#daphne chanders

Brilliant, masterful tragedy. That was the episode where I sat up and was like "whoa, they really do know what they're doing."

I kind of wrote about it in depth here. I'm going to use similar ideas and some copied text from that, along with some expansions of the ideas, in this post.

The tl;dr is that "Full Circle" not only perfectly ends the characters' arcs in season one, but it reinforces the themes of the entire series--both within the fictional fantasy/fairy tale of its genre, and in the realism of the world it comments on. QaF is fiction at its best, highly aware that it doesn't occur within a vacuum and yet also not afraid to explore things a gritty story would not.

QaF is about growing up, which we know from the very first episode where Brian calls Lindsay "Wendy" and she calls him "Peter." He meets his son and comments about how the first words Gus says to him (a joke, but also clear) are "tick tick tick." Time's running out. Death, the high cost of living. We gotta die if we wanna live.

Growing--and death--are both major parts of what make us human.

Brian makes a “big spectacle of everything” (as Debbie tells him), all in a childish attempt to feel something, anything at all. He wants to be human. He wants to be alive. But he doesn’t feel like he’s either of these things.

Brian's refusal to grow up is not so much a rejection of maturity so much as it is a rejection of his life in general.

How can you grow, when you were never alive in the first place? 

Of course, we learn why this is an issue for Brian, too. At his father's funeral, he recounts his birth story: how his father told his mother to get an abortion, because he didn't "want another fuckin' kid." Brian's friends then comment on the story, wondering how he survived such a childhood where not only that happened, but where both parents apparently recounted it to the child. Like, that's even worse, when you think about it: telling your kid this. Brian's friends then say precisely this:

Emmett: I always remember his sister screaming at him, 'You shit! You shit!'... You think it's really true? What his father said?

Ted: Brian always shocks everybody. Somehow I believe it.

Emmett: Can you imagine growing up in this house? How did he ever survive?

Ted: Who's to say that he did?

A part of Brian's been dead, frozen, unable to grow up because he's unable to truly live. Hence, the inner child in Justin.

Growing Up: Responsibility

Justin’s childlike faith in humanity in some ways (and, admittedly, his less-charming black and white way of thinking) helps Brian experience those things for the first time. The irony of course is that Justin seems like he wants to grow up–have sex, move out of his home, getting a fake ID–while Brian claims he wants to stay young. But, they're actually very similar in terms of flaws in season one.

Brian and Justin have similar challenges this season: both need to take responsibility for their actions and feelings and specifically how these actions/feelings affect others. How they handle this lack of responsibility/effects on others is opposite (Justin clings; Brian pushes away), but it's the same basic idea. I'm an island! Only what I want/do matters!

QaF calls bullshit on this, with the nuance that you can't live for other people either: you have to be yourself. But that doesn't mean you don't affect the others around you, even if you try not to.

Brian and Justin: Push Away, Cling, Rinse, Repeat

Firstly, obviously, Brian pushes Justin away. It doesn't work. Justin clings, so they form a good contrast to help each other grow to be more like the other one in this aspect. Justin needs to learn to let go sometimes. Brian needs other people sometimes. Still, even when Brian clearly grows to care for Justin, he can't quite overcome this flaw.

When Justin runs away to New York after Brian kicks him out, Brian at first refuses to go after him. He's ultimately pressured into it by Debbie and his group of friends, and reconciles with Justin/actually helps him.

For Justin's part, even when he runs away to New York, he brings Brian's credit card--knowing he wasn't going to get away with it, and forcing Brian to either show he cares or not. Justin consistently attempts to force people to show that they care, while Brian has the opposite problem in that he tries not to show he cares.

Brian and Mourning

The problem with admitting you are affected by and can affect others is that, well, grief comes with that.

Brian is tasked with whether or not to pull the plug on Ted when he’s in a coma, a choice that he thankfully doesn’t have to make when Ted wakes up (also while Brian decides to fuck the orderly, because he uses sex to distract himself). Brian gets an out from grieving here, but also is then hit by Ted's revelation that he picked Brian for this reason:

Brian: Why me? Why did you choose me?

Ted: My mother couldn't do it. Michael and Emmett ... couldn't do it. But ... you could. Because you're a heartless shit. You could pull the plug and you wouldn't cry. And you know when it's time to go.

Brian's actually pretty devastated to learn that this is what his friends think of him.

Then, Brian’s father tells him he’s dying. Brian's attempt to open up to his father goes horrifically wrong, and when he gets the news, he literally is in bed with two men and tells them to continue (it's a repeat of what happened with Ted: sex distracts him).

His father 's death is a symbol of his nightmare childhood passing away, but what Brian needs to do with it is grieve the childhood he didn't have. Brian doesn’t cry, which everyone points out is odd. He does eventually start to process this grief with Michael, but he also clearly doesn't have closure with his dad.

Justin, too, doesn't get closure with his father. He stands up to his dad all the time, yet still tries to win his father’s approval by considering business school despite his father’s, by then, very clear hatred of him. Justin's father shows that he doesn't care, but Justin still wants him to approve of him anyways. Brian gives Justin good advice about Justin's own parents but isn't able to take it himself. Brian hasn't actually let go of them; he's just repressed it.

