We do not talk enough about the 2014 series Penny Dreadful.
THIS SHOW was my Roman Empire. WHY IS IT NOT MORE POPULAR??? Especially on tumblr!!
Eva Green???? Josh Hartnett as a bisexual werewolf??? Reeve Carney as pansexual Dorian Gray???? BILLIE PIPER??? A BOOK ACCURATE PORTRAYAL OF FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER????????
Don't even get me started on the fucking INCREDIBLE soundtrack by Abel Korzeniowski!
The writing is so fucking good, the characters are amazing, the tone and setting are SO COOL, and it brings together so many classical texts (Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, Dorian Gray, and more) in such a seemless fashion? And it's openly queer, too????
It has a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, if you want any more reasons to watch it. UGH PLEASE I WANT TO SCREAM ABOUT THIS SHOW WITH SOMEONEEEE
So the thing that struck me most about Luke and Penelope's interactions in this episode, specifically the scene in the briefing room where they talk about Penelope seeing Tyler, is the way that Luke treats Penelope versus the way that she treats him.
Luke was clearly about to yell at her, but she looked so small and scared that he literally swallowed his words. He told her that she was in the wrong, but he was incredibly gentle about it. He had every right to get extremely mad at her, but he didn’t play it that way, because he cares about her and her feelings so much.
But on the opposite end of the spectrum, Penelope has no regard for his feelings at all. He tells her that it’s too much for him to be hearing her talk about her sex life and she says “i know” but then just… keeps doing it. The whole scene, basically all she talks about is how good the sex is (which is a super weird thing to be focusing on in the moment anyway but that's a point for another time). Luke is very careful with his words, even though he's mad, but she just keeps talking even once he asks her to stop.
An in depth look at Luke and Penelope's treatment of one another throughout the show, as well as an analysis of Luke specifically on the date, below the cut.
And the thing is, is that this is such a pattern for Luke. When we first met him, one of his very first interactions with the other characters was with Garcia in the elevator. She’s uncomfortable and extremely short with him. She snaps and rolls her eyes, and he lets her.
This is literally acknowledged in the show. After she meets Roxy, she admits to thinking he was big headed and macho, and he said “I know.” And she’s shocked and confused, and he says. “I know you didn’t want to like me at first.”
Luke clocked her extreme hatred of change immediately. He recognized that his joining of the team immediately after her best friend left was a big change for her, and even without knowing her well at all, figured out that she needed space and time to deal with it. So he let her. He even made it easier on her by playing into it at certain points. He let her tease him and occasionally be genuinely mean, because he knew that this was her way of dealing with the change.
Luke is incredibly perceptive and also ridiculously kind. It's who he is with everyone, but it is most blatantly obvious with Penelope. Again, he barely knew her, and this was a huge change for him too. But he figured her out immediately and then made a conscious decision to let her do what she needed to do.
He does this repeatedly throughout the entire time that they have known one another. Even after they get to know each other and her teasing loses it’s genuine edge, he still lets her take out her stress on him. In the episode “Saturday”, Garcia is incredibly stressed out, and she snaps at him for saying something that made complete sense (“Shut up shut up! Just because you look like that doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want with this part of your face”) and he just laughs it off. At the end of the episode, when she thanks him for going out of his way to help, she purposely makes it seem like it had nothing to do with her, because acknowledging that Luke cares enough about her to do that would be too much in that moment. Again, Luke lets her. It’s very clear that he knows what she’s doing, but he doesn’t correct her.
Even when other people point it out, he plays it off. When JJ asks “What did you do to her?” he laughs and brushes it off.
We know that Luke doesn’t love when Penelope is mean to him because in the episode where he’s not allowed out in the field, Emily tells him that he has to work the case with Garcia, and he grins. He’s clearly happy with that, but then Penelope finds out, and reacts by saying “Ugh, fine” and making a face at him, and his smile immediately drops. He gives Emily a sarcastic “thanks” and makes a face of his own. So we know he doesn’t love it when her teasing trips into meaner territory, but he always, always, just lets her do it.
Luke is also the first person to bring up the toll that the job takes on her. He’s the one that goes to her office in the episode with the snuff films, already planning on watching it himself to get what they need. And when Garcia says that he doesn’t need to, that she already did it, he’s immediately concerned. He points out that she doesn’t even look at crime scene photos, something that everyone knew, but had never brought up before.
Everyone else loves Penelope, and they’re aware that she’s more sensitive to the gore of their job than they are, but they never say anything about it. Luke is the first to bring it up, and he asks her if she’s okay. When she brushes it off, and makes it clear that she doesn’t want to talk about it, it is extremely obvious that he’s concerned about that response, but he bites his tongue and once again, he lets her.
Specifically with that moment, we know he’s concerned. It would make him feel better to talk to her about it and actually make things better, but to Luke it doesn’t matter that talking to her about it and helping her feel better would ease his concern. That’s not what she wants in the moment, so he lets her get away with it.
Luke is constantly tracking how Garcia is feeling and reacting accordingly. For example, he brings her a little cat figurine when she's been upset because he knows that it will cheer her up.
