Sunday, 7 October 2012

Why The Breakup is Breaking My Patience


One minute 40 seconds of Wemma dialogue plus their presence in 'The Scientist'.  I’m almost tempted to stop watching Glee, save all of the compiled Wemma pieces from season 4 (that some very kind person posts each week on tumblr) and watch them in one hit at the end – that should equal one complete episode – 40 minutes thus saving 21x 40 mins of my time.

Watching Glee reminds me why I prefer books. You can read the entire story as fast as you like instead of being given 5 lines of a page each week. You can get into the characters’ heads, everything happens on the page and you can find emotional satisfaction.

With Wemma RIB have created the most drawn out romance in the history of television and they keep using the same plot devices to put their characters in the same situations to hit us over the head with the same character traits and create convoluted tension. 

So now Will has another ‘dream’ or ambition and once again he won’t do it without Emma. Of course he wants her by his side, he is incomplete without her and as he said in the proposal, ‘loving her and being loved by her makes everything better.’ Emma feels the same way but she is much more pragmatic than Will and it makes more sense for her to stay at home and keep busy with work than be bored and alone all day in Washington. Will should know this, he’s known her for three years and if the writers had any ambition to move these characters forward they would stop creating drama out of nothing and stop making Will look so myopic and self-centred. 

So now Emma will either go with him to prove yet again how much she loves him (and how many times has Emma already proved this?). Or he will realise how unhappy she is about going and be strong enough to go without her (because how many 'dreams' is he going to forgo to be with Emma?) Or they must choose a dream that they can accomplish together ie having a family.

If they separate for the two months I want to hear them say: I will miss you like crazy but I will phone every day and write you love letter emails every day. Now that would be fun to watch in the coming episodes. Then Will could sing 'Leaving on a jet plane' again which  could incorporate a sequence of them in bed, a LONG KISS goodbye, a close up of hands not wanting to separate, lips not wanting to part, Emma doodling love hearts again. We could see them talking on the phone with the always amusing split screen format,  Emma sleeping with Will's vest, Will carrying Emma's perfume with him! Songs of longing and a ROMANTIC reunion on that long weekend Emma was talking about then the happiness of Will and Emma exploding on to the screen with a song and a dance when Will returns. The possibilities. Let the fans write the episodes!

Who knows, maybe Will will say these things in the next episode in the next two minutes he’ll be given.

Perhaps the best thing from The Break Up is that the male voices are finally being ‘broken up’ by the females’ points of view. Rachel tells Finn she doesn’t need him to give her her freedom, she’s capable of getting it herself; Santana is making decisions for herself; And Emma is telling Will (as she always has) that she has her own ship to sail. (Sometimes she’s sailed it blindly, but she’s always sailed it and that’s not about to change because her status is now ‘fiance’.) Suddenly after three seasons sisters are doing it for themselves. 

Tuesday, 2 October 2012

Why Will and Emma can't break up


I know writers can take stories and their character’s arcs in any direction they please and we all know RIB have taken the Glee characters in some pretty ridiculous directions over the course of 3 seasons but if they have any sense or integrity towards Will and Emma it would be totally out of character to split them up. It would defy all logic and make the past three seasons meaningless.

Emma and Will’s commitment to each other and their ‘meant to be togetherness’ has been built by:

Past actions:

·      Will’s wife wasn’t enough to stand in the way of their love.
·      Carl wasn’t enough to stand in the way of their love.
·      Will’s Broadway dream wasn’t enough to stand in the way of their love.
·      Emma’s OCD wasn’t enough to stand in the way of their love.
·      Emma has been willing to sacrifice her own happiness for Will’s personal growth.
·      Will has been willing to sacrifice his happiness for her personal growth.
·      They give each other constant support.

Film techniques that reiterate their ‘oneness’:

·      Matching clothes
·      The repetition of clothing them in yellow and blue
·      Camera angles that represent Emma as Will’s ‘guardian angel’.
·      symbols
·      The gaps that existed between them when sitting in seasons 1 and 2 were all closed in season 3.
·      The mirroring of each other’s body language/actions in season 3.

The dialogue:
Every word that comes out of their mouths reiterates their devotion and commitment to each other but here’s a few recent lines:

·      Will’s proposal
·      Emma’s ‘this incomplete person with so much love for you.’
·      ‘I’m so grateful to have you by my side’
·      ‘Many years to come.’
·      ‘I don’t want to lose you.’
·      We’ll cross that bridge together’

The songs:
From the pivotal episode Yes No, which reflect the intensity of their love:
·      Wedding Bell Blues
·      Without You
·      First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
·      We Found Love in a Hopeless Place

So RIB stop it with the ‘will they/won’t they’ shenanigans and fill our screens with Wemma  fun, romance, dancing, singing and learning new things about each other. Let them share experiences and goals: THE WEDDING that Emma has longed for since season 1 and the child Will has wanted since season 1! Remember season 1 RIB? It all began with Will and Emma.