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✦ EPISODE 5

okay my faith in the show has been restored LMAO 😭

+ yeah ig ricky likes gina for the sake of the plot lol. it would have been more appropriate for him to start liking her at the end of the summer,,, but go off writers...((it reminds me of ej interested in gina out of nowhere in episode 5 but worse))

it truthfully hurts that rina had a good story from s1 to s2 and now,,, they got impatient so they force feelings on ricky with no proper development. he was better in this episode,,, but the forced feelings are so obvious in scenes like the ej slap. carlos talks about ej "stealing his gf" and ricky brings up gina. that doesn't make sense bc he and gina were never together??? ricky didn't even care about portwell until an episode ago so why are we acting like he thinks ej stole gina from him? the writers are so clearly trying to make nini disappear as much as possible so they pull smth like this to push rina. ricky could have said smth like,, "that sounds familiar" instead of remarking smth completely off to what has happened canonically.

+ speaking of the writers trying to erase nini tho,,, rina's conversation later in the episode ((good scene imo)) made me realize smth about this whole love story.

throughout s1 and s2, gina had slowly taken nini's place as ricky's best friend.

we all know ricky wants comfort most of all bc of his broken home,, and that's a big reason why he fell in love with nini who was his childhood best friend. she gave him comfort bc she was always there for him,,, she was someone he could trust and confide in,,, she was the person who understood him.

BUT s1 happens and rini's relationship falls apart bc of their romantic conflict. after episode 4,, they become friends again but there's still a wall between them bc why wouldn't there be after what happened? here's where gina comes in: for the first time,, ricky is able to form a connection with one of the theatre people and open up. gina, who has home problems of her own,, fully understands ricky's problems and then acts as nini's "wonderstudy" while rini works out their problems. when nini isn't there,, gina is able to fill that empty space and be the person there for him.

s2 is when things change dramatically. remember in s1 episode 8,, nini opened up about yac to ricky and her thoughts about it? in s2,, she stops confiding in ricky (this creates a distance between them) bc after what happened in s1,, she might have thought that to be independent,, she had to face everything by herself. ricky still confides in nini the most but he also has gina to talk to bc they grew close in s1 ((this is why gina knows he moved in episode 3,, also why ricky asks gina advice on nini)).

what happens is ricky starts hesitating in telling nini his feelings. in episode 4,, it was bc he didn't want to get in the way of her dreams in spite of his feelings. but mostly it's bc of the distance nini is putting between them. she isn't telling him things,,, the one sided-ness of it all makes it awkward. he doesn't know what's going on with her so he starts feeling insecure about what she thinks of him,, especially when he tells her his feelings. episode 6 for example,,, when nini seemed to have no idea why ricky didn't feel good about miss jenn and his dad. he definitely noticed this (explaining the awkward phone call later where he doesn't tell nini at all about what happened with miss jenn). ricky has no idea where nini is at that he isn't even sure if she's trying to stay in this relationship or not ((episode 7-8)). they break up,, and become almost strangers. their romance killed their friendship. nini stopped being there for him (bc she put herself first, not a bad thing bc ricky rly needed to find other support systems besides her and she needed to find herself),, she stopped confiding in him,, and she didn't take time to understand him anymore (bc instead of treating him as her best friend,, she treated him only as a "boyfriend". more on this later). they were on completely different pages.