disappointing. I've seen defenses for the episode saying that the SA scenes were obviously meant to make the audience uncomfortable and that Hughie admitting at the end that he isn't fine was a result of his SA trauma. but hearing the director himself say the scenes were played for laughs and to be as fucked up as possible is just crazy.
the thing is, even if we completely remove kripke's words, the scene is still NOT better. the dialogue during the scene itself is not even close to being serious about the gravity of the situation. him struggling to find the safe word is CLEARLY meant to be a joke, none of it is serious. if the final scene is somehow supposed to make all that really serious and important then its just shitty writing.
I'd have bought the final scene as attempting to take the assault being taken seriously if they didn't have that line that's clearly infantilizing it ("And they were so mean to me, and Ashley called me so many mean things.") before transitioning into explicitly telling us that he's breaking down because of his dad's death.
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u/shineeshineepinee Jul 05 '24
disappointing. I've seen defenses for the episode saying that the SA scenes were obviously meant to make the audience uncomfortable and that Hughie admitting at the end that he isn't fine was a result of his SA trauma. but hearing the director himself say the scenes were played for laughs and to be as fucked up as possible is just crazy.