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Susan Leonard writes...

Something has always bothered me about the way the clan reacts to Elisa's hysterical sobbing on the hay at the end of the Metamorphosis episode. Why doesn't at least Goliath,who has more than a platonic interest in her at this point, go over to comfort her. The whole episode evolved with Brooklyn wanting to pursue Maggie due to his compassion over what she had gone through. I thought the episode was wonderfully done otherwise. I was despite knowing Xanatos always had some kind of agenda was willing to bite at first when he seemed shocked that Derek became a victim of Sevarius' mutagenic dart.

Greg responds...

I just think it's honest that sometimes big dumb guys (read the entire male population) don't know how to best handle public displays of emotion. We're not culturally trained.

But the other thing to keep in mind is that you're only seeing a fragment. The most dramatic, painful fragment, but a fragment nonetheless. You don't know what came before or after. Did she already tell them to give her a moment alone, and then when she broke down they didn't know how to respond (see above)? Or did Goliath head her way just after the scene ended?

I've been taken to task in the past for answers like this. Told that I was "cheating". That if it wasn't on screen, I can't fall back on the wiggle-room of what might have happened off-screen. But I don't think that's fair. 22 minutes an episode is all I get. (Or 24 pages an issue, which is a lot less, believe me.) I can't possiblly fit the entire range of responses to anything into that time. There MUST be off-screen moments. I go for the big punch on screen, as long as I feel that it's honest and not gratuitous, but there must be more.

Response recorded on November 17, 2006