Yapping About Ash And Lexi

Yapping about Ash and Lexi

Did you notice! In Ashley's depression playlist, every song relates to his relationship with Lexi in some way and his stages of letting her go. When he's speaking to Denny's, the last song that plays before Risk by Metric is A Pearl by Mitski and the order was very intentional. Listen to them side by side and pay attention to the lyrics! You'll see both Ash and Lexi's mental progression play out between the songs.

The previous two songs that play before that (while Denny's is listening to Ash and Lexi through the door) represent Lexi's point of view. They are Don't Speak by No Doubt and Baby Teeth by Flower Face. You can see her perspective through there, and you're meant to empathize with her. It's the first scene where you see that under all her malice and her seemingly unbreakable confidence she is human and vulnerable and filled with regret. You start to understand why Ash had such a hard time letting her go when you see that there's more to her than the antagonistic and manipulative side of her that you've been exposed to. There are layers of unseen complexity to their relationship.

She really was a bad person, but she also really loved him. I might do a flashback sometime depicting them pre-breakup to examine her more. Her downfall came from getting a taste of the feeling that she possessed and controlled him, and enjoying the feeling of pushing the edges of what he would tolerate a little too much. When she loses Ash, she pretends not to care to uphold her image of control, but in private she grieves. When she greets Ash with a smile at the audition, she feels actual pain when he groans at seeing her, but she hides it to keep appearing confident and in control. She's terrified by the idea of someone taking her place by simply deserving what she wants more than she does. She cries in secret to the exact same songs Ash does and checks her phone waiting for a missed call or message from him that never comes. After their breakup, she grows and changes for the better, but it's too late and she still has to suffer the consequences and regret of loss.

Anyway I love Lexi. Partly because I have a soft spot for humanizing the glittery mean girl stereotype, but also because she's so ripe for character work involving becoming a better person just for the sake of it and not because you have anything to gain. She will be back in Thad's series playing a very different part in the story, but still being her iconic self.