'Good Trouble' season 2 packs 'standard queer relationship drama' between Joey and Alice as competition spices things up
'Good Trouble' has always been critically lauded for its all-around inclusivity and diversity when it comes to the cast, the characters, the stories they tell and every individual's unique struggles with relationships and sexuality.
Taking after its parent series, 'The Fosters', the reform spin-off had characters including an Asian-American lesbian and a bisexual Latinx man as part of its lead. And as it continues digging deeper into the LGBTQ-stories it encompasses, we were also introduced to one of the first openly out nonbinary characters on TV as Joey Riverton, who becomes the Asian-Amerian lesbian Alice Kwan's love interest in season two.
Alice and Joey's love story is every regular relationship in a nutshell, with a major focus on how the two characters help each other through their journeys exploring their queer identity. It has the confusing joy that Rumi mused of and it has the modern-day struggles that every millennial relationship is affronted with.
Probably one of the best parts about the initial stages of Alice (Sherry Cola) and Joey's (Daisy Eagan) relationship is how it was Joey who helped Alice come out to her parents.
Cola shared exclusively with MEA Worldwide (MEAWW) that Alice decided to come out to her parents only when "Joey kinda called her out. She kinda did it because she wanted Joey to give her another chance to prove that she can really commit to being gay."
Alice was a newbie when it came to identifying herself as queer, and it was through Joey's guidance that she was able to channel her queer identity into her comedy, and also educate herself on the proper terminology to address people in the LGBTQ community with.
One of the recent plotlines for the couple showed a newly out Alice being flabbergasted when Joey announced that they want to change their pronounce to they/them/their. And before you start going off about Alice being reluctant in doing what's crucial for her partner, just know that 'Good Trouble' and Freeform both navigated through this sensitive plot by exploring the many nuances associated with the dating scene when both parties involved are till coming around their new identities.
With Alice and Joey, one is a newly out Asian-American lesbian, meaning they are already one of the niches of the minority. The other is a recently out nonbinary person who feels quite strongly about their identity as a member of the LGBTQ community.
As Alice states her troubles at one point in the show, "My girlfriend, excuse me, my date/friend just changed her pronouns from her/she to they/them, which blows my mind because I'm not even sure who I/me is."
But even this proclamation is laden with awareness, which is only further refined when she introduces Joey as her girlfriend and Joey corrects her, saying the correct term is "partner".
"Joey has been here to sort of help Alice navigate through her sexuality and figure out who she is in the world," Eagan told MEAWW. "Joey is sort of a guide and as soon as Alice thinks she's gone as far as she can go, Joey shows her that she can go farther."
But at its core, Alice and Joey's relationship, despite their arguments and near break up moments, is still a love story. "Their relationship, the way we've been portraying, has a lot of communicating. Joey is very serious about boundaries and making it clear when they are or are not comfortable with something, and I think that's something that we need to do better about in general," Eagan says about the relationship.
And while 'boundaries and knowing ourselves well enough to be there for our partners' is crucial to their love story, Eagan also thinks that "Alice and Joey have been demonstrating that kind of relationship in a way that I don't think we get to see a lot of on TV. So that's been that's been really fun to be a part of."
As a multifaceted love story that has been mostly underrepresented on the screen so far, the Joey-Alice relationship on 'Good Trouble' has really managed to garner all the right kind of response. But it's not going to be rainbows and butterflies of the two seemingly different people coming together to be a part of something that's so pure and wholesome.
"I think you're going to see some pretty standard queer relationship drama," Eagan spilled, teasing us with what the relationship entails in the show's future. But here's the interesting part: "Joey might have a little competition. I think we're going to see some hints to Joey's past that might start might start affecting their relationship with Alice," teased Eagan, quickly adding: "Joey is mostly going to be a rock as far as I know. We'll see when we come back to shoot the second half of season 2, but I might be wrong. We might see Joey is actually like a big villain!"
'Good Trouble' season 2 airs on Tuesdays at 9 pm, only on Freeform.