#4.15 analysis

[foxmagpie]

Re-watching season four, can you please tell me why Beth decided when she saw all that evidence to take down Nick and not Rio because her and Rio had been at each other‘s throat‘s all the time and she wasn’t happy that he took over the strip club so what made her decide to take Nick down and protect Rio? 

Yeah! It's because of the events of 4.14 and 4.15 that she really switches allegiances, but it's actually part of a much slower and more incremental development of her shifting feelings forwards Rio across the whole of season 4.

It starts with her burgeoning guilt over using him in 4.04 when she sets him up to handle Dave, then develops with her stress dream about betraying him and her subsequent inaction to find any incriminating evidence in 4.06, her offering him an out seconds before believing she's setting him up in 4.07, and her glee at finding an alternate in Gene before choosing Annie and Ruby over him in 4.08. By 4.10, she subtly chooses him over Dean when she asks Dean to go instead of Rio when he catches them at Paper Porcupine, and significantly, in 4.12, Annie basically tells her that Rio's incapable of harming her, something which doesn't have immediate effects but which certainly weighs on Beth and likely majorly informs her interpretation of his actions of returning her furniture and money in 4.14.

When that happens, Beth has to consider that Rio kept her furniture, which likely meant he always intended to give it back—meaning that even at the height of his anger and desire for vengeance, he seemed to see a different sort of future for them. After Annie came back unscathed from her kidnapping, too, it reframes Rio's ability to harm her or the people close to her. Basically, she sees more clearly that he's not the threat that she once thought he was.

On top of that, Rio, prompted by Nick insinuating he is going to steal Beth away from him, pivots his tactics and becomes much more direct and honest about his feelings for her. She's touched by the return of the money as his signaling that he supports her and believes in her ability to pull off the impossible (a stark contrast to Nick and Dean in the same episode), and when he also conveys that he's listening to her in 4.15 and when he openly decides to align himself with her over Nick—even choosing to come talk to the cops with her—she puts her trust in him and chooses to protect him when the time comes for it.

I talk about the incremental shifts a bit more in depth here.

[foxmagpie]

what did rio mean when he said you hurt my feelings and darling if you need something all u gotta do is ask. what was he referring to?

He's referring to taking down Nick, anon!

Earlier that day, Nick discovers that the key to his file cabinet has been moved because the girls accidentally replace it in the second drawer rather than the top drawer while he's talking to his assistant about the girl (Annie) he supposedly hooked up with.

Later that same day—which you can tell because Nick's wearing the exact same outfit with the maroon tie and navy button-up and black blazer—he appears at Rio's bar, showing him the picture, and Rio laughs at him, telling him he got "played."

That night, Beth shows up in Nick's office to give him a campaign shirt, but she's instead surprised when Nick reveals that he knows she (or her sister, or whomever) broke into his office and that he's going to give her the files himself—but not without the catch that he's also going to ruin the lives of everyone around her.

Again, we can tell it's the same day because Nick wears the same outfit, only at this point he's shed the blazer.

It's still the same night when Rio knocks on Beth's door. She's also wearing the same outfit—a black sweater with a little tie at the neck.

Interestingly, however, before coming over, Rio has changed from his dark navy button-up to a black jacket with pockets and bigger buttons.

The reason?

The scene in Beth's kitchen is very much in conversation with another scene where Rio wears the exact same shirt:

In that scene, Beth is introduced to Nick for the very first time when she calls herself Rio's partner and piques Nick's interest so that he pries a bit about whether that's all that they are. After "playfully" interrogating her about her missing ring, Rio introduces him with agitation, saying, "My cousin," to which Nick corrects, "Brother," and Rio emphasizes, "Cousin."

The final 4.15 scene goes down like this:

BETH: Now you're knocking? [Beth acknowledges the change, the gradual shift from barging in to sending a text that he's there to knocking and waiting to be invited in. She steps aside, doing so]

RIO: You said to. [He signals that he's listening to her and adapting his behavior based on her needs.]

BETH: When have you ever listened to me? [Beth doesn't feel like she has an equal say in their relationship.]

