Spencer and Olivia have a way of making weddings about themselves and their love, two weddings on the show and spelivia made both about themselves. Grace and Carter should be warned, they’re disrespectful
What I really loved about the love story of Spelivia and the development of Olivia Baker was that it displayed how people with addictions deserve love and are capable of being in healthy relationships too. I felt they showed this so beautifully through Spencer and Olivia’s friendship and transition into lovers. People were so upset with her after she asked Spencer to switch seats during the crash at the height of her relapse and felt she did not deserve him. They never made it that Spencer was actually mad at her but instead just extremely concerned for her health and safety because he recognized that it was her addiction that was in control and she was not herself. He loved her anyway and respected her enough to give her time and space to figure herself out. She regained control of herself and started taking care of her health because she saw how her addiction hurt everyone who loves her. Then once their relationship started she was showered with nothing but unconditional love and was in a healthy enough place to return it back to him.
So how could a love story written so beautifully from its inception turn around and push deeper into the stereotype that addicts do not deserve love and cannot maintain healthy relationships because they’ll just find other addictions and screw you over to get it? Of course I do not hold this opinion for her but on every platform all you see is comments like “Journalism is her new addiction” “Olivia does not deserve Spencer” “She’s selfish and insufferable” “She just finds new things to be obsessed with” “She is the worst” “She deserves to be alone”. The route they’ve chosen for her validates societal assumptions made about people with addictions and it just seems like a stab in the back to viewers who may have saw their story through her. I don’t know anyone myself who deals with addiction or are in recovery but I really enjoyed watching her story unfold and how she was finally getting to a healthy and happy place through the support of her loving boyfriend, family, and her building toward a new future for herself. She deserves that. They took a character who people could relate to addiction or not, who always put others before herself, and struggled with emotional neglect and villainized her for finding a passion by making her take it too far. The show itself has not even alluded to her current behavior having anything to do with addiction or sobriety but sure enough, that’s the first thing the audience has jumped to because it confirms their original suspicions of how the love and support she received, especially from Spencer, wasn’t deserved.
If they do not redeem her properly and explore her mental health thoroughly in season 5, I will never forgive the writers for doing her like this. The character and what she was supposed to represent deserves better.
all of this and more !!! She deserves so much better from the writing and not only her but everyone that has seen themselves within her story and it’s honestly a story that we could all relate to. To have someone go through such things and struggle with something like addiction and have her receiver all of this unconditional love that she may feel like she doesn’t deserve herself when she ultimately deserves all the live in live cause she gives it out so they definitely need to fix this and while I do believe they’ll write the story to be in her favor, the character deserves to have a storyline to herself and do a deep dive into her mental health and show her working through her issues and have her believe herself that she deserves the love that she gets from Spencer, etc. SHE DESERVES BETTER FROM THE WRITERS AND THEY NEED TO FIX THIS AND DO BETTER BY THE ACTRESS THAT PLAYS HER
so my friend @evie-evee and I were talking and she bought up the fact that having Spencer end the final scene with him saying “what does this mean for us ?” is very problematic and not a good message to spread and I have to fully agree
Having him ask that just implies or sets it up whereas she would have to choose between her relationship or her career and that’s just very unfair and not right and leaning into toxicity and that’s not a smart idea for the writers AT ALL cause this is their most healthiest and most mature ship they have on the show along with it having the most impact and further goes into my point of the misogynistic writing of women not being able to have it all and have both their relationship and be career driven while the men can and it’s not a good message at all (again, I don’t blame or is mad at the characters, this is more towards the writers and NK and how they messed up with that but they can redeem themselves)
Also, this is very contradictory to Spencer and his character cause before the finale, they have shown him to be nothing but supportive and say things like “I don’t care if your work implodes the team and I, I don’t want you to make that sacrifice” “I want this for you” “I don’t want you to compromise yourself,” etc. and then you have him care when it’s his coach and have him say “what does this mean for us ?” Like that’s not right and just goes into all of our points of how they had both Spencer and Olivia act OOC in the finale just to start very forced and contrived drama within the two and it’s very disappointing on all fronts and I would rather have them decide to give each other space/break up over something else that would make more sense instead of putting it whereas you have to choose between the career or the boyfriend
