Tawney: It's Eurpean Alright!

[Skyfall]

Suggestions for the tag are welcomed!

[editorgrrl]

I posted this in the S02.E10: Unhinged thread, but I really should've taken the discussion here.

 

Who the hell IS Tawney?  Where did she come from, who is her family, WHERE is her family?  How did she & Teddy even get together?  Did I miss something referencing that?  Because I cannot recall a single detail about her apart from her relation to Teddy & the fam damily.    I would have thought that a shred of information would be revealed, but unless I had a LOT more wine than I thought, I can't recall anything. 

 

 

The Sundance character page says only that

The wife of Ted Jr., Tawney is young and naïve to the ways of the world, relying on her faith to carry her through. A devout Christian, she is very loving and overlooks many of her husband’s flaws. However, her unlikely spiritual connection with Daniel makes Ted Jr. furious.

 

From "6 Questions with “Rectify” Star Clayne Crawford (Ted Talbot Jr.)":

Q: Teddy is very devoted to Tawney. What has the writer told you about their back story and how they met?

A: They haven’t, so Adelaide [Clemens] and I have kind of built up that possibly she was in high school or maybe I had graduated high school but we went to the same school. Tawney grew up in a foster family, so they kind of came from the same place of needing someone to love and needing someone to love them.

 

From an AP story, "God's Pained Servant on SundanceTV Drama 'Rectify'":

In "Rectify," writer-creator Ray McKinnon has crafted a universe of small but fully defined characters including Tawney, through whom he explores both the blessings and pitfalls of spiritual devotion.

"I had read a lot of scripts with Christian characters, but Tawney felt multifaceted, not stereotypical," says [Adelaide] Clemens. "As a former foster child, she feels the religious community is something to be celebrated and embraced. Christianity is how she makes sense of the world."

 

[leighdear]

Thanks EG!  I thought about this thread after posting it in Episode 10, but didn't want to post the same thing in multiple threads. 

 

I did laugh when she was talking to Daniel in the hotel room, describing how she took food from the fridge, being careful to leave some for Teddy. Remarking that when running away "Obviously I'm a food hoarder".  It was a nice moment of humor. 

[editorgrrl]

Two seasons in, and we barely know anything about Tawney. Her entire identity is food, Teddy, his family, and religion.

 

This Adelaide Clemens fansite has screencaps of her for every episode: http://adelaideclemens.flaunt.nu.

 

Here's what the TV Tropes Rectify page has to say about Tawney:

Happily Married: Although not much focus is put on their relationship, Ted Sr. and Janet seem to be very happy together. Subverted with Ted Jr. and Tawney though: it's unknown what their relationship was like before Daniel's release, but considering how bad it got in such a short amount of time, they were likely never completely content with one another to begin with.

 

Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Tawney for Daniel. While Daniel makes it quite clear that he wishes to become romantic with Tawney, her feelings towards him are much more ambiguous, with the only thing she outright says is that she believes God guided her to Daniel to help him.

 

Meet Cute: Although they had technically met beforehand, the first time Tawney formally introduces herself to Daniel is completely adorable.

 

Red Oni, Blue Oni: Brash, business-minded Ted is the red to compassionate, religious-minded Tawney's blue.

[editorgrrl]

Firm season 3, episode 1, "Hoorah":

I disagree with most of you as well—I like Tawney. I think she is a character that comes off as genuine and conflicted. She clearly married young and had very little life experience and everything for her was kind of ticking along quiet and slow. She had a nice relationship, a nice home, nice friends, nice church, nice family, etc.

And then there's this explosion in her life and chaos comes knocking. The quiet, nice life is sort of pushed aside and she encounters Daniel who has had experiences she could never even dream of. I think she felt drawn to him in a number of ways that she was never drawn to Teddy—she wanted to "fix" Daniel and heal his soul.

I don't dislike Tawney. I still don't know much about her, other than she likes food and religion. Now that she's separated from Teddy, I hope she'll get a backstory and some character development.

I laughed in episode 2 when Tawney told the therapist she had no idea if Teddy might rather be called Ted. We learned she aged out of the foster system at age 20, and calls her foster mother Miss Kathy.

[Kathemy]

We do not have a thread called "the Rectify cast in other media" in this forum which I think is a mistake, but I will post two reviews here which I have written about stuff featuring Adelaide Clemens.

http://www.douxreviews.com/2016/06/the-automatic-hate.html

http://www.douxreviews.com/2016/06/parades-end.html

[Superpole2000]

I don't like the way she says Teddy. It's such a trivial thing, but to me her voice (not so much the accent) is just irritatingly soft. And I find her interactions with Daniel seem to skip levels. She spends about two minutes with him and has an intense spiritual connection, then she splits from her husband and two minutes later is rolling into bed with Daniel. This is the same woman who was too timid to change her clothes in front of her husband, but she can ramp up her Daniel love so quickly. I don't buy it. It's just not realistic to me.

