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| Otalia - Guiding Light | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 29 2009, 06:54 PM (21,244 Views) | |
| solitasolano | Aug 19 2009, 05:29 AM Post #721 |
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Yep, as I expected, double post. I'm not liking this have to work/left coast spread...I really meant “after today”. Of course diff scenes progressed to diff locations. I hate it when people do what I did this am. Will keep my mouth shut from now on….Verzeihung. All I can think of is that the traffic was too much and they moved…ugh. That scene transistion jolted me too. Righto. ITA. Olivia has just poured out her heart, how it’s jagged from lost trust and then Natalia calmly calls Frank. WTF? Can I say I’m not worried about the Josh thing…seems pretty obvious it’s time for big O to spill the Nat beans. Yep, for sure. Yep that’s how I read the flow or emotion and processing on O’s part also. Emma = catalyst and glue. There’ll be more to come I’m sure where Emma is concerned...there always is. You know I was very impressed that Nat actually tries to walk into Olivia’s space when O shows up at the gazebo…that’s always been one of my complaints about Nat, hardly ever tries to move into Olivia’s private physical space and presence. Today she made some feable efforts to do so. Waaaawww….I don’t get off work until 7….got to rethink this…it’s been a half a day since I was still in my jammies and my pusher came a knockin. |
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| abzug | Aug 19 2009, 12:10 PM Post #722 |
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In love with a prisoner
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I was thinking about this on my run this morning, and then rewatched some of the ep for good measure. So, Olivia has the following emotional communications: 1. You broke my heart 2. I need stability 3. I don't trust you #1 and #3 she communicates directly. #2 she communicates via a little story about Emma. When I broke it down this way I actually felt like the writing was pretty subtle, because #2 is the emotion around which Olivia would have the least self-awareness. If she hasn't been in therapy for 10 years, it's probably something she wouldn't be able to pinpoint or articulate in any direct way. (Not that I'd know that from experience or anything.) So it makes sense that she'd talk about it in such an indirect way, even though she herself is such a direct communicator. Which is where #1 and #3 come in, because she does hit those points directly and repeatedly--they feel really real to her, and she wants to make sure Nat sees them too. #2 on the other hand, she only mentions the once.
Good point! It made me see the whole exchange around Liv and Nat raising the baby together in a different way. Nat says the reason she becomes excited about the baby is because (paraphrasing) it gives her and Olivia the chance to raise a baby together, as a family. Which ostensibly is something she previously thought she'd be giving up by being with Olivia (not having a traditional family with babies etc). By saying this she shows us she's way further along than Liv, whose first thought is what Frank wants. Nat doesn't care what Frank wants--it's her baby, and she wants its other parent to be Olivia. Liv can't get past the hetero paradigm yet. (And she has some disbelief, I think, that Nat can, given where she was a couple months ago.) More later, but I have to shower and get ready for work! |
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| abzug | Aug 19 2009, 12:50 PM Post #723 |
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In love with a prisoner
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At the risk of overanalyzing (bwahahahah!!!!) I just wanted to add that "I don't trust you" is a very different thing to say than "I have trust issues." Olivia is capable of saying "I don't trust you" but isn't capable of saying "I have trust issues and that's why I need to be with someone who is stable and reliable in their loive for me"--hence her need to put the feeling/need onto Emma.
You are the queen of YouTube! Thanks for the links, especially this one. There's definitely been a Nat-runs-away pattern, which wasn't as clear to me before now (I mean, other than leaving Frank at the altar, obviously). Interesting that Liv now feels the need to run away faster, as if she's got to beat Nat in the running away race, not aware that Nat has bowed out of this particular competition.
I don't think she's doing it out of anger at trust betrayed--that's been her emotion for the last six weeks. She's doing it because of something new, and the thing that has changed is that Nat is back, and wants to be with her. I think that now that Nat has returned, Liv is worried she's going to relent, give in, take Nat back--and she really doesn't want to do that. When Nat was gone she didn't need to sleep with Josh, because her need to forget Nat was less urgent (AND, she was ambivalent, because who wants to forget someone they've lost? Once you've forgotten them, then the loss is truly complete). But now that Nat is back, she's in danger, and thinks sex with Josh will help her stay strong against Nat so she doesn't let Nat back in (to her heart and to her life). |
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| cagey | Aug 19 2009, 02:53 PM Post #724 |
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G3 Curtain and Duvet!
