Doctor Who: Rose and Mickey

[butterfly]

Six (almost seven!) episodes into the new series and I'm still thinking about the relationship dynamics of the Tyler Era. The Rose-Jackie-Mickey-Pete family grouping really was very vivid and powerful.

Something that I've been thinking about recently is Rose and Mickey's relationship. Because it's a complicated one, a friendship that tangles all up and lasts throughout the series and includes romantic elements up through the Cyberman two-parter.

Mickey: "I could transport out of here, but it only carries one and I'm not leaving you."
Rose: "You'd follow me anywhere. What did I do to you all those years ago?"

In the beginning, Rose and Mickey were together.

They were kids -- she was nineteen, he was a bare handful of years older. Their relationship was full of laughter and light punches and playfulness. They were nice, Mickey says in Boomtown.

They were comfortable. They were day-to-day life, getting up, going to work, eating chips, hanging out, and going back home again. No adventures, no drama, no danger.

Rose was used to it. She'd dropped out of school for a guy and it hadn't worked out, so here she was, living with her mother and dating a boy that she knew depended on and adored her. Safe, comfortable, normal.

The Doctor walks in and blows normal all to hell. Nothing special here, not for him -- that's what he does to everyone. He showed Rose that her safe, normal life was anything but... that there was adventure and danger and something more.

Something that mattered, like saving the world.

Rose (the episode) taught Rose (the character) that she could make a difference. She could save someone's life; she could save the world.

Rose taught Mickey that Rose would choose danger and adventure over him. It showed him terrifying things -- plastic come alive to eat him, an alien ship that was huge on the inside and tiny outside, a man (an alien) who complained about 'domestics' while Mickey was frightened to death of what was happening.

He's scared all to hell and begs Rose to stay with him -- stay with normal, stay with comfortable, stay with nice and safe.

And she leaves -- she leaves with a kiss on the cheek, a meaningless thanks, and an enormous smile.

When she comes back, she doesn't come to see him. He has to spot the TARDIS leaving to even know that she's come home. He's spent a year knowing what happened to her and knowing that no one would ever believe the truth -- a year of being accused of killing the girl he loves. A girl who defends the man who calls him an 'idiot' or the wrong name, who makes excuses ("he's just trying to wind you up").

He takes a step, helps save the world (risking Rose's life in the process), understands a bit more of the Doctor's world... and still isn't quite able to go to the places that she goes.

Each time that Rose returns to him, something massive has changed. The year apart -- Jack Harkness -- Rose alone and weeping -- the New Doctor. 

Each time, he tries to convince her that their life together was worth something, was better than her life with the Doctor is.

Each time, she ultimately rejects him. When the ground shakes in Boomtown, she races back to the TARDIS and doesn't think of Mickey until after the danger has passed. In Parting of the Ways, she tells him straight-out that she has 'nothing' left in London. In The Christmas Invasion, she takes the Doctor's hand, accepts this change as part of who he is, and Mickey realizes that he doesn't have a chance. She's never coming home because London isn't her home anymore. Her home is where the Doctor is.

So, the next time Mickey gets the chance, he follows her instead of asking her to stay.

And it's about more than Rose. Because Mickey has helped save the world, he's seen the Doctor in action, and he doesn't want to be the person left behind anymore.

In School Reunion and Girl in the Fireplace, Mickey takes a particular joy in pointing out the Doctor's affections for Sarah Jane and Reinette, in trying to 'prove' that the Doctor is just like every other bloke, that he isn't special the way that Rose keeps trying to say that he is ("he's not my boyfriend -- he's much more important than that!").

And Rose is willing to keep the romantic element in their relationship open, in part because of those insecurities ("I'm not listening...") and in part because, I suspect, Mickey was the person who caught Rose when the Jimmy Stone thing ended ("What if I need you?" she asks him, plaintively, but he knows the answer now -- contrary to what he's been saying, he can see that the Doctor loves Rose back, that they're alike in their affection for her -- "Yeah, but Rose... you don't. It's just you and him, isn't it?").

