User blog:Eikakou/Anne (CBC series), season 3, episode 7 - A Strong Effort of the Spirit of Good review

I can't believe it - it's episode seven, which means there's only three episodes left after this one! But as we've seen with previous seasons, three episodes can certainly pack in a lot. And there's quite a few plots that need to be resolved before the end of the season, especially after this episode.

As wont to say, '''ONWARD! Thar be spoilers below-eth!'''

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This episode focuses strongly on the theme of fairness. And thematically, it does directly follow what happened in the The Summit of My Desires in terms of fairness to women. However, it looks also being fair to peers and to the community as a whole, within a family dynamic, within a relationship, and its effects, including the consequences, on others.

So, what was Anne doing at the end of the previous episode? She sneaks back into the house at 4:00 AM after printing off an article and leaving at the church. It's nice to see that she's realized how important it is to be honest when Marilla catches her on the way in. Well, insomuch where Anne admits she was out doing something important for the newspaper and not having a dangerous or frivolous adventure.

But as we've seen, Anne often doesn't think things through. The next morning, everyone is struck hard by Anne's editorial piece where she speaks up ideas about treating women fairly and with dignity as independent individuals. But the timing and execution of her piece means that everyone is thinking about Josie when they read the article, even though Anne does not mention Josie directly and she meant for the article to be considered broadly. The editorial is provocative and inflammatory; Anne won't apologize for it, but everyone is upset for different reasons.

At Josie's house, she's finding that her parents are not sympathetic to her pain. Rather, they're focused on damage control and the idea that they need to find a way to woo back Harmon Andrews into letting Josie marry Billy. As Mrs. Pye keeps emphasizing, Josie's beauty is still intact and women just have to put up with suffering. It doesn't make her open to Anne's attempt at apologizing, because Josie thinks that Anne has just gone out of her way to reduce Josie to trash out of envy. But when Anne does make a second, sincere, apology, Josie is given more to think about when Anne talks about how, despite being abandoned and used and passed along, she's realized that the only person who can assign worth to yourself is you. Josie takes out the ribbons her mother binds her hair with every night as her mother reminds her that her beauty is what matters. And she rejects Billy when he tries to apologize for hurting her.

The Andrews are all over the place in response. Harmon rejects Mr. Pye, laughing at how desperate Mr. Pye is to try and win them back. Jane is relieved that Billy and Josie won't be married and doesn't see anything wrong with the status quo. Billy is silent on the matter. Prissy, fresh from college, points out how it was only recently that she was the one with the ruined reputation from the rumours of an inappropriate relationship with Mr. Phillips and then how she left him at the altar. Harmon has an incredibly low opinion of what women are capable of - he seems to think it was the Andrews' name that got negative attention of Prissy to blow over, but Mrs. Andrews interjects that it took herculean efforts on her part to fix things. Harmon did nothing. But Mrs. Andrews also adds that Prissy's situation was "fixed" when Mr. Phillips proposed; well, then Prissy points out, then Billy can fix things for Josie. He has all the power in this situation and if Harmon thinks that what's happened to Josie is different than what happened to Prissy, then there's a word for that: hypocrisy. It's clear the effect college has on Prissy - it's given her a broader understanding on what she can do, the confidence to act, and realize how unfair the world. Unfortunately, it's lost on her father. She tries to propose a way to help the farm prosper with what she's learned about economics because it's clear that Billy is too incompetent to keep the family business running, but Harmon is upset that Prissy won't serve him tea properly and would rather let the farm go to ruin than let Prissy co-run it with Billy.

The old men on the town council are pretty much like cigar-chomping versions of Harmon Andrews. They hate the newspaper because it's discussed everything they don't like - like the article on the Mi'kmaq (racism!), Mary's obituary because she's black (racism!), and now Anne's editorial (sexism and misogyny!). Rachel, the only woman on the council, is interrupted at every turn and then dismissed as hysterical when she tries to present a reasonable response. At the extreme, they want to take away the printing press (interestingly, a piece of technology that greatly increases the speed at which information can be shared), but will settle for limiting the topics the newspaper can print (like men's hat fashions, farming except animal husbandry). And then they tell Rachel to deliver their decree. By dropping the sheet of paper in front of her instead of having the respect to hand it to her open hand. And because it sounds better for a woman to deliver the news to another woman. Like Rachel is their private secretary. I was furious. Particularly when they didn't even hand it to her. It was like a woman is beneath them, and only a man deserves to have something handed to him as an equal. (Sidebar: this is why I hate it when someone drops something next to me when I have my hand open to receive it. I HATE IT because it is incredibly disrespectful.)

So the newspaper club is upset because Anne had published without discussing it with the rest of the team. It's not fair to them because their group risks being shut down now by the town council, despite Miss Stacy being opposed to what amounts as censorship of free speech. While she agrees with the content of Anne's editorial, she points out that Anne crossed the line first by not discussing the article with the editor-in-chief (Miss Stacy). Anne was so focused on its impact and that people wouldn't feel its relevance if she took too long, that she failed to consider the context. Avonlea is a small town, not a large city. Many people know each other closely, there aren't many new ideas to share, so something so provocative will warrant strong reactions if it's not delivered well. While the newspaper club is split on Anne's actions and the town council has ordered her to be fired from the group, Gilbert breaks down Anne's article for the reporters and they all see that Anne was right, even if how she went about it wasn't. Anne has a plan to take back the newspaper and everyone joins in.

