I'm just gonna talk about the beauty and poetic and totally perfection of the framing of the domestic burzek scenes, and the proposal because I just rewatched it and I'm losing my mind all over again.
The episode starting out with Burzek doing their routine dance, showing them in their groove and utterly rocking domesticity, and family life balancing work, their relationship and a child highlights just how far they've came and how settled they've gotten. They've truly hit their stride, and you can see the confidence that exudes of both of them, but especially Kim, that it has created. They've created this amazing safe space for themselves, built a life where they truly get fulfilled and supported - and have the family and ease they both have dreamt of.
It really sets up that Kim can afford to go so hard in with this case, because she has her family, her partner. And she can afford to help out as a spanish speaker in a much needed time, because she doesn't have to worry about the affect on her family. She has Adam. Adam is fine, and Adam has Mack so she can be cop!Kim, without worrying she'll be like her parents. There's nothing she has to sacrifice anymore, because her and Adam have worked out their kinks and ruts.
Like in a lot of her episodes and with cases that hit her hard, we can see that she's gone all in. She's not going home or sleeping, and she keeps working at the case, keeps feeling what she needs, but it's different from before. She's more confident in her movements, and she doesn't feel as desperate, like she doesn't get so 'lost' in it, and that is because of Adam. Because she knows she has him, knows he's anchoring her, and knows when she goes home, she can talk to him, share her thoughts and he'll be there with her.
Which we then see her do, when we see her at home. We see her talking to Adam about everything, see her tell him about the cards, and how much she needs the family and how this makes her feel.
The framing of the two scenes, the start and the end, very much shows how things work in Kim's mind, and how they always really have. When she's home, she's home and when she's at work, she's at work. And before that has meant that she has to shut off at work, and bury everything down at home and that's not been healthy for her - but she needs that divide.
But here we see she's gotten that balance down. She knows she's supported and loved, and she knows she can come home to a family and also that she can lock that part away when at work to not let the darkness touch it, but not in the unhealthy way she did before, that she's not shutting it down and more just getting herself into that routine - and she's still engaging in that side of her, for example, when she texts Adam. She's no longer, as well, living just for the job, but for that family.
At the start, Kim is relaxed and at ease. Then she has a tough case, and while she's still a little wound up in a tired way, you can see her physically relax when at the end she comes back through that door. She knows she can decompress and she knows Adam will be there.
I love how in the bedroom, Kim can talk open and honestly about everything and Adam just comes with support, love and validation. They truly have become partners in every way. And Adam listens, he hears what she's saying, and he knows that it is the perfect time to get out the ring, because she needs that.
Really, all she needs is to hear him say he'll always fight for them, and this is what he gives her even before. And how Kim reacts to that, and how she looks at him when she asks, it's not because she's never heard that, it's because she has and she knows if she asks, he will reconfirm that they are forever.
The engagement, in many ways, is just an acknowledgment on both of their parts how they've gotten into this routine, that they're good, and solidifying it. A visual and legal reminder to say we're forever and this is something we'll always fight for. And it's solidifying the book-ending of the two domestic scenes, and everything it means.
This is of course expressed visually, and I've talked already about the role the ring plays, but it's also expressed verbally. At the start, Adam says "third times a charm" about Mack's permission slip, which is then called back to with Kim saying it about the proposal which just unites both their family life, their routine, the past and the two scenes.
And it's just so beautiful.