What’s your take on everything that went down with Larrian?
“can you two just kiss already” is what it boils down to for me.
but, honestly - i keep coming back to marian’s conversation with ada before the wedding to luke, and after marian broke things off with dashiell in season 2. she needs to be absolutely sure of what she wants, and that’s always been difficult for her to understand and accept and let herself fall into. i understand her hesitancy and her panic, and how her feelings on that matter differ from larry’s, who does indeed come from a life of inherent privilege that’s afforded to him not only as a man, but as the son and heir to one of the richest men in the country.
i think there was so much going on in the final episodes of season 3 (especially episode 8, obviously) that they didn’t have a lot of time to hear each other out or have an honest-to-goodness serious sit-down conversation about their feelings and how they’ve changed over the course of being friends to having a romantic relationship. and i mean that not in the sense of “they’ve both had a change of heart” or whatever, but rather that your feelings and thoughts for someone you consider a friend are naturally very different from how you view someone who you want to be partners with. i think it’s difficult to navigate that in any era, but particularly in this era, especially given marian’s history and everything going on with the russells, where private conversations are harder to come by. marriage is truly a gamble in the sense that you really don’t know what your partner will be like once you’re alone with them, and imo that’s what scares marian most, and it’s why she crashed out.
i’m in agreement with harry richardson when he said they both need to kind of let their defenses fall and fall into each other instead of holding back. obviously, that’s easier said than done, given the limitations of the era and the strain that larry sees in his parents’ marriage, but it’s like george said: they need to weigh the pros of marriage against the cons, and see if they can build a reliable, steady partnership out of the relationship that they already have. they are learning to trust each other again, which is a good thing, and hopefully, they can come back stronger and willing to rely on each other when necessary. not materially or monetarily, because i’m not sure marian would be accepting of that, lol, but emotionally.
overall, i think they both got caught up in the throes of young love - not unlike that of gladys and billy (god rest his soul) - but they’re learning and growing and figuring out what they both need to bring to the table to make a marriage work. i think they’re up to the challenge.
i did see it more as a “right person wrong time” situation, just as marian told aunt ada in episode 2 - they’re waiting for things to calm down in his family before they make a move. unfortunately, things have not calmed down, and i don’t see them calming down in the future, which brings me to aunt agnes’s speech from the season 2 finale, about trying not to waste your life away. marian needs to take that in stride, and she and larry need to decide to weather the storm together.
anyway. they should kiss again.