In Defense of Mr.Sidney Parker

Well, here I am again, rising from my long blogging absence to once again blog about ... a television show. Yeah, that's right ... a television show. I can't explain how this little blog that I started to chronicle our family's adoption journey as we found our sweet Minsy in China nine years ago and then morphed into a little place where I could store some of my thoughts about life and family has now started down the path of television show critiques, but here we are. I think that if Sanditon had ended its first season with the cliffhanger that it did but had already greenlighted a second season to resolve that cliffhanger I would have been content to sit at home during this global pandemic and just dream about what was to come in the next season. But that's not what happened. Nope. The powers that be (I blame ITV) decided to axe this show right at the moment of tragedy. AAAAAAAARGH! What has happened as a result is that they have unleashed a gazillion Sanditon fans into the universe with the sole goal of making sure that the story does not end this way. We must have a second season!!!! Maybe this is the new plan of television executives ... create a lovely show with a central romance that viewers become increasingly engaged in seeing through to a Happily Ever After ending, only to end with a cliffhanger and no plans for a continuation of the story. Then these loyal viewers will do the job of marketing for the show, begging the world to watch and petition so that they can get more viewers and more money for future seasons. Brilliant. .... Okay, not brilliant. Infuriating! If this is the wave of the future I will be highly displeased.

Anyway, on to the meat of this post ... Sidney Parker (no pun intended). I've been thinking a bit about Sidney these past few months as I've watched and rewatched this show. I am definitely Team Sidney when it comes to who I wish for Charlotte to end up with. I've pretty much always been on his team, but as I watched the show I definitely went through an evolution of my feelings about this character and how I feel about him. There is some debate about whether or not Charlotte would be better off with Sidney or with Young Stringer. In fact, for some reason some people on social media accounts have gotten into heated arguments about the merits of each character. Why is this? I don't understand. I adore my husband and believe he is the most perfect specimen of man on the planet, but I don't need the rest of the world to agree. I'm okay if the rest of you beg to differ. I can be secure in my own feelings on this subject. The same goes for my feelings about Sidney. I'm going to take a minute here and explain why I feel the way I do about the Sidlotte romance, and to do that I'm going to do a bit of dive into the good, the bad, and the ugly about Sidney Parker, although, who am I kidding? There's no ugly. haha

I get the Team Stringer people out there. Stringer is an absolute sweetheart, and he is sooooo good to Charlotte. He obviously adores her. He wants her to be happy. He sees the good in her and would stand by her through thick and thin. I want for my girls to marry Stringers (so far, so good on that front), and I think I'm married to a Stringer. Everybody in the world needs a Stringer in their life in some capacity, don't you think? There's no hidden agenda with Young Stringer in this series. He is exactly who he shows himself to be. I'm sure if you unpacked the layers of Stringer you would just find increasingly stronger levels of kindness and honor and decency. He's just so good. I root for his Happily Ever After ... just not with Charlotte. So why is that? Why do I dream of a story where Sidney gets the girl? Well, that gets a little complicated.

First the bad ...

I will admit that when I watched the first episode of Sanditon and came to that horrible ending scene on the balcony at the ball I was not a fan of our Mr. Parker. What an arrogant little poopy head!!!! Okay, my real feelings about him at that moment contained a bit stronger language, but I was sitting with my family at the time. A little decorum was required. So poopy head it is! I wasn't thinking, "This poor man surely has a sad back story to explain his hateful manner." Nope. I just hated the guy. What a jerk! He asked her opinion. She gave it. She was complementary to him, and her comments about his brothers were not all that bad, but he lit into her. Interesting that he had no issues with what she said about Arthur, but her thoughts about Tom set him off. Also interesting that after eight episodes it turns out that Charlotte was really quite accurate in her assessment of these Parker brothers. Maybe that's what ticked Sidney off. I know that comments people make about me that are a little too close to the truth can be more upsetting than wild lies sometimes. But hearing Sidney dress Charlotte down at that moment didn't endear him to me. He had dug a pretty big hole, and it was going to take some time for him to dig himself out of it.

Things did not improve with episode two. When Charlotte came to apologize to him, and Sidney tells her that he doesn't think of her at all I wanted to reach inside my television set and strangle the man. Haven't we all had a situation where we do the right thing and apologize for some stupid thing we've said or done? Have you ever had that person refuse to accept the apology and just throw more anger or hurt into the situation? It stinks. Yeah, Sidney dug a few more feet into that hole he'd started. The saving grace here was that Charlotte began to punch back here and at the pineapple luncheon. I was not Team Sidney yet, but I was definitely Team Charlotte.

Now comes the famous scene in the cove, and here is where the good begins, in my opinion. Here's me probably overthinking things, but I think that when Sidney pops out of the water in all his glory and Charlotte sees way more than she expected on her seashell expedition it is symbolic of the rebirth of Sidney Parker The Good. Charlotte will strip his psyche down and begin to see him as he truly is. She will see the man behind the hurt and the pretense and the image that he projects to the world. She will begin to allow him to be exactly who he is ... eventually. But not yet. That's going to take a few more ups and downs and episodes.

