I’ve been thinking about it since I first watched the short, but when I heard “They want me, but really they need you.” I just thought, and it’s a little self-indulgent: McCree doesn’t believe they need him, of all people, at all.
I’ve thought a lot in the past about McCree and imposter syndrome, given his context of having been picked up out of handcuffs into the top-caliber espionage division of one of the most important organizations in the world. Given his background, how he even ended up in this place, it seems so easy for him to believe he doesn’t belong there, no matter how much he demonstrates otherwise. I’m also so fond of the idea of McCree as someone who quickly becomes Gabriel’s clear successor and that Gabriel was grooming him for future command, but McCree himself was reluctant about it. The two ideas work well in tandem, and I couldn’t help but think about them in that moment.
Generally, I approach McCree as someone who appears all charm and ease, as if he has everything always under control, but it’s a facade masking doubt and hiding the struggle to maintain where he is. That he spends so much energy deflecting to keep everyone from looking too closely at the mess—or fraud—he believes he is. (On that note, that idea that he feels he’s lying about who he is ties in interestingly with some of my thoughts on McCree is Morricone.)
I’ve written before that McCree believes that the recall needs different support and skillsets than he can provide, believing that he is not enough, but I’ve left out the possibility, because it’s more self-indulgent than anything, that McCree is undervaluing himself, underestimating how significantly he can help.
What if McCree takes himself out of the equation because he really believes that he is of no help? That everything he can offer can be or is already provided better by someone else? Sure, he’s capable, certainly competent enough to make it on his own, but when it comes to Overwatch, there’s that small feeling that he has been faking it this entire time, that everyone is moments away from figuring out out that he’s been barely holding it together, that he’s an imposter in his own life, that everything he’s done up until now is a fluke.
One of the early members of Blackwatch, invited into the organization at 17, taught personally by Reyes and Amari, served at Reyes’ right hand for a decade and a half, was Blackwatch second-in-command at the time of his departure, deeply familiar with Talon and anti-Talon operations, skilled field agent, intelligence officer, and solo operator—it’s difficult to think Overwatch does not need him or that they wouldn’t desperately benefit from his help.
Overwatch doesn’t need him as much as it needs others, he thinks. Maybe because he is one of few still unconvinced that he deserved to be at Overwatch in the first place. Because he’s still unconvinced he’s really worth anything to this organization, to himself, to anyone. Because he’s still believing he’ll always be in the end that kid with a criminal record who shouldn’t be here.
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