#anonymously asked

Even I agree in a broad sense, and I’d consider myself more of a middle of the road person. I don’t have a horse in this race and I’m not overly invested in (and care very little for) Elizabeth, but I’m a bit baffled at their reasoning for doing things this way.

I’m 100% on board with the #TeamNathan fans saying they feel ripped off. They didn’t even get one date scene and felt like it was okay only because she would choose Nathan in the end. Upon the reveal of her choice being Lucas...that illusion was quickly shattered, of course. 

If the reality was that she was replacing Jack with Nathan, then they really should have written that into the narrative more coherently instead of having her tell us about it in the 11th hour. Sometimes “telling” is important, but seeing as how this is a defining, important moment, and this is character work, it should have been shown instead.

I also feel if the goal was a balanced triangle, they failed by her not actually being a little in love with both men, but honestly the entire season, especially the last three episodes, felt so choppy I shouldn’t even be surprised at that. Of course it’s bad. -_- 

I’m sure the job will go to Lee, or they’ll do a huuuge dramatic plotline about it where there are cutthroat politics afoot. Personally I think it’d be a little insensitive to do that type of storyline right now, but 99% of this town would suck at being mayor.

If Bill wins: he’s the objectively BEST choice because he knows the most and is the most fair/likely to do the right thing always, BUT he’s also a judge so that seems like...a conflict of interest. If he quits being a judge it could work really well, though.

If Lee wins: he’s maybe a little too passive for mayor and would think too long and people would get annoyed with that. He is really level-headed, though, so he won’t be impulsive, but I hate the suggestion that his job doesn’t keep him busy enough. In most previous seasons Rosemary worked because Lee worked so much and she was lonely, so it feels stupid to throw that away now. He’s always been a workaholic...let him stay one.

If Fiona wins: she doesn’t feel like a part of the town enough to me to logically get elected, but it sure as HELL would reek of Hallmark pretending to be feminist just like they did when they randomly decided Abigail was head of the town council and thus Henry’s replacement in S4. No thanks... At least she’d be bossy about it, though.

If Mike wins: he’s a good guy and likely to listen to people but I don’t think he has the backbone that’s necessary, and he sure as heck doesn’t have half the knowledge he needs. He’d mean well, but meh.

I wish Dottie had stayed on because she would have made the BEST mayor: a big part of the town, she’d know everything about it from being married to a mayor (and having worked with Henry when he was one), she’s smart, she’s got good sense, and she’s decisive without being hateful. She’s always been written that way. She always made more sense than Abigail.

(I’m not saying there aren’t other choices, of course. Joseph would be so good at it with the right knowledge but he’s not integrated enough into the town yet. Neither is Minnie. I hate the idea of Jesse and Clara getting more screentime at this point. And on and on.)

Anyway, after this awful triangle, the LAST thing I want to watch are characters I like tearing each other down (or lying) to try and win. I can see the plotline already... Bill, Lee, and Fiona all at each other’s throats and either Mike wins by default because he’s too sweet to lie or be mean to anyone, or Fiona wins because Mike accidentally talks her up so much. I mean it’d be in character but I’d rather not see Lee and Bill look like jackasses for a whole season, thanks.

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I absolutely HATE the fan desire to have Lee and Rosemary reproduce. I’m not a big fan of children to begin with, but the whole infertility plot needs to mean something. If they just magically get pregnant ~wow what a miracle~ I would never watch this show again. Just like the whole Becky plotline (where she magically didn’t need the wheelchair wowzer it’s just mind over matter haha!) it’s just cruel to dangle that in front of the faces of people who have experienced that kind of heartache. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’d LOVE an adoption plotline, preferably of a young teenager (or several kids). They did that in Avonlea and it was incredible. Imagine Rosemary latching onto like, three orphaned siblings. It’d be so sweet. 

Like, if children would make Rosemary and Lee feel fulfilled in life (and that IS the case for some people out there!) then they can adopt. Yes, it sucks that they can’t just have their own kids, but this is a time period where it was cheap and easy to adopt children, so there’s no real reason not to do it. They even know the right people to help them find the perfect kid match(es) for their personality and lifestyle!

(By this I mean, they had their infertility plotline, and now they’ve had a break from that to think about their future and themselves and with no baby in sight maybe it’s time to consider adoption as a valid way of getting what they desire. My favorite part of this is that it feels SO SO SO in character for both of them to be on board adopting because they could adopt kids who were a little older, better at communicating, not so messy and disruptive in their day to day life, and...they get to CHOOSE...so that kid (or those kids) would always know that Lee and Rosemary CHOSE THEM.)

I get emotional thinking about an adoption storyline. I just think with the option right there, and with it feeling like it would work SO well for the characters, it’d be silly to go the baby route with them. And I’m tired of the fans who want another pregnancy. Clara can get pregnant if they want that. It makes sense, it could kickstart an adoption plotline for Lee and Rosemary, and then everyone is happy.

