The next scene starts with Jean-Michel convinces Anne to leave the boardwalk with him immediately because he sees his fathers coming and apparently he has not even bothered to tell her that his parents are gay. (Jean-Michel is just the worst.)
And then we finally arrive at the big moment when Georges has to admit to Albin that Jean-Michel has asked for him not to be present at the meeting with Anne's parents.
Or we think we do. Georges is definitely headed that way. But instead of arriving there we get two other beats that only further the pathos and pain that is to come.
First, we get the reveal that Jean-Michel's biological mom has actually been terrible about keeping interested in Jean-Michel. Which is not something we had any reason to see coming, and in and of itself makes what is to come worse, because now not only is Albin going to be replaced by someone else, that someone else has actually been a bad mom to Jean-Michel.
Kieron Gillen is a comic book writer that I really like. He's got a great gift for breaking hearts without letting the audience know it's coming. He also likes to talk about the craft of it all. And one thing I've seen him talk about more than once is about having a surprise behind the surprise. That is, when when you're writing a book, there is the big turn or moment to come that readers know is coming. Will Anthony Bridgerton really marry the wrong Sharma? Will the Battlestar Galactica make it to Earth? We don't know the answers, but we know an answer is coming. (And we may very well have a strong hunch about the answer.)
Gillen's strategy is to have another secret or surprise waiting beyond that moment that we see coming. His thinking is, A Big Moment casts a long shadow. And you can hide a lot in there. Or to put it another way, if the audience's attention is focused on the Big Question being answered, they're a lot less likely to see something else coming.
For me, the reveal about Jean-Michel's mother is sort of a form of that. The creative team have us focused on the moment in which Georges tells Albin what is going on. And we're so ready for that, we don't see this whole other thing coming, even though it is kind of obvious. Who exactly is this biological mother? What is she like? And that information is able to hit us harder as a result.
In Gillen's case, often that second turn is more dramatic, and happens after the first turn is resolved. Yes, you get what you want. But also, this terrible thing is happening as a result. It's almost like a handoff. It can be a tremendous technique.
(I highly recommend reading Gillen and Jamie McKelvie's The Wicked + The Divine. Some tremendous twists in there that fit this pattern. And just amazing storytelling. Gillen also wrote a blog talking about the writing and art choices in every issue. It's fantastic.)
The second part of the scene is Georges being so overwhelmed by what he has to say to Albin that he ends up instead singing him this beautiful love song. And again it's a moment that instead of answering our question reveals something else that is new and unexpected.
The thing I really love there is the way in which what we the audience know impacts its meaning. This goes back to what I was writing about yesterday. Having "incepted" the audience with this issue of Albin being rejected, when Georges sings him this love song it is so much more sad and beautiful. What we know colors our experience, just as it does Georges singing.
It's sort of like having painted a canvas yellow, the artist doesn't need to do anything more for the that color to have an impact. Simply by being there that yellow will change the further colors that are applied to the canvas.
Gene Barry (who plays Georges) sang the song on the Mike Douglas show. I find his performance so deeply moving.
