What do you think would have changed if Walker didn't let Lynsey die or stayed a bit closer to Brandan and didn't leave when it was important (like when Chez Chez was destroyed and Brandan was panicking)? Or Walker haven't asked too many questions? Their relationship with Brandan would be different, wouldn't it?
yes and no i would say. my thing about simon is that he *is* incredibly smart, but when it comes down to the wire he becomes frantic and starts to slip. you see a lot of that in later when he asks too many questions about the body and brendan just doesn’t include him on anything as a result. and it’s funny because brendan honestly overlooked A LOT when it came to simon. i mean his own sister, joel, and lynsey, all people he cared about a lot were constantly telling him simon was suspicious and at most he investigated a little bit before just letting it go. the entire reason he sends simon away in the first place is because cheryl doesn’t want him around. like simon was always going to be found out, so i don’t think him making different choices would have changed things so drastically that he would’ve won, but if he had been a little patient and paid more attention, he probably wouldn’t have blown his cover THAT quickly.
i actually think a lot about the path their relationship would have taken if he hadn’t blown his cover, it’s one of my favorite things, because truthfully i think brendan was beginning to fall in love with him. brendan telling simon about his dads abuse is one of the most significant parts of their relationship and is one of the biggest insights we get into how he sees simon. simon is the first person he ever tells that to and he would’ve never done it if simon wasn’t special to him in some way.
in my head, i think it’s very likely they would’ve continued to have sex, i think that’s one of the most natural parts of their relationship and sex has always been much easier for brendan than romance anyway. on brendan’s end, i imagine his feelings would’ve continued to grow. i think if we’re talking about fanfic world, we imagine simon would’ve started to fall in love with brendan too and eventually bren would find out the truth and there would be a big rift between them. it would take awhile for brendan to forgive simon but ultimately he would and they’d end up together. if you want to discuss a more canonical version—that’s where it can be trickier i suppose. because the reality is that while brendan does a lot of illegal stuff honestly, he’s not some big time crime lord the way that simon has made him out to be. i don’t know that there was ever going to be anything simon could have gotten him with other than maybe selling drugs. the thing with mick really was an incredible stroke of luck that he ended up completely wasting. i imagine brendan would’ve found out eventually and at this point his feelings for simon would’ve been genuine and quite strong, so it probably would’ve broken his heart. i think some things would’ve played out differently, but the end result would probably always be the same. simon was incredibly unstable by the end and this operation was always going to be his downfall. simon is just so desperate in the end that i think it would’ve still driven him crazy and he probably would’ve ended up rouge and dead either way.
as for lynsey specifically, i honestly don’t know if there was another choice he *couldve* made in that moment. lynsey was asking too many questions and by the end had found out he was an officer, so letting her die was an easy way to ensure his secret wouldn’t get out. if he had saved her i honestly don’t know what she would’ve done. she knew that he was after brendan and i just don’t think she trusted simon enough or had any reason to not tell brendan immediately.
i think simon does an okay job at using brendan’s feelings to his advantage, but truthfully i think he got very very lucky in a lot of ways😭because you are right, there are important situations like when bren was freaking out about chez chez where simon should have stayed but just fully dips. he’s so fucking lucky brendan was THAT down bad for him he just looked the other way most of the time.
i think i’m just fully going on a tangent now so i apologize, but something i think a lot soooo often is how it seems like simon was a rebound for brendan. like he sends him away, right, and then immediately after that his relationship with ste completely ends. ste makes it apparent he doesn’t want to be with brendan at all, betrays him, begins his relationship with doug officially, and then the episode right after that brendan brings simon back despite cheryl’s wishes—which is significant. i think brendan has always been attracted to simon, they’ve had that vibe since day 1, and he was like “well might as well have something pretty to look at”, which is also why i think brendan is so willing to ignore the warnings of everyone around him abt simon. and then soon after that you have simon telling brendan he’s gay and suddenly simon becomes an actual potential candidate for bren. the show obviously kind of drops the romantic plot line between them after the kiss, imo because daytime television just wasn’t the appropriate space to explore the kind of relationship bralker have together (which is why it comes back so suddenly during later where they actually can explore it properly), but they still continue to have a lot of subtext and heavy tension together. and as soon as simon’s cover is blown and he leaves in october, ste and brendan are magically back together again lmfao. like that was FULLY a rebound for brendan.
anyway….ive gone on way too long. i hope i actually answered ur question, i know i went all around the world with this IWUAOAI. i just love to yap abt bralker and simon like this….i have so many thoughts abt this relationship and this character and ive been talking to myself about it for so long that when ppl ask me stuff like this i just start to word vomit.
I adore the cinematography in Kin, particularly in the first few episodes of season 1 (directed by Diarmuid Goggins).
There's a voyeurism to many of the shots that place things like furniture, doors or windows in the foreground between the characters and the camera, creating distance between us and them – like we, the audience, are privy to family matters we shouldn't be seeing.
There's a sense of intensity and a fight for control to the extreme edges of the frame the characters are painted into.
And, as intense and powerful as the characters can feel, there is always the sense that the world is bigger than them. The characters are, ultimately, swallowed up by the world.
