Hey, I was wondering why/how you think Clarice is ooc this season? Cause I kinda agree but I can’t pinpoint exactly what about her is ooc
So I think the biggest thing is honesty. Even in the first and second episodes, she went out of her way to be honest, confronted John about his bloody knuckles, said she was there for him, etc. This showed her honesty, as well as how she expected honesty from John. Also this showed her empathy. John was very empathetic to her journey in S1 (except a few hiccups with Dreamer but that’s to be expected and they’d moved beyond that by now) and Clarice showed that as guarded as she was, she was just as sympathetic. (Especially with Dreamer in the SS cell, and John after the funeral? Like GIRL!!!)
This season, however, she and John keep butting heads. And whenever they TALK, neither of them seem to listen to each other. Like this whole season John has told everyone that he’s fine, while trying to slip back into a place he was previously (making cute little jokes, etc) and basically screaming out to the audience that he needs someone to talk to. (This came to the surface during his episode he spent with Caitlin, where they actually had a sort of conversation that I’d hoped he’d have with Clarice, but at the time I was just happy he was talking to someone.) Even after Clarice told John “you’re not immortal, stop acting like it” and he walked away, she said “What’re we gonna do about him?” which was very sympathetic, but she didn’t actually DO ANYTHING about it later in the episode or in the next episode. This coming from the girl who straight up confronted him about the fake memory and took off when she realized he lied to her???? She’s just sitting there backing down, not pushing to get him to talk to her? Yeah RIGHT!
Their relationship just feels disjointed, and a lot of it feels like Clarice just isn’t being written consistently compared to last season and even the first few episodes this season.
Like with Erg for example. There was literally NO REASON for Clarice not to tell John about her “spying” for the Morlocks. Especially since this came so soon after her telling John that she’s his girlfriend and she’s there to talk to him about anything. This would go both ways since the Thunderblink ship has always been about equality. They had a respect for each other and suddenly Clarice is lying when it’s something that could HELP.
The biggest thing is that she’s just arguing with people and not really taking a stand. At the end of S1, specifically at episode 11, 12 and 13, Clarice had taken up a leadership role in the Underground. We all saw it! It was amazing to see her put aside her feelings for John and just focus on what they were all there for: to help and save mutants. Clarice’s journey in S1 from scattered runaway, to coming to terms with her foster family and the guilt she felt from showing the SS how to find them, to deciding that Underground’s fight WAS HER FIGHT, was so empowering and I loved it soooo much. So she was a leader beside John at the end of S1, and suddenly in S2 it appears that because John sort of stepped aside and let Reed and Caitlin run the show, Clarice did too.
That makes her attraction to the Morlocks make a little bit of sense. The Underground is broken and almost gone, so maybe a little bit of Old Clarice is coming in where she’s thinking of how much good the Morlocks can do by the age old argument of “actually helping mutants”. I can sort of see where she’s coming from, but the thing I don’t like is that she’s making these decisions and talking like her answer is THE ONLY answer without talking with John.
I feel like a lot of this stems from her relationship with John, which feels off kilter (understandably since John is going through a bout of self-destructive depression right now) but Clarice isn’t doing all that S1 Clarice would do to help him. And since most of her scenes are with John this season, it’s easy to sum a lot of this up with examples about John. But I 100% feel like S1 Clarice wouldn’t just brush off what’s going on with John. There was a lot of communication in the first few episodes of S2 which gave me hope, but after Clarice pointing out John’s broken skin on his hands??? They’ve been doing nothing but butting heads. I know for sure that S1 Clarice would bring up some tough love with John and sit him down and force both of them to hash out their emotions. But they’re just not doing that, so now Clarice is just coming off as cutting down all of John’s ideas and yet she’s not doing anything to try to help him get better. Idk man, I’m just unimpressed on how this season is going with Clarice and Thunderblink this season. (On another topic, loving John’s arc, but I hope it actually is addressed and he gets the proper help he needs by the end of the season!)
I feel like some of the new things that ARE consistent with Clarice are her snark and her conflicting feelings about hiding her identity.
Her snark is easy enough to pull through, so no worries there that it wouldn’t be in S2. But I actually like the thread woven through S1 and S2 about hiding herself as a mutant. She bonds much better with mutants who have physical mutations; this is a given. And I can see why she would feel more comfortable with the Morlocks; I also loved that line she said to John about him not understanding. (As the X-Men are a reflection of minority groups, this is a perfect argument.) So I do thoroughly enjoy her thoughts about mutants not having to hide themselves vs hiding themselves.
