I like those ideas :nod:

I'm feeling optimistic about Bay & Emmett. I've been seeing a lot of positive things in social media lately, both from fans and from people affiliated with the show.

I have hope that Bay & Emmett's story will feel right, before the show ends.

if LW's plan is bay and emmett, i hope she knows what she's doing and where she's going with them.

Me, too.

I want to be able to imagine a satisfying way to bring Bay & Emmett together again, and to have them live happily ever after, but every time I try to imagine it now, I cannot.

There are so many different ways the writers can take Bay & Emmett's love story, and I am not sure which way would be the most satisfying for viewers, at this point. It's a mess.

New edit:

https://40.media.tumblr.com/4b1dade9...9kmo1_1280.jpg

That is pretty

I agree. Thanks, Alyssa! :)

What does everyone believe the new season will hold for Bay & Emmett, either separately or together?

nice edit!

They get back to a better place

I had been familiar with the musical The Last Five Years, but I recently watched the movie version on a plane. While watching it, some things really seemed like they mirrored the relationship between Emmett and Bay and it was really insightful to me. It was interesting how two people that were so in love could be broken apart simply because of resentment and their lives going in different ways. Anyway, to me the opening song really felt like how Bay was hurting in the episodes post breakup. I just thought I would share! Here is the song I was talking about.

I will have to check out the movie. I have never heard of it or the musical, and it sounds interesting.

I agree that Bay was still hurting, but I don't know how she could think Emmett was certain of much. As he was breaking up with her on the beach, he said that he didn't know. The only thing Emmett was certain about was that Bay moving to LA at that moment was too much pressure for him. He even said, "Maybe in a few years...." It was Bay who said, "No." I would think if Bay was like the woman singing that song, she would have held onto "Maybe in a few years...." But I haven't watched the movie or seen the musical, so maybe I don't understand that woman's character yet.

I am not sure if Emmett is filled with resentment. I believe he has some, in the same way that Bay did, after Simone. Emmett feels a sense of betrayal over Bay choosing Daphne and Tank, over him. But I don't get the feeling that he is holding onto his resentment.

Of course, we have seen so little of Emmett's point of view in the last couple of years that it is difficult to know how Emmett feels about anything.

I'm very late to the show and have only just finished S1. Emmett and Bay own my heart and I was really crushed when he cheated on her. It's such an awful thing to do. I'm starting S2 and hoping that they can fix it the way they've fixed everything before but from what I'm reading, they never go back together they way they used to be in S1, am I right?
Such a shame, they're really powerfully written when done right. They have a really deep connection very few of the couples I like have.

Hi, Ruby Rose Scarlett! Welcome to the Board. :)

I'll share my experience and interpretation of Bay & Emmett's relationship. But if you haven't seen beyond Season 1, you may want to wait before reading.

I found the show, and Bay & Emmett in August of 2012. I binge-watched all 22 episodes in one weekend, even though I had not watched a TV show in years. Then, I waited patiently for the September 3rd's Episode 23 This Is the Color of My Dreams.

Like you, I absolutely fell in love with Bay & Emmett. I love them together and I love them separately. Every so often I will see someone who did not like Bay in the first few episodes of the series, but I adored her from the get-go. I understood Bay, and I was always on her side. As for Emmett, he immediately became my all-time favorite character in any work of fiction, EVER. I was literally addicted to him, and I could not wait to see him in Season 1C (Episodes 23-30).

Emmett is barely in Season 1C, and since I truly was addicted to his character, it was difficult. I've never experienced anything like that, before or after. I'm not sure why I was so enthralled by Emmett, but not seeing him in Season 1C was torture. I told myself to just suck it up, and it would get better in Season 2, after Bay forgives him.

But Bay doesn't forgive Emmett in Season 2. We do see a bit more of him in Season 2A (Episodes 31-40). But it's not enough, and it's torture waiting for her to forgive him (at least, it was when you had to wait a week in between episodes, and she wasn't doing it).

When Season 2A ended, I knew Season 2B was going to be difficult, because the preview for the next season showed Bay with an old boyfriend again. So I braced myself for another year of hell. It was fully one year from the time I had discovered the show on Netflix, until the end of Season 2B, and yes, Bay & Emmett still were not together. Bay just would not forgive Emmett.

So I approached Season 3A with trepidation, but hope springs eternal. I couldn't let go.

Episodes 52-61 were hellacious once again. Bay mourned the loss of her summer boyfriend who broke up with her, and she continued ignoring Emmett despite his kindness. All of this was taking place in early 2014. Somewhere in the middle of the season, Bay kissed Emmett, but it was only because she discovered he had become interested in someone new. By that time, Emmett pushed her away. He didn't trust her feelings for him anymore. Bay understood and went off to immediately find a new boyfriend, which she did. But when Bay saw Emmett was in trouble and that a classmate might hurt him, she rushed to his side to help. Bay & Emmett ended up making love under the stars at the end of Season 3A, and I thought all would be right with the world once again.

