There wasn’t going to be a way to edit around this now. You could cover a lot of sins in editing, but someone getting slapped?
You couldn’t stop that kind of chatter among the contestants. Inevitably, it would spread. An argument could be forgotten. A physical fight could not.
I could do what Romeo-Dylan wanted. I could cut it out of the episode. I could make it seem like Heather getting eliminated, and her slapping Cece, was about something else entirely.
But I’d been getting constant updates from the monitor room through my earpiece as we rocketed down the hill onthe golf cart. Cece might have managed to step outside and remove herself from the situation, but inside the Convent, the women were having a knock-down drag-out screaming match about Heather’s racist behaviour.
I could keep that off the show, but the odds of keeping it off social media afterwards were miniscule. Even if I could convince Fucking Greg to give me a hush money budget, at least one of the women would talk.THE SECRET RACISM SCANDAL THATMARRY ME, JULIETTRIED TO COVER UP!!would become the story. All the audience goodwill that we needed – all that fairytale romance energy – would be lost.
So if we didn’t want it to consume the entire season narrative, we had to deal with it now. On the show. No matter what Romeo-Dylan wanted, we had to do a Very Special Episode – one single, contained episode – so we could move on.
‘What’s it going to look like if you go storming in there now to scream at Heather?’ I asked. ‘We can do a lot in editing, but we’re not magicians. If you go in there now, with a full head of steam, and start yelling at a crying blonde woman, you’re going to come off as a bully.’
‘If I don’t go in there, I’m going to look like an arsehole who lets his best friend get clocked in the face and does nothing about it.’
Romeo-Dylan wasn’t wrong. Above all else, we needed to preserve his heroic image.
‘Not if you didn’t know about it,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘That’s the play here. In narrative terms.’
The story flowchart started assembling itself in my mind. ‘We make it clear you don’t know about the slap. Then we can sidestep this whole issue.’
There was a waver in Romeo-Dylan’s body language. His eyes slid inexorably to Cece.
It told me a lot, the way he looked at her. That combination of desperation and frustration. That obvious desire to protect her, to put his arms around her and keep her safe.
It was going to be a problem.
It was also a pressure point.
‘We film a quick little interview with Cece about how she decided not to tell you about getting slapped because she didn’t want to distract you from your journey,’ I said. ‘She comes off looking like a hero, you don’t have to get involved, and it’ll be clear as crystal to the audience who the villain is.’
The wordvillaintriggered another set of calculations, but I clamped down firmly on them. One problem at a time.
I dug my thumbs into another one of Romeo-Dylan’s pressure points. ‘We’ve got to tread carefully. The show doesn’t carry nuance well. It’s got to be broad strokes. Racist girl: bad. You: good.’
‘I know that,’ Romeo-Dylan forced out from between his teeth. ‘But what am I supposed to do? Let Heather smack her around and get away with it?’
‘Heather’s not going to get away with it. She’s going to get crucified on social media.’
‘That’s not what I want either!’
Even when he was furious, this man was too kind for his own good.
‘We talked about this,’ he said. ‘I told you I didn’t want to do a Very Special Episode about racism.’
‘I know. And I’m sorry.’
I was going to sit him down tomorrow and go over this until he believed me. ‘Normally we can pick up these kinds of views when we go through prospective contestants’ social media. We missed it. That’s on us.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes. That’s the truth. I promise. I know the show’s record on diversity is terrible, but it’s like we talked about,’ I said, trying to guide the conversation back from the shaky ground to the familiar. ‘This season represents a new commitment to diversity from us, and to representing it respectfully and responsibly. I’ve done some shady things as a producer, but I wouldn’t stunt-cast a racist, Dylan. I wouldn’t do that to you.’
He didn’t believe me.
