kian is a character who spends his entire life lying in some way or another and the way this particularly manifests is through a casual, joking “rockstar” personality. as much as he encourages being open with emotions, he also avoids sincerity like the plague. and I think you can tie it back to him growing up queer in the 50s/60s. like what’s one more lie about your entire life right?
it’s sad bc you can kinda feel the way he’s emotionally disconnected from Rand and Rolan. rand and rolan - characters who did Not explicitly (canonically unless I’m missing confirmation somewhere) grow up queer find it easier to have moments when they’re wholly sincere with each other whereas kian is filled with pulling away and deflecting with jokes and even when he’s trying to be sincere it’s hard for it not to come off as a joke. because he’s always acting, he’s always conscious of backlash, etc etc. like easiest example is when he tries to hug rolan but says he “never even wanted to anyway” when rolan says no because it might hurt him
like they clearly care a lot about him and he clearly cares about them. but I would say the turbulence in their relationship to each other isn’t present with kian specifically bc he manufactures this kind of distance and smoothes things over with them (plus kian was always going to leave but rolan wasn’t etc etc) like he’s an easygoing person etc etc
kian’s an extremely lonely person desperately searching for connection but doesn’t know how to get that because he’s at least like 2 layers deep in a lie at any given moment. like.. he holds back with rand and rolan because he doesn’t want to lose his only two friends and people he loves a lot. he jokes around and he pulls back if there’s the briefest amount of pushback. (also sidenote: I think becky is someone he feels truly comfortable with - something he built up in his relationship with her)
anyway he was never going to undo all this in one night and four episodes. all his moments of sincerity were always going to have this tone to them because this is how he’s been his entire life
