I was going to post this take under a Reddit thread, but mods keep locking them… So here goes.
"Why is [Colin’s rake behaviour] that is off putting to the audience, not then off putting within the universe too?"
[My response] It’s because the audience is not trying to be courted by Colin.
Another example is how Penelope behaved around Lord Debling. We the audience know she was putting on a show and pretending to like grass and birds, just so he could take an interest in her and propose. If Penelope was willing to act like that, there’s no doubt other women of the ton would also pretend to enjoy Colin’s rake persona, they obviously want to get proposed by a Bridgerton.
Also many of these women just debuted in society, most of them aren’t even in their 20s yet. They don’t have the most experience with romance and they can be easily swayed with charm, even the cringiest of charm. I’m not saying it’s all of them, but some definitely.
When I watched the episode, I immediately knew that this wasn’t the same Colin we knew from earlier seasons. He was so obviously different that I had no doubt it was done on purpose. Was it a bit cringe, yes? But that was the point. Hopefully one day, we can lay these arguments to rest.
I keep seeing people on twitter complain that we’re not shown the friendship between Pen and Colin, we’re only told about it… yet those same people argue that Colin only ever saw Pen as a friend until now…
1) Do they genuinely not see the hypocrisy here?
2) Words mean things. What do they think friends to lovers mean?
Would Laura choose to stay with Bradley, if she knew that Bradley was an accomplice to a federal crime?
Bear in mind, I've had these thoughts for a while but never took the time to write them down. It's simply personal opinions, feel free to scroll.
Regardless of the answer, I believe Laura is being robbed of that choice. Bradley is controlling the narrative of their relationship by keeping it a secret. That's the opposite of transparency, or trust. I think an actual display of love and trust, would be Bradley revealing everything to Laura and giving her the opportunity to leave or stay. Right now, their relationship only works because it relies on Laura being kept in the dark. Is it true happiness, if Laura is being lied to for an entire year? Or would it be true happiness if Laura was given the free will to choose the future of her relationship?
Also, the argument that Bradley is staying quiet to not incriminate Laura in face of the FBI, it bugs me. Because it implies that the price to pay for Laura's protection is corrupting UBA News, corrupting their hundred of honest employees, Stella, Cory and everyone else that supported Bradley in her rise to evening news. All of these people (including Laura) are applauding Bradley, yet could potentially be blamed of enabling a system that rewards illegal behavior with career promotions. I fail to see the heroism or beauty in Bradley's actions towards Laura, and people need to be more honest about that instead of using this to justify why a romantic ship is 'healthy'.
Let's keep it a buck, none of the TMS ships are healthy. That also includes Cory and Bradley, who have been canonically dysfonctional for a while now. I'll share more of my perspective on them, in a seperate blog.
I’m noticing how some viewers seem to purposely disregard the fact that Bradley fell back on Cory for help about the footage. She did not go to Laura. A recurring argument suggests that Cory is in love with Bradley and therefore, he would rather cover for her, than to fire her and denounce her to the FBI. Which in real life, would be a logical thing to do for a CEO who’s prioritizing the protection of his company.
… However Laura loves Bradley too, no? If love is truly the motive behind Cory’s act, why wouldn’t Laura do the same? Well here are a few reasons :
1) Because there is a level of trust that has yet to be attained between them. Bradley has never trusted Laura when it comes to Hal or her family. Meanwhile Laura doesn’t trust Bradley regarding her past with Cory.
2) Because Laura and Bradley are on different moral wavelengths. Their compass are misaligned with each other’s. Meanwhile Cory is probably one of the most morally grey character, and only someone of his questionable ethics could ever agree to cover up an insurrection.
3) As much as people convince themselves, Laura and Bradley do not have a ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ type of bond. They don’t ride or die for each other, because they hide their most rooted insecurities from one another. Laura would not protect Bradley in a situation like J6, because there is a risk of her career being jeopardized in the process. As she should, by the way.
And I want to clarify, this isn’t a criticism of other ships that also don’t share that ride or die dynamic. This is simply to illustrate that Laura and Bradley aren’t like that. And if they aren’t like that, then why should we believe that Laura will ever forgive and forget the J6 gate? Would that be character’s assassination since we’ve known her to be very morally responsible? Or would that be minimizing the gravity of such a federal crime, for the sake of a romantic ship?
While these thoughts continue to marinate, I remain certain that a S3 breakup is imminent, and a S4 reconciliation is too soon to be predicted.
I will articulate this more clearly later, probably, but -- Cory's "we're just two people who use each other" is very interesting. The phrase is doing a lot of work here.
Cory has very clearly been trying to shift his and Bradley's relationship away from friendship back to "friendly colleagues," in accordance with what he thinks she wants post-March 2020...right up until this episode. Bradley really only has been coming to him this season when she needs something. But they both have the ability to change that, if they want: Cory invites Bradley to his mother's for some unspoken reason but I'm inclined to say it's a little bit of "he thought they'd like each other" and "he wanted the emotional support." It's an impulsive decision, but he doesn't ever look like he's actually regretting it, even when Martha steers the conversation in an increasingly uncomfortable and personal direction.
They can pick up their friendship again. (We're doing the S2 conflict again, right? Structurally, it's the same, but with the characters having developed in between, so emotionally it's more complicated.)
Because on one hand, all that people are are people who use each other: for friendship, for support, for company, for joy, for all kinds of reasons. And if Cory's been hearing this stuff -- "You're not normal," "There's a reason you're alone," "You don't actually care about anyone" -- since he was a kid, as is heavily implied in the scene after they leave...I'm not actually sure he understands that.
