Max Somehow Outdoes David at Lovebombing: a Study
Regrettably Paul Alexander Nolan's unreal subtext game means I now watch Max like a hawk, and I am recently obsessed with how hard he is owning the "haha, unless" version of boundary violation.
A big part of Max is how calculating he is, of course, in many ways a more refined and ruthless version of the game David plays (I have also developed Thoughts on the ways this presents in the movie vs the musical, help me). I think there might be exactly one time that he slips up: after the dinner scene.
Obviously he's in control and fucking with Sam and the Frog Bros (which is why I will always put a big blinking neon sign on the "ah, the Frogs"/"Frog brothers" scene forever. This motherfucker chooses every word precisely, that microaggression is on purpose). But Nolan plays it like the sight of all that chaos does actually get to him--not because of the vampire tests, but because he sees this as a household that is falling apart. One he can save with order and stability and presumably his dick. He snaps at Lucy, he makes the only allusion to his relationship with David in the show before the latter's death, and then he storms out. That shit hit close to home, I think. Like father, like son, Max cannot stand to lose control.
But then the next time we see him and Lucy, he opens by apologizing to her. He realizes he might be losing his quarry by revealing himself too soon. He escalated REAL fast from the "haha free love 👀" jokes during "Wild" to showing a bit of his actual face, and he's in damage control. He took two big steps over her boundaries as a single parent, so he walks two steps back to show himself as sensitive and willing to change.
But Lucy is vulnerable. Lucy is tired, and Max has been lovebombing her, and so she's already primed to try and cling onto that. Lucy is battered down from 18 years of marriage to an abuser she probably married when she herself was 18 or 19 and accidentally got pregnant.
Max clocks it. And then he pushes her boundaries again. Lucy wants stability? Okay. He starts talking in very vague terms about being a "strong male figure" for her sons, and the language is very deliberately romantically-coded. He's way the fuck overstepping as a potential partner by fronting himself as a coparent when they've barely met, never MIND as her boss (which is already an escalation of "it's a tour, not a date!"). Lucy is clearly uncomfortable and equivocates. So Max takes a step back--he meant as their boss! Clearly!
....which will give him unrestricted access to her sons without her supervision! And also firmly inserts himself into a parental role in their lives when Lucy has been pretty clear that she doesn't feel ready to date again (but oh, does she want to skip past the pain of processing all the horror she's been through and skip to the good part--the Hollywood part; Max knows Hollywood). Every time he "gives," it camouflages a smaller boundary push that builds up over time. And if Max has anything, it's time to kill.
If things hadn't come to a head with the Frogs, I think Max would've had Sam vamped within like. Two weeks. Tops. I am constantly in new appreciation of how scary Nolan makes this fuck.
....God, I wanna see Cameron Loyal and Ben Crawford's takes so bad.
