Question of the week #43

[treonb]

What happened during season two that surprised you most?  

You can expect spoilers for the entire first two seasons in the comments.

(There's no expiration date on these questions, so if you're reading this post months later and feel like jumping in, please do.)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I was most surprised by the role play between Elizabeth and Clark and how they handled it afterwards. My first impression was that Clark had raped Elizabeth, although after further consideration, I decided that was an overreaction. She had, after all, insisted that he just ‘be Clark.’ Still, it was so shocking that I had trouble believing that P&E could put it behind them with what appeared to be relative ease. This, especially, because it seemed to truly upset both of them at the time it happened. Maybe this is because they seem to be able to compartmentalize the various parts of their private and professional lives. There was never any further reference by either of them to this incident, even though some other story/plot aspects were carried forward into future episodes.

CA

[sistermagpie]

The writers did a great interview where they were asked about this. Some of it included them giving their personal impressions--for instance, some people questioned whether Clark/Philip was genuinely frustrated with Elizabeth or just doing what she asked (this actually is how Martha likes it so he did that) and they both said that they thought he was just doing it the way Martha liked it, as we've seen.

More importantly, though, they said that the scene was definitely still important and informing a lot of scenes through the season and that it would continue to be important. Basically, they hadn't put it behind them, really, because it got into so many upsetting issues for them.

So whether they reference it verbally again you're right to see it as something they didn't just put behind them, even if they continued to function normally.

[jae]

*nodding* I transcribed the relevant bits of that interview in the comments back here.

-J