Get the Reference: Romeo and Juliet
Welcome back to another episode of Get the Reference! This time, we’re featuring the timeless tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Get your handkerchiefs ready and join us for a truly depressing five days (yes, all of this sadness happens in all of five days).
We open Day 1 with a lovesick and seemingly inconsolable Romeo (this will be a recurring trend) getting some good advice from his good friend Benvolio encouraging him to move on from his latest hopeless crush.
Thankfully it doesn’t take long for Romeo to sneak into a ball and fall mutually in love with the beautiful Juliet (yay!). Unfortunately, it just so happens that Romeo’s family and Juliet’s family kind of have this feud thing going on that throws a bit of a wrench into things.
Oh, and to top things off, the Prince threatens to start killing folks if the two families can’t stop feuding… Yikes! If Romeo had a Facebook page I’m sure his relationship status would be “It’s complicated.”
So anyways, at the end of the night they agree to get married… Wait, what!? … Nope, I read that right… They agree to get married. Wow. Okay, on Day 2 they find Friar Laurence and ask him to marry them that afternoon, which for some reason he agrees to do.
In the meantime, Juliet’s cousin Tybalt challenges Romeo to a duel, but Romeo’s good buddy Mercutio steps in and accepts the challenge instead. Fun fact: he loses and dies in Romeo’s arms. Bummer. Always a thinker, Romeo kills Tybalt in revenge and finds himself banished by the Prince. Oops.
Well Romeo, being not super pumped about his banishment, tries to kill himself, but luckily the good Friar talks him down by promising to make his marriage public and get the Prince to pardon him. Romeo and Juliet get a bit of time to celebrate, and then Romeo accepts his banishment and leaves Verona.
Alas, not all goes to plan, as Day 3 opens with Juliet’s father arranging her a marriage to a bloke named Paris (who happens to be the Prince’s cousin) as a way to try to get her out of mourning. Does anyone else think that marriage might be a bit excessive as a pick-me-up? Ice cream might have been a better choice.
Don’t fret though; Friar Laurence has a foolproof plan to fix all of this. See, Juliet just has to take a sleeping potion to make her family think she’s dead for 42 hours (that’s an oddly specific time by the way) so that Laurence can get a message to Romeo telling him to return by the time Juliet awakes. I’m sure this can’t end poorly.
Surprise: it doesn’t go well! Juliet agrees to marry Paris, but her father gets so excited that he moves the wedding up a day! Damn. With some pretty tight timelines looming at this point, Juliet takes the poison a day early. As Day 4 opens, her family finds her and places her in the family tomb. Just as we’re getting back on track, the plague has to start making a mess everywhere, and Laurence’s message can’t get to Romeo.
Alright, so the rest of Day 4 ends up being a bit of a rollercoaster, so I’ll sum it up:
Romeo doesn’t get the Friar’s message, but he does learn of Juliet’s death. Not good.
He returns to Verona with some poison (this is starting to look bad) and enters Juliet’s tomb in the middle of the night (looking even worse).
Unfortunately, Paris confronts him in the tomb, so of course, Romeo fights and kills him. The body count is starting to rise now, and for some reason I’m thinking that maybe the whole “pardon” thing might be off the table for good old Romeo.
It turns out that pardon is irrelevant, because Romeo promptly takes the poison and dies. Seems a bit dramatic for four days into a relationship.
Unfortunately, it only gets worse, as Juliet awakens that night (pretty sure that wasn’t 42 hours), sees Romeo dead, and chooses to stab herself before the Friar can stop her. Yep, you heard that right. Cue Day 5, in which everyone wakes up to find the dead couple (also the dead Paris) and gets the whole story from the Friar, and then they all live happily ever after, in peace. No, really, that’s basically what happens.
THE END.