your wecolme

This is a really good point and I’m glad someone wrote me and brought this up, because I wanted to talk about EJ but I felt like I was posting too much HSM content, haha. 

I know they were trying to give some redemption to EJ by getting him to apologize for every bad thing he’s ever done, but it felt so shallow. And I know they wanted to put a little bit of humor into those moments, because it’s  HSMTMTS and we’re getting enough drama with Gina and the Ricky/Nini storylines, but I don’t think redemption has been earned by him…yet.

He’s still acting out of selfish reasons. He feels good apologizing so he’s doing with for himself with aboutsely no finesse or compassion. He doesn’t care what he says to other people as long as he gets something off his chest. He also thought he’d gain cred (is it “clout” now?) on social media for all the purging of secrets, which was another motive for him. And as i’ve said a million times, motive is everything (at least, to me). 

So, yes. I want more from it. I want him to realize, now that he’s been “cancelled” (is he a celebrity?), that he was going about things the wrong way. Let’s get a deeper look into why he lied and manipulated to begin with–whether that’s his family or some other trigger. 

What I don’t want? For this to just end up being a lesson on how social media hurts people. I feel like they may go the “EJ is getting bullied online and cyber bullying is wrong” route, and while that’s all very true and important, it’s not where this particular story needs to go. We need to care about EJ, and we need EJ to be complex, we don’t need an after school special. A cyber bullying storyline isn’t going to make us empathetic towards EJ, because he hasn’t done anything to prove he’s a good person yet (no that bullying is EVER RIGHT, to be clear). 

So fingers crossed it heads where you suggested and they dive into his family. The writers do seem to be introducing more of the individual characters worlds as the season progresses, so we may get it. 

As far as Ashlyn, it’s kind of the same deal, except Ashlyn is obviously a much better human than EJ, but our trauma manifests in different ways. She may be dope and selfless and kind, but she is insecure. The comment she made about “getting compliments” was obviously to portray she…never gets them and maybe that means she never got any support, love or attention growing up.