FauxDetective

I was thinking that it would be fun to see Happy do the chasing in season 3. I think in the finale she finally realized just how much Toby means to her, so after she's dealt with the whole marriage situation (which I think is going to take a while, because there must be a good reason she's avoided it for so long), maybe she'll be the one to take active steps towards rebuilding their relationship.

FoxPhile

I would like to see Happy pursue Toby. It would be a nice change-up and show that she really cares for him, too.

FauxDetective

I'd love to see that whole new side of Happy. I think Toby would too.

WeBuiltThePyramids

Yeah, I'd love to see Happy going above and beyond with their relationship this yeat.

Heidi got the song right - the ship is Mac and Harm.

girl under the floor

It would interesting to see, a dynamic like that

FoxPhile

I'd love to see a scene where they both sort of blurt out "I'm sorry", because there were issues on both sides. Then they talk through it and work things out. A kiss and make up ending would be okay with me, too.

FauxDetective

I would absolutely love that too.

Both could definitely have handled things better in the finale. With Toby, I can kind of rationalize his failure to pick up on Happy's signals because he had just been through a traumatic experience where he was convinced he was going to die. If in that moment his one regret in life was not getting the chance to marry Happy, I can buy that in the immediate aftermath he would be so focused on making that happen that he missed her cues.

Happy's actions are much harder to understand. There are so many things she could have done differently, knowing that Toby was thinking about marriage. When he first brought it up in Twist and Shout, she could have simply told him she wasn't ready yet, to buy her more time to deal with the situation. In the finale, after she knew the proposal was imminent, she could have pulled Toby aside, if not to tell him about the marriage itself, then at least to tell him that there was something important they needed to discuss before he proposed and to ask for some time to gather her thoughts before that conversation took place. Maybe that wouldn't have stopped him, but it would have been worth a try. The only explanation I can come up with is that she just completely panicked. I just hope that whatever the writers come up with for season 3 makes her behavior in the finale make a bit more sense.

WeBuiltThePyramids

See, I find it hard to fault Happy in that finale. No, she didn't pull him aside and tell him they needed to talk about something, but she did tell him not to propose. And he did anyway. Tumblr terrifies me because so many people there are just absolutely trashing Happy and honestly, if we're picking sides (which I don't want to do, like, I feel awfully for both of them) I have to go with her because we simply do not have any context yet. I'm writing a fic called What Comes Next that has the reason Happy kept it a secret be a very serious thing where she absolutely could not have told Toby, and it's not the only reason she might have kept it a secret - especially for someone who talking about things is hard. I also hate that Tumblr is dragging Happy saying she's a cheater, or "does this mean Toby is just her side guy?" That frustrates me so much because like, the marriage is not anything. It may be legal, but whatever relationship existed there is clearly over.

Like look at Kat - she just got legally divorced in February. She wasn't cheating on her now ex husband this entire time with Elyes, they were living apart for over a year when she met him and although they weren't divorced yet, they weren't in a relationship anymore either. This seems to be the same thing with Happy.

I was more neutral after the finale, like as it was airing and immediately afterward, but seeing all the stuff against Happy on Tumblr has made me side with her just because I feel like she needs to be protected.

FauxDetective

Oh, I'm not upset with Happy at all and I definitely don't consider her a cheater. I'm sure she had her reasons for not telling Toby about the marriage up until this point. What I'm having trouble understanding is that by waiting until he proposed, she allowed her secret to be revealed in front of the whole team. By pulling Toby aside as soon as she knew what he was planning, she could have kept it between the two of them. For me it's more a question of why she didn't try to minimize the damage once she knew she had no choice but to tell him the truth.

girl under the floor

I'm also not blaming Happy at all. Nor am I upset with her.
But when he began asking her to come over. And she knew what was going to happen, she could've immediately walked out of the room, either dragging him along or not.
So I'm with Stef for that question; she knew it was coming. Why did she chose that?
I also get though, that she was overwhelmed/taken aback by the moment and maybe didn't process fast enough to get the heck out of the room

I can't really fault Toby for not taking the hints that she really didn't want him to propose, because I think she'd be uncomfortable about it either way. So he might have just taken it as hesitance, instead of something really serious.
On the other hand, he was told she couldn't/wouldn't marry him, that would have made me more cautious about proposing.

