#dtm s2

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]

i love the character development in this show, it’s seriously amazing, but omg stop making poor judy suffer!! my god. like yes she did commit manslaughter and she’s practically a compulsive liar (especially in s1 it’s like one after another) and she helped clean up a murder but she’s somehow still such a purely nice, sweet person. which like, once again, wow the characterisation is awesome bc somehow she’s done all that and i still just want to protect her.

and on that note, steve is just... jesus. such a little shit. emotionally abusive and extremely manipulative - i mean we already know he’s the one who made her keep driving after the hit and run - and it’s horrible! he was cheating on her and he called her nuts, crazy, stupid, etc. threatened to kill her. and was controlling and taking her money. like jfc his abusive behaviour was quite extensive. and then abandons her after her miscarriages and of course the hit and run. as soon as he wants her back in s1 he’s suddenly nice again, then there’s quite a dramatic turn in his behaviour when he doesn’t, again.

her mother (s2) is also using her and manipulated her and neglected her as a kid. which really sort of shows she learnt early on that everyone was going to treat her like shit, and the way she coped was to basically forgive anything so that she still got whatever small amount of love that was possibly available. it’s also clear that’s occurring with steve in s1 when he says something shitty and she says “don’t” and he makes a small apology and she just says “it’s okay”. love hasn’t been available to her very often in her life and so she allows people to walk all over her because basically her mother taught her that was what she SHOULD do. i even sometimes get a little pissed at jen for being very short with her or treating her like a child but in a very negative way.

but just the construction of just hale? damn. you can see how she’s developed her nature from her childhood and how that’s been enforced by an abusive relationship even after childhood. and when she says that thing about how she thinks maybe she deserves the treatment she got... that just broke my heart. into a million pieces. cause no, no one ever deserves literally emotional ABUSE, and violent threats, and you can see how that thought path stems from the lack of affection and care she received as a child, as if that’s her fault. it’s just extremely upsetting and also relatable how she feels a lack of love and abusive, toxic relationships were her fault.

it’s hard to stick up for yourself, or get out of toxic relationships, especially when that began as a kid and you’ve never known any different. she’s never known that she could be appreciated and that she deserves to be loved without all these conditions... loved properly.

also, when judy got distressed enough to need to physically take her anger out on something, and jen assumes - even asks - that she will get violent with jen. but instead, judy starts punching herself. we already saw this behaviour in s1 when she slapped her face multiple times in the bathroom in the episode with teds birthday (may have been multiple examples elsewhere, that’s the only one i remember). it’s not necessarily what you think of with self harm, cause no, it’s not cutting, but it’s definitely hurting herself intentionally and at least borderline self harm, or a form of it. we can see that jen is quite horrified seeing judy start to hurt herself like that, it wasn’t her intention and she’s extremely concerned.

i did like how that was shown, that she’s - sadly - learnt she’s always to blame or that there’s something wrong enough with her that she must deserve abuse and neglect and now she must deserve pain in this form too. i’ve never seen self harming behaviours in any form, in any show. ever. and honestly, it’s kind of an important thing to show in relation to mental health and the way some people process intense emotions, but a clearly very, very unhealthy coping mechanism. she doesn’t get angry easily, but when she does, she still would never intentionally hurt anyone else.

also, we saw her almost try to kill herself towards the end of s1, so we got that other insight into some obvious mental health struggles. when jen finds out about that, she’s also very worried and upset by it. it was kind of painful to see her react to judy’s admission and then again to seeing judy hit herself, which i had forgotten that she had never seen before (i’m pretty sure). you can see how guilty she is feeling about it, how concerned she is about her best friend, how shocked she is and how she really doesn’t even know what to say but of course still comforts her as much as she can.

considering it still somehow is centrally a comedy, yet the dark themes extend from crime to trauma to grief to abuse to depression to self harm and suicide... that’s just exactly why this is such an incredible show. heart wrenching yet at so many points it makes me laugh sooo hard. plus, lgbt rep and well developed, strong female leads. and every part of the plot is intricately developed.