3.15, “Unloading Zone” - The ShirtI remember coming into season three, I didn’t expect a lot of gay

3.15, “Unloading Zone” - The ShirtI remember coming into season three, I didn’t expect a lot of gay drama. I figured they’d try to keep the Tyrus storyline on the down-low. Some will-they, won’t-they, but not a ton of angst or anything.And then the promo came out for season three with Reed and there was panic. And we were all like, is this gay angst?!And then it was gun angst, so it was like, okay, okay, gotta pull back. Probably shouldn’t expect gay angst.Well, we got gay angst. It just happened nine episodes later.I will say about this episode, I think it’s the weakest writing TJ gets in the series. Early season two TJ was one dimensional, sure, but that was at least consistent with his character to that point. The only other scene that sort of compares is the one with Buffy at the end of “A Walker to Remember,” though I think the problem there is the scene itself is very confusing. It takes more episodes to sort of figure out what happened – which is not what you want from a scene – but at least when you piece together what actually went down, you see TJ doesn’t come off as poorly in the grander scheme of things as he does in the scene as it stands by itself.This episode, though, he comes off, frankly, like a dummy. That he’s trying to set up a playdate with Cyrus and Kira and can’t figure out that Cyrus is wildly uncomfortable around her and she is incredibly cold towards him paints TJ with a lack of emotional intelligence that he’s never shown before. You think about how he picked up immediately on the awkwardness of when Jonah brought Natalie to The Spoon that one time and he whisked Cyrus out of there. Like, he knows what social cues are.And the piggyback ride and Kira getting him on the swings were way too easy. This “bet you can’t do it” thing is something that five year olds stop falling for. If you want to get him on the swings for this big dramatic moment, fine, but you have come with stronger motivation than TJ thinking “Ooh, I’m gonna show her!” or you’re doing a disservice to his character.Sort of all of TJ’s behavior this episode has to be chalked up to him being scared. Internalized homophobia. Kira has exploited his crush on Cyrus to make him nervous and susceptible to her whims. Again, fine. I mean, that’s where the story was heading so I’ll buy into that. But the writing in the episode itself doesn’t offer that in a particularly clear way. TJ seems neither here nor there about his situation. He’s upset he can’t be around Cyrus, but he’s also not particularly upset about the rest of it. He’s like, well, I guess I’ve just gotta keep hanging out with this girl now so no one suspects anything. She’s not that bad I suppose.The only other way to really read all of this is that he’s in obvious denial about everything. He wants to pretend there are no issues between Cyrus and Kira. He wants to pretend Kira’s not manipulating him. It makes some sense to read things that way – that he’s in such a panic that he’s trying to will everything into being fine – but it’s also strange because he’s known Kira for like a week and they only really know each other because she was so awful she got immediately kicked off Buffy’s basketball team, and then she pressured him into not doing the costume he wanted to do. Given that, I don’t know why he’d be sitting there thinking, “No, not Kira, she wouldn’t do that. I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt. I wouldn’t want to lose my several day old friendship with her.”The way this storyline plays out, I think oblivious is the read we’re supposed to get on it. Like, he doesn’t get that she was being intentional and pointed in her homophobia when she hints the costume seems weird and gay in 3.13, and he doesn’t get that she’s being controlling in this episode. Given the way the finale goes, you sort of get the sense he’s not aware of any of this at all until Kira tries employing a subtle homophobia for a second time, and that’s when it all clicks that she’s not a nice person. I have a tough time with that. He may be oblivious to certain things, like how much Cyrus likes him, but there’s that level of oblivious and then there’s not getting that when you say you don’t want to do something and the other person goes, “Well then I guess you’re a chicken,” that they are manipulating you. I think he’s more aware than that. It sort of requires a level of above and beyond oblivious and feels inconsistent with what we’ve seen of the character.Tackling an internalized homophobia storyline on the Disney Channel was ambitious given there are certainly restrictions about what can be shown and said. I do believe, even given those content restrictions, there was a way to make this storyline work. If 3.13 was the beginning of it, and it’s wrapped up by the finale, then 3.15 sort of has to be the pivotal turning point in the plot. Unfortunately, it just didn’t execute well enough.So why did I make this post? Because while I didn’t care for how TJ was handled, I really enjoyed what Cyrus got to do.I liked how much they let Cyrus openly pine this episode. They threw in a lookback at the end just to confirm he’s crushing on TJ, but his actions this episode were pretty blatant before that. He’s watching him with someone else, he’s jealous, he’s trying to give him a gift for no reason, he’s talking about how nice his eyes are.I love that he’s got that nervous crush energy in the scene with Buffy and the shirt. And I love how supportive Buffy is with him. The shirt is a very coded but clever way to discuss the anxiety that comes with being gay and having a crush and not knowing if that information will be received positively, much less reciprocated.The episode is a bit of a downer – definitely still in the part of the arc where things get worse before they get better – but it was at least cool to see the show’s gay ship getting some very visible attention. -- source link

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