Absolutely fascinating debate - much thanks for starting/hosting it! I'd be scared by how much time/thought I'm investing in this one episode except that (a) I LOVE it (the investing, not the ep.!) and (b) it's so cool to see I'm not alone :-) Great to see everything dragged into the light of day that squicked me during watching the ep.
Reading the exchanges about the confusion/inconsistency being caused by the acting/directing/writing, I did just wonder how much the apparent post-production reordering of the episodes may be adding to the problem. I've read numerous references to JB mentioning (in his book I think) that he and GDL had a prolonged kissage scene that the director "forgot" to say "cut" on, which was in an early ep. that got shunted to later in the series... Soooo, wondering whether the original ep. order would have given a different J/I relationship development?
Reordered episodes
Reading the exchanges about the confusion/inconsistency being caused by the acting/directing/writing, I did just wonder how much the apparent post-production reordering of the episodes may be adding to the problem. I've read numerous references to JB mentioning (in his book I think) that he and GDL had a prolonged kissage scene that the director "forgot" to say "cut" on, which was in an early ep. that got shunted to later in the series... Soooo, wondering whether the original ep. order would have given a different J/I relationship development?
Just 'spekilating' here :-))