I am so pissed at station19 i think we all understand like you said that these shows thrive on drama and there is basically no endgame, but using that stupid trope again from Shonda and her team is beyond stupid. these people need to get called out to hell and back for their homophobia, have them fight hell break up but why go there?
Sorry for not answering this earlier! Since you sent it, a whole week’s passed and the finale’s aired, but still, I did want to specifically the accusation of homophobia. I can see both sides of that. On the one hand, I didn’t take it that way because this just what these shows do, with everyone. And Maya is bi, she might cheat with a woman OR a man, that’s not the issue.
But as much as I can believe that, for once, this is a show where Maya might have slept with some random woman in a bar just to hurt Carina, while THAT is “equal” to how they handle all their stories, they didn’t actually do that, and Carina and Maya’s screentime and story until now has always been somewhat limited compared to the others. As Danielle pointed out in the live, we’ve literally never seen Carina talk to any of the other firefighters, and she gets the benefit of being a Grey’s character! Even putting aside Andy’s exceptional main character treatment, Ripley and Emmett and Grant and JJ, firefighter or not, all have hung around and at least talked to other characters.
Not to mention, even if this wasn’t a homophobic trope specifically, an argument for it being biphobic could be made, since once again they have a bi character cheating. It’s not equal treatment if the characters aren’t in equal situations. It’s understandable if you’re put off by the show now.
I know there’s only the finale left but if they’re continuing with Carina and Maya then going forward I wanna see her people on the show too. I watch Greys off and on but I’m caught up and I wannna see her and her brother in a scene on ’19. Talking about their issues. I mean Vic’s basically a Greys regular because of Jackson. And Ben but that makes sense coz he was actually on there so they can let us have this small thing. Otherwise I’m ready for them to relase Carina tbh she’s been through IT
Noooo, I don’t want her released! I love her and don’t want to watch Grey’s. But yeah, of course, ideally we see a lot more of her in and her background in S19, including her brother. Have he and Maya even met?
And another anon:
I’m staying with S19, but that’s because I genuinely like the show and Maya is still my favorite character. She’s incredibly flawed and very much hurts the people she cares about, but she’s as fascinating as she is frustrating. The Maya/Carina relationship was a bonus for me because I thought the show wanted Maya/Jack. I very much prefer her with Carina but to date the relationship is so one-sided and Carina is almost too perfect. I have a feeling Maya’s world is about to rocked though in 3×16.
Exactly! Well. I don’t always love the show, it’s just so much drama. But I did like it on its own and as long as Maya isn’t with Jack, I’ll watch. That is my true dealbreaker, not even Maya/Carina splitting up. I don’t know if Maya is my favorite in terms of personality (that might actually be Travis), but very early on they revealed she was bi so I’ve always kept an eye out and been interested in her character and sympathetic because of that. And until there was an actual ship and I got invested in her not messing up, it was easier to approach the show as something where people messed up constantly and I didn’t hate them for it.
I don’t really know why they broke up Maya/Jack, tbh, and maybe the other anon is right and that’ll be the eventual endgame, but for now, I’ll happily accept as much Carina as we can get, and as you said, some more balance and depth. I don’t know how much time there’ll be in the finale but I can’t imagine there’ll be room for much except a flat breakup. Surely whatever’ll happen Maya has to expect? And it’s such a packed episode description, if it hadn’t been for Stefania in the cast list, I wouldn’t even have thought she’d be in it. I’ll continue my finale introspection below.
And another anon:
I know it’s hard to even speculate after what happened this week, but how do you think things are going to go down in the s19 finale? And as a part 2, how do you want them to go down since both will probably be different answers haha
Hmm, based on the preview and summary and full cast list, and the fact that it’s a season finale, I expect very little for them. I discussed a whole bunch of extremely varying outcomes with my friend, from “I don’t want Maya to be the one to get hurt and Carina is all worried and forgives her because that skips over all the work Maya has to do” to “I don’t want Maya to get hurt and DIE because Danielle cut her hair so drastically before quarantine even started so does that mean she won’t be on next season” but lol, I don’t think it’ll be either of those.
I think they’ll mostly be separated into their actual jobs, Maya as captain and Carina off in Grey’s doing whatever. Although I dunno why an OB/GYN is needed when–oh, right, this was one of their full crossover events, so it’s basically two hours of both shows mixed together and we’ll be missing an important chunk of what would have been shown during Grey’s. So it’s not even going to get its proper resolution, unless they truly would not have been in the Grey’s ep. Damn. Well, maybe we can hope Maya’s part was written to be resolved during S19 and Grey’s would have been the medical doctory stuff and not much on the personal drama. I think we’ll probably see something like her reading a text from Carina or trying to write one and then maybe it’ll end with her going to her dad’s or mom’s and we’ll be left to wonder with what motive?
What I WANT is Maya going to therapy, talking things out, making up with her mom, and then of groveling to Carina for half an hour and admitting all the ways Carina’s been right and how very sorry she is and what she’s doing to change and then in a parallel of 3×07, when she was mean about the lasagna, offering Carina an out which Carina doesn’t take.
I don’t know if you watched private practice but the Maya Carina stuff reminds me of the Charlotte Cooper stuff. Charlotte self sabotaged like Maya. In one scene Charlotte busts into cooper’s office and just blurts out that she cheated on him to purposely hurt him and then tries to walk away. Cooper stops her and says “you can’t just say that and walk away. You purposely did this so I would have to break up with you but it won’t work” and says that this is the last mistake she’s allowed to make
And another anon:
After the last Station 19 episode, Maya and Carina are now kind of reminding me of another Shondaland couple: Cooper and Charlotte from Private Practice. Cooper and Carina are the “kind and caring” characters while Maya and Charlotte are the “broken” ones. Fingers crossed that Maya and Carina will have the same conclusion to the relationship.
Oh, huh. I know very little about Private Practice and in fact had completely forgotten it existed, so I kept on thinking it was just Grey’s and S19 (and the last spinoff, my favorite, where Cristina Yang goes to Europe to work for MI6 and falls in love with a Russian assassin) and was still like, this franchise is super messy, we can’t have high expectations. I’d forgotten this whole new set of messy data points.
Um, hmm, the fact that they already did self-sabotage through self-sabotage and had the cheated on party not break up doesn’t give me hope for that here, since they most likely won’t repeat a plot. Although obviously what happens from here on isn’t even so much on Carina as it is Maya getting some goddamned help and making amends. In terms of an ending, it IS encouraging that it isn’t seen as a long-term relationship-ender and at the moment, I think it’s wide open what could happen.
And another anon:
All those couples were still endgame despite all the problems. Merder only wasn’t because derek died, Arizona ended up going to new york for callie, mark lexie again couldn’t bc of death, but there’s always still an endgame for the most part. I dont see the show putting their characters longterm with someone who isnt a regular. Love to be wrong so we’ll see. Hopefully they dont throw away the chemistry
Heh, I don’t know if you can use “only” when the person dies. Although, I do get your point, but still, those couples all went through just as much mess as Carina and Maya. Or more to the point, I don’t really see Maya and Jack being treated that way, at no point during the weeks until this did we see Jack being jealous or even reacting to Maya and Carina, he’s been far more about Andy, and even with that “I know you better than anyone” line the whole conversation was to get them to sleep together so Maya could throw that in Carina’s face and that’s what we ended on. I think it’s up in the air, tbh, no endgame locked in for either of them and maybe not even a super concrete plot for a next season that looks very distant right now.
Do you think Carina was too forcefully in trying to get Maya to see her father was abusive?
Huh. You know, that’s interesting. I mean, obviously, Maya was sooooo far out of line and the one in the wrong there, that’s without question, and in fact, the “too” implies that Carina in ANY way caused what happened, so in that sense, no, not at all.
But if we’re just looking at that day, taking away Maya’s actions altogether, let’s pretend she walked away angry and had a run and then came back to an empty house and that was that. So if we just look at Carina’s behavior where she kept pressing after Maya showed how uncomfortable she was, actually, as a matter of fact, I’d been trying to think of how Maya should have handled it? What more should she have said or done? She told Carina in pretty clear terms to drop the subject, repeatedly. She even told Carina to leave the house and she wouldn’t. There was no immediate threat to Maya that this needed to be addressed right then. So maybe Carina should have dropped it for the time being, not bringing it up in the kitchen once it’d already been halted in bed.
BUT, on the other hand, clearly Carina had waited since the last time! And their relationship, from the very first second, has been a series of Maya initially reluctant to do something that Carina suggested super gently and eventually listening and being SO much happier for it (ironically, I was going to make a gifset of those moments >_<). So there’s no reason to think that wouldn’t be the case here, where not only Maya but her mom, another victim, were suffering until this could start to be processed. And of course it helps that we have perfect knowledge because this is fiction, we know that Maya was getting upset not because Carina was violating her boundaries but because she was getting too close to the truth, we know that Carina wasn’t bringing this up for some power trip, she just wanted Maya to be healthy and happy.
Ultimately, this is just an exercise in debate, going back and forth, if Maya hadn’t escalated the situation like that, there could have been an argument that Carina was starting to push it a bit far, like, if you’d seen just until the kitchen argument, you might have thought, all right, let it go. But Maya went nuclear without warning, and so none of the rest matters. Whatever she’d already tried, there were still steps before this.
During Barrett and Danielle’s live, Barrett asked Danielle what she thinks Maya was thinking and I loved Danielle’s answer. Especially the bit where she said what if Jack didn’t show up at her office.. how it wasn’t like Maya actively went out and tried to sleep with Jack. It was more of a wrong place wrong time. Obviously it doesn’t take away from her cheating but it kind of toned down my frustration from this episode a bit. I just really hope this isn’t the end for them.. So much potential..
