#2.12 analysis

[foxmagpie]

Do you think Rio was starting to fall for Beth? Even after the events of 2x13 you think those feelings are still there? What about Beth?

I 100% firmly believe Rio had fallen for Beth by the end of S2—that it was a slow progression from curiosity to attraction to genuine interest to genuine feelings, and I think it could best be summed up by the Pride and Prejudice quote where Elizabeth asks Darcy how he could have ever fallen in love with her and he answers, “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation …  I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

I think everyone has slightly different moments that they put on the chart for Rio’s deepening feelings for Beth, and they’re all valid.

These are the big ones for me:

1x02 - Beth’s speech that convinces him not to kill her and the girls - This is the moment where she piques Rio’s interest. I think he noticed her beauty in 1x01, but I think he pegged her as one type of way, and suddenly she showed him she was a different type of way. She was bold enough to stand up to him, and she came up with a fair argument on the spot despite the high stakes. She impressed him, period, and I don’t think he’s easily impressed. 

1x03 - Leaving him the pearls - I think he came to her house expecting a booty call, and was surprised again that he was wrong about her. I’m sure he’d bedded more than a few women that were intrigued and attracted to the dangerous vibe he puts out (even if it was far outside their normal “type”), what with the tattoo and the gun and the swagger, and I think he correctly clocked that Beth was attracted to him, even at this point, but then she wants in? She got a taste of crime and liked it? I think discovering this, combined with the fact that he might have thought he was about to hook up with her, probably made him very interested in it happening somewhere down the line. I think this is the moment that sets up other moments where he lets her off the hook when he shouldn’t—he wants to see it play out. 

1x04 - “We’re not here to try, we’re here to win, bitch” - I think this is where he lets his interest in her be known a little more? I mean, he sneaks in through her bedroom, rifles through her stuff, asks about the husband he clearly knows is her husband, challenges her to admit he’s not good at his job, and then gives her that look when she asks what he wants. Then she surprises him (AGAIN!) by coming up with a legitimately good idea! She’s smart! She might actually be kinda good at this, and she’s actively chasing after it! She’s a bit goofy in the delivery, but she’s trying to show him that she’s in. But he still can’t figure her out, exactly, and he likes that, which is why he asks her point blank what she’s doing with someone like him the very next episode, and puts the idea into her head of fucking him. I think at this point he’s still just curious and attracted and wants to bone her, but he wants it enough that he sort of forgives her panicking and backtracking immediately after asking to be let in? And while he threatens her, he doesn’t harm her when he thinks she’s stolen from him?

1x06 - “Just give me a name.” “Beth Boland.” - I think this is the moment where he moves from being more amused by her to more impressed by her. She’s the leader of her crew. She takes responsibility for her mistakes. He gives her advice. He wants to set her up for success in this world. She ignores it—because she likes doing things her own way. He doesn’t like it, but I think he respects her tenacity—especially when she tells him never to point a gun at her again? Like, the audacity? Did she just forget who he is? He just leans against his car and watches her drive away and just uuuuuuugh. Yep. He’s into her. So he spends a little more time with her and meets her alone in cafés and tells her she’s pretty.

1x09 - “What you and me had is done. Over.” - I mean, the language. He could’ve said “you’re fired,” “you’re out,” “I don’t need you,” “I’m done with you,” but no. What you and me had? Over? There’s an “us” there. There’s an avoidance of naming what, exactly, they had. It’s break-up language—and it’s more than a break-up than we get in 2x09, honestly. And I’m curious whether this really would’ve been the end if Beth hadn’t tried to get him arrested, because I think this is sort of a heat-of-the-moment breakup? The feds have been breathing down his neck, he had to shut down all operations, and he had a kid turn. He just had to kill that kid, one of his own. He’s had a week. He means it when he says he doesn’t need her bitch-ass drama. He thought she was up for it, and she’s cracking here, and I think it frustrates him because he expected more from her? 