At the start of the season, he feels guilty going to Penelope for help when he knows how good it’s been for her to not be involved, but they quite literally had no choice. He apologizes repeatedly for having to ask, he distracts her from the stress by telling her that she’s been totally irreplaceable at the BAU, he apologizes to her for Rossi’s behavior, and he is explicit in his gratitude for her help and tells her that she’s the best, because she needs to hear it.
He encourages her to tell Emily her idea about Green, he’s incredibly supportive of her and pushes when she needs it. He is completely just her cheerleader in that scene, and he keeps an incredibly close eye on her the whole time they’re working together in that episode.
When she’s on a conference call with the team, he’s the one that comments on the noise in the background and expresses his concern for her. He’s the one that asks about it because he wants to know what’s going on with her and make sure that she’s okay.
Even with the date, Luke is the one going out of his way to make conversation. It’s clearly awkward, but he was trying so hard. He started every little mini conversation, and he didn’t say anything about it not going well, not until she did. Even his agreement with her when she says that it feels clunky feels like they're having two different conversations. He's clearly relieved that that they're in agreement that it's awkward, but the next thing that he says is "but why? I mean, it's not like this when we're at work." Not that he doesn't have feelings for her, not that dating is a bad idea, he's wondering why they're so awkward on this date. He is saying that they're able to hangout and have fun with each other usually, so why is it different now? But Penelope goes a completely different route.
She says "I find it very hard to have a conversation with you when I am not dunking on you." (which is a mean thing to say considering they've had plenty of serious conversations) Luke's face completely changes. The warmth he'd had from a moment ago fades and he's literally speechless for a moment and then the only response he has is a half-hearted "That is cold." which should have been a joke, but he doesn't laugh. And then as Penelope is saying "With us, there absolutely is something there, but not that" he is shaking his head and he's no longer smiling. If he were shaking his head to agree with her, there would still be some remnants of relief on his face, but he just looks sad. After she says that she knows his person is out there, he looks down at the table, shakes his head, and when he looks back up, he looks completely dejected and asks "Where?" almost helplessly. His voice and the way he looks are both completely lost. Even his small laugh lands as pain instead of humor.
He doesn't add anything at all to that whole part of the conversation. He doesn't agree with her, he doesn't share his own feelings, he just lets her do all the talking. When she says “now that I know you’re not trying to get me drunk” he doesn’t become defensive and insist that that’s not what was happening and he would never do that, even though we all know that Luke Alvez is not that guy and he would have been well within his rights to take offense to that comment. He lets her say it, because she needs to say something to get herself back on solid ground, and he knows this about her, so he lets her get away with it. Again. He kind of huffs out a weak laugh, and then, in a voice that is completely different to how he was speaking to her before all of that, this one much softer and subdued, he says "Well okay, whatever it takes." He's smiling, but it doesn't reach his eyes even a little, but Garcia is grinning and she giggles.
The moment where she says that she can't talk to him without making fun of him also makes his reaction in episode 8 to her not teasing him when there was a perfect opportunity especially notable. He knows because of her own admission that she is at her most comfortable around him when she’s making fun of him, and so he is immediately caught off guard when she is nice and doesn’t take the opportunity to dunk on him.
Luke is always paying attention to Penelope. To what she says, what she wants, what she needs. He goes out of his way all the time to cater to it. He puts himself aside for her every. single. time.
On the plane when she gets upset about Tyler, we know Luke is upset with her, but he reaches out and physically offers her comfort anyways. In the forrest he’s more focused on her and making sure that she is okay than he is on finding Rossi or Green. He is at her side the entire time, only a few steps behind her when they do find Green.
All of this isn’t to say that Penelope is a bad person, I don’t think she is. I think that she’s been incredibly selfish this season, and I don’t think that this characterization of her is a good way to go, but I don't think Penelope Garcia is actually a bad person.
The thing with Luke, though is that they’ve taken her previous attitude towards him and pushed it beyond what it ever actually was. Yes, Penelope loves to tease him, but she's had plenty of genuine moments with him as well, which is why the line from the date makes no sense and was even a little cruel in the context of the larger picture. We know that Penelope thinks Luke is wonderful, she says it on the date, but I think she takes him for granted. He does all of these things for her, and sure a lot of them are unspoken and subtle, but they still make a huge difference. I don’t know if she doesn’t notice or if she’s just never thought about it, but she takes all of it, everything he is for her, everything he does, completely for granted.
Penelope has the capacity to be wonderful right back to Luke. She’s this incredibly kind person with a huge heart. All of her emotions are always so big. She cares so much about everything and everyone. She loves so deeply and so fully. And that’s what really gets me about all of this, because Penelope is that way about everyone else, but Luke is that way about her. She puts that care and that heart out into the world with so much intensity, but Luke puts that care and heart into her. If she would only recognize it, see it for what it is, see how wonderful and rare it is to find someone who treats you like that. Someone who loves you so much that he is willing to put everything to the side for you, to go out of his way for you over and over and over again, without expecting anything in return. Because he doesn't ever ask her for anything more than what she is willing to give.
And that's what would make Luke and Penelope so insanely wonderful. If she would just treat him the way that he treats her, then it wouldn't be so one sided. The worst part is that Penelope Garcia is more than capable of putting just as much care and love into Luke as he does for her.
But she doesn’t. And I can’t for the life of me understand why.
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