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unproduciblesmackdown · 4 years

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Why don’t you like Only Us?

lmao Only Us exasperates me on like several levels at once......

i mean there’s plenty of stuff in deh that i’m just like. “i don’t particularly feel the need to experience this again” like, naturally i care most about the jared and alana content, so already a song with neither of them in it is at a disadvantage with me, which is yeah most of the songs but that’s deh canon for you. my favorite parts are the non-hansen non-murphy characters!! epic for me

meanwhile from like a Story standpoint the writing for zoe and evan’s relationship is like, baffling lmao, and i think both Love Songs (if i could tell her & only us) exemplify how it is a mess.......like, why does “if i could tell her” Not tell us why evan likes zoe???? it’d be great if we could find out, since we already have found out he’s never talked to her. is it just that she Seems Nice. b/c like, sure, except that here we have a whole song to explain to us in greater detail why evan is so set on being in love with zoe and pinning all his hopes on her, but he just kind of lists off random surface-level stuff which doesn’t actually tell us anything either about her or, you know, Why Evan Likes Her? we’re just skipping to like, “oh see he Pays Attention, that proves he likes her” like okay whatever but WHY lmfao please......and yknow not to mention that this is all stuff that we can understand as both “something evan noticed about zoe b/c of crushing on her” and “something zoe might think was an observation coming from her brother” like.......bit underwhelming here, and really the most interesting Interaction zoe and evan have is where zoe says the wild shit about how evan is a Fool to want to be financially secure and evan is “rude” in response and she’s like yeah you don’t have to be polite all the time, and then this potential avenue of connection of them both feeling Obligated to Act Nice is pretty much just dropped and their relationship just becomes based on “you’re nice” again and like, is Nothing lmao.........why

and slam dunking on “if i could tell her” also there b/c Only Us is similar in that like, oh here’s the other Love Song but now it’s zoe’s turn to tell us why she likes evan!!!!! except she pointedly Does Not like *why* are either of you At All invested in this relationship lmaooo i s2g........like, just writing in “wow i like you so much” is not really compelling and like. i would be fine with this just being some nice, enjoyable high school dating experience where they Don’t really have any big reason to be together beyond “well, you’re pretty nice,” except there’s the problems that a) between So Much Time and focus being put into this Relationship, and zoe’s character pretty much becoming “evan’s nice gf” for all of act 2 and not much else about any other aspect of her experience, and the fact that the whole finale to resolve the show and its themes (?? what are those) and evan’s arc (?? what is that) is zoe Forgiving him and saying “Everyone Needed [what he did] For Something” like....did they??? did You???? did jared, did alana.........and also then telling us that she wishes she could’ve dated evan still if things had been normal like???? whyyyyyyyyyyyyy. and why would zoe feel the need to tell him this. seems 2 be justifying evan’s crush and pinning-of-hopes re: her, and by extension justifying this whole Relationship being given soooo much focus b/c even if there’s meant to be some Ambiguity in what we, the audience, might be intended to take away from it, like, clearly this relationship is justified as being Vital and the show treating it as such. which wouldn’t quite fit if it Was just like “oh shrug yeah i mean dating you was alright but nbd” like, it Must be meant to be some whole ~signficant connection~ between them. buuut there’s no actual sign of that lol. and the other problem is b) it also can’t just be a Fun, Casual High School Romance b/c at no point do they really seem to enjoy being together lmao or comfortable in each other’s presence. even their Joking Around for 2 seconds at the start of the “only us” scene feels to me more like nervous joking to cut the tension lmao...

like it does not count to have evan be like “i like zoe” and never actually give us reason why and have zoe take the other love song like “i like you also” but not tell us Why and expect us to like, just take a wild guess at the Supposed Depth of this relationship and what constitutes it or be at all invested. and i mean, evan’s holding zoe at arm’s length b/c there’s this inherent amount of lying he has to do constantly, and why would zoe be like “wow this relationship is great, i’m getting so much out of it” like, have they had conversations?? have they Enjoyed being in each other’s presence and like had genuine fun Being Themselves??? “only us” really does just feel like this cop out both in terms of Why zoe likes him and Why zoe feels like this relationship *isn’t* completely entangled with evan’s supposed relationship with connor. in that it explains neither, just has the character Say that is how she feels. like, we have ALL of evan’s interactions with zoe being dependent on connor, and the whole Initial love song is zoe paying attention b/c Supposedly evan is telling her stuff about what connor thought about her, and then zoe deciding she Does want to kiss evan actually is via disappear and ywbf and everyone’s reaction to evan’s speech supposedly about connor and her dad acquiescing to the fact he has emotions about his dead son thanks to everyone’s reaction to evan’s speech / tcp........like, this relationship is clearly contingent on stuff re: connor, and zoe apparently changing her mind and wanting to be with him is Because of everything re: connor, but then like, just b/c she says in Only Us that she Doesn’t want it all to be about connor doesn’t change all of that......like, yeah, it can be true that she wants this relationship to be separate from anything re: connor, but just having her Say That does nothing to convince me that oh yeah they have this whole Romance that really *is* separate from connor, like?? where??? we haven’t seen it. and when zoe says at the end that she wishes she could’ve dated evan minus [everything that actually happened], again: why!!!!! what *was* your Relationship-Minus-Connor. here it Supposedly is in “only us,” except that the tl;dr of it is just them insisting they totally have a relationship which involves Them and Nothing Else and i do not buy it just b/c they’re saying it??? i mean, for a start, they’re just Hypothesizing it. “what if it’s us & only us” etc etc “we could Try that” like, fuck around and find out, pretty literally i guess??? lmfaoo god.........

