Bird & Carter Have A Rocky Road Ahead

We've known for weeks that on Finding Carter , Carter and her best friend Bird would deal with some turbulence in their already challenging friendship, and Tuesday's episode "Do the Right Thing" finally let us in on what would cause that rift. While my speculation was that it would have something to do with Crash, the guy that Bird had a fling with and Carter is currently seeing, it ended up not being remotely related to boy drama. In fact, the fight barely had anything to do with Carter, which is why it's all the more bizarre that it even happened in the first place. After Bird's mother confronted her about a missing necklace that Bird had secretly given to Ofie to pawn, Bird told her mother that Carter stole the jewelry from her closet, even pointing out the friendship bracelet Carter had on her wrist as evidence that she also stole the necklace. Bird realized that she messed up and told her mother the truth, but not before ruining her friendship with Carter and placing herself right behind David in the contest for shadiest person on Finding Carter.

I'm not sure how Bird can come back from what she did, mainly because I have no idea how she can justify her actions. Bird suffers from "poor little rich girl" syndrome (with the fashion sense to match, naturally) and it informs everything about her character. Like most poor little rich girls, she has parents who throw money at her instead of wanting to know what's going on in her life. And clearly, she's dealt with some real trauma, that though unspecified, clearly affected her in a big way. Given her home life and her past, it's easy to see why Bird struggles with feelings of loneliness and insecurity. While Carter definitely understands this on some level, I don't think she knows why Bird always takes these feelings out on her... but I think Taylor articulated this pretty well.

As much as it sucks for Carter, I could see why Bird feels threatened by Carter's presence, even if, in many ways, Carter's arrival has made Bird happy. The Finding Carter universe can't explore the lives of all of Bird's friends, but it definitely seems like she has a lot of guy friends and doesn't hang out with too many girls. Then Carter arrived and immediately snagged the attention of basically every guy that Bird hung out with — including a guy that she probably had more significant feelings for then she'd like to admit. None of this is Carter's fault, but it does explain Bird's slight jealousy over her friend.

Now the question is, can Carter overcome this major betrayal? And should she? Bird hasn't done much to deserve Carter's trust, and the last thing Carter needs is one more person who is going to screw her over. (That's what she has David for!) At the same time, I do feel for Bird in a way, mainly because this girl is clearly more messed up than we've ever thought, and that isn't totally her own fault. Bird's behavior is almost exclusively about getting attention from her absentee parents, and the fact that she was willing to toss Carter under the bus for their approval pretty much says it all. Bird definitely needs to take responsibility for her actions, but I think that the thing that Bird needs the most right now is to go to family counseling — and to have her parents spend some time with her.

I hope that Bird recognizes the jerk she's been to Carter, not only in Tuesday's episode but in the little things she's done over the season that have hurt her seemingly only female friend. Unfortunately, Bird's history is doomed to repeat itself if she doesn't deal with the root of her issues. If she can do that, she can start to win back Carter's trust — though, if I were Carter, I'd definitely take some time to accept Bird back into my life.

Images: MTV; findingcarter/tumblr