When I Tell You This Damn Penguin Was My Childhood

when I tell you this damn penguin was my childhood

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he was the one all along: part 1

one of the things i love most about portwell is that when you go back and watch the show knowing what happens, you have this realization, like “oh. ej was right there all along.” it’s so beautiful.

in all of 2A, when gina was hurting, and ej too, the writers do such a good job of developing their individual arcs to where they’d be ready to meet in the middle come 2B. their overarching character arcs are done so well and i love how much they compliment each other. how they were exactly what the other person needed. it was done in a way that you can’t help but think it was the most unexpected thing that could happen, but also the only thing that made sense, right from the beginning.

but even the little things always get me. there’s quite a few scenes where gina is pining for ricky and/or just dealing with a lingering crush on someone she knows is in love with someone else. and in so many of them, ej is present or referenced in some way. sometimes it’s obvious, other times it’s just little background moments. and in some of them, ricky’s own lines and actions serve as a really poetic foreshadowing for what’s to come.

in one of the very first scenes after the semester ends, ricky shows up with nini at the new year’s party. it’s the first time we see gina acknowledge ricky in any way and the first thing that makes us question what must’ve happened between them. but while she’s looking over at him, who’s in the same shot sitting right next to her? ej.

one of the next scenes where we see gina looking over at nini and ricky together is when they’re singing you are the music in me. who’s standing next to her singing in that moment? ej. and i wish they had kept in that shot of rini singing and portwell talking in the center because it’s so telling. she seems so happy and not at all bothered or jealous in that shot. and literally all their friends are looking at them and not the couple literally serenading each other which i find hilarious.

in episode 2, the scene that stood out to me the most was at the auditions when ricky came in late and they made a point of showing gina’s reaction to him. in this entire scene, ej and gina were standing right next to each other and put in the same frame every time they showed up onscreen. so when she looks over at ricky yet again, who’s standing beside her AGAIN? ej.

moving on to episode 3, this is the scene most of us have already analyzed in detail bc, looking back, it’s just so glaringly obvious what they were doing. gina telling ricky that every girl likes a sweet gesture, and when he says that she’ll get one too, she responds by saying SHE DOESNT NEED ONE?! bc she knows that the person she likes won’t be giving one to her anytime soon so she’s accepted that she can live without that and it’s no big deal?! PAIN.

i think what’s so interesting about this scene is, and this may not be the best way to word this but, at the time it’s just an example of how wrong rina is. gina mentions a sweet gesture to a clearly uncomfortable ricky who is stressing out about what to do for his girlfriend - so much so that he doesn’t realize what his friend is going through enough to offer any show of support or friendship, in fact just shushes her when he gets a call from his girlfriend, and acts awkward the entire time. which is why when she mentions sweet gestures he immediately goes “i think you’ll get yours too” - he knows it’s not gonna be him and he’s saying, “don’t worry, there’s someone out there for you. even if it’s not me.” but ofc gina doesn’t believe that. she doesn’t think that’s possible. so she says “i’ll live.” at the time, it really just showed us how ricky wasn’t right for her, how these two really weren’t right for each other.

it wasn’t until 2x05 that it really hit me that there was someone else out there who really could be that sweet guy that gina wanted and deserved. and it didn’t even have to be a big gesture. something as simple and small as asking how she was feeling was enough to show her that he cared. and i realized that this valentine’s day scene wasn’t just about how ricky couldn’t give that to her, but about how ej could.

and then that elusive word “sweet” came up again in 2x07, and again in 2x10, until i was sure this show was basically turning portwell into a couple from a rom-com. not that i’d ever complain. the freaking airport scene??? something i never would’ve dared dream of. the little sweet gesture of the granola bar that was wrapped up in the big sweet gesture of driving to the airport in the middle of the night to pick her up? and then saying he’d do it again tomorrow? all of it without her ever having to say a word? it’s just too much.

oh yeah, not to mention the literal plane ticket he bought to bring her back for opening night. and then told her not to pay him back for.

whereas ricky never give gina enough, even when she asked, ej gave her the things that she never dared asked for. the things that she was too scared to ask for and convinced herself she didn’t need.

they will never not make me cry.

