Originally Posted by
ccahill2
I was just rewatching Belle's proposal to Tom with Torville and Dean in the rink, and I realized why this story, minus the past couple of days, has been so grim.
Tom used to be much more well rounded. With Belle, I loved seeing her laugh again, but understand why she always was bogged with the dark cloud realizing how grim her future was. But Tom wasn't a one sided villain who was always manipulating or hurting his wife, making mistakes at work, such as the cancer misdiagnosis with him about to put the dog down, taking advantage of animals at work, always working to convince others that his wife was crazy.
He laughed. He had interests. You could see why Belle was initially allured to him and ignoring the time he pushed her down, because Tom was so much more than a complete menace and evil all the time.
By reducing Tom to almost a satire of himself, the show lost some of the audience along the way. There were no high moments along with the low. The story got grimmer and grimmer.
Now mind you, I'm not sticking up for Tom in any way and want him to go down hard. I'm so glad that Belle now has Charity and Cain on her side, protecting her. It's just that these people get away with it because others see them fun loving and good, in addition to blaming the victim through the poisoning they've received. That whole fun loving laughing side of Tom is gone as we see him so clearly working the crowd. There is no longer a Jeckyl and Hyde aspect to him. He's just evil.
To me, that's why the story seems to be dragging on and on. The presentation seems to be wanting to manipulate us with black and white, good and bad, as opposed to showing all facets of the characters.
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