Jeff [pounding on door]: Whoever the hell you think you are, you just kidnapped a Metro police officer! That’s a Class A felony and I’m gonna put your ass away – you hear me!? [more banging]
Grace [waking up]: Do you have to be so loud? [groggily looking around] Who the hell are you?
David: Hello. I’m – I’m David. I’m a friend of Marcy’s. [gestures to Kat] This is Kathryn. She’s married to Agent MacLaren, who’s Marcy’s boss. [points to Ray]. This is Ray. [slight pause]. He’s still unconscious. [looks towards Jeff] The unhappy man is Officer Conniker…who I’m guessing is in a relationship with Carly, who is also a friend of Marcy, all of whom may or may not be time travelers. And you are?
Grace: I’m a…high school guidance counselor.
David: Oh okay. That makes perfect sense.
---
Shawn Spencer [over in the corner of a completely different fandom]: That is some of the best nutshelling that I have ever heard!
What I love about the development of their relationship in s2 is the way we were made to believe Jeff is redeemable. The writers were so adept at restarting their relationship, showing us Carly, Jeff, and Jeffrey living as a family and playing with a possibility that something might happen between him and Carly.
I’ve been musing over this for days now so this analysis will be all over the place and contain spoilers! I apologise in advance for that, but I will do my best to give it some chronological sense, just bear with me.
At the beginning of the season, Carly and Jeff are confronted with a real possibility of never seeing their son again. They both love him and are ready to do absolutely anything and everything to get him back.
After the shit Jeff pulled in s1, accusing Carly of being an unfit mother, accusing her of assault which is why she can’t get a decent job, you’d expect her to just bash his head against the wall and get rid of him for good. However, she swallows her pride and does what needs to be done to get her kid back.
What makes Carly even more amazing character is the fact that Jeffrey isn’t even her kid. It’s her host’s kid. But she takes the responsibility of being a mother seriously and loves that child like it is her own and is willing to protect him by any means. It’s because of him that she risks her own safety and enters this agreement with Jeff, of playing house, just to get her son back.
Carly is a badass mama bear and I won’t let anyone tell me otherwise.
So, we have this scene in 2x2, when the two of them are talking in Jeff’s car about what to do to get Jeffrey back, and Jeff tells her that he “can’t imagine what I would do if I lost you forever”, referring to the s1 scene when the traveller assassin was sent to kill Carly and Jeff shot her dead.
This was such a huge foreshadowing of the s2 finale, and also a throwback to 1x1 when Jeff actually killed Carly, enabling T3465 to take her body.
Jeff is so far gone as a person that he’s convinced of his own lies. Or he’s just good at telling people what he thinks they want to hear.
So, to get Jeffrey back, Carly lets Jeff move back in. Jeff being a jerk, immediately assumes that means she’s letting him back in her life by asking where to put his bag, expecting her to let him come back to their bedroom. As if! We all know Carly is a no-nonsense kind of girl and one look from her is enough to put him in his place.
What I found the most striking in this scene is Carly searching through Jeff’s bag to make sure he didn’t bring any alcohol with him because she is not willing to lose Jeffrey because of Jeff’s stupidity. It also shows she has zero trust in him and his word, as much as he tries to portray himself as a changed man and claims he quit drinking.
Episode that followed showed Carly and Jeff struggling to fake their reconciliation, and even though it is crystal clear Carly is uncomfortable with Jeff being near her, she makes an effort of holding hands with him, has this speech of them talking things through and realising they were both angry.
“The counselling helped me forgive Jeff and to not let the past stop me from seeing who he is now” is what she says, but her words don’t fool the therapist.
They don’t fool her because she knows it’s not true, Carly knows it’s not true, even Jeff is aware of this. They’re wearing a mask of couple trying to get past their differences but their body language tells a different story. Still, they get their son back.
And this is where another foreshadowing comes in place: after they’ve just got Jeffrey back, what does the dimwit Jeff do? Pours himself and Carly a glass of alcohol, excusing this by saying they are suppose to celebrate getting Jeffrey back. Carly doesn’t want to drink, but he insists.
In spite of claiming he quit drinking, this scene showed that it was in fact a lie, just like his relationship with Carly is. It serves to show us that his words mean one thing, have a single goal of deceiving Carly and getting back into her life, while his actions mean something completely different: they reveal the real Jeff – Jeff the bully, Jeff the abuser.
But even as he dismisses his drinking, we are also somewhat lulled into believing it’s a one-time thing because Jeff is suppose to appear more calm and docile. That’s why we had that scene with only Jeff at the interview with their, was it lawyer?? while Carly was running late. The man says that it seems like Jeff goes out of his way to please Carly and Jeff starts by saying, what do you know about guilt? We don’t get to hear what he has to say because Carly appears, but it made me think: what did he want to say?
Does he feel guilty for drinking and beating her?
Does he feel guilty for abusing her emotionally and psychologically, wanting to take Jeffery from her?
Does he feel guilty for making up lies about her when all the while he’s being a hypocrite?
I really don’t get that sentence, at all!
Jeff is not a good person. He is a bully and an abuser who think he’s entitled to Carly. He has shown zero remorse up to this point (2x3), so what were they trying to accomplish with this line? If anyone has any idea, feel free to add.
In 2x4 Marcy and Carly talk about her and Jeff, and Carly tells Marcy the only reason why they’re playing house is because of Jeffrey. Marcy asks her if that is really the only reason, and Carly replies “He did stop drinking. I got a zero tolerance going. We both love that boy so...”
You see, every time there’s a talk about Jeff, we are forced into believing he is really doing his best to stay off drinking and being a responsible father and housemate because he wants to make things work for his son’s sake.
