*director voice* yeah, i’m gonna need a little bit more.
andrew, you were just in a cell with/close to varian for a year. right now, you’re holding him hundreds of feet above the ground. sure, you can have a huge grin or a steely expression, but i’ll need a flicker of something before either of those. disappointment, anger, hurt, anything! show me the depth, please.
varian, you have more of an excuse to solely be afraid— yeah, the about-to-die thing, i know, and i’m sorry about that— but we can work something else in there, can’t we? a pleading look. betrayal. anger! did you always see this coming, or does this come as a shock to you? with the context of the episode, i’m guessing it’s the latter, but i want to see the emotions that go with the shock! you’re not ever gonna bring this guy up again, so we need to make this count!
in fact… okay, i’m flipping through the script, and i think we need to work some dialogue in here. right, we have the “traitors to saporia pay with their lives” and “no! no” thing, which is good, but maybe we can have something after that exchange?
what if we alluded to some inside joke you two have? not in a silly “remember that time when—” way, but more of an “i thought you were never mean, right, andrew?”
guys, it’s just… this is our last opportunity to play with this rich dynamic we saw almost nothing of! we have to do something more than “you’re a traitor” and a fearful gasp of “no” that is more aimed toward the ground than andrew!
oh. oh, never mind. looks like the script’s already finalized.
just go ahead and drop him, i guess.