the way my comms talked about him. like they knew rbr was quick. they expected him to throw down the gauntlet to merc! and he did! and he won! my prince who was promised <33
dc celebrated his 50th bday on saturday and max threw a cake in his face — the most normal interaction of theirs.
seb was so bald that year lmao
seeing max lose from pole to lewis made me physically sick. and oh, boy, it's just the beginning 🚬🚬🚬
the whole mess w turn 4. lol. lmao even. let's erase every drivers' lap time when they exceed the track limits in t4 in quali. but then let them cross the line here in the race. but, well, actually, no, we let lewis go beyond the line here almost 30 times, but as soon as max starts doing the same, we prohibit it. ok, yayyy <33 let's say, the writing was on the wall from the first round.
My husband is watching the full complete 2021 season. I could go into another room, but am I able to walk away when Max is racing? No obviously not. But last weekend was Silverstone and now we're watching Hungary. Ugh. Why does my partner want to cause me so much pain?
Another OUAT post because I’m rewatching the show and I wanna share my opinion 😅
So in my opinion Emma and Hook are basically one of the best TV romances I’ve ever seen. You can tell that they genuinely love/care for one another. They literally go to end of the world/time (never land, time travel, underworld) for each other and do it out of love and not because they feel obligated to. They don’t have petty break ups and then get right back together (those relationships drive me crazy) They respect each other and more importantly trust, which has never came easy to either of them. They’ve had so many obstacles thrown at them throughout their relationships and they came on top after every battle. This man literally fell in love with her the minute he saw her. Hook literally changed from a villain to a hero to be a better man, the man Emma deserved. Then patiently waited for her to be ready to love again and he made sure she felt loved everyday. Ugh and the way he looks at her there is just so much love and happiness. Like she could be doing nothing and he’s like “look at the beautiful women who chose to be with me. I love her so much” Then they (us) got confirmation that they are indeed true love. I’m so so happy that they got their happy ending. To me they are the epitome of THE ONE is and how you should treat your significant other. Okay I think I’m good now. Now to rewatch the wedding episode and cry tears of happiness into my wine 🍷
fuck me, this is boring, should've brought my pillow
max pitting w one lap to go for the fastest lap – HOT 🥵🥵🥵
but they deleted it – BOO 🍅🍅🍅
my comms started to talk about 1 point difference and how massa lost championship by 1 point and i was like damn they don't even know about ad25 yet
then my comms said that lauda lost championship by 0.5 points and i was like damn they don't even know about spa21 yet
we're talking a lot about max's brilliance in his first championship run but we don't talk enough about max's progress throughout these recent years. max in 2025 (and tbh 2026) was so much better than he was in 2021, even tho he didn't win the wdc last year & 2021 szn was impressive af
Man, I've been dragging my feet on working on this. I've spent almost a full year on this rewatch (it really took on a life of its own; I didn't go into it planning to write involved metas or reblog a week's worth of gifsets for every episode but I am just THAT over the top) and I don't even know what I'm going to do with myself now that it's over. Watch something else?!?!?! Like what!?!?!?! Seriously though.
Anyway, where were we? Season 5. It's an interesting season to reflect back on. Sometimes it feels like my second-favorite season after season 2, and other times it feels like my second-least-favorite season after season 4. It ends up being really difficult to place. Its primary problem really in my opinion is that it's rushed, and there's so much plot to get through that the writers and editors had to leave us with sometimes frustratingly short character-driven scenes and force us to fill in the gap. But it does feel more Teresa-driven than season 1 does and, Kote notwithstanding, the non-Teresa-centered scenes still somehow feel a little more relevant or engaging than some of the Vargas stuff in seasons 1 and 3 both. (Epifanio and Batman's story took up a superfluous amount of screen time in season 1, I realized on rewatch, and season 3 has soooo much Cortez and Isabela and Loya and stuff that is way more painful to watch than Kelly Anne getting an ultrasound, even if Pote's sexist quips do make me roll my eyes.) So I don't know. I guess you'll have to give me a few more weeks to think about it. But season 5 as a whole entity in my opinion stands up pretty well on rewatch. It's the Jeresa content in season 5 that doesn't hold up as well as season 2 or 3's Jeresa. (Again, largely because of how rushed it is.)
