tarttymissk

I don't think Rebecca was necessarily wrong to pick Ted over Alice for the head coaching job - the problem is her reasons for not considering Alice in the first place.

Ted is a consummate salesman with a proven PR record in Richmond, and that's what the Lady Greyhounds need to help them get off the ground - someone to get the public believing in them. And no, Alice can't do that, but that's not why Rebecca passed on her.

What's Rebecca's first reaction when Higgins brings up Alice's candidacy? "She doesn't like me." Mmhmm. Why is that the deciding factor?

Rebecca seems to be slipping into running Richmond as her social club. This renders Alice unhireable by virtue of not being Rebecca's friend or wanting it. Compare and contrast with Keeley, whose competence got her noticed and hired because first she was nice to Rebecca in the women's loo. It's not that ability doesn't matter to Rebecca; it's that she doesn't seem to consider it until the potential employee passes her personal likeability threshold. Which is a pretty foolish way to do your hiring.

Secondly, all the talk of growling has to be deliberate, because I didn't hear a sound like that out of Alice's throat, but it is the default mode of our man Roy. And yet here he is coaching the men's team without a single mention of how his verbal affectations affect his job qualifications.

And yes, that's probably in part because he was always good to Rebecca, and because he's her friend. But let's be real: it's also because he's a man. And a man can wear the same monochrome clothes and unsmiling face every day and be just fine if he does the rest of his job well. But Alice can't.

EXHIBIT A

Um hello we are having a moment, why do you feel the need to tag onto this

EXHIBIT B

Clearly this side hug did not need a third

EXHIBIT C

"I will look for you in every crowd" // proud and affectionate stares between our main characters, NPCs out of the way pls

EXHIBIT D

busy whispering dirty things into Jude's ear, quiet please

EXHIBIT E

hurt/comfort in session, stand somewhere else

EXHIBIT F

And Jamie continuing to haunt the narrative...

I think a lot of people confuse forgiveness with trust.

Forgiveness is internal.

Forgiveness is NOT the harmed person saying: "What you did to me was okay. Now let's move on".

Forgiveness IS the harmed person saying: "I refuse to keep being harmed by what you did to me."

Ted didn't tell Jamie to let his father off the hook for the years and years of cruelty, abuse and assault. Ted told Jamie to break free of the control his father held over him which - in Jamie's own words to his mother - was the driving force of everything Jamie did in his life.

Jamie was spiralling in Mom City because he'd never gone so long without his father hassling him, hurting him or demanding money. And the longer James kept his distance, the more Jamie fell to pieces as he waited for him to re-emerge. It was messing with his head. It was messing with his life. It was messing with his game. When Ted told Jamie to forgive his father, he was simply saying "life doesn't have to be like this for you and you can let him go".