This is somewhat the second part of my previous writing. This piece is still in the context of The Nanny, and if you prefer to learn more about the show or a certain character in particular before continue reading, please find the first part here.
To sum it up, The Nanny is a 90s sitcom whose plot centered around a will-they-won’t-they dynamic between its two leading characters: Fran Fine (the nanny) and Maxwell Sheffield (an English widower who’s also Fran’s boss). In the series, Maxwell fell for Fran since season 1, remained clueless about it until season 2, and kept denying his feelings for the whole seasons 3–4. They finally got together in season 5. The show then ended in season 6.
Imagine the suspense. Whew.
While binging its 6 seasons, I found myself relate strongly to whatever Maxwell went through with Fran — you can read it all in the first part linked above. In this part I shall elaborate further about my self-referencing to Maxwell. Specifically, a self-referencing that was triggered by a certain dialogue from a certain scene in a certain episode, entitled:
An Affair to Dismember
(Warning: this part contains spoiler for The Nanny, in case you’re not into that sort of thing.)
An Affair to Dismember is the title to The Nanny’s season 4 episode 8. At this point of the series, Fran was getting quite frustrated with the way Maxwell had been treating her. He loved her and she loved him — why was he so adamant about them not being together?
In this episode, Maxwell was busy preparing his new play and Fran felt neglected. Then came Maxwell’s brother Nigel, who swept Fran off of her feet — both figuratively and literally.
Nigel was the anti-Maxwell. So if we had a guilt-ridden, stuck up, repressed character for Maxwell, Nigel was the exact opposite. He was the kind of guy who knew what he wanted and would get what he wanted — and he wanted Fran. He treated Fran like a princess, wooing her and spoiling her. Still sore from being neglected by Maxwell, Fran greatly appreciated this attention.
Then all the sudden, Nigel proposed to Fran, asking her to elope with him on a ship to Europe. The ship would leave at midnight, he said, and he would be waiting for her at the pier. All the while, Maxwell wasn’t aware of any of this. Fran was in a dilemma.
It’s season 4, meaning Maxwell was still denying his feelings for Fran.
Towards the end of the episode, Fran went after Nigel, but she was too late — his ship had sailed. Heartbroken, she went back home. As she was crying on the couch, Maxwell came in; he had just gotten back from work, saying he’d been away since late afternoon. Maxwell had completely no idea what had been going on that day.
What Maxwell said to Fran next caught me off guard.
That exact scene bugged me for days.
The first time I saw it, I felt “something” along the lines of peaceful, relief, sadness, and even jealousy, all at once. So I fumbled around, trying to figure out why it triggered such feelings. I talked to friends about that particular line from Maxwell, and about other scenes prior to that moment as well—especially the scene when Maxwell asked Fran to not sit around waiting for him — thinking maybe that’s what had triggered my sadness.
Be that as it may, sadness is but one emotion. I still had to figure out where the rest came from.
So I did a little digging.
Truth is, I always had a hunch of what this “something” was. I always knew what Maxwell’s line had triggered me. I just lowkey wished it wasn’t that. Because it sounded corny and — most importantly — it hurt. But I just had to be sure, you know? So. Naturally. I went to social media and asked random people this following question:
Say you see a couple in front of you. Young, old, real, fictional — doesn’t matter. And they do some couple … gesture … thing … be it kissing, hugging, something grand or anything mundane. Well whatever it is they do, you can certainly feel the love one of them has for the other.
Now what kind of gesture do you witness here that makes you feel that way, and why that gesture?
The answers ranged from buying your spouse a coffee in the morning, to sitting in a chair together as an old couple, to intimately being a bother to each other; though the replies were quite varied, it seems people tend to gravitate more towards gestures that are subtle and — this is the key aspect— relate to their own personal experiences or values.
Thankfully the answers I got from these random people helped me shed some light on my own frustration. Maxwell’s gesture was quite subtle in that scene, so all I needed was to connect the dots between that scene in The Nanny to a particular memory I have, regarding a certain event that happened only a few months prior.
Once that was cleared, everything about Maxwell became clear as well — why his character bothered me, and why I felt a strong relation to him.
You see, with me being repressed and everything, I had suspected whatever been bugging me had to do with my subconscious. Perhaps I had been avoiding something — or I wasn’t avoiding it, I just hadn’t acknowledged it yet. It could be a sore spot. Maybe it was something I had been bottling up and kept to myself, hoping one day I might forget … until Maxwell said his lines, and suddenly, every fiber in my being somehow recognised it and realised how I was yearning for it.
This is where this writing about to be bittersweet.
“Well, I’m very glad you’re still up. You know, I’ve missed you.”