But as always, I'll do my ranking and things:
My Top 3 Episodes
My Top 5 Scenes
Season 5 Episodes Ranked
Teresa’s Journey
Jeresa, DUH
Top 3 Season 5 Episodes
3: 5x05, Mas Dinero Mas Problemas
It actually was hard to choose the third place episode. There are several other contenders for this spot. But this episode as a whole is really fun to me. It's Teresa-centric. It features Oksana (yay female characters). It's set in Berlin. It features awesome Jeresa teamwork. It throws back to earlier show canon (Rocco de la Pena! Oleg!) and Teresa even gets to break an asshole's nose. James's all-black suit is to die for, as is Teresa's high pony, and best of all? The non-Teresa-focused material is focused on George and Boaz in Miami which, while definitely feeling sinister, gives both of them great material to work with. George buying Teresa that boat? Lol. This is an episode that I gladly watch in full without wanting to fast-forward through anything (a rarity for me among episodes after season 2) and it's a queenpin-esque version of Teresa that isn't as painful as the previous two episodes. All great stuff.
2: 5x09, A Prueba de Balas
Listen, I am not going to pretend that this is here for any other reason than the love confessions and long-awaited Jeresa hook-up, though I love every single Jeresa moment in the episode, I love that it's down to the two of them against the world (just like it was in the beginning before Teresa even knew that it was the two of them against the world), and I love that she takes out Kostya like the badass she is. We won't talk about the raccoons and peewee soccer.
1: 5x02, Me Llevo Manhattan
OBVIOUSLY. I mean: this episode might be my favorite episode of the entire series. It's perfect, classic, angsty, electric Jeresa; they actually talk to each other about stuff other than business (several times); they call back in their dialogue to earlier seasons. They KISS and it's magnetic. They dance around whatever the fuck it is that's happening between them. And they both just stumble around incoherently attracted to each other but refusing to talk about it because they are imbeciles. On top of all that, there's James back to his going-all-out-to-protect-Teresa habits and Teresa back to her taking-crazy-risks-but-earning-mad-respect bs. Teresa's whole "you work for me now; when I call, you answer on the second ring" speech to Lafayette is literal fire and even the non-Jeresa scenes in this episode are good: Kelly Anne with Judge Lafayette's business partner; Boaz with the Judge; the pregnancy reveal. My favorite scene of the episode, though, the one that makes me levitate, is the balcony scene between James and Teresa in Manhattan. Wtffffff that scene was like, designed to personally destroy me. But more about that later.
Top 5 Season 5 Scenes
This was so hard for me. The truth is that there are two types of scenes, Jeresa scenes and non-Jeresa scenes, and they belong on parallel ladders to me. The Teresa who shows up with James and the Teresa who shows up otherwise is so different (I mean: compare literally any of the 5x02 Jeresa scenes to, say, how Teresa interacts with Oksana and Oscar and the Judge in that same episode). And I love both kinds of scenes for her. The way she almost coyly greets those real estate developers in 5x06, knowing full well she's going to slaughter them? *shivers* sooooo good. But when push comes to shove, it's the Jeresa scenes that all slide to the top, because it's the version of herself she gives him that is the one we're ultimately rooting for. So without further ado:
#5:
The scene: Episode 5x02, bedroom conversation
What I love about it: Soooo muuuuuch subtext here. After Teresa in the previous episode gave James literally nothing to work with, now that she's wrapped her mind around him being back she is completely unable to keep up the act. Watching both of them dancing around what they're actually trying to talk about is so delightful, and the icing on the cake is Chicho walking in right in the middle of a particularly intimate gesture.
#4:
The scene: Episode 5x09, the balcony kiss
What I love about it: Do I really need to explain myself? I love this kiss so much because it's written all over Teresa's face what combination of fear, desire, and love is driving her. It's no longer impulsive as it was in 5x02 or tenuous as it was in 3x09 or generous as it was in 3x05, it's for her, it's because she wants him and she's terrified of dying without him knowing it. And then he returns it so wholly and confidently and damn. To me it's the moment they catch up to each other and finally land on the same page. The I love yous that follow were made possible by this kiss.