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At the risk of having my theories blown apart cause you east coast people will be watching the show in about 3 minutes.... Just re-watched and I still think Olivia's final I Don't Trust You speech is far more about where Olivia is in terms of the ability to enter into a committed, permanent relationship with anybody than it is about what Natalia did. That she then trots over to Josh determined to sabotage her own trustworthiness with a demand for sex strikes me as very Old School Olivia. And it even makes potato chips on the bathroom floor and other emotional excesses rank right up there with Tosca. Also, did it strike you that she is jealous of Frank? There was a certain venom to the way she said Frank's baby. Okay - off to work, back in 12 hours. |
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| abzug | Aug 19 2009, 03:00 PM Post #725 |
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Oh, I totally agree. Liv has huge intimacy issues, which is why she is attracted to unavailable people (Josh, Philip, even Natalia), and then sabotages her relationships with those who are completely emotionally available (Buzz). She just needed one reason to push Natalia away, and Natalia handed it to her on a silver platter.
I had read this venom as resulting from Frank's lack of sympathy ("Did you ever think that maybe it was just you?") over the past six weeks. But you could be right that jealousy could play a factor. |
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| abzug | Aug 19 2009, 03:23 PM Post #726 |
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In love with a prisoner
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Part 1 of 3 is up. http://www.youtube.com/user/oootaliaaa I'm hitting refresh obsessively to see when part 1 appears. Which it hasn't yet. |
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| ekny | Aug 19 2009, 03:39 PM Post #727 |
In love with a prisoner
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Thanks!... you meant part 3/3, I think? Listen, if anyone finds a source for previews that can be saved as Mp4s, please post or PM me? They've suddenly all become FLV files, which... kinda sucks. Not my fav, anyway. Thank you. ETA: They're up. pt 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvn8P6MFbIw pt 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B131kcjNYtY see abzug's post above for pt 3. These are FLVs only. Beggars etc I guess. |
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| ekny | Aug 19 2009, 03:52 PM Post #728 |
In love with a prisoner
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So listen, from here on out I'm talking about today's ep. I have a question for Abzug. What the HELL did she say to him, before "I'm in love with Natalia"? For GOD'S SAKE. Talk about a bad time to have crap miking. |
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| abzug | Aug 19 2009, 03:58 PM Post #729 |
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In love with a prisoner
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She said "I'm trying to forget that I'm in love with Natalia." Or "Help me forget I'm in love with Natalia." I'm forgetting, and I can't rewatch or my head might implode, but it was definitely one of those two. I'm kind of appalled, actually, by today's episode. The first part was ok--Liv tells Josh, and yeah, he's the one to tell her they're not going to have sex, that she needs a friend, but I can live with Liv still needing a man to take care of her. And then poor, dumb, stubborn Nat tells Frank she's going to be with Olivia, and that was kind of awesome. But holy crap! What happened after that was horrific! Olivia telling Frank to marry Natalia AGAIN, as if we didn't just see this storyline back in March/April. Except this time Frank knows what's going on. Otherwise, total fucking retread, including the awkward scene at Company with Frank all happy, pawing Nat, and Nat looking uncomfortable. And what the fuck happened with Nat?! She goes away for six fucking weeks to get some certainty, and then bratty Rafe makes her doubt herself? This woman has no fucking spine. Stand up to your fucking kid, woman! And then FRANK comforts her? Seriously?! And she lets Frank think they'll get married now? And what kind of show is this, where a baby means a couple has to be married? Oh, yeah, one which was about to fall victim to the anarchic force of lesbianism, but is reigning it right back in to a comfortable heterosexual marital hegemony. You've got to be kidding me! And Olivia's big come back to Rafe was that SHE dumped Nat, and not the other way around? Way to be strong, Olivia--you're the emotional coward, you don't need love, nice thing to brag about. That ending sequence did not compensate, primarily because they're too cheap to edit past clips in, so there was little to no emotional impact of the two of them, each outside, thinking of the other, given that neither one is taking any action which would bring them together. Someone shoot me now. |
