Final thought about this Sydney/Carmy dynamic and season 4—some of y'all don't read/watch angst or miscommunication tropes and it shows. Lol. What, y'all thought this would be easy???? Just because we can see it from the outside looking in doesn't mean that the characters can see it when they're experiencing it piece by piece, minute by minute in real time!
"He keeps going back to Claire." Well, yes... escapism, denial, settling, etc.
"How could he leave her and the restaurant???" Because that's part of the unfolding?? Restaurants and cooking have turned into a prison for him (see: Chef David, being there when he learned about Mikey, using the restaurant as a way to prove something as Tina so wisely observed and articulated), so of course he needs to escape in order to figure things out!
"Why should she have to suffer?" I mean... shit happens and her lesson in all of this is you can't keep running away from things and sacrificing yourself? That putting her non-restaurant life on hold with the assumption that it'll always be there isn't actually what she wants to be doing?
"He should have gone to the hospital!" She told him not to because she's hyper-independent and didn't think she needed the support or that her need for this support was worth the time or effort or inconvenience and he listened because he didn't know if he was allowed to show up for her in the way he truly wanted to?
"Why do they keep playing in our face?" They're actually not though—we're witnessing them play in their own faces lololol. It has nothing to do with the audience. We don't exist in their world!! It's annoying and frustrating because it's annoying and frustrating to see people make silly choices when we know there's a better way, but we know it; the whole point is that they don't!!
"How could he call himself her friend???" Because he—a man who is JUST now coming to terms with his fucked up family (read: convo with his uncle/stepdad who's not his stepdad (?) at the wedding, convo with mom, and him finally opening up about the funeral) and all the stories he's told himself about happiness and joy and permission—doesn't know what else to call himself in her world, especially after hearing that she's considering leaving the restaurant (cuz Shapiro called him, but as of this point she hasn't told him anything about it yet)?
"Why would she laugh at her cousin asking if she has a crush?? Is that Ayo (who wrote the episode) talking to the audience and calling us silly??" No, that's a character hearing a perspective that isn't in the realm of possibility for them because that's not the lens they've been looking at things through. But this season we've had two people with no prior/consistent knowledge of their dynamic (her cousin and DeeDee) wonder aloud what exactly they mean to each other. They're essentially showing the characters (in this case Syd) what we the audience sees that she hasn't been able to see on her own!!
"They keep driving a wedge between them!" Lolololololol they're two highly competent, skilled people who work in one of the most stressful industries in the world both dealing with abandonment issues, struggling with a sense of worth and worthiness, and feeling like they need to prove something but never actually realizing or acknowledging any of this to themselves or others. Lolololololol. I wouldn't have believed it if they were able to be on the same page from day 1.
And I know this can seem like I'm giving a pass to bad writing, but I don't think I am. I'm actually trusting the writers to finish this correctly because if they've set the stage for this arc, then they have to finish it. And given the attention to detail so far, they've shown the capacity to.
Even if Syd and Carmy's relationship doesn't cross over to romantic (which... sure. Fine. Whatever.) all of this season makes sense because what was the alternative? Don't forget that it picks up right where s3 ended so it's been like a couple of days, weeks, maybe a month or two max. Was it all supposed to be solved so quickly??? lol.
