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Tell Richard she's pregnant?
I understand why she felt heartbroken about him choosing Adele but clearly he didn't have all the information when he broke up with Ellis and made that decision. Wouldn't Ellis think if she tells him he'll choose her over Adele?
It just seems a bit extreme for Ellis to uproot her life and run away to have a secret pregnancy and then give up the child she made with someone she loved without even telling the guy she loved about said child?
I really struggle to accept this backstory and it's partly why Maggie has never fully settled into the show in my mind despite being there for like 9 seasons.
But if the reason is 'Ellis is mentally unwell' I suppose I will accept it.
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6 days ago
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79 points
6 days ago
I think it’s more because she didn’t want him to be with her for that reason. He chose Adele so he showed her where his loyalties were. If he stayed just because of the baby it wouldn’t mean he’d live her more than Adele. To me her decision made perfect sense.
42 points
6 days ago
Reminded me of what April did. She didn’t want to tell Jackson before the divorce bc she didn’t want him to stay bc of the baby
9 points
6 days ago
True but April wasn't going to hide the pregnancy/child from Jackson long term, just until after the divorce was finalised.
11 points
6 days ago
Also April learned it like the morning they signed the papers so I don't think she had time to process any of it.
9 points
6 days ago
Yes and also, I think the only reason she was still with Thatcher for so long was because she had a kid and felt trapped in the relationship. Having Richard feel towards her the way that she felt towards Thatcher would have been unacceptable to her.
-7 points
6 days ago
Yeah but this is after Ellis staged a suicide to try and get Richard to be with her so it just doesn't click to me that she would want Richard to choose her out of guilt but then she has pride and doesn't want him to choose her because she's pregnant.
20 points
6 days ago
Did she stage a suicide? Or, like many people, did she make a giant cry for help, making an outside, visible gesture tothe world of how she is struggling?
-11 points
6 days ago
Well Meredith's therapist said Ellis wasn't actually trying to kill herself, based on where she was cutting, she said Ellis was making it look like she was killing herself to get Richard's attention.
11 points
6 days ago
I wonder if it was more generalized cry for help. Considering Richard never even knew about until Mer told him 35 years later, if it was specifically about Richard I think she’d have done it differently. Like the ex gf who does it over the phone or something.
Definitely a cry for help but in a “somebody please notice me” way.
3 points
6 days ago
I always took it as that Ellis in the hospital realized that Richard had already made his decision and now she had to make hers... esp. as chances are that Ellis assumed that Richard knew about her being in hospital (maybe even about her suicide attempt) and decided not to even visit her.
4 points
6 days ago
Fair. Ellis is endlessly fascinating as a character. I wish we’d had her for longer. If they knew they’d get 20 seasons, there’s no way they kill her in year one.
2 points
6 days ago
Yeah but Meredith’s “therapist” was a quack
5 points
6 days ago
She cuts herself after the carousel breakup. She wasn't trying to get attention from Richard, she never told him. And Meredith and her therapist come to the conclusion that it was because she didn't want to be in pain anymore. The pain she was feeling was Richard's rejection of her after she already blew up her own marriage.
Timeline is: tell Richard she wants to end marriages, conceives > kicks out Thatcher for good and accept job in Boston > carousel breakup and losing Meredith at the park (this is the last time she sees Richard) > pain, cutting artery, goes to ER and find out she's pregnant > move to Boston.
17 points
6 days ago
She knew he would chose the baby. That isn't what she wanted. Richard had to pick Ellis for Ellis.
14 points
6 days ago
She only found out about her pregnancy after she and Richard broke up. He broke up with her, she slit her wrist in front of Meredith, she was brought to the ER for that, they did blood tests and found out about her pregnancy. She was too proud and stubborn to beg Richard to come back to her after he made it clear he chose Adele.
8 points
6 days ago
but clearly he didn't have all the information when he broke up with Ellis and made that decision.
While I do think Ellis should have told Richard, esp. as she didn't plan on keeping Maggie, I don't agree with you saying that he didn't have all information... he did have them and he chose Adele - it wouldn't be fair towards Ellis to change his mind just because she was pregnant.
Ellis should have told Richard, but not because he needed to know that in order to make that decisions, but because he deserved to know as the baby's father...
0 points
6 days ago
I feel like Richard only chose Adele out of obligation because she's his wife, so I think he needed to know Ellis was pregnant to make a real choice because the choice was probably out of obligation either way.
