User blog:Eikakou/Anne (CBC series) season 2, episode 10 - The Growing Good of the World review

And we have arrived again, at an ending. As promised, a review the last episode of season 2.

Thank goodness the next day was fresh (with all sorts of opportunities to make mistakes and learn from them).

SPOILERS BELOW (and this time, they aren't painful).

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Last episode, everyone has a bad day. The running theme between both episodes is empathy - What We Have Been Makes Us What We Are illustrated the consequences of having an insufficient amount of empathy and sensitivity towards others. Anne, for example, was so focused on her own worries (that Miss Stacy didn't like her, that her fox was going to be hurt, that Cole might not appreciate her efforts to have the new teacher help him without any warning) that she acted without considering the feelings of others. It doesn't matter if something is an "open" secret, it's still not fair to others for Anne to share something that isn't hers. Everyone was affected by thoughtlessness and prejudice. But today is another day.

There's still some fallout though. Marilla and Rachel have a furious argument. Rachel accuses Marilla of being so socially isolated that it's because of Rachel that she knows anything about Avonlea at all. But Marilla is enraged with Rachel's prejudiced behavior, including how Rachel's insensitivity towards Anne when she first arrived and how Rachel is now throwing baseless accusations around about Miss Stacy being a homewrecker because she's an unmarried childless woman who has a career and because she saw Harmon Andrews giving Miss Stacy a lift to Cole's house. I'm on Marilla's side on this, because Rachel has repeatedly unfairly called Miss Stacy unfulfilled because she's an unmarried childless woman, which are barbs towards Marilla, who certainly doesn't think her life is unfulfilled. Both of them are on different sides of the whole issue on whether or not Miss Stacy should remain as the Avonlea schoolteacher. Miss Stacy feels defeated by everything and is already packing up, but Marilla tells her that Miss Stacy deserves to speak for herself, even if she isn't invited to the town hall, and that Anne once endured trials as bad as Miss Stacy has it now before Anne became a part of the community.

So, some damage control. Anne makes up with Cole, consoling him that they will find a way for him to be himself. Anne, Diana, and Ruby clean up the remains of their clubhouse - it's very sweet that Ruby voices how the destruction of their clubhouse will be the most tragical thing she will include in her next story when the club is running again, and they all hug. With Marilla's prompting to use his imagination, Matthew's found another way to keep the fox away from the chicken coop - a sturdy tall fence - much to Anne's great relief. Cole apologizes to Billy for attacking him because Cole doesn't want to be the kind of person who beats people up; Billy confusedly accepts the apology and is even more confused when Cole tells him to think about why he seems to like destroying things that don't belong to him. "I don't think," Billy scoffs, like thinking is beneath him. "Yeah, I can see that," Cole remarks. Yeah, we can all see that. Meanwhile, Gilbert literally tries to mend the fence on his own, the one that Bash also struggled with on his own, and needs to have a talk with his dad about how he knows that he was wrong about breaking his agreement with Bash. Poor Gilbert has been struggling to be a mature adult, but he's still a kid. He calls up a lawyer to get some paperwork done...

Many of the kids don't want Miss Stacy to go. After all, they'll be doomed to rote memorization in silence, like how the younger kids class is being taught. Anne, Diana, and Ruby are planning a caper and Moody (feeling he's at fault for the potato-lightbulb incident) wants in. The kids grab Cole ("What else have you got to lose?" Anne tells him) and they jump into a freight car on a train to Charlottetown, the same one that Gilbert has boarded. Cole is sent to Aunt Josephine's house, while the rest of the group pawn everything they can to buy a new box of lightbulbs... that Moody drops. ("Poor kid," my brother commented, "his life is an accident.") Rollings the implacable butler at Josephine's house inquires about how their caper when and promptly and wordlessly produces a handkerchief for the crying Ruby. He's everything anyone will want in a butler, he's the best. Josephine donates her lightbulbs to the cause.

