A dash of hope on this fine evening - TV Insider ranked a bunch of cancelled shows on how likely they thought they were to be saved, and OFMD came in second place.
we can compliment the writing of ofmd all day (and yes, i will continue to do so until the day i die) but the acting really soars too- especially in season 2, in my opinion. rhys and taika are both fantastic, and perhaps i'll share some more of my favorite acting moments of theirs in the future, but for now i want to focus on one in particular.
specifically, stede during the moonlight kiss.
in just a few short seconds, rhys's face manages to convey a pure tidal wave of emotion without a single word of dialogue. the arch of stede's eyebrows, the desperation in his body language, the way he pulls ed impossibly closer.
it's like ed is an oasis in an endless desert, or a breath in the lungs of someone barely treading water.
it's as if stede's been replaying their first kiss over and over in his mind—thinking about how good and right it felt, but how awkward and clumsy he was, how he didn't know what to do with his hands and just kind of let it happen to him—and as if getting to try it again is the only thing he's thought about for the past three months.
his face during that kiss says so much more than just a few words ever could—i'm sure he could've filled a novel with his thoughts and then some.
"i missed you more than anything."
"i dreamed of this moment every single day."
"the thought of feeling your lips on mine again has kept me sane."
"i already know that i want to spend the rest of my life with you. i've known it for months. you're the only person in the world for me."
We kinda forget that...Stede thought Ed was dead. He thought that he'd waited too long and that he'd not made it in time. He thought the man he last saw happily running off to mug a guy for a dinghy had been so destroyed by despair that he'd gone on a months' long rampage and ended it by baiting people he loved into killing him. He thought, moreover—and had been told by multiple people—that it was all his fault.
Stede's relief doesn't just last through the moment when Ed wakes up, nor does his guilt just vanish. He nearly lost the love of his life and he knows it.
I've been thinking lately about how lucky we are that OFMD ever got made in the first place.
Like, we live in a media landscape that's actively hostile to shows like OFMD. Even without the fact that it's a queer show with a heavily-poc cast, OFMD is genuine and campy in a way that most shows are just not willing to be nowadays.
Of course, I'm still devastated that we didn't get the third season we deserved - I probably always will be. But it really is wonderful that we hit exactly the right time to get what we did. Much earlier, and a show like OFMD never would've had a chance of being greenlit, and a few years later, and it probably would've gotten cancelled after season 1. I don't know about you all, but I'm really glad we got the cancellation after season 2 instead.
I'm just really grateful that we hit the timing exactly right to get what we got, and I'm glad that my time and place matched up just right to be here with you all for it.
ofmd s1: fuck conformity, fuck queer respectability, be who you are, repression is killing you
ofmd s2: but also maybe let's cut all the poly couples (garlic soup; fang) and have the queer-coded kinksters get murdered (izzy hands, ned lowe [whose kink was a core part in his villainy, and had zero positive contrast]) unless they're femme-presenting and coded as insane lesbians despite being historically bisexual because that's hot (anne bonny, mary read) and keep in mind we're cutting poly rep there too (calico jack)