[JustaPerson]

I saw Adelaide Clemens in Parade's End with Benedict Cumberbatch a few weeks ago. Her character (from what I've heard) is a bit underwritten compared to books but she was great anyway. I did feel like BC and Rebecca Hall (Sylvia) had slightly better chemistry and I slightly rooted for Sylvia (slightly!) which perhaps is the show's fault when they softened up her character and had Rebecca Hall play her. 

[Cranberry]

On 6/23/2016 at 8:04 AM, Telepath said:

We do not have a thread called "the Rectify cast in other media" in this forum which I think is a mistake

You're allowed to start threads, you know!

[Kathemy]

On 2016-06-25 at 7:40 AM, Superpole2000 said:

And I find her interactions with Daniel seem to skip levels. She spends about two minutes with him and has an intense spiritual connection, then she splits from her husband and two minutes later is rolling into bed with Daniel.

That's crazy hyperbole. She didn't end up "in bed" with him until season 2 episode 9 after they'd met lots of times and even then they did nothing except dance. They haven't even kissed yet after three seasons. That said I think it was sort of obvious that Daniel and Tawney was a love-at-first-sight kind of thing. It was precisely like that, "I talked to you for two minutes and now my entire life is different." Those things happen.

[MaryPatShelby]

On 7/17/2016 at 10:15 AM, Kathemy said:

That's crazy hyperbole. She didn't end up "in bed" with him until season 2 episode 9 after they'd met lots of times and even then they did nothing except dance. They haven't even kissed yet after three seasons. That said I think it was sort of obvious that Daniel and Tawney was a love-at-first-sight kind of thing. It was precisely like that, "I talked to you for two minutes and now my entire life is different." Those things happen.

Thanks for this!  I was racking my brain trying to remember when they ended up in bed, and all I could think of was them dancing in the hotel room, then falling asleep.

[Kathemy]

I just can't believe anyone would actually accuse this show of "skipping levels."

It's the slowest and most painstakingly crafted TV drama I've ever seen.

[SusanSunflower]

yes, it's really important to remember that Teddy blewup his marriage over "nothing" that couldn't have been talked-through and dealt with. I don't think (newly pregnant) Tawney wanted to end her marriage to.be.with.Daniel. because that wasn't her relationship with Daniel.  She wasn't smitten and hot&bothered and being chaste to pretend to be a "good-girl" .. she was a good girl.  She was a married woman trying to deal with a marriage that had exploded/imploded/gone sideways, unexpectedly.  

It's all really sad and Teddy's "deciding she wanted a divorce", granting her one, and then fleeing without even waiting for her to get over her shocked acceptance, was more of the same.  He's an avoider of intimacy at all costs, with everyone pretty much. 

Edited November 26, 2016 by SusanSunflower

[Kathemy]

I don't think that is true. I think Tawney was smitten, immediately.  And, of course, she's a "good girl", so she wouldn't act on that, even if she came close in 2:09. Though, also I think her meeting Daniel highlighted already existing flaws in her marriage. 

It wasn't an "omg I have to sex him" thing, but their first meeting, her taking his hand, their reaction to that, it was obvious something was there from the start.

[SusanSunflower]

different terms ... To me, smitten means being "setting your cap" for someone or wanting to possess .. I don't think she was instantly sexually aroused by Daniel.  I think she was stunned to make an emotionally intimate connection with him and would have been stunned to make that connection with anyone. It "blew up" her life because she was -- in fact -- so lonely and hungry to be seen and allowed to be vulnerable.  It was like water someone dying of thirst.  But it wasn't because Teddy was a bad lay or they had no sex life. 

Rather it was Daniel's acceptance and appreciation of her in contrast to Teddy's very judgmental nature wrt everyone and everything.  He could always be counted on to subtly correct her.  (I personally think he's a control freak, but hardly the worst I've seen. ) I think their marriage existed for quite a long time with Tawney just accepting his "leadership" and "decision making" with her role as "good wife"  

It think it was Teddy leaping to the worst suspicions / conclusions that tipped things.  If she had wanted to have sex with Daniel there were many moments when she could have "effortlessly" tipped things.  I'd agree that their relationship started out in the "romantic notion" of her reaching out to Daniel as a good Christian ... but I don't think that she continued to see Daniel because of Christian duty or in furtherance of a "romance. "

Even though it occurred over a season, in fact, given Rectify's time line, it all happened very fast ... start to finish... and then she had moved in with her Christian friends while Teddy spied on her and them.  

** I seen from the dictionary that it means to be "struck" .. but I guess I felt Tawney's genuine fear of what she felt made it something else ... some people play with fire for fun ... this wasn't "fun" for Tawney, it was scary. 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/leonoraepstein/signs-you-are-totally-smitten?utm_term=.eqJOELNpo#.okwmGV8po

Edited November 26, 2016 by SusanSunflower