20080817

Eric, April and Mary (Part Two)

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I am a child of a divorce which came about as a result of infidelity. Sparing you the details I will tell you that what I witnessed was the demoralization of my mother and her slowly eroding self esteem in the face of a situation she did not entirely understand. I will not dwell on my own history any more here except to say that I recognize my mother in the performance of Darby Stanchfield.

In response to the first installment of this series Clutz12001 wrote: “It seems April had filed divorce papers on "the day before." What else had gone wrong besides Eric's infidelity? Did April already know about Eric and Mary? I suspect she was not as clueless as it seemed on the surface.”
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Undoubtedly there could be a case made for an Eric and April who had been growing apart for some time. “It seemed both were defined by their careers.” This is an observation made by Debby from South Carolina and yes, perhaps these two were growing apart rather than growing together. Still, with the split focus and obfuscation which comes along with leading a double life mistrust is born in a relationship between two people and I feel that mistrust is evident in April’s looks and mannerisms. She no longer trusts her husband and she refuses to trust her intuition. She has dread in her eyes even as she pulls the divorce papers from the manila envelope in the car. She has discovered she is pregnant and decides she will keep this a secret of her own. At least until she knows what Eric wants without the baby being a factor.
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Another comment made by Debby was “I think Eric thought he could have both relationships”. This would not be unusual but I have to wonder if this is the case because I feel like the one thing Eric has going for him in all of this is he has made up his mind. I think he is in love with Mary. Here is a scene from episode 1.9 Crossroads:
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Eric: Okay, let’s talk.
April: When I, uh…had the divorce papers drafted. I did that because I couldn’t see a future for us, [holds Eric’s hand] but now I can.
Eric: I can’t.
April: What?
Eric: Look, the last thing I want to do on this Earth is hurt you April, but I’m in love with someone else.
April: [gasps] Who?
Eric: Mary Bailey. April, look April….April..I’m sorry
April: No, you don’t get to do this. You son of a bitch. [April walks away]
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The last thing anyone ever wants to do to someone they care about is hurt them and it is an odd quirk of humanity how often we do just that.
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Stay tuned for part three.
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It seems odd on the surface, how we can hurt those we claim to care so much for. When you delve a little deeper you uncover things you never thought about - again you make me think. I think this entire episode is about questioning your position in life, even your own authority when faced with adversity and loss. It deals with what the heart wants, our desires – despite what our head says. And you come to understand that some victories are not always the result of what we do, but rather what we don't do. I'm interested to read your third part now :-)

NightShade

Anonymous said...

Great in-depth analysis! As NightShade note, it's odd how on the surface we can hurt those we love. Do we even really know what love is? I still have an odd sense of more beneath the surface of Eric, April, and Mary's complicated relationships. When I watch the wedding flashbacks, I cannot help but feel there was a lot of surface there - Eric may well have done what his family expected him to do when he married April. I'm sure he loved her, in his way, but family expectations trumped personal feelings in Eric's world, IMHO.

terocious said...

Hey Clutz,

I know what you mean. In the wedding it seemed like an enormous amount of energy was going to toward keeping Jake in line and taking it deeper it does seem as though the bulk of that energy is covering up for something else. I understand where you are coming from with this and I think it is a definate possibility that Eric's love for april was born out of an idea Eric had about who he wanted himself to be. They may have conspired together to create an identity for their young selves. I do not think this would be unusual, in fact I think it happens all the time.