2x01/2x02- The touching!!! - I mean. He’s got legitimate feelings by this point, right? Even if he’s not really engaging in them? He would kill her otherwise, I think. He just killed Eddie for talking to the cops—she set him up for the cops. She actually got him arrested! But I think more than anything, this plan just shows him that she’s bold enough and crazy enough to match him. She’s not on his level, but she could be, someday. He touches her face, because he can, and sees that she lets him. Oh, sure, it’s performative. It’s show for Dean, it’s manipulating her, but he’s also escalating in the ways he’s touching her. He knows he’s got her feeling all sorts of ways, too. He reveals to her that he has a kid, and that’s manipulative, too, but he wouldn’t do this with just anyone. I think he knows the effect it will have on her. Then, when she fails to kill Boomer, I don’t think he’s actually that surprised—she couldn’t pull the trigger on him all that long ago, and he’s good at reading people. I sort of headcanon that he showed up at her house in 2x02 to kill her, but couldn’t. He touches her face again. He’s soft for her, and he knows it, even if he wouldn’t admit it out loud. He promises to teach her because he wants to bring her more into his world. 

2x04 - Bar Bathroom - He believes she did it, that she crossed over, that she got her hands dirty, that she can’t leave his world, and he’s excited. Then she initiates sex? While on a date with her husband? In public? I’ve talked about it a lot, but this is a huge shift for him. He gets openly jealous, destructive, and starts escalating in trying to maintain her total focus and attention. He flirts, but it’s more lighthearted than it was before—he’s not trying to get her off-kilter, he’s trying to get her to come closer. He’s still too into “the game” to just outright invite her into bed again, but he tries so very hard. He’s got it bad. 

2x06 - “You know, I think this thing with me and you has run its course, yeah?” and “Oh, you think you’re special, huh?” - Yes? She does? She knows he won’t kill her? He knows he won’t kill her? He knows that it’s true, that she is special, which is exactly why he says it! He wants her to believe that she’s not because she’s got him all messed up. Again, he uses break-up language her. “This thing with me and you”? “Run its course”? What thing, Rio? You think this is how he fires his boys??? No fucking way. Then she bests him in the 50/50 deal and he’s pissed, but fuck is he turned on. I 100% believe she drives him fucking crazy but he could never fall so deeply for anyone that didn’t challenge him on that level.

2x07 - The Dubby - Dude knew it was gonna fuck up some things professionally, did it anyway. This reminds me so much of Darcy paying off Wickham for Lydia. It doesn’t benefit Rio at all. He doesn’t even really want the credit. He was soft with her the very next episode in 2x08, offered to help her—for free—deal with her problems. Laughed with her. Teased her. I still think he was avoiding how genuine his feelings had become (I mean, there’s a reason he avoids giving her the dubby in person) but I think he knew, at this point, that she was different, and he stopped denying the feelings. 

2x09 - The kiss - Now it wasn’t just that he stopped denying it, he had to openly confront it. He stopped holding himself back here, and we saw that just in the kiss. He had to engage with the idea that maybe it was more for her, too. I think that sex was intense, and I 100% think he lets himself sink into the idea that they could have something real, in their own fucked up way. I don’t think he’s felt this way about anyone (ever, or for a very long time) and I think he comes to accept it, even if it’s outside of his comfort zone. He is so relaxed and so comfortable in her bed. And she dumps him by quitting. There’s no “you and me” or “what we had.” It’s “I’m done.” It’s “no more cash, no more pills.” It’s not about them at all, and I think that fucks him up a little (and is tied to his work comment later). 

2x11 - 20 questions - Rio is more impressed and amused that Beth broke into his house and learned his real name than anything else (I’m convinced it is his real name, not another alias). He allows her to follow him all day, which means, in his own way, he allows her in to his life and his privacy—even when they’re separated! I think he knows it’s not over between them, which is why he allows himself to play the game again and rile her up and make her want him—because it’ll be so much sweeter if she comes back to him. He’s willing to play the long game. 

2x12 - “That’s what I am? Work?” - There is so much good analysis of this scene from pynkhues and lunafeather, but this is resignation and frustration and exhaustion at her inability to commit one way or another. He has feelings for her, but he’s mad at her, he’s disappointed in her, and she’s dumped him (or rather, quit) but now is trying to demand that he name this thing between them in a way that she won’t? At this point, he’s made the gestures, done the flirting, and let himself be vulnerable with her in a way that she just has not reciprocated. I think he knows they’re not over, not really, but the only reason he wants to hurt her so badly in this scene is because she has hurt him.

