User blog:Eikakou/Anne (CBC series), season 3, episode 5 - I Am Fearless and Therefore Powerful review

Uh-uh-uh-uh episode five, episode five, uh-uh-uh-uh, episode fiiiiivvveee fiiiivveee, episode five, episode five... ahem.

But enough of my cheesy singing.

So to complete the catch-up for reviews/recaps, episode 5! Some lighter fare after some pretty heavy episodes. But it's not all fun and games for everyone - marriage and motherhood is the game we're talking about. Serious stuff.

Let's go, spoilers below !

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Everyone is thinking about the birds and the bees it seems. Well, Gilbert is thinking about the bees, because there's an apiary on his farm and he's collecting honey (and maybe he's telling the bees the recent news). Everyone else is thinking of motherhood and marriage. Anne said at the beginning of the season that now that she's sixteen, she thinks she's destined to be a Bride of Adventure. Her friends, well, they're just looking to be brides of mere mortal men. Alas. But it seems like Rachel is still on the warpath to get singles married and she's got plans for Miss Stacy and now Bash.

Now that Bash is a single dad, Marilla and Rachel have been taking turns to care for Delphine while he works on the farm. But both the women can't keep up with the work of caring for an infant, especially as Rachel points out that there's going to be a lot more work on all their farms that they each need to take care of as spring approaches. Rachel insists that Bash needs to find a new wife to take care of Delly and the the house or the baby will need to be put up for adoption. Marilla reluctantly agrees that someone else needs to care for Delphine, though she still thinks that it's too soon since Mary's death. Bash decides to write to his mother Hazel to come care for Delphine, but later tells Gilbert he doesn't think she'll come. But maybe they'll find a solution elsewhere? For Delphine, Anne suggests running an obituary for Mary in the newspaper. Mary's story touches Mrs. Barry, who admits she regrets how the Barrys turned down Mary's invitations to dinner in the past, especially now that she knows what a lovely person Mary was. Mr. Barry decides they should offer to export the apples on the Blythe-Lacroix farm to England, which may help out with the farming and finances for Bash and Gilbert.

Miss Stacy is giving a lesson during a nature walk when Moody slips and gets a huge bleeding gash on his leg and scream in pain. The sight makes Ruby nearly faint, but the sight of two Mi'kmaq children (who were spying on the class) makes Ruby actually faint. Everyone's freaking out over Moody's injury, Ruby's loss of consciousness, and random Mi'kmaq kids in the area. Miss Stacy and Gilbert try to treat Moody when Anne suggests going to get help from the Mi'kmaqs. The two kids trust Anne because they're Ka'kwet's siblings, so she's able to bring back Aluk (Ka'kwet's father) and Aluk's mother, who is a medicine women in their village. While everyone is wary, Gilbert is impressed with the knowledge and techniques that Aluk's mother uses as pain relief (willow bark) and to stitch up Moody's wound (honey for an antiseptic). Before they leave, Anne reveals she tried to visit Ka'kwet and Aluk tells Anne that Ka'kwet is expected to return in the summer. Nobody has a clue here what Ka'kwet is enduring.

Gilbert may be reconsidering not taking a career in medicine. After seeing Aluk's mother use willow bark - something all over where they live - he's wondering what other limitations existed in his education with Dr. Ward. In the newspaper he finds out about antitoxins from study done at the Sorbonne. Dr. Ward (as kind and more open than others) dismissed new studies, but Miss Stacy comments the Sorbonne is a respected institution and suggests contacting a friend of hers, Dr. Emily Oak, at the University of Toronto, who is doing similar studies on antitoxins.

Meanwhile, Diana's mother apparently is still all melodramatic about Diana's night with Jerry's family. So when Jerry comes by to walk Diana home so he can chat with her, she's careful to not welcome it, but she doesn't tell him it's unwelcome either. And she likes it enough that she even uncharacteristically brushes off Anne, who's hoping to borrow a book about Scotland from Mr. Barry, because she's hoping to see Jerry (gasp, keeping secrets from your kindred spirit because you don't want her to know?!) Who doesn't show up... until she's nearly home and he wants to share Frankenstein with her. And she's thrilled, because she stays up reading it. But is she blowing hot and cold the next day? Diana arrives at Green Gables to lend Anne the book about Scotland and just dismisses Jerry's attempts to say hi... but the embroidered handkerchief that Matthew finds (that Diana left) in the barn with Jerry's initials say otherwise. Oooh oooh, do I sense a possibly not-entirely-proper romance in the air?

But at school, everyone's going crazy over the take notice board - Diana reveals that Charlie Sloan has put a notice up for Anne. She's surprised, but not in a good way. It doesn't help that they're all going to practice dancing for the upcoming barn dance, with the Lyndes dropping by to teach. Rachel is still trying to hook up Miss Stacy with Caleb, and Miss Stacy is unimpressed. And initial attempts to get everyone dancing is a confused muddle. When they take a break, Ruby runs away after dancing horribly because she's been told that dancing involves touching boys, and touching boys leads to pregnancy. All the girls panic that they're now pregnant and Miss Stacy has to awkwardly tell them that they are not pregnant simply due to touching, but gives them the best possible explanation she can about how conceiving happens. It's vague (courtship, marriage, and then conversation with your husband that with consent of parties involved will lead them to the cherished path of parenthood), but I think that Miss Stacy is aware that she's definitely going to lose her job if she gives her students the Talk, especially after the huge school board meeting at the end of the second season. She tells Ruby that Ruby doesn't need to dance if she doesn't want to.