#3:
The scene: Episode 5x07, the waterfront launch party heart-eyes
What I love about it: Again, so much subtext here. The intense intimacy of a moment in which relatively little gets said (and all of it completely innocuous). The verbal callback to the season 3 finale made the fandom's collective hearts jump to our throats as we wondered, with Teresa, if he was about to say he was leaving. Teresa's clear display of vulnerability in this single 90 second scene made up for the four previous episodes of distance between them. But really.... it's all in the subtext here.
#2:
The scene: Episode 5x10, the final Queenpin scene
What I love about it: It's the perfect Queenpin send-off. It's perfectly appropriate that she shows up one last time and the way it's done here is so beautiful. She looks so serene and her nod of approval closes the circle with episodes 2x06 and 3x10 where Queenpin seemed to be nudging Teresa towards James. And THEN, as Queenpin departs, James steps in. 'You ok?' Could it be any clearer? She doesn't need Queenpin to be her guardian angel anymore. She has James. God, I must be in a mood today because I'm literally choking up as I write this 😭 Excuse me while I go rewatch this scene 28 more times.
#1:
The scene: Episode 5x02, the balcony scene
What I love about it: Was there ever any doubt this was going to be my number one scene of this season? No, there was not. It is the perfect combination of classic Jeresa--James pining, Teresa being cool and unruffled, an almost visible electric current of tension between them, and oh my god the subtexttttttt. Yes, I'm predictable. I don't even think I have enough words to convey exactly how much this scene breaks me apart and I definitely don't have the words to confess how often I rewatch it. Literally I AM JAMES when she says "you and me can't happen" and I feel my entire body turn to jelly, and then when she says "maybe in some other life" I'm like EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE GO GET IT JAMES. This scene to me is their crowning achievement as actors playing this couple of idiots. That chemistry is crazy.
Season 5 Episodes Ranked
5x02
5x09
5x05
5x06
5x08
5x07
5x01
5x03
5x04
5x10
Yes, the finale is my least-favorite episode of the season. There's just nowhere near enough Teresa, or James. Waaaaay too much Pote, and Pote is just not an interesting character. Plus it's so dominated by men. I just could not care about the fight between him and Boaz. It all felt like male viewership fan service. Ew. So, looking at episodes in their entirety, it falls at the bottom. Really though I think this speaks to honestly how strong the season is overall, when it comes down to it. I loved it on rewatch and looking back at this list I even feel sad about having 5x03 and 5x04 so low! I've grown to like even those, despite how painful some of the scenes are.
Teresa's Journey
So, this is the season that obviously brings her as close to Queenpin as she'll ever come, the season in which she faces the ultimate choice: fully abandon herself in a quest to become untouchable in her power, or fully abandon that quest in order to save her soul. Both of these are different sides of the "survival" coin. And both involve incredible risk. Having taken out Kostya, she came as close as really was possible to that untouchable power that the Queenpin visions throughout the series evoked. She would have been protected by the American CIA and would have run the largest and most powerful drug empire in the world. Of course when you're at the top, someone is always ready to take you out, so the risk of staying--despite the promise of safety and protection--was huge.
On the other hand, disappearing. So much risk there, too. So simple in concept: shed your identity, go somewhere remote, and start over from scratch. But when you're in the cartel world that deep, obviously it's not just possible to get out. Your continued existence is too threatening to everyone who stays in; you know way too much. And SO much could go wrong in the process of trying to escape.
So both of these choices offered the promise of safety and both came with a heaping side of risk. But the Teresa we were introduced to in season 1 would've had absolutely no difficulty picking between them, right? So in retrospect, her full character journey was to slowly and gradually become someone who would believably struggle with that choice, someone we would believably worry might make the "wrong" choice.
And I think they really did pull that off. Already by season 2, it's less clear that she would choose to disappear rather than become all-powerful. She'd already lost everyone she'd loved by then and felt herself to be alone, and I think loneliness was one of the biggest drivers for her in seeking power over feeding her soul. It was always loss and trauma that pushed her further into the business and, even though season 5 didn't super explicitly link her rapid power grabs to Tony's death the previous season, it was clearly the darkness of that loss (maybe combined with the unsettling reappearance of James) that pushed her over the edge.