Yes, I think those feelings are still there after 2x13. I think he had allowed himself to feel things for her that he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for anyone else, and I think they’re deep enough that they don’t just disappear, even under the circumstances. I don’t think Rio’s going to be engaging with those feelings or pursuing them, though. At this point, he’s been deeply betrayed by her, and that betrayal stings more because of how much he cares for her. (And at this stage, I do think it’s a deep, genuine care, and not love—I think they’d both have to have their walls down a little more and a little longer than the space that 2x09 allows to have it turn into love—but I think they’re on their way). 

Oh, he’ll fuck with her in S3. He might taunt her and flirt with her if he knows that it will make her off-balance, but I’m sure his walls are going back up and he’s cutting her off emotionally. I’m interested to see how they come up with a justification for him not killing her after this—because if they want me to believe that he’s a big, bad crime boss, that needs to be addressed, and I think based on where I expect Rio to be emotionally at the beginning of S3, I don’t think it’s going to be waved away easily by the suggestion that he still cares for her.

As for the Beth question, I think that’ll have to be explored in another ask, haha. This one got pretty long!

[foxmagpie]

It kinda breaks my heart that beth genuinely thinks she's nothing/just work to rio... Do you think she's always felt this way about herself?

Gosh, that’s a great question, anon. My mind kept flickering to it all day yesterday whenever I had a free moment.

I think if Beth really thought about it, she’d be able to figure out that she’s more than just work to Rio. It’s not like she isn’t smart, and there’s just too much evidence to contradict it. 

The problem is that Beth is an avoider and a compartmentalizer—when she doesn’t like something, she just doesn’t engage with it. Off the top of my head, I’m thinking of her pivoting the conversation to refrigerating the tuna sandwich when Dean tells her he loves her in the pilot, her not sharing details of her marriage or sex life with Annie and Ruby (Ruby doesn’t know that her and Dean haven’t slept together since the birth of their youngest until Annie drops the bomb, and it’s been years), and her refusing to engage in analyzing the cause of her behavior after seeing Dylan (even when Ruby accuses her of jealousy). 

So I don’t think Beth even considers that Rio’s still reacting to the way she’s treated him. She just believes him at face value, and she’s susceptible to taking him at his word because of how she’s presumably been treated by men in the past. 

We don’t really know anything about Beth and Annie’s parents, and we hardly know anything about her mother, but it’s significant that her father has been mentioned even less. 

In 2x08 when we learn about the girls’ past, we learn that Beth has to steal her mother’s car to get groceries because she’s “in bed.” Beth picking up the slack suggests that her father either won’t, can’t, or isn’t even there to be considered an option. I read him as absent because he doesn’t even come up when Beth and Annie explain the car thievery.

He could be dead, I suppose, but I don’t think so—that fact could have been conveniently dropped in within 2x08 (Ruby sits outside her own father’s funeral and isn’t able to go in, and we see Beth offer sympathy, not empathy). 

We get two other reference points for his character: the age gap between Beth and Annie suggests he was present for a significant portion of Beth’s young childhood (there’s about 10 years between them), and Annie mentions that Beth begged their parents (plural) for a piano, and that they dropped 3K on buying her one. This suggests that he wasn’t always absent, and that maybe there had been some good times in her childhood (at least financially). 

Personally, I think Beth’s mother had trouble with alcoholism, depression (maybe even postpartum), or some other mental illness, and that Beth’s father walked out when he didn’t want to handle it anymore. 

If that’s the case, it’s highly traumatizing to be abandoned by someone who is supposed to care for you no matter what. Parents are supposed to stand by their kids and support them through thick and thin—if he also left them behind knowing that they would not be properly cared for because their mother wasn’t able to do so? That’s enough to give anyone a complex. 

So yes, I do think Beth does struggle with doubting her inherent worthiness of love and care, particularly from men. This is what leads her to Dean, and Dean only compounds this feeling.

