This week we got to see Anne adjusting to her new home, but truth to be told, she feeling very uncertain whether she was going to be able to stay for good. And you can’t fault her for feeling like she had to walk around on eggshells about asking for clarity, especially since Marilla had initially phrased it as ‘I’m thinking about it’ when she changed her mind. Thankfully Marilla has clarified that they are committed to keeping Anne, so now she’s Anne of Green Gables.
But just after Anne had promised to be good girl, an unfortunate incident came about when Rachel (Mrs. Lynde), came to visit. And goodness, did this woman ever run her mouth! Rachel– an adult who really should’ve known better than to say such a thing to a child no less, about how the Cuthberts didn’t pick her for her looks, and how Anne was ‘homely and skinny, and red hair resembled carrots.‘ Good grief! We already know Anne doesn’t think highly of her looks, so it’s only natural that she’s extra sensitive whenever someone has the gall to saying such insulting things to her face!
And of course, Anne wasn’t about to let that slide. She fired right back at her, countering how would she like to have her feelings hurt and be told she is ‘fat and clumsy, without a spark of imagination in her’. That sure made Rachel shut up. Nobody has ever stood up to her like that before. Heck, even Matthew later went on to say he was proud of Anne for standing up to her, referring to Rachel as the ‘meddlesome old gossip’ getting put in her place.
Thankfully Marilla was able to quickly diffuse the situation by having Anne go to her room, but she wasn’t about to let Rachel off the hook either. That’s undoubtedly proof of just how much she cares about Anne. And similarly to Matthew, Marilla did get a kick out of her having some chuckles about how stupefied Rachel was about it.
Anne’s very stubborn though, so when she said she didn’t want to apologize to Rachel she was willing to hold out in her room for as long as she could. Thankfully that’s where Matthew stepped in, quietly being the middle-man between her and Marilla, and successfully persuaded Anne to just ‘smooth it over’ sooner than later.
As one should probably expect of Anne by now (despite it only being episode 2), she was going to put on a show. I burst out laughing so hard when she opened up with the most extravagant apology– all while still managing to plug in the petty swipe of ‘sorry not sorry’ in the middle of it. But in the end, Rachel accepted the apology and apologized as well. Better yet, she was actually able to give Anne some actual hope about her hair’s future, referencing how she knew a girl with red hair that darkened into a pretty auburn. And that’s something Anne can positively cling to.
Funny enough, despite the uh, rough first encounter, Rachel’s said Anne’s has a unique charm about her that makes her kind of like her. Haha!
Unfortunately Rachel wasn’t the only incident the two faced this week. There had been another instance where Anne had (unintentionally) caused a commotion. It was on the day she had to go to Sunday School on her own, and she was feeling a bit down that she didn’t have a pretty dress with puffy sleeves to wear like the other girls. (And poor Marilla, she made it and was so proud of it too!) So she decided to decorate her hat with a bunch of flowers she found along the way. She was quite proud of herself, and tried her best to keep her head held up high, but sadly it backfired, and turned her into a laughing-stock…
While Anne had tried to play it off by cooling down before she returned home, by the time that she did, Rachel had already reported the incident to Marilla. So there was no way to really avoid the subject.
The reason why Marilla was particularly frustrated about the incident was because it’d reflect poorly on her. It should be noted, they are in a very small community– so you can imagine how the word can travel between mouths once people get together at gatherings or church. Marilla doesn’t want people to think she had no better sense to let her go out looking like that, so she couldn’t help but feel frustrated.
But at the same time, we know that Anne couldn’t have possibly imagined it was going to turn out this way. The poor girl felt so bad for troubling Marilla, that she thought it’d be better for her to be sent back to the asylum than to taint Marilla’s reputation. Marilla obviously wasn’t about to do that, so she had quickly reassured her that was not going to happen. Thankfully she did have something good for Anne to look forward to in order to quickly cheer her up. And that was the opportunity to finally meet Diana Barry, the girl she had heard about.
Anne finally got to meet Diana Barry. The girl is a bookworm, loves reading so much that she’s convinced her mother is trying to make her stop due to eyestrain and have her make friends instead. Luckily for her, Anne ticks off all the boxes when it comes to being an interesting character. The two barely known each other for less than a day, but Anne was so excited that she had asked Diana if they could be bosom friends, and she agreed. They had a whole ceremony for it too, and the fact that Diana rolled right along with with goes to show she and Anne can get along just fine. It’s more of a matter whether… her mother would tolerate Anne’s quirks so to speak. As Marilla made a point of, being a very particular woman.
While Matthew didn’t have a lot of screen-time this episode, the moments he did show up mattered a lot. I love how he was able to figure out the best way to persuade Anne to apologize to Rachel (Mrs. Lynde). Anne became more motivated to do so once he put it as a way to ‘smooth things over’ sooner than later since it had to be done anyways. He had also asked about what her favourite things were, and bought her a special treat of Caramel candies. It was so cute how the two of them were appalled by Martha’s quip about rotting teeth and ruining the stomach. They really are in sync with each other!
And finally my favourite thing we got to see this week was really Marilla and Anne bonding a bit more this episode. It was particularly nice to see more of Marilla’s soft and protective maternal side of her come out on a number of occasions. She has only had Anne for three weeks, but she will not tolerate anyone ridiculing Anne! But there is a line she has drawn. She told Anne to refer her simply as ‘Marilla’ instead of ‘Aunt Marilla’ as Anne had wished to do. We did see some hesitation, or perhaps it’s better off described as shyness when it comes to hand holding. It was Anne who reached out first, but Marilla didn’t pull away.
Next week we finally get to meet Gilbert! Yipee~ Can’t wait for the next one, it’s one of my favourites moments!
