💕

ashlyn: you walk into a room

But I’m with you all the way.

Andi Mack 2017 - 2019

I liked it, it was nice to get to hear them talk openly about Tyrus. And it was nice of ysbnow to actually go through with the interview like four months later. It was nice to get a bit firmer timeline of when they knew what. We know that Luke found out that TJ was gay after his second ep, 2x05, and Josh found out from Luke during the filming of the first Swingset scene in 2x11 that TJ and Cyrus would be a thing. Though it does sound like Josh read the script for 2x11 and hoped it might be the start of something and they both decided to play it in a romantic way before Josh got that confirmation.

I’m surprised that they didn’t realize how many people would get that Tyrus was a thing after Swingset scene 1.0. It’s not a subtle scene at all and it was quite long for a scene on the show, ship related or otherwise; it’s a scene designed to make the audience pay attention. It was a great twist and the best written Tyrus scene we ever got imo.

Sloppy of Terri to not make sure that Luke or his parents weren’t homophobic before casting him but I guess she decided that she had to know if he’d be okay with playing a gay character before Tyrus had their first scene. Shady of her not to tell Josh directly and it would have made things difficult for the show going forward the longer she kept him in the dark since Cyrus’ crush on Jonah was supposed to be fading and his crush on TJ growing over S2 and it’s very hard to show that without using words if the actors don’t know what’s going on. Very in character for Josh to immediately tell everyone.

So the Shrek reference in Thelonious Jagger was likely just a coincidence. Since Terri was going to let Luke pick TJ’s name so obviously didn’t have any plans for it and must have decided to work backwards from TJ suddenly being a piano player and knowing Born This Way in the series finale. if TJ had been named Theodore Jehoshaphat like Luke planned which sounds like his parents are religious it’s a lot less likely that he’d learn to play a song like Born This Way but a name like Thelonious Jagger makes his parents sound like hippies which fits better. Can’t believe Luke forgot to name TJ and that Terri ultimately just decided to do it herself without reminding him.  

It was nice of them to slip in as many hints as they could especially since their entire story line was in subtext until the handhold. Luke’s line about them slipping in more hints than the writers and crew wanted was very revealing. Writers would be code for Terri as she’s the only writer who would actually contact them and I’d assume crew refers to directors like Paul Hoen and Michelle Manning who was the effective showrunner on the ground in Utah. It sounds like there were lots of even gayer takes for scenes like the golfcart scene which isn’t a surprise. On one level I do understand why the adults on set would have wanted them to tone it down since Tyrus very nearly ended up being queerbait and in that sense the less the audience is clued in the better but at the same time it’s not like they were at the mercy of two teen actors who really wanted the ship to happen. If Tyrus ended the series without canoning then the queerbait would have been scenes like Swingset scenes 1 and 2.0 and TJ’s lookback that were all in the script, not heart eyes and side hugs coming from the actors.

Josh’s line about always having the company’s support is similar to his tweets about Tyrus and Seblos saying that Disney was always supporting them in their battles to get rep on Andi Mack but that’s obviously not true. If Disney had actually supported the gay story line wholeheartedly then there wouldn’t have been any battles to fight. We already knew that canon Tyrus was only approved with the series finale but hearing them talk about how they were unsure if it would even happen and then hearing from Terri who told them she got it into the script is still bracing; it must have been a nerve wracking last few months on set not knowing if there’d ever be canon payoff for Tyrus.