Of course they could be childfree forever, and happy that way! But only if they’ve come to terms with the infertility thing and how it feels to have that choice taken away from them. Maybe they could conclude that it doesn’t really work very well with their chosen lifestyle anyway, and it’s for the best that it didn’t happen for them, but still feel upset that it wasn’t an active choice they were able to make. I just seriously do not trust the showrunners/writers to handle this in a sensitive way.

No way is this Henry’s swansong. I mean, I guess it’s possible, like all things, but unless it’s confirmed he’s not coming back for S9, I’m going to assume he’ll be back. Maybe not right at the start of the season, but partway through. 

I agree that there was too little fanfare for it to be a final parting... It does feel very Henrylike in that way (I don’t think he’d want it), but the door is open for his return.

I also agree that his gaze lingered on that sign before he left town, though whether that was because he’s intending to visit her or he’s thinking of what he’s learned from her (and using it to maybe go spend time close to his son; he did grab those photos and put them in his jacket right over his heart aaa) is totally open and valid. Maybe both? LOL. I don’t think he’d just show up out of nowhere, though, so maybe he’s off to his son and he’ll continue to write Abigail from there and just...see where things go. At the very bare minimum I felt like she was a good influence on him and an important person in his life, and it’s been nice to see him taking lessons from her and trying to be better.

This was seriously such a good season for Henry, especially the scenes with his son. I think some of it was maybe a bit too much “we must redeem him at all costs so the fans don’t riot” which...I legitimately hate (stop trying that hard, it’s embarrassing...) but overall I enjoyed every moment he was on screen.

I think overall Elizabeth and Lucas are cute together, so hopefully with the choice out of the way if they do get good scenes, we can actually enjoy them if we choose to watch. I mean...because we’re all so dumb we’ll tune in again next year against our better judgment. LOL.

Yyyyeah, that’s what I’m saying. The show’s been mediocre since Day 1 and pretty bad half the time since Season 2. I seriously don’t know why ANYONE expected the story they were telling to be great, let alone well-written. Sure, as a blogger you have to kind of err on the side of positivity sometimes (nobody wants to be negative all the time, not even me...and criticism is where I thrive), but “this is the story they’re telling because nothing else makes sense” is just...wrong? I mean, I don’t think all the upset people are wrong to feel upset, but it’s been really rare that this series has told an actual good story on purpose. It’s even rarer when the better stories weren’t also very manipulatively written.

Ain’t nothin’ wrong with taking those stale ol’ crumbs from the WCtH table and putting them into some fanficloaf. I mean, if the show was perfect very few people would feel the need to write fanfiction about it!

I’ll answer every ask separately because I’m a slacker who doesn’t want to copy/paste... Thanks for the messages!

I was rooting for Nathan but I did wonder if they’d want to move away from doing another Mountie storyline and so am not surprised that they chose Lucas. I wish it had been done in a, uh, better way, but...eh. I’ve been disappointed so many times already by this show that the Poor Writing Quality bell has been rung to death. So I guess...not surprised they decided on Lucas...and not surprised that it wasn’t done very well all season long.

I wish Lee and Rosemary had more passionate moments, too. At least big soft hugs or something. I know the lip-pecking kisses happen because the actors both have it in their contract that that’s the best they’ll do, but it’s super cringey when it happens in a big emotional moment. I’d rather a hug there...or even some slightly different romantic stuff, like those sweet, sweet Period Drama Hand-Holds. I feel like Rosemary would be all about the PDA, so there has to be a more natural way to make the contractors “work” with the characters to a better degree.

(Maybe it’s cocky of me to think I could do better, but if they just can’t share passionate kisses on-screen, you need to think outside the box a little as a writer/director and come up with other ways they can be affectionate that don’t upset the actors while still giving the readers what they want: a romantic pair on screen.)

Iiii don’t fully agree; I think Elizabeth’s always been moderately selfish, self-righteous, and self-involved. Remember poor Charles? There was never a moment where Elizabeth was so dumb she didn’t know what was happening there; she grew up in that environment and knew exactly what was expected/what people were hoping to see come of that relationship, and could not for a second have misinterpreted Charles’ visits/meaning. She just liked the attention.

If you wanna get real deep, it’s VERY LIKELY she has some kind of fear of people thinking poorly of her, and so goes into full denial mode to avoid having to “be the bad guy” but that’s giving the writers too much credit lmao.

The only positive thing I can say about the whole thing with Charles is...at least it was over with in a season and didn’t get dragged out for three of them. CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW AWFUL THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN?

I know people think she had feelings for Nathan, but the show just tossed that entire idea out of the window with this final episode, rendering the whole concept of her heart being with Nathan (and therefore her mantra of following your heart being a final hour twist to push her into Nathan’s arms) null and void.

