#the ratliffs

[listenmyguy]

I need a whole spin-off show of what happens when the Ratliffs get back to America.

[lochyratliffs]

✈️✨💖 we flew over the north pawle! 💖✨✈️

[lemoshima]

isn't it beautiful the way saxon looks like timothy but has victoria's personality while lochlan looks like victoria but has timothy's personality and piper is just like her mother. that she tries her hardest not to resemble. and her daddy's rotten girl

[lakesaxon]

PATRICK SCHWARZENEGGER, SARAH CATHERINE HOOK & SAM NIVOLA

TheWrapBook Vol.4: The Art of Television 2025

[weirdero]

I’ve seen a lot of people online saying that Piper is either going to be Quinn 2.0 from Season 1 or Olivia 2.0, and honestly, I get it. I understand where those assumptions are coming from and it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world especially if she ended up as another Quinn. She seems like a nice girl stuck in a fucked up family. But my god that would just be so boringgggg. We’re only on Season 3 it’s way too early for the show to start recycling character archetypes. I also think with the added dynamic of her brothers she’ll be her own evil freaky bitch yk. Anyways the siblings got me fucked up.

Her brothers are themselves. Saxon is the most outrageous out of three I don't think he's ever been proper humbled in his life and has a very very very disgusting black and white outlook on the world.

He's like those men who believe life revolves around sex and sex is just a game. The type of man that excuses his abhorrent terrible behavior on his “natural human instinct”.

Lochlan is definitely chiller, but still a freak. He seems to crave attention from both of his siblings in a very odd way. He enjoys Saxon’s “life advice” and gossip. I think he’s very aware of his brother’s unhinged nature and recognizes that it’s ridiculous but I genuinely don’t believe he sees it as anything more than that. He’s the kind of guy that just brushes Saxon’s behavior off because “he’s just a silly guy,” YK?

And with Piper, I think he definitely knows she’s the more normal one compared to Saxon. Even though we haven’t seen them interact much yet I think they’re able to have more honest conversations with each other. He tells her that he attempted to pray and even though he didn’t really feel any sort of divine intervention or anything he still chooses to share this with Piper.

He also gives off gossipy vibes. When Saxon tells him he thinks piper has never had sex before he decided to tell piper about it but not in a concerning “our brother is a freak” way but in a playful way, kinda like it’s just some casual chitchat, rather than something deeply weird. Like I mentioned earlier he also excuses his brother behavior by down playing it and explaining the original context of the statement as a “compliment”????

And after piper is clearly disturbed and uncomfortable with this conversation he decides to double down and ask her if she had had sex before.

This gossipy nature comes out during their lunch scene with that whole Kate and Victoria interaction. I already talked about how I interpreted both Kate’s and Victorias feelings in this scene and why the both specifically acted that way in this post but the way Lochlan acts is also very telling of who he is he's the only person at that table to question his mothers odd behavior telling her straight up was was kinda rude. But just like with Saxon I don't he actually cares or takes an issue with how his mom handled that interaction he's not actively trying to call her out but more curious than anything. Get kinda messy with it. YK? Anyways like I said he doesn’t actually care about how she acted based off how he reacts to her prostitution joke laughing along with Saxon and his father. Actually scratch that he looks at Saxon first to check if HES LAUGHING. also he was 100% ready to watch his brother jack off. Weirdo!

Then there’s piper. Like fucking pipe. She does seem to be the most sane out of all of them in the instances that I brought up she’s like literally the only person with an appropriate response. but I still can't properly pin point her. I want to believe she's sane and normal I really do and hell she might be and I might just be too fucking suspicious but there is just something about her. When lochlan tells her about saxsons comment about her sex life her first reaction to me seems defensive. Not even a "why would he say that" type of reaction which she settles for later but a "he doesn't know what I do".

And again, I might be reading into things, but it just feels so specific. I’ve been watching this season with my friends one of them specifically loves Piper’s character and another thinks she’s just a performative white girl Olivia 2.0 But neither of them think she’s a freak.

In defense of my friend who thinks she’s just another privileged white girl she did point out another moment during the family’s lunch conversation

She tells her dad that she didn’t choose this hotel and that it’s not her vibe and its like “Disneyland for rich bohemians from Malibu and their Lululemon leggings”

Then later she’s seen in yoga in what honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if they were Lululemon leggings.

Anyway, it’s almost 8pm where I am now and I need this new episode to drop now.

