Really interested in your thoughts (and anyone else’s who wants to chime in) on this. I’ve been thinking a lot about Rio setting Beth up throughout season two. Was there any indication that he was doing it in the post bathroom hookup, pre bedroom sex stretch? He emptied the storage unit after the bathroom, and that can be read in so many ways, but do you think part of it was him changing his mind and not wanting her to take the fall when something personal was going on between them?
Personally, no, I don’t think so. I think his feelings were growing for her, but he felt conflicted about that—and I think we saw that across a lot of his behavior, from inserting himself into the Boland Motors scheme to flaunting Dylan to being unable to face her when returning the dubby, not to mention that I don’t think he planned at all to get the dubby in the first place. I really do think Rio was surprised by how hard he was falling for Beth—I do think we see the moment he actually fully realizes it after that first, soft, tentative kiss in the bedroom where he opens his eyes and just takes her in before breaking completely—and sorting through what that meant in terms of his business was messy and complicated, especially when it was competing against his nature. For instance, I think he knew much more clearly how he felt about her in season 4, but that didn’t stop him from treating her badly, even when it was against his own self-interest, from stealing her campaign money to kidnapping and threatening to harm Annie.
More specifically, though, I do feel like we saw that he was still setting her up to take the fall across season 2, most blatantly with the pills operation that he runs through her cars. I do think the money he gave her was always a bit of a trick and he was planning to insert himself into whatever scheme she came up with irregardless of them sleeping together, but I think the pills was something he thought up after the bathroom break. The show was very deliberate in having Beth voice that it was her name on the door—meaning that she carried all of the risk while Rio was safe in the shadows. Ultimately, that did come to fruition and Beth lost her husband’s family business (and put a mark on the Boland name which was important in the downfall of Boland Bubbles as well, as Dave doggedly went after Dean because of the record).
I don’t think Rio was intentionally trying to orchestrate a situation where Beth did take the fall, but he deftly created a situation where if their scheme fell apart, she was the face and it would be her in cuffs, not him. They repeat this beat when he forces her to be the Banker in season 4, and he deliberately lays out that this is a system he finds both effective and beneficial when Dean is arrested as well.
In Rio’s eyes, too, it’s a quite fair arrangement after Beth had purposefully gotten him arrested. Despite the fact that he said they were good after he shot Dean, it seemed he wasn’t quite done punishing her, even if part of that may have been motivated by a desire to keep her in his orbit as well.
Do you think Beth was actually jealous or do you think she just felt embarrassed/angry ?
I think she was absolutely embarrassed and angry in the car, particularly because Annie and Ruby were there to witness it knowing that they'd just slept together, but also because I think it tapped into the humiliation she felt in 2.05 realizing—again with an audience—that Dean had had many affairs and that it was just about "a warm body."
But I think she was jealous, too. When she's with Rio, he makes her feel special. While I don't think she ever quite grasps the full extent or significance of it, I do think she even recognizes that he makes exceptions for her and that she is special and that he has real feelings for her (2.12 confirms this when he actually gets her riled up enough to demand whether she's actually just work, which Beth would never do if she wasn't confident that she meant more than that to him).
Because Rio makes her feel special, though, giving her hyper-focused and intense attention, valuing her ideas, and giving her every indication that he's attracted to her (and after 2.04, that he's interested in sleeping with her again through blatant flirting and innuendo) I suspect she thought she was the only one. Couple that with Beth's naivete about relationships (considering the only one she's been is started when she was fifteen) her compartmentalization, I simply don't think Beth considered Rio's life and relationships outside of what she knew about him.
Like, she's introduced to Marcus, but we get no insight into her wondering about who his mother might be or what the state of Rio's relationship with her is until she spies them together in 2.11 (another place where I think she's jealous).
On top of that, I think Ruby correctly clocked that she was jealous when she suggested stealing the pills was a reaction to seeing Rio with Dylan rather than about wanting a cut. Beth trying to insist, "You think I care who he sleeps with?" is one of her worse attempts at lying, haha, and Annie even tells her to drop it because she's not convincing anybody, so I do think the writer's wanted us to believe she was jealous too.
It's pretty interesting when you put it in context with how she felt about Dean's affairs, where it doesn't really seem jealousy factored in at all, even if she was hurt.