But maybe you mean she’s being a hypocrite in another way? What manner exactly? Is it really a new thing for her or has she done it before and you might have just missed it?

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I think you sent three messages but I’ll reply to each one separately because I’m lazy and it seems simpler. :P

I agree that the biggest issue with the love triangle is almost in two parts.

We don’t really feel like we know these men let alone why she would like them, but also

The writing is clumsy sometimes and it throws everything off.

Related to #1 you could also say, “Why should either of these men like Elizabeth beyond her good looks?” Like sure, her being good with kids is an admirable trait (from Nathan’s POV, anyway), but it’s not exactly romance-worthy on its own.

I wish there was a little more meaty discussion about “moving on” and the processing of grief. Here are some examples of grief that were addressed in the show:

Cat loved her husband but they’d been having a lot of troubles due to his gambling addiction, and the debt Joe left with her left Cat to care more about how her children felt about him than how she felt. I can’t help but feel that there was a little resentment there.

Florence straight up was still in love with Paul. Like he still left her love notes toward the end of his life and everything. As late as S5 she was still not ready to move past him.

Molly loved Patrick but was trying to live in the present by focusing on Rosaleen (so maybe struggled to process that loss). We never really saw her get over it.

Mary loved her husband and emotionally wasn’t ready to move on from him but felt she needed to take advantage of someone expressing an interest in her because she had a son to worry about and no way to provide for him long-term. We see her fall for Dewitt over time but it’s pretty clear to me that had she been financially sound, she would have never bothered with him from the start (because she wasn’t ready to move on).

Abigail seemed to be grieving for Peter way more than her husband Noah, so it’s possible they weren’t the uh...most in love anymore by the time he died, but they barely knew each other when they got married so there’s that. There are a few episodes that show her processing her grief, particularly for her son. She had nothing left of her family, so the difficulty for her was in leaving the house they had shared to get on with her life, and, much like Mary, not having the luxury of taking her sweet time to decide what to do.

When Dottie’s husband died and Bill expressed his condolences, she said, “Please. We both know my husband was no saint.” I never forgot that line. It’s hard to get a read on her relationship to Silas, but I got a “convenience” vibe from them. (In fact, at one point I thought she was going to hook up with Henry...lol.)

We also got a “moving on” theme with Bill and Nora for quite some time, where we saw that both characters grieved the loss of their son Martin differently (and in fact, were incompatible in this way as their methods of grieving only ended up hurting each other). Nora was very open with her grief; Bill was very closed about it. Even after a couple of years Nora couldn’t seem to finish processing her grief and felt she was alone in her hurt. I think Dottie was a catalyst for Nora being able to move on; she told her that she was not alone and many women in Hope Valley understood the hurt she was feeling very well. She then made a conscious effort to get on with her life and stop wallowing in her grief.

We also saw Clara struggle a little with the memory of Peter, but it was just a glimpse, and I think serves to show the audience that moving on doesn’t necessarily mean forgetting, and it certainly doesn’t mean the love you felt disappears.

I know they had a whole episode dedicated to people grieving Jack, but it didn’t really have the time to get into the heart of it for everyone. We saw bits and pieces of the characters dealing with it. Rosemary was close (childhood!) friends with Jack. Bill was his mentor/viewed Jack as a son and he’s already lost one son. Abigail probably also saw Jack a bit like a son/family member. They all sort of...grieved for Jack and we caught glimpses of that, but never the full resolution. Has everyone processed that grief except for Elizabeth? We have no way of knowing.

I really just want Elizabeth to have a frank discussion with some of her friends. I don’t even care which friend. She could talk to Rosemary, Lee, Bill, Clara, Florence, Molly. Heck, she could write to Abigail and let it be narrated like her journal entries. Sometimes those were a bit heavy-handed but at least we weren’t left to just Assume Everything (which is a disaster in HeartieLand).

What kind of conversation would I want? Just something open and honest. Raw. The girls had that discussion about feeling “cheated” in S5 and that was one of the best lines this show has ever seen. I want Elizabeth to have that conversation with someone. I almost don’t care who it is, but it might be nice if it was someone a bit unexpected (so...not Rosemary or Clara). My vote would be for Bill because I want to see him have a bigger role with Elizabeth and Jack, but also because Jack meant a good deal to him, too, and he might be able to offer an interesting perspective, but Lee or Florence would be incredible, too, and the conversation being so belated would feel more natural (these aren’t people she confides in about deep emotional things, but she bottled it up until it just exploded). 

Plus I feel like those three characters wouldn’t push her the way Clara and Rosemary pushed Elizabeth in the past. Was it #badwriting? Yeah. But they were really pushy about Elizabeth needing to fall in love again/put herself out there. I think Bill, Lee, or Florence would encourage her more from the perspective she needs encouragement from, in my opinion: sometimes moving on takes a long time, sometimes a person needs to process their grief without pressure from other people.