Acceptance

season 2

Episode 18

‘Acceptance’ writes Will on the board behind Emma and the shippers are thinking FINALLY she’s ready to deal with her problem. The shippers read her tshirt, Will reads her tshirt, the kids read her tshirt and everyone looks disappointedly or confusedly at it; Emma is one step forward two steps back to her boat docked on the river of denial, ready and waiting for a fast get away. ‘I don’t like that term, it sounds too serious’, says Emma to Will when he labels her problem correctly as an OCD, ‘It is my lot in life’. Maybe he’s tired of cleaning grapes but Will refuses to allow her to ‘deflect’ this issue any longer, and he gives Emma some tough love. We learnt last week that Will has been researching OCD and he knows what he is talking about: accommodating a person’s disorder is only manifesting the problem. He wants what is best for Emma and he knows that their relationship cannot move forward until she accepts the seriousness of her problem. As Mercedes sang in Night of Neglect, ‘Ain't no way for me to love you if you won't let me, there ain't no way for me to give you all you need if you won't let me give all of me.’ Their relationship is on honest and balanced ground now. Gone are the film techniques that supported her as a heavenly being and Will is totally honest with her. He is frustrated and angry with her because he’s proven over and over again how much he loves her and is willing to support her, but she, by refusing to deal with her problem, is in effect refusing to accept Will’s love and love him back. So for the second time in the series (the first time was when she told him she’d married Carl) he walks willingly away from her without looking back, leaving her alone. She gets a glimpse of her future, a future without Will, a future filled with clean fruit and nothing else and she doesn’t like it. She accepts she needs professional help but it’s painful for her; she’s scared. Scared to accept herself. Scared to accept the new Emma that might not have her every move controlled by her OCD. Scared to accept that she might have to bare her soul. And ‘secrets’? The shippers are intrigued. Was she ‘born this way’ or not? (Season 3 here we come!) The final vestiges of her steely resistance prove she’s not going down without a fight but the therapist is firm and she sets Emma’s boat adrift; there will be no further sailing down that river. Emma ACCEPTS her flaw and she can’t wait to tell Will. His lesson is a success. Will has ‘got it right’. He grabs Emma’s hand and they skip with joy across the stage. In forty episodes has he looked this happy? It’s been such a long time, we can’t remember. Emma throws her jacket off alongside Will’s, exposing herself to the world (or at least to the kids). The shippers’ hearts dance with them.