Musings Of TV Addict

Hello and welcome back to another blog post! 

I spent two weeks watching the first season of six different TV shows. This week, I finalized my notes on the TV shows I watched and am creating my character profile. In this blog post I just wanted to share some of my findings while watching these shows, and hopefully inspire some of you to watch some of these amazing shows.   

Grief Is A Powerful Thing

The morally ambiguous female characters themselves were ultimately incredibly complicated individuals, and each woman had a different set of struggles that affected them in different ways. However, in watching all six shows, I noticed one thing that was similar amongst almost all the women: loneliness. From Fleabag to Wanda to Annalise to Wynonna, each of these women had lost people dear to them, and thus went through life either feeling a deep distrust in the people around them or feeling as though they are better off just focusing on themselves. This constant state of loneliness each of the women faces isolates them, effectively drawing them further from their problems and into their mind.  

The loneliness they encounter usually also is caused by loss. Each of these women is effectively mourning something or someone. In Big Little Lies, Madeline is mourning the loss of her ideal family; in Dead to Me, WandaVision, Wynonna Earp and Fleabag, each woman is mourning the loss of tan important person in their life; and in How to Get Away With Murder, Annalise is mourning both. I find it interesting that grief plays a major part in their lives when it’s quite clear that this event that changed their life did not entirely shape them.  

When writers are creating characters, there has to be something that causes a character to act a certain way. Whether it is the way they were brought up, the people surrounding them, or the trauma they endured as a child, each character has some inciting incident that makes them the way that they are. Theoretically, an event such as a freak car accident killing your husband might drive you into a fit of rage. But what if you were already prone to anger issues?  

This is the case of Jen in Dead to Me. It’s hinted at several times that she had already established her personality beforehand and that she was already an angry and unhappy woman long before her husband died. Annalise Keating is an experienced and well-renowned lawyer and we see her comfortably bending the truth to win cases, meaning she has done this long before she killed her husband. We are shocked to see Madeline Mackenzie cheat on her husband until it’s revealed that she has already done it before. I don’t know if there is an exact reason as to why they all are morally ambiguous women, but I do know that they all experience similar melancholic tragedies that leave them in denial and capable of doing terrible things.   

Practically Perfect In Every Way

The second major theme I wanted to highlight was one of perfection. Every woman has this extreme external pressure on her to reach perfection. When they are set in a society where people expect the most from them, anything that falls short of perfection is considered unacceptable. This isn’t always the case and there are some exceptions to this. Judy in Dead to Me kills Jen’s husband only to befriend Jen after. For obvious reasons this is unacceptable.  

That being said, having an environment that places pressure cultivates moral ambiguity naturally. In Big Little Lies and Dead to Me, there is a tremendous pressure to be a good mother. In Fleabag, there is tremendous pressure to be a normal person when she feels completely abnormal. In Wynonna Earp, there is a tremendous pressure on her to be the killer of the revenants. In WandaVision, there is tremendous pressure on her by the people trying to take down Westview and save the townspeople she has essentially enslaved. In How to Get Away With Murder, there is tremendous pressure to be the best attorney and save the people she has involved in the murder.  

Pressure to be perfect is not good for anyone. These characters perfectly exemplify that people cannot be perfect. It’s simply impossible. As much as Annalise and Jen want to not be affected by the death of their cheating husbands, they are devastated. As much as Wanda does not want to give up her perfect fantasy world where she can control everyone and be a mother, she must give it up. As much as Fleabag wants to move past the death of Boo, she still has so much remorse. Their moral ambiguity only gets furthered when there is a clear idea of perfection. Each of these characters has an already set up vision of what perfection looks like, which is why when it falters and cracks and doesn’t end up working out, they are beyond devastated. And that is when the moral ambiguity seeps in.    

Over the next three weeks I will be creating my character. I already have an idea of what she looks like, but I need to create a character study and one or two journal entries.    

Thank you for reading! Until next time!