Girl with Death Mask (She Plays Alone)

Life definitely goes on!! No other way to look at it, no matter what kind of tragedy happened in your life, you must live on. Leave the past behind and just look at the present and plan for the future. How can I say? This episode is suppose to show us, viewers, how everyone is handling Angelo’s death, but instead it show us a variety of other types of separations from someone we loved, should also be looked into and handled.

Toby had to re-start his life again after the failed marriage. How many people go through divorce and separation from the loved ones nowadays? Not only married people but just boyfriend/girlfriend relationship can be hard too, let’s take a look at Tank for instance, being cheated on and dumped for another guy, he is definitely not handling very well, getting himself drunk and pretending he is fine getting a new phone app to get girls. I don’t know if that app exist or not, and I know many people who find their loved ones through the internet, but the attitude from Tank shows, that is not what he would do if he was handling his break-up with Bay nicely. It seems that in the end, he was sober enough to think straight and hope to get over Bay. Although on the next week preview, we can think it is actually the contrary. We will have to wait and see.

As I was saying, Toby copying with his separation from Nikki is going well right now, but let’s not forget how it was on the 1^st week when he cries like a baby and decided to run off to Iceland as an escape from his life. Of course, when you have great people around you to give good advice and enough money to just go on a “life searching” trip, you may face the separation a lot better than others who don’t have anyone or can’t just take off. Let’s pause here just a second to remember a few other separations that was covered on Switched at Birth. Who could forget about Bay and Emmett break up? Of course, Bay couldn’t handle too well, 1^st she went on a trip to Galapagos, got herself a boyfriend and became a really angry person. Her street art partner and she were living dangerously and she almost ran away. Granted, not all the anger and distress came from the break up alone, she was also going through a lot with the switch and the law suit, but it was obvious that the separation from Emmett triggered a lot more on her emotions and actions than she would normally do. Regina also had her rough time separating herself from alcohol in the end of season 2A, and to deal with it she had to have the comfort and help of her family and, of course, get the support and treatment needed. Emmett and Melody went through some rough time too dealing with Melody and Cameron’s divorce. Although the show focused a lot more on Emmett’s feelings, we know Melody was having her difficulties accepting it. As for Emmett, needless to say, he definitely could not handle things very well, leading him to fight with his mother and ultimately cheating on the only person he ever really loved. And again, Toby was in denial for a while trying to deal with the addiction for poker, but again, he seems to be one very strong person to stick with his decision and move on with his life.

Leo also shows up with a separation issue. The gay couple, who fought so hard to get baby Abby for themselves, are separated. That was a shocker for me. They seemed to be very solid, and I’m sure they were or they wouldn’t have been able to adopt Abby in the first place. Leo is coping with his separation in a very mature way and it seems that even though he is hurt, he is definitely living on, and he has to for the sake of his daughter.

Regina, Bay and Daphne feelings for the loss of Angelo were definitely handled differently. As we saw, Regina seems to just let life goes on, she seems to just exist and not really live, but we can see she is making some effort to make things better somehow. As Daphne said, it may be out of her feeling guilty for what happened to Angelo or really just the loss of her loved one can make her do what she is doing, we don’t know it ..at least, not yet, but we could see a normal reaction on Regina attitude that will get better with time. We all know, time IS a great healer.

Bay seems to be a little better than anyone else who was close to Angelo. Even though she is still really sad about his death, she is showing to be strong enough to talk about it, even through an intercom (that whole part was so over the top for me, why would you give such a horrible news through an intercom? And to a stranger). Anyway, to my point of view, Bay is doing great and should be going on with life just fine in regards to Angelo’s death, however after meeting her 2^nd cousin Sebastian and find out about her aunt Francesca death, she does have another issue to deal with..the possibility of her own death. I know it is bad about the situation but I personally loved knowing more about Bay’s background and family. Bay really had some bad genes in her, the alcoholism from Regina and the aneurism from Angelo are not the bet hereditary things you would like to know about yourself, but it is definitely good to know so you can take precautions and prevent bad or worse things to happen.

