OH GOD. They said it couldn’t be done. They said there would never be a chapter I hated more than chapter twelve. But behold: chapter twenty-one. This chapter ties up all of the loose ends in the book and brings the story to a close-but it’s bad. I’ve avoided full-on shitting on the book until now, but this is just straight up, unarguably not good. What’s frustrating is that with a bit of editing, it didn’t have to be this way, but this is the book we have, and not the book we wish we did.
So half the final chapter is given over to Walter relaying what happened to Fawn to Oscar. A blow-by-blow retelling of the whole story, from Hamish to the pearl bullet. I mean, I get that Oscar doesn’t know, but the reader does-we just had five chapters of it! Having to read a recap of what we just read a minute ago in the previous chapter just feels…patronising. And boring. Anyway, Walter calls Oscar “boy”, like all the older men in this book call all the younger men, and Oscar calls him “old man”, which would be quite a funny retort if I thought it wasn’t meant to be serious. Carrie’s over-explaining of everything is rife in this chapter-for example, Walter refers to Fawn, the love of his life as “the rising starlet that was Fawn Burrows”. I mean, why would he say that? The reader knows that’s what she was, and why would Walter refer to someone he was close to in such a detached way if not for the benefit of the reader? Walter also calls her the best actress he’s ever seen, and Oscar thinks “I hope he’s not including Olive”, because Olive is all anyone in this book ever thinks about. I don’t know why that annoyed me, but it did. Oscar’s friend just had his arm crushed, he’s realised that ghosts are real and able to hurt the living, and all he’s worried about was oh, Olive’s the best actress to ever live, don’t you know? Gah.
So Walter is still haunted by Fawn’s death because he doesn’t know if she stepped in front of the bullet on purpose. Which is a bit peculiar, because as I said, the ensemble girls who saw the whole thing seemed to know at once that it wasn’t an accident, despite not knowing anything about the situation? But go off, I guess. I like that he’s not certain and he’s still haunted all these years later, but considering (spoiler) that Walter does get closure at the end of this chapter, it might have been structured better if Carrie had kept the reader in the dark as to why Fawn had stepped in front of the bullet. If we hadn’t got Fawn’s point of view as she was making the decision to step in front of the bullet, and instead had been following Walter’s POV, we could have suffered with him as readers and his closure would have been a release for us too, and therefore much more emotionally impactful. Instead, because the reader already knows, Walter’s worrying about it is frankly a bit dull and pointless.
To answer the question you’re probably asking too as you read this, Walter did try to ask Fawn’s ghost why she did it, but she always vanished as soon as he did, so he stopped asking in order to spend more time with her when she appeared. Fair. Quite admirable there: Carrie saw a plot hole and filled it with something pretty reasonable.
Anyway, Walter tells Oscar that if Hamish’s ghost is around too, it’s not a good idea to leave Olive alone, because apparently even the dead are obsessed with her (they are, they all are, you’ll see). So Walter and Oscar go back to the scene of Doug’s accident, everyone is really upset about it, and the cast are comforting each other. They call out for Olive, who is standing in the rafters. Please stay with me here, because it’s a bit woolly.
So Hamish’s ghost has possessed Olive’s body (stay with me). Walter tells him to leave Olive alone, as she has nothing to do with any of this, but Hamish says that she has “everything” to do with this. Because Olive is the centre of the universe. Hamish tells us that he’s been hanging around haunting this theatre ever since his “sorry life” ended. Hold on a second-why would Hamish, the conceited twit, call his own life “sorry”? This is what I mean when I say that all the characters are cartoons with black and white morality. Hamish is aware that he’s evil and lived a bad life-he basically turns to the camera and says “I am the bad guy. You are not supposed to like me”. The mark of a good villain is that they think, despite everything, that they are in the right. I hate to cite JK Rowling as an example, but look at Lord Voldemort-even he thought he was doing the right thing with his wizard superiority-over-muggles thing. But Hamish knows that he is baaaad. It’s the least subtle thing ever.