I was happy and filled with hope and way too addicted to a TV show. :lol:

So Season 3B premiered, and it was rocky. Bay had cheated on her boyfriend, when she slept with Emmett under the stars. She felt guilty, so she kept trying to be friends with her boyfriend, even though she wanted to be in a romantic relationship with Emmett. There were one or two moments of sweetness between Bay & Emmett in Season 3B (Episodes 63-73). But ultimately, we watched Bay put everyone before Emmett, including the man she had been dating.

In Season 4A, Bay sends Emmett to college alone, even though she had promised to accompany him, because she is doing a favor for Daphne instead. While Bay & Emmett are in a long-distance relationship (and viewers hardly see Emmett), Bay goes to a party with her last boyfriend and sleeps with him. Regina thinks it is rape, because Bay was drunk. But Bay isn't so sure it was rape, because she knows that she was flirting with the guy all evening and she may have consented to sex with him. She can't remember.

Emmett wants to quit school and move home to be with Bay, but she insists on telling him all of the details about how the sex with her last boyfriend was her fault too. Emmett cannot understand why she is defending this guy who had sex with her when she was drunk, so he asks for some time.

Another girl at Emmett's college bonds with him, and when Bay shows up in California and demands that he make a place for her in his life, Emmett says it's too much pressure. She tells him that he either makes room for her right then, or it's over forever. Emmett accepts her ultimatum, and the next 10 episodes are about Bay's sadness over that and Emmett's choice to move on in a relationship with this new girl at his college.

But as the season draws to a close, Emmett tells Bay he was an idiot to break up with her. Everyone learns that Emmett's "pseudo-brother" Travis is madly in love with Bay now, and although Emmett is jealous, he tells Bay that he just wants her to be happy and he has to let her go.

I personally thought everything was realistic and honest, until that cheesy last scene in the Season 4B Finale. I do not know of any 19 year old man who would tell his former girlfriend he was an idiot for breaking up with her and that he has to let her go to be happy with his brother. To me, it was the stupidest scene of the entire series.

I love Bay & Emmett. I will always love Bay & Emmett. But the writers have turned almost everyone against Emmett. To most people, it appears that Emmett cheated on Bay, and then, when she forgave him, she was raped, and Emmett dumped her because of that.

It's not how I see it, but plenty of people on social media see it that way. I cannot go anywhere without reading hundreds of posts about how Emmett has never been good enough for Bay and what a whiny, hypocritical, self-centered character he is. (I've cleaned up the comments for this thread. Online, they are far worse than that.)

I still adore Emmett though. I still love Bay, too, although I loath reading how she is too good for him. It makes it difficult to like the show.

For me, personally, the writers have taken away all of the joy I felt in watching Switched at Birth. I feel jerked around. I feel disrespected as a viewer. I feel abused. I feel that every message I have been able to discern from the writers has been retracted. I feel incredibly betrayed by the writers. I'm not sure if the writers hate Emmett or Bay & Emmett as a couple. I don't know what's going on with the writers. But as a viewer and a fan and someone who loved this show and this couple with my whole heart, I feel like the group of people in the writers' room spit and defecated all over my heart. I hurt.

I was never a fan who had to see Bay & Emmett together. I wanted to see that. They are adorable, and they bring me joy. But I could be happy with almost any outcome. Emmett cheating on Bay was shocking, but I could accept that, too. I never needed either character to be perfect. But in Season 4, the writers did something to Emmett's character that I did not expect. I never dreamed the writers would turn fans against Emmett so completely. It wasn't a direction that I ever saw the show taking. I don't hate Emmett. I can see his point of view. I still love Bay & Emmett together or apart. But I really struggle to be excited about anything to do with his character or the show anymore. It would have helped if we could have seen Bay & Emmett as a happy couple before this drastic change took place, but we didn't get to see that.

I spent from summer 2012 to summer 2014 waiting for Bay & Emmett to get back together. And when I say waiting, I mean I was dying inside waiting for this, week after week. They finally got back together, barely saw each other, and then had a tragic breakup involving Emmett abandoning Bay in the middle of her coping with being raped, AND AFTER SHE FORGAVE HIM FOR CHEATING.

It's just too much for me. I love them. I adore them. But the TV show itself is just too much. It's too painful.

EDITED TO ADD: Somehow I still have hope though. I am not sure how or why. I don't even know what hope means anymore. But I still have it for Bay & Emmett.

Thank you so much for the recap, Ollibear! It sounds like I'm in for some serious heartbreak, which I expected, but still. I really love the show though and will definitely keep on watching to see how everything unravels.
I haven't read a whole ton but it sounds like both the crew and cast know that Bay and Emmett are meant to be so I'm sure they'll be together in the end :)

I love that you love the show and both Bay and Emmett. :)

Will you point me in the direction of the things that make you feel both the crew and cast know that Bay and Emmett are meant to be? I haven't seen any of that and with the turn of the story in the last year and a half, I am quite unsure.

I'm always curious as to where these writers are going with their message about love.