Previously: A chapter about anal lube. And the blog became E. L. James approved. Sort of. I mean, with a degree of reaching comparable to what passes for plot development in an E. L. James novel.
—
Sweeney: The actual end to the last chapter, after all the anal lube, was Grey showing Ana the security footage of the arsonist. Ana insta-recognizes the arsonist as Jack Strobe-Light-Eyed-Rapey-Boss Hyde, but we are unimpressed because the cheatery narration practically told us he did it before it happened. Like, that stupid epilogue to book two might as well have been, “And then I lit Grey’s office on fire! While he was out of town! A completely ineffectual attack, because gross incompetence is the thing we all have in common in these books!”
During Ana’s not-working-at-work experience, she spent some time studying Jack Hyde’s jawline, so that’s how she knows it’s him even though he’s either wearing a wig or has cut and dyed his hair. This annoys me because it’s saying, “His hair is either longer or shorter than the last time I saw him.” This is a lot more character consistent for Ana, though, than knowing his jawline, because noticing people who aren’t herself or Christian Grey isn’t really a thing she does.
Lorraine: It’s especially fun because she can tell that he’s dyed his hair on what is certainly some grainy, black and white, security camera footage. OKAY, ANA. WHATEVER YOU SAY.
Sweeney: Grey’s pissed that Ana recognizes her former boss.
Lor: JACK TRIED TO ASSAULT ANA, REMEMBER? And Grey’s all, “you seem to have studied your ex-boss in some detail.” What are you saying, asshat? That Ana’s been swooning after her attacker? That you are angry that she can recognize her attacker? That you are angry she looked at another man, even though this man ATTACKED HER?
Sweeney: Well, yes, he is saying that, because he blamed her for being attacked in the first place. Victim-blaming being just one of the many awesome messages of these books!
Grey’s crack security team pulls some contrived technological wizardry and runs facial recognition software and also starts scanning the city’s CCTV cameras to track his movements. Seattle wasn’t ruined-by-association for me until now. Yup, there it is. That’s the moment. Never going to Seattle, because I will assume some Christian-Grey-like menace is tracking my movements via traffic cameras. He’s probably got your whole vacation on a home movie, Lor.
Lor: Welp. There goes fondly remembering that vacation. But also, this means they probably have when I passed by Escala on my way to Pike Place Market and cried bitter tears right in front of the door.
Sweeney: That’s probably when the tracking began.
Apparently they also found some incriminating shit about Grey on Jack Hyde’s hard drive when they seized it after finding it. Naturally, he has no plans to share this information with Ana even though they’re married now. Expect this to be dramatically revealed as a not-secret secret in a later chapter. Facial recognition confirms that it’s Jack Hyde and Grey congratulates Ana for being useful.
Lor: That’s not sarcasm. He literally thanks her for that one time she was useful.
“Well, Mrs. Grey, it seems that you are not only decorative, but useful, too.” Christian’s eyes light up with wicked amusement. I know he’s teasing.“
He IS teasing, Ana, because there is no fucking way you are ever useful. Jokes all around.
Sweeney: Then he decides he’s hungry and they add a painful extension to their round of, “Mr. Grey / Mrs. Grey” nonsense to determine that he is hungry for actual food, which Ana will prepare for him, and max out her daily capacity for usefulness in the kitchen, where Grey wants her.
In the kitchen, Mrs. Jones quickly gives Ana some background on Grey’s food preferences, as Ana doesn’t know this stuff yet because of the insane speed at which they met/abused/married, before excusing herself. This is equal parts because Mrs. Jones probably has no desire to be around butt-plug-Ana and also because that was all the Christian Grey they had to discuss. She narrates her sandwich making in typically annoying detail — she’s making him a SUB. GET IT. HAR. HAR. Then Grey appears because working is silly and separation is not possible. They make some references to pregnancy. “Not yet!” they exclaim and we all scream, “Not ever, please!” but resistance is futile.
They look at the plans for the new house and Ana doesn’t like all the changes Gia wants to make. She’s stunned that Grey is actually allowing her to have an opinion and listening to it. Maybe she has been paying attention. Except it turns into another annoying round of, “HE REALLY DOES LOVE ME!” so never mind. JK.
