So, I’ve just watched the stabbing scene four times now.
- Sooni is stabbed at the moment she looks away from Naresh because she sees Ian.
- He touches her! He puts the coat round her so gently! “OH MY GIRL, MY DARLING GIRL.” No. words.
- He waits till she is being looked after before running off, but this running is like a man possessed. It’s like how Rey fights in Star Wars, it’s not elegant or controlled - he’s just flinging himself across the land.
- Ian the man of action! Like, I can’t tell you how much I love Ian. He is brave but also right thinking. He punches him twice but then just sits there with this “oh fucccccck” look on his face. That’s when he knows he needs to get him arrested and do the right thing even if he wants to just continue beating the crap out of him.
- And Sooni! She’s so brave standing up to Naresh even though she knows exactly what and who he is.
And then there’s the tea scene.
- Sooni’s little smile when Ian says, “You’re very kind, Mrs. Dalal,” which is like admiring how normal and polite he’s being in the midst of all this.
- I think Ian’s more confident here. I mean, he’s more confident in general in this season, but in this scene I see him perhaps as Mrs. Dalal sees him, as a pleasant looking young man who has saved her daughter and admires her. Ian’s laughter isn’t self-conscious at all. And he sits down as if he’s exactly where he wants to be.
- “She fought like a tiger.” THERE’S MY GIRL.
- Sooni’s “no, it was all thanks to Mr. Ian in the end.” That serious look... she’s realising something but she’s not sure what she’s realising.
- Ian’s smile at “if we can” is because he KNOWS HER SO WELL.
- Ian so wants to stay but knows he can’t. She smiles and then the smile fades. Again, she’s wondering... Especially considering he just WINKED at her as he was leaving.
I don’t think Ian has considered his feelings for her before this. The “oh my girl, my darling girl” was completely involuntary. But he’ll know he said it and somewhere between calling her “my darling girl” (NEVER OVER IT TBH) and beating up the guy who hurt her and drinking tea in her bedroom with her parents, he must have thought about it. I don’t think at this stage he has come to any useful conclusions but I think that while in that bedroom he is testing this new knowledge of his feelings out in the way he looks at her and wants to stay just to test them out more. He needs to go away and recover but for now everything is just Sooni and how amazing she is and how wonderful it is to look at another human and care about them so much.
As for Sooni, I don’t think she’s ever had a romantic thought about anyone in her life. She’s aware of it and marriage but she’s never felt that way, never had the patience or the interest. But now she has a vague memory of Ian speaking just after she was stabbed - and could he really have said what she thinks he might have said? And he saved her, properly saved her and dealt with Naresh and that was so brave of him and what would she have done without him? For self-reliant, strong, brave Sooni that’s a terrifying thing to consider. But there he is drinking tea and calling her brave - and all she can wonder is what it all means and she looks at him, and she wonders.
FANFICTION MUST BE WRITTEN. (On it, but not now because I need to sleep.)
