So, Five x Lila. I need to get this out of my system so I can maybe finally move on:
I don't like the characters together. I find the pairing a baffling one, and I don't like what it does to the show (and characters) either.
First of all, that wasn't Lila. I don't know who it was, but it wasn't the woman we saw off at the end of S3, or even the one we started off S4 with.
You can blame trauma, or six years of being on the move. That's going to change a person, for sure, but this wasn't about giving Lila any character development.
It was about giving Five a love interest.
Because that life? Yeah. I could see it for Five. I could see him deciding to settle down and take life slow, I could see him being sweet and domestic with a partner should he have one. After he's had some time to heal, now that he's finally free of the apocalypse, I could see that for Five.
But Lila? She was unhappy in her marriage, at least partly because the domestic, stay-at-home-mum life has proven to be something that doesn't fulfil her. She wants more out of life, which is why "bookclub" happened, which is why she ended up in the subway with Five in the first place.
And okay. For the sake of argument, let's go with this. Let's say Five x Lila happened so they could cope with their situation. It was survival, like Lila said. If we were going to have to endure this bad, messy plot point anyway, (which we didn't, we really, really didn't), it should at least have been treated with the seriousness it deserves.
Because, Five? The complete, callous lack of remorse on his part? What the fuck was that?
Even if you pick through the crumbs and try to make it make sense, this wasn't a romance. At best it was survival, and coping, and kind of a tragedy all at once. Five shouldn't be picking fights with Diego. He shouldn't be acting like a spurned twenty-something-year-old.
And yeah, characters can be flawed and in the wrong, but why like this? This didn't feel like Five to me. He is brusque and, when looked at it from a certain angle, I can see why some would call him selfish (which I don't necessarily agree with, but that's a different conversation), but under all his layers, he does love his family. To me, that's the core of his character and has been since S1. Everything he's done, he's done to ensure their survival, then when he agreed to give up in S3, he was content to simply die by their sides.
So, you're telling that this Five, the one we've known and followed for three seasons, had a fling with Lila and didn't even feel guilty or conflicted about it? You're telling me loved this woman, yet was willing to keep her from her family, her children?
"Five is selfish" "Five is tired" "Five is finally moving on"
No. Not like that. To me, the Five from previous seasons (S2 specifically, because that's where a lot of it goes wrong) is only "selfish" in that he wants his family to survive and is willing to go to any lengths to achieve that. He's not exactly compassionate about Allison and Viktor having to leave Ray and Sissy behind. And yeah, he leaves Diego in the asylum because he doesn't want him messing with the timeline.
Is he in the wrong for that? Answer this any way you want, but I don't think it matters to Five. Does he want his siblings to be happy? In my opinion, of course he does, but they're not going to be happy if they're dead.
That's not the same as what S4 does. Not by a long shot. Five cares deeply about those he loves, and granted, he is pretty bad at showing it, but he does care.
He nearly worked himself into the grave trying to solve the first two apocalypses, with little regard for his own well-being. When he realised a third apocalypse was happening, he didn't say fuck it and continue his Pennsylvania retirement road trip... he immediately dropped everything to try and fix it.
So how did we get to S4 Five, who got with his brother's wife, found a way home, didn't tell Lila, AND THEN, after he finally gave her the notebook and they went back, he acts like that?
Yeah, no. That's not my Five.
Also, five x lila happening isn't Five moving on. If anything, it's how he copes with the situation they're in. That's just his Delores 2.0.
Anyway, all of this is moot because the fact of the matter is, they chose to make this happen. Five and Lila getting stuck in the subway together for seven years didn't have to happen.
This used to be a show about family. It also used to be a show about the effects of child abuse on this group of siblings. This started to fall to the wayside after S1, but the family aspect of it still remained.
At its core, tua has always been about family, so what was the point of making S4 at all if this is what they were going to give us?
It's not just Five x Lila. They messed this up across the board, with how flippantly the absence of Sloane and Ray was treated, how shallow and surface-level all of the rest was. They gave us some crumbs with Klaus and Allison, but they couldn't even do that without retconning their entire relationship. That's not even mentioning the ending. The Hargreeves all sacrificing themselves in the end could have worked, but this was not the way to do it.
Anyway, this rant is over. S1 Five, you'll always be famous to me.
