Tag: friend zone spoilers

ctl-yuejie:

@schemingbisexuals @earthpodd @thewickling and everyone else who as partaken in the EarthStudd discourse: here are my two cents.

I very much agree with the (head) canon that Studd is into Earth.

1. We know that he (unsuccessfully) tried to pursue him before. 

2. We’re lead to believe that Studd will slowly but surely fall for Sam and become the reason Sam cheats on Earth because Sam is everything Studd wants: successful, attractive but more importantly kind, caring and faithful.
But in reality, Earth is ticking all these boxes as well. He’s good at his job and diligent, very attractive, kind, helpful and faithful as well. What is even more important: he always sees the good in people.

3. This is not to say that Studd isn’t really interested in Sam. I think he feels helplessly physically attracted to Sam and likes the phantasy of getting a “good guy”. But he knows that with pursuing Sam he will ruin him.
Sam’s most attractive feature is his faithfulness to Earth. If Studd succeeds to sleep with Sam he will lose his interest to get with him. 
So why would he still pursue him and risk his friendship with earth?
While getting to know Sam better, I think he starts to sense that Sam isn’t all that. He listens to Earth’s complains about Sam and starts to see all the imperfect parts in him. I think he sees some of his own qualities. Studd can sense that if he plays it right he can get Sam to cheat on Earth.
I don’t know how aware he is of this himself but to me it seems like he wants to ruin Sam for Earth. 
He doesn’t go after Earth because he knows that Earth would never cheat, the exact reason why he loves him and not Sam.

4. After realizing that it’s not really Sam he’s after I rewatched some scenes and we can see Studd get jealous over Earth and Sam’s relationship but Earth in particular. Everything is centered around Earth.
“When I meet the one it’s already too late.”
“He doesn’t like me.”
“If I found a nice man like your uncle…” A man “like” Sam can also imply Earth.
I also think that jealousy plays a big part into why he finds humour in seducing Sam. Sam supposedly is so much better for Earth that him, but now he can prove that they’re just the same. He might even think that he has the moral high-ground because he’s upfront about what he desires unlike Sam who puts up a facade in front of Earth.

5. If he goes through with this Earth will get terribly hurt. I’m curious to see if there’s any way Earth will actually consider Studd and forgive him. Until then I enjoy this complicated mess of a human being on his way to love and destroy.

How do you feel about the cheating storyline in Friend Zone? I hate when cheating is used as a lazy plot device to instil unnecessary drama. That’s why I steered clear of TNC. From the various reactions to TNC I’ve seen it seems that storyline was sloppily written and uncalled for. Is it the same in Friend Zone? Or is the writing and acting solid enough to still make it worth watching? (Is it obvious I just want to watch Sam and Earth make out? 😀)

ctl-yuejie:

hmmm….I personally don’t mind cheating as a plot-device but I do understand people having reservations, especially when it’s between a same-sex couple (reenforcing the “promiscuous-and-unfaithful”-trope).

that being said, I do agree very much on the lazy part. if you want it to be a romantic story your writing has to be really good in order to not ruin the story.

with twm:tnc i stopped watching pretty early on (not because of the cheating plot but the writing in general) so i don’t know how exactly the storyline played out but from what i’ve heard it belongs to the bad examples. not only contradicts it Korn’s character (in the first season we learn that he got cheated on) but I can’t root for a happy ending in a romantic-comedy when one of the partners cheated.

i don’t have that emotional attachment to Friend Zone as i do with TGM so i might be more lenient on this show.

a big difference to me is that all male characters (except maybe Good and Earth) are catastrophes either happening or about to happen so the whole storyline is heading towards a train wreck from the get-go.

i live for that kind of messy and can’t wait for everyone to get hurt. 

so far they got the important things down: we know the motivation of each character and their emotions and for some terrible reason you can’t really hate Stud (who is the catalyst for the cheating) cause they’ve written him charmingly.

i don’t wish Earth the agony of getting cheated on, but while a scream “no-no-no-no-no” at Sam i can’t wait for him to cross the line because that’s where they put the focus of the story in my opinion.

for kornknock it’s all about “will they work through this?!” which doesn’t make the cheating plotline entertaining at all. so far with friendzone i’m very entertained and can’t wait for everyone to escalate. 

that being said, if they have Earth ending up with Sam after he cheats i will take this back. so far it’s well-written and fun to watch but Earth is too precious to give him a bad end (maybe we’ll get a plot-twist of some sorts but idk).