User blog:Corbierr/Character Analysis- Mick



Ah, Mick...let's see what we can say about him.

Season 1- A jock involved in the sport of love
It's hard to talk about Mick in season 1 because, like the title implies, there's not much to get into besides his romance with Mara and Amber, which...yeah, let me just get this out of the way: it was boring and endless. Mick's entire role in this plot boiled down to being Season 2 Fabian with less to do and more being liable to mess up from time to time in a way that wasn't just happening to be around the wrong girl at the wrong time. But that is one interesting thing- he did mess up quite a bit, didn't he?

Interestingly enough, Mick did manage to be one of the few characters shown constantly messing up, yet due to never having malicious intent or just genuinely trying to fix problems whenever he caused them, he came off as just lovable and confused rather than shown in the negative. Even when he was honestly in the wrong, most notably being that time when he rigged the raffle and blatantly used Robbie's apparent crush on Patricia (fun when you realized she attracted the most guys if you count Jason, Alfie mistaking her for Piper, and Benji (Dunno why I brought that up, I just kind of wanted to)), the focus was on the consequences and his attempt to win Mara back, not the mistake itself. This definitely helped us to know Mick more as a person- a guy who tries to be sweet and helpful but just doesn't really understand girls and got a bit over eager sometimes.

Because, in my opinion, what doesn't matter is the love triangle and the romance, what matters is why these things happen, and how the characters themselves are affected. Mick was put in a bad position where he had to deal with a jealous and revenge-happy Amber, and a jealous and revenge-happy Mara. Yet at the same time, it was also his fault for making mistakes like getting close to Mara while dating Amber (including the bracelet incident), telling Amber how he missed their relationship, and being an unintentional jerk when it came to his feelings for Mara at the very beginning. He did bring a lot of it upon himself, yet it was all unintentional, the girls got very overly attached and took every action of his in a different light, and again, he tried his hardest to fix things when they got out of hand, which made him pretty sympathetic in context.

But it wasn't just his situation that made him sympathetic, it was his his personality as well. Many may call him boring and one-dimensional, which is not wrong because he was pretty flat and didn't do anything besides the romance and play sports (which we'll get to in a minute). But even still,many would also call him one of the most likable characters of season 1. He was shown throughout the episodes to be funny, well meaning, easy going, honestly trying to do better in school which is rare for dumb characters on TV, he's a good friend to a nerd like Fabian which is rare for jocks on TV, he's sensitive and one of the most genuinely nice consistantly outside of Fabian and Alfie. And then he's flawed- tempermental and aggressive, not very bright, and often messing up.

The worst thing that could have happened to a character like him did happen. Mick, like half of the cast of season one, had little to no development. But unlike people like Fabian, who didn't really have reasons to develop, Mick had actually had a lot of reasons and ton of chances.

Hey, let's play a game and count all the times Mick could have developed!

- When his father was around

- When he didn't get the sport's scholarship

- When Mara almost got him expelled (both times)

- Whenever he and Mara had a break up

- Following his first/second break up with Amber

- When he and Jerome started becoming rivals

- When his grades began to slip again

That was a lot of missed opportunities to squeeze some development out of Mick, but every time, every chance, everything that happened was routed back to romance, not developing or allowing us to understand him more, just being used to add to the plot. At least Mara was allowed to show her jealousy, and her care for morals, and her interest in helping people. Mick...well, he was a nice and funny and sympathetic character, but we knew nothing else about him. We didn't get to know about his mind and his desires outside of romance and sports. It was like what happened with Patricia's laser focus on Joy, but worse, because at least through Patricia's one-track mind we learned more about her. Mick's one-track mind led to nothing but romance drama and sports stuff here and there.

Mick deserved so much more in this season. He deserved to be developed, or at least used as more than just another drama tool. He was much more than that as a person and I honestly feel bad for him because, who here wouldn't have found it interesting and found him likable if he went through a long period of internal conflict because of his father, or if he learned to control his temper, or even just learned how to study better and how to get his grades up on his own? Why give him these situations and traits if they were never going to matter in the end?

But it's still better than what happened to him in...

Season 2- Video Calling Captian Australia
Poor, poor Mick.

Had Bobby not decided to leave for Wolfblood, this could have been an interesting season for him, or not, but it probably would have resulted in Moy in either case. But with Mick having to be written off the show...

To be honest, Mick's situation still led for some interesting stuff. He dealt with conflict at whether or not he should leave, he was forced to break up with Mara, and was given a pretty good send off.

And then... he started causing romance drama. All the way from Australia! Besides Nina cockblocking Jabian from America, this was the most distant cause of drama on the show. But because Mick wasn't around to be seen, his reactions didn't matter...

Until the end of the season. Then the video chatting started. And, to be honest, there was implied development. Not a lot of it, but he did change a little. He was more observant about issues in the relationship, more cautious about Jerome, more understanding of how love works. And then he came back home, where he was portrayed as a jerk for not accepting Jerome. But he had ever right not to like him! He came all the way back just for Mara, he only knew Jerome as the manipulative asshole, and Mara was much more focused on Jerome than him, even when Mick came all the way back from Australia just to either make things right or bring real closure to their relationship. However, the show portrayed him as wrong, because Jerome was good now and Jara was falling in love, not that he knew the first one and not like it would have been fair to just expect him to bow out in favor of his rival.

Mick was given no closure and even if he truly did have development, it was offscreen. The show then portrayed him as a bad guy even when he did nothing wrong. We never got to learn how things at the sports school was going, or see his side of the relationship, and worst of all...we never got any sort of closure with him. He was given the worst possible ending- one where he didn't end on a happy note and we are left to assume he just returned to Australia completely heartbroken and confused. That's depressing...

Consensus/What I'd Have Done
Mick was a character who deserved so much more. Honestly, they just completely screwed him over. He was always a nice, funny, and sympathetic guy, and the way the show just used him for romance drama and then gave him absolutely no chance to develop and no chance to be in closure. It's not fair, and he genuinely could have been so much more than they made him out to be.

I'd have, in season 1, given him a lot, a lot, more things to do. He'd have genuinely developed, and he'd become much more than they made him. I'd have done things like let him do more for with the father thing, let him control his temper, etc. In season 2, I'd have at least given him closure to his plotline and allowed him to be happy, just as he deserved.

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'''Thanks for reading! Willow's blog next week, and then we can start the "What Could Have Been" series!'''