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| ekny | Aug 19 2009, 04:20 PM Post #730 |
In love with a prisoner
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You too? Because
Oh yeah. Oh man. I'm like--. Yeah. That. The way Nat handled Frank was about as adult as I've ever seen her be. I would like to express just how much I resent Olivia having 30 seconds of intensive snogging with Josh & the rest of their scene being played out with him undressed. I know. I know I know I know. And I don't care. I'm just saying. Sigh. I am so demoralized. I can see where they're going. I just fucking hate their template. This bouncing back & forth thing Olivia's doing, even with your sterling analysis of this morning, is not playing very well. Where are they going? That's pretty clear: everyone in the town will have to gang up WITH Nat to convince Olivia that Nat wants her & that marriage with Frank is wrong. Or something. Point is, everyone will see the wrongness of Nat marrying Frank, now that the secret's out. ("I didn't turn out so bad." Well. At least we had our moment of humor today.) The ugly wrongness of watching a repeat of the couch scene... with Frank. Was about all I could stand. It was totally deliberate. Right down to the head-stroke. I think the scene at company is more of the same. Us thinking, oh *HELL* no, not this bullshit with Nat making everyone happy again. I think she'll speak up for herself but... maybe not. I'll tell you what upset me most, on first viewing (I'm sure other things will upset me more if I can stand to go back): The idea that Rafe identifies his mother as a lesbian when she has not labeled herself thus AND that he acknowledges this as he forbids it. This may be totally in keeping with this show's methodology (of claiming names/labels in a negative or nullifying way, which I have been trying to discuss here for 4 months), but wow do I resent THAT. eta: I am choosing not to believe they'll dick around with this for 4 weeks. This couple (ahm... should we send them a dictionary definition or something? help out a bit? I mean I know it's a soap but) needs. time. together. You know: talking. Hand-holding. All that sexy stuff. LIKE OTHER COUPLES. They do not need to play telephone for the last 4 weeks of their time on the show. Please put me out of my misery soon. Or I might have to check out, rack up a week or two of eps, & then watch in a cluster. This is giving my indigestion. Angst I'm cool with. I actually do get that I'm watching a soap. I can tell because it makes my eyes bleed, every time. What I cannot take is the false issues, the indirectness of the 'drama'. Maybe it's something fundamental about the nature of drama I am not understanding. But this could be about what it is about in a whole lot more direct way than it is currently being about That. |
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| abzug | Aug 19 2009, 04:46 PM Post #731 |
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In love with a prisoner
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You know what's interesting about this template idea? Olivia spent the entire episode trying to make sure a man would come between her and Natalia. When Josh wisely declined, she went to Frank. Frank, being a dumbass, essentially took her up on the offer (which is NOT what the spoiler said, damnit!!!!!). So it's like Olivia doesn't have any way to process her feelings or work through the relationship other than by inserting a man into the mix, either to distract her, or on whom to project her emotions.
Interesting. I didn't assume it would be a community effort, I assumed it would be Nat doing her best "I love Olivia" dance. But given that Blake was at Company when Nat and Frank shared their news, I think you're right that there will be community pressure as well, if only people saying to the two of them "What are you guys doing? You love each other, you should be together." But it's annoying that right now all we're seeing is the negative pressure (Frank and Rafe) and very little of the positive (Josh was the only positive force, and he was kinda neutral, really). You know, for someone who had so many fights with Olivia back in the day, Nat is striking me as really controntation-avoidant. Why else would she let Rafe beat her down like that, or let Frank bulldoze her?