FauxDetective

Yeah, that's the only thing that really makes sense to me. In that moment she just sort of panicked and froze. She couldn't come up with a way out of the situation fast enough.


I agree. I think that's exactly how he interpreted her behavior and, given the trauma he had just been through, it's understandable to me that his behaviorist skills were a bit off and he was unable to see that there was something more going on with her.

I think Toby must have assumed Collins' comments about Happy not being able to marry him were nothing more than mind games.

WeBuiltThePyramids

See, as someone who gets extremely uncomfortable in social situations to the point that I have regular panic attacks, I think if he knew she'd be uncomfortable either way, he should not have done it in front of their friends. I know he had that all planned and was probably very excited about it, but she was so clearly not comfortable with it.

Plus, if he hadn't done it in front of their friends, she might not have rushed out of the room. But that just made it ten times more awkward and embarassing and she just had to get out of there.

girl under the floor

^ I'm not sure.
To me there's a difference between uncomfortable and uncomfortable.

So, if he thought she'd be uncomfortable with it and still went ahead with it, I'm okay with it.
But if he thought/knew that she'd really not be okay with it, that she would be extremely uncomfortable. Then I'd not be okay with it.
And I think they have been in a relationship long enough / know each other long enough that Toby would know which of the two it is

FauxDetective

Yeah, I think if this whole previous marriage thing didn't exist, Happy might have squirmed a little at Toby's proposal, because it definitely would have been outside her comfort zone, but I can't see her having any serious anxiety about it. And Toby pushing her a bit outside of her comfort zone is pretty normal in their relationship. He had no way of knowing that she had this huge secret weighing on her. I don't think he would ever intentionally do something that would cause her that level of discomfort. Should he have stopped when she explicitly told him to? Yes, he probably should have. I have no doubt that Toby feels terrible about what happened and will beat himself up over the fact that he, as a genius, Harvard-trained behaviorist, failed to recognize that there was something more serious going on with her, but he didn't mean to cause her any pain.

sheisagenius

So, I have MANY thoughts about quintis...

First of all, it is important to consider the social identities of Happy and Toby because they play a large part in the meanings of both characters' interactions and how they are interpreted. Happy is an Asian woman of color and that automatically puts her at a social disadvantage. And then you have Toby, a white male with more inherent social power. Some people say 'oh why can't we enjoy tv without having to think about characters' race and gender' and the reason we do analyze things through these lenses is that what happens on tv/other media has real life consequences for real life people, and real people look to tv/media for representation of themselves. For example, representation of women, especially women of color, in media has historically been horrible. In comparison, white men are treated very well and are rarely not represented. As it relates to Happy and Toby, inequality between white men and Asian women is also very present in modern day tv/media (an unmistakable result of Western imperialism in Asia).

I wish the writers hadn't gone with the tired, cliche secret marriage trope, and initially I really didn't think they would (the amount of brainstorming on tumblr of ideas for the twist was ridiculous and people had considered the secret marriage really early on). They could have done better, but oh well. That's what we got stuck with.

As for unfortunately seeing the secret revealed in front of the whole team, Happy firmly stated that she did not want to talk to Toby and yet he still tricked her into coming over to the piano. He simply shouldn't have done that. We all know he was very very excited, hyped up, relieved beyond words that he survived, and as the writers have called him before, a "livewire." But he literally promised Happy that he wouldn't ask what she was anticipating he'd ask, and he still did it. That's just unfair and rude and underhanded. Not to mention, this is essentially a white man doing what he wants at the refusal and expense of a woman of color.

When it comes to the proposal itself, I personally think that was the most awful proposal he could have carried out. I do think it was perfectly Toby, very much the kind of thing he'd do, but did he forget who he was proposing to?? Happy, of all people. Happy, who is a closed off person, who doesn't like talking about herself and her business, who was obviously upset when Toby went ahead and declared to the others in an earlier episode that he and Happy were a couple without her consent. I don't understand why in the world Toby thought the proposal itself, in front of the others, would be the best way to do it. (Oh and maybe you all have discussed this before, I don't know, but honestly I think that ring was a bit awful too.)

