Hmmm thoughts on Jace

I’ve been thinking about Mikayla and Jace’s dynamic since season one, and I don’t think the show ever addresses the real reason their age gap doesn’t get pushed as a storyline.

To be clear upfront: nothing about this negates the fact that a minor cannot consent to an unequal relationship, and nothing here removes adult responsibility. This isn’t about excusing a situation — it’s about explaining why the usual narrative lens doesn’t fully fit what we’re seeing onscreen.

Most people look at their timeline and assume the older partner automatically held the power. But if you watch their early photos and their energy on the show, the dynamic reads as inverted.

When they met, Mikayla was 16 and already carrying the kind of trauma that forces someone into survival mode far earlier than they should ever have to be. Kids who grow up in that kind of instability often appear emotionally older than their age — not because they are older, but because they had to adapt fast. They learn how to read people, move first, and attach quickly as a way to create safety.

Jace, in contrast, came across at the time as quieter and more tentative, still forming his identity.

From that pattern alone, it’s possible that the emotional momentum in the relationship didn’t look like the typical older-partner-in-control dynamic people expect. That doesn’t mean the relationship was appropriate — it means trauma can distort how power presents, even while legal and ethical responsibility remains entirely with the adult.

What’s interesting is how the power dynamic appears to evolve over time. If you watch them now, he orients to her. His body language softens around her. He defers when she speaks. He waits for her cues. That’s not the classic posture of an older man exerting dominance. It looks more like someone whose identity developed inside her emotional gravity field.

This is why I think the producers avoid the topic altogether. The story they’d have to tell is too complex for reality TV. It doesn’t fit a clean trope. It would require acknowledging trauma, attachment patterns, and reversed emotional labor — none of which make for simple villains or digestible arcs.

The age gap exists. That matters. But the power structure people assume doesn’t neatly map onto what’s actually visible.

Mikayla was very young, and she also appeared older than her years in the way trauma often creates — not as maturity, but as adaptation. They were Mormon. Jace was quiet, steady, restrained — likely the safest energy she had encountered. I can’t speak to her motives, only the psychology that often shows up in people raised without stability.

When you grow up treated like a street kid, you adapt fast. You learn to read people, to mirror calm, to bond to predictability. Teen girls with trauma often gravitate toward reserved, orderly partners because it feels like safety — even though, internally, they’re still children trying to construct something that won’t fall apart.

Explaining that psychology isn’t a defense of the situation. It’s an attempt to name why the dynamic feels different than the story people expect — and why the show quietly avoids touching it at all.