#couldnthavesaiditbetter

#preach

What do you think was the whole point of the Rina flashback scene? I have seen some R*na shippers get mad that they showed a Rina flashback and we never saw them talk to each other again and they are out here claiming that the showed the flashback because they think this means R*na is the endgame. I think the whole point was to show that asked her for relationship advice on his current girlfriend after she told him that she likes him.

I think the flashback served several purposes, and none of them have anything to do with R*na being the endgame. If anything, this scene proved the opposite.

Its main purpose was to reveal that Gina hadn't kept her feelings hidden this whole time, but that she'd actually confessed to Ricky on opening night. Which put all the awkwardness between them in 2A in a new context and told us that Ricky was aware of her feelings this whole time, but didn't feel compelled to act on that because he doesn't feel the same way about her. Just compare how he just gave a whole speech to Nini about why he loves her and him only stopping to talk because she told him to just kiss her, to him only saying "Say it" when he knew what Gina was about to say and then giving her the hug she asked for but doing nothing else.

The flashback scene helps us understand why Ricky was trying to see how Gina responded to seeing him with Nini in 2x01 and why he looked slightly tense and hesitant when Gina said this in 2x03 (on top of the entire scene already being pretty awkward):

He clearly doesn't want to talk about her confession because to him he made his feelings clear by staying with Nini ("Obviously"), so he got tense when he thought she meant Valentines Day was hard because of him rejecting her, and he only eased up a little when she explained it was about missing her mom.

The flashback also explains why Ricky tried to stop Big Red from telling Gina about the voicemail he wante to leave Nini. However, I don't blame Ricky for asking Gina for advice in 2x05. She'd given him advice about Nini unprompted in 2x03 and then pretended to be fine with giving some more advice in 2x04. It's logical that Ricky would think this meant she was already over him. Gina's tendency to hide her hurt feelings simply backfired on her here. Which is another thing the flashback clears up, because Gina had been hinting that something had happened throughout 2A but never actually opened up about it, which only further isolated her from her friends, even though they kept reaching out to her.

Another purpose of the flashback is to tell us something about who Gina is as a person. She voices how she feels she never does anything right the first time, but that she just keeps on pushing and never quits. That's essentially her describing her coping mechanism for all the changes and curveballs life throws her way. She said something similar in 2x05 when she talked about how she and Carlos would just keep on dancing no matter what happened next. She sees this as something negative, but her conversation with EJ in 2x08 helps her reframe this, because he sees it as her being brave. That's why it was good for us to hear her voice that in the flashback.

We also see how hard it is for Gina to be open and honest about how she feels. Especially when she's afraid of getting rejected. It took her a long time to get to the point in the flashback scene because she was terrified of putting herself out there and knew it was very likely she'd get rejected. She even called herself stupid for getting emotional. Still, she did it, and that in and of itself also showed us how brave she is. But she didn't fully let herself be brave and didn't fully open herself up to rejection, because she did end up voicing her feelings in a way that gave Ricky an easy excuse not to answer. She didn't ask him how he felt and simply ended the conversation on her own terms.

Compare that with how much she's grown in 2x12: she doesn't just confess her feelings to EJ, but asks him if she can kiss him and if he'll be her first kiss. This time, she's brave enough to put herself out there, didn't need ages to get to the point (she only hesitated very briefly with her "Can I..."), and asked the boy she likes how he feels. We wouldn't be able to fully see that growth if we hadn't seen the flashback.

In conclusion: the flashback was there to highlight Gina's growth in the rest of the season and to close the door on R*na romantically by showing us that Ricky is aware of how she felt and doesn't reciprocate. Ricky and Gina do need to talk eventually to repair their friendship, but when it comes to their romantic relationship there's nothing to talk about. Which is why they didn't.

HSMTMTS: EJ CASWELL, ASHLYN CASWELL & GINA PORTER.

+ Bonus:

it's so prettyyyyy goshh