A.K.A Friday and Monday Were *Too* Real

It was all just a little too real. For some reason Kristie's summation of Monday's events, keeps ringing through my mind, except it seems to be applying itself to Friday's episode, as well.

I look at Friday as the top of a Ferris Wheel, that gives you a beautiful view of carnival lights beneath you, and people milling about. You reach it briefly, and for the few seconds you remain there, you're on top of the world, in your perch, floating on air. Occasionally you get stuck up there, and boredom quickly sets in, the beauty of the fleeting seconds you normally spend up there, quickly becoming old and routine. And I look at Monday's show, as the annoying friend sitting next to you in your ferris wheel seat, rocking it back and forth, just as you reach the top, in order to scare the bejeezus out of you, and ruin your fun. You haven't really rode a ferris wheel until all three happen to you, even when you want to whack your pal on the head for being so obnoxious. It's all part of the growing pains, otherwise known as life, those little moments that let you go on to teach your own children what to truly appreciate, and how to marvel at the world around them.

And I now see Manny as a ferris wheel, not a roller coaster, like most people would probably envision them, myself included, not too long ago. I see Manny as very much a circle, and very much going in circles, or spinning constantly, with no beginning and no end. I don't see them slowly climbing to the top of a roller coaster and then falling quickly, to lurch back up, to do the same, over and over again. I don't see them as careening and out of control, any longer. There was a long ago thread about danger exciting Michelle, and just like the Manny story evolves everyday, my thought continues, and I've come to the realization that Michelle is not necessarily attracted to danger, as she is to passion, and passion doesn't have to be scary, though it was for Michelle, in the beginning. Danny isn't scary, I'm sorry, he just isn't. I don't find him threatening in the slightest, I think his reputation and history is enough to raise an eyebrow over, but he doesn't particularly strike me as someone to quake in fear over, which is why he'd make a terrible protégé of Carmen. I find her much scarier, because of the lengths she'll go to, than I ever have Danny. Yes, he's dark, but Danny is more edgy than frightening, and more intense than looming. The threat of Danny isn't a physical one, it's an emotional/psychological danger. He won't hurt Michelle, with his hands, he'll hurt Michelle by burying himself under her skin and clinging with his fingers wrapped around her veins and thought processes, tightening every time he so much as looks at her.

And *that*, my friends, is what makes the Prince ascending, such an unsettling prospect, and why I think Monday unnerved me, more than it upset me. I felt like I was on the top of my Ferris Wheel and suddenly the calm night air, was being shaken violently, and I didn't know if I was going to tip over, or if Manny would.

The week started out, very pleasantly for me, seeing Real-Friday on Monday. The beautiful spin of the wheel, continuing, slowly and steadily. Michelle, drunk, but not drunk enough, to be unaware of what she was doing, throwing herself, literally, at him, ripping off her own clothes, and telling him they'd just have meaningless sex (with Danny quietly telling her, it wouldn't be meaningless) brought home two moments from the past, in particular. Michelle, wide-eyed and furious when she walks into designated bridal suite, Danny frustrated and disheveled from his fight with Jesse, immediately walks to the glass of champagne, pouring himself a drink and offering her one. They proceed to argue about what they will *never* do, what Michelle will *never* give him, and Danny mocks her ire with a laugh, used to having meaningless sex with anyone he had a passing interest in. The symbiosis of these two sets of scenes, that run alongside one another, but exist in their own spheres as stand alone moments is mind boggling. I'm sure it was never an intention, but it's there and it remains so, the use of alcohol to soothe the savage beast in Danny, that night, the night of the DD when he fell back into his pattern of meaningless sex, transferred onto Michelle who refused his drink then, but had to use "his recipe" to cure her own pain. He leads, they spin, she takes the lead, this is a constant in this story, but this isn't a simple transference and dance, where one gives, and the other takes, only to give back the same and take back what they'd already given, the binding theme of this moment is meaningless sex. Only the sex wouldn't have been meaningless to Danny that first night, either, he can just admit it out loud now, and Michelle still can't go through with meaningless sex (hence pushing him off of her and onto the floor, even when he reached back in), to this day. They were right in the same position from the start, going in a circle, until they got back there, with a different view of the world, thanks to the heights that wheel climbed.