Justin and Projection

Justin has issues with projection all season: he sees others as reflections of himself, while Brian sees them as having nothing to do with him at all.

Justin tries to convince Brian not to sign away his parental rights at first, which hurts Melanie and Lindsay, because Justin is projecting his own parental issues (being disowned) onto the situation without considering that Brian is not Justin's father and the people involved are so different the two situations shouldn’t be compared. He tries to make Brian cling, which negatively affects everyone. (Of course, it wouldn't negatively affect anyone if the laws weren't homophobic, and if Justin's own father wasn't either.)

Justin: Who cares what it says? How can you give away Gus? He'll think you didn't want him.

Brian: He'll be right.

Justin: I don't believe you. I was there in the night when Gus' were born. I saw him give him a kiss... A boy needs a father. Believe me, I know.

Brian: Yeah, you haven't had a father for almost two weeks.

Justin also tries to make Chris Hobbs experience the ostracization and humiliation he's been experiencing for the past months by confronting him outside Babylon. He even says directly, "Down here, you're the freak." He then tells everyone he gave Chris Hobbs a handjob, a moment where Brian warns him directly that he’s now “made a real enemy”. Justin is clearly coming from a place of pain and repression, so to be clear there is no moral equivalence here: he only humiliates Chris because Chris has been humiliating him throughout the series. But it also reinforces this pattern of Justin's, trying to cling and force people to see the world from his perspective.

Of course, the irony also is that Chris is doing the exact same thing to a much, much greater (and more nefarious) degree. It's pretty clear Chris is highly closeted and homophobic as a result. He projects that self-hatred onto Justin, a fairly confident gay man, who was just living his life.

The Finale

When Brian turns 30, his friends throw him a funeral themed party (what is foreshadowing). He then tries to hang himself instead of going to prom with Justin (in a sense. I don't think he was actually hoping to kill himself, but was also pretty cavalier about if it did happen). In order to avoid his own grief, he'd prefer to die.

But, he decides to live after Michael comes by--Michael, the one person Brian has really always clung to despite pretending otherwise. He then goes to prom to give Justin a good night. Except, Chris Hobbs ruins everything.

It’s then, when Brian sits bloodied in a hospital waiting room, that we see him finally give in, fully grieve, cry, in the same place he and Justin named his son in the first episode. Birth and death, the bookends of human life.

To be human is to accept loss, accept that you aren’t superman, that you can’t control things. Literally the entire season is about the writers handing Brian challenge to grieve after challenge to grieve and him denying it until it smashes into the head of innocence (Justin). 

In grieving, Brian acknowledges finally that he doesn't want to lose someone--that he wants to cling to someone (which he's been doing all along with Michael in a sense, too). He's human.

Being human hurts. 

It’s also unfair in another element: the narrative has been challenging Brian to grieve, but Justin being the one actually to almost die seems horrifically wrong–and that’s the point, and what makes it powerful. Justin did nothing wrong insofar as learning to grieve goes, but he pays the price. Even for Justin's own flaws in antagonizing people like Chris more than he needed to--that's not really a huge flaw by comparison. The consequences (consequences not being punishment but the results in the narrative) are so vastly disproportionate it should shock and sicken us.

In this, the show calls out a double standard in society, shows us how unfair it is. The innocent, the childlike sunshine, pays the price for society’s bigotry, for adults inability to healthy process emotions, for all of it–burdens they should never take on. 

It’s wrong, it’s infuriating, and it’s devastating.

Originally posted by sophsun1

Choices

This is also reinforced by the fact that, by the end of season one, the relationships we’ve been following all reach significant moments as a result of choices.

The Michael-Brian-Justin trio has foiled the Brian-Michael-David trio, which foils the Emmett-Ted-Blake trio, oh and also to an extent the Brian-Lindsay-Melanie and Daphne-Justin-Brian trios.

The main theme of the episode is encapsulated in what Michael says to David:

It's not up to you to decide what I should do with my life. That's up to me. And if I didn't do it, then it's my fault. And... maybe next time I should just...I should think things through more clearly before I say yes.

Prior to the episode, Brian made a selfless choice that helped get Lindsay and Melanie back together. Also prior to the episode/offscreen really, Daphne needed to come to terms with things on her own to reconcile with Justin as friends--which they do this episode.

But even though your choices can only be for you, they still have an effect on others.

A Good Choice: Ted chooses to tell Blake he needs to get help.

A Bad Choice: Blake makes a bad choice in leaving rehab, and his relationship with Ted ends as a result (temporarily). Emmett comforts Ted.

No Choice: David kept trying to make all the choices for Michael, which had the opposite effect.

A Good Choice: Michael chooses to go with David (yes, even though this relationship was doomed, I think it was a good choice for Michael).

A Good Choice: Michael gives Brian a pep talk, so Brian goes to have fun with Justin.

Yet, the result of all the good choices are tragic. Ted loses his love because Blake doesn't make the same choice.

Meanwhile, Michael, Justin and Brian lose the ability to make choices when Chris takes that away by attacking Justin for... being happy. It doesn't just affect Justin, or even Justin and Brian. Even though we know Michael did make it to Portland in season 2, he wasn't able to make that flight because his friend got almost murdered. It's even worse than what happened with Blake and Ted, because it was a choice from someone who had nothing to gain or lose from the situation.