im curious what u think cld happen with joel finding out about what happened with jimmy and scott (abuse, assault, etc.) ! either pre or post-"improvement" of the fh dynamic that uve talked abt
I have of course been thinking about this constantly since the day I watched that bit in joel’s limlife when jimmy’s down below ten minutes and screaming that he needs scott, he needs scott, and joel’s just dead silent the whole time because he didn’t know about the deal they made. wait no actually I’ve been thinking about it constantly since the day I watched that bit in scott’s third life after jimmy’s dead when joel makes a mean joke about it and then immediately backtracks and says sorry jimmy I love you and scott freaks out. the issue here is that I don’t think jimmy would ever directly tell joel anything, even assuming he figured out that what happened to him was abuse. he knows he didn’t like it but he wouldn’t name it, and besides, that’s just how scott is.
I don’t think jimmy would ever fully admit to himself the extent of what scott did to him, and he’s not having therapyspeak conversations with joel about processing his trauma, you know? the most you might get is jimmy complaining like “dude, I’m so sick of him hitting me every time I do something wrong, like I get it, okay, I’m not good at [whatever]!” and joel doesn’t think much of it at the time because he and jimmy playfight and shove each other around constantly but he puts the pieces together later and has to avoid thinking about it because his desire to kill scott is already hot and bright and blinding and thinking about how jimmy factors into all this makes him feel sick to his stomach. joel wouldn’t allow himself to acknowledge it either, because acknowledging it would mean that he “failed” to protect or save or help jimmy. death games caveat: joel’s not exactly been the kindest to jimmy either, and in many ways scott does have one over on him in consistently giving jimmy resources and such. in a universe where killing each other is mostly fine, IPV surely takes a backseat, right? right? it’s the stripping him of his autonomy and identity that had a more lasting effect, and joel’s already countered a lot of that simply by being in jimmy’s corner and supporting him and encouraging him to be more assertive and aggressive.
anyway. the real answer is just an extended version of what happened in PL ep 2 after scott killed jimmy. joel saw it in chat and immediately ran over and asked jimmy what had happened, jimmy said scott had killed him, and joel without hesitation killed scott. it’s really very easy! scott might think he has him, but joel’s an attack dog for one man only.
