Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 55 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Day For Night
By Jacob Clifton | Season 4 | Episode 21 | Aired on 02.25.2014
Paige: "I feel like there's a but."Emily: "But. The person who is hurting you, and loves you, doesn't necessarily mean to. Nine out of ten, they don't. It's the exception to the rule, when you have Mona or Alison for example telling us they made us strong. Past a certain point of growth, of health, people barely ever mean to hurt each other at all. So they can't hear you saying, You are hurting me, because that would make them bad, and they know they're not bad. A lot of pain comes out of love. Bars on the windows. And it starts with taking away someone's choices. Their agency. The trick is to know that the person is loving you by doing this, so you don't lose them, but making sure you're protected from it. Which is hard when they don't hear you."
Paige: "So, no harm done?"
Emily: "Ultimatums are for assholes, Paige."
Paige: "And yet you're giving me one right now."
Emily: "...Wow. Good night, see you tomorrow."
Well played, McCullers. I love this storyline so much for that reason, that Paige has always pushed too hard and loved too hard, and that this gave her so much bravery and so much strength, but the thing that makes you awesome is always the thing that makes you suck: Where self-confidence crosses the line from Me to You, and starts being about treating you like an extension of myself. A thing to which Emily has always been susceptible -- she would have climbed inside Alison's clothing and lived there like a marsupial; she would have carried that girl across the world on her back -- and a thing that is all the more seductive -- to them, to us -- when there's no visible downside:
If it weren't for Alison, crying and lonely on a bus somewhere, who knows what Emily would do with this tendency of Paige's? Thrive on it, I think. Drown in it. Trade day for night. You know exactly the couple I'm talking about, if you think about your friends or your parents' friends. And Emily and Paige, they're both so much better than that. We all are.
(This conversation is absolutely timely and important, for who we are and where we are, in history. I like Paily okay, to the extent that I'm able to think in those terms; I know I give Paige a hard time but that's just because you can see from here where Emily's trouble spots are, and Paige doesn't always bother to be sensitive to them; she will go ahead and use them, sometimes. Very weak, for such a strong girl; we're all growing up, it's fine. But if you want to see a relationship that hammers this stuff out until it shines brighter than the sun, and for some reason you are not already watching The Fosters, you need to be watching The Fosters. Best show -- and best, most beautiful marriage -- since Friday Night Lights. Not hyperbole. Actual fact.)