Daphne, oh poor Daphne, her decisions are going from bad to worse. First time we talk about Daphne’s decision was who she would chose, Campbell or Jorge. I think we can agree Campbell was not a good decision, come on..break up because your girlfriend got a job? That’s was such a lame excuse, but worse than Campbell was to decide to get high with a stranger. The decision itself was already stupid, getting high on any substance is not cool at all, it just proved that she is actually a very weak person who cannot handle any tough situation. That was what surprised me the most on the writers’ decision. I read that this is a way to focus on Daphne, since the whole season 1 was about how Bay would handle the “switch” that hurt her the most, now it is Daphne turn to handle a situation the hurt her the most. Bay, however, never made that big of stupidity, which we are grateful for. This, in my opinion, is a very bold move from the writers and producers to get the main character into drugs, let’s see what come next and hope that doesn’t turn into an addiction. During her craziness, it was nice to see the new character, the Chinese student was so funny, both during high and normal reactions. Maybe the producers and writers should consider getting more asian actors, Renzo and Nelson play funny scenes really well. Renzo was on his best performance as a nervous “flirter” than any other scene he played so far.

Talking about funny scenes, could anyone not laugh with Emmett and Tank? Sure it was super awkward and uncomfortable to Emmett seeing Tank talk about Bay and how he felt, but Emmett’s sense of humor and avoidance of conflict made the scenes the funniest of them all. We all know Emmett is an excellent lip-reader but a drunken Tank was not helping him understanding much what he was saying. “Something about cats” was the best lip-reading mistake Emmett could have done at the moment. I’ve got to say, Tank is his best when he is playing the funny guy, drunk or not. Just a quick note here, the bar where they are is the same location that was where Bay and Marybeth hang out during Bay’s attempt to make Marybeth like Tank on episode 9.

It was not so funny for Bay to learn that her cousin has a “problem” with Angelo and he lied to her. When Bay broke the vase and said “she does stuff like thing all the time” when was the other time she has ever showed her clumsiness? Please, I need help on this one because I can only remember 1 time, which was when she broke Emmett’s camera during the Star party. Moving on, Sebastian started as a jerk but it was nice to see he could be a nice guy and hopefully he can help Bay finding out more things about her family, the Sorrentos at a later time. While we see Bay standing up for herself and Angelo, it was when we see how much John has changed. The almighty, big shot, big protective and strict father bound to his daughter’s decision without much or nearly no argument or resistance. He is a very calmER person and he seems to respect Bay’s and Daphne’s wishes. I know, he forced Daphne to go on a tour on campus, but I’m sure he was thinking she would be safe and make good decisions. Yes, he was wrong about that, but my point is, he thought he was right, he trusted her alone with a stranger.

I really have to take my hat’s off to Katie Leclerc on this one for such an amazing performance as a “high in cocaine” Daphne, Max Adler as the drunken Tank and Alec Mapa as the nervous Renzo. They killed it! And I can’t forget how nice seeing BK Cannon signing so naturally.

How you handle separation or any tragic situation that comes up in your life is how makes you stronger and define your future decisions. I once saw this verse: God has 3 answers to you questions: Yes, Not yet and I have better things planned for you. Whether you believe in God or not, I think this way of thinking resumes what you do with your life or better yet how you handle your bad situations in life. When life gives you a problem, it is giving you an opportunity to change your life either for better or for worse, but if you follow the thinking that “this problem” (in this episode the pain of separation, either by death or divorce or simply break-up) will have an answer that is either positive, OR can make you stronger during the process while the positive answer develops to you OR the answer could be really simple, this is not for you, you deserve or you can get a LOT better than what you want, so why hold on to the pain and let it change you in a bad way? Heads up, life goes on and just wait and see how much better your life can be if you just let the past stay in the past and live the present and the future.

As always, Lizzy Weiss sending a great message through a great show!

Here it the promo for episode 17 (next monday)

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