#gg 1.03

[michelleelizabethtanner]

do you think when rio went to see beth after she left her pearls he thought it was a booty call? it seems to be a popular opinion amongst the fans but idk if i agree lol. why does everyone think that?

Anon, I wanna hear more about why you don’t agree. I love all the perspectives people have and the little things everyone notices.

I just can’t unsee their stares and the smolder there for each of them. It started with some baby flirting in her back yard – the way he hopped off that picnic table all lightfooted and fancy, his little flirty smirk when he said he couldn’t stop thinking about what she said.

What an ego stroke that must have been for her. Because all she’s ever wanted was to matter. And suddenly this man whom she views as holding so much power, couldn’t stop thinking about HER. Like, this lady replayed that in her mind with her vibrator that night, I’m sure of it.

Then the warehouse stares and how he eyed her up and down. I’m certain the whole time she was doing that job it was not just for her survival. It was for his approval. She needed to hear him say that they’re good not just so she knew they had paid their debt. She needed that “good girl” from him. She probably didn’t even know it, but approval from a powerful man was most definitely her kink.

So having both those interactions followed by her seeking him out and leaving a calling card, IDK what else he could have thought it was other than an invitation for sex. He wasn’t really wrong. She did want him to satisfy that kink of hers. Come tell her again that he’s been thinking about her, that she’s good, that he believes she can do important things.

Look at these dopes!!! The doe-eyed brave face, his hooded smolder. The way their mouths are parted. She was too inexperienced and naive to really understand it or know what to do about it, but that changed for her as she pushed her own boundaries and accepted her own depravity. By 2.04 she was still horny Beth seeking Rio’s validation, but she was strong enough to know how to ask for what she needed that time. What a reversal that 2.04 stare was for them from this 1.03 uncertain meeting. So yeah, 1.03 felt really sexual to me. It felt like an awkward invitation that she didn’t know how to give and he couldn’t accept until she was more secure in her footing.

[xstrawmari]

this will never not be funny

[pynkhues]

No one can ever tell me Rio didn't see the pearls as a booty call invitation and had to drastically shift gears when he realised Beth was trying to wriggle into his business not his pants.

[gabrielllas]

outsiders + being engrossed with beth&rio

bonus:

[mbop123]

Team I have a migraine so am so loopy. What time is the re watch going down???? Why can’t I figure this out??? I’m EST in New York. WHEN DO I NEED TO BE ONLINE

[michelleelizabethtanner]

haha i guess i didnt see the booty call perspective because im too innocent lol. it literally never crossed my mind until i saw it popping up everywhere in fanfic. to me, rio thinks that beth is married and in this nuclear family life so even tho he can acknowledge hes attracted to her his mind wouldnt cross over into thinking she wanted him because of what her life looks like from an outside perspective? idk maybe im underestimating his confidence (aka cockiness) in himself with women lol

I think Rio thinks everybody wants him. He probably thinks Dean wants him. Turner for sure. Aaaaaand now I’m back on the “Turner and Rio doing it in that hotel room” train of thought.

[pynkhues]

Hi in a previous post you said “but I also wonder if it partially was making Rio reflect on the way he handled Beth in s1 and used her in s2. In that sense, I can really see it compounding Rio's frustrations and complicated emotions in those later season eps.” Can you expand on that please?

Hi! Yeah, it's still an area of thought I'm percolating on, and it's something I'll be looking out for more when I re-watch s4, but I do think there's this interesting parallel between Nick's interest in and use of Beth in s4, and Rio's in s1 and s2.

I think their motivation is different, of course, and I think the details are too as a result, but there's this mirrored pathway in the way that these storylines crest:

Their interest in her stems from her being not what either of them expect – Rio's from Beth standing up to him in 1.02, Nick's in her not being Rio's usual company in 4.06.

That interest was cemented by an approach in her home and the start of an offer – Rio at the end of 1.02 offering her the Canada job, Nick coming back to give Beth back her sweater and ask her to volunteer with him in 4.08.

Which Beth acted on and then deepened – her return to Rio at the end of 1.03, her taking Nick up on his offer.

And Rio and Nick quickly appealing to her desire to prove herself in order to use her – Rio first as a cog in his machine and then her name and husband's business in s2, Nick as an ally on Council and likely a way to further conceal himself too in s4.

And Beth responding by trying to take them both down – through getting Rio arrested in 1.10 and Nick in 4.14.

