Hart of Dixie – second half of season 1
Sep. 19th, 2022 12:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessI binged from 1.13 to 1.22 last week. Part of the reason was wanting to know what would happen next (e.g. I felt I had to know who they’d cast as Zoe’s father, seeing as Vice President Hoynes is Lemon’s daddy. GOOD CHOICE on Dr Hunt senior, show.) But also I was avoiding a lot of news coverage and shows I’d normally watch had been cancelled.
Of course Bluebell doesn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day so much as it holds a Sweetie Pie dance. Of course. Zoe was dithering over whether she wanted to go with Judson as their relationship was only a few weeks old. When she did decide to go with him, Wade went on a mission to stop them and Zoe got VERY caught up in retaliating, so much so that Judson dumped her and Zoe’s lie to Wade’s latest fling, Joelle, that this was all foreplay rang truer than Zoe meant it to.
I admit I’ve swung over to shipping Wade/Zoe, because I cannot withstand his pining, however much of a failboat he is at it. To recap, I’ve spent most of the season being anti George and Lemon marrying, because they need to work through their issues and why they have feelings for other people instead of this frenzied hurtling towards marriage. An excellent place to start would be Lemon working through her issues with her mother. Well, it’d be healthier, but lead to less dramatic fodder.
Zoe/George probably lost me with wanting to spend the rest of their lives watching Woody Allen movies. That is not a lifestyle choice I can get behind, although there’s a natural ease between the characters and actors. More seriously, George kept choosing Lemon. So when they were pulling my beloved pretend couple trope in New Orelans, I grimaced, partly because it was the wrong ship, but mainly at the timing – just after he’d first broken up with Lemon because of her infidelity. And all I’ll say about his declaration in the finale is that he seemed to fail to notice that Zoe was too stunned to say anything. If they’re going to talk ‘tomorrow’/in season 2, I hope George remembers that talking should be a dialogue, not a monologue.
(I’ve wondered whether Zoe/Lavon could be endgame, if the show gets to its endgame, but that’s really an intellectual exercise, because my heart friendships them so and the show has played their relationship absolutely platonically. It’s just a reflective response to the fact that you can’t make two happy couples out of five main characters without leaving someone out, or killing them off. Despite George’s dream sequence that went a little bit Mormon and then a little bit pride, threesomes and moresomes aren’t going to be the answer either. To be honest, I can’t cope with four seasons of two overlapping love triangles either. Lavon/DeeDee got repetitive, as he changed his mind about trying to move on one too many times, and she was sometimes crazy. There was one episode where I thought Lavon and Tansy could be good together, and I am endlessly amused by the thought that all the Lemonetes, pace Annabeth, fancy him. I can buy Lemon being less crazy and happier if she were with Lavon, but Lavon doesn’t deserve Lemon at her worst. I’m not saying George does, either, but he seemed tinured to it.)
My heart has been won over by all the pining and I’ve been desperate to see Zoe and Wade connect more, episode by episode. I all but cheered at and accepted Zoe’s diagnosis that she fell for unavailable men (George) because her daddy was avoiding her. And yes, Wade is immature (but so is Zoe at times) and self-sabotaging, but as the season proressed we saw that a lot of that was a lack of confidence. When Wade lashed out and called Zoe selfish ad snobbish, which she can be, I was too busy seeing that, from her perspective, George, Judson and Jesse had the confidence as professional men to offer slightly more sophisticated flirting than ‘Do you want to get laid?’ Without that confidence, Wade keeps failing, and he’s not helped by Zoe’s foot in her mouth most of the time. (I totally called Jesse being Wade’s brother before it was revealed, and wasn’t the bitterness of the one who stayed at home revealing?)