He leaves and Rose flies without her net -- she stumbles a bit, at first (The Idiot's Lantern), but soon gets on her feet again and realizes that Mickey was right. She doesn't need him. She'll survive without him, because the Doctor isn't going to let her fall (*insert 'ouch'*) anymore than she'll let the Doctor be alone and miserable. "You really love him, don't you?" Mickey said way back in The Christmas Invasion, the episode that set Rose's character arc for S2 -- to be the woman who will stand up for the world when the Doctor can't, the woman who is the Doctor's partner and equal, the woman who loves him and is loved in return.

And Mickey goes off to be his own hero for a while. Because Rose loves him, but she loves him like a mate, not like forever and stardust.

"We had something a long time ago, but not anymore," Mickey tells her at the end of the episode. It's something like grace, what he says here -- you don't need me, what we had is long gone, it's just you and the Doctor now. And when she leaves, he's proud of her ("That's the Doctor... in the TARDIS... with Rose Tyler.") because he understands now why she had to leave. That some things are more important than nice and comfortable. That danger and adventure may run hand-in-hand with loss and pain, but that hope lives on.

And then the Cybermen and the Army of Ghosts come.

The Doctor: "Oh, where is the Mickey-boy?"
Pete: "He went along ahead. Any chance to go and find Miss Rose Tyler."

Because his time in Pete's world has changed him, but he still loves Rose (whether or not he's still 'in love' with Rose is debatable). He teases her and jokes and... she shuts him down cold the second things get the slightest bit flirty ("I love it when you talk technical." "Shut up."). That's out of bounds now. She's in love with the Doctor and she's not holding back anymore.

And he accepts it ("The female's heartrate has accelerated!" "Tell me about it.") and supports her and that's where their relationship will exist -- friendship and love and support.

There's this song that makes me think of Mickey and Rose and the place they ended up. It's by a pair of brothers, Evan and Jaron, and it came out in 2000.

This is the chorus: 

You'd think I'd know by now.
You'd think I'd washed this down.
Did you think I'd hurt her now, just to heal my heart?
Then you don't know me.
You don't know me.

She don't owe me anything.

In the end, I find the Mickey and Rose relationship a very strong testament to how powerful a love that ends up being non-romantic can be, about how growing up doesn't mean growing apart. Rose's feelings for Mickey started off as very childish and were the source of some of her pettiest moments on-screen. Mickey was the childhood relationship that she had to grow out of in order to become the strong and inspiring leader that she became over the course of season two, but she didn't stop caring about him (nor should she have).

For Mickey, he had to learn to look past his love for Rose to see the stars. Because he was using her as a safe place just as much as she was, and he had to choose to be on his own in order to truly interact with her as an equal again. Both of them had a lot of growing up to do at the beginning of S1 and they grew fully into their own over the course of the two seasons.

All of which is to say -- I love Rose. I love Mickey. And I *heart* the Rose&Mickey storyline.

Also, side note: I love the Doctor's jealousy regarding Rose and Mickey.

*pets the Doctor*

So adorable. So completely unnecessary (as the Doctor won all rounds, hands-down). Oh, Doctor.

Comments

[goldy-dollar.livejournal.com]

Oh, this was perfect. I was just thinking something similar to the Mickey&Rose relationship and how much depth that gave to Rose's character - as opposed to Martha, who doesn't really have much of a storyline outside of the Doctor.

But you said it all. It ended up being such a touching and moving storyline in the end.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Oh, this was perfect. I was just thinking something similar to the Mickey&Rose relationship and how much depth that gave to Rose's character - as opposed to Martha, who doesn't really have much of a storyline outside of the Doctor.

Thank you!

And yeah, all of the great character details about Rose told us so much. It's funny, Rose was the one who wanted to stay forever, but we still know a whole lot more about the life she had before and the people she cared about than we do about Martha and her family.

I have a similar affection for the storylines about Rose & Jackie and Rose & Pete -- each of them gave her depth, gave places where Rose was likable and brave but also places where she was more of a child and flawed and human. And it wasn't all about Rose -- Jackie & Mickey and Jackie & Pete both had storyline progressions, too.

Now, we did see Martha's family in the last episode, which I'm still thrilled about because finally I have something to work with (I actually feel like Martha now has a character that people could write 'in character' for, whereas before TLE, she didn't feel deep enough), but they don't seem prepared to have the same kind of amazing journey that the Tyler clan (I include Mickey) went on -- which seems fair enough, as Martha doesn't seem to have Rose's epic qualities to her, either.