I think this is so clever because it feels like such a fresh way to shoot a show about gangsters, and it completely fits with many of Kin's themes. Throughout Kin, we see a fairly humanistic exploration of gang families and how difficult it can be for the characters to become free from the criminal endeavours they're surrounded by; once you dip your toe in the pond, you're sucked in. Events have a way of spiralling out of an individual's control, and actions have severe consequences that manifest like falling dominoes.
The world the characters inhabit is bigger than them; the house always wins. It doesn't matter that Mikey wants to stay clean to better his chances of seeing his daughter again, or that Amanda doesn't want her son having anything to do with the family's criminal activities. Even as they wrestle for control of their lives, it's made apparent that they're up against forces bigger than any of them. They are Kinsellas, they exist within this criminal world, and they will have to face the consequences of that.
But neither are these characters helpless. They are in constant conflict with each other to shape the world how they want it to be. They are characters fighting for their survival, for their right to live the way they want to (whether we agree that's morally acceptable or not). We even see explicit examples of characters like Mikey and Amanda being in a position to walk away from the family business and leave it all behind. But this isn't truly what they want.
The Kinsellas go up against Eamon Cunningham. We watch Amanda orchestrate assassinations to hit back at the men who killed her son. Eric is the first Kinsella we see carry out an execution. Mikey (briefly) engages the legal system to be able to see his daughter, and then he and Anna disregard the court's orders for them to have no contact. And the Kinsellas are constantly butting heads with each other as they reap the rewards of their criminal activities. They each have agency and power that they use to try to stay afloat in this treacherous world. The characters' conflict and struggle are visually apparent in the framing and composition of the shots.
Finally, going back to the first point I made (and, wow, I had no idea I'd be making a post this long, I am so sorry!): the voyeurism. From my (little) understanding, gang members in Ireland have almost a reality star-status. The public know who they are, the papers are constantly reporting on them, and their lives appear to be glamorous and, to some, enviable in some ways. Kin almost entirely strips this perspective away to look at the individuals behind this sense of celebrity, to examine the traumatic impact of being involved in a world so deadly and dangerous.
The wealth and glamour is present, but it isn't the focus of the show. Instead, what we get feels like an exposé, a peak behind the curtain into the true lives of these gangsters. Mikey suffers from epileptic fits often brought on by the stress of the job. Amanda and Jimmy lose their son and we watch them grieve. Eric goes to prison and his girlfriend struggles with the drastic change to their relationship. The list goes on as we are treated to the serious and real consequences of being part of this criminal world.
The colour grading and lighting also help hammer this home. It's neither highly saturated or overly desaturated. Rather than having the contrast bumped up, it almost appears soft. Against a backdrop of criminality and drama, the visuals of Kin invite its audience to view these characters as people first, to view them and their actions with empathy, if not always sympathy.
Kin is a show with something to say, and it knows how to use its cinematography to deliver that message to its audience.
obsessed with these months in 2012 hollyoaks where brendan’s life is utterly abysmal, in total shambles, he’s trapped in a horrific seemingly-inescapable feedback loop of violence and revenge all of his own making, everyone he’s ever cared about wants nothing to do with him and is in danger or straight up dead because of him, he’s irrevocably fucked and ruins everything he touches and can’t be saved; meanwhile not 2 doors down ste is living in a friends to coworkers to lovers romcom
So the morning after Walker's first night at Brendan's, Joel asks "how was my bed, Brendan? Did you sleep well?" Implying that Brendan gave Walker his room and took over Joel's, but like... Why? Why leave Walker unattended in his own bedroom instead of in Joel's where he'd likely find nothing of interest to him? To prevent Joel from trying to kick him out? To have an excuse to climb into bed with Walker if he wanted?
I'm pretty sure it's because hollyoaks didn't have a set for Joel's room XD. So if they wanted to do the reveal where they show that Walker had the bag full of cash, it needed to be in Brendan's room. And we all know Brendan isn't gonna sleep on the sofa for Joel.
As for an in-universe explanation... beats me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That does make sense from a logistics angle and is almost certainly the actual reason but I'm still trying to work out an in universe reason since Brendan is so deliberate with the things he does as long as he's not in a state of heightened emotion.
So either Walker's mere presence threw him off kilter enough to not think things through or he had some sort of plan and I'm not sure which one is the more interesting road to follow.
So the morning after Walker's first night at Brendan's, Joel asks "how was my bed, Brendan? Did you sleep well?" Implying that Brendan gave Walker his room and took over Joel's, but like... Why? Why leave Walker unattended in his own bedroom instead of in Joel's where he'd likely find nothing of interest to him? To prevent Joel from trying to kick him out? To have an excuse to climb into bed with Walker if he wanted?
I'm pretty sure it's because hollyoaks didn't have a set for Joel's room XD. So if they wanted to do the reveal where they show that Walker had the bag full of cash, it needed to be in Brendan's room. And we all know Brendan isn't gonna sleep on the sofa for Joel.
As for an in-universe explanation... beats me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
look height differences are all well and good but y'all - being almost exactly the same height? Eye contact being literally the easiest thing? Resting your heads on each other's shoulders? Also sharing clothes, y'all -
Just - being the same height
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