Cast Commentary #4

Kimbar: Good afternoon, everybody =) Would either of you like to start this Cast Commentary by talking about anything in particular?

Skye: Hmm. I don't remember (because I wasn't here last week) but this is the first episode where we really see Roisin facing the medical part of her disease, yes? In her convo with Ruth?

Kimbar: It's the first time we see her really talking about treatment options, yes.

Rowan: Yes.

Skye: Do you want to talk about that, Rowan?

Rowan: Sure.

Rowan: So for Roisin, the diagnosis is really new. She's pretty freaked out and in what Kubler-Ross would call Stage 1: denial. She doesn't really want to deal with the fact that it's going to change everything about her life.

Rowan: So she's just kind on auto pilot at this point. Following through with medications and treatment options. Watching the changes. Waiting. 

Rowan: Trying to find a balance between freaking out and not dealing at all. 

Rowan: Emotionally, she's not engaged at this point in time.

Rowan: But she knows that she needs to move forward. And she's glad to have Aidan home.

Skye: I think it's really powerful that we basically see her progression from the very beginning (her first confession to Rei in ep 3) and some of her first medical visits. You set her up to tell a particularly powerful story that way.

Rowan: I think, as a writer, I'm more interested in her emotional journey. I want to get the details right, of course, but that's not where the focus of her story will be.

Skye: You do a good job with that. Showing her emotional progression.

Rowan: Thanks, Skye. That's my hope. That her story will resonate with people who have different life-threatening illnesses. Not just Huntington's.

Kimbar: You do a very good job. She comes across as so real that it's painful to read sometimes. As a reader, I always want to save the characters I read about - but there's no way to do that. 

Rowan: Thank you, Kimbar. That's quite a complement. 

Skye: I don't have any life-threatening illnesses, but my mom does and I know I often see similarities between Roisin and my mom that speak to me in powerful ways. So it's absolutely not just confined to Huntingtons.

Rowan: That's what I mean.

Rowan: That's the emotional connection I'm going for.

Skye: You succeed. =)

Rowan: Thank you very much.

Skye: And speaking of emotional progression, we see Kitty go through some crazy progression this ep, too.

Rowan: Yeah. That's true.

Kimbar: Oh yes! That was certainly a...*fun* scene to write. She was very lost in her head.

Rowan: I love how she calls Kennedy vicious, malicious and twisted

Rowan: It's fun to see the characters as others see them.

Skye: *Chuckle* Kennedy *is* vicious, malicious and twisted. And it's fantastic that Kitty got to express that she knows that.

Kimbar: I wanted to establish that Kitty isn't just a doormat who stays with her girlfriend out of fear. It kind of juxtaposes with Ruth's thoughts about Kitty earlier, about how she's stuck in an abusive relationship, and how Ruth can't imagine that Kennedy was ever nice.

Rowan: Right.

Rowan: Ruth doesn't see the shade of grey.

Kimbar: Well...now Kitty has outright stated that yes, things used to be different, and she's well aware that they've changed and that it's not good and that she can only handle so much before she has to walk out the door and take a break.

Rowan: I don't blame her, personally.

Rowan: When you look back and see how much has changed, I think a lot of people come to the place where they realize something has to change.

Rowan: And usually, people don't change the way you want them to, either. 

Kimbar: No, they definitely don't. 

Skye: I think it's one of the first times in the season, perhaps second only to the Kennedy/Rei dynamic, that it's really driven home to the readers that you have to question the characters and the way they present the world. Even well-meaning characters like Ruth, who the audience instantly thinks to trust, are shown to have bias. I think it's one of the coolest things about writing a serial like this. 

Kimbar: I completely agree with that, Skye.

Rowan: I agree, Skye.

Rowan: They're all flawed, but so human.

Rowan: I was glad glad to see the depth in Kennedy and Kitty's relationship.

Rowan: It's complex and complicated.

Rowan: After years and years, there's so many "scripts".

Kimbar: I really wanted get that across. I was basically given free reign with this scene. I was told I had to have a scene with Kitty and Kennedy that took place late at night...and it really ended up changing the dynamic of a lot of things.

Skye: It sure did!

Rowan: You think sometimes that Kennedy is just this loose cannon, but she really isn't.

Kimbar: The character of Kennedy is one of my favorites, so I was really glad to be able to write the POV of the character who knows her kinder side and who loves her. So many characters dislike her - I felt privileged to be able to write from the opposite perspective.

Rowan: I don't dislike her ... exactly...

Rowan: She's hard to pin down.

Rowan: I was going to say slippery, but everything feels like there's such innuendo...

Kimbar: =P 

Skye: Kennedy is definitely slippery. LOL! 

Skye: I was always excited to have another character write her. Because the truth is, in Mariel Cove, most people love her. You see that later in the season with Celeste and Arianna. She's respected. She made the town stable and livable. But when the readers constantly see her in her own head or blackmailing Ruth the vision of the audience gets tainted. 

Rowan: This is also where the Arianna gets the spider bracelet. 

