By now, it’s clear that the Chaos of Cousins Seashore goes again to 1 factor, or relatively one particular person — Susannah Fisher.
The girl was the harbinger of chaos and the architect of all that was messy within the lives of those characters on The Summer season I Turned Fairly. And this season specifically actually highlights this.
As promised to considered one of our commenters, Evie, and others, let’s dispel the Saint Susannah propaganda.
The Ghost of Cousins
I’ve by no means seen somebody hang-out the narrative to the diploma that Susannah has, to the purpose the place everybody she left in her wake of well-meaning however delusional destruction must spend literal years in in depth remedy to work via why she’s had such a maintain on all of them.
Her fingerprints are on each side of not solely the characters but additionally so lots of their dynamics.
However what’s fascinating concerning the collection is that when she was alive, everybody spent a lot time idolizing her, and in her dying, they spent the remainder of their time deifying her.
Susannah was beautiful in some ways. She’s as flawed as the remainder of them, however there has all the time been a fantasy aspect that she represents, which is each alarming and, in some methods, downright tragic.
One of many pitfalls of this collection being an adaptation that principally opts to remain near the books and focus solely on the love triangle is that, after the primary season, we shifted considerably from a well-rounded, balanced story that additionally included compelling arcs for the adults.
It wasn’t essentially the romance that hooked me to this summer season present. Paradoxically, it was the dynamic between Laurel and Susannah that intrigued me, and I cherished the way it countered the teenager story arcs.
It Begins with Susannah and Laurel
Laurel and Susannah have such a storied historical past that if this had been the kind of collection to get the spinoff therapy, they might simply take the prequel route and discover an origin story for them.
As a result of there’s a lot we don’t find out about Susannah, however a lot to deduce based mostly on what we do. Her friendship with Laurel, and its longstanding nature, all the time carried a deeper which means, typically making me surprise if there was an undercurrent of one thing else beneath it.
Have been they greatest pals like sisters, as a bitter however understandably damage cast-off sister, Julia, implied in The Summer season I Turned Fairly Season 2?
Or was there all the time an unrequited and even unprocessed love there that subsequently manifests itself of their offspring — the central trio carrying on one thing that preceded them in methods they’ll by no means actually know?
However whereas that’s speculative, it’s one thing that extends into the bigger level of Susannah having a lot energy over everybody in her life. Even Adam, the person who cheated on her, wouldn’t have ended up the place he was or achieved half as a lot success with out Susannah and her wealth.
The Dichotomy of Susannah Fisher
What’s fascinating about Susannah is that this phantasm of happiness. There are two sides to her — the one which places on airs and tries to uphold a fantasy world that’s excellent at Cousins — the one which’s happy-go-lucky sufficient to attract comparisons to Jeremiah.
After which there’s the layered one who appeared to have darker issues lurking, suggesting that she might have simply been simply as internally troubled at instances as Conrad.
Each of her boys mirror completely different facets of her. Nevertheless, it’s the world she tries to domesticate that’s dreamy, sunny, and excellent, which fully disrupts everybody’s lives, whether or not she intends it or not.
There are such a lot of unstated layers to this seemingly earnest and well-intended rich white girl who typically treats half of the Conklin household and her personal children like life-size dolls that she will get to orchestrate tales for.
She loves them, little question, however she additionally makes use of them to satisfy some weird fantasy, as if Cousins, her children, Laurel, and Stomach are fixtures of her excellent life that she will be able to manipulate at will.
Architect of Fantasy and Chaos
It’s not even mean-spirited a lot as tragic, sufficient to make you surprise what was on the supply of this girl, who appeared extra involved with look and the phantasm of happiness than she was with controlling each side of it for these round her.
Why was she so wrapped up in fairly, romanticized fantasy that she ignored actuality as a lot as she might? It’s precisely what was on the root of her points with Julia — she didn’t respect Julia’s trauma, as a result of in Susannah’s world, there’s no area for that.
And let’s be actual, there may be nothing wholesome or regular about Susannah spending a lifetime telling a younger Stomach that she was destined to marry considered one of her sons.
You don’t instill that sort of messaging into a toddler throughout their most impressionable years. Why precisely did she cling to the thought of Stomach serving as her pseudo-daughter to the purpose of unwittingly narrowing Stomach’s prospects?
Stomach’s whole identification revolves round Susannah and her affect. We’ve even seen, at instances, earlier within the collection, the place it leads to Laurel feeling insufficient as a maternal determine.
Undertake-a-Stomach
It was like Laurel birthed Stomach, however Stomach was Susannah’s the entire time. Hell, possibly that speaks to all the possession problem that crops up within the love triangle concerning Stomach within the first place.
As a result of Susannah was the lighthearted, ethereal, easy-breezy, fantastical model of the proper girl — the peak of conventional femininity as it’s revered, and Laurel was the alternative of that.
Stomach gravitated to that, too. She’s as obsessive about Susannah as she is Conrad, and he or she could very properly be partly obsessive about Conrad due to Susannah.
We see how she idolizes this girl and permits a lot of Susannah’s ideas to form her personal, her phrases to affect how she feels or carries herself.
They’ve put this girl on such a pedestal that everybody nonetheless spends a big portion of their lives making an attempt to honor her needs and cater to the whimsy of a stunning and candy however tragically broken girl who created her personal fantasy world to manage.
Severely, if this had been another collection, there can be a lot extra to discover with Susannah, however alas, we’ll by no means get any of that.
