Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-16645605-20140611020737/@comment-24330788-20140613005848

I’m going to get a tonne of people who disagree with me on this but; Skip’s Story. Firstly, it should go without saying that this is only my opinion. I might not like the episode, but there are many people who do and that’s fine, everyone has a different way of interpreting meanings, this is just my own two cents. I don’t think this is necessarily the worst episode, but for me it produced such a strong, knee-jerk reaction that it’s stuck in my mind ever since I first watched it.

I’ll start with the main point. There was no reason for the Mona character to die the way she did. Plot convenience aside it could have been so easily prevented. All Skips/Walks had to do was pull the love of his life aside for a few minutes and say something along the lines of “Say Mona, I know you’re against fighting and all, but if I don’t stand up to Klorgbane he’s going to beat up my friends, enslave the school and possibly try to murder me. So why don’t we split our differences just this once.” Any reasonable person would understand if he put it that way. Infact she did let him fight after seeing how bad things got, so there was no reason for Walks to keep the full situation from her until last minute and have things end up like they did. It takes away from the tragic element of a story if said tragedy could be avoided with a good dose of common sense.

Reason number two, I’m sorry but I just don’t buy the chemistry between Skips/Walks and Mona. I mean; “I thought we had a special connection Walks”? What, did Mona figure that from the literal 50 seconds of dialogue they shared up to that point? It would be different if it was supposed to be played up for satire, but no, with hindsight this was meant to be taken seriously. The rest of their shared banter didn’t help either. I’m not usually into litterbugs (like you) but I got over it because I’m not a judgmental person (like you), so you should take a page from my book and give us a chance. Tell me that Walks’s reasoning here is not at all passive aggressive. Mona was no better, if she really thought they had a special connection why not just ask Walks about the fight and get some context rather than walking away in a huff? Going back to my first point, this could have changed her mind and probably adverted the later disaster altogether. Infact she hardly seemed to take any interest in her partner’s life. So he went storm chasing? Yeah not worth asking about, look some nails that need hammering! Yet despite all this they immediately fall in love, cause I dunno, they skipped together or something and suddenly the audience is suppose to be onboard with their relationship. I wouldn’t even be so hard on it if they presented the relationship for what it was, a high school fling. But no this was supposed to be some great love that would’ve lasted a lifetime had it not ended in a tragic twist of fate. Really? They couldn’t even be straight with each other yet. Maybe there’s something here that I’m not seeing, but I just don’t get the attraction.

Finally, for the above reasons, I personally don’t think the episode held up as a satisfying backstory for Skip’s character, or at least there were elements that could have been done better. Think of how much the mystery of Skip’s past had been built-up up to this point. This is someone who’s lived to see settlements grow into cities, who’s fought wars, who protects the world from dangerous threats and is respected by all who know him. One day he’ll outlive every one of his Park colleagues and continue the same lonely existence with no end in sight. And it turns out the whole reason he chose this life was over some contrived high school romance? One that, had Mona lived, may or may not have even worked out? How much more profound would it have been if Mona had survived and they did share a lifetime together? It wouldn’t have been hard, just put a Disney's UP style montage in between the prom scene and the immortality scene that shows them growing old together, maybe having Mona passing away of natural causes in the end. Skips can still choose the path of immortality, it would in no way change the present story, but the weight their time together would have been much greater. Maybe I’m reading too much into this. I don’t mean any disrespect to people who did find the episode sad, I might not see it that way, but like humour, the perception of sadness is subjective. Again maybe there’s something I’m not seeing, but for what I did see, those are my thoughts.