Haunted Carousels and Crushes Gone Wrong
Anyone following me on twitter knows all of my opinions on the latest Game Of Thrones episode, “The Bells,” so I will do you all the favor of skipping right over that.
Here is an illustrative gif though, in case you forgot.
Love Isn’t Toxic
Very Cool reader David Quiroz emailed me this week with a great question:
So a while back on Twitter you posted a question that I was hoping you could expand on in your newsletter... you'd asked if, given the toxic nature of Jesse and Celine's relationships in Before Midnight, should he have stayed with her at the end of Before Sunset? The "Before" trilogy are some of my favorite movies, and ever since you posted that I've been thinking about it and I still can't decide whether or not he should have. Would love to see your thoughts in a future newsletter.
This is a question that still plagues me, but let’s do a brief background on the film series if you’re rusty. Skip three paragraphs if you know it by heart.
In BEFORE SUNRISE, Jesse and Celine are 23 year-olds who meet on a train to Vienna. Jesse has about 16 hours before his plane leaves for America, and the two decide to get off the train and spend the time together, leading to an intense romantic connection. When the depart, they don’t exchange contact info, but promise to meet in the same spot in six months.
In BEFORE SUNSET, 9 years later, we learn they didn’t meet up, because Celine had to attend her beloved grandmother’s funeral. They reconnect in Paris after Jesse has written a book based on their night together. Jesse is now unhappily married with a child, and Celine is in an alienated long-distance relationship. They spend an hour together, reigniting their feelings, and we’re left with an ambiguous moment of Jesse potentially staying in Paris.
9 more years later, in BEFORE MIDNIGHT, we come back to the pair in Greece. Jesse did stay, got a divorce, and the two subsequently had twin daughters. They’re on the last night of a Greek vacation with their family, and some friends take care of the kids to give Jesse and Celine a romantic night, which devolves into a massive, brutal fight. Celine walks out, insisting she doesn’t love him anymore. But Jesse follows, and the two seem like they’ll continue their relationship.
So here’s the question: is the relationship they have nine years after the fateful decision to stay together in Paris a good relationship? Should Jesse have stayed?
What we see in Before Midnight is not just the bickering of any married couple overwhelmed with tiny frustrations. They treat one another with toxic disdain, cruelty, viciously manipulative tactics. They hurl accusations of cheating at one another (that go unanswered but, at least in Jesse’s case, seem pretty likely) and devolve into fighting tactics that might have been understandable when they were 23, but are pretty darn inexcusable at 43.
And I think Before Sunset is the crux of this issue. When they reconnect, they have both fixated on their night together in Vienna as the answer to everything that’s wrong with their lives. If they could just go back and exchange numbers, if they could just have made that date, they would not be turning into colder, emptier, cynical people. In effect, they are emotionally stunted by the trauma of losing each other after that first night, and a big part of them stops maturing right at that moment.
What results is a situation where getting back together, though it’ll be a hell of a honeymoon phase, is actually going to be inevitably disappointing. No matter how heartbroken they were for each other, no person can be the answer to what is wrong inside you.
So from the very beginning, they were setting themselves up for a partnership where the other person never lives up to what you pinned your hopes on.
Additionally, Jesse leaving his wife for Celine caused wild complications. Affairs inevitably create a lot of chaos, particularly when the presence of a kid means you all have to keep dealing with each other. Probably initially, this helped Jesse and Celine bond against the “common enemy” of his ex, but when we learn that Celine’s complicated pregnancy with the twins led to an escalation of issues with the ex, blame, guilt, and shame between Jesse and Celine over the root of their relationship come into play.
As a hopeless romantic with some bohemian ideas about marriage, it pains me to say it, but they’re pretty fucked.
They might stay together - and I’d be thrilled to see another installment- but while I love the idea of a true love, intense passion for someone is neither sustainable nor healthy if that person also brings out the worst in you and prevents you from personal growth. Their obsession with each other prevented them from ever truly addressing their personal problems, and they are locked in a cycle where they hold the person they love dearest responsible for that. Jesse tries to convince her that fighting like this is what “real life” is.
But that’s exactly what you say when you don’t want to get out of a toxic, codependent trap. The threat that there could be nothing better for you. That you only get one dream.
Baby, you should’ve gotten on that plane.
Internet Hole Of The Week
I am a serial browser, and recently, a quest to find out what happened to the rides they used to have outside of supermarkets led me to discover that it is possible, for the extremely rich, TO JUST BUY A WHOLE CAROUSEL ANYTIME THEY WANT.
Got a spare $225,000 for this 1905 beauty??
How about $1.6m for this antique stunner that’s definitely not haunted?
And of course, on the “Interesting Ways To Die” end of the same spectrum, you could always buy a fully (maybe?) operational Ferris wheel on ebay.
Crushtastrophes
I asked a *Very* *Innocent* Question on twitter this week.
And I have to share with you my favorite responses. What fools we are, in pursuit of True Love!
Extreme Sabotage:
KEPT THEIR FAVORITE PARTS:
The Price Of Love:
NEVER be Owl Guy:
I am so deeply proud of all these people, putting their hearts out there. Most of them are now writers.
At Least There’s A New Chocolate
Pink chocolate is now a thing?? I’m sorry, “ruby” chocolate? It’s good, more chocolate is always good, but some how looking at that sickly cotton candy hue I feel like it will be…not good at all? What do you think?
Very Good Reader Dog!!
Extremely Awesome and Handsome reader Matt Gamble sent in our very first Good Dog from a reader! This is Lily, and in Matt’s words, she’s:
“Giving her famed sorry not sorry look after stealing my spot on the couch.”
I’m sorry, Matt, but why on earth SHOULD Lily be sorry? Youve covered that couch with enough dog-attracting accoutrements that I’m surprised you don’t have a “FREE BACON HERE” sign. Lily is definitely a Very Good Dog Who Knows Her Place.
Hope this update (and Lily’s determination) get you through the weekend. Please like this post, recommend it on social media, or give me MONEY to do MORE THINGS and MAYBE BUY THAT CAROUSEL AND LET YOU RIDE IT by subscribing for upgraded content!
See you Monday!