Skye: That scene (with the spider bracelet), Rowan, is one of my favorite between Celeste and Gabe. I love the relationship between Arianna and Gabe.

Kimbar: There is a fantastic connectedness between Arianna and Gabe - I absolutely love it too. 

Kimbar: I loved the scene earlier in the episode where we see Kennedy and how she acts with other women - Rose, and then the argument with Rei and the decision to go after Lia. It was so well written, Skye.

Rowan: Yes.

Rowan: I love that scene. It's like all sides of Kennedy... 

Skye: That was a scene I planned to write from the very beginning. 

Rowan: Yeah. It really works. 

Rowan: There's so much going on in that scene. 

Skye: I had about 5 in my head the moment I started building Kennedy. Showing Kennedy with Rose is the first time you see the way she plays... and how she thinks of her playmates. They're very different than lovers to her. In her own way, she doesn't even consider herself cheating, to be honest.

Rowan: That makes sense. A lot of people really see lovemaking and sex and very different.

Rowan: One involves an emotional component. The other may be about power or just physical desire or lust or whatever.

Skye: She definitely does. And even more than that... she sees these moments with playmates as power trips. Sex may be involved. But she's not getting off on that. She likes control. And she loves getting consent to do outrageous things.

Rowan: Yes. And that's what I love about Kennedy.

Rowan: It's really about power.

Rowan: You know for a long time, that kind of discussion was very heated in the lesbian community.

Rowan: When I lived in Cambridge in the 1980s, there was a very strict divide between the flannel dykes and those who were playing with BDSM.

Skye: Definitely. When you really study her, she's actually an incredibly constant/stable personality. Some of that has been altered by drugs. Nearly all of her personality isn't socially acceptable. But she is, at her core, constant.

Rowan: It's really interesting how much that's changed. For the better.

Rowan: There was a lot of prejudice. Linking BDSM to misogyny. 

Rowan: And part of that was that the ideas of sexual abuse and Ellen Bass' book had just come out.

Rowan: So imagine Doc n Fluff by Pat Califia which was one of the first SM novels.

Rowan: And a book called Against SM both released within a couple months of each other.

Rowan: There was a flannel dyke bar in Boston and a divey BDSM bar in Cambridge.

Rowan: Not much line crossing....

Kimbar: There are a lot of people still who don't understand it and thus don't like it. It's too bad.

Rowan: They want to see it as sexual. And not about power. 

Kimbar: Or about power in a negative manner. 

Skye: Definitely. It's still a struggle sometimes, especially with practitioners of older-school feminism. A lot of people can't wrap their minds around the idea of consent as a dividing line between assault and consensual play. Many also can't seem to understand how, for some people, BDSM can be incredibly healing and freeing. 

Rowan: I agree Skye.

Rowan: People get stuck with some outdated ideas and think that lecturing the rest of us is going to change our minds.

Kimbar: Haha. I've gotten multiple lectures for my interest in BDSM.

Skye: Different strokes for different folks, as they say =) I'm really glad I got the opportunity to work with the kink mindset in detail (but more on that next week!)

Rowan: Sexuality is so complex, that it pushes buttons for everyone, one way or another.

Rowan: LOL.

Rowan: Stay tuned, dear readers... Kimbar: I love that Mariel Cove really does open us up to talk about a multitude of relationship types. It's so freeing! 

Skye: And guarantees something for just about everyone =) 

Rowan: I really think you did a great job with Kennedy, Skye. I was very impressed.

Skye: Thank you. I love writing her. 

Kimbar: Alright, we're just about out of time. Is there anything else you guys would like to talk about? 
Skye: I know Noel and Neale aren't here, but I want to give mad props for all of Celeste's scenes in this ep. Also to Neale for introducing one of my personal favorite characters, Mikayla. 

Rowan: Yes. Mikayla is a great character.

Rowan: And Celeste has a lot of "screen time" in this episode.

Skye: She does. And I adored every second.

Rowan: Me too.

Kimbar: Celeste is a fantastic character and I love seeing inside of her head.

Rowan: I think we really lucked out with a very talented pool of writers.

Kimbar: I think everybody did a fantastic job of writing their scenes this episode.

Rowan: Thank you and I agree.

Skye: Oh! Also, we get the first hint of something going down with Tal and Madison this ep. Hot scene.

Kimbar: Oh yes! Definitely so. =)

Rowan: Right!

Skye: I think this is about the time when writing that I dubbed Neale the "Sex Queen of Mariel Cove."

Rowan: LOL

Kimbar: Haha! That's a good title. She writes some really hot scenes.

Rowan: But next week ....

Rowan: I agree she does.

Kimbar: Well, I guess we'll just have to wait for it then! ; ) Anyway, I think that about wraps it up! It was great meeting up with you ladies, again!

Skye: Next week we see why Kennedy is not the sex queen of Mariel Cove. More... the "Hot, Kinky CEO of Mariel Cove."

Rowan: Good to see both of you.

Rowan: Until next time week.