#gemma foster

GODS.

It seems that new Simon has got the calm yet piercing aura of Baelor 😍 looks dashing even with all those pixels

NO Megan cares about cady because everyone else in her life wanted money power or just straight up didn’t care about her other than their jobs to built her.

Sure Gemma “loved” Megan but only loved the science and technology around her

Cady is the only one to see Megan as an equal. Cady saw a friend someone to love and be around forever not just a tool weapon or experiment

Megan cares about cady because cady cares about Megan.

Megan probably forgives cady for what she did in the first movie because she realized that she hurt the only person who loved her, it may have not been physical but it was emotional and mentally harmful

For around half of the series, I was not very exited about it. The story was definitely intriguing, with much tension and insight into the experience of a doctor, Gemma, who wants to discover if her husband is having an affair and then deals with the situation. But, while properly uncomfortable and psychologically interesting, it felt like the story lacked something. But then, something clicked, and the series just became something, I did not want to stop watching. It clicked, when I saw more of the husband's - Simon's - mental characteristics and emotions, and from that point, the story started to be an amazing rollercoaster for me. So, the second half of the series? Splendid. Not ideal, but definitely complex, tense, actually crazy, pretty unique, I think. We follow people, whose lifes are just getting destroyed, and it looks very real. I mean, their emotions, distress, falling apart. The main character, Gemma, was really interesting. At first professional, maybe a little distant or stern, but also a happy wife and mother in her 30s, she soon becomes alarmingly fixated on Simon's betrayals. I definitely don't criticise her for being concerned, hurt and angry at her husband, she has every right to feel like this, but some of her reactions are truly concerning. Of course, when it comes to the format of the TV series, her actions make Doctor Foster really compelling. For me as a viewer, it was somehow mind blowing to witness and follow it all. Also, I'm really sorry for Gemma, whose mental situation gets soon visibly very painful. But at the same time, it's evident that she becomes more and more dangerous with time. We too can ask ourselves: How much of it had been her before she learnt about the affair?

Simon, her husband, is another important piece of the puzzle. There are a few scenes, in which he looks almost average, but then things change and we see a more complex person: someone, who can look sexy, a liar, pathetic, a loving father, someone awful and angry, a desperate man, and it's all good too, because it makes him multidimentional. I think that Simon and Gemma somehow take turns to steal scenes in the series. Other characters can be psychologically interesting too, and it's the whole psychological struggle and games that matter a lot in Doctor Foster, alongside the tension.

I want to make a separate post about Simon's manipulation of Gemma and why and how it works! First of all, we don't do victim blaming here. Reacting to manipulation in the way the manipulator intended doesn't mean the victim deserved it or "should have known better".

Simon's goals are pretty clear: he wants to keep Kate to use her family's money for his business and to fulfill the fantasy of a Gemma that's his inferior. These goals are formed by his insecurities in work and marriage, and by his selfish, hypocritical, possessive personality. Despite these problems, he wants to keep his marriage with Gemma, partially because his feelings for her are so intense he is obsessed with her, and partially because he's a possessive bitch.

We are shown that Simon is an attentive, caring, affectionate husband, a very good lover and a great dad, which makes his cynical deception so shocking for Gemma. He's level-headed throughout the initial fallout: he's calculating when she's spiraling, he has her confused and desperate and lashing out. It's the formula that works time and again because he knows and targets all of Gemma's weaknesses: motherhood, trust, loyalty, reputation, and because he created such a strong bond between them with his better qualities that she'll suffer greatly by losing him.

Does Gemma hurt him back? Yes. She's vicious in self-defense. He knows that. He likes it when she hurts him back. And she knows that, and she knows that he knows that, and still hurts him. And he knows all that too! That's the toxicity! In season 2, they both know they're playing a dangerous game and Gemma allows it because she wants Simon to suffer. She stops only when she realises how badly their toxicity is hurting their son, and even then she blames only Simon. It's in the very end that she understands and assumes the responsibility. POOR TOM!

The list I've compiled for people who think Simon isn't that bad. He: