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Tina: So, are you saying that Angie puts on an act when she is with me?
Bette: No. What I am saying is that she puts on her best self for you. She is guarded in showing you those things which she considers flaws or weaknesses. It’s like when people are in the early stages of dating. She puts forth the best Angie she can. It’s still Angie, it’s just not the whole picture. She wants you to like her and to desire to be with her as much as you can. And she does that because if she presented her ordinary day to day self, she thinks you might not like her like she hopes you will.
Tina: But I do love her. She is my daughter, my only child.
Bette bowed her head and looked at Tina with tears in her eyes.
Bette: Tina, I’m going to clean the kitchen and have a little more coffee. Then I would like to respond to that.
Tina: What’s wrong Bette? Why are you crying?
Bette: Tina please. Give me a few minutes to get my thoughts together. I’ll talk to you in a few minutes.
Tina got up from the table and went to her room. Bette was taking her time in the kitchen and doing things to take up time and keep busy. She was not mentally prepared to face Tina head on but she knew that there were things she needed to convey to Tina while she had the opportunity. Bette deep in thought: “This may be the only opportunity to actually be in the same room with Tina Kennard that I ever get. This may be my one and only opportunity to engage Tina in a conversation which I may get some answers to some of my questions. This may be my one and only chance. Do I allow this opportunity to get away? Angie goes to college in 18 months and there won’t be much chance for encountering each other after that. Just be careful Bette… don’t push too hard. But if there is an opening, you have to take it. Get Tina to talk!”
Bette knew that if she allowed herself to express some of the things that she was feeling in the manner she wanted to say them, that Tina would more than likely simply shut down or retreat to her room and possibly not hear what she needed to say. So, Bette took deep breaths and gave herself a pep talk and convinced herself that with as much grace as she could muster, she needed to fill Tina in on the things Tina needed to know concerning Angie and her own life.
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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.