But this isn't the only episode, that echoed in this scene, specifically. There were also the lighthouse episodes, where Danny clawed at Michelle's clothing (while she tried to hold onto them), trying to get her by fear, to go through with the act, brought to present day. Michelle ripping at her own clothes and Danny putting them back on her, taking her place as the fearful one, who can't go through with a sham which is what drunken, pain motivated sex would have been. This was the one time when Michelle could have easily convinced me she hated him just as much as she was attracted to him, when she walked away from him and told him to stay the hell away from her (after his suggestion, of ta-da, comfort sex, which he now can't bring himself to even entertain), and what does she turn around and do in the present-day scenes? She cries about hating him, beating on his chest, and sobbing in his arms, under freezing cold rain. I don't think she hates him, I think she hates what he did, hates every way that he's turned her life upside down, hates the way he can look at her and completely throw her off her steady heels, and I don't think she's wrong for feeling that way. But just like that night in the lighthouse, the next phase of the Manny story began from pain and a release. Up until the night in the lighthouse, Danny would have never let himself appear as vulnerable as he did, when tripping over his words in anger, upset with himself and with her for seeing right through him, and up until the shower, Michelle wasn't capable of showing him the raw side of her own hurt. Her "you broke my heart" *was* heartbreaking, but her sobbing uncontrollably, soaking wet and freezing, but not letting go of him was basic and unfettered by trying to find the right words, or talk it all out. She just needed to pound it into him, not walk away from the subject like he did that night. Once again their circle came around again.

I can't believe no one has mentioned (as far as I know) the other *HUGE* parallel, it was gargantuan from where I sat, more of the wheel turning in motion, passing itself over and recalling that which had already passed. "I am a man", am I the only one who saw the blocking of the scenes on the bed, as hauntingly familiar? Danny speaking quietly to her ear, trying to explain something he can't find the precise words for, Michelle staring off into the distance, *but* this time SHE LOOKED AT HIM, she *saw* him, she didn't just hear what he was saying, she listened, she understood, she considered, she reacted! I was knocking my knees together I was so excited. On the heels of Danny rejecting her, in the room we've only seen them together in once before, where he laid himself on the line with carefully chosen words, letting her into places he didn't even want to admit to a few days earlier when she confronted him at the edge of the bed in the lighthouse; places that dealt mostly with intimacy, the physical nature of being with someone you crave, to have him weave the same tone of intimacy whispered in her ear, only to have it be as far from physical as you can get after she just tried to satisfy the craving, was *delicious*. Her words from not moments before, resonating "that's why you look at me like you can see my..." (interrupted but once again, about to say "soul", the importance of which has been discussed many times), and Danny refusing to accept that. It's no longer about looking at one another with pure desire, it's no longer why they dance around one another the way they do, they are no longer careening towards an explosion, but slowly drifting towards one. It's no longer about just being "a man" (did we really think Danny told Pilar "I'm a man", for the hell of it, I don't). And whereas Danny wouldn't even put his hand on her shoulder, previously, he now leans his chin there, allowing her to see the difference between a man who desires her, and a man who desires being with her, more than he cares about needing to have a real marriage in every way. All in the same room, in the same positions, only she doesn't keep her head turned away from him, she reaches her arm around his neck and leans her head into his. Michelle was attracted then, to the passion of his words (as were we all) and the possibilities it presented, and that was hard to reconcile with her quiet little life, being tossed all around. Now she's attracted to the passion of his "soul", that goes beyond the physical realm, that let's Danny look right through her own, and that's the new danger, how far he's invaded her thoughts ('you're in my blood" !!!) and how easily he did it (how easy it is to hate someone who upsets your world so fully) and how completely he's willing to mold himself to her world, because he's *that* passionate about having what he wants. I could almost cry at the sheer beauty of that serendipitous moment.

"You know why." I do. I did. I didn't need to hear anything else.

But as with any Ferris Wheel, staying that high aloft would bore us all silly, eventually. The little shake we all felt during Monday's show was just the wakeup call we needed, to be reminded that we should never get too comfy, even though Manny may have begun to finally spin near the same tempo, if not the same song all together. It was that annoying rocking, meant to keep you aware, not throw you out of your seat, IMO. You can feel the motion, your stomach has butterflies, but you don't fall out, and you were never intended to. I didn't dislike Monday, I didn't find it out of character, and that's the most unsettling part, it was "all too real". Sometimes that feeling is worse. Because no matter how romantic, chivalrous, beatific and wonderful Danny can be, he is and for the foreseeable future will be the Prince. The scary part is how good he has the capacity to be in this position. If there's one thing that's abundantly clear about Danny, it's his intelligence, his craftiness, the way he can easily talk himself out of most situations, and right into anyone's subconscious (which is why his drunken arrest was so out of character, for him). He doesn't need to physically maim anyone, to be as good at what he does as Carmen is, at what she does. He doesn't need to be Mick, he just has to turn that moodiness up a notch, and the man that refused Mrs. Silva with sympathy, but without reservation, will rule his kingdom, just as easily as the Queen Bee does now. Danny will not change (especially for someone else), he will not leave his family, he will not become the man of Michelle's dreams, he will *be* the man of Michelle's reality, and he will adjust his family life accordingly, but he will not abandon it. They will have to bring to the table, every bit of their history and create something new out of it, not pretend it doesn't exist and start from scratch. That much was made clear to me on Monday.