Anyway, Hamish says that the ghosts were able to materialise because Oscar and Olive have fallen in love in the theatre. That’s it. That’s the reason. Hamish has Olive grab the prop gun and put it to her head, saying that because he lost Fawn, he’s going to take Olive from Oscar because mwah-ha-ha-ha he’s evil. He reveals that it was Oscar he meant to hit when he sent the light crashing down, but somehow he mistook him for Doug???? Despite the fact it’s never been mentioned that they even look vaguely alike, other than that they’re both…men, I guess???? But okay, I’ll suspend my disbelief.
Meanwhile, our girl Olive is in there fighting. She tries to force Hamish out, but it’s just no use. Luckily, it’s Fawn to the rescue! She manages to expel Hamish from Olive’s body and climbs in herself so she can talk to Walter, because apparently we’re going by Whoopi Goldberg ghost rules-but oh no, Hamish has latched onto Walter instead, and tries to have Walter shoot himself with the gun. Walter’s fighting him-but instead of doing literally anything to save himself-this bullshit freaking happens:
Walter, WITH A GUN TO HIS HEAD goes into a page-long monologue about how wonderful Olive is. I’m not even kidding. It’s all, Oscar, you’re the luckiest person in the world to have Olive, because she’s a total gem and not like other girls, and she’s prepared to let Oscar screw her around because she just wuvs him so much. I wish I was joking. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you at this point that Olive is a self-insert character. At the beginning of the book wer were told that Olive's only flaw is letting people take advantage of her, but I guess it's okay if it's Oscar. What's character development, after all, in the face of tru wuv? Then Fawn backs this up, waxing lyrical about how special the two Os are together. A quick reminder that they do this while Hamish is supposedly fighting to take over Walter’s body. I kind of get that they want the Os to have the life they couldn’t, but it’s just another example of the world revolving around Olive and every single character living to praise her, and it’s SO ANNOYING.
Anyway, after a SECOND monologue about how Olive’s so wonderful and not like other girls-and then a THIRD monologue about Olive-I’m not even exaggerating, I wish I was-Walter lets Hamish make him shoot himself so that he can be with Fawn. So in this man’s dying moments, all he does is go on and on and on about Olive. It just royally pissed me off, I’m sorry. I liked Walter and Fawn, who both actually suffered during the story, unlike the Os who get (spoiler) a Cinderella ending (pun intended). Fawn and Walter deserved better. (look at me actually caring about these character lol)
So Hamish is banished by the gunshot, and Fawn and Walter (restored to his youth) are ghosts together, and now they can both go “on”. This had so much potential to be a completely lovely scene, with the two star-crossed lovers reunited and at peace at last. But WAIT. Before poor Fawn can go, she has to deliver one last speech to Olive about how special she is and what a brilliant actor she is…why? This poor girl had a completely horrible and short life, her death has been unrestful, and now she’s got to spend her final moments joining the we-love-Olive fan club that is comprised of every single character in this book but Tamara and Jane? Girl, Olive is terrible.
ANYWAY. One last annoying, self-indulgent thing happens in this chapter. Just before Fawn and Walter finally take their leave, the Southern Cross Theatre is filled with ghosts of the audience who were present the night Fawn died. SERIOUSLY. I get that’s it’s supposed to be cinematic, but you’re expecting me to believe that ALL these freaking hundreds of ghosts, with their own lives and families, have all hung around in this theatre for however long since they died, just to see a random actress they saw ONCE (remember WTCF was her debut, it’s not like she’s Judi Dench) take her final bow. SERIOUSLY. I am done. I am done.
) I’d say that Carrie put in charge of the social media marketing to cut costs. Her recent thumbnails and the Cinderella marketing have the same kind of ‘graphic design is my passion’ vibe to them
on theaterboard echoes what we’ve been saying here since forever. But it particularly stings as the commenter is an admin there lol
