else (my personal HC is a gardener/botanist for future reasoning I'll explain in a future post), though that thought would've very quickly been snubbed out by his family.

[kenbowenbo]

Not as active on this account cause of other interests + college starting up, but MAN what I would've given for a Captain Fall season 2. I liked season 1 a lot don't get me wrong, but I just know that cliffhanger was leading to what could've been an awesome continuation. Would Johnathans naivety finally start to crumble for his "new family" once theres reasonable doubt in his mind not to trust the ship crew? In my personal interpretation, with his bio family he deep deep somewhere down knows they're awful to him, and I think its both a mix of how sheltered he was raised alongside not wanting any more conflict and resentment than there already is that he chooses to be too passive, innocent, again naive. He wants to keep seeing people from the best lenses he can. What he thought was a proper family that finally treated him kindly, now has major cracks that he finally cant ignore because of detective steel, and maybe then old memories start to seem much less fond and innocent, he starts noticing when hes being redirected somewhere else for odd reasons, or crew members leaving and coming back with specks of "red paint". What I would've GIVEN for Johnathan to even start suspecting Liza, of both being part of something worse than it seems, but also faking her feelings for him, for them to grow suspicious of each other, all while Johnathans fall is slowly coming with the "evidence" Steel collected, leading to him to have to stop ignoring whats in front of him to dig for the truth himself. (Might draw something relating to this...)