Initially this started because I just wanted to thank you for being so kind, gracious, and patient with a random internet stranger who sent you a message out of the blue because they were super excited to share their love of and praise for Derry Girls. So thank you. I appreciate you receiving my initial message with such aplomb and even taking time to make a kind reply to it. Thatās very classy of you.
Beyond that, this message just kind of snowballed into a bunch more random thoughts and ideas about the characters and musings on the show. If itās bothersome, please let me know. I certainly donāt mean to be annoying, but I literally know no one whom I think would appreciate what a masterpiece this show was top-to-bottom, nor, further, someone who might be interested in discussing it. But again, if youāre not interested in these musings, don't feel like you have to entertain them. It wonāt hurt my feelings. I recognize that people only have limited time and bandwidth.
In no particular order my further rambling thoughts are below:
āGranda Joe sort of baffled me for a bit. His vitriol and anger toward Gerry is oddly and humorously out of place. Now obviously, Gerry facilitates the āstraight manā archetype in the comedy of the show. He gets picked on because heās the comedic foil due to his normalcy. But the Granda Joe hate goes further I think. My supposition is that Granda Joe was everything he accuses Gerry of being as a husband until he lost his wife. Itās not Gerry he hates. It's himself. Heās projecting. He hates and resents the man he once was as a husband and the fact that he cannot correct that mistake now. So instead heās trying to prevent it from happening to his daughters/granddaughters. Even though it actually isnāt. Gerry is the man Joe wishes he had been, but wasnāt when his wife was alive. Thoughts? Also have you ever seen The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? I have some evidence that I feel like would support this argument further, but I donāt want to mention it lest I spoil that show, which I certainly donāt want to do.Ā
āNow DG really loves to hammer in the parallels with a vengeance. Almost beats you in the face with them to be honest. Goodness gracious, the Mammies flashback episode was practically a nine pound hammer. But one of the parallels that I found interesting is James and Gerry. They barely interact, but I love how theyāre each the sort of moral center of their respective generations. Itās wonderful to see them try to dial back the more abrasive, ridiculous, and self-centered impulses of those around them, especially their significant others (if one can go so far as to say that with Erin/James), but still be supportive and get pulled into shenanigans nonetheless. Gerryās been doing it so long, itās just snark for him (āThatāll show āemā, āWell that got to the bottom of thatā, āIs that a suggestion, Bridie, or an orderā) whereas James is much more direct (āYou donāt have integrity, Erin.ā, āNot now, Erinā¦ā) yet never loses sight of the beauty of those same people or fails to appreciate them.
āMichelle is all piss and vinegar because sheās obviously insecure, but I was always curious where all that bravado originated. Holy hell was the finale worth it. You find out about Niall (sp?) and it suddenly clicks. She grew up fast because she lost an older brother (whom she likely idolized) and not only did he just whoosh out of her life, but he did something TERRIBLE, something that she admits was terrible and makes her family feel ashamed. Then she doesnāt get to process it well, because her parents (or at least her mother) donāt want to face it and process it themselves. No wonder the poor girl is looking for every distraction she can get.
āPoor James probably feels like heās just a replacement. Thatās got to be tough for a kid thatās already dealing with abandonment issues. But also kudos to Deirdre and Martin for taking him in anyway. Jesus. And the S2 finale where Michelle begs him not to go back to England with his mother. Sheās gotten attached to him in spite of herself, and we as the audience donāt yet know sheās not just begging to keep her cousin around because heās fun to mess with, she's begging to keep what amounts to a surrogate brother in her life, because sheās already had one torn away.
āSomewhat related to the above questions/observations, but goodness how did Deirdre have two sons before Michelle if sheās Maryās age? And that seems to suggest that Niall had to have committed his act of murder while he was still a teen. Jesus, that is heavy. Maybe the timeline is sort of fudgy there. Maybe they came up with the Niall plot point much later? I donāt know. Thoughts here?
