I honestly don’t care who Elizabeth picks as long as they don’t pull a pair the spares trope with the one she doesn’t /Faith assuming she and Carson are done
I love reading your well thought out answers to queries :-) do you think it’s possible for the show to leave Rosie and Lee just as they are? She’s not keen on babies but is so lovely with children in other ways, their journey to a family may be totally different from the expected. I don’t want a forced, sappy WCTH wrapped in a bow story for them. Also could Carson and Faith be any more meh??? I would love for a Carson and Elizabeth story later down the line but I don’t think it will happen :-(
Thank you! And also thank you for the great questions.
I like Rosemary and Lee the way they are, too. I don’t want a baby storyline for them; it’d be nice to see a couple not have children, and our options for that are limited in Hope Valley almost by age. For example, if Bill entered into a marriage, it’s a little doubtful he’d be having kids—or even particularly wanting them. Not that men his age wouldn’t maybe still want a family, but his character is old enough that if he said something like, “We’re not really looking to start a family,” most people would accept that as reasonable. He had a son before, but lost him, and maybe doesn’t feel the need to try again. I think Abigail falls into that category, too, even the had-a-son-before aspect of it. It’s hard to tell if she’s intended to be at post-menopausal age or not, but either way, having a baby over 40 in this time period? Not the best idea. Plus, Abigail adopted children; she doesn’t need more.
But other than these two characters, and their potential partners, I think the other characters/couples are intended to feel vaguely “in their late 20s or 30s”—and therefore still ripe for babymaking potential.
So, let’s talk about Rosemary and Lee.
The actors in this show are ALWAYS much older-looking than their intended character (and no, the makeup they’re wearing usually doesn’t help alleviate this when they’re always doing close-up shots). Rosemary grew up with Jack, but Jack had to have been old enough to actually have a career, and this would be about five years after the first season, so…she has to be at least mid 30s. Lee’s more varied I think? He could easily be, say, anywhere from 38 to 45… (I did a big chart on ages once, to try and get a handle on everybody’s ages. Let me tell you: easier said than done.)
Anyway, so let’s pretend Rosemary is currently 35 and Lee is 45: that’s still in a believable range to be having a baby.
My thing is this: they just don’t need it. Rosemary isn’t the kind of person who wants to be completely selfless, which is kind of how you have to be when you have a helpless little human depending on you for literally everything. She’s also not especially intuitive when it comes to figuring out what other people are feeling/thinking/et cetera. Personally? I think she’d be miserable as a mother, and she’d really hate those early years the most. Depressed Rosemary? No thank you.
But I do think Rosemary does well with kids who are a bit older, say, 8+. And she’d probably do great with even teenagers: because they’re better at communicating how they feel and what they’re thinking, and they don’t need the kind of personal attention a baby does.
But like, we already have Abigail in town who adopted children, so it feels like a repeated storyline that…doesn’t need to happen again. It’d just be rehashing the same kinds of issues we’ve already covered. And I know I already said this, but… Rosemary and Lee don’t need children. I’m sure by now they’ve already discussed their desires and wants in the relationship. It’s kind of late to throw that roadblock in without it feeling cumbersome to the storytelling by default. They’ve surely discussed this thoroughly by now!
Being listen, I’ll be honest: I’m sick of the average pregnancy narrative anyway. It’s used to twist women who don’t want kids into pseudo-villains. I’ve had enough of that! Rosemary on screen said she didn’t want kids, and I’d like this series to, you know, respect that about her character, not make her pregnant and force her to deal with the consequences (where she magically discovers a love of babies once she herself is pregnant or she’s around an infant regularly, because that’s how these kinds of narratives ALWAYS END—where the woman has her mind changed for her, usually for the convenience of what everyone else wants).
I’m not going to go into how damaging that narrative is, especially when it’s aimed at people who don’t want kids or can’t have them for any reason, but it IS damaging (not just to the potential parents, but to the children they end up having) and it’s a lie. You won’t magically fall in love with sticky jam hands and baby smells just because you’re around a baby or you get yourself knocked up.
If you don’t want kids, or don’t even particularly like kids: don’t have kids. There’s no shame in that. There’s no shame in living for yourself. Don’t drop some innocent person into the world on purpose just because you’re trying to fill in some societal obligation—or check some kind of box on the list a relative gave you.
I feel like Rosemary’s road into family doesn’t have to be her performing parenthood. She does very well as a kind, quirky aunt-like figure. She helped Cody get Frank and Abigail back together; she mentored Emily, she had those girls over at her house for a sleepover and they adored her… That’s the role I think Rosemary ought to keep playing. No shame attached. Let other people have babies and enjoy it; let Rosemary and Lee not have babies and still enjoy their life together!
(And it’s like, look: I know that we can’t forget what Lee wants here, too, but marriage does come with compromises, and sometimes they’re not small ones! He works a lot; when is he going to help Rosemary with the baby? When is he going to Be a Father? An hour each night? Please. Any baby they have will be 99% Rosie’s responsibility, and I think when confronted with this reality, Lee is fully capable of taking the more logical route of deciding maybe children just aren’t that important to him because he has everything else in his life he’s ever wanted. Family can be just a husband and wife!)
Here’s to hoping the writers don’t think they have to check off the baby box on Rosemary and Lee’s relationship. It doesn’t need it; and that they don’t seem to be heading in that direction is part of what helps them stand out from the others—what helps them feel compelling as characters. They get to fuss over and spoil Elizabeth’s son, get to babysit him, get to watch him grow up…but they won’t have to actually parent him. I think it’s a perfect arrangement!
As far as Carson and Faith go… I don’t really get their popularity in this fandom. I’d probably like them a lot if Faith were the doctor and Carson the nurse? It would at least feel like a slight trope subversion…
I think it’s fandom’s obsession with shipping people who work together or something… I personally dated one (1) person I worked closely with, and it was terribly awkward and perfectly awful when it came time to end things—and it’s not like they didn’t end amicably! It isn’t a trope I particularly like anymore, now that I know all the pitfalls that come with it.
Fandom is still in the fantasizing stage of it, I guess. And of course, it’s Hallmark, so if they’re end-game it’s not like they won’t work through all of those issues, right?
Anyway, I find their relationship to be kind of dull and uninspired. I just can’t get into it. Maybe s6 will change my mind, but I doubt it. I guess what I wanted was another male/female friendship that felt like it meant something, especially between two people in the same field who work very closely all the time. Bill and Abigail are a great friendship pair, too, don’t get me wrong…but they did try the romantic entanglement thing at first—and it’d be super nice to have all the good parts of a friendship like they share MINUS the attempt at romance.
But that’s just me.
I really would prefer Elizabeth and Carson, but unfortunately I’m with ya, Anon. I don’t think it’s likely to happen. Maybe we’ll at least get a close friendship there? I mean, if nothing else, I’ll take it.
