Honestly, I will not get into a rant about what they did to Harley and the super long list of reasons why that was an awful thing to do because I will be here all night. But I will say, I’m Also mad that the writers were so eager to write out Mosley that they neglected to finish the emotional arc between the two characters (which could still have been addressed even in season ten).
Harley’s loyalty to Mosley throughout season 9 was a marked trait, she was obviously eager to be friends with the team and accepted from how happy she was when they did accept her and be friends with her (and lets face it, they’re like an annoying elitist high school lunch table clique, it’s not easy to work into that group) but she was also totally unwilling to give up her loyalty to Mosley to do so. And really, she had no reason to. Mosley had always been a friend and mentor to her and while frankly the writing of the team vs mosley tensions was terrible and flip flopping horribly all over the place, the result of that was that sometimes the team were just being jerkish for absolutely no reason, and because of that I like that Harley wasn’t going to bow to the weird peer pressure of the team’s complicated view of their new boss just to rub shoulders with them.
It was an admirable sign of character from Harley, is what i’m trying to say.
And while Mosley’s relationship with the team members was complicated (some more than others, but even the ones who liked her the most had some level of complication, her relationship with Harley wasn’t). Harley is established as somebody who doesn’t follow blindly, Mosley clearly earned that loyalty and I don’t have a problem believing she did (when Mosley has no ulterior motive, she was a genuinely fair and level headed boss) and said loyalty led to Harley taking herself to Mexico Immediately after finding out Derrick had been taken from Mosley to help rescue him.
Of course, this ultimately leads to her murder. We’re shown in the finale that Mosley is in a level of denial about it, not the same kind of denial nell and eric are in in the following premiere, hers is acted out totally differently to theirs. Neric are displaying classic ‘bargaining’ style reactions, it might not be Harley, said in shaky voices that clearly betray that they’re more than aware that it Is Harley (Chegwedden lets them have their denial while they can, a kindness, which is most narratively necessary when showing that he lacks that same level of gentleness with Mosley herself). Mosley, however, is straight to desperate denial, she recognizes on some level she does not have the mental capacity to deal with the fact that all the actions she’s committed have, however indirectly and unintentionally, led to that murder.
This isn’t me saying ‘it’s all mosley’s fault’ because i don’t think it’s fair to Harley to say so, because again, Harley’s actions were still admirable here, if shortsighted and actively dangerous, she made her choice to immediately go try and help a child without backup and that just... Wasn’t a good idea. I understand why she did it, she is A) a good person who would try to save a child if she could B) is very loyal to Mosley and C) If i were Harley and the only real part of this entire mess i’d personally witnessed were everybody’s tensions coming to a head in the boat shed? I would probably doubt that anybody was gonna go to Mexico as a team, meaning she may have thought she didn’t Have backup to call on. Again, not accurate, but we as an audience know more about this situation than Harley does, she was not there for many important interactions. So, truly, the whole thing was an utter mess, but Harley did have agency in her decisions, even if she was acting on limited information.
But it can’t be denied that there is No Way on earth that Mosley did not feel horrifically guilty about this no matter the sequence of events that led to it. She was the one who set the ball rolling on this whole disaster, there is no argument that absolves her of any blame.
And it wasn’t fair to Harley to not address it.
It was unfair to forget the emotional impact of the entire whole situation in favour of the actions shots of Mosley being action mom we got instead, Harley deserved the character closest to her on the show, Mosley, to actively grieve and deal with whatever part she had in it. To at least acknowledge that her rampage had a cost... Hell, i’m not even saying she should have said it wasn’t worth it (if nothing else, it would have been interesting storytelling and character work to have her acknowledge it And be both guilty and simultaneously verging on unrepentant anyway) but Something needed to be said.
Harley got done dirty anyway, but damn if they didn’t rub salt in the wounds by not giving it the emotional resonance it deserved. While what they said to Rogers in the investigation was not, technically untrue, where they didn’t give Harley’s story any emotional backing on top of that, it just came across that she was a helpful dead person to lump all the blame on.
Harley deserved Mosley’s acknowledgement.
That a price was paid needed addressing.