like, there’s some space between “hey maybe the Entire Solution to your being Anxious about this relationship isn’t a handy list of things i like about you” and “i shouldn’t tell you anything i like about you” like, sure there’s something that maybe works in like, why don’t you just Assume i like you instead of assuming i Don’t until Proven Otherwise, but again she can get that across And tell him (and like, more importantly, us the audience) why she likes him......and she can give some of those reasons why she likes him Without it being just a list of traits or things she’s noticed a la “if i could tell her” lmao like, describe him broadly!!! talk about One Nice Experience you shared!!!! we have noooo info about why evan likes zoe or why zoe likes evan. we just know that they’re Nice Teens (or teens who feel obligated to act nice all the time) and they are saying “I Like You” to each other. why does this relationship feel so necessary and Good to zoe even after she found out he was lying, and was she having such a great time beforehand??? you can find lots of nice boys you can kiss if that’s what you’re after, like, neither love song tells us Anything about why this particular relationship is so important and good or like, has any substance at all

and additionally you Know i’m your one-stop shop for Hot Takes About Any Number Of Concepts Re: Romance(tm) Which I Think Are Bullshit Slash Hate lmfao and one of those is tying whatever notion of the Ideal Romantic Relationship to that like, isolating the partners, like oh they’re your whole world now and the relationship’s defined by the fact that you don’t need about anybody or anything else and/or don’t care about anything/anyone else even nearly as much and wouldn’t it be Great if nothing else existed but you and your partner and this relationship........like sure it’s one thing for evan and zoe to be like “hey epic some Alone Time where larry isn’t trying to share metaphors about sports equipment” or whatever. but like, okay sure @ the start of things where the focus is more on like “hmm weird that everything about our relationship is so tied to connor, what if we just sort of say it’s starting for real Now unrelated to all that, even though we even have to talk about it to do so” but then you get towards the end and oh we also want the whole world to be irrelevant to us. and absolutely everything except each other / It Is Only Us(tm) like.........again sure if you look at this Immediate Moment where they wanna make out and fade to black, whatever. but this moment is also supposed to be this second start to the relationship, at least sorta reestablishing it, so natch it’s sort of like....about More than this particular moment. the zoevan brand ethos is This??? where your relationship is defined by like, needing or Wanting to be [just the two of you] like, well it can’t always be, so what are you gonna do about that?? and if your Best Times Together in that ideal state of isolation is like, hey now let’s make out, okay, again there are many decently nice people out there to kiss

and there sure seems to be Some awareness that this isn’t ideal thanks to how the immediate next scene is alana going like “um what the fuck, evan” and evan taking out the stress of Having Problems on jared...........aaaand yet i’m not so sure this is like, “oh, the Only Us brand of approach of just wanting and trying to ignore The Rest Of The World wasn’t so ideal after all” but rather just like. Wow How Tragic that they couldn’t truly keep the rest of the world at bay and now reality is intruding on their perfect relationship :( which would suuuure seem to fit with the mystifying sentiment zoe expresses in the finale of like, oh i wish i could’ve dated you Normally w/o [how the entire course of their relationship played out] like. oh Only Us really WAS ideal, that’s the epitome of / the Core of all the great parts of their relationship which was obviously great, and if only everything re: tcp and connor wasn’t the way that it was, they would’ve just been able to forget obligations w/o someone being like “the hell” and hold hands and kiss without people talking about it or anyone feeling bitterly rejected........like, idk, would they Really have dated if the entire plot hadn’t happened as it did??? evan was never talking to zoe, and we don’t know why he liked her so much in the first place, and apparently zoe’s perception of evan was “sort of a loser” like, okay. and when they Are together thanks to tcp-related stuff, we get no more information about why they might like each other. that one potentially engaging thread of “we both feel obligated to put on these fronts of Constant Niceness” existed for like 3 seconds and then they just start being constantly nice around each other, great lol. like again, this doesn’t seem so much of like “oh, these teens just having a chill time dating maybe have this simplistic / offbase ideas about relationships” as much as like the show justifies Only Us and all the sentiments therein.........like yeah wow if Only it could’ve been only them and the rest of the world could’ve stayed out of it!!! everything would’ve been perfect!! b/c we tell you so