There's a nice little moment between Diana and Josephine. Now that she's had some time to think about it, Diana apologizes for how she acted at the soiree and how she must have disappointed Josephine with her narrowminded thinking. Josephine isn't disappointed, just glad that Diana realizes that the world is much too wide and life is too short not explore whatever she can. I'm really glad they came back to Diana and how aware she was of her negative reaction to Josephine, and how she's grown from it in a positive way. Cole also makes a surprising decision - Josephine has offered to let him live with her from now on and he's accepted; Anne doesn't try to make him go back to Avonlea, but she understands that he needs to be in a place where he doesn't need to hide who he is.

Gilbert gets some business done in Charlottetown as well. He goes to the Bog to find Mary and learns that Bash has disappeared after seeing her with the unknown man, her bootlegging adult son it turns out, whom she never told Bash because she thought he would shame her for having a child out of wedlock when she was very young. They figure that since Bash still hates the cold, he went somewhere warm: the laundry. Mary clears things up with Bash about her son, and Gilbert apologizes for reneging on their agreement, along with something quite significant. He's added Bash to the deed to the Blythe farm, because they are partners and Bash is now his family. Oh, and Bash tells Mary he wants to marry her. Awww... (I mean, that was fast, but awww...)

Back in Avonlea, the minister at the townhall meeting is droning on about what they think is appropriate teaching methods for Avonlea schoolchildren when Miss Stacy makes her entrance. Remember the emphasis on empathy? Miss Stacy acknowledges that she is different, that how she's teaching is different, and also that she's aware that difference causes uncertainty and fear along with change. But change isn't a bad thing and she's trying to teach the children to think beyond what is in front of them, to encourage them to think for themselves and to use their imagination, so that they can contribute to the world at their fullest potential. Matthew - probably the shyest man in Avonlea, which means this is a huge deal and everyone better be listening - stands up to speak in favour of Miss Stacy, and so does Marilla. And then Anne and all the Avonlea students arrive with their wonderful potato powered lightbulbs to show everyone what Miss Stacy has already taught them and why it's important to them that she stays. It's enough to convince everyone, Rachel foremost, to vote in favour of keeping Miss Stacy. VICTORY ACHIEVED!

What better way to end the season than with a wedding? After Marilla and Rachel make up, Marilla is off to attend Bash and Mary's wedding at the Bog with Anne, Matthew, and Gilbert. (I wonder if this means that Mary will be moving to Avonlea, or if Bash is going to stay at the Bog unless he's working on the farm?) Anne tells Gilbert that she's decided on her vocation at last: she's going to be a teacher like Miss Stacy, but whether or not a tragical romance will be involved remains to be seen...

In contrast to the first season's conclusion (the unsettling arrival of the muggers Nate and Dunlop as boarders), the second season ends on a brighter note of possibility. Heck, even Billy Andrews seems to have learned something, because when he comes across the fox, he doesn't shoot it. He'll probably still be a jerk, but maybe there's hope for him and other kids like Josie Pye. Anne, after several frustrating episodes feeling that in her competition with Gilbert she had fallen far behind, has finally settled on a vocation and that she's got equal footing with Gilbert again. It looks like their fierce academic rivalry is going to step up now that they have a dedicated teacher like Miss Stacy in Avonlea (oh, just imagine the competition to get into Queens coming up). While the second season introduced some worrying threads (like Marilla's health issues), there are no great cliffhangers this time, which gives the third season a chance to start completely fresh.

I'm sure everyone has a list of hopes for what we'll be seeing in season three, and Moira Walley-Beckett has already teased storylines about romantic complications and more dramatic adventures. Season two has introduced some great new characters (Bash, Mary, and Cole) and brought in old favourites (Miss Stacy). In hindsight, I'm wondering if the writers need to be more careful with Josephine Barry being the solution to a lot of their problems, because it's not like every time something very bad happens, Aunt Jo can save the day. It worked this season, but I love her presence in the show and I'd hate for her character to be overused due to the writers getting stuck in a corner. I've really enjoyed season two, so it's going to be really exciting to see what season three is going to hold.

Eikakou (talk) 02:35, November 22, 2018 (UTC)