It absolutely helps that there is sizzle there – so much UST al season that I was desperate for sober kissing. But, obviously, we got more than that. Like Zoe, I think that Wade’s theory that sleeping with each other would get them out of each other’s systems is bunkum, because it’s more than that – she made him want to get his own bar, he holds her accountable, although so does most of Bluebell. He was right that they were never friends, but the moment where he was doctoring her was yummy. And let’s be honest, I approve of all of the wardrobe choices in that finale. And they were so happy, pre and post TV sex that I was going on some level, ‘Don’t answer the door to stupid George, Zoe!’ I couldn’t interpret Zoe’s expression in the final shot. Argh. I knew it was going to get messy.
And George clearly has no idea that Wade might be in the picture, despite Wade lecturing him ages ago on messing Zoe about. Add to that that I haven’t seen any evidence that Wade is aware of the whole Lemon cheating on George with Lavon thing and resultant angst.
I’m also really invested in Brick as Zoe’s mentor and Zoe being good for him; Zoe being good for Lemon when they interact; the Lavon-Wade-Zoe breakfast club; Zoe & Rose and Zoe making female friends.
I thought it was a shame they didn’t chase up the reveal that Joelle was crazy with jealousy by having her do something to Zoe. There was zero tension over Zoe changing her surname because of the show’s title, and zero tension over whether she’d leave, really, because of the show’s premise. By the end of the season, the most mysterious parental figure is Wade’s mother. We don’t know whether she’s dead and if not, what happened to her.
But as to what we did get, I absolutely loved Wade being able to ask Zoe to ask her father to treat George’s father, when George couldn’t. It just had so many delicious layers because of everyone’s feelings towards each other and especially all the father-child relationships involved, and had been well set up. I thought ‘Bachelorettes and Bullets’ was beautifuly structured too, what with all the secrets, innocent mistakes and things going wrong leading to Lemon having to tell George the whole truth.
I mostly roll my eyes at how zany they try to make Bluebell, although they upped the weird in how George reacted to breaking off the engagement after first learning of Lemon’s infidelity by acting like he was in a musical or at least 500 Days of Summer. By the end of the season, we have mostly learned who can sing: Rose, George, Wanda, Wade, Lemon, Tom and less so Brick and Zoe. The actor who plays Lavon and the actress who plays Magnolia remain unknowns. So, there may yet be a full-on musical episode.
Although Lemon is the craziest, Zoe can be quite a close second and everyone else a decent third.
Of course Bluebell doesn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day so much as it holds a Sweetie Pie dance. Of course. Zoe was dithering over whether she wanted to go with Judson as their relationship was only a few weeks old. When she did decide to go with him, Wade went on a mission to stop them and Zoe got VERY caught up in retaliating, so much so that Judson dumped her and Zoe’s lie to Wade’s latest fling, Joelle, that this was all foreplay rang truer than Zoe meant it to.
I admit I’ve swung over to shipping Wade/Zoe, because I cannot withstand his pining, however much of a failboat he is at it. To recap, I’ve spent most of the season being anti George and Lemon marrying, because they need to work through their issues and why they have feelings for other people instead of this frenzied hurtling towards marriage. An excellent place to start would be Lemon working through her issues with her mother. Well, it’d be healthier, but lead to less dramatic fodder.
Zoe/George probably lost me with wanting to spend the rest of their lives watching Woody Allen movies. That is not a lifestyle choice I can get behind, although there’s a natural ease between the characters and actors. More seriously, George kept choosing Lemon. So when they were pulling my beloved pretend couple trope in New Orelans, I grimaced, partly because it was the wrong ship, but mainly at the timing – just after he’d first broken up with Lemon because of her infidelity. And all I’ll say about his declaration in the finale is that he seemed to fail to notice that Zoe was too stunned to say anything. If they’re going to talk ‘tomorrow’/in season 2, I hope George remembers that talking should be a dialogue, not a monologue.