It is really weird for Rafe to be saying his mother's a lesbian and then telling her she can have love with Frank (if she's a lesbian, obviously she can't). And you're right, this is what the show is doing as well, clearly constructing them as lesbians, and then not letting them actually BE lesbians (ie kiss, be together, whatever). If CBS/P&G is Rafe, and EW and JLH are Olivia and Natalia, then it's like CBS is saying, sure, do your little storyline, but you can't show kissing, you need to make sure a man is always involved, and you can't call them lesbians. And poor EW and JLH are writing within the constraints, and the story is flourishing, bizarrely, even though it's being silenced/repressed from most directions. So no matter what Rafe/CBS says, it won't/can't go away. I know you're talking about something subtly different, the use of the word lesbian, as a label, and the fact that naming is used in a negative way, to condemn, not as a positive thing. Which I agree is problematic. It makes a viewer feel like "Gee, if it's about lesbians it's bad, but it's about love, not lesbians, so it's ok." Yeah, well, what about when it's actually about lesbians? Because when I fuck my girlfriend, it's because I'm a lesbian. I'm just sayin'. |
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| solitasolano | Aug 19 2009, 04:48 PM Post #732 |
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I totally thought that. When Nat says she hasn't told Frank yet, Olivia reacts sharply. This is when she starts to lash out to get work up to "I don't trust you". Plus, when Natalia first steps out from the car and says she's pregnant (don't have time to see if this is the very end of monday or beginning of tues) Olivia says "Congratulations" in slightly snide way. Of course she knows who the father is...But then isn't she part of the whole doing? She knows/feels/senses all that time she spent pushing Nat onto Frank and now this. Re. 12 hours from now. I'm dying here. I haven't read beyond cagey's comments into today... |
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| ekny | Aug 19 2009, 04:56 PM Post #733 |
In love with a prisoner
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That's one of the more irritating dynamics here, yes. ITA, you nailed that puppy to the floor.
We all did because we want that. What we didn't expect was to watch nat's spine melt again before our eyes. I HAVE to assume that's temporary. Have to.
Yep. I'm with you on that. It will continue to flourish in this weird, weird way. Labelless. <snort> Nice work with the meta, tho. ![]()
It's what I've been saying all along. We on the same page. It's just not their page. Their page is about Frank being there EVERY DAY to be a daddy like Rafe insisted was soooo important to his Emotional Development. Have I mentioned my pet fantasy about Frank being the sudden death on the show, since his filming ended early? I realize we've all been fantasizing this for awhile, one way or another (or so I assume), & it won't happen because Frank AND Rafe are both mission-critical to this story, which requires the presence of not one but TWO swinging dicks. But oh, how I long for an ugly end to Frank. Rafe I can't even spare the energy to hate any more, it's bad for my bp. ETA:
Of all the scenes, obviously although the comforting by Frank was sick-making, the scene at Company was by far the most repellent. I am trying to hold on to the idea it's mid-week and this madness will NOT drag on. That it's one of those stupid things like the sex-toy week. Seriously. Because they have so many real issues to deal with here, that the writers could choose from. What is all this falseness about? It's. not. necessary. They don't NEED it to have good drama. It's the opposite of good drama. |
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| ekny | Aug 19 2009, 05:12 PM Post #734 |
In love with a prisoner
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I feel better now. Calmer. No you can't have my vicodin. Seriously? Witness: I sent yesterday's deep-voiced Rod-Serling-style preview to a friend ("The promo was great! I expected Atomic Mutant Grasshoppers to attack"), along with yesterday's ep, who wrote back: It shambles into your living room, bones showing through its decaying flesh, its tongue is phosphorescent with decay. It is Daytime Television and it shrieks for what it needs the most. "Brains!" |
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| abzug | Aug 19 2009, 05:13 PM Post #735 |
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In love with a prisoner
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It's unclear to me if they are going to be on again this week, which is probably part of what has me in an even worse mood. I don't know for sure, either way, and certainly there have been weeks when the spoilers indicated they were on two days, and then they were on four, or something like that. So who knows. But we might have to wait til Monday, and I don't want that many days of fuming. Interestingly, I'm going to the Guiding Light event at the Paley Center tonight, where Ellen Wheeler and Jill Lorie Hurst will be speaking on a panel. I might not be able to contain my annoyance if I ask a question, so I might need to just bite my tongue for an hour and a half. |
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8:46 AM Jul 11