Lor: It’s hilarious that she ends with this, “OMG HE LOVES ME” because the entire conversation has this context of Grey not understanding why Ana would love the house without making any changes to it. Ana likens the entire idea of not changing a thing to hearsay for him. Because if you love a thing, you give it a contract that says you have to act the way I want you to act or else I’m going to beat you into submission. Wait, we were talking about the house, weren’t we? Sorry.
Sweeney: It’s easy to lose focus. Speaking of, Ana decides that she wants to sit on the couch and “watch TV,” by which she means “make out,” because that’s a normal person thing that they’ve never done.
Lor: I hate to interrupt again but I feel it must be mentioned that Christian Grey is one of those people who scoff at TV watching. You know the ones. The people who say things like, “it’s a waste of time,” and “it rots your brain” and “there is nothing good on TV.” I HATE those kinds of comments (though, granted, they usually come from those of retirement age…) and it’s especially loathsome because it’s in one of the worst books of all time. So, everyone who read this was better off converting those hours to TV.
Sweeney: Do not apologize. That was a valid interruption. The idea of Christian Grey looking down on television is comical.
Grey is confused, because mostly they just have abusive sex and he’s never done this making-out-on-a-couch-without-implied-murder. They put The X Files on (LOL, sorry for that tragic association, Kirsti) for their makeout session, though, and Ana is sure to tell the reader about murdery things happening on the screen, just so we know we’re still reading the right book. Grey interrogates Ana about her experiences with this so-called “making out” because he assumed that she was the virginiest virgin of ever and wants to beat the shit out of the guys who dare placed their mouths on her mouth.
They kiss and Grey gets quickly to the sex, which Ana isn’t into, because she just wants to dry hump like teenagers. It’s awkward, but at least it’s not anal lube, so whatever. (L: Right, right. Lor loses forever.) Then they have another magic lurve moment because Ana can touch his chest, which is also proof of his undying devotion, at which point they get to the actual sex.
After the sex, they discuss Grey’s childhood love of The X Files. Ana didn’t watch it, though, because it was before her time, so then this pedoalert happens: “You’re so young.” Christian smiles fondly. “I like making out with you, Mrs. Grey.”
Lor: “You’re so young and I’m a thousandty year old vampire.” What? Wrong book? They are only five years apart? Right.
Sweeney: Then they ramble about the tragedy of returning to work and how pissed Grey is with his security team for not keeping up with Ana during the ridiculous car chase, though assuring her that they’ll be on prime stalker duties when she returns to work. He’s also pretty sure that they were wrong about the driver being a woman, now that they know that Jack Hyde was the arsonist.
The next morning, Grey reminds Ana that he’d much rather she quit her sham job and just sit around waiting for him to abusefuck her, but she’s not into that. She wants to pretend she earned this job. We’re also meant to think she’s a totes awesome person because she only lets her assistant that she shouldn’t have get her a latte in the morning. See, demanding many coffees was part of why Jack Hyde was TEH WORST. Definitely worse than that silly attempted rape thing.
Ana mentions that she allegedly has all this work to do. As Lor put it in the FSD vlog, it’s not that we actually want to hear about her working, it’s just hilarious that she mentions being busy, as this is so inconsistent with the rest of the book.
Before Ana heads into her super important work meeting, she gets an email from Grey about her failure to change her name at work. Apparently changing her name at work and getting the corresponding new work email address should have been PRIORITY #1 on her first day back in three weeks? Sorry, that shouldn’t have had a question mark. I mean, OBVIOUSLY, that should have been her first priority. Ana says she’s not changing her name and they’ll talk about it later, which is how I know I’ll get 19 more of these emails before the chapter is up.
Ana’s bummed that everyone treats her differently at the super-important meeting. They’re all hostile because they all know she has a job she doesn’t deserve because she’s fucking the boss’s boss’s boss. Speaking of, he shows up during her lunch break, because another round of annoying emails would have been too easy.
He actually came to her work to murderstare her down because she doesn’t want to change her fucking name at work. As much as we make fun of her for not being qualified for this job, yeah, it makes all sorts of sense that she’d at least like to keep her name and some pretense that she deserves it. What does not make sense is interrupting her in the middle of the damned work day to have this argument. An argument that shouldn’t even be happening at all.
Grey has the totes sexy line, “I like to make the odd impromptu visit. It keeps management on their toes, wives in their place. You know.” Ladies love men who keep the wives in their place.
