User blog:3cooldog92/A Very Important Moment in iWin a Date Revisited

This blog was inspired by a post by ADUHroble143. I replied to it and SeddieBenz suggested that I turn my reply into a blog. I figured, why not? So here it goes:

Remember that moment in iWin a Date where Gibby walks out of the room after telling Carly, Sam, and Freddie that he has a crush on Shannon? Carly said “It must be awful to love someone who doesn’t love you back”, and then she realized that Freddie thought he loved her and she said “sorry”. On the surface, that’s just a reference to Freddie’s boyhood crush he had at the beginning of the series. It was just another instance of the writers playing that crush he had for laughs.

A lot of Seddie shippers look a bit deeper and notice that Sam made a sad face when Carly said that. There’s no doubt that the look on her face was sad. A lot of Seddie shippers point to this as proof that Sam liked Freddie back then. As adamant as I am that Seddie is the greatest ship in the history of TV, I don’t think this is a Seddie moment. Looking back at that scene, I notice that after Carly says that, then Sam makes that face, then Sam looks at Freddie. The claim that she did that because she liked Freddie and she was sad that Freddie continued to purse a girl that would never love him while ignoring her would be a lot stronger if she looked at Freddie and then looked sad. She probably looked at him afterwards because he was likely to react to what Carly said. I also don’t think she liked him at that point. I’d set iKiss as the earliest point she started liking him. Those two points added together makes me conclude that it wasn’t a Seddie moment.

Let’s look even deeper. While I don’t think the part where Sam looks sad when Carly says it must be awful to love someone who doesn’t love you back is a Seddie moment, I do think it is one of the most important parts of the entire series. I say that from the perspective of character development. I’m talking about Sam’s character development here. I think the point of that sad face was not to show that Sam likes Freddie, but to show that Sam feels unloved in general. The only people on the planet Sam can truly rely on are Carly, Spencer, and later Freddie. As far as love in any form goes, Sam has really gotten screwed over since before iPilot. She had a boyfriend in the 5th grade that didn’t work out. Her father walked out on her. That little scumbag Jonah used her to get to Carly. Pete only liked her for the way she dressed. Sam didn’t think her own mother loved her until the end of iSam’s Mom. She clearly didn’t think Freddie loved or cared about her. Yes, we’ve known since iReunite With Missy that he does but what I’m saying is Sam didn’t think he did. Let’s look at all the evidence there is to support that. iSpeed Date is the first time we have indisputable proof that she does have feelings for him. Even Dan confirmed that she does. The bed scene in iGot a Hot Room shows she does desire to be close to him. When Freddie told her to get up you can hear her say “I don’t want to get up”. At this point Sam is consciously aware of her feelings, but is sure he’ll never return them. Given what Sam has been through in life, can you really blame her for thinking that? By iOMG her friends think she likes Brad. In the last scene, Freddie comes out and encourages her to put her feelings out there and she can’t take it anymore and she kisses Freddie. After she doesn’t she apologizes. Implicit in that apology is that she thinks Freddie will never love her the way she loves him. By then her secret was out. Convinced that Freddie will never love her and fearing rejection, Sam went and hid in a mental hospital. She knew wasn’t crazy. She was trying to avoid rejection at all costs because she didn’t want to be heartbroken again. During the web show from the mental hospital, she didn’t want to face the rejection she was sure that would come because she didn’t think Freddie loved her. Carly forced the issue, and she was proven wrong. Can you really blame her for thinking that this would end up in heartbreak just like every other thing in her life did? Remember in iHate Sam’s Boyfriend how she was surprised anyone would want to go out with her? Remember when she said sadly that “some boys kind of find me abrasive”? Based on all that, I think it’s safe to say that the sad face was because she felt unloved in general.

In light of what I just said, Carly kind of annoys me in this scene. She’s acting like she has empathy for Gibby when she doesn’t know the first thing about what being unloved is like. Carly is a girl who gets what she wants when she wants it. Remember iLook Alike? She threw a little hissy fit the first time she didn’t get what she wants. This is clearly a girl who is used to getting what she wants when she wants it. Carly’s life may not be perfect, but it’s pretty close to perfect. She has the world’s best guardian, she can get pretty much any boy she wants, she’s the star of her own web show, and she has an $82,000 room because her awesome guardian spent the entire insurance check on her room even though he could have just replaced everything and spent the money elsewhere. Sam, on the other hand, knows the true meaning of pain. She’s gone through more in her 17 years than most people go through in a lifetime. Everyone seems to either use her or walk out on her. The only reason she’s not starving is because she can eat at Carly’s. When Carly say’s that, it’s like she’s oblivious to what Sam is going through. She was talking about Gibby. She acknowledged what she said might relate to Freddie. But she was completely oblivious to the fact that it might apply to someone she calls her best friend a lot more deeply than the people she acknowledged.

Because the only reference to all this is a sad face that Sam makes very briefly, only people paying close attention would notice this. Sam made that face not because she liked Freddie, but because she didn’t feel loved by anyone. Because it’s hard to notice at all and because a lot of people that do notice it label it a Seddie moment, this important piece of character development is overlooked by most people.

One last thing, I don’t pretend to know everything that there is about Sam. She’s my favorite character of all time on TV and everything. She’s also the most complex character that I’ve ever made an attempt at analyzing. You could write books about her. I don’t completely “get” her. I don’t think anyone does. She’s just to complex. That’s what makes her awesome. What I do know is that the little moment in iWin a Date that I wrote about is a major piece of character development for Sam.