By: Nat Bourgon
September 1st, 2013
With Season 3 of HoD coming up (it's about a month away now,
yay!), I've been doing some reflection on the show so far.
One of the trends that has become clear to me about the show
is this: Part of what made Season 1 so compelling was that despite the fact
that the romantic relationships played a large role in the series, most
development in the romantic relationships seemed to stem from situations,
events, or character journeys that honestly had little to do with romance.
Throughout much of the first season, there was an attempt to showcase the
characters embarking on their own individualistic, respective journeys.
Zoe was focusing on trying to adapt to Bluebell---she had an
invested interest in learning about her past, with the goal of trying to create
a more healthier, fulfilling way of life for herself. She joined the Belles to
try to become more Bluebellian, she spent a great deal of time hanging out with
Lavon on a friendship level---doing her best to learn how to be a supportive,
consistent, and contributing friend to him (friendship was something Zoe
previously struggled with---look at her relationship with Gigi for proof on
Zoe's past friendship struggles). She was also heavily invested, as she
admitted in 1x3, in learning from Brick Breeland in her medical practice with
him. She made efforts to develop a colleague/peer relationship with him, and
she truly wanted to grow as a doctor. Also, she grew to recognize that Brick
was also a human being that she wanted to learn from...It seemed like Zoe not
only learned to work with Brick, but that she actually began to enjoyed their
snarky yet playful banter, and respect his desire to make a difference in his
community.
Lemon was focusing on coming to terms with her mother's
abandonment, as she recognized that doing so allow her to leave the scars from
that traumatic experience in the past, and finally move forward and focus on
creating a more emotionally balanced future for herself.
Wade meanwhile was realizing that he wanted something more
out of life than just serving alcoholic beverages. He was in the process of
recognizing his own unique talents and skills and for the first time, started
to feel like he was worthy of a career.
George was beginning to recognize that there were parts of
himself that were being internally muted, and silenced. Even worse, he realized that he was being muted and restrained by himself of all people. He
recognized that being your true, most authentic self is important, even at the
risk of connections with others fading into the ether.
What made the romantic relationships so compelling throughout Season 1, I would like
to argue, is that they evolved so nonchalantly and their development was so
mildly paced. The evolution happened in baby steps while everyone was immersed
in their own life adventures. Everyone was invested in furthering their own
lives and being, and while they were doing this, connections quietly were
formulated, modified, tweaked, and nurtured. The characters subsequently felt real
and like they had a broader purpose other than just sexuality. The relationships
subsequently felt earned. Personal journeys and goals were not typically
squandered, compromised and halted for love, and the relationships were so much
more meaningful and organic because of this. In the instances when the journeys
and goals were stalled, the relationships were shown to also stall and wound up
featuring conflict. The show celebrated the character's individualistic
triumphs and took time to showcase the value of selfless friendship on many
occasions throughout the first season, and the show was so vital because of
doing as much.
At times, Season 2 pulled back on demonstrating and reveling
in the character's individualistic journeys. In fact, I'd say that many of the
character's nuance, persona, depth and individualism were not revealed at the
level that they could have been. The most prominent goal and journey shown by
many of the characters in season 2 was love itself. And although love is a very
important journey, there were points when I felt like I was missing out on seeing
the characters build upon their individualistic journeys that they were all
heavily invested in throughout the first season. There was little concrete
evidence in Season 2 that Zoe was interested in developing her people skills,
friendships, and medical career. Rose's relationship with Zoe became a
springboard to discussing love, rather than the sisterhood traces that it
hinted it could become in Season 1. Lemon was going out on subpar dates with
Walt instead of figuring out what she was truly passionate about doing with her
life. Lavon pointed, laughed, balked and near ridiculed Zoe's crazy decisions
towards the season's end instead of doing the friend thing and being there for
her while she was essentially going through pseudo mental health issues. Love
wasn't the icing on the life cake---it became life itself, which led to these
compelling, intriguing characters of depth, shown as more one dimensional and
one tracked as they had ever been.
There were some really well done, beautiful/funny moments
throughout Season 2. There was a 4 episode stretch between episodes 2x6 through
till 2x9 inclusive that I thought honed in on the series' strengths. These
episodes found humour, drama and playfulness coexisting, while focusing on
situations, events and occurences more instead of overtly emphasizing love.
There was another stretch towards the end of the season that I think might be
four of my favourite episodes of the series (2x17, 2x18, 2x19, 2x20). These
episodes dive into the show's strength of showing organic, supportive,
meaningful friendship at its best. These episodes highlight flawlessly the
evolution of Zoe and Brick's connection, and finds them talking to each other
like adults, giving one another advice, supporting one another through
challenging times, and acknowledging their near friendship/father daughter
bond. These episodes also reveal Lemon and Wade's newfound friendship, which
allow both of their depth as compelling characters to be shown off fabulously.
Both of these four episode stretches share a commonality: The writers shifted
away from demonstrating that love was the number one goal of the characters.
They depicted the characters as wanting something more out of themselves and
out of life. Unfortunately these 8 episodes of focusing on individualistic character journeys and friendships in a 22 episode Season 2 situates the majority of the season as showcasing love itself over the landscape, texture and intricacies of life. I love this show. Its high points are so triumphant, so meaningful, so moving and it's frustrating because those high points have become the exception rather than the norm. Hart of Dixie has oodles of potential, but has become more and more content to be a romantic comedy with the occasional town event and fleeting friendship moment. This is disappointing to me because it has been, and can be again so much more than that.
I hope Season 3 finds a way to honour and build on the
personal journeys of the characters like much of Season 1, and in particular,
the 2 highlighted four episode arcs of Season 2 that I discussed. Mostly, I
hope that Season 3 finds romantic love in the rafters of the character's journeys: There
and important but not dominant or leading, while feeling earned and natural.
