Toute La Famille

Oh how pro$persous Jessica becomes in expensive locations where Scott and Tesssa are competing.This is a woman who will recycle a costume (like her red strapless one) into the ground when there's no Scott connection - a woman who lodges in an economy hotel in off-season Paris when she's on a girls' trip  -  yet she can ship the whole family minus Veronique (presumably) to the ever so budget-friendly south of France for Worlds when Virtue and Moir are also present.

Jessica is not paying for this herself and neither is her family. I don't think I'm going out on a limb with this. And it ain't Scott.

I look forward to seeing la famille Dube' on film. All those Moirs - cousins included. And three auxillary Dubes! Why on film, it will look just like a gathering of skater families while to skating fans it'll be evidence of the couple, Scott and Jessica, and how their families are like family.

Ice Sweat and Tears is scheduled for broadcast on cbc-tv, which has a deal with Skate Canada. I wonder if Skate Canada commissioned and/or pitched this hard-hitting, no holds barred, warts-and-all exercise in documented truthiness and I'm also curious if the the truthiness of all relevant components was fully disclosed to the filmmakers.

I love how uncontrived this photo is. Everybody loves everybody! No matter how sleazy and sketchy and gross the Jessica/Scott spam has been, Tessa is cool with it - obviously. Come on Tessa, go all the way and throw an arm around Jessica! Give her a great big hug! Enough with the surrogates and buffers. I know the message is "no triangle", no "other woman", so get in there and give Scott's fake girlfriend a great big squeeze.

Sometimes I must say I wonder if Jessica's skating partners, all up in Tessa and Scott's grill as they necessarily become, don't feel a bit like Job in these situations. They've got Jessica. And they sit next to the overachieving, always cheery, completely reliable, supersonically competitive Tessa and think - why lord? Why Scott? Why did he get that partner? Why not me?

I know it's baby steps this year, but Tessa needs to pose one-on-one with Jessica, arms around like besties. That's what they were selling us after the Olympics - Scott's infamous any-girl-I-end-up-with-will-have-to-love-Tessa-as-much-as-I-do. Why does Tessa need a buffer?

I can sort of surmise what the reasoning might have been early on (i.e., half-baked as with everything SC) - but it unravels. In the beginning, Tessa made herself always scarce when Jessica and Scott were shamming, because... ? Other platonic partners hung out with their partner and their partner's SO at events, attended weddings, were on the same skater social circuit. It was a little weird that Tessa was never (photo-op speaking) at the weddings that Scott and Jessica attended "as a couple" (photo-op speaking) -  nor did Tessa join Scott and his posse when it was time to turn to stone watching Jessica and Bryce compete (a/k/a "watch paint dry."). Scott and Tessa never claimed to be enemies, just platonic. So why shouldn't she join Meryl, Charlie, Scott, etc. to watch a pairs comp? She watched the Shibs with Scott and D/W - why not Jessica/Bryce? Was she really trying to market the idea that as much as she cared for Scott, she was so desperate for "separate" time that Scott's presence at a given non-skating event was enough to keep her from attending herself?

Okay - so she's a high achiever and that includes a high achiever in leaving the impression of "separate lives." But what about Tessa and Jessica? Why did she avoid being photographed around Jessica or with Jessica? At banquets, galas, etc. she'd be photographed one on one with almost anyone except either Jessica or Scott. What was the deal with that? Was it fear that, just as Scott's inauthenticity reached out and choked the viewer when he posed with Jessica, Tessa would radiate "real love interest" if she stood next to the fake? It's not fair, really, for Scott's "SO" to love Tessa with the same intensity Scott loves Tessa, and Tessa not to love in return. So let's see it girls.

I hope Tessa has just not been giving herself a break that Scott never got until recently. He has had to paste on a grin, or a smarmy face, or a gross, cheesy expression. Tessa is, to say the least, all up in the drive behind the sham. A really easy way to kibosh fan confusion would have been for them to hang as a threesome or Tessa show how comfy she was with Scott's relationship by buddying up with Jessica for the camera. The fact that she always made herself scarce helped enable speculation that there were tense undercurrents and unresolved feelings in the mix, not to mention generated miles of real person fan fiction.

So now maybe they're clued in that making Tessa disappear didn't enhance the Jessica/Scott authenticity, so Tessa is now showing up, but she still sticks a body between herself and Jessica. Even in that group shot Tessa's body was in the same plane as Scott and Patrick, not with Jessica. She really needs to step it up. I know there's a division of labor, but perhaps it would be helpful if she had to pose a la I-Love-Jessica too, bff-division. See exactly how comfortable it is.