The Cult of Susannah Fisher — Lifetime Membership
A lot of The Summer season I Turned Fairly revolves round what “Susannah would’ve needed” to the diploma that Christians ask, “What would Jesus do?”
It’s really odd to see grown adults at this level nonetheless construction their lives round this girl. Did Stomach all the time dream of going to Paris, or is that this simply a type of issues that appeals to her due to Susannah?
Did Conrad all the time wish to be a health care provider, or did he pursue this profession path due to Susannah?
And would Stomach have spent her whole life pining after one Fisher brother after which shifting to the opposite with out Susannah’s “prophecy” that feels extra like a shackle that she would marry considered one of her sons?
“Old flame” is ok, and there’s nothing improper with it, however we primarily had Stomach with a crush wherein Susannah fanned the flames, utilizing all of those children that she cherished like props in a telenovela for her personal leisure as a result of SHE’s a romantic at coronary heart.
Ma’am, Go away These Youngsters ALONE!
When you think about that Susannah has been whispering in Stomach’s ear about this since she was a toddler, one can see the place Stomach by no means actually had a selection, proper?
It’s exactly the rationale why she must go to Paris and determine who she is and her identification. As a result of the whole lot she has ever recognized has been unusually intertwined with the Fishers, and he or she hasn’t had room to expertise anything.
Her codependency? It existed lengthy earlier than her dynamic with Jeremiah, and the truth that they leaned on one another a lot after Susannah’s dying solely highlights the truth that neither of them knew who they had been or what they had been imagined to be after Susannah died.
Why? As a result of Susannah wrote the script for his or her lives, and out of the blue, they’re like characters with no creator making an attempt to determine how they’re supposed to complete their story.
Dolls not figuring out what’s subsequent when their proprietor stops enjoying with them.
It’s not simply Stomach, both, that Susannah had this maintain on. It’s additionally not misplaced on me that as a result of she DIDN’T have this degree of presence over Steven, he appears essentially the most well-adjusted out of the brood.
Susannah Instigates the Inheritor/Spare Narrative Too
However Susannah’s impact on her sons? Equally as diabolical!
I already mentioned how uncomfortable it was when she lastly received to share a second with Conrad on her deathbed, and he or she primarily saddled him with the notion of brotherhood as solely responsibility and obligation, however not love.
And he or she nonetheless managed to push the Bonrad agenda to the very finish, even in her dying breath, by telling an impressionable and inclined Stomach to take care of Conrad. Not each of her sons, simply Conrad.
Thus placing lots of accountability on a younger girl to deal with a younger man who hasn’t all the time handled HER psychological and emotional well being with care.
It additionally additional allows Conrad to proceed being the one that struggles to correctly regulate his personal feelings, as he’ll have somebody like Stomach there to “put up” with it.
Jeremiah, too, places his mom on a pedestal, feeling that Susannah was the one one who “noticed” him outdoors of Stomach.
Even within the earlier seasons, we noticed that she positioned him within the position of “performer,” all the time tasking him with entertaining her and conditioning him to make her and others really feel good, whilst she acknowledged that he buried his personal emotions within the course of.
Play Cousins at Cousins? Nah, Romantic Want Achievement ONLY!
To meddle a lot within the love triangle she orchestrated and even take a aspect (not his) solely makes it wilder, as she noticed how he pretends to be joyful for different folks’s sake.
She even posthumously chains him to that destiny when he has to faux to be joyful and never let something come between him and his brother.
Susannah concurrently disregards his emotions in the identical manner she is aware of everybody else does, and relegates her “Sunshine Boy” to second selection, significantly on the subject of Stomach.
It even looks as if the extent of her “favoring” Jeremiah isn’t actually about Jeremiah in any respect, however as an alternative chasing steadiness (to counterbalance Adam’s favoring of Conrad) for the sake of upholding and sustaining her fantasy.
With the letter mix-up, lastly dispelling the maintain Susannah could have had on Jeremiah, it breaks him within the course of. Maybe his mom solely noticed him as second-best, too.
She cherished him, however nonetheless bolstered the Inheritor and the Spare dynamic that hangs over the Fisher brothers.
It’s a intestine punch to have that realization after her dying, and in such a devastating method.
Susannah Says
Talking of these letters, even in dying, it’s simply Susannah impeding on lives and wielding affect. No, she doesn’t outright point out Stomach in that letter to Conrad, however we will learn between the strains.
She chains everybody to nostalgia and the previous, to the sunny, fantasy world that she produced each summer season. Due to all of the issues she might write about to her son on his marriage ceremony day, why precisely wouldn’t it be that?
Are you able to think about if he had been wholesome sufficient to really discover a new particular person and be on his technique to marrying her, solely to have the mom he cherished conjure up Stomach Conklin like she was activating the Winter Soldier?
Conrad isn’t the one menace; he’s simply infinitely messier.
Susannah’s Flex? Being the OG Menace to Society
Susannah? She’s an actual menace to society, however the sneakier, scarier sort who does it with a smile and makes use of neural linguistics programming like a professional.
There’s simply no manner of totally capturing the extent of the injury she’s inflicted, nevertheless it stays fascinating as a result of nobody, outdoors of possibly John Conklin, can ever come near addressing it.
As a substitute, TSITP worships on the altar of its very personal Madonna, romanticizing all that she stands for.
In the meantime, we’re left to take care of the fallout whereas questioning why on earth they let this girl pull the strings like a puppet grasp, even from past the grave.
Watch The Summer season I Turned Fairly On-line
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