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I actually think maya and jack are endgame, especially after the whole “you know I know you and you hate it” convo

Heh, that line stood out to me too, but I dunno, then he brought up Carina again and the show seems to focus more on their relationship and how Jack is affecting it, not the potential for more Maya/Jack with Carina being an obstacle. I don’t know if this show really has endgames in that sense, like, wouldn’t you have thought Andy and Jack would be endgame? Or Andy and Ryan? I think they play fast and loose with the ships, no real endgame, just whatever serves their purposes for most drama and audience investment (which sometimes drive each other). 

Has ANY ship in either of these shows been written to last and be happy? Even the big ones, MerDer, Calzona, um, the one with Chyler Leigh and that guy from the Last Ship where they both died, wasn’t there cheating and messiness and often, death? More than most shows, the ships seems to be whatever the writers are feeling in that moment. There may be supercouples that come back again and again, and that’s certainly possible, Jack is the longterm character and Carina is a visitor from another show, but I feel like how they’re being written and treated right now doesn’t imply Jack more than Carina. It could change next season, but right now it seems, from both what we see onscreen and behind it, that Carina is the person people are really focusing on.

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wasnt sure they were gonna address the dad stuff tbh tot we would get more cute clips. boy was i wrong lmao. annoyed rn not bc they fought, that was actually fine to me thought maya would go overboard and realize that her dad was fucked up/she’s becocming someone shitty. but like u said ‘as soon as Jack came into the office, before the door even closed, I was like, why is this super pointless convo even happening’ SAME. i saw it coming and i was going nooo the whole time!! ugh

No, yeah, I was fine with the fighting, that was part of the arc, right, that made sense, it has to go down before it can go up. I enjoyed it, as upsetting as it was to see poor Carina be treated like that, it was interesting to see their two approaches, Carina not letting go, Maya increasingly unable to cope with that. It felt like it was building to something. But this was just a stupid trope that they resort to all the time that added nothing, only took so much, given how f/f ships are treated. It was just part of Maya’s self-sabotage, something she could have done any other way, except this franchise loves to throw in sex into everything.

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Did not expect that to happen on station 19. If you havent already seen the episode, it’s actually worse than we could have imagined.

I’m pretty annoyed with the writers, heh. I was liking the episode so much, including their fight, and I laughed out loud when Andy came into the firehouse where Maya was working out and they got into a projection competition about their dads. But as soon as Jack came into the office, before the door even closed, I was like, why is this super pointless convo even happening, the mood Maya’s in, this is going to lead somewhere, please don’t, please don’t, please don–okay.

We knew it’d be bad, we thought Maya would snap at Carina some more, maybe something really reminiscent of her dad with her mom and it’d shake her into realizing. The way Danielle was talking about her hopes for them in the future during last week’s live made me go hmmm about where they’d be when the season ended, since it seemed open-ended, but this wasn’t even on my radar. 

Like, even Maya trying to start something with him, I thought maybe that’d be enough for her part of the plot, self-sabotage, but he would stop it, since Dean’d JUST brought up how he’d forgiven Jack FOR SLEEPING WITH SOMEONE ELSE’S WIFE because he could see him trying to be a good person. Pfft, where. 

I mean, what can I say, right? It’s just the same old totally plot-contrived OOC nonsense this franchise will pull all the time, all over the place, not just with this ship I like. And maybe that makes it easier to compartmentalize and still ship, like you move on from it and ignore it as an aberration, but at the same time, it makes it hard to get invested as deeply. Although in this case, it’s not as if there was ever particularly deep writing behind this ship, it was mostly cute scenes between two gorgeous, cool women with a ton of chemistry. I dunno how I feel about them now, tbh. Cheating is usually a dealbreaker for me but like I said, the ship is kind of shallow in some ways, and as soon as it went deeper, this happened. Which is super frustrating!!! But it’s still so imbalanced, as much as it ever was, Carina’s brother’s storyline was finally brought up between them IN THE CONTEXT OF MAYA”S STORY. That is just ridiculous. 

And another anon?:

I’m starting to get really annoyed with S19. Either let maya come to realization about the abuse and move on or move onto another plot. It was enlightening when the story line first came out ( because abuse isn’t always physical) but they are ruining her character with the wishy washy shit and one of the best things going for her character was carina helping her learn how to deal with her emotions more healthily. Bah it’s an annoying to see the potential of a character be shit on by writers.

I expressed most of what I felt about this above already, but I will say, Maya being wishy washy is also just as enlightening as the idea that abuse isn’t physical. It CAN be this difficult to admit, it’s only been a few days or let’s say weeks in their world, but in real life this would take years, including with therapy. That is not at all my issue. It’s this soap opera cheating bullshit out of nowhere that I’m annoyed by.

And another anon?:

I feel like it’s a character assassination the way the writers are treating Maya.

Not to defend the show but they’ve never particularly favored Maya, over Andy or even Jack, and writing characters as cheaters is second nature to them, I don’t think they’re singling her out to make her look bad. This is her about to hit rock bottom and then come back and be fine and likable. Do they not do this for like…all their characters, all the time? But for fans, especially those invested in a ship, this does make it tough to see her in the same way. I’m gonna assume a lot of people are pivoting over to being more Carina fans right now while being mad at Maya. Which, understandable. Maya better freaking get therapy and go back and beg Carina for forgiveness on bended knee. 

