Anne With An E: Season 3, Episode 9 “A Dense and Frightful Darkness” – Recap, Review (with Spoilers)

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While the show is Anne With An E, the focus is mostly on Hazel and Sebastian’s relationship, and Ka’kwet dealing with Canada authorizing genocide. Also, Gilbert making his decision.

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Directed By		Paul Fox
Written By		Tracey Deer, Shernold Edwards
Air Date (CBC)		11/17/2019
Introduced This Episode
Oqwatnuk	Dana Jeffrey

Recap

Young Love: Anne, Gilbert, Marilla, Winifred, Diana

With Anne realizing she loves Gilbert, so comes the question of how can she compete with Winifred and the process of trying to convince herself to let things go. When Marilla hears this, she isn’t having none of it and tells Anne to go over there and confess her feelings. Unfortunately, the note she leaves, since Gilbert is gone, is never read. And despite Diana hearing about the proposal and trying to say something, it seems time may not be on Anne’s side for even after all that happens outside of Gilbert, she finds herself still missing him as he ends up on Winifred’s doorstep.

Comment Down Below

1. In the books, so I’m told, Anne ends up with Gilbert. Does knowing that make this cat and mouse game, the waiting, more difficult?

I Did What I Knew: Sebastian, Muriel, Hazel

Hazel still has a great amount of trouble adjusting to this world Sebastian finds him in. If it isn’t the way he raises Delphine, it is him becoming uncomfortably close, for her, with Muriel. Someone who isn’t necessarily courting Sebastian, nor he her, but there is a certain ease they have with one another, which is making Hazel’s eyes blare.

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Why? Well, because what Sebastian does, the way he lives, in her experience, leads to death. Lest we forget, it is not even 1900 yet. So Canada isn’t this progressive haven, just south of the border, the United States is just on the cusp of starting Jim Crow laws, and it creates an immense fear in Hazel. After all, the reason Sebastian’s father isn’t around isn’t due to Hazel chasing him off, but because his ambitions got him killed. He wanted a house, a business, so much Black men weren’t supposed to have, dream about, or even be on their way to achieving, so he was killed.

Hence why Hazel tried to smother the flame with Sebastian, so that he could survive. Yet, despite her attempts, he remained bold, and while that has served him well, Hazel remains in fear that one day, that shoe will drop, and she’ll see her son hanging from a tree just like his father.

Family Means No One Gets Left Behind: Anne, Marilla, Matthew, Oqwatnuk, Alok, Ka’Kwet

While Ka’kwet made it home, she is stolen right from the arms of her parents, and Alok is shot trying to keep her from being taken from her home. So, being that the only trustable white people they know are Anne and her people, they go to them asking for help, and Marilla has no interest getting involved. However, with Matthew understanding, from when Anne ran away, that feeling of potentially losing your child, he joins without a second thought.

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In fact, when they arrive, Matthew, usually stuttering and quiet Matthew, he speaks with his chest out, proving himself to be a real ally who is ready to get violent so that Alok and Oqwatnuk can be reunited with their child. But, in the end, with the lies he and Anne are told, that the nun who works there can’t release Ka’Kwet, they plan a return after the harvest, and Anne speaks of writing a letter.

However, the truth is, they know that they can’t treat white people any kind of way but the indigenous? The law doesn’t give two s***s about them so they can abuse them, kill them, steal their children, and do so with a smile on their face. So, to work around the utter disregard for their humanity, Oqwatnuk and Alok camp close. Not so close the cops have reasons to hurt them but close enough that, from a window, Ka’Kwet can know she isn’t abandoned.

Other Noteworthy Facts, Moments, and Random Thoughts

• Did anyone else just realize they recast Sebastian’s mom?

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Review

Trajectory: Upward

Highlights

Giving Room For Other Stories

Could this show have doubled down on Gilbert wandering about, trying to decide if he is making the right decision to propose to Winifred? Yes. However, as much as that is the hook for many, this show isn’t a one-trick pony. It isn’t built nor survives strictly on when, where, and how Anne and Gilbert get together.

Instead, it can have storylines like how racist, in the most deplorable ways, the world was and still is. Indigenous people, treated worse than dogs, were separated, and their genocide may not have been rounding them up and killing them, but instead they took their children and tried to indoctrinate them. You see this with Ka’kwet, in just a few weeks, learning self-hatred and almost spreading that amongst her siblings. Imagine how, on the larger scale, that affected so many native children. All because of some (insert series of expletives here) who couldn’t stand the idea of people who didn’t look, think, and pray as they did.

And what you also have to appreciate is that we’re reminded that when it comes to people of color, while they suffered in different ways, they still all suffered. When it comes to indigenous people, they were wiped out with violence and cultural genocide. Then when it comes to those like Sebastian and Hazel, they were enslaved physically, mentally, and those who tried to break that cycle, they were either broken or killed.

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Now, by no means am I saying this is the same or one is worse than the other, however, Anne With An E taking the time to fully show what these two cultures went through at the time, it helps remind you how tainted the history of so many nations are.

Sebastian x Muriel

I won’t pretend I love the idea of Sebastian and Muriel, since it does have that slight vibe of, “We have no idea what to do with this character, so let’s just pair her up with someone.” But, there is this love for the idea of her making a friend. Especially someone who gets her in a way either most don’t pursue or refuse to. So as long as they don’t rush things, I think if Sebastian and Muriel become a romantic pairing, it can be cute.

On The Fence

How They Are Playing With This Anne x Gilbert Thing

How much you want to be Gilbert is about to tell Winifred he can’t marry her and apologize to her parents? Doesn’t that seem like a scenario that could play out? And while I want Anne and Gilbert together, mostly since they haven’t presented any real options for Anne, I just want this to be official and her to go mad over trying to decipher what Gilbert is and isn’t doing. If not getting googly-eyed and experiencing the kind of love she never thought she would have.

Which, granted, would feel like the beginning of the end for the series, but you never know.

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