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Why was Crystal Young / Gina written out of LG15?

 
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ir3act
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Joined: 23 Jun 2016
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 12, 2022 9:02 pm    Post subject: Why was Crystal Young / Gina written out of LG15? Reply with quote

I've never understood why Gina was written out of LG15 in the third season. Season 2 spent so long building up this character as a successor to Bree and with her blood tie to Bree creating a sense of redemption for the failure to save Bree in Season 1.

Crystal Young was featured and emphasized heavily as an important new addition to the cast. (Admittedly, Becki Kregoski was also promoted in the Season 3 cast photos and her Taylor character was barely in Season 3.)

Gina's removal from the story is bizarre. Her character's fragmented memories were a vital Season 3 plot element, thrown away without resolution. Gina's relationships with everyone were still in flux as she was a new addition to the team and she was still discovering herself after years of captivity and working through partial amnesia. It made no sense to kill her off at such an early point; it made all the work on her introduction totally pointless.

The character was somewhat vaguely scripted because Gina was still discovering herself, but Crystal Young's warm screen presence, decisive persona, self-possessed demeanor and captivating voice and facial expressions made the character come alive. The character was killed off without having completed any real character arc.

Gina's death was muddled and confusing. She is not seen to actually die on camera; there's a gunshot and then she's on the ground. No body is recovered.

Later, the characters confess they don't actually know if Gina is dead and the villains claim that Gina truly is dead, having to establish her supposed fate after an unclear death scene. It's a clumsy, hesitant way to deliver this information, so much so that many fans assumed Gina would be revealed alive because there was no other reason for her death to be presented in such vague terms.

Instead, Gina was simply mentioned less and less and then forgotten.

In an online chat with fans, Crystal Young was asked why she was written out and she replied that she had no explanation; she simply performed the script and moved onto other things. I'm not sure what she's doing professionally these days, but she's on Instagram sharing her healthy foods and she seemed to get married rather young and have children.

Looking at her present day photos in 2022, time barely seemed to touch her face or figure or voice; she looks like she's aged 2 - 3 years since LG15. Ms. Young was present at the LG15 wrap party after Season 3, so I assume it wasn't an acrimonious departure. That said, Glenn Rubenstein left LG15 under circumstances so hostile neither he nor the creators would discuss it and he still returned in later years to return Tacyhon and OpAphid to the series mythos and assist with The Show Is Yours.

Crystal Young is incredibly talented. I'm surprised she didn't do more acting after LG15 and that she isn't acting now. She has a gift for capturing the camera, turning her face into a stunning canvas of human emotion. She had a talent for keeping Gina somewhat distant from the viewer, guarded and troubled, while still making the audience feel compelled to follow her journey. She could convey with an expression what other actors might need pages and pages of dialogue to perform.

Removing her from Season 3 of LG15 left a massive void. All of the LG15 actors were wonderful talents, but Crystal Young -- like Jessica Lee Rose -- had a certain ability to create empathy between their characters and the audience in a very naturalistic and earnest way, even when their characters were in some ways unknown.

LG15 was never quite the same without Rose playing Bree and it was only with Gina and Crystal Young that LG15 regained a variant on Rose's work and Bree's character through this special combination of character and performer. It was a strange choice to remove Gina, almost as though production had lost the actress for reasons unknown. The choice to not show her dead body also made it seem like they had lost access to the actress.

In 2009, I was still sore over the loss of Gina's character and the absurd, nonsensical cliffhanger of THE RESISTANCE. With suze900 and Renegade15, I wrote a blog novel, LONELYJOURNAL15. https://archiveofourown.org/works/37670755/chapters/94040431

My first priority was to immediately resurrect Gina. LONELYJOURNAL15 starts 72 hours after THE RESISTANCE and reveals that during the three days since that cliffhanger, Jonas has escaped the Order, Sarah's betrayal was a deception to locate Gina whom our heroes had somehow learned was still alive.

Recently, I was recompiling my LONELYJOURNAL15 sequel and conclusion to LG15 to put on Archive of Our Own. As I was reformatting it for the AO3 website, I re-read it and I could really feel my efforts to create a prose-equivalent of Crystal Young's remarkable performance. It made me remember how much I had missed her character and why I wrote this story. My writing was, of course, not quite as good as having Crystal Young herself play Gina, but it was a loving tribute to her talent.

I also added an epilogue to the story which declares that the 2016 LG15 videos were a nightmare that Gina had because she was nervous about a marriage proposal.

I was glad to be able to get to know Gina better in the blog-novel format. And to give an alternate path for the character and shepherd her story to a climax and then a point of closure where Gina could resolve her past and step into the future.

I will always wonder why LG15's creators didn't want to do the same thing for this wonderful actress and the character she played so well.

I have to wonder if Crystal Young quit, if she weren't happy working on what was probably a modestly paying job that required tremendous time and commitment and travel. Or if she were fired for some reason. Or if there were some scandal, some unprofessional behaviour from a cast member or crew or creator and she refused to return even to play a dead body.

My main guess -- and it is just a guess -- is that it was original series-writer Mesh Flinders who introduced the Emma and Gina characters after Bree was killed off with Jessica Lee Rose's departure. Flinders described Bree as his "alter-ego," a fictitious avatar for his psyche. Emma was introduced early in Season 2 as distinctly unlike Bree, far more expressive and open-hearted compared to Bree's guardedness.

Season 2 introduced Gina very slowly in archive footage of her character and declared that she was dead before revealing her death had been faked. Her introduction was so cautious, almost as though Flinders (and the writing team) were reluctant to immediately introduce a character so much like Bree, and were careful to do it slowly. I wonder if Gina was, like Bree, meant to be an avatar for Flinders, another soulful, aloof girl.

I wonder if Flinders leaving at the end of 2007 (near the end of Season 2) might have been why Gina's introduction was thrown away.

I wonder if the remaining writers simply didn't have Flinders' interest in writing distant, troubled young girls, and ultimately wished to rid themselves of Gina (and Daniel, Emma, Jennie, Taylor) in favour of THE RESISTANCE with Jonas and Sarah as the leads.

This is empty speculation, but I wonder if Flinders not being there to champion these characters left only the remaining staff who had no sympathy for them. Taylor stopped appearing. Jennie was abandoned. Daniel and Emma gave up on fighting the Order. And Gina was shot.

I have no inside knowledge at all, but LG15 put so much work into establishing Crystal Young and Gina in the show; removing her so suddenly is a point of suspicion.
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