She's doing Very bad, for the record.
This is just the highlights of D2, because if I did everything we'd be here forever.
The movie starts with Ways to be Wicked which is canonically a stress daydream Mal's having after being cornered against a statue by a large group of adult press who are actively breaking the law by being there. And they refuse to leave the premises until an authority figure makes them.
Then she's immediately grabbed by the wrist and dragged away for a dress fitting by Evie. We'll get into the fitting in a second but Dark shout out to this moment in the movie Novelization
"Yeah," said Mal, nodding. In a way, she was strangely relieved.
More time to rest, she thought. Keeping up this act is exhausting.
[...]
Evie grabbed Mal's arm and spun her around. Mal cried out in surprise.
"If we don't do a fitting for your ball gown right this minute, you'll be dancing in your bathrobe," Evie told Mal. "Bye, Ben," She added as she deftly dragged Mal away.
There goes my nap.
At the fitting, the appointment intended to make sure a garment actually, you know, fits, Mal says that the dress it too tight, that she can't Breathe in it. Evie dismisses this concern out of hand. She can breathe after Cotillion.
The secret to fitting in, the book that Evie(veteran of 15 years of fucked up princess training) disparages her for using magic to read is about Courtly Etiquette by the way.
Mal broaches the subject of wanting some of the freedom the Isle provided. "Don't you ever miss running wild and breaking all the rules?" I miss being in charge of my schedule and Evie says "No, We're Auradon girls now." and drags her around the room. "We can be whatever we want to be here." She says. Interesting then, how little what Mal wants matters.
Mal tries to get to class and is stopped by Jane, who immediately launches into a barrage of questions she is uninterested in and unprepared to answer. She attempts to leave, stating both that she is busy, on a time crunch to get to her classes, and that she trusts Jane to pick what's best. Jane ignores this, grabs her arm again, and keeps her there until she answers, regardless of the cost to Mal.
Mal learns that there are aspects to attending Cotillion with Ben that she was unaware of. These are serious, affect her life in the long term, and Everyone knew but her. She's visibly surprised and upset. She asks if her whole life has been planned out in front of her without her say so. Signs point to yes.
Ben interrupts her at her locker. She says she doesn't have time. She has to get to class. Seriously, she's going to be late. Ben grabs her by the arm, "No, come this way." And drags her over to give her his present.
Mal is chased into the boys dorm by a barrage of reporters. They are still trespassing. They are inside the building. Love that. She's clearly visibly stressed, Carlos calms her like a spooked horse and she has an outburst. She says that people are following her everywhere, that there's so much she can't say for proprieties sake. She asks, "Don't you ever miss screaming at people and just making them run away from you?" I miss setting boundaries. Carlos says of course not, do you have the magical gummy that I asked for? Mal asks if he's really committed to telling the truth because she can't be honest without fearing being literally deported. She then shares, halfway to hyperventilating that, at this point, its not particularly unappealing. At least this all would stop, right? Carlos ignores this.
(Denouement, I'm not gonna defend the everything about this but know that I interpret the Spell thing as her trying to undo her mistake, literally turn back the clock so it never happened and isn't considering that she's mind wiping him. This is what she does when she does something wrong. Late to class etc. Like, it's still fucked but you know comprehensible. Adding that he frames her using magic as taking the easy way, like she hasn't looked 40 seconds from curling up in a ball and shivering like a hypothermic kitten all day, and that's with the magic.)
Mal leaves. She packs a bag and writes a letter and goes to the Isle under her own power. Ben follows her, convinced that the fight is the only reason that she would do this, and that he can track her down and talk to her and that everything will be fixed. The others help him do this.
So, he shows up, she physically recoils from him, cries, asks him multiple times to leave her alone, to go back to Auradon without her. he says this. Which is my number one least favorite Ben line of all time. "The people love you, I love you, don't you love me?"
I'm just gonna mention here that Mal never actually agrees on screen to go back to Auradon, she just gets in the car after Ben calls for her.
Ben asks if she wants to cancel Cotillion. She doesn't answer the question.
Girl talk is a mess of a scene. It will be it's own post bc it makes me INsane. But the relevant bit is that she describes her problem as the pressure to be perfect, to be something completely different than she's been her whole life up to now, and under constant scrutiny to maintain an act that exhausts her. Everybody else in the circle reassures her that Ben loves her, Not actually the problem she mentioned but ok, and tell her to attend Cotillion no matter what.
Evie tells her to go if she’s up for it, immediately after saying she’s going to take the some of her extremely limited time that afternoon to alter her dress. Jay told her to go, to try one more time as a condition of the relief they had already denied her.
When she arrives at Cotillion, Evie asks how she's doing and Mal says she feels like she's gonna throw up Evie says, "That's ok, That's fine. We're all here for you."
On the way out the door, Mal is grabbed again, stopped by the Former King and Queen, so they can apologize, and offer their explanations, immediately.
Jane and Lumiere block off the top of the staircase to prevent Mal from being able to escape before they can show her something.
Like. ok. Ben loves her, so what?
It can’t save her. If she could have been saved it wouldn’t have gotten to that point. She wouldn’t have run away, been followed, been emotionally blackmailed, been brought back, been told to go to Cotillion anyway. She wouldn’t be Engaged to be Engaged to be Engaged.
