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pluviophile-bookworm · 4 years

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AWAE 2x7 rewatch: thoughts and reactions

This was pretty much my favourite episode of the entire series before season 3 came along, so I’m really excited to watch it again. Let’s dive in:

Ok, that was a really weird (and short) cold open. I don’t really know what to say. Moving on.

Seriously, what just happened to Marilla? And how often has it been happening?

Yeah, as if Phillips would give extra lessons to anyone but Prissy. Also, Gilbert is right about him not caring much about teaching. People like Phillips have no place being teachers.

Bringing up Gilbert’s father, whose passing I’m pretty sure he’s aware of? How dare he? I hate that dirt-bag excuse of a man.

Oh, you’re going to the ball, dear Cinderella... I mean, you are going to the party, dear DiAnne! And you’ll be bringing someone else, too.

Speaking of someone else, poor Cole is still struggling with his art after Billy’s horrendous deed. Emotionally, mostly. But burning his drawings is not the answer. Never.

‘Cole is a man!’ Yes he is, that’s what I’ve been saying for I don’t know how long now. I’m glad someone’s finally noticed. I’ve got to say this scene reminded me a tiny bit of HP and the Goblet of Fire where Ron finally realised Hermione was a girl. But it’s different. In a good way, of course.

I love their, well, Anne’s, plan so much. I just do and I don’t really know why. But Marilla’s worsening headaches and her calling Matthew ‘Michael’ are worrying me so much. The Cuthberts do have their own trauma, they do. It seems everyone does in this series.

Of course Matthew allows it. In Matthew we trust. They’re going! Of course, I knew they were, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting. See, that’s the thing about favourites - they make you feel the same emotions every time that they did the first time you experienced them. And isn’t that the most wonderful thing?

Marilla seems to be reminded of her own childhood and how she didn’t have the chance to experience such wonderful things as Anne gets to. But Anne’s had her share of traumatic experiences. She deserves this.

Hero is right. Cole is one and he’ll get back to his art soon enough. And he’s just arrived in what will end up being his new home thanks to the amazing Aunt Josephine.

Anne’s finally realised what Josephine had with Gertrude and her reaction is absolutely lovely. I knew it would be. In fact, I knew it the very first time I watched it. Here’s a note I wrote to myself all the way back then: Anne is so open- minded and finds it all but strange that aunt Josephine had a romantic relationship with Gertrude, while Diana’s conservative upper-class upbringing seems to get in her way of accepting it… but she’ll get around to it. What I really would like, however, is that Cole would eventually come out to Anne first, I mean they confide in each other in a way few others do, and she’s, at least the way I see it, the best person to come out to considering how she views Josephine and Gertrude’s relationship.

The party looks so beautiful, it makes me want to draw it. I probably will - just like I did last week with Diana the magnificent fairy queen. This show is so inspiring. In fact, my first ever drawing that I posted here was based on this episode and this party. Here’s a link: https://pluviophile-bookworm.tumblr.com/post/187379899979/i-dont-really-draw-but-i-was-just-rewatching-my Hey, this also means I’ve seen this episode more times than any other AWAE episode! It’s clearly my favourite - well, now it’s second to 3x5, but we’ll see what happens when I rewatch that one.

‘If it were agreeable to my husband’... poor Diana really needs more of her aunt’s influence. How lovely it would be for her to become a pianist... or a scholar, or what she desires. Not necessarily a wife unless it’s to someone she truly loves and who truly loves her.

The girl with the pixie cut who complimented Anne’s might have just made her day. At least it would have made mine.

If these people calling Cole ‘farm boy’ did something good, it must have been decorating him with their scarves and pearls. I love this look on him.

If not pixie-cut girl, Sunflower-man made Anne’s day and I’m so glad something finally did. If someone could only tell her how beautiful she looks...

I feel like I would have loved Gertrude if I had known her... and that woman who said she and Jo were her romantic ideal... there should be more like her in the world.

Josephine and Cole dancing together warms my heart so much! And what warms it even more is knowing they’ll be a family, a loving, beautiful found family as they both deserve. I’m not crying, you are.

Poor Marilla is still struggling with her past and her headaches, and Matthew is trying to do the best he can to help, but there’s not much to be done when one refuses to be helped. And dear Matthew seems to have trauma of his own. ‘Doesn’t she love us too?’ Heartbreaking.

Marilla’s thinking of Anne like a true mother, and though it breaks my heart when she says ‘I won’t be a burden to Anne.’, it also warms it to think she feels so responsible for her new daughter.

I wish dear Diana would be more accepting of her aunt...s. I suppose they were both her aunts in a way. In their own way they were married after all.

The artist who reassures Cole means so much to me for it. And the way she seems to know Anne after only having met her for a while... also, ‘Cole the artist’ - yes, he is that. I love that woman although I don’t even know her. She made Cole smile for the first time this evening.

I’m just imagining Anne in her puff sleeves and a top hat... magnificent. I might try to draw that sometime.

Oh, Diana, just because something is kept secret doesn’t mean it’s wrong! It might just be that people aren’t ready for it yet, and I’m sad for the people. Not for Jo and Gertrude. Not for Cole. For those who aren’t ready to accept that love is love in all shapes and forms.

‘broken, defective, unnatural...’ is that what Cole thinks about himself? I so hope it’s not. And I so hope he finds a man someday who makes him feel like Jo and Gertie had. He deserves it.

Here’s a note on this next moment from the time I saw it first: Oh my, oh my! He came out to Josephine first! I think it’s just as beautiful as had it been Anne, and the way he spoke of it to Anne and Diana first, although he didn’t confess anything, was so beautiful, deep and meaningful. Seriously, the way this series portrays things that are ahead of their time in the chronological context of the plot... that is so beautiful that I can’t even describe it… Anne with an E is my aesthetic… and one of the reasons I rediscovered my fondness of the colour orange which I previously disliked… just… so deep and aesthetically elevating. Ok, that last part had nothing to do with Cole or Josephine or coming out, but it’s truly what I think and it belongs here.

Matthew finally speaks up and it’s so powerful when a quiet person raises their voice. ‘She had other children. We all lost Michael.’

‘You missed me?’ But of course she did, she’s your mother now. I love the found family trope. And Marilla looks lovely with that flower crown.

‘[Love] can come in so many forms.’ This series teaches the proper values. I love it for that. #renewannewithane

‘The good doctor’. However demeaningly this was meant to be, it describes Gilbert so perfectly, and his response (‘and I managed to learn that with no extra time from you.’) was so absolutely great. Thanks, I love it.

‘You’ll get there, if you know where your passions lead you.’ That was a beautiful underrated Shirbert moment.

The pen of possibility. How lovely. This episode ended on just the right not and it’s just such a favourite of mine, I don’t even know what more to say. let’s just end here. Roll the recaps.

Let’s sum up: Marilla has headaches and flashbacks; Anne’s pen of duplicity concocts the perfect lie... fib; Cole struggles to get back into art; ‘Cole is a man!’ and so he and Anne and Diana get to go to Aunt Josephine’s party; Josephine and Gertrude are a romantic ideal; the perfect summer soiree in the middle of winter; Cole the farm-boy goes back to being Cole the artist thanks to a mysterious sculptor woman at the party; he comes out to Josephine, then to Anne and Diana; love is beautiful in every shape and form; the good doctor shoots for the stars on his own, thank you very much, Phillips (not!); the pen of possibility.

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