Matt/Maddy

[kmp1963]

Yes it would be boring if we all disagreed. And yes I get you love them and see almost the exact opposite of what I see when you watch them.

As John as previously said in this thread, Nere the Twain shall meet' obviously this is true on many aspects of the show.

Imagine how short some some of the threads would be if we all universally loved everything about the show and agreed on everything.

And before RR1 has a go at me. Yes I know I slammed Maddy. But I think it says a lot when even Red has criticised her recently. 

But hey, the only current relationship I am currently happy with, is John and Marilyn.

So maybe I'm overly critical.

Of course I'm also way too old to be influenced in the slightest by how a character looks.

[KittCatt]

As someone who didn’t really believe Maddy was in love with Oscar I didn’t mind that they broke up. But the way they broke up was terrible, pushed forward by the writers so that Maddy could date someone else. I don’t think there is any denying that the writers decided to make Oscar cheat so that the audience would hate him and therefore believe Maddy could do better with someone else -Matt. It was cheap and unnecessary. And Maddy lost any sympathy I had (not that I had much) after what she said to Oscar when she found out. The whole premise of the love triangle was boring, predicable and made all characters look bad, no matter how much the writers tried to make only Oscar the bad one.

And I agree that for the most part they do tend to bring out the worst in each other. I don’t believe they are compatible for a long term adult relationship. This relationship offer’s nothing I haven’t seen from either of them before- a teenage fling where they will most likely eventually realize they are incompatible. Having similar interests and similar personalities doesn't automatically make them compatible, and dealing with adult problems like renting and living together doesn't mean they are in an adult relationship, especially considering how immature and inconsiderate they both can be.

But, ultimately the underlying reason I can’t get behind them is that I don’t believe they are in love. He began loving her for seemingly shallow reasons, and not long after she found out she proclaimed her love for him too. But why does she love him? I needed some reasons why she was so quick to ditch Oscar for him but I didn’t get any.  It was way too quick in my opinion, and their whole relationship seems quite shallow and boring as a result.

[Red Ranger 1]

I defended Maddy to the hilt during 2013 and 2014 because even though she was deeply flawed I could see that at heart she was a good person, that she knew when she’d done wrong and felt bad about it, that much of it was the result of someone who’d had to deal with restrictive parenting pushing the boundaries of her newfound freedom and that she had a lot of growing up to do. So I was proud of her during the first three quarters of 2015 when she seemed to make a concerted effort to recognise her flaws and improve herself, and when she seemed to realise what was important in life and do some much needed growing up. But sadly, recent developments seem to show that that maturity was an illusion as she throws away a grown-up relationship in order to date Matt, exactly the sort of person the old Maddy would have gone for.

My frustration isn’t directly related to the fact that I thought Oscar was good for her and don’t know why she’d want to downgrade like this. I think the way that he was treated has put a lot of people off the Matt/Maddy pairing: Not shippers as such but just people who think Oscar is a decent guy who was treated badly. If Matt and Maddy had got together a year earlier, if they’d got together earlier last year when they were both single, I’d still have thought it was a bad idea both for the characters and for the show. He’s too similar to Josh, she’s too similar to Sasha. It’s just treading ground that both of them have been over before, with the same problems and probably the same outcome. The frustrating thing is I’m realising I still like Maddy and want her to be happy, but I don’t think Matt can make her happy on anything more than a superficial level, or long term. It’s a high school relationship that incredibly they’ve started after leaving high school when they should have moved on from that level of immaturity, and it doesn’t stand a hope of surviving in the adult world.

