Im In It For The Long Haul With Tim And Lucy - Tumblr Posts
After Sunday's episode what are you #chenford thoughts for the rest of 4B?
tbh my chenford thoughts are the same as they were before watching sundays episode: they are building towards chenford, deliberately taking things as slow as possible, and continuing to show us just how close their friendship/relationship has become in order to build the strongest foundation they can. i actually want to break this down a little, because i've seen some people reading things differently than i have and maybe it's worth a little bit of analysis.
sunday's episode laid out a few things for us, very plainly:
1. tim and lucy talk more than we see on screen. personally, i've always thought this to be true – but i know that sometimes if we don't see something onscreen, it's fair to believe it hasn't happened. tim and lucy spend 12+ hours a day together...and clearly, i'd imagine especially since becoming partners, they talk about a wide range of things sitting in that shop. they're more personal now than they were when tim was lucy's t.o. – she's not telling tim to break up with his girlfriend and he's openly discussing his relationship issues with her. i haven't talked about this publicly much, but a lot of people have noticed that this season feels oddly reminiscent of season two. imo, that's a deliberate choice – the writers are taking all of the building blocks of chenford from season 2 (the emotional support, the bet, the love interests) and rewriting them in a romantic lens, rather than in a friendship/partnership lens. they can lean into that, now, to really dig their heels in on the fact that this is a new place for tim and lucy's relationship – they're showing us how they react differently to some of the same situations we've seen in the past, in a way that's even closer than before. anyway: they talk more/spend more time together than we see on screen, that much is obvious.
2. we're not supposed to like/invest in their new love interests. at this point, i'm still not 1000% sold on the idea that chris is lucy's love interest (though, i don't really know who else it would be, so like...a point in chris's column, i guess) but, i'm answering this working under the assumption he is. that being said: we are not supposed to care about ashley! we are not supposed to like chris! they deadass said: we aren't even going to have tim and ashley touch after they just spent the night together.
let's start with ashley: after meeting her in 4x06, i wasn't even certain we would see her again...that's how little they committed to the character. we then heard about her in 4x08, wherein tim used her as a bargaining chip to prove his sister wrong ("you are the most stubborn person alive, which is, by the way, why you're still single." "okay, first of all – i'm not.") and the show used her as a device to get lucy's reaction to the info that tim's seeing someone. the fact that tim brought up the fact that he's casually dating someone in an argument/as a way to get his sister off his back is bad enough for the relationship, but the fact that we as the viewers were then shown lucy's reaction to that information? when she wasn't even present in the argument prior to it, when the information wasn't even being directed at her? that was an incredibly intentional choice – she was learning something about tim she, as his close friend, as his partner, likely would've already known if it was serious...and she was a little taken aback by it. she was surprised. we were supposed to be watching her, in that moment – because it was more about tim realizing he's now let the emotions get the best of him (which can happen a lot in triggering situations/with people who revert you back to a fight or flight response, etc.) to the point where he's let something out that he didn't even mean to share, yet.
it's also incredibly intentional that ashley is nowhere in 4x08 and 4x09 – lucy is the person that goes through that storyline with tim, lucy is the person who comes with him to his childhood home to renovate with his sister, lucy is the person who helps him work through his shit with his dad, who drives him (or, with him...i imagine she drove) to the hospice, who waits outside while he confronts his father, who is there for him afterwards. it's not the woman he's dating, it's lucy.
then we have 4x10, and guys...if we didn't know if before, we do now: ashley doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. first of all, the lack of chemistry between helena and eric is...glaring. they're fine together, they can share space, they're pretty...but that's about it. this is done purposefully – in part, because no one's chemistry is going to compare to melissa and eric's, and in part, because ashley is not meant to be a meaningful character that we care about! she is not meant to have depth in the scope of the storyline – she is meant to be held up as a character that, once again, is perfectly fine...but for some reason, not the right fit. we see lucy step into tim’s relationship again – though, this time she’s honestly dragged in by ashley herself – to solve a problem. she intentionally tells tim to listen to the girl he likes after they’ve been flirty little shits in the parking garage without even noticing it, and then tim listens to lucy.
the fact that ashley literally goes out of her way to call lucy and ask for advice about her own boyfriend is...genuinely hilarious, given the fact that 1, this proves that tim talks about lucy all the fucking time, to the point that ashley knows she would know how to handle him, and 2, she openly refuses to talk to tim about her problems on her own, implying that even just a few weeks into this relationship, they have an incredibly low level of communication with each other.
