#dtm meta

There are gifsets dedicated solely to the way Jen touches Judy!!

And aside from Henry, Judy might actually be the only person Jen is this openly playful and affectionate with. Because she sure as hell doesn't do it with Christopher or Lorna or even Charlie!!!

It speaks to the level of safety Jen feels with Judy that she managed to get so open and vulnerable around her as early as season 1. And it carried over to season 2!! At that point when Jen was still holding on to her anger, she still freely touched Judy.

but in this episode, the audience can start to see that judy is actually equally as bad at opening up, if not worse. the difference is she is quieter and generally kinder in day to day life, and when she is pushed to that point, she takes it out on herself. but still physically, violently, angrily. up til now, we mostly hadn’t recognised the true intensity and heaviness of what judy was experiencing. 

the role reversal of jen trying to be calm and judy unleashing her anger... a perfect parallel and yet simultaneously a juxtaposition between those two - where we know jen is sometimes aggressive outwardly, judy is clearly aggressive inwardly - is formed. 

and on top of all that, we get quite a major character arc turning point for jen, where she is shown to have grown as a person and is seeking to express her feelings in a healthier way for everyone involved, and is actually at least beginning to talk about these things - we see later she has gone back to the grief group, which i’m sure will be good for her too.

and on top of all THAT, we see something we have likely been missing; we’ve been focusing on jen being closed off which has made us not even realise that judy never expresses her feelings either, gets angry (with herself) and hides her guilt and sadness (which has previously culminated in an almost suicide attempt). 

[side note: i like how this worked, with the audience only really getting a chance to piece all those things together at the same time that jen realises how deeply its affecting judy. maybe even judy was not so clued in to the extent of her own emotions, because its a very sudden and horrible change in dynamic when she begins to hurt herself, and not much comes off her when shes literally telling her best friend about a suicide attempt earlier in the scene, which implies she isn’t fully processing it. so i like how the audience got to feel the same effect as the characters, especially since anything along those lines doesn’t happen often because the show has a lot of dramatic irony and we often know more than the characters. this was very different, so well played writers]

By the end of the season, both Jen and Judy have had the opportunity to really grow as characters – we have Judy finally saying no to people, and we finally have Jen really considering how her anger affects those around her. The fight in 2x09 summarised entirely why I am in love with this show – both Christina and Linda gave absolutely showstopping performances, but what it said about Jen and Judy’s characters really just brought together the main theme of the show. Jen and Judy are polar opposites, and they’re both dealing with guilt and grief in completely different ways, and this often results in them clashing and saying hurtful things to one another. Here, in this fight, we really get to see both of them at their breaking points: Judy hitting herself, Jen trying to get Judy to hit her (and wow, how powerful it was that Jen stood in front of the car). It was two women wracked with guilt and rage and also love, and wanting to help each other but not knowing exactly how. And this came as the climax of the season – after their guilt and grief and self-hatred had been building and building – and ultimately really provided an opportunity for such an epiphany for both of them. The moment Jen looks at Judy in horror as she starts hitting herself and runs to hold her was one of the most powerful scenes I have ever seen in my life.

We also got a chance this season to see more of Jen and Judy as separate characters, apart from each other. We got bisexual Judy finding comfort in a relationship with a very sweet woman (my HEART!!) and finding herself outside of Jen and her family. That felt extremely necessary as she slowly starts to learn how to put herself first sometimes. We also had so many wonderful Jen moments with Charlie and Henry and her struggle with single motherhood. We had her dealing with her grief for her mother and how she feels about her scars.

A fun thing to think about is how quiet Judy's anger is. Where Jen's rage is explosive and easily visible, Judy's simmers. You can see it in her face, in the way she moves, in how she speaks. But she never actually acknowledges it. And if you push her on it, Judy would actively deny it.

I think the best and most brutal example of this is in episode 4 where, in the aftermath of her confrontation with Jen, Judy actually becomes quieter. She stopped talking for hours, preferring instead to stare out of the window or - when Jen refused to stop bugging her - simply sleep. Her anger (and guilt) were so heavy that she needed to dissociate in order to survive her own emotions.

And I think this silence says a lot about how she directs her anger. She doesn't have a blast radius like Jen does because all of her anger turns inward. This is of course most explicit when she starts actively hitting herself. But on a more subtle note, this is also well conveyed in her silences.

Because I am more than willing to bet that while Judy physically stopped talking, that hateful voice in her head most likely grew louder instead.