It happened around August last year. There was this project I’d been working on for the past two months. She was part of it. My ocean. This project required us to have a weekly meeting, where we would discuss and rehearse and prepared for the D-day in our project. We worked with a few other people as well, and that helped me focus on the project more instead of her. Well, I had to keep our relationship professional, didn’t I? So during the two months of this project, even with the weekly meetings, we hardly talked about anything else.
When the D-day was finally over, it was around 2 am. We had decided to run the project in my apartment, and so that night after we’d finished, my place was a total mess and I had to clean it up. Meanwhile, she had something else going on the next morning — I expected she would be hurry home. In an attempt to have a little more moment with her, I offered to walk her to my apartment lobby, where she could order a ride home.
I asked if we could talk a little while she ordered her ride — I thought it’d give us like, three to five minutes to catch up — but to my surprise, she hadn’t yet ordered any ride for she’d expected that little talk. It was in that precise moment I realised how much I’d been missing her, and I was very glad that she had stayed up with me.
The five minute talk turned into one hour. We discussed our project, her plan for the future, and some other stuff. I remember that was one of the few moments I felt happiest.
After one hour, she finally tried to order some ride — though perhaps since it was way too late in the night, no one responded her. So we walked back to my place, where I quickly set up a spare bed, a blanket, and let her sleep there while I continued cleaning up my place. After everybody else had left, I fixed the blanket covering her, then I went back to my room to clean up some more, and waited till morning so I could get us some breakfast and a cup of coffee before she left.
We went back our separate ways after that. And so I put the memory in the back of my mind, busying myself with other works and worrying other worries, until I saw that scene with Maxwell. For some reason, his lines brought back all the feelings I had that night — the whole peace, relief, sadness, and even jealousy.
In the scene, we could see how much Maxwell actually loved Fran, despite him being busy all day and asked her not to sit around waiting for him.
I felt the same way.
Will we, won’t we?
Now there’s a reason why Maxwell’s scene could bring such strong feelings for me. See, in the first part, I made a statement how Maxwell went through the same thing I did when he fell for Fran — from the obliviousness to the denials to the reasons of those denials.
Allow me to elaborate.
She came into my life one day, over 8 years ago. We were in some sort of a collaborative … uh, hobby-work. Ever since then, we’ve been communicating. And before I knew it, I was head over heels. Of course at first, I had no idea what it was. I just knew I enjoyed her company. Once I knew, well, I was trying to deny it. Oh, to think of all the reasons I had back then to convince and restrain myself from falling—still, I realised it was going to ruin me eventually, so I had to let it out of my system.
Hence, I confessed.
I think it’s important to note here, that I am probably not the only Maxwell in this dynamic. She’s no Fran herself. I expected nothing from my confession back then—well maybe just a little hope that I could function as normal again once it’s out my system — because I’m aware she has every reason to not be with me. And I respect those reasons. Perhaps that’s why I could continue carrying my denial for over 8 years long; we have both been actively making it sure that we stay not in each other's arms, but rather, at each other's arm’s length.
I guess that’s where my sadness and jealousy came from; sure Max and Fran ended up together after 4 years, but in my case, even after 8 long years I’m aware we’d always remain at arm’s length. I mean, for all I know, she could already be seeing someone right now. And she has every reason to be with him. And the best I could do is to wish her the happiness she deserves.
However, like Maxwell, even if I could only do it from afar and indirectly, I know I’ll still love her a great deal.
If love was a feeling, can I find it in my solitude? If love was a person, can I survive without it?
Now for TV shows, romance might be the formula that had been proven to be effective in getting high ratings — but romance is the one thing I’m still actively trying to avoid. Though in hindsight romance didn’t really escape me, it has never been my formula to happiness.
Suppose I could try to move on and open myself up to any other possibilities regarding romance. I mean, sure. I’d be lying to say if I hadn’t thought of that. I tried, in fact. Instead, I felt guilty since it was more like trying to find a substitute.
Wouldn’t be fair for the other person, wouldn’t you think?
That’s not even considering all the guilts and the walls I have. Let alone the mental baggage and society’s judgments. And with the itsy bitsy slim tiny possibility our family would embrace us? Hah. My future plan of living alone in the forest feels way more feasible, you'd have to admit.
I know it sounds sad but personally, I think life already has so much to offer to us when it comes to pursuing happiness. A romance — in this case romance within the sense of a loving relationship with a romantic partner — I’m sure it isn’t the be-all-end-all of our being happy in life.
And if you think about it, TV shows have many other storytelling formulas they can use to work on their ratings. So I’d say, we also have formulas other than romance that we can use to work on our happiness.
But I’m gonna end this piece with the following note:
If luck would have it that you find someone to love, and they choose you and you choose them, and neither of you keep each other at arm’s length — might be best to not let them get away. Embrace them.
Because it would be a complete and utter bullshit if I were to say, we could do better without sharing romantic love with a special someone.
After all, we are all big suckers for love, are we not?