Do you think beth and dean will more Intimate scenes? Because I hope not I don't want to see that again 🤢
I think it can’t be ruled out since they are married and Beth is currently fighting to save their marriage, however, I will say that the intimate scenes have always served a narrative purpose so I don’t think we’re about to get them “just because.” I also think that we have gotten 4 intimate scenes in 38 episodes and they have all been in direct response to Rio:
Beth sleeps with him in 2.06 after being turned on by Rio and she imagines Rio during the encounter. Narrative purpose: Contrast the connection between Beth and Dean with Beth and Rio; show Dean discovering the “affair” to set up Dean hiring the baby hitmen.
Beth tried to use Dean to get pregnant in 3.03 after lying to Rio to spare her life. Narrative purpose: Sets up that Dean is still tempted to cheat even when Beth and Dean are at their “best,” showing Dean hasn’t grown that much. Shows the extent of Beth’s desperation and how emotionally dishonest Beth is with Dean and how she will use him for her own purposes.
Dean kisses Beth in 3.04 right after telling her “we were so good with [Rio] gone.” Narrative purpose: Shows that Dean fundamentally misunderstands his relationship with Beth and the impact Rio has on that relationship; contrasts against the money-making scene with Rio showing there’s more spark in her antagonistic relationship than in her marriage; sets up Dean’s jealousy being a major issue in season 3
Beth attempts to seduce Dean in 3.07 after successfully stealing from Rio; Dean explicitly expresses surprise that she’s initiating sex now that Rio is back. Narrative purpose: Shows Beth enjoying the cat and mouse game that she and Rio used to play which sets up her attempt to play off his attraction to her in 3.08; parallel shots call back to 2.04 mirror shots in the bathroom; costuming in the robe calls back to 2.09, which ultimately compares to 2.06 as her connection and dynamic with Rio still does more to turn her on than her own husband.
Even the more minor forms of intimacy have been connected to Rio. Beth reached for Dean and seeks comfort in a hug after shooting Rio in 2.13, tear-stained and numb, showing how she’d been affected by the event and setting up that Dean offers her a sense of security, stability, and familiarity in the wake of that trauma. Beth breaks down sobbing and Dean hugs her in 3.06 after Beth has to dig up Lucy’s body in order to save Max, and even when she and Rio are at their lowest point, Beth still doesn’t confide in Dean about what’s really going on. When Dean snuggles against Beth at the end of 4.02, it’s right before he’s arrested for Beth’s crimes that she’s secretly committing with Rio.
So while I think it’s a possibility that we see it again, I think it will continue to fit into a pattern of revealing the degradation of Beth and Dean’s relationship at the same time that it demonstrates how present Rio is in Beth’s thoughts.
Completely random question. Do you think there’s any symbolism in the fact that Rio‘s S3 gun is a total basic bitch piece, in comparison to his notorious gold gun? He upgraded his car, got his nose pierced, but his gun is significantly less flashy. First I wondered if it’s because it’s smaller and has less kickback, seeing as he was shot in his right shoulder. But maybe it’s a case of bruised ego, bc his gold one always struck me as a bit of a status symbol and then he was shot with it🤷🏽♀️
Okay, SO, this question completely stumped me and I had to mull it over with @mego42 and she’s responsible for, like, 95% of these ideas.
THE GOLDEN GUN
The gold gun was a flashy, attention-drawing status symbol that was used as a sort of shorthand in Rio’s introduction. Combined with how he surprised Beth by showing up at her house and delighted in making a show of it, the gun represents the part of Rio that’s flashy, dramatic, and likes luxury. Gold is symbolic of wealth, success, and status, i.e. Rio in a nutshell. It’s also strongly associated with royalty, which is apt since Rio is “the King.”
The golden gun is fairly prevalent throughout season 1. It’s sitting beside him, untouched, when Beth enters the house in the pilot. He casually uses it to gesture around like it's an extension of him. It sits beside him as a reminder of his threat in 1.02 at Ruby’s diner (but interestingly, it never makes an appearance in the scene where they’re actually set to kill the girls—instead, it’s Mick’s gun). He flashes it to remind Beth of its presence at Kenny’s birthday, puts it to her head in 1.07, and, of course, slides it across the table and dares Beth to shoot him in 1.10. Essentially, in season 1, the gun has power over Beth, despite the fact that we never actually see it used.
In season 2, things begin to shift (and we begin to see the gun less—seeing it only at the beginning, the midpoint, and at the end). In 2.01, Rio takes the gun back from Beth when she fails, unable to use it—and then he re-establishes his power at his weakest point (after the arrest) by using it to shoot Dean.