It makes one consider whether they *want* him to change, and I can see both sides, which is why I waver constantly. It's like Kristi's question, from a long time ago, was it Danny or Manny that attracted us? I said it then, and I'll say it now, Danny wouldn't be Danny without being part of Manny, but Manny wouldn't be Manny without Danny as he was, there is no end, no beginning, no chicken or egg, in this situation. It's just another unbroken cycle/circle with no answer. Part of the attraction of Danny is for me, is his constant balancing act, trying not to feed the dark place in him, but recognizing that it exists, trying to something *good* for Michelle, but wanting her to accept him even if he can't "change". And part of the attraction for Manny, for me, is Michelle being the other side of the scales in Danny's conscience. She is what grounds him, and what throws his world into a tizzy (we've all considered how much this marriage cost Michelle, but like Michelle, I don't think a lot of my own energy has been paid attention to how much it cost Danny, until Monday) all at once, but she is the voice of reason, to Carmen's devil on his shoulder. What's attractive about Michelle, is that she's fallen for him, despite, the difference, though she keeps trying to prove to herself that she can't get past these things, she can, and she will (that too was made clear to me on Monday's show).

What unsettled me, about Danny silencing her is not that I didn't expect it in many ways, but that I didn't want to hear him do it this time. I didn't want him to rush to his mother's side without considering what Michelle had to say. I didn't want him to prove to me, that he won't be able to keep his promises. I wanted to watch the world at my feet, a little longer. I posed a question in chat earlier, about cutting off Michelle's perspective and the deeper consequences it could have had, and I'll pose it now. What if he had sent Michelle home, not wanting to deal at that moment, not wanting to hear what she had to say, and taken revenge on his non-existent enemies and done something like killed someone? How attractive would that really have been? This is why Michelle's voice is important to this story, without it Danny could have the hair trigger capacity to react half @#%$ and do something stupid (DD, getting arrested, the car accident), which we know he's not normally, because his emotions are running unchecked. He needs the person sitting in the ferris wheel car next to him, to stop the swinging he's begun, and to me, that person is Michelle.

I wonder what it would take for Danny to really walk away, to put that life behind him, the only thing I can imagine is a baby Santos he needed to protect, and have grow up differently than he did. And while the thought is nice, the undertones aren't, because I don't think Danny will ever *truly* choose to be with *Michelle* above all else (and I'm not sure it's fair to ask that of him either). I see them *both* having to give a little and accept a little more, but I don't see either completely changing in order to be together. In a small way that's more acceptable to me, than the romanticized notion of "changing" for a person. I'd rather they accept one another warts and all and work to make their life different from previous generations of Bauers/Santos, without abandoning everything they come from. It is after all what made them the people they are.

Until then it's painful to hear promises that you know are false and leading nowhere, though I'm sure Danny means every word of them, the reality of his life won't even allow for them. And it's painful to see Michelle hold onto that little shred of hope, when I'd rather she be doing more of what she did in the Santos family room, demanding to speak to him outside and dealing with him, instead of brushing every unspoken problem under the carpet. I'd rather they deal by communicating and fighting to be together, in spite of the differences, not fighting apart from one another, because of the differences. I know it's going to be a long, frightening road to travel, however. I know that the Prince will emerge and I won't like a lot of the steps it takes to get there, because I don't want to know that they're happening, though I recognize they almost have to, at this point. I know Michelle will be hurt, when she has to keep biding her time and taking a backseat, but I know I'll probably wind up smiling when she starts to refuse to let Danny fall away from her, and the life they could have.

I guess I'd rather keep spinning on the wheel, with occasional moments of brilliance on top of the world, instead of getting pea green with motion sickness at the thought that a few little shakes, could shift the whole foundation or spill us all overboard.