And even some things he does will make us believe he is changing.
However, it is exactly those kind of scenes that raise a red flag. And I’ll admit, it was only on my third watching that I realised this. It’s the trying part that raises that flag, because knowing Jeff, we can’t really expect him to try out of the goodness of his heart or any true love. He’s doing it because Carly’s forcing him to quit drinking, he’s in the house on her terms and he knows he can’t mess it up. Nothing he does is honest; it’s just to butter her up and lull her into false sense of change in him, as evidenced by Carly’s words to Marcy.
In 2x5 Carly and he have a brief argument because Jeff didn’t let her know on time he won’t be able to take care of Jeffrey that day and Carly tells him they’re suppose to do things together. Jeff dismisses this like it’s no big deal, when in fact it shows one of many cracks in their relationship – inability to communicate and Jeff expecting Carly to pick up the slack.
As the season nears the end, Jeff and Carly’s relationship seems to improve, so much so, that in 2x9 we have several great moments between them that could point to them having a good and stable relations – but, as I have already stated, his actions and words are just pretence.
We are given scenes with Jeff having made breakfast for them, then him and Carly working out and dancing together, Carly coming home after mission and asking Jeff to tell her about Jeffrey’s birth.
These cute little moments worked on me the first time, I actually believe Jeff did change, but another red flag comes exactly in this scene where Carly asks him to tell her about Jeffrey’s birth.
“You sure you wanna go there? That’s not your favourite story,” Jeff tells her.
We don’t get to hear the story though, but I would bet something bad happened and it was Jeff’s fault, taking in consideration everything we’ve seen him do and say to Carly from the very start of the show.
We are left to wonder why the birth of her son is not a mother’s favourite story, but it’s exactly that part that gives us another clue as to where Jeff and Carly’s relationship could have been at that point, since Jeff himself is reluctant to retell it, especially now when they seem to be on good terms.
Because he is afraid hearing the story might change Carly’s view of him and this thing between them.
Of course, this is just my speculation and I might be wrong, so feel free to share your thoughts.
And now we get to the end of the season and to the end of their fake relationship when we get to witness the real Jeff emerge.
In 2x11, there is a scene when Carly is washing the dishes and dancing to the music Philip is playing for her (sweet blond human <3). Jeff takes a few moments looking at her as he gets ready for work before he goes and kisses her cheek.
Carly tells him “Hey” as in, what the hell are you doing, and his reply is “You’re bringing it on yourself”, as in, your dancing makes me horny so I’m gonna kiss you even though you gave me no indication of anything romantic or sexual happening between us ever and you were just dancing for your own amusement not me sorry ass.
This scene right here, it’s one of the biggest foreshadowing of the season. Jeff’s mask is slipping and what he says to her finally reveals the Jeff that’s been hiding all along. It’s a typical victim-blaming line every abuser has used at least once to excuse their behaviour.
In this scene alone, Jeff’s encroached Carly’s personal space, her body and invalidated her objection of him kissing her by blaming her behaviour for his actions.
The good-guy mask is completely gone later in the episode when Jeff comes home drunk. At Carly’s objection, he tells her “What do you want? Want me to disrespect my boss on his birthday?”
He doesn’t need an excuse to drink, but yet again he blames Carly for his actions, as in if I keep being what you want me to be then I can’t be who I am, he’s not being frank and saying it like that, but we can understand it from his behaviour and words.
When Carly tells him she doesn’t want to deal with “this right now”, again, he turns that around and makes it all about himself and blames Carly for the situation they’re in.
He says,”How long are you going to hang that over my head? I’ve been good,” accuses her of sleeping around then proceeds to touch her all the while telling her “I’ve been good. You owe me” and he gets aggressive when she pushes him away, saying “Am I gonna get some or what?”
And we finally see what Jeff’s change was all about: it was about him getting into Carly’s pants while pretending to be the good guy who wants to do things right.
He doesn’t want redemption.
He was never getting redemption and that’s what the writers are telling us in that moment: no matter what he says or does, an abuser is always an abuser and that can’t ever change.
Jeff wanted to deceive Carly, get into her good graces so he could trick her and manipulate her once again and do as he pleases with her. He feels like him ‘being good’ is something to admire and he feels the need to be rewarded, going so far as to say she owes him.
Bitch, excuse me, but what does she owe you??????
T3465 is not the Carly he knew who couldn’t fight back, the one he killed (though he’s unaware of that) so he expected things to go back to the way they were before when the original Carly couldn’t fight him off and had to take the abuse to protect her child.
That’s what bugs him, I think. That this revamped version of Carly is strong, stronger than him, and knows how to fight back and will hold no punches. She’s not letting him get away with his actions and holds him accountable for them and it takes him so much effort to not strike her.
He’s been holding himself back the whole season and being this docile Jeff, the one this Carly seems to want that he now, and I believe from the very start, feels entitled to her and expects her to be grateful he even tried doing things her way.
Carly tells him, “No, Jeff. Not now, not ever” and he attacks her, tries to force himself on her because his ‘patience’ with playing the good guy is gone. No means nothing to him, not even when it’s stated as clearly as possible because he has no respect for her.
The fight between them ensues and it’s only Philip’s singing to Carly and Jeffrey’s cries that stop Carly from beating Jeff to death.
I believe in that moment, more than ever, T3465 realised all that Carly must have endured before she was killed, and that rage, coupled with her own anger at being attacked led her to almost lose herself and commit a murder.
And there you go folks, that was my analysis of Carly/Jeff relationship as presented in s2. I really like how the writers played with our sense of right and wrong and at times managed to fool us (at least me) that Jeff was being honest, at least initially, only to reaffirm the version of Jeff we’ve been witnessing since 1x1.
