Maddy Osborne - Kassandra Clementi

[John]

Maddy and Matt will have no doubt get together which really sucks for Ocsar and I can't help but think. Oh no not another boring love story Maybe the old romantic in me is slowly dying Maddy snd Oscar should stay together I think Give Matt a story about his music instead

Actually I'd like Matt and Maddie to get together and both of them share their interest in music.  I'm wondering whether Matt's gift of the violin is the start of that.

[Luke39]

I actually think Maddie and Oscar have chemistry as friends or brother and sister. IT nailed it for me, when Matt and Maddie had this big fight, and it felt like Oscar was an outsider, and was Maddie's gay friend lol or brother, and Matt and Maddie were a couple having a fight. While I like Maddie and Oscar, he is good for her. I actually agree their interests in music could really create something special between Matt and Maddie, some common ground, and mutual understanding. Watch this space.  

[Red Ranger 1]

The whole thing just upsets me greatly, which I know is silly because it's a television show and fictional characters but I feel deeply invested in the character of Maddy and I've absolutely loved her character arc this year, the way she's matured and handled her cancer, the close caring relationship she's developed with the other teens, the way she's developed into someone who is perfectly suited for Oscar and he for her.I loved them as friends last year and I didn't think the show would ever be brave enough to make them a couple or do it so well but it has.And then, right when I think it's been a brilliant year for her, this happens.I don't want to read about Matt wanting her, it almost make me feel ill to think the show could do that to her.Hearing about her and Matt fighting just underlines everything that's wrong and makes me fear for next year.After last year when you could count the number of people willing to defend Maddy when everyone was branding her "selfish" or "spoilt brat" and saying she was "putting Josh down" on the finger of one hand, I have been delighted that a lot, by no means all but a lot, of people have been won over and now like her.And if she gets put with Matt, I think that'll all go.Every time they fight, Maddy will be viewed as the bad guy, just because Matt's a popular character and anyone that goes up against him, no matter how likable they are or how justified their position is, automatically gets hated.Witness the way a lot of the forum turned on Spencer.I've already had to sit through Maddy being viewed as the villain in her relationship with Josh, no matter how badly he treated her.I don't want it to happen again.

Why can't Maddy and Matt just stay friends? Is there really anything wrong with that? Is the show really determined to ruin every male/female friendship by reducing it to the level of who's sleeping with who? I liked Matt and Maddy's friendship, I liked that it was platonic and that they were at ease and matey around each other.And suddenly it's reduced to the level of Matt dreaming about Maddy in a bikini and being a jerk towards her.And I hate it and it's horribly contrived and it's like Maddy has no say in the matter: She's never shown any sign of having any romantic interest in Matt at all, yet it feels like the fact that Oscar is a better boyfriend than him and better for Maddy is irrelevant and the show can't even comprehend the idea that Oscar and Maddy might be better suited than the more conventional male character.And I know that's how Maddy and Oscar started out, with her in love with someone else and him burying his feelings and being a friend and it developing from there, but I never invested in Maddy and Josh the way I invested in her with Oscar, and I just can't bring myself to invest in something as forced and unnatural as Maddy and Matt getting together.

I'm praying it doesn't happen, that it stays one-sided on Matt's part and Maddy stays with the boy she's in love with, but I just don't trust the show to do that.

[pembie]

It would be nice if we had a long standing couple wouldn't  it? That's why I'm not to bothered when anyone gets with someone these days because you just know it won't last. Matt could get with Evie I can sort of believe in them maybe.

[Luke39]

To be fair i know ppl keep harping on Oscar good for Maddie, because hes a nice guy. But hes not flawless as a character. And while Matt can sometimes be a jerk, his treatment of Maddie was not a representation of a bad characteristic, or an insight into how matt and maddie would be as a couple. He was supressing and repressing his feelings.  But just shows the differences in personalities. Like Evie said, Matts like an 8 yr old hitting the girl.in the playpen, when it comes to courtship. And i think its pure speculation to say M and M would be forced and unnatural. Only difference is Maddie has not been given the option of Matt. What was forced was Evie trying to set them up.

 

My point  is i think Matt and Maddie are more suited, and have more commonlarities. And i dont think Maddie well degress if she becomes Romantically involved with Matt hypothetically speaking. Quite the opposite. They could be good for each other, and i like the idea of them bonding over music. Either way i have no problem with Maddie and Oscar, like i said hes good for her, so if Maddie and Matt remain friends good :P.  And i understand i was and still am in a way a big Leonard and Penny fan, they worked out though, and are now married living together. So i guess im trying to say if your a fan of a couple, trust the writers haha. 

Edited October 13, 2015 by Luke39

[Red Ranger 1]

Oh, I agree Oscar's not perfect, and I wasn't too happy with the way he broke up with Maddy at the beginning of the year, but it seems like they're in a good place where they're solid and very much in love, so I don't know why the show's suddenly raising the idea of Matt liking her.I think that their history, everything they went through during her cancer and in the city, trumps any superficial things Matt and Maddy have in common.I think in terms of personality Matt is probably more suited to Evie, and there was a point when I even thought he and Phoebe might bond over their music but that friendship seems to have been dropped.I think Matt is someone who lashes out at times and if Maddy was the person closest to him then she'd be the most common target.There's a lot of teasing and playful insults in their friendship which usually stays on the right side of the line, but it could easily tip over if they became more intimately involved.Either that or they'd just lose their spark.The reason it feels as though it would be contrived at the moment is that Maddy's shown no romantic interest in Matt so I think it would be difficult to change that in a way that feels natural.