But then! Ana has this brilliantly self-aware moment. WORDS YOU NEVER THOUGHT YOU’D SEE, I KNOW. It happened, guys. She’s trying to explain why this name thing means something to her, but she’s having a lot of inner turmoil about how to explain that time he bought her company, as if she’s talking to a toddler.
“Christian, when I took this job, I’d only just met you,” I say patiently, struggling to find the right words. “I didn’t know you were going to buy the company—”
What can I say about that event in our brief history? His deranged reasons for doing so—his control freakery, his stalker tendencies gone mad, given completely free rein because he is so wealthy. I know he wants to keep me safe, but it’s his ownership of SIP that is the fundamental problem here. If he’d never interfered, I could continue as normal and not have to face the disgruntled and whispered recriminations of my colleagues. I put my head in my hands just to break eye contact with him
But this is the thing, you guys: her moments of being self-aware only make this that much worse. I’ve read a lot of bad books, and they’re usually pretty naive about how bad they are. I’m not saying that this book is self-aware about the extent to which it is awful. I am, however, saying that Ana (and by extension, E. L. James) clearly sees that his behavior was completely fucking out of line. The fact that she sees it, acknowledges it to the reader, and then carries on as if “deranged” “stalker tendencies gone mad” are non-issues, or issues on par with, like, “It was totally your turn to take out the trash!” — that fact is what’s infuriating here. That is what makes us loathe everyone who loves these books. The blatantly psychotic behavior could not be any clearer. Christian Grey is a psychopath. If you try to insist otherwise you are, at best, a fucking idiot; at worst, willfully perpetuating dangerous ideas about what kind of behavior is acceptable in relationships. Take your pick.
Lor:
I feel like we’ve previously danced around this, but we’ve reached this point in our project. Yes, if you defend this shit your are either an idiot or dangerous. Or c all of the above.
Sweeney: Most likely C. I’m just trying to give people the benefit of the doubt out of the goodness of my heart.
As confirmation of all this, she keeps that inner monologue to herself and decides instead to go with asking Grey why this is so important to him. Obvious answer is that the name thing is all part of the larger fire-hydrant-pissing thing he’s so into. It’s funny because I wrote that before reading on, to see that his actual answer is, “I want everyone to know that you’re mine.” I don’t get any points for that because obvious answer is obvious and Grey has said that exact sentence about 4,000 times across the three books. It’s his excusesplanation for everything ever, from unwanted hickeys to marriage.
More true romance from Christian Grey: “I want your world to begin and end with me.”
Lor: So basically if he had his way, her name would be Christian’s Ana Grey. Cool.
Sweeney: YUP! Ana gives a passionate speech about wanting to keep this job without trading on his name. She says she has always worked (LOL, what? You just graduated from college 9 seconds ago, and for all the time you spend at work, you don’t seem to do a lot of working) and that she loves this job (because of how little working it requires). She adds that she has to have something to do besides sit at the apartment allthetimealways because she’ll go crazy/suffocate.
The only word Grey hears in that is “suffocate” and then picks a fight with her about being suffocating, which is hilariously meta. Yes. You are suffocating. You are currently being suffocating with this fucking crazypants behavior. Even Ana is moderately exasperated by his bullshit right now. See above for why I don’t give her any credit for that.
Lor: Also, we’ve had this suffocating conversation before, and honestly, it’s now robbing me of my oxygen. (Sorry not sorry for adding myself to this post…)
Sweeney: BEST. A+
Then he goes on to give the contrived explanation for how she didn’t really deserve the job — that they just didn’t want to hire someone new for a high profile position until the new management (Grey) took over — but has since impressed everyone by being the best ever. Even though she was only in the office for like a week. Actually, I’m not sure how much time supposedly took place between books two and three. So maybe it was like two whole weeks.
BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! The actual reason Grey is there isn’t just to argue about last names. He’s planning on renaming the publishing company. To Grey Publishing. And giving to Ana to run as her wedding present.
Not even Ana understands what’s happening right now. Grey insists that he was running a company at 21 and she responds as follows:
“But you’re . . . you. Control freak and whiz-kid extraordinaire. Jeez Christian, you majored in economics at Harvard before you dropped out. At least you have some idea. I sold paint and cable ties for three years on a part-time basis, for heaven’s sake. I’ve seen so little of the world, and I know next to nothing!” My voice rises, growing louder and higher, as I complete my tirade.
