-behavioral psychology background of the character was so clear in her interaction with her father, loved that bit of consistency. "im sorry for what happened to you but there were a lot of ways to deal with that and this was a very bad one." and then she left. loved the aggressive assertion of boundaries

-foxes were such an interesting touch, reflective of the the hunt/"catch" language surrounding dating AND the way their partners talk about them. rachel's father brags about getting alexandra pregnant and babytrapping her in the video, and nick brags about how he knew he wanted to marry rachel the second she said she never wanted to be married. the fox gnawing its leg off to escape a trap as a visual metaphor for rachel and the fox with the pups to represent her mother is heartbreaking.

-nell and rachel soulmates <3. who spent the whole show together? who laughed with each other? comforted each other? trusted each other's capabilities and reliability to manage a problem? rachel and nell that's who. i love that jules and nell tell each other everything and think that's very cute but she is divorcing him for reasons that a blood curse does not resolve. and if he had signed those divorce papers, rachel could have married nell instead. can we explore the idea that nell is also trapped by her marriage in the marriage is a beartrap for women show. also that kiss

-going back into her room and asking nick for a lighter was so so so fucking funny. man absolutely thought he was hallucinating.

-i am so beyond furious that she took the previous witness's suitcase. clearly he had updated that shit in the last 200 fucking years. take your own clothes why are you in that ugly suit. what is the point.

-i loved the unequal soulmates thing. nick believes rachel is his soulmate and lives; rachel knows he's not her own and dies. nick's mother marrying a man who revered her for the control it would grant her and dying while nick's father, devoted to his wife, lived. also cold ass family. NONE of em thought they were marrying their soul mate during the ceremony? like jules has been married twice. he must have believed that he was marrying his soulmate both times in order to still have blood in his skull.

-ohhh nick is such a piece of shit. forcing his soulmate into marriage. letting his soulmate bleed out alone while he sat in a group with his family around his sister. banging on the window and leaving his soulmate's body outside, exposed to the elements. he is literally alive by the grace of his conviction that he is meant for this woman and that's still how he treats her.

-ouuughhhh the subtle way that women are diminished in favor of their male partners. it's so well done. i don't have the energy to write it up well right now, but rachel avoids nick when she has problems to solve because when he is in the room they are about his problems. she goes to nell to solve problems and notably focuses on nick when he is in the room. like she walked outside the house to find a hung effigy wearing her own wedding dress and a grave and they did not talk about that at all. the fact that he just refused to care that she believed in the curse and believed she would die if they didn't marry by sundown. like that's his soulmate and she believes she is going to die and does not care. refuses to do the thing that is fully within his power, that he already agreed to do, that was literally his OWN IDEA in order to assuage her fears

victoria chose not to marry the man she truly loved in order to marry the man who was more devoted to her and who would be obedient, a survival choice in the far more sexist time period she was married in, when a man's power to curtail his wife was far more complete. she never mentions the man she loved again and performs an empty devotion to the husband she chose in order to remain the master of her own domain. and her husband cannot see that. he can never see his wife completely and know that she chose him in order to remain in control. he must believe the whole time that she loved him more than the other, that they moved past it.

rachel's immediate reaction to the witness' explanation is that she is going to die, and we see why. throughout the movie, nicky does not listen to her once. he performs a caring spouse routine to his family's standards by constantly ignoring her wishes. he pressures her about children relentlessly despite her clearly stated preference to have NO children. he decides to drive 8 hours to search for a wedding dress rather than wait for their friends to call back against her repeated pleas to stay with her. the fact that he did not actually believe her about the airplane's doom in their meetcute story is stupid but it is also very significant. nicky pays lipservice to rachel's instincts and anxieties--just enough to calm her into compliance with his desperate attempts to mimic his parents' 'perfect' marriage. he hunts the fox doggedly all day because his father told him to, ignoring his fiancee and pretending to himself that her anxieties are nonsense (always nonsense) until she turns to nell for support. of course rachel does not turn to nicky, why would she? his immediate reaction to every situation is an attempt to disprove and change her conclusions.

nell knows that her soulmate is her own choice, and she is actively in divorce proceedings. she has decided to stop choosing a man that she loves but who is mean to her and who she knows will never ever change for the sake of her wellbeing. she can only look at the man who is convinced that they are meant for each other with shock and grief, knowing also that he must have loved his first wife with the same broken and impotent sort of love that he gave to nell. loving, in his mind, does not require any attempt to avoid causing pain to the one he loves.