I think I said earlier that part of why Cory thinks Bradley is his moral compass, despite the fact that Cory pretty clearly has a functioning moral compass (and arguably a more accurate one than Bradley) is that Cory is so used to thinking of himself as a cold-hearted ruthless business executive that he forgets he has a pretty solid sense of morality when he wants it. But that kind of language would have really worked to degrade any sense of himself as a good person, or a moral person -- a person who could care about other people.
S2E10: Cory extended his love to Bradley, but she doesn’t reciprocate.
S3E07: Bradley extends her friendship to Cory, but he doesn’t reciprocate.
It’s becoming harder to visualize where these two will land, by the end of the season. I know for a fact that things are only going to get worse, and my expectations will remain low. But damn it, can these characters ever find peace and happiness again?
Okay so the thing is. Cory's not actually asking anything from Bradley, and she shut him down hard.
But Bradley really obviously doesn't understand this. You can see in her face at the end of S2 and here in 3.05 that it's a very "oh gosh this is going to be uncomfortable" with I suspect a bit of "oh no, not again." Cory is not the first guy she's been friends with who got a bit heart-eyed, and she just wants him to get the message and they can put that aside before it blows up their friendship.
But Cory -- Cory put it aside back when he took the CEO job, which he did in and of itself at least partially (?) to keep Bradley from quitting. Bradley thinks she's the one who got him the job back (and sort of brags about it/holds it over him all S2), but we know that Cory got the promotion because he arranged the payout to Fred in exchange. But Bradley was threatening to quit in solidarity if the Board didn't offer him CEO, and he half-heartedly tries to dissuade her -- "No, can't you see I'm better off now?" or something like that -- which she disregards as a joke (?). That was a mistake -- he pokes at the subject of quitting again, later in S2 proper: "Would you still like me if I wasn't something that started with Chief and ended in Officer?" Bradley brushes that off as well, and Cory fully stops after that.
The thing is that -- and I think I alluded to this in an earlier post, and I had been meaning to make this its own post, but oh well -- the thing is that Cory's primary role at UBA through S2 is an attempt to restore the functioning of a healthy workplace after Fred and Mitch. He fires the people making sexist jokes. He can see past the gender-based lashing out and extends the trust to Stella that she's asking for. Stella and Alex and Bradley barge into his office all season long demanding perks or money or jobs or whatnot, and he hears them out before he kicks them out -- compare to Hannah in Fred's office and the tight trio of people hovering over the conference speaker in S1. He is trying really hard to make UBA a decent place to work, and if his fight to pay off the hacker in early S3 is partially about Bradley, it's also about Cory defending the privacy and security of his employees over the money he's otherwise been scrambling to secure all season. So if Cory takes the CEO job -- he's not going to pursue any interest in Bradley. Because he's not an idiot. And he takes the job.
(Apple TV don't you dare make me eat my words.)
All that aside, I'm not even sure he really understands what he's feeling until after he picks his job back up. He knows something's going on, and it's new and interesting and chaotic, but by his own account it took him a really long time to figure out what.
The only reason Bradley knows at all is because the reality of COVID was hitting at the same time they were scouring the city in tandem looking for Hal, and they're both respectively crisis-ing and it feels like the world is going to end, and if they're all going to perish of some awful disease -- and he's totally overwhelmed, going from planning The Party of his tenure and ending up canvassing the streets with his best friend instead -- and he still hasn't told her about the tabloid thing, which has been weighing on him, honestly, because Cory forgets he has a heart -- and after all that she says, nah, I trust you, and oh gosh he was right about the emotional response thing and it's filling him up again from the inside and Cory? Cory just wants her to know. "You can do with that what you will -- no, actually, it's out in the world now. The universe knows I said that."
Listen to me. Listen to me. Cory Ellison has never had a romantic feeling before in his life. He's never had a crush. He's never spent too long staring at someone across the room and picturing something that's never going to happen. He's never had something abstract ache in his stomach. Bradley Jackson hits him like a freight train and it takes him a solid eighteen months to figure out why. But he's spent the past fifty years focused on his career. He's not inclined to throw that away so easily. And yet -- UBA is so messy and stressful that he's really considering it. But at the end of the day? He goes back. He's all in, cards on the table, two feet in the door.
I say this to suggest that Cory doesn't really have the framework for romantic relationships that Bradley has. Bradley is expecting him to have more robust experience with this kind of interaction; she's expecting him to get over it or it to get messily in the way of their friendship or any of the other normal things that happen when one person goes unrequited love confession for the other. Cory went wow! I'm in love! That's crazy! and promptly put it back on the shelf to marvel at in between managing his high-stress career. The guy just wants to skip down to the TMS room and hang around Bradley's desk.
Bradley, critically, does not know this. And she says the worst thing she could possibly say, which is that maybe they were both kind of out of it and it was a really chaotic day, huh, and like maybe you didn't mean it? Please? She doesn't know it's this new wild thing he's spent eighteen months hammering out so that he can cradle it in his chest. So maybe you don't actually feel that way, right? And I didn't mean it when I said I trust you and you didn't mean that you love me? Also, unrelatedly, I'm moving out. Thanks. <3
She does not know, and he doesn't have the context for how this is reading to her, and it was absolutely the worst interaction they could have had, because there was no space or time to elaborate on those things. And it blew up their friendship anyway.
And Cory doesn't retaliate (which would be both highly inappropriate and potentially illegal, but is worth noting here). He doesn't and has never asked her for anything, not after he gets the CEO position and becomes her boss again. All he does is snap their relationship back to strictly employee/employer, and he's professionally friendly and interested in her well-being, and frankly after she then proceeded to commit a felony at work and ask him to help cover it up. well. I think that's a reasonable response.
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