Back to watching TFR which always takes me so long because I keep rewinding it to watch the way Ethan gazes at Benji.
Before he goes into that box, he’s the way with Benji he is on DR, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, rarely facing him directly - all that journey to Luther they don’t seem to talk.
And I feel this is Ethan feeling it’s best to keep himself as separate and disconnected from Benji as possible, even though he loves him, as the events and following trauma of fallout show he only bring Benji pain.
(In Trafalgar square although he seems to sense Benji before he sees him, and turns to him, it’s Benji who goes up to meet him and pulls him onto a hug which Ethan collapses into)
But once he’s out of the box - the second he’s out of it - Ethan is so much different - grasping at Benji and staring at him and watching him every moment he’s is with him. It’s like all the barriers he put up in his mind against being Benji have fallen away and all at once he is fully acknowledging to himself that not only he is deeply in love with Benji but the best thing for both of them is for them to be together.
And yet this is also the first time since Vienna that they will be separated on this mission.
Ethan holding Benji’s hand as he takes that key, as he stares at Benji in that moment, is Ethan finally , after all this time, fully admitting to himself that he loves Benji deeply, wholly, completely - and yet now he has to leave him. He knows himself and his love for Benji fully, just at the moment they have to part.
And - and - and - that last touch - he’s trying to convey it all to Benji in that last moment - he’s trying to say to Benji - in that lingering look as he touches Benji’s hand - I love you, I love you, I know I love you, stay alive for me, I’ll try to come back to you - all he’s trying to say in a touch and a look.
How heartbreaking is that?
(And this will keep happening in MI8 - Ethan now fully aware of how much he loves and needs Benji at yet constantly being separated from him - it’s not him on the ice, he sends him away in the vault and then Benji sends him away. Every moment is Ethan desperately trying to get back to Benji or keep Benji safe and yet every moment that goal is thwarted)
(Final reckoning can mean bill, as well. The final tally. The final cost. Perhaps the final cost of Ethan pushing away his love for Benji all these years is Ethan losing Benji at the very moment of realisation…)
Anyway, I now have have to watch the key handover in slow motion another forty times before I can move onto the rest of the movie
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