āColm is fucking amazing. The payoff in the first episode of season 3 was pure bliss. No further notes.
āActually one further note. Colm has to give a speech at the Erin/James wedding. āI says to myself, Colm this is a fabulous day for a doā¦ā
āThe scene in the flashback episode where they do slow-mo to make it look like everybody is running for the tree, but theyāre actually just exaggeratedly power walking when the footage hits real time again. And theyāre still all winded! Man what a good bit. Itās silly, but I genuinely got a good laugh out of it.
Erin/James related stuff:
--While I certainly donāt want this to have become the focal point of the show at the end, I feel like the lack of even a single line to tie off the thread keeps me coming back to the pair of them. They could have fixed this with literally a pair of lines without ever really having to focus on it. Just flip the lines from the first episode. Have some random person parallel Erinās initial question about James, āWho owns the fella?ā and have Erin answer, āHeās with me.ā or āHeās mine.ā She claims him, we the audience understand they will be together at some point. The thread is tied off. I can sleep at night. But noā¦
āI keep coming back to three literary touchstones for these two as a couple. Again and again. Gwendolyn Brooks, Christopher Isherwood, and James Joyce.Ā
Joyce and Isherwood may seem like the more obvious touchstones here, but Brooks has me hooked as well. Thereās a recurring motif in Brooksās poetry about being caught in the whirlwind, most obviously at the forefront of the Second Sermon on the Warpland, but it occurs in her other works as well. But that poem and that first stanza not only strike me as poignant for the group as a whole, but for Erin and James especially as they explore their relationship going forward before they eventually settle down. As I mentioned in my first message, I see those two going round and round with each other. Afraid of pulling each other off the āright pathā/distract each other, afraid of what happens if it goes wrong, but absolutely in love and in the moment when they do, perhaps just afraid to voice it, and if they do then just afraid to go all in. But they eventually do get there.
Christopher Isherwood for a few reasons, but mostly his semi-autobiographical novel āGoodbye to Berlin.ā Isherwood is, of course, an English novelist travelling abroad, and he thinks himself somehow on the outside, writing that he is a, "camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinkingā¦ā The parallels to James should be obvious at this point. Of course, no person is capable of such objective observance, such a thing is not truly possible for a human being and you begin to see just how Isherwood (and James) begins to affect the lives of those he takes himself to be recording oh so objectively. Iām not sure if James brings it up first to impress Erin (which he succeeds in doing), or Erin teases him by making reference to it herself and they start talking shop as it were. Either way, I can see them lowkey flirting about it over drinks, Michelle completely bored with the conversation, Orla really interested in it (because sheās so adorably into so many things everyone else seems to hate. Like those Jenny Joyce Assemblies), and Clare completely worried about missing the bus back, because it's a /long/ walk back from the bar theyāre in.
Now Joyce being the titan he is of Irish literature, obviously speaks to Erinās literary aspirations and I need not state his importance here. But what calls me here is not his body of literary work, but something I donāt think is as well known about his personal life. There exists a series of quite a few letters exchanged between James Joyce and his wife Nora which have an unabashedly erotic subject matter. One of which recalls their first date wherein during a walk sheānot to be too crassāuh, manually stimulated him. Now, this, uh, tuggy, being so good, that he later set his Magnum Opus, Ulysses, on that very dayāJune 16th, 1904. Iām not joking.
