my carmy/sydney related thoughts on season 2
i think when digesting this show, it's done more easily when we see who carmy and sydney are as people and how they bring that beingness to their dynamic.
it's interesting to see the takes from people who are troubled by what they saw in this season in terms of their relationship.
i personally thought there was so much fascinating groundwork that was laid.
we knew when molly gordon was cast they were likely trying to introduce a love interest for carmy.
i was not shocked, i was not surprised. i literally expected it.
doesn't mean i wasn't rolling my eyes but i was well aware of what function she would play within the narrative.
but the writing is so sharp that there are a million subtle elements of carmy's character, and what we know about him up to this point, including what was illuminated by the christmas episode.
let's first talk about carmy's choices and behavior where it relates to claire vs sydney and the restaurant.
we know that carmy is awkward, isn't incredibly relationally experienced and has sacrificed everything for his career and specific level of skill.
he'd just been ruminating on expanding his experiences as expressed in the al-anon meeting.
we know this man is intensely grief-stricken and also that he's battling his own mental health.
we also know he's literally been bred from chaos and emotional tumult.
even him not going to his own brother's funeral makes so much sense after that christmas episode.
he couldn't stand to witness what that type of grief had done to his already deteriorating mother.
so he's trying to conceptualize fun.
notice he wasn't trying to conceptualize love or relationships or a partner.
it was literally presented and integrated as fun.
so he runs into this girl he used to a have a crush on and even then, he's not sold because he knows himself, he knows his priorities, his propensities toward self sabotage, etc so he gives her a wrong number.
so to me, this may seem like a sign to him to give this a chance, do some exterior exploration of something outside of the kitchen and outside of his career and outside of his own neurosis.
so he's just going with the flow. trying to be "normal". not really knowing the content or context of anything. another reason why he wasn't even calling claire his girlfriend.
claire even brings up the fact that they'd hung out so much but didn't actually talk.
which is SPOT on because the audience only actually ever sees them talking about their careers or what they were like as kids/teenagers.
but you know who carmy DOES talk to? hmm, more on that later.
so claire is symbolic of this thing that was pleasant when he was younger, when he was less of this grown conglomerate of anxiety and disarray and sorrow. a part of him that's separate from all of his current worry and fixations and dysregulation.
him saying he loves her so much and that he thinks she's so great actually rings hollow because we, the audience, didn't actually get to see when and where that level of specific emotion or intensity occurred.
so off rip i don't believe him. i don't think about it in the context of if or when he and sydney explore anything, because it feels patently untrue to me.
and completely separate from sydney.
it's not earned. it's not rooted. it's not tacitly valid.
it's fine. it's a good time. it's some laughs and conversation and sex and a nice, normal person he has fond, nostalgic memories of.
and i think it's written that way on purpose!
so him professing this to other people feels like this way to continue digging a hole of his own distraction, his absence, his lack of attention to detail.
i completely understand the frustration that many feel about interpreting this like carmy was essentially choosing claire over sydney.
carmy was trying to have an unfamiliar and different experience and didn't have the depth perception, the self awareness and the internal regulation to recognize he was doing it to the detriment of something so deeply and irrevocably important to him.
as soon as sydney brought it up, he got defensive but then moments later recognized his errors and apologized.
she told him she didn't want to share his attention.
he told her she was absolutely correct and that she deserved his full focus.
what's fascinating about this part is they aren't even explicitly talking about the restaurant.
she says "me" and "i", he says "you".
now even in the context of JUST the restaurant this is saying ALOT here.
him instantly apologizing and agreeing with her requests means a substantial amount.
carmy isn't an ass because he stood sydney up for the palate cleanser. or even because he went absent when he shouldn't have.
carmy is deeply troubled and wounded and suffering and he was grappling for something else to feel or do or think about besides what he's ALWAYS thought about and done and fixated on.
that's why he's unreliable, that's why he's haphazard and emotionally or energetically messy. he's coping.
that's why he knows he makes mistakes all the time. because he feels like he's a screwup in a lot of specific ways in his life so he's used to it.
he's not being malicious or cruel or even unkind to sydney.
and this isn't an excuse. it's a reason. it's what all the information we have about him up to this point is providing us.
and yes, his timing is godawful.
but he trusts this person so implicitly because he knows how talented and capable she is.
carmy does not know HOW to be a partner, of any kind. where would he have learned that? where would that have been modeled for him?