This show loves to utilise parallel storylines to mark change and distinction between relationships, and it's something that this particular parallel was really about. The arc Beth had with Rio was complicated by attraction and like, Beth's naivety and Rio's soft spot for her, whereas those things are missing from the arc with Nick. The show pointedly shows that Beth's not attracted to Nick, they don't genuinely seem to like each other, Beth's not as naive with Nick as she was with Rio, and Nick doesn't actually have a soft spot for Beth.

Nick's motivated not by a personal connection to her after all, he's motivated by his personal connection to Rio, and the link he sees between the two of them. He wants Beth because Rio does, and Beth initially gets closer to Nick because he's a way for her to wriggle closer to the power that she wants.

The arc is repeated beats but deliberately without the same emotional undercurrent, which in turn goes to show just how personal and emotional that arc was when it was with Rio. Therefore, the whole mess between Beth and Rio isn't circumstantial – it's specific and it's personal.

It's them.

Significantly too, Rio wasn't seeing what we were seeing as an audience, and he wasn't privvy to the fact that Beth's dynamic with Nick was so different to his own with her. In fact, Rio doesn't see them together at all except for the dinner in 4.06, and I think it does mean that Nick and Beth both are able to use that against him – Nick to try to use Rio, and Beth to try and gain the upperhand in her relationship with Rio – and I think it works, because what Rio's seeing is Beth being drawn to Nick because of these repeated moves, and knowing that there's a clean slate there.

There's no shootings, no murder threats, no Lucy, and no history between Beth and Nick, so as Nick starts to empower Beth in ways Rio knows she responds to, I think he did think it could work and that he could lose her. After all, it's been the baggage that has been so hard to unload with Beth and Rio. If Nick's offering her what Rio did without all of that, why wouldn't he think Beth might entertain the thought of him as a partner?

It's a reasonable thought! But the work that the parallel does is the same thing that the arc with Fitzpatrick's interest in Beth does. It reaffirms that Beth isn't attracted to danger or power, she's attracted to Rio. The want and the desire and the feelings are about him, not about the circumstances, whether she realises that or not, and I think that was something that was going to be built on in s5.

[pynkhues]

Do you think Rio would ever have given Beth her pearls back or would he have always kept them hidden away. We saw them on her in her wedding photo. So my other question would be who gave them to her? why would Rio want them if they were possibly from Dean although I’m assuming if they were on her at her wedding they weren’t. Beth has never asked about them.

Ooooo, that's a really interesting question, anon. I actually think he would've kept them?

I think the only circumstances he would've given them back was as a sort of marker of their relationship ending because the thing about the pearls is that they were a symbol of her old life. When she left them on the handle of the warehouse, they were a calling card for him, sure, but more importantly, they marked this transitional point in Beth's life only underscored by the fact that the show never dressed her in them again. They were a marker of her choice to leave behind her old life, and commit herself to crime.

On a narrative level, Rio giving them back to her in canon I think could only mean a transition back. The return to her old life, her old identity, and by way of that, a sacrifice of everything she'd built in crime. In that sense, I think he could've given them back to her after 2.09 or 2.13, but I like that he didn't, because I like to read that personally as Rio knowing symbolically that her old life wasn't something Beth wanted back.

As for where they came from, I don't know! I think they very well could've been from Dean, or perhaps they were her mother's, or even were a gift from Judith. The weight put on Beth buying the emerald cut necklace in 1.07 I think tells us Beth didn't really buy jewellery for herself before that, so I do think they were either a gift or something left for her.

In a lot of ways, where they came from though isn't important because their function in the story is symbolic. They're a part of an image Beth is giving away, and interestingly, I think the meaning of them becomes more meaningful for Rio than for Beth after the fact. For her, the significance is in the act – they're a sacrifice; but for Rio, the significance is in the gain – they're something that's been entrusted to him. Passed into his care, and in that sense, they're a proxy for Beth herself.

She might feel like she's shedding her old life after all, but that old life becomes something given to Rio to use (which he does through her family business and the cover of her suburban life), to handle, and ultimately to protect too, particularly as her naivety tangles up with all her unearned confidence, haha. Beth doesn't need to think about what she doesn't feel is there anymore, basically, but for Rio, it's the opposite. Beth's there now, in his warehouse, in his business, in his life, whether he likes it or not.

(Luckily he does, most of the time at least, haha).