Board Thread:General Grimm Discussion/@comment-88.108.121.135-20150528110712/@comment-24399666-20151118110445

Syscrash53 wrote: Juliette coming back will depend on where this story goes. There are many reason why they bring Juliette back. And considering how the writers left Juliette death ambiguous... Yes, they did. :(

I did see what you wrote in the rest of your post, and you do raise a bunch of potentially good plot ideas. :) But for right now, I just want to address this specific point: the writers leaving Juliette's death ambiguous.

I hate that the tenor of my comments has been so negative lately. You probably never saw me when I wasn't like this, but it wasn't so long ago that I absolutely loved everything about this show, and could explain everything that was going on with all of the characters, in in-universe terms. It wasn't that long ago that I had absolute faith - not even on a conscious level (all of my conscious thoughts were of the characters and the story, as it should be) - that I was watching a really good show... maybe not "Game of Thrones"-level good, but it was at least a show that had a clear idea of where it wanted to go, what its themes were, and who the characters are, and cared about such things. It was a show that succeeded at the most basic task: make it so I can suspend disbelief. I want that feeling back. I want it back, a lot.

Once I realized what the problem was, I made a list of things that I hope the show will go back to doing, that would help a lot. This list included things like:

1) Have characters decide for themselves, what they feel and how they behave in a given situation. Well-written characters have their own opinions on how they feel and how they act in a given situation... totally independent of the writer's mandate. If the writers care about character continuity, such characters will, in fact, fight the writers, if the writers want to take them in a direction that goes against who they are and what their past is. Stop trying to push the characters to think, feel, and behave in ways that they wouldn't actually behave (in whatever situation they're in), if they were real people and it was entirely up to them. It leads to the audience no longer knowing who they are.

2) Stay true to the themes of the show. Particularly the theme that got many of us hooked on the show in the first place: the rather optimistic (and I mean that in the best possible way) theme that, with work and dedication, you can determine who you're going to be. And, while biology, brain chemistry, upbringing, or any number of other forces, may influence who you are, they don't have to dictate the be-all-and-end-all of who you are as a person.

3) Commit to courses of action. And, on a related note, deal with things that happened. Don't try to overwrite them. Deal with them. Please.

...

What happened to Juliette was tragic. I don't mean her death, I mean her life. The fact that such a compassionate, caring individual turned into something that was the antithesis of who she always was, was a tragedy. The fact that it ended without her remembering who she really was made it doubly a tragedy.

But it happened. Please, just deal with that. Have Nick deal with that. When tragedy happens, show us that it means something. Commit to courses of action!

This is why I hate that they left her death ambiguous. Because that's the opposite of committing to a course of action, on the level that is the clearest delineator between a quality show, and a soap opera.

And, while they can bring her back, and it can lead to good character moments... the truth is, they changed Juliette's character last season with so little in-show explanation, and later tried to write it all off as simply the result of her being a Hexenbiest and that's all there is to it, that it was a violation of both #1 and #2 in the list above, and caused the unfortunate situation I'm in, in the first place. If they do bring her back, I just know that it'll be as a straight-up bad guy, rather than as somebody who's seen the error of her ways and is working to rectify things and fight to regain her own sanity... and that would just be compounding the problem for me.

So, no. I don't want them to bring her back. At all.