Now, I say this not to be gross, but to underline something that I think is likely to be true of the pair of Erin/James. Namely, that I think theyād be a very physically affectionate couple. Thatās not to say I think theyād be sex fiends or something. Just that in the show they seem to touch each other or be in close physical proximity a lot. Now some of that Iām willing to chalk up to them being in a female friend group, where physical affection tends to be more readily shared than in male friend groups. But Iād also argue that their physical contact tends to exceed the physical contact of any two other members of the group from what we see on screen. Given a few factors Erinās neediness to be the center of attention, Jamesās eagerness to please, the likely fleeting nature of their dalliances in their late teens and twenties, perhaps even the āforbiddenā nature if theyāre trying to stay on the down low from Michelle, and their history of touch prior to and after the Donegal smooches, I feel somewhat confident in saying theyād be pretty cuddly together. Maybe not obviously touchy-feely when theyāre around other folks, but downright tangled into one another when they have time to themselves. Her fingers in his hair, limbs all tangled while they sleep, sitting very closely to one another. Lots of kisses when they think they can get away with it. Given that, thereās no way Erin doesnāt bring the Joyce thing up at some point making a note that she and James have been out dozens of times and that if she wants to catch up to one of her literary idols, James is going to have a lot of making up to do in the āromantic museā department.
James: āHonestly Erin, I canāt believe you're suggestingā¦ā
Erin: āMe? This from the fella I saw piss in a bin the day we met.ā
James: āOh god. Iād tried to forget about that.ā
Erin: āWell, I havenāt. Why do you think weāre together?ā
āWhich brings up a silly question. Did Erin actually see anything in the first episode? On one hand, from the angles they filmed, it felt like she had to see something, but on the other they just sort of played the scene for farce and she never really had the reaction youād expect of her if she had seen something. Given that, Iād always assumed sheād been too distracted with her whole situation to actually even notice what James was up to, and it never really gets brought up again. You have to feel like Michelle would have repeatedly called him a flasher or something, but she never does. Thoughts?
ā--Did you draw the wonderful art at the top of your blog? It's lovely. Is there a gallery of more pieces?
Goodness this got out of hand. Anyway friend, you have a wonderful evening. Take care and thanks again for being so nice to a rando who happened upon and fell in love with the show.
[So thank you. I appreciate you receiving my initial message with such aplomb and even taking time to make a kind reply to it. Thatās very classy of you.]
Welcome back! And thanks for the nice words, I'm happy to be nice to anyone who reaches out! It's how we keep a fandom for this show alive! Sorry it took a bit to answer, as you mention I just didn't have time before to answer, but I'm here now! It really isn't a bother at all for me! I like engaging with the show, or I wouldn't have a whole blog about it that I still use!
[Even though it actually isnāt. Gerry is the man Joe wishes he had been, but wasnāt when his wife was alive. Thoughts?]
I could see that being an interesting direction to take the character! I think we're sort of meant to just see Joe as the overprotective father to daughters type, you know the kind that often exists in media where he can never quite let go of his little girls. Though it would add an interesting flavor to his hatred of Gerry and his grief he occasionally shows over the loss of Marie. Funnily enough I see Erin acting similarly overprotective of her daughters when they enter serious relationships - both as a parallel and just because in my headcanon, Erin's eldest daughter Matilda ends up with Jenny Joyce's son Jason so she has that old grudge making her wary of that relationship (at least at first, I don't think she'd hold out with the grudge as long as Joe did with her father.)
[Also have you ever seen The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? I have some evidence that I feel like would support this argument further, but I donāt want to mention it lest I spoil that show, which I certainly donāt want to do.]
I've not seen it yet but it is on my list! I just don't have an abundance of free time to develop new interests, though I might check it out when my wife and I can cohabitate together finally.
[No wonder the poor girl is looking for every distraction she can get.]
Oh yeah, Michelle was always a character I enjoyed but she really did fully click for me starting from the end of Season 2 through the rest of the series. I love her character and her relationship with James and how much sense it makes that she lost her brother shortly before meeting him and how it puts her initial vitriol into context and it also makes sense that later, it is a sign of affection too. She's now comfortable he won't leave so she can snark but it's a bit softer now and she lets him know in her own ways she cares. And even having a huge crush on Erin that has lasted years at that point, he still chooses Michelle when they fall out, which had to mean a lot to her.
