Expert: Mel - 3/20/2009

Question
Mel - this isn't a fact based question...instead, I'm interested in your perspective and thoughts.  I just recently finished watching many of the Kelly / Dylan seasons and episodes and observed something I find interesting.  Although it's obvious that Dylan is the one who fears commitment, won't settle down, and is always seemingly running away from something, he is also always the one who is pursuing Kelly and makes more of an effort to maintain their relationship.  One would think that for a non-committal person such as Dylan who is always looking to disengage, Kelly would be the one pushing harder for a relationship instead of him.  Just a few scenarios to show you what I mean:

- When they first get together, he is much more aggressive and adamant about the relationship than her, although I think that this could be easily explained by Kelly's sense of guilt with respect to Brenda
- In "Senior Poll" she freaks out at him (in my opinion somewhat overemotional and dramatic and unjustifiably so) but he is the one who reaches back out to her and finds her in the playground to talk and make up
- In "Windstruck" he takes the initiative to get alone time with her by saying goodbye to the rest of the group and indicating he will give her a ride home.  After they get together, he meets her at the car wash because he wants to spend time with her
- At the beginning of S5, Dylan returns and wants Kelly back, only to find that she's with Brandon...as the season continues, he is not shy to express his feelings for her and as we know, he fights for her by asking her to take a trip with him around the world
- S9 and S10 in general...his return to Beverly Hills is centered around her and in those seasons, he is consistently reaching out to her and is visibly upset and discouraged about the fact that she is in a seemingly steady relationship with Matt

It's obvious through all of their ups and downs that he truly loves her and they share a passionate and tumultuous relationship - I just find it incredibly interesting that he's the one who won't commit 100%, but is also the one who is always pursuing the relationship.  But maybe that's the entire dilemma and it's a vicious cycle...each time he ends up pushing her away because he won't commit, wants her back because ultimately he loves her, but can't seem to keep her because he won't give her 100%?

Answer
Hi Madison,

I'm not sure about answering purely opinion-based questions, but I can keep this relatively short (edit: nevermind, lol).  I think you're right about Dylan always being the pursuer in his relationship with Kelly and I know he has a pre-S1/early S5 reputation for being non-committal.  But for most of the show, he's been shown as a character who, more than anything, wants permanent, long-term ties, especially with the women in his life.  Brenda, Kelly, and Toni were all taken very seriously.  He never breaks up with a girl, no matter the stress; they break up with him, and he's usually crushed.  (I know people differ on the final Dy/K break-up, but it's she who proposes that their issues might not be "fixable" and then, later in the conversation, that they aren't ... and S5 began with Dylan undoubtedly thinking they'd just get back together like they always do) He fights for his relationships.  He was the first of the boys to get married.  Even when he's aware that he's not treating someone right (Gina), it's hard to break things off.  With Valerie, he was clear on their interaction being set apart from romance.  And hey, he still kept her around as a friend after rehab.  

Believe it or not, I always found Kelly to be the one with the commitment issue.  It was hard for her to trust that anyone could love her, not leave her, or otherwise be who she needed them to be.  With her mother's four broken marriages over her head and relationship struggles new to her, Kelly's skittishness even went beyond self-esteem.  Then Dylan's alcoholism/drug addiction resurfaced as of S5. Ever since their summer affair, he has always been in the position of wanting her and she's known it, and he keeps taking her back on any occasion that SHE accepts.  The times they weren't together in S4 weren't seen as opportunities to date around.  He waited it out.  In cases like the end of "Rebel With A Cause", where he leaves Brenda and Kelly to go off on a solo road trip, he had just been rejected by Kelly a few scenes before.  She couldn't commit to him/trust his commitment to her because she wondered if he was on the rebound.  But, according to what I believe the show presented as objectively true, while he had lingering feelings for his ex, what he felt for Kelly was immensely sincere and would not have been broken.  

Speaking of 'broken', I think something has to be said for Dylan's wife being murdered the day after their wedding in S6.  Jumping into another long-term relationship after that kind of grief must be difficult.  And I think Kelly understood that about Dylan, as well as the intimidating notion that she would potentially be living up to the position of his ex-wife.  That, and his fall into heroin addiction, I think made an early S9 reunion hard.  As she admits at the end of S10, it's not her traditional criticisms of him that kept her at bay, but the fear of losing him again - to drugs, a loss of interest, or someone else. But Dylan, reckless or not, did come back in S9 wanting a real relationship with her.  But she rejected him, time and time again.  He didn't want to get hurt further, and had a pretty poor self image ("I'm poison.  People around me die."), which I think contributed to his belief that maybe Matt was more of a "decent" match for her.  Still, almost all their scenes included hints or outright statements from Dylan that if she broke up with Matt and wanted to be with him, he was game, particularly after their tryst in Mexico and hanging out as friends again in "Local Hero" ("Try to think about what's best for us."/"Maybe it's time for a change").  

Then, S10 gave us the "linked for life"/godparents to Maddie plotline, among others.  A lot of his near-non-commitment actions are the product of someone else's unwillingness to commit to him.  It was hard to show up for the baptism with Kelly because they'd be permanent fixtures in each other's lives as godparents while she would be potentially married to Matt instead of Dylan.  When Kelly "proposes" to him later ("all or nothing"), she approaches him angrily and, as he confesses to David, Dylan assumes she's bluffing.  With the grand exception of the periods in which he's been off the wagon or onto drugs, I'd be hesitant to include a non-committal attitude as one of Dylan's core characteristics, at least not when it comes to people.  School and work, absolutely.  I don't mean to be hard on Kelly cause I love her too.  But when she criticizes, it doesn't necessarily mean her beliefs are correct.  I saw a lot of it as her putting up emotional walls so that she wouldn't have to deal with her ever-present feelings towards him, which scared her.  

What I personally don't like about their later-series relationship is that they seemed to go back to square one, and it didn't have to be that way.  There's another element at work here which cuts through all which I said above.  With new writers, I think that not a whole lot of attention was paid to who Dylan had developed to be by the time of his departure in S6, or to the major life events of Kelly (drug addiction, miscarriage/endometriosis, failed engagement) in the meantime. And so, Dylan McKay's old school reputation - just the broadest, most superficial strokes - were 'remembered' and used to reintegrate him into the series.  Thus, the immediate return to drug addiction and gun-wielding.  No doubt, in order for him to gain immediate familiarity with the audience, his story was written to basically repeat the past, but on very simple terms.  And it's easy to draw the association between an apparent "badass" character and one who would never be tied down, whether or not this had been established as true.  Kelly was back to being abrasive at times and I had to make my own conclusions (ie, fear, or anger at him for not maintaining their friendship while he was gone, etc).  There was at least some effort put into illustrating that he was very grief-stricken, so I used that to justify what I basically see as ... well, it's not as much a writing error as it is, more prominently, a way to (somewhat unnaturally) prolong the Dylan/Kelly reunion until the climactic end of the series (Will they tell each other how they feel and re-commit this week? No. They have commitment issues). Not only would a reunion be a big event but I'm not sure anyone was up for the challenge of writing them as a couple again, S5-S9 a legitimate part of their history and development.  It was easier to make them start over from a more familiar place.

I hope this made some sense.  At the very least, it's a seeming contradiction in Dylan's character that's interested you, and one other thing I wholeheartedly believe is that he was full of paradoxes.  But, while the show's quality was, in my opinion, good, they always co-existed naturally.

Thanks for the question!

All the best,

Mel