[galaxoshine]

forever obsessed abt the tim > saxon > lochy pipeline.

like saxon being shaped in his dad’s image, following in his footsteps like a good obedient puppy, never finding out who he is, what he wants, too eager to be just like tim, working in his company, under his authority, never seeing the flaws of his father bc it’s like he’s wearing heart-shaped glasses where tim is concerned, and he’s too excited, to be good, to be a man, to be just like his dad, and then the brutal comedown, his dads image suddenly ruined when the truth comes to light—

—and in parallel we’ve got saxon grooming his younger brother, moulding him in his image, being so excited to have something someone that’s his, and maybe even feeling like his dad in a way, old and mature enough to pave the way for lochy, to feed himself off that worship he himself has nurtured towards his dad, to be a mentor, an idol, only to suddenly get a taste of his own medicine when lochy shows him just how much it worked, just how far it went and—

and it’s just. fucked.

bc that’s not what he felt towards tim, was it? like, that’s not, there wasn’t anything, fundamentally wrong, or fucked, and there are—lines, somewhere, right? but everything’s getting blurry, and they’re just mirrors of each other, unable to exist without the other, father to son to older brother to younger brother, a cycle they can’t stop, a serpent eating its own tail, and saxon, caught in the middle of it all

[chekhovs-blender]

okay but this scene is sooo delectable in the way it goes through parent-child and sibling dynamics.

first the way timothy and victoria react respectively to saxon's little outburst and piper's little taunting.

the way timothy first shushes saxon before raising his voice because he's the only (imposing) authority saxon respects and listens to immediately. how saxon only really talks to timothy during the whole scene while talking *about* piper (the different variations of 'she always gets what she wants' all shut down by his father).

victoria who joins in with a much lighter, lenient/permissive tone directed at saxon and that is made abundantly clear by her change of voice to something more final and harsher when piper talks back ('what are you talking about').

piper who knows how to push saxon's buttons and be (hyper)critical while being completely calm yet also utterly unaware of her own 'privilege' within the family especially because she's daddy's girl and she's her own audience for displays of moral superiority because a lot of her identity hinges on being different from her family and for that she needs a decidedly Bad Guy which is a role saxon steps into.

saxon who is completely aware that he is not timothy's soft spot child (and that piper is) and lashes out because no matter what (no matter the hundredth 'i'm just like you dad' he throws timothy's way-), whichever 'sacrifices' (he doesn't view as sacrifices) he makes ('i don't have anything but this' and what follows) it is seen as not enough or not the correct form it should take (+ 'saxon, yeah - he tries hard. he's a try-hard' timothy's assessment of saxon in the script for the full moon party that is immediately followed by piper saying she doesn't want to 'sign on to all the bullshit' saxon does in her opinion (and that her older brother has become 'a duplicate of dad')).

and of course, lochlan's presence reduced to yet another moment of quiet observation, not being asked about his input, melting into the background & glancing between his siblings, the audience being reminded he *was* in the scene the most at the end when he says, irritated, to pam 'just take it i don't even care' allowed to express his frustration to someone outside his family, not that he's listened to anyway lol.

and all of this is followed by tim half-heartedly placating his son not because he truly and fully believes in everything he says to him but to effectively calm saxon down.

like it's so obvious from this scene who between victoria and timothy polices whose gender when it comes to their kids and who the 'good gender cop' is, who's their favourite child etc etc. It's just very nice and i like it a lot.

[saxlochapologist]

the way Saxon is genuinely very disgusted and upset about what happened between him and Lochlan becomes so much sadder when you remember they're from a family who has kept them extremely isolated and alienated from regular everyday life experiences. and it's not just the typical insularity of the ultra-wealthy either, I think there's a very sinister insider vs. outsider dichotomy at play for them that has been enforced primarily by Victoria, but with Tim being complicit in it as well. We see Victoria CONSTANTLY telling her children to remember who they are, where they come from, sowing seeds of doubt into the fabric of every conversation they have with people outside of their immediate family, praising their genetics and appearances, basically grooming them to feel superior to everyone they come into contact with. I truly think Sax and Lochy have both been told from day 1 that ending up like Sax is kinda the ideal - the family is constantly giving Lochy a hard time for his posture and for not being a gym rat like Saxon, Victoria laughs at all the jokes Saxon makes at Lochy and Piper's expense, erc. So not only is Sax being imbued with a kind of god complex from his status as the Ratliff's 1st born son, he also ends up feeling like it is his responsibility alone, as the only older male sibling, to kind of mold Lochlan into the type of man who's been led to believe is worthy of the ridiculously wealthy and privileged existence his parents have given them. and it's not only coming from a fetishization of wealth and power but also of being a member of their family specifically which makes all of this feel even heavier.

And with this context I think Sax definitely feels like he failed Lochlan in some way with what happened at the full moon party. Not only is he angry with Lochlan, he's insanely and overwhelmingly angry with himself - for not stepping in to make sure Lochlan was following the right script, for not ever saying no, and most of all for actively enjoying it. I mean the look on his face is literally pure bliss when Lochlan's hand is working him underneath the sheets and I don't think he can fully repress that feeling. Sax is supposed to be his older brother, showing him how to be an adult. how to be a Ratliff. how live up to their parents' expectations of them. and instead here he is moaning like a girl while his younger brother rubs him. I think all those years alone with him and Piper and their parents are going to start to feel sickening now. like maybe he isn't this gift from God put on earth to make money, fuck hot girls, and be what his parents want him to be bc he can't lust after his brother and still meet those expectations. Idk. Saxon as a character just goes crazy, I can't stop thinking about him!!