I believe Dean believes he loves Beth. He just doesn’t have a reference point for healthy love. His mother stuck with his father despite his repeated cheating because she was trying to provide Dean with a “happy childhood” (there’s not enough time in the world to explain why I vehemently disagree with this approach). 

Not only does he have a selfless mother who bent over backward to accommodate him (giving Dean unreasonable expectations for how other people in his life should behave to ensure his constant comfort and happiness), he also had a father who modeled selfishness and disrespect for his romantic partner and got away with it.  

When Dean explains his cheating, he claims that he was “lonely” and that Beth wanted “nothing to do with him.” And yet… he never even tried to speak to her about it? That’s how little he valued her? He took the easy way out—he let his wife continue to take care of every aspect of his home, meals, and children (all while she was struggling with postpartum depression—and, I assume, maybe wrongly, but probably not, considering the cheating, that he wasn’t particularly supportive/helpful/caring in any aspect during this time), and then he just… found someone else to pick up the slack of what she wouldn’t provide for him: sex. 

God, I can’t even begin to explain to you how much I seethe when Dean takes care of his own goddamn kids for the first time and says, “It’s exhausting!” and Beth, like, throws down a rag and says, “Yeah!” Dean looks at her with shock: both Beth and her contributions to their lives have been invisible to him. 

Your impact on, sacrifices for, and care toward your family being invisible? That makes it fucking hard to value yourself—especially when that’s basically your entire identity.

So, we know that Beth and Dean don’t talk about their problems. And we know Beth and Rio don’t talk about almost fucking anything, disaster nightmare communicators that they are.

But Beth does try to talk to Rio about this.

“That’s all I am? Work?” 

This suggests she wants—maybe even needs—to know, but also—since they talk about nothing, since she asks it almost aggressively—I think she only asks because she already knows she’s more. She knows he’s trying to diminish it, and she’s confronting him. Challenging him. If she did doubt that he felt anything toward her, she would never ask—she’d avoid it outright, as she does anything else she doesn’t want to deal with.

And Rio tells her “yes” because he’s getting her back for dumping him, but also maybe because, although we in the fandom call it a breakup, it actually wasn’t? She didn’t dump him—she quit. She tells him she’s done with the cash and the pills, and that’s it. She made it all about work, even though what had just transpired between them was anything but. 

Then, when she does reach out to him, she makes it all about work again. Sure, she may have seen it as her reaching out for a personal favor (she seems offended that he refers to her incessant phone calls as work), but he didn’t, and she’s basically mucked up everything work-wise, which only adds fuel to the fire. 

So, while I think she asked him because she felt like she was more than work, I think she believed him because she’s been abandoned and mistreated by men who should be loyal to her—who had more responsibilities toward her with their roles as her father and her husband—but weren’t. 

That doesn’t mean I think Beth has terrible self-esteem, though. She has deep, complex, genuine relationships with women, and Annie and Ruby love her and see her for who she is—even when she surprises them. Even when she does things they never would. 

Also, Beth puts a great deal of time and thought (and I think pride) into her appearance. In S1, she curls her hair daily, does a full face of makeup, and has lovely outfits that flatter her and draw attention to her. In S2, she makes a conscious decision to change all these components of her look to reflect her changing priorities and the way she wants to the world to see her, particularly with the blazers. I know putting time and energy into one’s appearance isn’t synonymous with having high self-esteem, but I don’t think Beth is ignorant of the fact that she’s a beautiful woman (even if I read her as someone very susceptible to insecurities, especially because I think she knows she’s not Rio’s usual “type” and because Dean doesn’t appreciate her, period). 

But it’s not just about appearance, either: I don’t think she’s ignorant of the fact that she has inherent value. She knows she’s a good mother, she knows how hard she works, and she knows how much her kids, Annie, and Ruby love and appreciate her, even if they occasionally mess up. (Honestly, I think Ruby broke her heart much more than Dean did when she almost turned Beth in). 

The problem is just that because Rio hurts her in this scene, she refuses to engage with it from that point onward. If she did, she’d probably be able to pick it apart. But, going off the patterns she’s had from men that owed her more than Rio does, Beth falls prey to doubt and isn’t able to approach the situation rationally. Instead, she just represses.