I think there are multiple possible reasons for why she may not have 'stopped' him, pulled him aside, etc. However, I don't really like that phrasing. Saying that she should have pulled him aside, stopped him, not allowed him to do that puts the task of preventing Toby's actions on her, which is not fair. Although both Toby and Happy have made poor decisions that have culminated into the current mess, faulting her for something she 'should have' done (read: on a larger scale, what society says she should've done) already establishes this imbalance of favor in Toby's direction. And yes, I know that above I've just mentioned that Toby should not have gone forward with the proposal, but Toby is a white male who still went through with it full speed ahead, and Happy is a WOC who didn't do (and didn't really need to do) this 'stopping' him. If you just change the context, this expectation of 'she should've pulled him aside in order to prevent the proposal/the secret being revealed/etc' becomes the same thing as 'oh, this person shouldn't have dressed like this or drank so much in order to prevent being raped.'

So in watching the episode/thinking on what we do know about the team, there are some other things to consider. After they saved Toby and got Collins they had to drive back home obviously. Somewhere in that time there must have been a debriefing of sorts too. Also, you can see in the episode, before the proposal all of the team have cups, wrappers, trash, etc from Kovelsky's. Then consider that after a period of prolonged stress, a natural reaction is to take some time to decompress. And then add to this the knowledge that Happy takes time to collect her thoughts, especially when she's going to say something meaningful. I think that it's possible Happy was planning to talk to Toby soon, but between a debriefing, getting food, eating that food, decompressing a bit, reflecting/collecting her thoughts, I think it's perfectly reasonable that she didn't immediately go talk to Toby. AND THEN he springs this proposal on her and people expect to her to immediately explain to him/pull him aside/leave the situation (anyway why would she specifically flee? Her personal growth in this series does not exclude getting to the point where she doesn't jump ship all the time)?

As for the proposal itself, she was clearly uncomfortable. She did not want to talk to him, was not ready to talk to him, was still tricked into doing so, had to endure that embarrassing proposal in front of others, and all this while knowing that she'd have to reveal her secret at a time when she certainly didn't want to. Her discomfort, regardless of however much you think she was feeling at the time, in NO WAY justifies Toby's actions.

Also, canonically Happy and Toby have been together for 2 months and 3 weeks at least (from Fractured to the finale), and at most 4 months if they got together right after White Out. Although they have been best friends for a long time and in that sense they would both know each other well, a romantic relationship between them is a new level of intimacy and closeness, and they have only been in one for at most 4 months. I personally don't think that length of time would be enough to thoroughly know the more personal particulars of a person.

So the secret marriage. It is crucial to understand that we have absolutely no context for it. We don't know why she's married, who she's married to, why she didn't tell Toby, etc. And because of that, it's kind of impossible to judge it. Only when we do get an explanation next season, can we thoroughly dissect it and judge her reasons and motivations for doing what she did. Lots of people say that the secret marriage is completely ooc for Happy, that her character is ruined because of it, that she's a horrible person, but really how can people even say that when we know nothing about it? I honestly have no idea what the writers might have the reason for it be. Like if anything in this show has baffled me, it's this. There are so many ways this could go, so many reasons, so many outcomes and I just have no idea.

I can't even begin to explain the extent to which some people throw her to the wolves on tumblr. It is absolutely ridiculous and unnecessary. Especially when it comes from people who have zero qualms trashing her and then turn around and are all 'oh poor baby Toby.' This is again directly related to inherent prejudice so many people are unaware of. In fact, if you look at the times the secret marriage trope happens on tv to women, you can find a lot of sympathy for white female characters (i.e. Jo on Grey's Anatomy), and yet Happy over here gets the really short end of the stick.

All this said, it is really important to keep in mind that everything that has come to pass was the writers' decision. Most of the writers if not all are a bunch of white guys, and because of this they already have a certain predisposition to think, to act, to behave in certain ways because of the way society is. In this case, that means an inherent bias towards Toby. You may say then, 'but we have Happy, a badass, strong, awesome character who is female!' and yes this is certainly true and it's great. But this does not mean that we can ignore the subtle and covert actions that still have as much (and possibly even greater) effect on people. Sometimes people vehemently deny any prejudiced, racist, etc opinions or things they may say because they consciously know they don't want to be like that, but the thing is that people are really unaware of what society has conditioned them to do/think/say. This is the kind of thing that's problematic and when not addressed leads to more issues. In the case of Scorpion and the fandom, it's very prevalent, especially following moments such as the proposal and secret marriage reveal.