Theoretically, the gun is present in a lot more scenes that we don’t have access to—it likely had a role in Rio teaching Beth how to shoot (though she likely learned to shoot on the pearl-handled gun that Rio loaned her to take care of Boomer), it may have featured in both the sex scenes in 2.04 and 2.09 (since it’s implied Rio usually has it on him), and it was likely utilized in the drug den when he retrieved the dubby in 2.07. But mostly, we don’t see it—at least until 2.06, when Beth steals the pills and Rio shows up in her backyard and it hangs, impotent, between his legs.
He quickly proves Beth right—that he won’t hurt her—when he strides halfway across the lawn and the gun hangs loosely by his side while his other, free hand twitches in agitation. It’s only when he’s unable to get Beth to budge and answer his question that he finally tries to use it to remind her of his power—but it doesn’t matter; Beth had already established prior to this scene in her conversation with Annie and Ruby that she wasn’t afraid of the gun (and by extension, of Rio). Rio can’t even maintain the facade within the scene; when Beth challenges him and reiterates his need for her, Rio seems to subconsciously lower the gun even while he’s glaring at her, jaw working, and telling her that she isn’t special:
He then hides the gun as soon as Dean and Emma come out, and Beth handwaves away its use against her, excusing its use as Rio being “upset.” Later, in their negotiation scene, Rio doesn’t use the gun at all, and Beth strongarms 50% of Rio’s profits. I think from this point on, Rio knows he can’t use it against Beth and so he doesn’t even try—to do so would only be to underscore its ineffectiveness.
We next see it in 2.13 when Rio hands Beth his own gun, as @elixir448 points out—pointing towards himself—and tells her to shoot Turner. It’s interesting that Rio gives Beth his own gun in this moment, particularly as the whole seems to have been planned in advance and he likely had time to procure another gun for her to use. I’m not entirely sure of his motive here on a character-level as opposed to a show-level (where it becomes important that he’s betrayed by his own gun).
@mego42 pointed out that there’s a “layer of artifice” between Beth and Rio throughout season 2, and that the gold gun has a role in that. It’s a flashy distraction piece and its bark is bigger than its bite, as shown in 2.06. Perhaps Rio wanted to remind Beth of the gun’s power (and his power over her) by forcing her to make this move before she was ready with his own piece. Either way, the artifice falls away and the gun does become powerful again—only its when Beth recognizes the ways that Rio has manipulated her throughout the season and instead turns it on him instead of Turner, effectively upending their power dynamic wherein Rio is the one in control all of the time.
The scene ends, of course, with Rio bleeding out on the floor and Turner telling Beth “gimme the gun,” leaving Turner with all the power.
That leads us to the silver gun.
THE SILVER GUN
Season 3 starts out with Turner effectively “in control” of Rio. He’s locked up in a hotel room unable to see his family and unable to run his business. Still, though, Rio’s actually the one with the power, aptly summed up in Turner’s description of the “tank killer” model plane Rio’s building:
Despite the fact that Rio’s down an appendage, he’s calling the shots: he’s got Turner taking care of his competition and he’s organized a successful hit on Turner (and other FBI members) behind-the-scenes—theoretically without getting his own hands dirty. He walks away scot-free, but he still doesn’t have his gun, which was last seen in Turner’s possession.
Instead, he gets this rather basic silver piece...
...which Beth can’t take her eyes off of:
Suddenly, Rio’s gun has power again, even though he’s less physically aggressive with it than he was in both seasons 1 and 2. It’s pointing at her, sure, but he’s not touching her and his finger isn’t even on the trigger.
But unlike in 2.06, Beth immediately capitulates and gives Rio what he wants—even when he takes his hand off the gun entirely.
It’s not until Rio explicitly tells her that he needs her alive that Beth releases a breath and relaxes.
But why the switch from such an ostentatious piece to a plain one?
Meg’s theory is—and I agree with her—that replacing the golden gun with another flashy gun would be Rio admitting that Beth (and Turner) effectively took something that was important to him. Instead, Rio gets a gun that doesn’t communicate anything besides the power of a gun. The artifice is stripped away, and what’s left is the raw truth. It’s a gun with a real capacity for violence—with no need for flashiness to underscore that message.
THE G-WAGON
Rio does however choose to invest in a different status symbol: the $130K sharp-edged and domineering Mercedes G-Wagen, leveling up from the more subtle, sleek, and classy Cadillac—a somewhat odd move because while Rio has to replace the gun, theoretically the Caddy should still be in his possession and usable. The car switch, however, is one of the first things that Rio does upon his release from the hotel room. He has it before he even visits his son.