You guys, I don’t actually have words for this. What are words? Let me attempt:
(1) Full quote was included because I wanted to punch something over the dropped-out-of-Harvard bullshit because of course. Of fucking course.
(2) LOL at her commenting on how her only work experience is three years of part-time minimum wage work at a hardware store, just after insisting that she has “always worked.” Seriously, girl, this happened on the previous page. Nobody can even be bothered to check for consistency from one page to the next.
(3) YOU’RE RIGHT. YOU KNOW NEXT TO NOTHING.
(4) All of this having been said, I can only conclude that this must actually be how publishing companies work, because it’s the best explanation I can think of for why this book exists.
Grey assures Ana that she’ll be fine because of all the books she keeps telling us she’s heard of. There’s also brief banter about sexytimes in the office that ends with Ana saying, “No sexytimes, but I’ll change my name if it will get you to stop insisting on the sexytimes that I’ve just repeatedly assured you I do not want right now.” Just like that.
I was going to rely on another rage gif, because reading it gave me serious rage feelings, but let’s be real. This was inevitable. It didn’t make it any less infuriating, but it was inevitable.
Lor: BUT I’M STILL SO ANGRY, SWEENEY. He came over and essentially threatened her with unwanted sexy times, held gifting her a publishing house over her head, annoyed the shit out of her by repeatedly calling her “Ms. Steele,” and then he’s a self-satisfied asshole when she gives into his demands.
“Oh, stop with the Ms. Steele!” I snap and thump the desk, startling us both. “For heaven’s sake, Christian. If it means so much to you, I’ll change my name!”
His mouth pops open as he inhales sharply. And then he grins, a radiant, all-teeth-showing, joyous grin. Wow…
“Good.” He claps his hands, and all of a sudden he stands.
What now?
“Mission accomplished. Now, I have work to do. If you’ll excuse me, Mrs. Grey.”
I JUST. HATE THEM.
Sweeney: I raged out, and somewhere between reading it and searching for a gif to add to the post, all the rage was sucked out of me and I was left with that sad empty feeling of, “Yes. Of course this book just did that, and it’s ridiculous that I keep waiting for it to be any less terrible than this.” But yeah, all the hate and rage are called for here.
He taunts with her another round of “Mrs. Grey”ing before he leaves. They exchange another pointless email and the work day is done. She’s pissed, though, when he comes to pick her up. While she’s stomping around, Grey is stifling laughter, because the idea of her getting angry enough to grow a spine is nothing short of laughable.
After she storms around the kitchen and pours herself some wine, he tucks her hair behind her ear, because whenever he touches her, she loses even the desire to acquire that spine. She says he needs to stop treating her like an asset or a child and he says he knows she’s neither of those things — it’s just that she’s really precious to him like an asset or a child. OK, Grey. He quickly changes the subject to the fact that they need to eat dinner because the lady architect Ana hates will be there soon. She tries to insist that the argument isn’t over and he’s all, “Ugh, but it is,” and says she should take out her issues on him in bed that night.
Grey runs off to “make some calls” by which he means, “avoid the shit out of this conversation.” Ana decides that the best way to deal with the hot lady architect is by making herself extra-hot so she won’t try to steal her man. She briefly muses to herself about the fact that Christian relying on sex as a coping mechanism is a srsbsns problem and that they got married hastily and she actually had concerns when they got married, but giving serious thought to actual issues isn’t really an Ana thing so she goes back to making herself hot.
She returns to Grey and he has “calming” music playing for her. They dance, and it’s all resolved with her calling him an “arse,” which is not a term Americans use, for those of you keeping score at home for E. L. James continuing to leave in Britishisms. Anyway, LOL, you’re an ass! Legitimate issues be damned!
Chapter ends with the excellent curbhanger of hot lady architect arriving.
Murmur Count – 22
Whisper Count – 20
In case you think I was exaggerating:
Grey Count – 58
(In all fairness, about ten of those are from the emails, BUT STILL.)
Favorite comment last post: “Goddamnit, EL, saying something is rough doesn’t make it rough, just as saying Grey is barefoot doesn’t mean he’s naked! And unfollowing Lorraine again won’t make us forget it :D” — Corinna.
Next time on Fifty Shades Freed : A straight woman interacts with Christian Grey! Take bets in the comments on how long it will take before she tries to seduce him. Results will be revealed in Chapter 08.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