The boys are not freaking out because society does not tell them that they impregnate females by mere touch. They think the dancing is stupid. Gilbert is more interested in seeing how Moody's wound has healed; it's still on the mend, so he's not able to dance. He plays banjo (or guitar?) as accompaniment, and Ruby is drawn over. Maybe it's a sign that she's starting to grow past her blind and extreme crush on Gilbert? Everyone else seems to enjoy the dancing much more, and it looks like sparks really fly between Anne and Gilbert. But when it's down, our favourite duo react very strongly... and promptly try to avoid each other. Gilbert gets home and tells Bash that dancing was pointless (Bash wisely points out that Gil's bees dance to communicate) and then wonders if he's supposed to marry someone he has newly discovered feelings for. "Ummm... you're moving way too fast," Bash tells him, "Chill. Also, who's the girl?  Oh, you don't want tell me, that's cool.  You can tell Delly here, don't worry, she can't talk."

Anne's racing home with similar thoughts that dancing is stupid and reluctantly accepts Charlie's request to walk with her. Charlie's concerned Anne is thinking too hard... because women who think too much apparently are unable to bear children. WHAT? I am honestly furious that the opinions of people, mostly of the male variety, have those ideas. It is not true at all, but Anne and her friends don't know that. Miss Stacy's explanation was pretty vague. They figure Gilbert might know, given his medical education, so they all gather around and have Anne very uncomfortably ask if intelligent and pass- I mean, emotional women are incapable of conceiving children. Gil tells them based on what he's seen, uh, no. That seems to convince the girls... for five minutes. Ruby points out it was just on Gilbert's observations (and while he's delivered a baby, who knows if he's got anymore knowledge than they do about how pregnancy occurs), but it's still not enough. So Anne convinces them to hold a secret Beltane ritual she learned from the Scotland book that celebrates their womanhood and gives them then assurance that they can be passionate and intelligent and still be women. And when Anne gets back, she gets a lovely surprise - Matthew's horse Belle is finally a mother herself as Matthew shows Anne the newborn foal.

So, there were some very sweet moments, namely Bash reading Mary's obituary to Delphine and the Barrys gradually realizing they can become more open to different people and help them. And funny moments like Bash teasing Gilbert about Gilbert's feelings for a mystery girl, and Aluk joking to his mother that it's worth it to save Moody because Moody buys hockey sticks from him (Aluk's mother smacks her son because she's going to save Moody anyway). It's also lovely to see how Gilbert hasn't quite given up on medicine yet, but realizes there's a lot of untapped knowledge out there from different places. Gilbert has seen a lot more of the world than many of his contemporaries, so he's demonstrated he's a fairly open minded individual, including during his encounters with the Mi'kmaq. Maybe he'll go to them learn more about their healing methods?

The crux of most of the episodes focused on ideas of marriage and childbirth. There's a strong belief that women should be married and it's their role to take care of the home and the children - Rachel advocates that for Miss Stacy and Bash. While it's clear Rachel isn't intending to pair up Miss Stacy and Bash, I'm wondering based on recent events if that's what the intention of the writers given how conveniently they are both widowed now. I wasn't pleased with the decision for Mary to die (especially since it means there's one less voice in the depiction of a woman of colour), and I don't like it when a couple is broken up just to pair up another two characters. (Sidebar - this is why I'm outraged at the medical drama New Amsterdam.)

Sex education is also very much lacking, particularly for women. Considering a lot of it was based on ideas of morality, the idea appears to be to keep girls "pure" and in the dark until they're married (and even then, only by their mothers if at all, and the explanation may not be sufficient to prepare them). And even worse, men seem convinced that a good woman is dumb and empty-headed if she wants to have kids - the girls quickly draw comparisons to raising livestock and they're horrified at the thought that in order to be a mother they might have to reduce themselves to being animals. Or that the attitude of men is that women are dumb animals and the ones that think too much are abnormalities. Still, infuriating to see, and I'm glad that the girls felt similarly. It's not surprising they don't have a clue about how women get pregnant and it's not "acceptable" for any one to tell them. It deprives a great deal of agency in their lives. And the sad thing about this is... there are still places in the world where people continue to believe this. And no, not just in very poor countries in the world.

I was concerned that the girls would get caught during their Beltane ritual, leading to all sorts of reprisals for practicing a pagan ritual, but fortunately they don't. Instead, even anxious Ruby finds the experience exhilarating as they're able to claim a part of themselves that nobody has the right to deprive.

It looks like the next episode is going to involve Anne going to a fortune-teller. Given Anne's love of the mystical and exotic, I wonder how this is going to go...