So meanwhile, Diana is realizing that maybe she and Jerry aren't as compatible as she likes. But she still likes kissing him, which confuses and hurts Jerry. When he tells Anne that he's confused about how the girl he likes is acting around him, Anne thinks the girl is being cruel to him. But Anne's shocked to find out that the girl is her best friend, and Jerry reveals how he thinks Diana thinks he's too common for her and that if she didn't tell Anne, it means that Diana is ashamed of him. It blows up into an nasty fight between Anne and Diana, because Anne now worries that Diana thinks that Anne is like Jerry - common and just someone to use until she moves on - while Diana, confused about her own feelings for Jerry, is upset that Anne is making it all about herself again and has thought that Diana's friendship with her was superficial. There's a lot going on here. Diana is being unfair to Jerry, by not breaking things off with him honestly and deciding just let things drift along until she goes to Paris because she likes kissing him apparently. But there's also Anne being unfair to Diana by making assumptions and not letting Diana explain, while the flip side involves why Diana felt she needed to keep her relationship with Jerry a secret from Anne.

The newspaper club makes their stand at the town council meeting, with Prissy, Josie, the ever supportive Marilla and Matthew, and many other townfolk out to support them. It's a powerful message that freedom of speech is a human right, and when one of the old men tries to stop them, it's caught on camera. It looks like they've won the day and they celebrate at the schoolhouse. Anne's going to miss learning with Miss Stacy, and then she and Gilbert share a moment alone together outside, but it looks like Anne is prone to emotional self-defence and brings up how lucky Winifred will be to have Gilbert. Poor Gil, he probably wasn't even thinking about Winnie. Anne probably is telling herself she's apologizing for how she kept bringing up blameless Winifred when she was upset and thinking Gilbert didn't care about her editorial because Anne thought he was going to marry a beautiful lady and get his happily ever after.

But we can't end on a high note. Those nasty old men steal the printing press in the middle of the night and drop a cigar they don't completely put out...

I will be honest. I had thoughts of wanting to commit... let's call them, disagreeable acts of a physical nature that would be detrimental to the continuing healthy longevity of all the old men in the episode, barring Matthew Cuthbert and Thomas Lynde (if he showed up). And if the episode was a hammer about the issues of fairness, especially towards women, then fine it was. But I felt strongly sympathetic to Anne, Prissy, Rachel - all the women in the episode who found they were fighting against men who dismissed them as simply women. Perhaps it's unfortunate that Gilbert was the one who had to break down the elements of Anne's article and help the newspaper club understand how it was relevant to them - how Anne would defend any of them, how what she speaks about could affect any of them (like Tillie) or is it fair to assume Moody would know, on the basis of being male, everything important to Ruby? Why not Miss Stacy? Perhaps it's because it's coming from a peer? But it might be seen as "mansplaining", because it could seem like the characters are only understanding a female character's arguments when a male character delivers them. Of the other options, why couldn't it be Diana, for example?

And things do not look good if the schoolhouse burns down. Will this be an excuse by the old men to say that youth of Avonlea don't need a school, they need a good "moral" (i.e. very religious Christian) education to "cure" them of the ideas of independence and individuality? I mentioned that the printing press is an example of technology increasing the ability to share ideas among more people. One aspect to how the group in power stays in power is by suppressing knowledge and discourse. If they can't control the schools, the universities, they will destroy them and persecute anyone who tries to share knowledge. These old men have been threatened and it's clear they're going to take advantage of everything they can to make sure things go the way they want. This isn't a dialogue. It's a silencing.

But I did like Prissy's role in the episode, particularly when she speaks up against her family in the episode. And it's interesting, the contrast of Mrs. Andrews, who had felt strongly that Prissy would be the first generation of women to be college educated but still maintains that a woman's reputation needs to be preserved and that Mr. Phillips proposing "fixed" the scandals around Prissy. I was a bit startled at how Jane doesn't feel the same way as Prissy, and that things are fine the way they are to her, but it's probably also because she probably views it as a practicality issue. The way things are is what has a nice house and clothes for her. And because of their father's social standing in the community, they've been able to dodge any negative impacts on their lives. Billy's attempt to apologize to Josie also surprised me. He does seem genuinely sorry, but his admission that he likes Josie is not justification for his actions. And Josie liked him, but she's not willing to accept an apology for someone who retaliated by thoughtlessly hurting her. That's some nice character development.

I remember bringing this up with my brother - a lot of Anne's major relationships have taken a huge hit this season. While there's been no trouble with Matthew, Anne's relationships with Marilla, Gilbert, and now Diana have been damaged, though with Marilla and Gilbert, there's been reconciliations. Previous adaptations have shown nothing has ever sundered Anne and Diana's friendship (only external forces, like Mrs. Barry being upset with the currant wine incident), so this argument is a new, fresh, perspective. Hopefully they'll make up before Diana is off to Paris and Anne goes to Queen's.

And speaking of unresolved threads, Ka'kwet hasn't appeared for awhile, but given how she viewed Anne with so much trust, will that all be badly broken when Anne discovers the truth about the residential school?