in honor of the tgwdlm reprise proshot coming out someday i want to appreciate ted's "people who are alive and people who are fucking dead" monologue real quick because yes there's a layer of tragedy there in that he knows that pete is probably long gone and he probably feels really guilty about not even having the chance to do anything about it. that's probably what's going to be running nonstop in reprise ted's brain when he's drinking it all away and taking out his guilt on bill and being overall a cynical bastard and ughhh he has so many problems and he's so unhealthy about it and i love him for it
but i'd like to acknowledge really quickly that this layer of tragedy is also present in ted's monologue from the original show, even before we had the added context of peter spankoffski. whenever i see new people reacting to tgwdlm, i always see people in the comments pointing out ted having to deal with losing a brother, and sure, retroactively that's true, but i never see people talking about the person that was most likely going through ted's mind in tgwdlm 2018 during that monologue: charlotte. charlotte who he knew was struggling with her conscience. charlotte who he abandoned in her hour of need, only for the next time he saw her to be with her guts hanging out of her stomach, singing in harmony with a husband that didnt love her, taking pleasure out of torturing him.
he was the one that protected her from sam last time. maybe he could have saved her. maybe he could have been a hero for once in his life. how much of a difference would it have made to have been there with her? to have told her that he cared? at least to have let her know that she wasn't alone? instead, he fucked off and left her vulnerable and told her he'd rather hit on a woman that he didn't care even a little bit about than be around her. he'd wanted to hurt her. well, it worked. she was hurt. she was killed in the cruelest possible way. she was robbed of her own free will. and then she was shot, and now he'll never see her again (he'll never get to tell her that she wasn't alone, that she was good in ways he will never be, he'll never get to make things right-) and suddenly ted's entire world has changed. and there are no creeps. there are no heroes. there are only people who are alive, and people who are fucking dead. and charlotte sweetly? she's fucking dead.