not to mention all the like Official covers of Only Us which areout of the specific context in which it’s placed in the show, which sure only emphasizes like “hey these sentiments can be and should be taken straightforwardly” and i’m like, get tf away from me with this lmfao i am So uninterested. a romantic relationship should do the Opposite of shrink / restrict your world or suddenly make all other relationships less important, much less like, require those things, and also the nuclear family model is a scam pushed by capitalism to cut off people’s support networks / isolate them lmao But Really It Is, social isolation is Not romantic or anything else that is ever positive. and it’d be Whatever if it truly was applied to that very specific moment of “boy it sure is Only Us in this room, :eyes emoji:” buuut it’s not, and it’d be Whatever if evan and zoe’s relationship was Meant to be sort of a misguided mess all around lmao Or just more superficial and casually enjoyable than meant as anything ~deep and Real(tm)~ buuuut it is not........i think canon does sure allow for the fact that things are messy for sure but i think it also definitely wants you to think that like. oh this Relationship was truly great and things were all good in its Core (jk, what core), it’s just that tragically all those complications with connor / tcp got too in the way........yet it was so Essential and ultimately positive that this relationship happen for both of us...........like, whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy lmaoooooo @ deh WHAT are your themes, What are either of these character’s arcs meant to be!!!!!!! idk zoe and evan's relationship more felt bizarrely like these two teens were Settling for white picket fence ideals of “well you’re nice and i’m nice and we could kind of tensely continue to be nice indefinitely” like, do you guys even like each other that much, do you Know each other at all, do either of you truly Enjoy being in this relationship??? and then meanwhile you get all the bizarreness re: larry and cynthia’s relationship and how it doesn’t actually improve but uhhh they’re going on dates and they’re not divorced so hey, i’m sure that’s good, you definitely helped them through Mystery Reasons...........and idk it seems like the idea of the Journey that zoe takes is that like, oh it’s Bad that this nice girl has to be mad, somehow dating evan will fix that and she won’t be mad, since being mad can never be a good thing, and Not being mad is always an improvement. like, why is she this cool with evan in the finale. why does she want to tell him she (and everyone) Needed what happened and that she wishes she could date him. deh is of the Mystery genre actually, and so much of it remains unsolved

also Only Us just gets fairly boring like 3 listens in i think. like can we literally pick up the pace a little. up the tempo. get it over with faster. i don’t even know at this point b/c i just choose not to listen to it ever lmfao every time the deh twitter tries to tell me about a cover it’s transphobic b/c i hate it. but i’d put up with it if i didn’t hate the ideas in it meant as ~romance~ and if any of this was tempered by evan and zoe’s relationship being written better and/or Not trying to be wrangled as like, “This Is Good Actually even if some parts aren’t perfect, the point is that evan was right to pin all his hopes on zoe, who’s needed in this show to validate his existence in the finale” like. what is this. and again, capitalism is bad and the nuclear family is Not the base unit of society, and what’s the deal with deh being like “well, as long as larry and cynthia don’t get divorced, right???? we don’t need to know that their relationship actually improved and that cynthia’s at all happier / feels like she has more of an identity or that larry has more fundamental respect for cynthia or thinks he’s not Automatically / Always Right just b/c his life has been fine.....they’re going on dates and aren’t divorced so that’s their Improved Ending!!” like, what’s up with that, right. the relationships that matter are Familial ones and dating the nice girl who has a juxtaposable family, and the other relationships, i.e. with jared and with alana, can evaporate into the ether and maybe get damnatio memoriae’d for as much as their existence plays into the finale. disappear.mp3. i have absolutely zero motivation to experience Only Us again ever lmao and in fact i guess i have negative motivation b/c i Want to avoid it and will take active steps in the sense of like “oh i’m watching deh? let me just skip past all these parts i don’t need to see again, including only us” like. i’m good

tl;dr it annoys me & i do not think it works from Any structural standpoint

#deh #Anonymous

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