[Jesus, that is heavy. Maybe the timeline is sort of fudgy there. Maybe they came up with the Niall plot point much later? I donāt know. Thoughts here?]
Little of Column A, little of Column B. Derry Girls doesn't trouble itself with the intricacies of its' timeline, it's more roughly 90s than any exact time, going for more of the feeling of that age than being accurate so the same goes for backstory with the Mammies. Plus, if I'm remembering right, the Michelle story in the finale was originally not going to be as serious, and then the pandemic gave Lisa McGee time to ruminate on the themes of growing up and she allowed it to be more serious so it could partly be that as well. Either way I think it works more than it doesn't.
[Actually one further note. Colm has to give a speech at the Erin/James wedding. āI says to myself, Colm this is a fabulous day for a doā¦ā]
Those poor wedding guests, they don't deserve that. Which is why it absolutely should happen. Derry Girls does that kind of humor very well.
[While I certainly donāt want this to have become the focal point of the show at the end, I feel like the lack of even a single line to tie off the thread keeps me coming back to the pair of them.]
I kinda like that they didn't tie a neat bow on them, simply because it has a very open-ended feeling where they can be anything one wants them to be, and it also lends itself well to a 'we'll see' thread that suits the episode where Erin doesn't know what'll happen in the future with the vote but the important thing is that there's a hope for the best ending and that's how I view her own view on her relationship with James - she doesn't know if it'll work out, she hopes that it might and that's the most thrilling feeling - to hope for a good possibility and to see what happens someday. Like she's starting a new book on the first page of adulthood after a long time reading the book of her adolescence.
[I keep coming back to three literary touchstones for these two as a couple. Again and again. Gwendolyn Brooks, Christopher Isherwood, and James Joyce.]
Not much for me to contribute here with commentary but I really loved reading this bit you go on with, I do love me some literary analysis and connective tissue, it must be said.
[Now, I say this not to be gross, but to underline something that I think is likely to be true of the pair of Erin/James. Namely, that I think theyād be a very physically affectionate couple.]
That's not ridiculous, that's not ridiculous to say that. *nod* I also don't think it's gross to discuss their sex life at all. Partly cause they're played by actors who were either in their thirties or approaching their thirties and partly because (within reason) it is fair to discuss sex and sexuality inside coming of age narratives. Hell, Michelle does all the time. So I don't mind that kind of tangent so long as it remains respectful to the characters relative to where they are in their journey.
[I feel somewhat confident in saying theyād be pretty cuddly together. Maybe not obviously touchy-feely when theyāre around other folks, but downright tangled into one another when they have time to themselves. Her fingers in his hair, limbs all tangled while they sleep, sitting very closely to one another. Lots of kisses when they think they can get away with it.]
That's not ridiculous, that's not ridiculous to say that. *nod*
[Which brings up a silly question. Did Erin actually see anything in the first episode?]
Knows what happened, didn't see it is my guess. I maintain Erin caught feelings first and James caught them harder and the whole 'pissin' in a bin' debacle was a good way to chase that off for a while. That being said, if Erin Quinn had seen an actual real-life dick, I think she would have made commentary about it in her diary (grossness aside, it is a formative moment for a young woman regardless of the feelings of it, trust me I know.) and I read her diary, she didn't. Which is for the best, when they do finally have sex, she doesn't have to think about the last time she saw it being that time. Good for James mostly, I doubt he'd be nearly as confident if he knew she'd seen it in that context.
[Did you draw the wonderful art at the top of your blog? It's lovely. Is there a gallery of more pieces?]
Why yes, I sure did! I have my art tagged if I'm not mistaking, though I haven't drawn too much, just companion art for my best friend @areseebee's Jerin fics (highly recommend if you want to dive further into fan content!) so maybe I'll go through and reblog some of 'em later!
[Take care and thanks again for being so nice to a rando who happened upon and fell in love with the show.]
Thanks! Glad to help provide you with someone to chat to!