And we see this! Judy shouted in defense of herself exactly one time in the entire series so far - during the vigil. Every other time, when Judy shouts, she's screaming at herself. And I'm betting this is simply the physical explosion of a near-constant and very toxic internal talk that could no longer be contained in her head.

Also, Judy cannot be angry at other people! And I mean that in the sense that her psyche absolutely cannot bear to turn that anger outwards. She will redirect it towards herself. She will forgive an unreasonable amount of personal violations (and I have a shitton of feelings about her forgiving Jen in ep 10). She will dissociate to hell and back.

But, and I repeat, she cannot get angry at someone other than herself. 

And this is exactly how Judy finds herself hopping from one abusive situation to another. Because anger is what helps us find justice for ourselves when we find ourselves violated. It protects us from people who wish to exploit us. People demonize anger, but it is our first line of defense.

Don't get me wrong - I really love their relationship, and I still really want them to be endgame. But had they gotten together this season, I feel like they would have perpetrated their own toxic cycles until their relationship becomes irredeemable.

There were many instances in this season wherein Jen's much stronger personality practically mowed down Judy's boundaries. She didn't do it on purpose, but between her mounting stress and Judy's easy acquiescence, it was way too easy to do. And she didn't always realize what she had done until something bad had really happened already.

(Just to be clear, I don't think Jen was being malevolent, just really stressed and not very self-aware. Regardless, her actions often had very bad consequences. Often to Judy.)

I think a really great example of this was how Jen essentially forced Judy to bury Steve without saying goodbye despite Judy's numerous protests.

Even worse is that Judy's toxic guilt meant that she kept letting Jen walk all over her even more than she usually would. As with the example above, she let Jen step over her desires and needs - right up until she fell into a dissociative and depressive episode.

Had Jen cared any less about Judy - had she been any less of a good person, - I'm really not sure how long Judy would have lasted without something really bad happening to her. Because in this season, she was the kind of vulnerable that abusers, manipulators, and the like really love to take advantage of.

Judy did not have the headspace to defend herself on the many occasions that warranted it this season. This isn't her fault, but the ability to establish healthy boundaries is very important for a relationship to actually blossom.

As much as Jen and Judy truly cared for each other and were good people overall, their circumstances and personalities made for a very toxic friendship this season - let alone a romantic relationship.

I think the biggest saving grace for their relationship this season was really the fact that not only does Jen actually pay attention when Judy expresses a grievance, she also actively tries to change her behavior. The biggest difference between Jen and Steve that I've found is that Jen's apologies are not hollow placations. They are promises to do better. And she actually does!

Jen and Judy both had a lot of growing to do before they could actually build a healthy relationship. Had they not taken the time to work on themselves, I can't see it ending happily. And now that they have, I'm pretty hopeful for where their relationship could go.

I have no idea where their relationship would lead, but I'm really hoping that it would be to much more loving and safer place for both themselves as individuals and together as a partnership.

I've seen people about how unbelievable Perez's change of heart was in the last episode, but I actually disagree.

We spend the entire season exploring why Perez is who she is. We first discover that she was raised in fostercare, and that decades later, she is still experiencing fears and insecurities related to that experience.

Next, we see her with Michelle and Flo. Suddenly, this extremely tough and no-nonsense woman is sobbing her heart out to this person she sincerely believes is a god-awful criminal.

And it's all because her family is falling apart.

The woman she thought of as a mother-figure might be dying. She explicitly expresses that this is the first family she's had in a really long time. We see here exactly how important family is to her. Above all else, family is something she values most.

So now we have a picture of who Perez is. First, she had experience extreme loss at a young age. Second, that lost had made her desperately long for a family and extremely protecetive of the one she has finally found.

Now, we get to episode 10, and Michelle had finally moved out. Her mother-figure is dying in a hospital, and the love of her life had finally moved out. Her biggest fears are becoming reality, and there's nothing she can do to stop it. She lonely and feeling abandoned - so much that she spills her guts to Jen.

My point is that Perez is extremely vulnerable and fragile here.

So when Jen shares her fears about her kids losing her mom, she isn't talking to Perez-the-cop, she's talking to Perez-who-just-lost-her-family-again. She's talking to Perez-the-former-foster-child.

Perez's decision to let Jen go makes perfect sense to me. Perez is someone who takes her job very seriously because she has known injustice and wants to protect. Now there's this woman with kids who were exactly like her, and while she was helpless to stop her mother's murder, she can step in and stop these kids from losing their mother.

It's very subtle, but Perez is a character with a huge heart. She's guarded because life had taught her to be, but she had always tried to do what's right in the only ways she can.