this post is for no one but like
i'm just now realizing liusa s4 jesse and deb could've been a genderbent liusa s6 serena and kordell
Saying this as someone who watched both seasons as they were airing, very few people thought Jesse and Serena liked their partners pre casa because both just did not really show it. Then the sillier half of the partnership, Deb and Kordell, got burned a few times pre casa, but ultimately stayed loyal, and the editing/producers made it look real bad for them so the public would have sympathy. Then in Casa, they start exploring connections with other people, but now the quieter half (Jesse/Serena) are shown to actually miss the other person and be loyal (okay maybe Jesse a little less so than Serena but whatever).
They come back and now Deb and Kordell have new partners from Casa, and their partner is single. Now they are realizing the other person DID care for them and have to ask for forgiveness. The obvious difference being, Deb and Jesse didn't get that conflict because the casa guy was taken away (for being a rapist yikes). But if they did have that conflict, just like how Kordell had to see Serena's feelings were real and that he had to cut things off with Daia and mend things with Serena, maybe they wouldn't have had the late stage conflict where once again Deb is not sure how Jesse felt about her so she was blindsided when he asked for them to be in a real relationship. Because from the conflict, they would need less assurance from each other because they already had a trial where they saw who the other person was and then chose them.
Clearly other factors are in play: Jesse and Deb did not last outside the villa, so maybe they just didn't like each other and the relationship thing at the end was Jesse trying to give them a chance to win in the finale; Kordell and Serena are both black (and from the same place I think?) so they're more likely to understand each other than Jesse and Deb; and the other people in the villa definitely influence how each individual acts, though I would say in this case S4 and S6 casts mostly got along with each other.
But I think the most interesting difference is the genderbend. Arguably the most iconic moment of S6 was Serena yelling at Kordell post casa and him following her around. You cannot do this with Jesse and Deb because it would make Jesse look aggressive and Deb look desperate. (And, Jesse was pretty soft-spoken and conflict avoidant throughout S4 so it would've been jarringly out of character.) That's not to say Serena didn't come off as aggressive --some people gave her a lot of flack for her outburst, but in my opinion, they always have white women on the UK version of the show doing stuff like this and they get praised for standing up for themselves, so it's probably a race thing --but I think the (mostly female) public's relationship with Jesse would've suffered to the point where he would've been eliminated, or Deb maybe wouldn't have taken him back. (Fun fact, that same season this did happen where a guy sad something rude to his partner and so she decided to self eliminate in the episode right before the finale, forcing him to leave too.)
So what instead was Jesse's version of screaming around the villa? Moping and being sad. Because nothing is hotter than a woman that stands up for herself or a man that is devastated at the loss of a woman. And again, I wish the Casa guy was a better person so he wouldn't have been kicked, and then Jesse and Deb's story could've included Jesse finally realizing why Deb twisted and that he wasn't giving her what she needed but she did feel supported by this other guy. Then, he could either continue to be sad/jealous of the guy, but change his actions and do more to show Deb he cared, or realize they weren't going to work and pursue a different islander.
Anyway yeah I just think that's a cool example of what to consider when doing a genderbent story (but irl)
