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Tina: Oh my god, Bette! Angie is going to be a senior next year? Why didn’t I realize this? I guess I did but I just haven’t thought about Angie going off to college.
Bette: Tina, time marches on whether we are aware of it or not. Angie is no longer a child. She is on the verge of being an adult and will be making her own decisions about her life. And the first one is where she will go to college and what she will study while she is in college. Next year, her social life will be full and we cannot postpone these college visits.
Tina: I don’t think I’ll be available for the most part. Winter Winds production starts back up the first of May and I may have to begin my work two weeks prior to that. I get a couple of weeks off in July possibly; other than that, I maybe could do a couple of weekend visits if they are on the east coast or maybe the mid-west. But travel would just be too difficult for anything else.
Bette: Tell you what. Angie and I will work up a preliminary schedule and you tell us what you can participate in and what you can’t. You can make suggestions for alternative dates. It would be nice if you could do some college visits with Angie on your own. Angie wants time with you whenever she can get it. But you know what you can do and what you can’t.
Tina: Yes, sure. I want to spend time with Angie as well. I can’t believe she’s going off to college so soon.
Bette: Yes, about 18 months from now, we will be moving Angie into a dorm room.
Tina: You’re doing a really good job with Angie. I really enjoyed having her for a week during the Christmas holidays. She is so observant and so filled with joy.
Bette: She was with you, Tina. She misses you. This divorce has been hard on her.
Tina: In what way has it been hard?
Bette: Angie loves you with all her heart. You are her mother. But she only sees you a few days during the holidays, a few days during the summer and a few days during your hiatus. Sure, you talk to each other almost daily on the phone. But that is not the same as being with you physically where she can hug you and see your face and experience your reactions. I’m sure that when she is with you, she is on her best behavior because she does not want to disappoint you in any way. She understands her time with you is limited and she wants to be her very best self and get the most out of that time she can. So, unless she is really upset with something, she is going to avoid anything negative in her life when talking to you or visiting you. She is somewhat like me when I had my visits with Melvin after I was out of school. I loved him dearly, but I did not want anything disagreeable to occur as it might affect our future visits. But of course, there were somethings which made me so very happy that ended up being offensive to my father. I don’t think that would be the case between you and Angie.
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It is a challenging task to take on the Generation Q nonsensical plot line, especially Bette and Tina ever having gotten divorced. You have written an interesting “moment in time” offering the readers one possibility of what happened. I would imagine from your description that the cabin is a small claustrophobic place and Bette and Tina are both nervous and somewhat kinetic in the way they interact with one another and move about. Neither able to relax. Trying to respect each other and each other’s space. Watching the clock. Watching the snow. With nowhere to go. Also, it is next to impossible to make sense of the Tina that Marja gave us. No one recognizes her. I think you have given it a very good shot. I also appreciate the way you wrote Bette struggling with her emotions and all of the hurt. Tina is a mystery. Why would she ask Bette if she loves her? Bette’s reply is spot on. She loves Tina but no longer knows her. She loves her because she is Angie’s biological mother. She was able to remain respectful to Tina but also get to the heart of the matter: Why did you leave me? Why did you leave Angie? That’s tough stuff. It would have been much easier to write a story that pretended away the fiasco that was Gen Q. You took it on. Well done, Martha.
Billy,
Thank you for reading and commenting. Gen Q, for me, simply decided Bette and Tina were divorced and never fleshed out why that happened. IMO, the writers never believed that they would need this backstory when they put it into the script. But for a couple as iconic as Bette and Tina, they should have known that sooner or later, they might have to reveal that backstory. But in true Gen Q fashion, it never was addressed.
So when Laurel returned for Season 1, the writers have Tina give an explanation to Angie that she needed to find herself. And then another explanation to Bette which said that Bette simply overshadowed her very existence. Neither explanation rang true for me. And I accepted Bette’s declaration to Shane under the influence of marijuana, that she did not know why Tina left and that Tina had never offered an explanation. So, when they brought in Carrie, I was even more confused as to why Tina left and who Tina Kennard was. And despite some of the fan’s responses of adoration for Carrie, that relationship simply did not reflect the Tina Kennard I so adore and love. And then in Season 3, where we get our reunion and wedding which I desperately wanted, but the path seemed more like a fairey tale than anything which could be close to reality or reasonable. The conflicts were between Bette and Tina seemed artificial and were put aside with a few soft words. Determining what the conflicts were required the most vivid of imaginations and the ability to take the darkest moments of their past and project it to their present. Bette and Tina have a long and rocky history. But the Bette and Tina I know would never dig into that bag of history and use their bad behavior as a club to justify current behavior. I feel this is particularly true for those issues which they had analyzed, apologized and forgiven the other for. Whatever the reason for Bette and Tina’s divorce, it had to be something new or something we are completely unaware of. And I do not completely explain why the separation and divorce happen, I at least ask the question. And I still believe that question can only be answered by Tina.
I am glad you mentioned the cabin. It’s a place designed for no more than 4 people as a temporary getaway. I imagine the dining table has 4 chairs in a standard square shape. The kitchen is a galley style kitchen in which it starts to get crowded with a second person. I imagine that the main purpose is to provide housing for skiers visiting the area during the winter and hikers during the summer.
Addressing this aspect of the Gen Q story is not easy. I think that getting into Tina’s mind and understanding her motivations, her thought processes, and the environment surrounding her when she made her choices is a difficult place to go. For me, the things which might explain this seem so unfathomable that I cannot make my mind go there. Things such as cheating, falling out of love, mental illness or shear boredom with the relationship simply cannot be possible in my world for these two. And they are far too intelligent to allow a misunderstanding to keep them apart. Bette and Tina have been through too much and have weathered too many storms to believe they would ever purposely pursue a path that would destroy their relationship. I also believe that it is simply not possible for the two of them to make any decision in which they did not consider the impact of such on the other. They simply love each other too much for that. So, the bottom line is that we the writers are left to try to explain the unexplainable….
My thanks for your continued support….
Well thought out and literate reply. I totally agree.