Tag: saving hope 3×08

26 Favorite Femslash Moments of 2014
26. Saving Hope – Maggie and Sydney’s first kiss

Heh, it’s a sign not really of how good the rest of this list is but more how out of the blue the kiss was that this rests at the bottom of the list. It continued on to become one of the storylines with the most potential, actually, especially in 2015, but at the time, it was puzzling. Obviously, with how TV works, it was going to be the start of a storyline, but…I’d have expected the start to be earlier? There were hints, I suppose, if you looked back, but they were mostly so subtle I would never have expected this.

The reason it’s on the list at all, though, is because just the promise of something more was nice for these two characters. Maggie’s been on the show from the start, and is adorable, and Sydney joined the series in 3×02 with so much presence and personality, I liked her immediately. They’ve spent a lot of time together already and established a good dynamic. Sydney’s tough love mentoring settled down into more of a friendship because Maggie knows when to take things in stride and when to push back, gently and straight to the point.

The storyline’s also interesting because from the start we knew Sydney was an Orthodox Jew and it was something she took seriously. It didn’t define her or affect her ability, she’s an extremely skilled and young OB/GYN, but it was there. We’ve seen the intersection of LGBT and religion before, but I can’t recall anything like this, where there are so many facets, her religion (again, we’ve seen Christianity so much and even a few Muslim from like, Iran, but Orthodox Judaism?), her upbringing, her somewhat stilted social skills, her genius, her youth, and her potential queerness. At one point, she tells a hormonal Maggie (affected by an earlier miscarriage) to pick crying or laughing, then to stop doing both, only to later offer her helpful advice. Whatever was going to unfold was going to be intriguing and new, if done well.