"this is what you wanted originally and i'm giving it to you."
so let's transpose the way carmy and claire are presented with how carmy and sydney are together.
he literally can't WAIT to hear what sydney has to say. about literally anything.
all he wants to do is listen to her talk. he wants to know everything about her. the personal stuff too, almost especially.
he listens to her so closely. in the first or second episode she loses her train of thought and he repeats everything she just said.
i don't even think it was restaurant related.
he brings up her mother not once, but twice.
he feels like he should have known that sydney lost her.
he wants to pour into and believe in her because he does. he already does.
he's ready to apologize to her because he knows what a mess he can be and often is.
he knows what his anger can do. he knows how he was conditioned and raised in the industry and he doesn't want that at all for her, least of all from him.
especially after she walked out last season.
he's hyperaware of it. he calms down instantly both times she does the sign for sorry that HE taught her.
he has this propulsion to NEED to know what's happening with her in the very moment something occurs.
he did it last season when she quit on the spot and he kept trying to talk to her when she was leaving.
he did it this season when she was frustrated and trying to say goodnight after carmy was actively telling everyone goodnight and to go home, yet he tried to talk to her when she was leaving.
he was repeatedly ushering everyone out but because of the look on her face, carmy's like wait, "what's that about, what's happening?"
same with them outside last season when he brought her food and asked what was wrong.
if something is up with her, he reacts immediately.
if she's peeved, he wants to know why right away, he wants to know what to do to make it better, how to approach it, what to say, he goes out in search of that information in the moment it's happening.
sydney is his soft place.
he feels very anchored and tethered to her and i believe she feels the same with him.
sydney is his respite. his peace. the thought of her literally calms and stills him.
her being energetically seats him.
we saw it penetrate his seismic and consistent panic in real time.
that was clearly displayed for all of us to witness.
he doesn't want to be cruel or unkind or anything other than present and communicative with her.
i'd venture to say he actually doesn't want anything more than that, besides maybe the restaurant to succeed.
now sydney is in her "i have something to prove" era.
she is so driven and so determined but she's also a realist and is inundated and surrounded by all this proof that what she's doing may be foolhardy.
at the very least, it's incredibly risky. it's a jump.
and someone deeply ambitious and creative and tuned in and focused like sydney has such fear of failure.
because she knows what it often means for someone like her.
that's why she overextends herself so continuously.
she's often had to and she thinks it gets her closer to the opposite of failure.
she was not only aware of the gaps carmy's absence was leaving but also planning this tasting menu with a MILLION things on it because something was gonna be the star because it MUST.
and i think the carmy absence flares a bit of abandonment as well, like he's left her in a lurch.
she has feelings about that.
she finds out why he did, and TRIES not to have feelings about that.
that's confusing and she's already beyond stressed out so she tries to stuff it.
her success is so tied to her identity because she's worked so hard to get where she is and still feels like she's not where she wants to be.
so she wrestles with worthiness and worry and the financial climate of affability for restaurants. she's riddled with what if she can't hack it?
she has evidence of that being true in the past.
she has evidence of her past failures and those are what keep her up at night, not the infinite possibilities of her future successes.
and that's also why she picked carmy.
because she was always going to pick the best.
she was always going to follow the career and moves of the standout in the industry.
of the person that made the best meal she's ever had.
so if he's anal retentive or jumpy or doesn't call about changing the structural elements of their restaurant while it's happening, she deals with it because she picked him.
she chose him. and then he chose her.
(and then she lightweight chose him again when she came back)
so that's why when they're talking he so often checks in by looking her in the face, scanning her expression. he instantly picks up on something being off or wrong or him being "shitty".
or why when they're under a damn table, despite being peeved or annoyed with his disappearing acts, she lets out the most vulnerable, softest admissions about the perceived necessity of her contribution and future failure.
or why he responds with "i couldn't do it without you" so instantly, so rapidly, it's like it's etched in him. that's the quickest response he'd given to anything she said to him the entire season, she barely got the words fully out before he was verbally soothing her.
then he STAMPS this by saying "i wouldn't WANT to do this without you."
there was such an unexpectedly, viscerally aching quality to that exchange.
i'm sorry are these wedding vows or are we talking about opening a damn restaurant?
or the way he says "you love taking care of people" to her when she talks about making sugar food.
that's also a stellar mirrored moment because i've seen a few people, i believe @eatandsleepwell is one, talk a lot about how that's one of carmy's main drivers and internal tenants.
they see so much of themselves in each other.
the buried parts, the unknown parts, the odd parts.
the parts they wanna work on. the parts they wanna exalt.
they are so similar. they are also quite different.
they have reflected one another in the narrative since s1 ep1.
they exist so flawlessly within the others interstices.
she wordlessly hands him pepto for his stomach.
he tells her he won't let her fail.
the pulsing undercurrent of sydney and carmy is pretty fucking palpable.
there's people on social media who weren't convinced or didn't ship them last season that have suddenly completely seen the vision.
whether the writers actually go there or not remains to be seen.
i don't necessarily trust that they will or won't to be honest because i know there are so many moving pieces and variables and factors.
ships get bypassed and messed up all the time.
i don't watch any shows for ship guarantees but i know how writer's rooms work.
i'd venture to bet that at least 1/3 of that room DOES have an interest in seeing something happen between carmy and sydney, (maybe even 1/2).
or at the very least the option to have it explored.
different people write different episodes, the showrunner/creator can scratch or add whatever.
scripts are TIRELESSLY edited and shortened.
yet there is alot that makes the final cut that points to the potent carmy and sydney marrow.
him giving her the captain reigns before they served for the first time, her saying 'let it rip'.
to me, sydney walked into that failing sandwich shop with a mission that day, they locked eyes and immediately fused.
something happened to the both of them in that moment and they largely don't even realize or can adequately reckon with its magnitude yet.
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