Season 6 Jenny
HUGE SPOILER WARNING! LITERALLY EVERY SPOILER YOU CAN IMAGINE
Right, I’ve just rewatched it all for like the 1000th time and I think I finally get it! Her character didn’t just randomly 180.
Jenny was definitely in love with Niki and I think she went to go tell her. In S5, her and Shane barely had any scenes together and they didn’t build up on any tension like they did with Alice and Dana.
When Jenny caught Shane and Niki at a celebration of one of her greatest achievements (that she wasn’t even receiving full credit for), she was distraught. She felt like she had lost everything. So she decided to make everyone feel loss too.
So she slept with Niki, made sure it was super intense and emotional, then discarded her. She hid the letter from Shane to prevent her happily ever after with Molly. Then to ensure Shane - the only person who constantly forgave her and took care of her/put up with her melodrama - would stay available to her, she confessed her ‘love’. She made Shane ‘honour a commitment’ to ensure Shane would stay isolated and loyal to her.
She alienated all her friends, meddled in their lives to make them as miserable as her and give her a sense of power. Stole Alice’s idea as she felt the screenwriting was her achievement; she didn’t want to share it. Misgendered and demeaned Max. Maliciously revealed Helena’s plan to Dylan then held Dylan’s secret over her head as a power play. Held a misunderstanding over Bette’s head to feel the power of being the person to ruin one of the most stable relationships in the group.
This calculated and malicious behaviour is very Jenny, as we saw with the whole Sounder I and Stacey Merkin story. I also personally believe she had always meant to kill or seriously hurt herself eventually.
Shane said she felt like she was the only thing tethering Jenny. While we don’t see the threat of self harm come up in her conversations with Jenny, considering her history and penchant for the melodramatic, its a safe assumption that off screen behaviour and conversations led to this belief. I believe that her alienating all of her friends was a build up to this self harm. Additionally, the goodbye video to Bette and Tina also served as her goodbye to all of her friends, immortalising herself. She didn’t intend to watch it with them. I’m not saying she absolutely intended to jump in the pool, but I think I can conclude she would’ve attempted shortly after that evening.
OR, Bette did it.