They Will, Won’t They? — A take on the “Will They/Won’t They” trope
Is it time to do away with this trope?
[Here is a Spoiler Alert for a couple of shows, especially Killing Eve.]
It has been a month since the Killing Eve finale and the fandom is still on fire. The overwhelming opinion online is that the final episode let down its fans, especially its queer fans. There are many loose ends and too many unanswered questions. But the worst of it was Villanelle’s death. Four seasons of waiting for Eve and Villanelle to be together, only for them to have a few moments of bliss before being permanently torn apart by death. There were speculations that a secret ninth episode was going to release.
This points to a crucial shift in what the audience expects out of stories. We no longer like being teased with the will they/won’t they trope for seasons and seasons, only to be given an ending that makes no sense.
In the will they/won’t they trope, the attraction and sexual tension between a couple is introduced early in the show, but the viewers are kept hanging in anticipation through a series of events where the couple almost gets together but then they don’t. Their relationship doesn’t come to fruition till very late — till the last episode even. This convinces the viewers to keep returning to the show. Or so the theory goes.
In reality, this trope has never worked for me. I have never sat in anticipation, hoping that things work out for the couple. By the time we are halfway through the show’s running, I feel tired of investing in them. I want them to move on to someone better, someone more compatible. I want to see them happy, holding the hands of a new loved one and laughing at jokes in a way that is out of character for them.
Friends, of course, is the first show I watched with the will they/won’t they trope. Ten seasons of waiting for Ross and Rachel to be together stretched my patience as thin as a sheet. And let’s be honest, they were not good for each other. They get together in the very last episode, three to four minutes before the final tag.
It is the same with How I Met Your Mother. I am still unclear on why they killed off the mom character, Tracy. Robin and Ted were over a long, long time ago. They had survived their love for each other and the awkward breakup phase and had settled into what was, I think, a rather comfortable friendship. The show kept insinuating a relationship that wasn’t there.
Then, there is Modern Family. I never saw Haley and Dylan being endgame, and I honestly still don’t see it.
So, why are film and television studios so hell-bent on this trope?
From the little that I have read about it, I realize that it all boils down to one belief: Real Love is Boring.
From what I see, the rules of modern storytelling necessitate that romance and love always involve conflict. The “drama” comes from waiting to see if the couple “beats all odds” to be together. Do they fight for each other? Do they die for each other? Do they kill for each other?
With repetition, this becomes the “ideal” form of love. Everybody wants someone who will wait for them, fight for them, die for them.
But once the goal of love has been achieved — the lovers have professed their love for each other — the writers are faced with a new dilemma: What now? And this is where the belief comes to play: Real Love is Boring. The writers claim that viewers will tune out. It is not interesting to watch them live together (or get married), grow old together, have children, pay bills, choose sheets, and do laundry.
Chandler and Monica were one classic couple that went through all these stages of Boring Love. This is what an article I read on The Ringer, had to say about this couple:
There were bumps along the way — should we tell our friends? Is marriage right for us? Kids?! — but they were pretty much … stable. Sort of like a normal relationship! And one that was maybe, just maybe, devised with an audience’s patience in mind.
But Chandler and Monica were allowed to be “boring” because they were secondary characters. The show’s main characters remained suspended throughout the show.
We can always cite shows that didn’t follow this trope. There are my favorite couples: Amy and Jake from Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Pam and Jim from The Office (US). Honestly, Brooklyn Nine-Nine dropping the Rosa-Charles storyline and allowing them to grow naturally as characters is incredible. The will they/won’t they trope is starting to sound old-school and, by all means, like something we would have overcome in 2022.
If we are being honest though, it is still here. It’s the same gift decorated in new wrapping paper. In this new variety, they retain the exhausting trope but then give it a heart-breaking ending in the name of realism. The couple does not end up together, even when they obviously belong with each other.
Sex Education has always dealt with difficult topics head-on and has been rather progressive in the way it deals with its subject matter. Yet, Otis and Maeve are still not together. The “realistic” reason they claim to deal with here is finding the right person at the wrong time. Maeve leaving for America, though, felt like a last-minute development solely to keep the lovers apart.
The Queer Film and TV industry is especially affected by this newly decorated will they/won’t they trope. We are promised representation. Finally, we think, two women are falling in love on screen. But when — in the name of maintaining the tension — we do not receive the scenes that show them enjoying each other’s company, living together, succeeding together, we are being cheated out of the representation.
In The 100, Lexa’s death created a storm, much like Villanelle’s death in Killing Eve has. The creators claimed that Lexa’s death was necessary to tie many other loose plot points. A Vox article I read talks about this in detail.
In “Thirteen,” which aired March 3, Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey) — a feared and respected teenage warrior — died from a stray bullet moments after she and Clarke (Eliza Taylor), The 100’s main protagonist, finally gave in to the sexual tension they’d been feeling for seasons and slept together for the first time. It was messy, heartbreaking, and for many fans of the show, infuriating.
The Haunting of Bly Manor was relatively kinder to its audience. There were a few scenes of Dani and Jamie falling in love as the years go by and building a life together. But this was a twenty-minute mash-up of scenes that felt like it was rushing toward the end where the inevitable death of one of the characters was waiting for us.
The issue I have with this trope is perfectly summarized by this article on The Ringer :
But there’s a problem baked into the construct: If will-they/won’t-they relationships are tempting for writers because they provide reliable sources of tension, then the emphasis must always be on won’t-they. Which is to say, the very thing that builds up viewer obsession — the near-misses, almost-confessions, surprise appearances from exes, and let’s-get-together-but-only-for-tonights — dooms the couples to discord.
For the tension to be maintained, the answer to the will they/won’t they question has to always (or for an unnaturally long time) be they won’t. And this kind of hyper-focus on the they-won’ts ruins our perception of what love actually is.
In real life, a relationship is made from the times that they do — the times that their ex texts them, but their present partner trusts them enough to not get suspicious; the times they are afraid to confess their love but they do it anyway; the times they choose to pick up the phone and call their partner, even when their insecurities are screaming for them not to.
It is also made from the times they make the tough decisions about who gets to sleep on the left side of the bed, who has to make dinner that night, and who gets to pick the movie they will be watching. You know, the mundane stuff. It is what makes a relationship interesting.
However, when these shows pick the they don’ts over the they dos every single time, the relationship is destroyed beyond repair. It is the ordinary days that sustain a relationship, but we never get to see these mundane good times. This trope shows us only how to fall in love, not how to stay in it.
Whether or not Killing Eve is going to have another episode, I am happy to see the shift in what people want out of storytelling. We want real love. We want the love where if a couple doesn’t belong together, the show lets them let go of each other. We want the love where, if the couple does end up together, we get to see them put in the effort to stay together, we get to see them do the everyday things. We want the Boring Love.