Of course they have sex all the time, what else are they going to do? They’ve nothing in common, they’ve nothing to do, their relationship’s going nowhere. People leap on the fact that they’re both into music, but Maddy hasn’t been into music the whole time Matt’s known her (hence her indifference to that symbolic violin) and even Matt hasn’t shown any interest in it for over a year. People say that at least they’re not Ash and Phoebe but…they are. Two people who were good but not particularly close friends suddenly decide they like each other for pure plot reasons and spend all their time making out to hide the fact they’re wrong for each other. Matt suddenly liked her just because he found her physically attractive but we’re meant to see it as “love”. And the way it’s written, we’re supposed to somehow accept that Matt is so wonderful that the minute she found out he liked her Maddy lost interest in her boyfriend and wanted him instead. (She’s tried to claim she “loved” Matt all along but there was zero sign of this and if true it just makes her treatment of Oscar worse.)

And that underlines the problem with Matt: He’s a very weak character. He’s not someone who does things, he’s someone who things happen to. He applied to uni just because it was what Leah and Sasha wanted. His family have drifted in and out of his life and the show without him having any real effect on them or the situation. He’s had a succession of well-meaning adults give him a leg up in life, from Bianca to Leah to Roo. Phoebe got him a professional music gig which he never followed up on. And he’s twice had the girl that he likes randomly like him back without really doing anything to earn or deserve their affection.

I don’t see how they were inevitable in 2014, a year in which I can’t recall them having a single scene alone together and you can probably count the number of times they spoke on the fingers of one hand. They were only inevitable in the sense that if they both stayed on the show long enough they’d probably get round to each other eventually, which is like saying Hunter and Billie is inevitable now. The only interaction between them that I recall that year shows the gulf in maturity between them even then: Both agreed Tamara would be a better school captain than Sasha but whereas Maddy wanted to demonstrate it with a debate, Matt poured scorn on the idea and decided to kidnap Sasha and strand her in the middle of nowhere. And he hasn’t really grown up much since: Charlotte’s description of him as a boy trying to be a man was spot on. Maddy needs someone more mature who’ll bring out the best in her (Oscar was ideal but that’s been well and truly torpedoed which doesn’t leave many alternatives). Matt needs someone at his own level of maturity who’ll accept him as he is instead of trying to change him (I’ve always thought him and Phoebe together might be interesting, although that’s another friendship that seems to have disappeared).

I’m hoping their contracts are out of synch (there’s nearly a year between their introductions after all, especially given Matt took a few months to be made permanent) so the possibility of them leaving together can be avoided and Maddy can get a positive exit. Because I’ve got a horrible feeling we’re stuck with them until then.

[Angelica]

I personally felt that Matt/Maddy had the potential to be an interesting couple - but that potential was wasted by rushed storylines. 

I have never been a fan of Oscar/Maddy as a couple as I never truly  believed that they loved each other. I felt that Oscar often had Maddy on a pedestal, and I felt that Maddy loved how Oscar made her feel rather than loving him in her own right. I felt the bulk of their relationship was built around Oscar being there fore Maddy, and their co-dependence. So I found it realistic that they would drift apart once Maddy no longer needed him in the same way (especially as Maddy's support network has increased significantly since she was diagnosed with cancer).  The initial drifting apart of Maddy and Oscar felt quite organic, but the writers ruined that by ultimately trying to make the Oscar the bad guy to expedite the process. 

When Evie felt tried to set up Matt and Maddy, I rolled my eyes. But as their friendship continued, I felt they had a very natural chemistry about the way they interacted - like they kinda got each other, and didn't have to pretend to be anyone else. I liked the fact that they could be brutally honest with each other. I believed in their friendship so when Matt started developing feelings for Maddy, I was intrigued to see how it panned out. Unfortunately, I should have known better. Instead the writers decided to rush through the milestones in their relationship making any declaration of love seem shallow and insincere. And the decision to move in with each other is ridiculous. But at the end of the day, these guys are teenagers, I am sure there will be more partner-swapping 

I don't necessarily agree with the comparisons to Josh/Maddy or Sasha/Matt. Matt has his flaws, but I think he has come a long way since when he first arrived - mainly thanks to Leah/Zac and the makeshift family he now has. I agree that he still has some growing up to do, but then again, so does Maddy.