(I’ve wondered whether Zoe/Lavon could be endgame, if the show gets to its endgame, but that’s really an intellectual exercise, because my heart friendships them so and the show has played their relationship absolutely platonically. It’s just a reflective response to the fact that you can’t make two happy couples out of five main characters without leaving someone out, or killing them off. Despite George’s dream sequence that went a little bit Mormon and then a little bit pride, threesomes and moresomes aren’t going to be the answer either. To be honest, I can’t cope with four seasons of two overlapping love triangles either. Lavon/DeeDee got repetitive, as he changed his mind about trying to move on one too many times, and she was sometimes crazy. There was one episode where I thought Lavon and Tansy could be good together, and I am endlessly amused by the thought that all the Lemonetes, pace Annabeth, fancy him. I can buy Lemon being less crazy and happier if she were with Lavon, but Lavon doesn’t deserve Lemon at her worst. I’m not saying George does, either, but he seemed tinured to it.)
My heart has been won over by all the pining and I’ve been desperate to see Zoe and Wade connect more, episode by episode. I all but cheered at and accepted Zoe’s diagnosis that she fell for unavailable men (George) because her daddy was avoiding her. And yes, Wade is immature (but so is Zoe at times) and self-sabotaging, but as the season proressed we saw that a lot of that was a lack of confidence. When Wade lashed out and called Zoe selfish ad snobbish, which she can be, I was too busy seeing that, from her perspective, George, Judson and Jesse had the confidence as professional men to offer slightly more sophisticated flirting than ‘Do you want to get laid?’ Without that confidence, Wade keeps failing, and he’s not helped by Zoe’s foot in her mouth most of the time. (I totally called Jesse being Wade’s brother before it was revealed, and wasn’t the bitterness of the one who stayed at home revealing?)
It absolutely helps that there is sizzle there – so much UST al season that I was desperate for sober kissing. But, obviously, we got more than that. Like Zoe, I think that Wade’s theory that sleeping with each other would get them out of each other’s systems is bunkum, because it’s more than that – she made him want to get his own bar, he holds her accountable, although so does most of Bluebell. He was right that they were never friends, but the moment where he was doctoring her was yummy. And let’s be honest, I approve of all of the wardrobe choices in that finale. And they were so happy, pre and post TV sex that I was going on some level, ‘Don’t answer the door to stupid George, Zoe!’ I couldn’t interpret Zoe’s expression in the final shot. Argh. I knew it was going to get messy.
And George clearly has no idea that Wade might be in the picture, despite Wade lecturing him ages ago on messing Zoe about. Add to that that I haven’t seen any evidence that Wade is aware of the whole Lemon cheating on George with Lavon thing and resultant angst.
I’m also really invested in Brick as Zoe’s mentor and Zoe being good for him; Zoe being good for Lemon when they interact; the Lavon-Wade-Zoe breakfast club; Zoe & Rose and Zoe making female friends.
I thought it was a shame they didn’t chase up the reveal that Joelle was crazy with jealousy by having her do something to Zoe. There was zero tension over Zoe changing her surname because of the show’s title, and zero tension over whether she’d leave, really, because of the show’s premise. By the end of the season, the most mysterious parental figure is Wade’s mother. We don’t know whether she’s dead and if not, what happened to her.
But as to what we did get, I absolutely loved Wade being able to ask Zoe to ask her father to treat George’s father, when George couldn’t. It just had so many delicious layers because of everyone’s feelings towards each other and especially all the father-child relationships involved, and had been well set up. I thought ‘Bachelorettes and Bullets’ was beautifuly structured too, what with all the secrets, innocent mistakes and things going wrong leading to Lemon having to tell George the whole truth.
I mostly roll my eyes at how zany they try to make Bluebell, although they upped the weird in how George reacted to breaking off the engagement after first learning of Lemon’s infidelity by acting like he was in a musical or at least 500 Days of Summer. By the end of the season, we have mostly learned who can sing: Rose, George, Wanda, Wade, Lemon, Tom and less so Brick and Zoe. The actor who plays Lavon and the actress who plays Magnolia remain unknowns. So, there may yet be a full-on musical episode.
Although Lemon is the craziest, Zoe can be quite a close second and everyone else a decent third.
