This Whole Documentary Business Was Already Making Me Nervous, But Operation Real Campers Of Shallow

This whole documentary business was already making me nervous, but operation real campers of shallow lake has me feeling actual second-hand stress.

You're so right. Doing the prom the night before opening night (and in the same building I think?) is such an objectively bad idea! Especially because the prom has a theme - that can't be that easy to clean up.

Not getting more of the boat scene felt a bit sad too. Sure, the fireworks not turning up was meant to be metaphorical - but you can't tell me that EJ "this camp is my second home" Caswell doesn't know where the fireworks happen and whether or not you can see them from this window.

Also your tags about the background characters pulling the musical together really makes me want to write a fanfic from the view of a fed-up stagehand, who accidentally set off the fireworks in the wrong place and has to help clean up after prom.

Going into this episode, I hate how they’ve seemingly just cut a week out. Especially given how last episode ended with Ashlyn & Val and EJ & Gina. Like what’s the fall out from that? You’ve just spent most of the season showing us just how much can happen in a week (even if it is unrealistic), and then we just skip one? Do they expect us to believe nothing happens in that time?

It’s also the night before their musical, shouldn’t they be like finalising costumes, doing last minute set painting or idk… a full dress rehearsal?

And like that barn is fully decked out for the prom, so are they just gonna spend tomorrow, which is the DAY OF the musical, cleaning up?

Why did the prom have to be the night before? We’ve literally skipped an entire week, why couldn’t it be earlier?

Oh that’s right: plot convenience & drama

1.06 // 3.05

This got to be one of my greatest tumblr accomplishments

I really hope that they talk next episode. Honestly S3 Ash reminds me of S2a Ricky. Too caught up in her own stuff to realize her friends need her.

Ricky came back by helping Carlos and realizing he was regressing with Nini and letting her go. I really hope Ash and EJ get to talk in the finale - they deserve a similar moment to Ricky helping Carlos with the song.

I found Ricky's actions to be an understandable and forgivable teenage thing in 2a and if I'm right about Ashlyn, I would find that forgivable teenage stuff too. The characters are allowed to be complicated people that make mistakes - but I need somebody to be there for EJ one of these days. The boy has been going through it this season.

the hsmtmts writers dropping ashlyn and ej genuinely being best friends is my villain origin story

I've seen a lot of takes floating around about how we shouldn't make excuses for EJ/Gina/Ricky while talking about the others' mistakes. I can't help but wonder -

Am I the only one that's Team-Make-excuses-for-everybody?

Because fundamentally these characers are pretty young and that summer of firsts has put a lot on their plates.

EJ - isn't spending enough time with his girlfriend and friends? Yeah, because he was slapped with the huge responsibility of making a blockbuster musical work in a few weeks and nobody is helping him. (They are learning their lines and cues to be fair, but no one offered to help him plan for the read-through in that tent? Not one person?)

He's not telling Gina about the letter until she finds out for herself? That's absolutely bad, but he was planning on telling her after he had sorted it out. Which, let's be real, wasn't going to happen before the end of the summer after the documentary came out, so his plan really wasn't very likely to go well and even if it did, he would have still been in the wrong for not confiding in her.

But it makes sense, too. When we first meet EJ, he's a jock who gets leads in the musicals. A popular kid with grades impressive enough to make it reasonable for him to get into Duke. He's also prone to schieming and sabotage and has no clue how to sincerely apologize. We later find out that there's a lot of pressure to be perfect from his dad. You can't tell me that EJ grew up in an environment where it would have been acceptable for him to be vulnerable about something he was struggling with unless it was already in the past and he had already handled it. There's a reason this kid doesn't know how to apologize and I'd wager it's the same reason he doesn't know how to talk to his girlfriend about a something he doesn't yet know how to fix.

That doesn't make it okay, but it makes it understandable and I'm willing to make excuses for him and sympathize with him anyway.

Gina - is being passive-aggressive towards her boyfriend instead of talking to him directly? Yeah, because she's discovered that he's hiding something from her and I think the first few jabs were meant to give him the hint that he should maybe explain himself before she would bring it up. She's been busy with getting the lead in Frozen and trying to be 'a good girlfriend' for the first time, only to learn that EJ is hiding something from her and has been confiding in someone else about it instead. That would upset anybody. And I truly believe that most of her anger has been her trying to force a conversation, even if it wasn't in the healthiest way. Which is perfectly understandable.

She's also showing glimpses of old habits? Of course she is - ambition is not inherintly a bad character trait and "Gina 1.0" wasn't very long ago, so of course she has that ambition in her still. (Tbh I have a whole analysis in defense of Gina 1.0 that I wrote when I first watched that ep, so if anyone's interested in reading that I might still post it.)

And Ricky - has a crush on Gina while she's in a relationship with EJ? Yeah, that happens. It's already tough to rebuild a friendship after having had crushes even when those romantic feelings haven't lingered. Trying to navigate a friendship while having a crush on an unavailable friend is deeply complicated.

And that is what he's trying to do! He's not trying to interfere in portwell at all. We know what Ricky looks like when he's trying to sabotage a relationship and this isn't that. (I could make a whole other post about that difference tbh.) This is Ricky and Gina, who never got closure on their feelings for each other, trying to act like the casual friends they were before she ever pulled away from him. Only their casual friendship was founded on electric understanding that was likely already hurtling towards something way back then - so finding a new normal, that will actually look casual to the outside world (nevermind feel casual), is a tall order for both of them. (Not saying their attempt at friendship will leave them driving off into the sunset together anytime soon! Just saying that they've got a difficult goal here and it's bound to be awkward as they try to figure out new boundaries.)

At the end of the day, these characters are all trying to navigate pretty complicated romantic situations while also having a lot of other stuff going on at the same time. Be that the musical, the documentary, pressure from home, having to defend your ambitions to your best friends, or having to find your place in a group where some of your strongest connections were your ex, your ex-friend who you have a crush on that can't be more. (And I'd also list Ricky's friendship with Carlos here, but tbh their friendship is pretty uncomplicated so it's not relevant to my point right now.)

Of course all of them are going to make mistakes, but they're all very understandable. The discourse around not laying blame at only one character's feet feels to me a bit like people trying to justify their fave or even their ship at the expense of (more) nuance. (Which is also totally fair, I just felt like I had to throw my own take into the ring as well.)