So was it believable that, in the end, she chose her soul? Yeah. They made us worry about her for the first half of season 5, pushing away everyone she cared about and seeming like a hollow shell of herself. But by episode 5x08 her vulnerability is palpable again. Like George's loss, combined with pregnant Kelly Anne's kidnapping, and faced with the possibility of dying herself, and losing James in the process, that she gets her wakeup call. So to me, her final decision feels very earned. I just wish they hadn't wasted a full episode trying to convince us she wasn't going to make it 😂
Jeresa
And all inextricably tied up with Teresa's character turnaround in season 5 is her relationship with James. This is another thing the season didn't make super explicit, at least in the written dialogue, but on rewatch it feels exceptionally clear that his presence allowed her to make what no doubt seemed like an impossible decision to turn the train around that was fast hurtling towards a cliff. He:
showed up mortally wounded trying to save her life
stuck by her side even when she made a disappointing decision that showed how much she'd changed
tolerated her snapping at him and pushing him away because he wasn't going to just give up on her after the huge way she'd busted into HIS life and changed HIM from the inside out
gently challenged her, wherever possible, despite having had it made clear to him that doing that was risky
backed her up 100% and went the extra mile to show his loyalty (beating up Navarro's connect), care (delivering an entire army of ex-Mossad for her security), and competence (stealing the painting)
And then, when she'd sent Pote and Kelly Anne packing and it was just the two of them again (the symmetry to the beginning of the series is so lovely there), his steadiness in the face of her emotional undoing is such a visible factor of her turning everything around. Yes, she's scared for Kelly Anne and her baby. Yes, she's upset about George. But in 5x09 after she's sent Kote away and it's too late to save George, those aren't her motivators anymore. James is. You can see it in her eyes on the balcony that it's not her own death that she fears but the possibility of dying without having loved.
Teresa is a lover. We knew that from the very beginning. She essentially told us that in her own voice over in the pilot. Her drug of choice was Guero. Comparing Guero to a drug is so apt (and foreshadows all the events of the first three seasons and how Guero's actions underlie so much of what she had to go through) so that her fear of love also becomes understandable. She was so slow to fully trust James because of the betrayal she'd experienced before; she was slow to open herself up to him as a lover because the risk of that vulnerability was too devastating. But when she stares down death and realizes she's held real love at arm's-length, its pull and its promise is way too great to turn away from.
I think the writers and show runners of this season struggled with this because the love story they'd created was so powerful and yet they knew (and I agree) that this show wasn't intended to be a love story. The book that it's based on is not a love story. It's the story of a woman and her incredible journey from life on the streets of Culiacán to becoming a powerful druglord and then her final escape from that life. But Jeresa is so powerful that even without explicit efforts on the part of the writers this season it's clear that it's a story in which love wins. She gets out, because of love. She makes the choice to disappear, because of love. Yes, platonic and familial love play into it, too; and stacking up the losses of those she's loved over the years and the risks to those who remain are explicitly part of the story. But by 5x09 the only ones who remain are her and James. She's lost or sent away everyone else.
I guess I forgive the writers for leaving much of their relationship this season to the imagination. I would've loved more conversations between the two of them that were 5x02 or 3x08 caliber, but I think the writers were trying to strike a balance between the people who clearly watched the show for Jeresa and the people who clearly cared less. Do I think they should've just written the show the seasons 2-3 writers set up? Yes. Do I blame them for trying to please a broader base? No. I don't, because I think it's ultimately so obvious anyway that James helped Teresa out of the cave in the same way she did originally that it still ties together beautifully in the end.
So. Now what?
As I said yesterday, I have saved many hundreds of gifsets in my queue still to reblog that I didn't reblog as part of the "official" rewatch. And I'm sure I'll continue to find more, and will reblog any others that get created. I'm also a huuuuuge Alice fan (in case that's not abundantly obvious by now) and will stick around to reblog whatever Alice content I consumer and maybe even Peter content from time to time. I'll post a full series retrospective eventually, but I doubt it will be quite as comprehensive as these season metas because I think I've kind of covered a lot of the analytical ground by now!! But I still want to do my rankings and all that. All that to say: I'll be around. And I hope to continue to see some of you around too 🥰 Thanks for sticking with me.