Still, two more bads to add here ... Sidney freaks out and yells at Charlotte two times in this series. In real life if this were one of my friends I would be screaming "RED FLAG!!" at them if the man they liked screamed at them in public and in private enough to make them flinch like Charlotte did after admitting that she was helping Georgiana to contact Otis and set up a meeting. Maybe not a deal breaker, but at least a reason to stand back and really evaluate things. For a regency hero Sidney sure expresses his anger in public way more readily than the average gentleman. I get it. I really do. In one case Charlotte baselessly accuses him of overt racism, and in the other she had created a situation that allowed Georgiana to be kidnapped. I'd be ticked off too. But temper like that should give a person pause, perhaps. These actions, at least, might explain why some people can't quite get on the Sidney train when it comes to this relationship, especially if it somehow triggers feelings about our own experiences in life. The heart wants what the heart wants, but by the same token the heart repels what the heart repels. We all are just viewing these fictional experiences through the lenses of our own real life experiences.

Sooooo, after that rough beginning how did I end up rooting for Sidney to succeed here? I think it can all be explained by the man himself when he says:

It took awhile, but like Charlotte, I began to understand the man behind the arrogance in Sidney Parker. We don't get to really see the crazy self-destructive Sidney who ran away to Antigua after his heart was pulverized by Eliza, but we do get to see the cold and cynical aftermath of that decade of hurt and destruction. The Sidney of episode one and two is not interested in enduring love and happiness, or if he is, his belief is that it is for other people, not for him. Been there. Done that. Destroyed his heart in the process. When he makes the comment about women on the balcony with Charlotte about them doing basically nothing of substance while they wait to be married he's reflecting his experiences with Eliza. He doesn't trust women. He doesn't respect women. He keeps them at arms length. I've met people like that who push the world away to protect themselves from hurt. Haven't you? Sidney is no different. At this point in the story I personally don't believe that Sidney is in love with Charlotte or even thinking that he might be in love with her. He isn't expecting love, so he isn't looking for it. But he is intrigued by her. Charlotte doesn't fit into the tidy little box that he has created in his mind to explain women. She throws everything off. She doesn't simper and fawn over him. She stands up to him. She pushes against convention. She takes charge of situations. She's amazing, and he can't stay away from her. Watching this awakening in Sidney was lovely.

Jumping ahead a bit to the last balcony scene (I'm still furious with stupid Edward. ERG!), Charlotte got it right when she said that he is the same man, but much improved. (Swoon!) It's true. What happens through the eight episodes of this story is that Charlotte slowly allows the hardened outer layers of Sidney to be chipped away until the best and truest reality of the man is uncovered. Gone is the jaded man of the past and in its place is a man who can love and allow another to love him in return. I am a sucker for stories like this. I love it when the love and support of a good person leads another to become their best self. We can become buried underneath the hard experiences of our lives, but if we can somehow peels those hardships and struggles away we can find that most of us are basically good people, am I right? That's what I see in Sidney.

Now for the Eliza bit. Sidney has a bit of a setback in this story. Just when everything seems to be coming together for an epic Happily Ever After, after that transcendent dance in episode six when you could just see that Sidney was fighting the urge to kiss Charlotte, he looks up to see Eliza. I'm with Arthur on this one ... how could you ever trust someone like her again? Why would you ever think to give her the time of day after she ruined your life for a DECADE? But sometimes our head takes a second to get in line with our heart, doesn't it? Sidney had spent a decade mourning the loss of Eliza. That has to screw you up a bit in the head. He had probably built her into something that she was not in reality. You can't just turn off those thoughts and feelings, even if you really, REALLY should. Sidney had to learn this for himself, and luckily it didn't take him more than an episode to realize who was the companion of his heart. But still ... it burned a bit to see him jump right back into Eliza's path. But this little detour really helped the Sidlotte romance to progress because now Charlotte would not have to compete against the ghost of a romance that never was, his belief in his love for Eliza. Instead, he can see in real time the differences between the two women and who he is when he is in each of their presence. Charlotte wins this battle, hands down. Everyone can see it ... except for clueless Tom. (Fist shake!)

I'm going to ignore the ending of episode eight for a bit and believe that Sidney and Charlotte are going to find some way to their Happily Ever After. It's the only thing that makes sense in this story. I don't care that "in real life" people don't always end up with their first love. I don't care if there is some way to spin this as a positive ending for Charlotte. I care that this story is more than a romance. It is a story about redemption. I am Team Sidney for this story because his is a story of redemption. He was broken by life, but not defeated. He just needed the love of a good woman to help him see that he was free to be the man he always was. He had to learn to trust again. He had to learn to rise above his experiences. And he was doing it. He will do it. He will be his best self in the end, hopefully saving Sanditon in the process (without Eliza's help hopefully). The Sidney of episode one is not the real man. He's the hardened and cynical man. The Sidney of episode eight (before the fire) is the man who sees that life is not dark ... life is beauty and love and fidelity and peace. That Sidney deserves his Happily Ever After. And, by golly!, we deserve to see him get it! #SaveSanditon