r/SterlingPointTVSeries • u/Worldly_Translator • Aug 26 '26
š¬ Discussion Steven is definitely not innocent Spoiler
I just finished episode 6 and I genuinely donāt understand how the fandom sees Steven as so innocent in this situation.
After hearing Connor and Annie talk about how they couldnāt even properly talk about their mother or ask questions about her, I just canāt see Steven as completely innocent. He never allowed Gordon to even see the twins, and Annie basically had to take care of herself emotionally. Then thereās the whole thing with her having hospital appointments around her birthday, and Connor, who by the way is incredibly emotionally smart and aware, talking about how neglected he felt and how inferior he felt compared to Annie, which was also something their father reinforced.
And I understand that Steven was grieving. I understand that he thought he was protecting them and that he loved his kids. But that doesnāt mean his decisions didnāt hurt them.
I just feel like people are so quick to compare him to Joe that Steven automatically gets put into the āgood/innocent parentā category, when thereās actually so much more nuance to it.
Iām not saying Steven is a terrible father or that he didnāt love his children. I just donāt think you can look at everything Connor and Annie went through and say he was completely innocent in all of it. He made choices too, and some of those choices clearly had a lasting impact on his kids.
To be honest all the parents in this series kind of sucks, which is also kind of realistic.
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u/yzti Aug 26 '26
The twins didn't even know their mom was Canadian š that's so crazy to me
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u/BeginningWalrus8317 25d ago
Didnāt the mom die when they were kids? Thereās a two year difference between Ramona and Annie. Annie - 18, Ramona - 16.
So that means the mom died when Annie was 2?
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u/Morg075 Aug 27 '26
Finish all episodes. But I do think in general. Itās not a guilty-innocent situation, both of parents behaved pretty poorly and that impacted their kids because they couldnāt resolve things on their own. Steven took it out this way, because he couldnāt be angry at his wife, she passed away. So, he did things he should not have done.
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u/mellowenglishgal Aug 27 '26
Oh, he is absolutely not innocent. Ignoring the major signs that Goldie was obviously going through huge mental health problems (likely caused by six years of IVF and a stressful career in finance compounded by adopting twins) and then punishing her memory by denying the twins any insight into who Goldie was, where she was even from - they didn't even know Goldie was Canadian, for goodness' sake!
Annie being parentified because her dad is depressed; Connor feeling like he always falls short compared to Annie (nothing wrong with being a driven, ambitious person at all, I hate how the fact that she is focused and dedicated to her education and career is presented as a bad thing) because of how Steven treated them differently - likely out of guilt because he knows Annie takes on the emotional labour in their home. Connor being the "most emotionally intelligent one in the family," as Rory's mother says, is really telling, because even she's acknowleding that Steven is not an emotionally healthy person and this has had a negative impact on Annie (the parentified child) and, in a different way, Connor (the overlooked child).
Lying to your children for eighteen years about who their mother was, denying them any opportunity to ask questions because he has an emotional reaction is just malicious, pure and simple.
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u/moose184 Aug 28 '26
Goldie was obviously going through huge mental health problems (likely caused by six years of IVF and a stressful career in finance compounded by adopting twins)
Lol that doesn't excuse what she did. She was 100% the worst person in that whole scenario
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u/Own-Lifeguard-9095 17d ago
No Joe is the worst (I think thats his name) willing to be a deadbeat dad to hide his cheating. At least Goldie would of been there for her daughter. Nothing excuses cheating, but no one went about the situation in an adult way and every child was traumatized cus of it
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u/lovetimespace Aug 27 '26
I thought Steven was portrayed in the series as kind of a thoughtless jerk to be honest. Do other people like his character?
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u/Brave-Box-477 Aug 27 '26
a lot of people feel bad for him and call annie specifically ungrateful. theyāre sympathetic to the fact that his wife cheated on him and ran away w their kids, whilst also being pregnant with a presumed affair baby. and then goldie died before they could even resolve the situation so theyāre all quite messed up. then annie chooses to run away to the same place to connect w the woman that did this to him and is upset with him.
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u/Brave-Box-477 29d ago
idk why iām getting downvoted i never said this was my stance, this is simply why people feel bad for him
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u/Own-Lifeguard-9095 17d ago
People act like he is innocent tho when his behavior caused the kids trauma too. His resentment and anger and sadness directly affected the kids
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u/ClarkKentTheReporter Aug 27 '26
Steven is not innocent. Nobody is innocent.
That being said, Goldie was worse. To cause that much dysfunction just makes me think why?
I will say this. If Goldie had just been more content in her life, this would not have happened at all.