Also, I wish they’d just give Carina more to do. Do we not get to see her side of this? If Grey’s had continued, would we have seen her be upset about this? Who would she talk to? All this while Andrew’s possibly deteriorating? This character is just there to prop up other storylines while being a saint.

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During Danielle’s live, she said that the two handholds weren’t scripted! Being able to do that now on numerous occasions and have it feel so natural just shows how comfortable they are with each other and how in tune they are with their characters and what they think the couple would be like. That’s chemistry.

Oh, right! I was going to ask what you meant by numerous occasions and then remembered the whole “kiss me” sequence and probably there are more. 

You’re right, they’re super comfortable not only with what they’re given but actually adding these other very natural gestures and moments. I said before that to me chemistry is the willingness to play into their roles and they do it so well. Like I was saying to a friend, they both seem very comfortable with their characters’ sexuality (in a sensuality sense, not orientation–although also that) and don’t play it down in any kind of awkward, self-conscious fashion OR play it up like, tee-hee, girl on girl, it’s all very natural. 

It’s funny how some couples have so much of it that it’s this noticeable. In the previous live with Stefania, when they talked about her time on Station 19 and she was describing how nice and welcoming it was, and then brought up how after their first table-read together, everyone got quiet and stared at them because it was so intense. And like, it’s true, you tend to see comments toward ships trend in certain ways, “they’re so cute”, “they’re so hot”, and for this ship, it’s a lot about their chemistry.

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So the scene at the end, where Maya says she’s not in denial but rather, angry. Like she’s pissed at her mom and what she said or that she’s pissed because she’s realized about the abuse? I didn’t really get it. I really hope they actually address it properly cause this show likes to wrap things up in a blink of an eye sometimes. Also yes, I need to see and Carina speak up because Maya acting out when she’s hurt is not it(maya snatching her hand away hurt me lol)!

Same! I wondered if she meant she’d realized it but still felt she owed it to him or maybe worthless without those achievements and it made her angrier, but no, I don’t think so. I think she’s just…on the brink of getting it, really emotional and worked up and frustrated but still feeling defensive on his behalf and thus angry at her mom and, because she tried to comfort her and so makes it more real, Carina. If she had really followed the realization through, that wouldn’t have been the end of the scene, no way, and Carina wouldn’t have left. We still have a ways to go. 😡

And yeah, this show does so much that’s convenient, which, of course, it is a very dramatic TV show, but that makes it feel a little inorganic sometimes. Things start happening in a way that best serves each neatly divided plot arc, not just Maya suddenly facing all these elements designed to make her lose it at once, but like how Sullivan now can’t read Andy’s discomfort at all, all the better to serve whatever new arc they have coming up. But they’ve actually given Maya a pretty long arc, remember the flashback ep with her father was the one in which she and Carina met, so everything else, the truck meltdown and the panic attack and now this happened after that. And I always forget to include the therapy session because it doesn’t feel as much like her losing control, but matter-of-factly talking about how death seems like a relief is dangerously close to…something. Kind of surprised Diane didn’t seek a follow up with her, especially given that her issues didn’t seem related  to Rigo’s death or even the stress of being a firefighter captain.

I kind of don’t want things to get far enough where Carina has to speak up, but I think we can all see the trajectory this is on. Maya pulling her hand away hurt, definitely, although in that moment I felt worse for her, but when she first walked in and was like what’s going on here, eesh. Carina took it in stride and tried to lighten the mood but Maya’s tone had been rough. Her mom brought up some traumatic feelings earlier and she carried them into the fire and was that much more keyed up by the time it was over but like. You can’t take your feelings out on whoever happens to be there.

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maya and carina were so sweet this episode. i second everything you said in the tags but i especially loved how cairna interacted with maya’s mom. i don’t watch greys so idk how she is there, but on s19 she seems very collected/not easily phased. i do wonder what’ll happen when naya does eventually breakdown(because that’s what’s coming i assume). i keep thinking of her’i dont fix broken people’ comment and if theyll ever address that. but so far she seems very willing to stick it out

I JUST had a conversation with my friend about tonight’s ep and basically said all of this! I super, super love Carina, which, maybe it’s easy to do because I’ve also mostly just seen her on this show and she’s only been allowed to be a supporting character and what’s not to love about an endlessly supportive upbeat sweetheart. Because yeah, even with the “I don’t fix broken people” line that seemed to imply she wasn’t going to put up with all this, she is putting up with a lot. 

And I love Maya too and of course she’s a victim and it’s super sad to see her be grateful to her abusive dad, it’s so hard for her to separate her achievements and identity from his abuse, obviously, this is a big, important arc for her, but they’re getting close to a line where it’s just Maya pouring a LOT on Carina and Carina just taking it with no other role in this relationship. Maybe there was meant to be a balance, with her brother, maybe next season, but I assume it’s actually going to be deliberate on the part of the show where Carina’s like, okay, you can’t talk to me like that. We’re starting to see Maya exhibit the same behavior her father did, pushy and bossy and I’m sure it comes from a place where she thinks that’s the best way to achieve success, but it was abuse then, and it’s just not going to get good results now. If Emmett is too scared to go back into the fire, fine, in the moment, deal with him quickly and effectively, but at some point, you have to get to the root of the matter, you can’t just give him an errand as punishment and that’s it. And in the heat of the moment or not, you can’t talk to a fire victim like that. 

The show’s being way too obvious about this arc to just assume it’ll be brushed away, things are going to come to a head, I just hope Carina and their relationship won’t be a casualty on the way.