Let’s talk about Diana “I’m not going to do what you said unless you love me” Bishop.
This is my favorite version of the trope of the independent women who can do everything herself and is powerful on her own but also has a man who wants to protect her.
It works, in part because they’re both completely unhinged in love very quickly.
Once you start to see it while rewatching, you realize how predictable it is as a character trait of hers. I love it partially because if you think about it, it’s partially hilarious and partially very believable.
I was intentionally looking for when Diana actually does what Matthew tells her to, on a rewatch. She ignores his advice at the coffee shop entirely, and while she listens to “don’t make any sudden movements” at the boathouse, that’s mostly safety (though he just sniffed her clothes so arguably that’s an indicator of interest).
The next time he asks her to do something, it’s a request (to relax, when she seeks him out), so she does. He tells her to put on a jacket when they head to the lab because she’s cold - she does this, it’s clear he’s interested.
He asks her if he can take her out and she says yes (only to tell him she can get her own door from now on). She makes him dinner and asks what she would taste like, to which he immediately replies “never ask me that,” followed by telling her what she smells like and holding still while she kisses him (though he leaves immediately afterwards, so honestly, bad reinforcement on that one and it shows).
He tells her to stop holding her breath and to grab his hand at the library. She does though honestly not sure if she would have done the first without the second.
He tells her she can’t take Peter Knox, and while she reluctantly thinks about going to her Aunts, he tells her that he’s taking her back with him to France. Honestly, he’s a bit high-handed about it. He gets his way because his next move is to kneel in front of her and kiss her. <the editing on that is *chef’s kiss* because I would also have been like “I forget why I was skeptical about this plan, let’s go to France” in the same second>
He tells her to go back to sleep, to call him if she needs anything. He tells her to dance with him. He tells her to go inside when Domenico shows up - yup, there’s Diana’s no, very predictable. She does go inside after he’s made it pretty clear, and Domenico comments on, the fact that he’s breaking the covenant by being with her, basically saying that he’s in love with her without saying it.
He tells her she’s staying in France while he goes back to Oxford, and she refuses and demands he say how he feels about her. I’d argue here that she only stays because he says she knows how he feels about her, which is 75% of the way to an admission.
If we skip forward, we start to notice that Diana 100% ignores when Matthew tells her to do or not do something (asking is different) unless he specifically tells her he loves her almost simultaneously. Even late in season 2 when he’s like “you have to put down the book and eat” he has to follow it up with “mon coeur” before she agrees.
Honestly, I love this for her. Solid life choice, because Matthew has to get a lot better at either asking or at telling her he loves her in order to get his way. And it’s clear he learns the lesson because when she is being really difficult or irrational, “I love you” is 100% his fallback position.
