Disclaimer: The following op-ed is about Starco, Marco, Jackie and Chloe. Representation matters. I’m not referring to Jackie’s new orientation as bad, though it all seems very token, as I’ll elaborate right now.
Feel free to refute my words.
Jackie Lynn Thomas made a return in the 26th episode of season four, after an absence of over 40 episodes, and as we know, she didn’t come by alone. After a year in France, possibly to forget about the idiot boy Marco, Jackie has discovered herself as bisexual and is now hand-in-hand with a girl named Chloe.
Marco is all Mr. Nervous Pants upon seeing her, and Jackie remains her normal chill self, introducing him to her new beau. He buys them tacos, they eat them and leave.
By this time we are over half a minute before the credits roll, where Jackie says:
“Now, she’s a special girl, Marco. Make sure you don’t mess that one up.”
which, to me, killed the entire vibe of the episode. Sure, we made fun of Marco and Star having an illegitimate child at Mariposa’s expense. But Jackie was gone for a year, in France. She’d had no way of knowing if Marco likes Star, or what Marco or Star have been through this whole year, even if Janna did fill her in, possibly.
Star was back with Tom by the time Marco returned after his breakup.. And Marco hung around because best friends. Then the discovery of the “Curse”. Then Marco dated Kelly for a bit, even if that didn’t go very far. And then Tom just broke up with Star.
Jackie didn’t know all that. So why say it? She could just have reappeared as her regular self and just patch things up with Marco as friends, without that line.
Hell, she could still be with Chloe, even if they had no more than four minutes of screentime, establishing little about Chloe except she’s French and someone who does parkour. Couldn’t we have had the episode exploring a double date instead of 50 tacos? Let us know more about Chloe? Maybe make it so Marco can see what relationships can be, without Jackie ever saying that line?
Why was everyone fixing to get Marco paired up with Star? He can decide that on his own! And WHY HAVE THEM OFFICIATE THIS IN A PIG-GOAT STY.
We can’t win them all in a show that seemed to need to wrap up at its fourth season that still had plenty of story to tell, I guess. So we don’t have time to say a lot. Plenty of things could’ve went better. Now that Starco is canon, it personally wasn’t satisfying.
And soon, all of this will be over. In the form of a 22-minute episode. Wow.