RIO: Nah, don't be like that. [Ready for a new shift in their relationship, Rio playfully denies this.]

BETH: What do you want? [She's wondering what he's doing here, but interestingly, Beth doesn't typically ask this question of him. Often, she waits for him to speak. This is a callback to the first time he broke into her house in the pilot and the first time he let himself in because "the door was open" in 1.04]

RIO: I'll take an apology. [This is the first time—ever—that Rio has explicitly asked for one, but there's a playful edge to it.]

BETH: What did I do now? [I suspect Beth knows that he's here about Nick, but pretends not to because she can't read Rio's tone.]

RIO: You hurt my feelings. [Again, there's a playful quality to it, which Beth catches and isn't sure how to respond to.]

BETH: How's that?

RIO: [Takes a long breath, looking down before making eye contact with Beth again, more sincere] If you need something, darlin', all you gotta do is ask. [Here, he's acknowledging that he knows that she broke into Nick's office to play him, but he's offering that if she needs information on Nick to hand over to the Secret Service, he'll help her.]

BETH: [Pauses, absorbing] He's your brother. [Meaning that she doesn't believe that he would actually make this move against Nick because they're too close.]

RIO: Cousin. [Like 4.06, Rio signals the emotional distance between them by correcting that he's "merely" his cousin.]

BETH: Family. [Beth still thinks that family trumps everything and that Rio can't mean what he's offering.]

RIO: He's in our way. [Rio finally accepts the partnership Beth claimed in 4.06 by aligning his interests with hers.]

[They stare at each other, reality washing over them]

What's extra fun about the 4.06 scene in this context is the way that the costume team—always so meticulous!—places Beth in a butterfly dress, representing metamorphosis and change. Really, it is the introduction of Nick that shifts the dynamic between Beth and Rio to make the culmination of their arc—true partnership—possible.

[foxmagpie]

Hello! Please, explain us why Rio said 'He is in OUR way'? How? Since when? Is it just in business way or maybe romantically Nick was always gonna be a problem by trying to separate them? I really liked the way he looked at her but now I am wondering if what he said has a same meaning for all of us?

I think Rio meant it in a business-way, but that there's a romantic undercurrent to it because essentially, Rio was picking his partnership with Beth over his partnership with Nick, and his feelings for her was influencing that decision, particularly because Nick was intent on destroying their connection.

I don't think the words came with romantic expectation, though I do think they were a romantic gesture, one that I do think a part of Beth recognized even if there was still some hesitation on her part.

For Beth, I think Rio''s allegiance to their professional partnership and his belief in her capabilities is romance. The lines between business and more have always been blurry between them since they broke up before they were ever even together, but that only got more complicated the more they pulled each other closer, and like Rio said to her in 4.06—business and family are one in the same to him. By choosing her over Nick, I think there is a way he is saying that she's in his inner circle, that she's part of his family now, and I think it means all the more to Beth because the root of that is really about his respect for her.

To me, that's what allows them to truly reach an equal partnership by the end.

[foxmagpie]

in the last scene u analyzed (the ~you hurt my feelings~ one) i read the “he’s your brother” “cousin” “family” part less as just beth thinking family trumps all and more as a throwback to the exchange between beth and nick where she says “which one is it? brother or cousin?” and nick just replies “family”. if it’s beth repeating what nick told her, and kind of showing that her source of information on rio and nick’s relationship has been mainly nick, then it sets rio up as correcting the narrative and asking beth to trust what he says over what nick says

[x]

I agree! I think that's another layer to that beat, absolutely, though I do still think Beth is still wondering whether Rio would really do that to family. The way that both she and Rio value and prioritize family is, after all, something that connects them and draws them to each other, and Beth really lacks context to understand the ways in which that relationship between Nick and Rio has been stress fractured and broken over the years. I agree that it is a moment where Beth trusts Rio's interpretation over Nick's, and that that's significant, but I also think part of the weight of that moment lies in the significance of Rio making that move with her against family. I love that they had Rio make that choice resolutely, but that it didn't mean it didn't weigh on him [x, x].