It's the end 😭😭😭😭😭 I can't believe it. Well, I still have my season 5 retrospective to do and then my FULL SERIES rankings hahaha so I'm not quite done yet, but this is the last episode. I can't believe it. I started this whole thing basically a year ago: I posted the first of my episode recaps on September 20, 2021. Now that I've rewatched the whole thing start to finish with so much attention to all the details along the way, I have a whole new appreciation for the show and our beloved characters.
I'm not going to do a whole big recap post for the finale; I did one back after it aired! But my few updated thoughts are below the cut :)
My feelings about it are pretty much the same now as they were back then. It is my least favorite episode of the season; we have known since season 4 when they tried to do a Pote-centric episode when Teresa was in the hospital that that format really doesn't work, it lags, Pote is too flat of a character and lacks vitality on screen. I don't know why they thought it was a good idea to do that again, for the finale no less.
But apparently there WERE sizable segments of the viewership who thought it was a huge unpredictable plot twist, and there ARE a lot of diehard Pote fans out there... so I guess the writers were catering to them. In some way that does satisfy me to know that. Like, as long as the ending landed as intended for some unknown segment of the audience, then that's fine. It's not how I would've ended it, and to give Teresa like 4 minutes of screentime in the finale of HER FREAKING SHOW is suuuuuuuch a weird choice to me. But complaining about that will get me nowhere so instead I'll put this to rest with this:
I FREAKING LOVE THAT TERESA GETS HER HAPPILY EVER AFTER. AND I FREAKING LOVE THAT SHE GETS IT WITH JAMES.
I don't care about Kote's happily ever after, I just don't, not one bit, but it literally feels bold for a show like this (an action/crime/drama show) to decide to end happily. I'm soooo here for it. And the fact that it ended like this means I get to relive it for the rest of my life lol. And I kid you not I will sometimes be going about my day and then I'm like "I wonder what Teresa's doing right now?" and I GET TO IMAGINE THAT BECAUSE SHE SURVIVED.
I just want to end this with the other things I appreciate about this episode:
the James Competence Showcase, including him sneakily evading Devon's hit man, getting shot, and still making it back to Texas in time to rescue Kelly Anne
how good James's hair looked while doing all of the above
the fact that Pote got to botch everything and get himself arrested so we got in our last laugh (I know he killed Boaz, whatever, idc)
Teresa leaving the waterfront property and all the money to build it out to Dumas 😭😭😭😭
and Dumas and Chicho walking off into the sunset together 😭😭😭😭 (I know, as business partners, but still)
Teresa's escape wig (who knew she could pull off blonde)
I love that Pote missed the first four years of his daughter's life bc it means hopefully she got seared into her the positive male role model of James rather than the sexist antiquated bs of Pote
TERESA WALKING OUT THE DOOR OF THAT BEACH HOUSE AND RIGHT INTO JAMES'S ADORABLE HUG AND FOREHEAD KISS
THAT LITTLE 'YOU OK?' 'YEAH' AND KISS AT THE TABLE FOLLOWED BY JAMES'S ABSURDLY SUGGESTIVE SMILE GHKGHKDFGJFHFGSSSSK
QUEENPIN SAYING GOODBYE
God I love it
and then the final shot, the hand holding, snuggled up together on the steps, smiling off into the sunset and their future...
I just. It still makes me so happy. All of it. Even getting to snark about Pote. And so even though 4/5ths of the episode annoys the shit out of me, in the end, it doesn't matter. My beloved Teresa got the life she deserves with the love of her life and that makes everything else worth it.
I cannot believe this is my second-to-last episode debrief for this rewatch. This whole thing has taken way longer than I initially planned but also I'm not even ready for it to end! WHAT WILL I DO WITH MY LIFE NOW??? Who'm I kidding, I'll keep rewatching and keep writing fics and keep digging up QOTS gifsets to reblog that I haven't reblogged yet. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, I just have a few thoughts to share about this beautiful episode beyond what I wrote last year after it aired live. When I first watched this episode I had no idea what to make of it; I was so annoyed by all the Kote and trying not to be nervous about the finale and wanting more out of the Jeresa. In some ways, it hasn't improved on rewatch, but in many ways, it totally has. I love this episode on rewatch (it is WAY less stressful knowing it all works out in the end!).