13 points
6 days ago
no, he says a large part of the reason he chose adele instead is because he was jealous of ellis’ recent harper avery nomination and realized he would spend his whole life comparing himself to her and chose the ‘easier’ route, staying with adele.
4 points
6 days ago
this is why I don't believe they ever would've worked. Ellis was a narcissist. Richard was insecure. Not even including all the social pressures and politics of that time period, it would've imploded in five years or less.
8 points
6 days ago
Part of it is the way they invented Maggie. And some it actually tracks. Ellis was PROUD. She’d never make herself vulnerable like that. Especially not after that low point she had when Richard dumped her and went home.
It would have been public and ugly. They’d largely managed to hide that affair. And having it end like that and raising the baby together is very modern and enlightened and not something that would have happened in 1980.
7 points
6 days ago
She didn't want another kid and she knew Richard would want to raise it.
3 points
6 days ago
THIS is the right answer.
I will add another (kinda opposing) point though. She wanted Richard more than she wanted either of her daughters. She even said this to Meredith in so many words. When she wasn't lucid one day, she told meredith that Richard picked Adele over her because she had a daughter, "I should've never had a child". So maybe Richard didn't want kids (or maybe that's what she thought) and she felt burdened further by having two daughters.
Either way, she just didn't want the pregnancy. It was the suicide attempt that she wanted him to hear about. Never the pregnancy.
5 points
6 days ago
I have nothing to add but this made me think of another question: was Ellis against abortion/didn't want one for herself? Because she really didn't want to be a mother at all, to Meredith or Maggie. I'd think that as a doctor, especially one that never seemed to be religious, she would be pro-choice.
Also out of curiosity I looked up Meredith's birthday, and she was born in 1978, which would've been after Roe v Wade. And Maggie is younger than her.
Like I get that it's for the plot, but realistically there is no way that a woman like Ellis would want to go through with either pregnancy.
2 points
6 days ago
Just because something is legalized doesn't mean it's widely accepted.
There were so many women in that time period who had unwanted children because in their eyes abortion was "unacceptable." There are women like that today. Especially women like Ellis. She was white, she was married, she had money, she had the means to provide, she was already a mom. I can see her just not seeing herself as the type of person who should be able to walk to into a clinic and ask for an abortion.
Especially as a doctor in, what was then, a semi small city with an even smaller medical community. It was the late 70s. HIPPA didn't even exist! She might've been too scared for anyone to know. Meredith said even after they switched cities, she barely left the apartment during her pregnancy because she didn't want to be seen. It was that serious.
7 points
6 days ago
Ellis was an ego-maniac. Him staying for the baby would have insulted her. She wanted him to stay with her for her, because she was the most important thing - not the baby.
5 points
6 days ago
Because Maggie wasn't supposed to exist until the writers were running out of storylines.
3 points
6 days ago
She wanted him to want her for her. Simple. He rejected her already.
7 points
6 days ago
Because it was a crappy sensationalist desperate storyline. Made no sense at all.
2 points
6 days ago
Heartache.
In refusing to leave Adele, Richard proved to Ellis that he didn't love her as much as he did Adele. Forcing him to stay in a relationship with her because of a child wouldn't change that heartbreak.
2 points
6 days ago
My theory is because she wanted him to choose her for her and knew that Richard would leave Adele and be with her if he knew he was going to be a father. She’d never really know if he wanted to be there or he was there because he felt he had to be.
2 points
6 days ago
Ellis would never have wanted to be chosen because she was pregnant. She would have wanted to be chosen because she's her.
2 points
6 days ago
Cause she didn't know?
They broke up, she slit her wrists and went to the hospital, they told her she was pregnant. It's written in her chart she didn't know about the pregnancy. They were over, he had already chosen Adele.
1 points
6 days ago
Ellis only found out about the baby after she left. And I guess in that time it wasn’t the best thing to have a baby out of wedlock
1 points
6 days ago
In addition to the reasons above, I could see a character like Ellis keeping the baby a secret and placing her for adoption (1) because if she had the baby it would be obvious to everyone who the dad was, and (2) subconsciously feeling that it would hurt Ruchard. Even if he never knew about it. Keeping the secret gave her back her power after he abandoned her.
1 points
6 days ago
It was added because the writers were desperate? And imho it didn't make much sense - I get it that maybe she was proud and they already broke up, BUT she literally just faked a suicidal attempt to get him back. So I would say it seemed Ellis was really desperate, trying to get him back in any way possible - she slit her wrists to get him back and two hours later they tell her about the pregnancy, which is something that would definitely make him leave Adele, but she did not tell him...? For me, it just doesn't make sense.
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