I always thought Michael's hand being healed was such a strange direction to take, it was such a huge part of his arc in season 1 they even went as far as showing us on screen how it happened which is something I havent been able to watch since it aired I have to skip that whole scene, to just erase it at the end was such a disappointment and then there was never really any follow through in season 2 but season 2 was kind of a mess anyway I figured we would of got some confrontation between max and michael about it.
there are multiple excellent metas about consent in RNM, particularly how it pertains to Max, so I can see why Max violating consent in this case would be a deliberate choice to demonstrate just how much Max was affected by the energy and power he absorbed, how much it could change him. however, yeah, you’re right--michael’s hand was a huge part of his arc in season 1, it’s a huge part of his character, and even flirting with the line of a disability cure narrative is very difficult to do well, so this was a decision that had to be approached with a lot of intentionality, with a very deliberate direction, with something to say about max and michael, about how healing powers can be misused, about bodily autonomy...
and season two just showed again and again that that wasn’t the case. there was nothing there. max and michael don’t talk about it. it barely even comes up with michael. and the time it’s dealt with directly, it’s your show’s only remaining disabled character berating him for not dealing with it the “right” way. it’s honestly very upsetting, and this is what leads me to the stance i expressed in the tags on my previous reblog--that i don’t believe that rnm sees michael’s hand as a disability in the same way alex’s leg is a disability.
with this criticism i also feel the need to say that i do recognize that RNM is still a living document--they may go back and address it better, let michael and max talk about it, let michael feel what he feels about it and process it on his own schedule. but season 2 has given me NO reason to trust that this will happen. michael? ALLOWED to be angry about something that was done to him? automatically toxic, none of that allowed here, no sir.
like im sorry, this is a salty tangent, but of all the things--you can accept all the times the show TELLS and not SHOWS that michael has a consistent anger issue that harms the people around him and alex specifically, but michael wearing the bandana, even if it was because he wasn’t ready to let go of his anger at jesse or max--which that’s a big IF, because michael doesn’t say that, alex assigns him that motivation and gets mad at him for it (alex, you see, is allowed to be angry about things)(at michael at least, not in a sustained way at his abuser, noooo)--it was literally hurting NO ONE. literally no one. for michael to wear a piece of fabric on his hand. if alex has a problem with it, if it’s hard for alex to see, that’s officially alex’s problem and something for him to deal with with a therapist, not a stick to beat michael with when he’s mad at him.
anyway
rnm may go back and address this topic, and i hope they do, i hope that this storyline can be salvaged somehow. like i’ve previously expressed, i think the most eloquent solution would be to restore his disability somehow, preferably through him protecting loved ones again, as that reinforces that element of his character and kind of reclaims the circumstances, reframes them from the very painful hate crime to an active and empowering act of love...but they didn’t ask me. and there are other ways to do this right. but season 2 damaged my trust significantly, and whether or not they do, eventually, fix it somehow, people are allowed to react to even an in-progress story as it happens and work with the current information they possess.
Coming here to say that I would like the show to rebreak Michael’s hand, preferably while he’s protecting his loved ones, because it’s some grade-a bullshit that the show erased his disability, framed it as non-consensual, and then had every conversation around it have to do with how he manufactures his anger and not, maybe, about how his body autonomy was completely disregarded and a part of him was healed because someone else decided that they could fix him/that he needed to be fixed at all.
My main problem with Michael and Alex and Malex in both seasons was that they are basically allowed to actually talk about stuff twice in a whole season and the conversations always need to be dramatic because apparently CAM thinks that's what great writing is. Michael's hand comes up once in 2x01, and then 10 episodes later after zero conversations in between. All of Alex piecing together Michael's backstory also happened off-screen and 2x05 seemed to retcon much of it. It's all bad writing.
i will say that television writing is a collaborative beast, so while on some level the buck will always stop with the showrunner, and it’s the job of leadership to hold the reins and keep the story going in the right direction, there are also story editors, episode writers, and a hundred others stirring the pot...so I don’t think it’s quite fair to put all the blame on carina. carina’s leadership and her writing, directly, also gave us so much of the malex that we love.
but yeahhh and the thing is the conversation about michael’s hand didn’t HAVE to happen with alex. it should have happened with max; it could have happened with isobel; it could have happened with maria, since she’s the only other person who even mentions it; it could have happened with just about anyone, if the show as a whole saw it (both michael’s hand itself and the violation of his consent/bodily autonomy) as the massive issue it deserves to be treated as.
in a short order show some things will always happen off screen, so i don’t have as much of an issue with alex piecing together the alien stuff offscreen, especially since we’re already watching Liz do it on screen, and she’s the main character, not alex. (though it would be nice to see them put their heads together sometime lol LET PEOPLE HAVE FRIENDS S3)
the malex flashback in 2x05 is tonally and continuity-ally a complete disaster and it makes my head hurt and also my heart hurt because it’s still so cute lol but IT SHOULDN’T EXIST 😂
The forced self reflection and healthy healing this heartbreak has caused is genuinely a blessing but my god that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like hell
If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that you don't need to rush into becoming the best version of yourself the moment you’ve been through something hard.
Sometimes, you find yourself trying so hard to be that ideal version without the energy or motivation to back it up. But in those moments, what you truly need is to give yourself time to stop overthinking and allow life’s opportunities to find you. It’s not about doing nothing but rather about moving forward at your own pace without the weight of unrealistic expectations.
Sometimes, healing and growth happen quietly, in the space where you give yourself permission to simply be.