[John]

Mmm. Interesting discussion.  It shows how people can see the same character development and draw different impressions and feelings from it.

The thing we all seem to agree on is that Maddy isn't the spoilt, self centred brat she was when we first met her.  The brush with cancer and the influence, particularly of Alf, has matured her even a little beyond her years.  I agree with others that this whole arc has been very well and subtly written.  In some ways Matt has gone through a similar maturing arc.  I think Sasha was good for him and while he still has lapses he is in a different place.  I think his brush with the law while on the drunken binge after Sasha left really made an impression on him and cemented his determination not to go back to his old life..  

However I think that while Oscar was good for Maddy while she was on the journey through her cancer she is now starting to grow past him.  Her growing maturity is taking her toward Matt and away from Oscar.  I agree that this is sad particularly for Oscar but that's life.  I think the writers have recognised this and that is why they have sought to portray this slow waning of a relationship.  For me it's a pleasant change from the Phoebe/Kyle move to Phoebe?Ash which to me seemed really shallow and based purely on short term feelings portrayed as a lasting relationship.  

I'll be watching all this with interest.

[Red Ranger 1]

I disagree.To be honest, if you take it back nearly three years I'm not sure Maddy's arc has been that well written.I've never entirely been convinced by the view of Maddy as a spoilt, self centred brat, and thought it was a shame that the show seemed to embrace the misconception to the point of actually vocalising it last year (by Roo of all people, which rendered the line utterly meaningless except giving a few people a reason to cheer like sheep, if you pardon the mixed metaphor).It hasn't been a case of she started off as a brat and then turned into a nice person, it's been a case of her getting better and then sliding back whenever the plot requires it: For instance, her more caring and supportive persona in the first part of last year seemed to be abruptly abandoned in order to justify Josh cheating on her...and I still sympathised with her in all that, mainly because Kassandra Clementi is one of the best actors on the show and knows how to humanise her character even when the scripts aren't giving her very sympathetic material.Her very first character synopsis described her as "mature beyond her years", it's not something new, it's something that's there when the writers want it to be.Which is what concerns me.

Because I just don't see Matt as the sort of character that you mature into, he's the sort of high school boyfriend that girls mature out of and then they move on to someone like Oscar who can actually handle the adult stuff.It feels like there was a quantum shift in the show in the middle of the year, which has resulted in a lot of relationship upheaval just for the sake of it, as if someone came in and went "Yeah, split those two up and put her with them." Some of it has been welcome (splitting up Andy and Hannah and putting her with Chris has worked well, however abrupt it might seem), some of it less so (the breaking up of long term Kyle/Phoebe and her declaring her love to Ash five minutes later without any build-up came across as extremely false).And while they seem to be taken it slower, I do put the idea of Matt and Maddy firmly in the latter category, as if someone has just thrown out all the character traits that were established in the first half of the year and tried to "prove" that Maddy should be with Matt via such contrived and shallow plot devices as a girl's magazine quiz.I do not see Maddy getting together with Matt as compatible with the maturing of her character at all, I find Matt to be a very immature character at heart, as his dalliance with Charlotte demonstrated, and someone who would drag her down and regress her if they got together.I am hoping the writers will see that but it feels that they're more interested in the latest hot new couple than in building on the characters and relationships they inherited.

[Luke39]

Well I guess the point is, is one impartial? lol. Anyway, I don't find Matt immature. I have always found him to be quite mature, especially with how he is was with his little sister. Got to understand he has no sense of family, and I feel Maddie had this same issue. Matt getting with Charlotte to me seeing she is an older women, in a way is very mature lol, but that is neither here or their. I think Matt and Oscar have different personalities, but that's all that is different. Matt is in a different place then he was before Sasha. IMO I see the same situation as Hannah and Chris. While Chris suits Hannahs sensibilities, and while the notion of a nice guy maturing Hannah, and not going back to the bad boy is a nice thought. Eventually a girl like Hannah is going to outgrow a guy like Chris, same way a girl like Maddie well outgrow a guy like Oscar, no matter how good he is for her. It is unfortunate but that is life, and H and A is good at depicting that.

Edited October 13, 2015 by Luke39

[Red Ranger 1]

I just don't see that, I seem it as exactly the other way round.I found the whole thing with Matt and Charlotte vastly immature, a little boy acting like a big man by playing around with his teacher, without any thought to the consequences, and it showed the gulf in maturity between them that Maddy instantly realised he was being ridiculous and called him out on it.I would have hoped by now that Maddy has outgrown the laddish "bad boy" types and realised that the nice boy is the person the future lies with.A key factor of Maddy's character arc and maturing in my mind is that she's turned into someone less shallow, who is more suited to someone like Oscar than someone like Matt, and isn't going to suddenly change back just because she hangs out with Matt a bit.And the ironic thing is, Maddy was on the other end of this this time last year, when Josh has a couple of conversations with Evelyn and suddenly we're meant to believe she was somehow better for him than his nice, caring supportive girlfriend who had been by his side through the breakdown of his family, getting shot, being homeless and goodness knows what else.So I would be very frustrated if she turns round and does the same to Oscar.When they got together, people were predicting that she would break his heart and I was hoping they were wrong, and when ironically Oscar broke her heart I thought the danger was past.I would hope Maddy would have the maturity not to have her head turned so easily by someone who would not be a suitable partner in the long term.And I'm sick of nice guys finishing last, especially when some people seem to act as though they finish last because they're nice guys and "mature" girls don't like nice.That's not mature to me.