Confession time: I don’t like the Bea/Will ship. I’m sorry, I don’t!
Spoilers under the cut.
Started this at an ungodly hour, and I’m not sure even the final version of this will make sense, but here we go.
First of all! This fucken series took a feminist would-be doctor and wifed her! It really is kind of unbelievable how much this show wifed her: at the end of the tiresome “will they won’t they,” she even ended up giving up on going back to med school to tie herself more tightly to the guy. Goddamn, really??
And I hate how they’re so constantly at odds and quarreling! I get there’s Fun Tension, and that disagreement is the Spice in a relationship, but it’s super not for me. And it’s just one thing after another:
- he's a teacher screwing his student;
- then they get busted and he asks to marry her, conveniently covering his professional ass and also pressing her into a life of domestic servitude that she doesn't want;
- then he won't appropriately diagnose Manaaki (and when he does get Manaaki sent home he has to let Bea know he still thinks her medical opinions are Definitely Wrong);
- then there's him having his Last Night with Bea before dropping a suicide-breakup note on her to 'cut ties!' And that last one was in the last freaking episode! I get that we're supposed to feel for him because war trauma, but Jesus Christ Will!
Here’s the thing: Will’s a piece of shit to Bea, okay?? I get it, everybody’s sexist, especially all the men, but that doesn’t mean I have to like how shitty he is. And like, she objects to him being a sexist piece of shit to her, and it’s kind of at the core of a lot of their fights. And I’m uncomfortable with the way the show seems to be framing their fights as a matter of them both being stubborn or whatever, when really a lot of it reads to me like him assuming he has the right to something or knows best about something, and her getting fed up with his presumption.
But I’m supposed to believe that they’ll totally make a fine couple.
And I get that the idea of their finally getting together for realsies after all their conflicts is supposed to be a case of ‘the hardships of war making them both see what’s really important’ … but it feels way too much like bonding through shared trauma for me (“trauma bonding” means something else, as I understand). I know, I know, that’s the appeal, but it doesn’t appeal to me.
And did this show seriously try to convince me that a teacher-student relationship is totally cool and can turn out fine in the end?? What the hell.
And like. Here’s the thing. I think the show wants me to believe that a lot of the major issues are getting worked out at the end and will be worked out in the future. But this is one of those things where a piece of media has to function emotionally as well as logically: I could reasonably infer that there’s a future in which Will and Bea are a relatively healthy married couple, but I’m not inclined to believe it because I haven’t seen enough of them actually getting along.
EDIT: it's like 2.5 rewatches later and like. The fact that that whole was apparently supposed to be resolved by a newly-wifed Bea pulling out of med school because "I wanna go where you are babe" as a part of getting him to Choose Life and Choose Hope ... I'm speechless. Speechless!
And the fact that Will as a character is more or less a love interest and any 'arc' he has is tied up in Bea and his relationship with Bea, his continued fuckups are most of his character! God. I expect if this show gets a fandom that most of the girlies will go easy on Will, and I expect they'll love the 'will-they-won't-they' ship, but not me!