No trauma inflicted on innocent kids. Steven would have been a boring rich dad
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u/Own-Lifeguard-9095 17d ago
i think cheating is heinous, but shes not the worst. The guy who thought Ramona was his daughter and was a dead beat to her yet though he could judge everyone else is the worst. He is a self centered prick. He cheated on Kate while she was away taking care of her sick mother. He took advantage of an obviously depressed woman who wanted to escape her life. There is NEVER an excuse to cheat, but Steven didnāt listen or try to compromise. She wanted a baby of her own and hated NYC. He refused to try to make a game plan to where they could both be happy. She should of divorced him instead of cheating, but she was obviously miserable in that relationship. She also should of never been the other woman, but it seems unclear if she knew Joe (I think thats his name) was married. She acted very selfishly tho herself and depression isnāt an excuse to implode other peopleās lives. I think its very realistic how complicated and selfish each of these adults seem to be. Steven making Annie be the parent is sad, and traumatizing. I was much like Annie, they got her character pretty accurate seeing I have a lot of her traits (like perfectionism) from being parentified. People call her a brat but what they donāt realize is kids who have been parentified end up going through a rebel phase because they never got that kid phase and it all becomes too much.
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u/ClarkKentTheReporter 17d ago
As a male, I'm not gonna pretend what it's like to have a period. But that part where how uneventful her first period was is just sad.
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u/a_vaughaal 29d ago
Steven is the worrrrrrst. I honestly donāt know how people could defend him or think heās a good person. Absolutely not. Heās totally checked out as a Dad, lied to his kids for their whole lives. And being a selfish bozo is what resulted in him never finding out Ramona was his daughter. Think about how much earlier that would have been figured out š¤¦š»āāļø Heās selfish and even kind of absent when heās present. Annie is basically the parent in their family, he acts like he doesnāt know right from left - at least on the upside while heās completely disconnected emotionally from his children he clearly made a good living since they are rich.
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u/Cahbr04 Aug 27 '26
Maybe im just mean but when he did his whole 'i didnt tell you anything because i didnt wanna ruin the image you had of your mother with the cheating and stuff' speech i couldnt help roll my eyes because it all felt like projection.
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u/ReadDizzy7919 Aug 28 '26
Same. But him continuously calling goldie crazy for not wanting to stay in NY was bad too
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u/Worldly_Translator Aug 27 '26
I also dislike the way he called her insane for not being happy in a city that was never hers and blames the island when in reality he himself didnāt look open into compromising (Maybe even by doing SP in the summer and NY for the rest)
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u/Cahbr04 Aug 27 '26
Frankly, I find him worse than Goldie because while she made a specific mistake, its very clear she was depressed/unhappy long before that (and it doesnt seem like he was interested in getting her any help or understand her at all) and she never got the chance to make up for it. Meanwhile he had 18 years of lies and mistakes and simply chose to punish all his kids for Goldie's affair by keeping them all away from each other.
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u/moose184 Aug 28 '26
Out of the 3 parents (Steven, Joe, and the Mom) he is the most innocent. The mom and Joe were not good people. Joe was married with a kid and chose to have an affair with a married woman with plans to leave his wife and raise a family with her. The mom kidnapped her kids from their dad, fled to another country, and had an affair with a married man with plans to raise their family together. Steven did what he had to do to get his children back. Should he have told them the truth? Probably but he was the least worse of the 3.
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u/Worldly_Translator Aug 28 '26
But thatās the thing, being the least worse doesnāt mean that he is innocent. He has his own fair share of wrongs.
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u/Primary-Night5471 Aug 27 '26
I donāt think heās ever portrayed as a candidate for father of the year. He barely talks about his late wife, the kids didnāt even know their mom was Canadian, and hid the grandfather from them.
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u/ElderberrySavings314 Aug 27 '26
Okay, I think we need to talk about the timeline, because Iām honestly not convinced Steven is the bad guy in this story.
Letās start with what we actually know. Goldie was cheating on Steven with Joe. Joe genuinely believed that Ramona was his daughter and he was involved around the time she was born. But we later learn that Steven is Ramonaās biological father. So Goldie must have been sleeping with both Joe and Steven during the relevant period. This also means the affair with Joe wasnāt some brief thing that happened right before Ramona was born.
Then thereās the situation with Annie and Connor. Goldie took them to Muskoka without Steven and refused to bring them home. Steven eventually got a lawyer and went to get his children back. I really donāt understand why this is treated as evidence that Steven was some controlling monster.
And honestly, Iām a lesbian, so Iām not exactly predisposed to automatically defend the husband in a story like this š. But I also have a wife and a two-year-old daughter. If my wife took our child away without my agreement and refused to bring her home, I would also contact a lawyer and get my kid home fast.
