Dancing with a ghost
Can´t find my previous post about Slow Disco, but now that I watched Scallop 1000 times, I can safely say that in S4´s context it´s kinda along the lines of what I said in that #gingerpovs post (although I was much more scared back then and now I´m cool, bc I already know it wasn´t as dramatic as I imagined, it´s a lot more diluted in Storer´s symbolism and it´s actually poetic, so I´m cool) and that the ghost is the OLD CARMY, THE OLD SYD, THE OLD VERSIONS OF THEMSELVES that will not make the cut in S5.
Syd is left dancing with the ghost of the Carmy that helped her win her first star because by the time she wins it, he´s either not gonna be there with her in that kitchen or even if he is, it´s gonna be the NEW CARMY, not the "Chef" she wanted the approval of and that she wanted to impress, he will either be an equal a friend or nothing. Whatever old version of Carmy she used to dance with will no longer be there.
In an interview, St. Vincent said about the lyrics: "It’s about how the life you’re actually living and the life that you should be living are running parallel, and how one haunts the other.” To me, that is directly linked to my LOOP theory Part 3
Let me explain:
The life Syd is actually living is the one at the restaurant and with the old Carmy (who is trying to change and going through his own healing process, which is nothing but a death/rebirth process rooted in love, the 12 steps, etc).
The life that is running parallel and that she´s supposed to be living is the one she´s missing, like the one we saw in the very next ep, hence the chronological order. We saw the family life and the social life she usually doesn´t have much time to devote to. In a previous ep, we saw her trying to shoot hoops before work, trying to squeeze some recreation in a brief moment during commute. The eternally WIP apartment decoration, etc. The choices she didn´t make, like going to work with Shapiro. She´s missing out on a lot because she puts all her energy into the restaurant (aka: Carmy), so the parallel life is the one she doesn´t have the time to live for now. That´s her lesson.
But that soundtrack musicalized her "Better than perfect scallop", which will 100% bring her a star, so all that life she didn´t have time to live because she used that time to create that perfect dish, will be worthwhile. The life she never got to live, will be the ghost, the old Carmy that walked with her that part of the way, will be a ghost by then too, the old Syd, the one with impostor syndrome, will be a ghost. The ghost will be all she lost along the way, and left behind, to get her star. All the prices she had to pay to get there. Her own death/rebirth process.
Perfectly fitting tune.
The silence is perfect, the music stopped when he tasted it and told her, "It´s perfect", then resumed. That was the review he didn´t give her short ribs in S1; he had just said they were "terrific", not perfect. Now her scallops are better than perfect. Star perfect.
Remember to follow my tag #Gingerpovs đź’‹