also, less important, but: tim is literally up early after his girlfriend’s slept over for the first time making eggs and salmon for his fucking dog. ashley’s like oh haha you didn’t have to do that for me and he’s not even the slightest bit apologetic when he shoves her out of the way to go put the food into kojo’s bowl. i love this man. i love that he is deadass just like, “this is my dog, he was lucy’s, he’s our son now,” with a grin on his face. my favorite person, truly. anyway.
it’s just so, so incredibly telling how they’ve positioned this character/these stories...2/3 times we’ve experienced ashley, it’s been in the scope of chenford. ...and that’s really all i have to say about that!
now, chris...who we know less about so i have less to say, here. i didn’t have any expectations for chris and i still really don’t, but the fact that they’ve introduced him in this light (essentially telling lucy he’ll be holding her responsible for an innocent woman’s murder, should that come to pass) tells me a few things...1, we’re not supposed to like him. 2, if he’s a love interest, it’s not going to be a long-term, massive thing...for the most part, because they would never just go ahead and repeat the wesley/angela storyline for the hell of it with another main character. 3, the location of that first introductory scene was incredibly telling.
that is the thing i want to discuss re: chris – the fact that his introduction came off the heels of lucy talking to tim’s girlfriend on the phone about what a good person he is.
this show is not a tough nut to crack: they sandwiched those scenes so purposefully. oh, here’s lucy talking to tim’s love interest who is fine-just-fine, but not really it? now let’s introduce her to this man, who could wind up being fine-just-fine, but not really it.
anyway, the point here: we are not supposed to care about these people. they’re not supposed to be full of depth, they’re not supposed to be emotionally moving, they’re just...there. they’re moving the story along for tim and for lucy (and for chenford) and bringing us that much closer to them realizing they are each other’s person. it’s formulaic – they aren’t meant to have their own in-depth story points or large emotional beats, they’re there to serve the main characters/their stories...so seeing it all play out in such a formulated way? very happy with the spot we’re in, there.
3. chenford is going to continue to move slowly...and they should. listen, i know i’ve talked about this before and it’s probably beating a dead horse or whatever, but...they don’t want to go there with chenford yet, and that’s purposeful. they want to build them the strongest foundation possible, make it completely undeniable that there are capital-f Feelings there, that they literally can’t be with anyone else, and then pull the trigger. if we want to be technical about this (and thank you to @timlucys for saying this to me at least twice a day, most days), tim and lucy have not actually been in a “slowburn” territory since season 1. for us, yes, ok – many of us have shipped them since season 1, and so for us, that feels weird to say. but for the characters, they have not actually been in a place to be considered a slowburn for all that long. tim was her t.o. until 3x09 – that last parking garage scene? that was where we entered slowburn territory, if you want to split hairs. they couldn’t (and wouldn’t) be romantic until tim was no longer lucy’s boss, and once we hit that point? all bet have been off. but that’s literally 14 episodes, total – so...we haven’t been in the realm for that long, and if you look at it that way, so much has happened since then? the build that we’ve seen from 3x09 to 4x10? the growth? and all of that just having them outside of their rookie/t.o. phase? they’re not even moving as slowly as some probably think, imo.
the point here: they’re deliberately moving slow with chenford. they want them to be in the right place, and remember: when we actually get to a point where chenford are together, we will stop seeing...a lot of what we like about chenford. think about wesley and angela, as an example – they had two fairly large storylines in the first half of the season...and now we probably won’t see as much of them, in the back half of the season because...unfortunately, the only thing we would wind up seeing? them in more relationship trouble, and that’s not a story they’re going to want to tell. right now, chenford are in a good spot – we still have tension from the will they/won’t they, we still have ust, we still have that spark we all love to root for...but once they get together, we’ll be relegated to seeing a whole lot less of them together.
i, for one, would much rather see them building than being sidelined, you know?
anyway! i am sorry this became such a long, bonkers answer...and that i really don’t have a lot of thoughts on what’s going to happen 😂 tl;dr: the truth of it is that i don’t really care much for spec! i am happy to answer specific questions about narrative, about general plot points, about industry stuff...but i’m not really one for predicting, because i’d much rather let the show do what it’s going to, in the end. i love what they’re doing right now, i’m happy with the trajectory we seem to be in, and i’m looking forward to what’s coming next!