Aneela interacting with people she loves compared to how she interacts with everyone else is so interesting. With her love ones there’s this gentleness and absolute adoration. That is all contrasted nicely with how alien she comes off when she interacts with characters that are not Dutch, Kendry, and Jaq. Also I want to get your take on Aneela’s relationship with Khlyen. I found it a bit weird that the two of them never interacted in the present outside of those episodes in the green.
There’s a MASSIVE difference, you can see it just in the way she treats Kendry before and after really allowing her in. She was condescendingly polite to her when she first came on board but that was a courtesy she was extending to her father’s acquaintance but when it came down to it, in the queens rise showdown, she clearly didn’t think much of her. But then Delle Seyah surprised her and frankly, impressed her, and in that same bedroom later on they had the tether convo, completely different in every way. Much more equal.
Alien really is the word for it, she’s so unpredictably and oddly written, it’s amazing honestly, to see a character like her, and one who was written consistently for over three seasons without removing that edge and making her more human. That brief moment with even Dutch in ep 5×09 where Dutch said something about Khlyen and Aneela was like, Papa only ever fought for us! and it was shocking in its sudden intensity and a reminder, this is still the same Aneela underneath that new domesticity, there’s always that menace and possibility of violence. Even now that she has her family around her and is free from the Lady, she will never be like a human, she just doesn’t have it in her to process and react to things the same way.
Ah, mannn, Khlyen and Aneela. Including that moment above, it’s so complicated, so far to travel to even get to a place from where they can begin to recover something and I think something they just decided they couldn’t really do justice to in the time they had left? Like no way would it just be a hug and that’s it, despite what Aneela thinks, Khlyen owes her a million apologies and so much making up. And yet, as Aneela was influenced by the Hullen virus, so was he, his initial intentions as a Qreshi human weren’t worse than anybody else’s, and then a bunch of terrible circumstances befell the Kin Rits. And if it hadn’t been for some of his actions, they wouldn’t have landed on this eventual happy ending, centuries later. How much do you separate his terrible, terrible actions from being a Hullen? Tearing baby Dutch away, raising her like that in complete opposition to what Aneela wanted, making Aneela feel so less than in the first place. We saw what the virus did to Johnny and forgave him pretty quickly but that’s easy to do when he was only Hullen for a few eps and everyone around him forgave him. We saw the longterm consequences of Khlyen’s treatment on our actual lead character, Dutch, Aneela’s proxy of sorts, and she did call him out. So Aneela should get to as well?
I’m gonna be straight up, there were a number of choices in season 5 I didn’t really get. Obviously if they couldn’t handle their reunion in the last ep, especially when that’s when Dutch had her own big meaningful moment with him, then maybe don’t leave it for then? But I’m assuming that some budget and plot decisions kind of forced them in certain directions and then they couldn’t have certain things happen. Like, unless Yalena, Aneela’s mom, was going to be involved in the final showdown, there’s no actual reason for her to show up or for them to rescue her before everything’s fixed, so yeah, as awesome as it would have had been to have her there earlier, it kind of did make sense that she’d have to be left for the epilogue (still would have loved to see the reunion!). And while I think the prison setting locked them into a weirdly narrow focus, I don’t think that’s what necessarily forced Aneela and Delle Seyah away from the main plot for eps at a time, I think that was just a budget and time thing with HJK and possibly even Mayko, since H&R has been seemingly airing non-stop since spring. But once you took them out the main plot, then it wouldn’t really make sense for them to have big climactic scenes earlier in the season. If Aneela and Khlyen did meet and somehow work through everything, you don’t have the rest of Khlyen’s plot with the Lady or even Dutch would work out in the same way.
i don’t know if you’ve seen, but Mayko Nguyen is in the new titans series as the mother of chella man’s jericho, and there’s a very sweet scene where she asks him if he’s going to meet a boyfriend or a girlfriend and it made me smile, and thought you’d like to know, even if the show isn’t your thing!
Anon, I did see that! It was sooooo cuuuuute! Despite myself I’ve started to get caught up with the plot so I can make sense of Mayko’s parts, so I was like awwww and then oh no and then ohhhh nooooo.
And let’s not get into how I was like, that could have been an interaction between Delle Seyah and Jaq, she’d totally have gently teased him about the very same thing! As she then would spy on and possibly threaten those selfsame kids but perhaps that would have helped here. >_>
did u watch the original L word and will you be checking out the reboot? i’m so over reboots but I do have patience for them when they include the original cast
Yeah, I getcha, when they include the original cast it feels like a real continuation and it can be really interesting to see what the characters were up to in the meantime. And it feels like a sign of respect and consideration to keep what people liked about the original. And I think I don’t even hate them on principle when they don’t include the original cast, we get some cool takes in there, like ODAAT.
Having said all that, I did not watch the original L Word and will probably not be checking out the new version. It’s just…so much…drama. Heh. I prefer an overarching plot?
have you seen the trailer for portrait of a lady on fire? it’s a lesbian love story! also its french and it has a lesbian director and one of the leads is a lesbian too! figured it might be right up your alley :)
I have! Actually, someone I follow, @morningmightcomebyaccident, is really into it too, so I see a lot from her. Its pedigree looks legit amazing!
I’m sure anons have messaged you about Impulse, it’s a YouTube original. But there’s a character named Jenna and it’s honestly one of the best gradual coming out I’ve seen in a long time on my screen. Like it takes its time, it’s great. The show is also good, so that’s a double win lol
They have not, anon! Clearly you are the superior anon. 😛
I have heard of it, though! Just a little, and that it has f/f, so it’s on my radar for sure. s2 recently coming out has actually moved it up my list, I’ll try to get to it soon.