My debrief last year said that some of the things I was annoyed by in this episode -- the prolonged Kote scenes and lack of actual Jeresa conversations -- might be redeemed by the finale. In essentials, that didn't end up happening in the way I imagined at the time. I essentially thought that if (1) Pote ended up dying (or Kote in some other way had a plot twist or didn't get a happy ending) and (2) James and Teresa were revealed to have been plotting a fake death escape all along (or at least for a while), that it would satisfyingly explain both the extended Kote and the lack of Jeresa in 5x09 (and to a certain extent earlier episodes as well).
This only sorta happened, and yet, in my opinion, 5x09 aged surprisingly well. Obviously Kote did get a happy ending and there's a part of me that is still 😒 about it because their story never resonated with me as you all well know. And yes, their scenes in 5x09 are too long. But from a writing perspective, I sorta get it in hindsight; for the fanbase (apparently sizable) that DID love Pote and Kote, planting them in the suburbs and showing Pote adjusting was part of what made their happily ever after feel believable I guess. So even though their relationship does absolutely nothing for me and even though I feel profoundly irritated at how stupid and sexist they ended up writing Pote to be, I on a rational level get that writing.
But other than Kote, I honestly love 5x09's Jeresa scenes. No, we did not get a plot-twist reveal in the finale that ended up showing us substantive flashbacks to Teresa and James working out their plan. That is a disappointment for sure (one that I'm sure I'll discuss in the finale's rewatch posts lol). But we do get a lot of Jeresa in this episode and LOOK AT THEMMM. They are tethered to each other by an invisible elastic thread and literally everything about them in every scene together screams how inseparable they are, how ridiculously in love with each other they are, both of them, and how deeply they rely on each other. Completely openly now. Even before the kiss and the I love yous.
It's so freaking soft and beautiful even though most of their scenes are them working together. The thing is that them working together in synchronicity is where they began and so it's a fitting way to show them together as they near the end, too. It's also important to see how their working relationship is changed now. It's not the hierarchy of seasons 1 and 2 in which Teresa essentially reported to James (well, at least until the end of season 2). It's not the hierarchy of seasons 3 and 5 either, in which James reported to Teresa. Nothing has explicitly changed, but it's abundantly obvious in this episode that they are working together now. Teresa's the leader of the cartel but James is her partner. He may not be co-owner of the business or anything like that but he's not working for her. They are very clearly deciding things together now. She consults with him; he refers to her. There is no longer any kind of hierarchy. Just a very clear mutual respect.
So I don't know. Sure, I would love dialogue between them like we had during the earlier seasons that lasts longer than 30 seconds but it feels like part of the point now is that there is almost too much to say, and yet none of it really needs saying. It'll be said eventually. But how could the show have possibly done justice to the years of feelings they're finally coming around to in a scene of dialogue? It's really hard to imagine. Trust me, I know, because I tried to write the extended scenes fan fic for this episode and the next, and it was HARD. I would've loved to have seen something like what I ended up writing on screen, to be sure, but would it have really felt like it belonged in the penultimate QOTS episode? I don't know. I really don't.
The one thing I do wish is that the balcony scene had had some more dialogue before Teresa kissed James. That scene did feel jarring in how fast it moved after a drawn-out Kote scene about putting together a crib in suburbia. But the juxtaposition to me also in some ways works because it really elevates Teresa and James. If I'm being honest, the episodes in which I really wanted to see more Jeresa conversations were 3 and 4, maybe even 5 or 6 -- but not these later ones. I think their scenes, unspoken feelings filling in all the empty space around them no matter where they are and what they're doing, are completely perfect. I really do. Which isn't to say I wouldn't have loved to see more of their emotional processing but that, I don't know, I'm not sure this is really the show that was ever going to do that. Most of their best conversations historically have been of the angsty processing variety.
So, well, I'll just fast-forward the Kote scenes when I watch this again and I'll be happy. Their love scene, MY GODS, it is incredible. Would I like a scene where James pushes Teresa against a wall and takes charge? Um, yes. Does that supercede the absolute joy I get from their blissful we-might-die-tomorrow-so-what-the-hell soft and sweet sex? No, it doesn't. Their softness with each other is absolutely to die for. I don't think I'll ever recover from it.
So, that concludes my thoughts on 5x09. On to the finale. I can't believe I made it. The end is near 🥺
