procrastinating important work to write up my kev think piece aka "finally forming an opinion on kev townsend" (that will likely change within the hour as most of my opinions do).
anyway opinion is...love kev townsend as an individual (character)...kind of despise the kevrobrondale storyline. it isn't even entirely the storyline's fault, majority of my dislike for this storyline comes from it occurring right after the gorge drama and how it irrevocably alters robert and aaron's relationship arc.
i will forever be mourning the non-resolve of johnrobrondale post gorge. we had something god we really had something...the last scene i loved before it all went wrong for me was robert and aaron's hospital bed reunion. robert reaching out, aaron ripping his hand away, chas silently expressing her incredible disapproval of robert despite the reveal of his innocence...iconic. aaron was GOING through something. and robert was GOING through something. and they had INTERTWINED but still SEPARATE issues that they needed to resolve. and they didn't get back together after robert's (attempt at) heroism! gorge-gate happened and robert dramatically cried over aaron's dying body and they still didn't back together and actually it was robert's insane and overwhelming love for aaron that nearly got him sent back to jail for murder. and aaron had to live with the fact that his husband kidnapped/psychologically tortured his best friend, killed his cousin, drugged his mother, and overall did irrevocable damage to both the village and himself. it was GOOD and it was GREAT and things were BAD and I loved itttt.
john was so good as a robron antagonist because he had distinct fucked-up personal relationships with both of them. he was the ghost of 2014 Robert but only slightly more cuckoo for cocoa puffs and he was a gayer redux of sugden brother battles and he was simultaneously the "safe romantic choice" for aaron while also literally re victimizing aaron and bringing up gordon and jackson trauma. another brother literally appeared out of the woodwork to be preferred over robert, steal his life, and finally face katie karma after ten years! aaron literally got trapped in a loveless marriage with the half brother of the love of his life due to his persistent inability to trust/love again after said love of his life divorced him! it was sooo good and soo interesting and then john fucked off out of the country and now we have to sweep all of that under the rug to make way for karate kid samurai sword swinging karaoke butchering killer (of the vibe) kev townsend.
and i do love karate kid samurai sword swinging karaoke butchering killer (of the vibe) kev townsend but whyyy did we need to pivot to another "psycho husband" right after the last one disappeared? the argument "well this is a soap/dramatic crazy stuff needs to happen/would you rather they were happy and boring" argument doesn't work for me because dramatic and crazy stuff WAS happening and could've continued happening! we could've had more farm wars! we could've had a mental health storyline for aaron post-john! we could've had a mental health storyline for robert post-prison! we even could've had the kevbert story WITHOUT throwing aaron and robert back together!
the biggest crime of the kevrobrondale storyline (to me) was its role in pushing robron back together wayyyy too quickly. and i was an initial fan of first ill-advised reunion (cause i loveee misery and it spelled doom for them) but even looking back I feel like it felt sooo weird for aaron to do that. besides the one (incredibly ill-advised) hookup, aaron was so stubborn in his resolve not to get back together with robert! it just felt like they wanted the kev husband stuff to be more dramatic so why not have robert and aaron be starting things back up again right as he comes back i guess. but it felt sooo forced. and I won't lie and say i didn't love the robert two prom dates shenanigans but i do mourn a deeper analysis into who kev is and what their nearly SIX YEAR relationship meant for robert. kevbert was sooo interesting and weird and fucked up and i don't even really mourn the darker paths they could've gone with it because what we got was twisted enough in itself (on both parties sides) - but then vow renewal and more reputable reunion 2.0 occurred and now we're having affairs again and that's fun but now aaron/robert are working together to take down kev and that's fun oh but now robron is officially together now i guess and now it's the two of them united against a guy who has a more interesting dynamic with the son he barely knows than the husband he was with for six years and his husband's ex-boyfriend who he wants to murder with knives for some reason.
and it's great that john is back and officially taking over the mantle of robron antagonist allowing kev to shine as the incredibly hilarious wild-card that he is but it still irks me so much that kevrobrondale led to current super soulmate couple robron who are destined to be together just cause and let's not think about the past six years spent apart or the various bad decisions made in the previous few months because none of it matter because we're in LOVE 😍 let's get our son back that hasn't had contact with either of us for six years while our two murderous husbands are on the loose 😍
and like yeah i love robron horror soulmatism as much as the next guy but i will be so sad if current robron just brushes past the last six years and continue living like nothing has changed at all since 2019. there's so many call-backs and Easter eggs to past iconic robron moments and that's all well and good and of course i squeal in delight when they say "I know you know" but I want NEW robron iconic moments! and johnrobrondale gave us those while kevrobrondale really didn't for me. johnrobrondale felt like the ghost of robron past reviving itself in a horrifyingly compelling way - while kevrobrondale just felt like retreading robron past without any interesting re-evaluation.
all of this is dumb i know. these are both really my first robron storylines that i've witnessed play out in real time, and hindsight is 2020 and every robron era has its high points and low points and i'm sure (hoping) that the kevrobrondale era will have interesting ramifications moving forward for robron and emmerdale as a whole - especially if they are planning on keeping kev in the village. which i'm not against (he is fucking hilarious and i'm really intrigued about his and lewis's potential father/son relationship), i wish just john would be kept too (but i know that's highly unrealistic.) and both of these storylines/relationships aren't over yet so who knows what the future holds for these characters?
more than anything, soaps are gonna soap. and i love this soap so ungodly much. I love every emmerdale character, every relationship, every odd plotline that gets introduced and dropped (jaikerry...), charity's baby storyline that feels like it's gone on for years, the insanity of the celia and ray storyline...I love it all. while i may not have loved majority of the kevrobrondale storyline i can't lie and say I didn't have a blast while watching it. kev himself is such an oddly compelling and hilarious character - and chris coghill's performance is truly spectacular. despite everything i just complained about, i'm glad kev was added to the show. and i am still excited to see where they go with him.
in conclusion...kev's pretty okay, john's better, robron divorce 3.0 pls, i'm insane about this soap, yadda yadda yadda.
