carmy flashing back to their very first meeting numerous times over the course of the series is enough to solidify their canon status.
carmy has visually etched so many things about sydney into his subconscious.
last season i wrote this post about how carmy's dream is sydney.
last week i wrote this one about how he's actively imprinting memories of her.
the "you look like syd" scene + the "you look nice" scene... are not random. it's an extension of that first meeting + the other dozen times she's walked into a frame he's already wordlessly existing in.
the camera always lingers on his reaction, his expression.
the audience is always a witness to him openly marveling at her.
this is a directorial choice + it's made throughout the bulk of the series so much it becomes a motif.
there is a real narrative + thematic gravitas to the dialogue detail of carmy saying the exact words "it started when you walked in..." the import of which has been seamlessly illustrated by how often he's recalled that very moment within the bones of the story itself.
they weren't just love at first sight. they were incomprehensible at first sight. they were salvation at first sight.
so much of the final season exemplified how sydney is the embodiment of the thing he couldn't see or connect with beneath his trauma, grief + haphazard sense of self.
she was the anchor, she was the connective tissue.
she was the water, to his fire. she was the cool breeze, the calm, the peace. these things were expressly explored via visual symbolism in the narrative.
he likes being alongside her, he likes assisting her on her mission + dream, which is evident as he speaks in the internship interview.
he likes the moments where he's so outside of himself + his body + all the machinations of existing as this deeply skilled yet complicated chef (person).
when it clicks what her best bite was, we watch his microexpression almost flood with rapturous awe.
immediately the dimensions of this wordless connection is both validated + compounded.
sydney knows about her connection to carmy throughout the length of the series, even if she doesn't verbalize or give credence to it.
she is always very aware of her why, even when it doesn't make sense or falters.
she knows why she's there, why she keeps coming back.
even amongst the pitfalls + agitation.
which is also why there's more emotional distance on her end until the last season + a half.
"you write in the margins." "i appreciate you." "you're supposed to be here!"
but all carmy knows before that revelation is the moment she walked into his life + everything shifted.
he's the legacy, the access, the vehicle. she's the heart, the humanity, the cohesion.
throughout the length of the series they experience the inverse in the other.
in actuality, they found the thing they most hungered for, the thing that was always missing in the lap of the other.
that's a canon love story.