My theory is that the G-Wagon is Rio’s way of flaunting his financial security, prior success, and strength. Basically, it says that although he’s been out of the game for two months and at his most vulnerable, he’s been minimally impacted—he can still afford to lay down all this money for something unnecessary. It may even be a form of overcompensating, camouflaging that he is hurting (as he does later tell Beth that he has debts—although what exactly those debts are is still currently unclear).
I think it’s notable, too, that the G-Wagon isn’t really a part of his business. The car is a loud statement piece (and maybe the bling of the nose ring is too) but I do think that professionally, he’s lying lower than he is personally—and the G-Wagon does seem to be used in his personal life, considering we do see him use it to drive to Rhea’s and see Marcus.
THE BAR
Which brings me to the bar. I remember it being a point of conversation that Rio’s bar was a rather boring set and that it didn’t even necessarily seem to match Rio’s aesthetic. It’s small, fairly plain, and there’s nothing particularly distinguishable about it.
Obviously, the bar is one of Rio’s legitimate incoming streams of money, but coupled with the fact that Rio’s washing cash through car washes and relying heavily on Beth’s small counterfeiting operation, I think it’s a fairly safe assumption that Rio is lying low professionally—or at least lower than he was. This is likely the effects of his arrest and also the fact that he’s probably not trying to draw too much attention to himself after Turner’s hit and his orchestration of taking out the rival gangs. Although both things are beneficial to Rio getting back on top, he explicitly tells us that he has debts (that he’s struggling to pay) and we can assume he’s still feeling the effects of the shooting (as I’ve mentioned before, I think Rio is less physically imposing and that his movements are less dynamic and fluid than they were in seasons 1 and 2).
Basically, although Rio is more dangerous to Beth and while he is still powerful, he’s behaving a bit more carefully about exhibiting and demonstrating that power to the larger crime world. His status was likely affected by his arrest, trial, and extended absence, so he’s still vulnerable and he needs to be careful about the moves he makes.
I think the gun and the bar show the ways that he’s making some different moves professionally, while the G-Wagon shows that he’s not entirely giving up demonstrating his status.
They led us to believe Beth thought she was a side chick, but is it possible Rio thought he was a side guy too? It’s not like he knows about Beth and deans divorce.
Yeah, I do! But I think Rio knew a lot more about Beth’s romantic situation than Beth knew about his, though, and I think that made a big impact on the difference of their reactions?
Rio knew that the first time they had sex, Beth’s husband was waiting outside. He also knew that she chose to have sex with him despite the fact that he shot and nearly killed that same husband. On top of that, he also knew that she didn’t want Dean to know that they slept together, and Rio made a conscious choice to bite his tongue.
When they slept together a second time, Rio knew that Dean had taken the kids (with the implication being that he had left her too) and he was right in understanding the emotional status of Beth and Dean’s marriage (dead), but he didn’t know about Beth’s bargain to give up Rio and crime to get the kids (and Dean) back in the house. He didn’t know the nuances of that decision, and I think that was part of what made Beth’s dumping of him so brutal—he thought Beth had used him and then taken back her husband, and I always take his scoff in 2.06 when Dean comes out of the house to be partly motivated by Rio’s annoyance that she’s still with Dean. Rio really doesn’t know how much he knows about Beth and Dean’s marriage—he knows that marriage is broken, but he doesn’t know how or why. He can only guess the true reasons Beth has really stayed with Dean this long, you know?
But he still knows more than Beth.
Beth doesn’t know if Rio was ever married to Rhea or not. And she didn’t know—but I think 2.06 confirmed—that she assumed that he was single and completely unattached when she invited him into the bathroom. I think it was naive, but I think that makes sense because Beth’s relationship experience is really, really limited. She doesn’t have a comparison point. Beth has no ex-boyfriends, no flings, no nothing. She, Annie, and Ruby all got married young, and casual dating doesn’t seem like something Beth would understand. Even Annie is not a casual dater—she gets together with someone easily, but she falls fast and hard and seems to commit early too.
She never got to see a comparison point in terms of how he behaved with other women, either. I think that’s the reason Beth finds Dylan so shocking. In her mind, Rio’s attention has always been so intense—he literally tunnel visions to Beth whenever he’s around her, and I think it made her feel that she was special and unique. In seeing Rio with Dylan, she learned that she wasn’t, but she also learned that Rio was different around another woman... open, playful, warm.
To me, both of those realities being revealed to her at all, let alone in front of Annie and Ruby, are the reasons that Beth takes being a “side piece” so much harder than Rio might’ve.
