#helendale

the thing that fucks me up the most about the newsreader finale is that helen keeps the promise she gave dale in episode 1 & remains loyal to him even at his lowest. she doesn't bat an eye at all the shit he's pulled. literally non of it matters to her. dale tells his own mother he hopes she can still love him after all this but he knows there isn't a part of him that helen doesn't love.

my personal the newsreader headcanon is that when Helen dies Dale speaks at her funeral and her death sparks public interest in her life and work and in the wake of that some millennial with a hyper-fixation on australian news networks of the 80s and 90s makes a tiktok outlining Dale and Helen's relationship timeline, suggesting that their supposed romance might very well have been a cover for Dale, as it is public record that he dated men throughout his life and so people get really emotional over Helen and Dale's beautiful friendship and call her an example of a great straight ally and then inevitably Dale's crash-out becomes a viral tiktok sound. and then someone - maybe his own kids if he had kids later in life, but probably someone else's kids - show those tiktoks to a (thankfully) very offline Dale Jennings who, assisted by them, then makes a tiktok where he sits awkwardly in a chair talking about how he's so happy to see that young people are remembering Helen as the amazing newsreader and journalist that she was and how she supported him throughout his career and especially during his breakdown at which point he tears up and calls her his soulmate and predictably the video goes viral and everyone is very endeared by his aussie boomer charm but then comments start popping up like "@/kaileigh_7882: 'my soulmate' the love between a girl and her gay best friend😭❤️" and Dale responds to one of those comments like "Hello Kaileigh! I am so happy you like my video. Helen was one of the many men and women I have loved over the course of my life and yet she remains singular😊" so then discourse breaks out as to what the exact nature of their relationship was and if people are even allowed to speculate and wether or no this means that Dale is bisexual which is made worse by the fact that Dale at first ignores all comments regarding his sexuality or his exact relationship with Helen instead posting more pictures of her set to 80s songs with loooong descriptions where he recalls some of his favorite memories of her and he likes a few comments calling her beautiful and inspiring and ignores all the rest that are like "@/jigglyp_uff86: stop harassing this old queen about his beard" and "@/user8273910: why is bro straightbaiting💀" until some user called @/xXhunchback_67 comments under a tiktok about Helen's work abroad in 1988 where they say her work was amazing but it's sad she had to leave Dale for it and Dale responds that he and Helen had separated months before she left and that he's so glad she took the opportunity. and under that someone else asks very politely if this means that he's been in relationships with both men and women. and that's how Dale Jennings comes out as bisexual at age 74 over tiktok.