Adena is a character we need. But I put her on a pedestal, she’s human. Kat said pretty much all the wrong things to her, Kat pushed her away out of fear. I love Kat but her fear did this. But Adena’s need to assuage her guilt was the catalyst. She put a lot of pressure on Kat which was unfair. She cheated on her serious girlfriend with Kat and basically was like “tell me it’s worth it”. She wanted reassurance that they’re gonna be together to ease the guilt and somewhat justify the cheating. She also didn’t want to give up the stability of a long- term relationship without knowing where Kat stood. Their wrongs really complemented each other, with disastrous outcomes: Adena applied the pressure, Kat broke under it. Kat pushed Adena away, and Adena went away.
We don’t know if Adena will leave (we already know there’s more Kadena coming, it’s not over). But they’ve already hurt each other so badly, this will be interesting, to see how and if they can recover. I think the show has already established they will be together but it’s just gonna be painful to watch. Which you know, is the best we ever get with wlw relationships. This proves even the most understanding writers think they have to drown our relationships in angst to make it worthwhile. I will give the W. Earp writers that, they just allow their wlw pairing to be happy and it’s so fulfilling for those fans.
I’m still excited about Kadena. I’m still so over the moon about this show, period. I just think it was unnecessary to even have Adena in a relationship. Kat and her insecurities were enough obstacles, as were Adena’s issues with immigration, which is a socially relevant topic to explore. This cheating storyline is cliche. They’ve avoided cliches until now or acknowledged them by turning them on their heads. There is nothing interesting about cheating. No, not even when a woman is cheating on another woman. You’re not progressive for saving your cheating storyline for queer characters. I’ll be happy when writers get over this hangup. This is not creative writing. This does not move. It’s not helpful for representation. We can have relationships free of adultery and infidelity.
The Bold Type is great but even they missed the mark here.
I get it, as soon as Coco showed up, I was like, ugh, this forced angst.
But for all the reasons you said above, I’m actually okay with this being the source of their drama. I’d rather it be something this universal and that can resonate with all audiences and be, frankly, kind of tame, as compared to like, deportation or being jailed or beaten, the actual issues more relevant to them. It is a total cliche, but it’s a comfortable trope, oh, she’s torn between these two options, the long-term girlfriend or the really interesting appealing commitphobe. I actually like how formulaic it is.
Adena is clearly VERY into Kat, she broke up that day for her, but she also actually admitted that it was some form of cheating and wrong. Bad things can happen in representative storylines but as long as it’s not presented as inherent to them, I’m okay with them. And any audience watching this will not see it as different from all the plethora of cheating storylines that seem to make up Freeform shows.