Rio knew she was married, but he also knew she chose Rio over Dean (at least at first).
Beth knew nothing, made assumptions about how important their relationship was to him based on how important it was to her, and then discovered she was wrong.
Thank you so much for talking about the ways Beth's character is stretched thin. I'm a mom, so I see how she loves her children unconditionally. Being a mother of one is hard, but being a mother of four (with no help from anyone) is fucking exhausting and overwhelming. It's easy to imagine what it's like to care for kids and how you'll do it differently, but when reality hits, it's the hardest job in the world. If you know a mom, ask her how you can help her, believe me, they all need it.
Not comparable at ALL, but I find just spending a week with my nieces exhausting! Catering to someone else’s whims, needs, and wants all day makes me bone-tired—and I have help and a time limit and it’s for fun. The thought of parenthood is so daunting just because of that extremely limited experience.
Beth not only has that multiplied with the number of children she has, but also in the number of activities she has them signed up for. Managing the household, the cleaning, the cooking, the schedules, and the emotional needs of everyone in the family—what she was doing pre-pilot was labor, and Dean was not only emotionally disinvested in performing that labor, he was also disinterested in appreciating or noticing it. When Beth thought she was 30 seconds away from being arrested, she realized Dean was not only not equipped to take care of his children, he was not equipped to take care of their house. He didn’t even know the day-to-day goings-on in it.
One of the most impactful Beth/Dean scenes for me is when Beth comes home after working all day to a messy house—something Dean has never come home to I’d argue in his entire life. Dean then complains about how hard everything was, how he felt like he was being tugged in ten different directions, and he says, “It’s exhausting!” And Beth just yells, “YEAH!” I love that scene so much and Christina conveys so much loaded history and emotion in that single word, it destroys me every time. The fact that it’s followed up with Dean basically having his own disassociative moment where the kids run circles around him in a montage scene and that he then follows that up with an immediate return to a lack of interest in helping, supporting, or emotionally connecting with his wife when their dynamic flips back to “normal” in 2.10 is literally infuriating. He knows what it’s like and he just... doesn’t care.
I have so much empathy for Beth because of how long she’s been belittled and turned invisible in her own home. It absolutely wrecks me.
But do you think RIo knows why Beth stole the pills in the first place? Did she do it bc he insulter her (stay in your lane), wouldn't tell her anything, or bc of Dyland. Or was she really just curious and it didn't have to do with any of that?
Ooh, that’s a great question!
I’m inclined to think that he recognizes that it’s a combo of all three, but that he might be more laser-focused on the professional reasons than the personal? One, I think Rio might be reticent to admit just how badly his plan backfired—it did not get Beth jealous and back into bed like he wanted, it actually drove her farther away from him and made her double down on not acknowledging that anything had happened between them. I think Beth actually does a pretty good job in her scenes with Rio to not reveal what she knows or what she thinks about what she saw in the parking lot with Dylan. I also think that Rio might poke that bruise a bit if he saw a clear opportunity to do so?
2.06 is such a fascinating episode because it’s one of the earlier standout episodes where everything happening between them is distinctly personal, but they’re trying so hard to act like it’s just business. In my mind, Rio only gives Beth the errand to make her jealous. Beth only steals the pills because she’s jealous. Rio tries to threaten her and fire her but frames it like he’s dumping her (“I think this thing between me and you has run its course”) and he’s unable to pull the trigger. He scoffs and says “okay” when her husband shows up like he’s irritated at the idea that they’re still playing house. The 50/50 deal that Beth wrangles from Rio only works because he has feelings for her and treats her differently than he’d treat anyone else. Still, they acknowledge nothing—the closest we get is Rio repositioning Beth for desk sex, something that I think he threw out only to rattle her, because I suspect he knew before he even said that it that the answer was going to be a definitive no.
There's so many theories about the Dylan scene. What I gather tho, is that Rio definitely knew Beth was watching, right? I mean they were mere minutes apart in the parking lot. He must of known she was there, also her mom van is pretty known. I imagine when he pulled up, he spotted her van.
I always assume he knew, yes. I think he’s clocked how curious Beth is about him, and he knew that by telling her to stay in her “lil lane” that she would do the exact opposite. The fact that he asked her to deliver one car (while he would presumably take care of the rest) makes me think he had a special purpose for that errand. Also, I think if Rio really intended Beth and Dylan not to cross paths at all, he wouldn’t have arranged it so that the time she dropped off and the time that he picked up were so close together.
