So, one of the discussions going around about 4x05 is that the scene at the end is a ret-con, and this is mostly said with the implication that ret-cons in general are bad things. Personally, I completely disagree with that. I think they’re like anything else in writing - they’re as good as their execution is. Most of us can think of ret-cons that are messy bandaids, but essentially all a ret-con is, is a writer going, “oh, wait, I have a better idea!” and whether or not it works is going to depend on how well the writer weaves it into the story.
When 4x05 first came out, I read an article where the writers were talking about having a hard time breaking the episode beats for 4x05. They couldn’t find the ending until someone had an epiphany and realized what Eliot’s most repressed memory should be, and then everything slid into place. While of course they can’t change the fact that they wrote most of S3 and the start of S4 without this realization, they can account for it in the writing of the scene itself and, more importantly, in having the realization matter in the future.
One of my personal favorite ret-cons is in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. We find out in the fifth season (out of seven) that one of the main characters has been keeping a huge secret for the entire series run. It works because there’s a very good reason for him to be keeping this secret (it’s illegal) and because the show embraces that part of his character for the rest of the run. Now, there are definitely some messy bits where you have to stretch to make it make sense in some earlier episodes, but it explains more than it breaks and it gives depth to the character both retroactively and going forward.
“Escape From the Happy Place” does its best to toe that line - the scene is written very specifically, I think, to make it believable that Eliot and Quentin’s friendship doesn’t break because of Eliot’s rejection, which is important because we know from watching S3 that they were still very close friends after 3x05. We know it’s Eliot’s most repressed memory, so that tracks fine, and while there is some messiness for Quentin’s storyline, it’s a manageable amount of stretching (imo).
Which makes the big question whether or not the show embraces that epiphany going forward. That’s what will make the difference between it being a defining moment for the show vs a messy bandaid for a single episode. The emotional beat of the scene ended up being Eliot’s promise to be braver, once he was back in the real world. Whether or not the writers allow Eliot to fulfill that promise, essentially, is what will mark whether or not that epiphany actually matters in the big picture of the show. So, that is the story beat that I’m personally waiting for.
I want Q to have emotional catharsis but, given the way the story has been written, and how the epiphany slotted into what had previously been established, the reins of this particular story are currently in Eliot’s hands. From Q’s point of view, he’s trying to save the life of one of his best friends, and romance is something that Eliot already took off the table. It’s Eliot’s ‘job’, narratively-speaking, to put that option back into play.
If Eliot is allowed by the writers to ‘be braver’, what would make the most sense of me - given what we’ve seen of Q and Alice’s interactions so far this season - is for Q to be hesitant about giving Eliot another chance to break his heart. “I loved you but maybe you couldn’t trust that” is what he told Alice in 4x05 while explaining why he couldn’t just forgive her and let her back into his life/heart, and Eliot not being able to trust Q’s love is literally what El did in the flashback scene. So it would make a lot of sense for Q to be emotionally wary. The test for me, for this specific season, is that we have to see that Eliot is going to make the attempt to be braver. The rest of it, I’m fine with them taking up in S5, but I think we need to see the start of Eliot’s promise being fulfilled in order for 4x05 not to feel disconnected emotionally from the story.
Posted on tumblr here:
the art of the ret-con
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