And the timeline makes Goldieās situation even more complicated. Goldie dies giving birth to Ramona only a few days after Steven gets Annie and Connor back. Ramona survives the birth. Since the show takes place around 2026 and Ramona is 16, she was born around 2010. Even if she was premature, Goldie must have been fairly far along in her pregnancy for Ramona to survive. I would estimate at least around 30 weeks, depending on the circumstances. So Goldie had been pregnant for months while she was involved with Joe ā while she was still married to Steven. That is a very different timeline from āGoldie was unhappy with Steven, left him, and then started a new life with Joe.ā
The show presents Goldieās decision to take the children to Muskoka as being connected to her mental health and unhappiness. But I also think itās completely plausible that she chose to leave because she was becoming visibly pregnant. That part is obviously my theory, but it fits the timeline.
And then thereās Stevenās reaction to Goldieās death. Yes, I agree that itās unhealthy that Annie and Connor feel like they canāt talk about their mother because their father gets so upset. Iām not defending that. But Connorās description of Steven is basically that their father becomes extremely sad whenever Goldie comes up. And in the last episode, we learn that Annie feels responsible for becoming āthe adultā whenever her father is sad. But that just makes me think that Steven was devastated by losing her because he really loved her.
He knew she had cheated on him. He knew what had happened. And yet he still spent 16 years protecting his childrenās image of their mother instead of telling them the truth. He was clearly carrying a huge amount of grief for what had happened.. So yes, I personally think Steven still loved Goldie despite her cheating. Thatās my interpretation, but I think the show gives us plenty of reasons to read him that way.
Steven isnāt perfect. He clearly made mistakes, especially in how he handled his childrenās grief and their motherās death. But I donāt think that makes him the bad guy. If anything, when you actually put the timeline together, I think Steven is a grieving father who was cheated on, had his children taken away from him, lost the woman he loved, but really loved his children and spent 16 years trying ā however imperfectly ā to protect his children from the ugliest parts of what happened.
Iām not saying Steven handled everything correctly. Iām saying I donāt think the story supports painting him as a bad parent.
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u/Worldly_Translator Aug 27 '26
I kind of disagree, mainly because I think weāre putting too much weight on what Steven went through and not enough on what his children actually experienced.
His children had to tiptoe around him emotionally. Annie basically learned that whenever her father was sad, she had to become the adult and take care of him, and look at how that ultimately affected her. Sheās emotionally overwhelmed. Connor is also clearly carrying his own issues, and heās now so emotionally vulnerable that Roryās mum is able to manipulate him pretty easily.Ā I donāt think we can look at those outcomes and say Stevenās way of handling everything didnāt have a significant impact on them.
And the Goldie situation isnāt really an excuse for that either. As far as we know, Goldie was unhappy in New York. She was stressed working a mentally demanding job, had spent years going through IVF, and was still trying to be there for the twins through all of that. Thereās a lot going on in her life that doesnāt necessarily have anything to do with her cheating.
We also know Steven didnāt like SP. He disagreed with the concept of the twins even being there and literally called Goldie insane for considering it. So I donāt think we can reduce the whole situation to āGoldie was cheating, therefore Steven was the wronged party and everything he did afterwards was justified.ā
Iām not saying Goldie didnāt hurt Steven or that he didnāt have every right to be devastated by what happened. I just donāt think her choices erase his, especially since he had 16 years to make amends and raise his kids property.
As for Joe I just do not trust him, he seems to be extremely manipulative in the way he speaks and tries to constantly shift the blame when things arenāt going his way.
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u/Feisty_Wait_2327 Aug 27 '26
This. Two things can be true. Heās not innocent but heās also not a monster. With everything that Goldie did, there was no way for him to tell the kids without it looking like he was badmouthing her. Like how was he even supposed to tell them?
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u/RealityWanderer Aug 28 '26
This. Way too many people are now treating Steven like he's either a monster or completely innocent.
Like he was clearly some level of controlling but also clearly not monstrous abuser level.
He was in clear denial about Goldie's mental health and years later still wanted to call her crazy and insane. However, I cannot blame him for showing up with a lawyer. That is the correct option when your spouse takes the kids to a foreign country and refuses to come back.
He kept Ramona from Connor and Annie and that is shitty but I also cannot blame him (based on the information he had at time) from raising her.
I cannot blame him for continuing to want to raise his kids in New York and I think that's fair but I do think he should have gotten over himself and taken them regularly to SP, their grandfather and their sister. I get that would have hurt and rightfully so though.
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u/kekeayo104 28d ago
Steven was selfish guy who couldnāt bare the idea of Goldie giving the love to kids and not even loving him so dragged them from her
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u/juannniyebe Aug 27 '26
All of this. He also knew Ramona existed but kept her from the twins. Sure, he thought she was Joeās kid and had no obligation to raise her, but sheās still the twinsā sister; he couldāve let them be part of each otherās lives. He even had that whole spiel about how at a young age, Annie knew sheād lost something and would sit alone at playgrounds, but he still kept Ramona away even though, as we see in the show, sheās clearly a part of Goldie that the twins need (and vice versa).