And another anon:
Self sabotaging Maya. She just can’t help herself when people get too close. She did the 1 thing she knew would drive Carina away and boy was she harsh about telling her. Unless Carina has actually fallen in love with this idiot, i don’t see why they’d get back together. It’s interesting, cheating is often done by a person feeling insecure or falling for someone else, whereas Maya did it 100% on purpose to drive someone away (Jack was just a body). I wonder if that makes a difference to Carina?
If I’m entirely honest, it makes a difference to me. I hate cheating between my ships because–well, for obviously lots of reasons, but in terms of continuing shipping it usually signals the beginning of the end because if they’re into someone else enough to betray the first person, that’s kind of it, right. Basically, Maya can put in the work and try to resolve her issues, but she can’t exactly resolve falling for someone else, you know? That’s just a new romance, not an actual problem to address. But this makes it about something else, which is no defense, of course, of course, it’s still incredibly hurtful and dumb and tropey, everything I mentioned in previous asks. But it does help me see a light at the end of this, if they can make their way through.
And yeah, after the initial shock and disappointment of it, I did see people conclude the same thing, it’s pure self-sabotage from Maya, not about Jack, as evidenced by her telling Carina immediately. I think even without Danielle’s input that was coming through clearly. But I AM glad Danielle confirmed it, and by the way, how endearing was it when Barrett gave her that opening and voiced what the fans were surely thinking, “What was Maya thinking?” I think the actors being so supportive of this has honestly also sanded the edges of this a bit for me? Because the initial shock came from the reminder of how rep used to be and the fear that that’s how this would go, but things are different. Not NEARLY as much as they could be, but just seeing the better treatment from the actors is one thing, and of course for me at least, there are various ships with their positive rep over the last year that’ve left me in a much better place to deal with the negative cases.
It’s ironic but just as much as we were forced to stay with subpar rep before because there wasn’t much else, I’m more comfortable staying with this ship now because there’s more around. Each rare canon ship doesn’t have to be everything, it doesn’t have to stand for all f/f representation. In this case, the narrative sympathy is with Maya for the abuse, yes, but there’s a LOT of it reserved for Carina. Who, by the way, as much as it makes a difference for me that the cheating was a way to push her away and not about Jack, it shouldn’t really make a difference for Carina. Like, oh, you wanted to hurt me that badly? Pfft.
For the ship, so far, this seems just one step on a much longer journey, at some point Maya has to confront the fact that the abuse was real, that’s just TV, and the person who’s been with her on this journey is Carina. The person she’s hurt in an eerily reminiscent way of how her father hurt her family is…Carina. If Maya’s arc is that she was abused and pushes people away now because of that, I’d imagine a resolution would include the person she…has been pushing away. She has to make huge amends, and then we’ll see, I guess.
Please create gifs of Carina and Maya from the 3×15 episode of Station 19
I will, at some point, anon, I wasn’t gonna but I will.
But I got a fair number of asks about this ep, so like, a lot of you are staying with it, huh?
Disappointed but not surprised with S19. I’m aware that it’s basically a soap and having watched Greys I know what they’re like with sex but can’t lie it stings, especially with a wlw ship. I hate when shows use this plot in general it’s boring and obvious. Instead of this, it would have been so interesting to see Maya acting in or even just really go at it with Carina(not Jack like, wtf) and tie in proper Carina backstory and address Maya’s instinct of pushing people away when she’s pissed.
No, yeah, I get it completely. After a day to think on it, I think I can articulate why exactly I was so disappointed:
- It was a freaking shock! It wasn’t foreshadowed at all, it didn’t even occur to me to worry about it, the way they’d written Carina and Maya and even Jack in the last couple of months didn’t at all imply there’d be this intersection.
- As you said, no matter how many times it’s reiterated how common a trope this is in this franchise, there are just historical connotations when it’s to ruin a wlw ship. Even if not intended in the same way to get rid of this relationship, I can guarantee that many of us were immediately shoved back to when that’s what would happen, f/f relationships deliberately sidelined and diminished after a token appearance.
That Maya’s bi doesn’t change that. To quote my friend in a discussion we were having: “It’s tough, right, because bi characters obviously like both men and women and their choice to cheat can be indiscriminate–but it’s not as if like, that nullifies the gendered context beyond the show, in terms of media history and perception and tropes.” And in fact, it just swings into the cheating bisexual trope. Ironically, I was trying to offer counterexamples to my friend of straight Grey’s characters that cheated and brought up Teddy and then remembered they’d suddenly revealed she was bi too, so now both shows’ latest cheaters are bi.
- They’re going somewhere so deep without any intention of really exploring it. This has always been one-sided and Maya’s story, which, again and again, we’ve acknowledged and accepted it, it’s her show, her arc, but they’ve now made this into a big thing for BOTH of them, such a deep betrayal of Carina, but we still won’t see Carina’s side of it. Like you said, instead of making this final conflict something core to them, involving Carina backstory, they did this instead.
- Honestly, I resent them for taking this fun little ship and draining the life from it this quickly. In one move they’ve ensured the remaining fans approach it with wariness and take it off rec lists.