I love the deleted Gallavich scenes from season 10 but I can actually live without them not being in the actual episodes. But do you know which deleted scene I’ll be forever upset they took out though? The Lip and Ian scene from 7x12. Not only is an excellent brotherly exchange (which is one of my favourite things ever), but it also really adds depth and nuance to Ian’s feelings about leaving Mickey at the border.
Bascially: he’s really not sure that he did the right thing. (And I, for the record, absolutely think he did the right thing, but I’m still very, very, very happy to see him feeling hesitant about it, torn over it.) He repeatedly seeks Lip’s reassurance that he did – or did not – make the right call: “Stupid, right?” he asks, and “You think I should have?”
(Sidenote: the line about the sex being fucking fantastic is fucking fantastic. HELL YEAH IT WAS! I also love that Lip asks about it so casually: he knows they had sex, he is zero percent concerned about Ian cheating on Trevor, he just wants to know if his brother got properly laid.)
But the most important bit, the best bit, is when they start talking about Lip abstaining from alcohol and Ian goes: “Is that a thing again?” and Lips nods yeah, he’s trying.
“How many days?” Ian asks.
“At this point I’m just counting hours,” Lip says and this is the point, I think, where Ian realizes that oh, that’s what he’s been doing, too. Counting the hours until the ache passes; until the longing fades; until he once more can pretend not to remember what it feels like to have Mickey’s arms around him.
And so, when Lip says that he’s glad that Ian came back… Ian doesn’t answer. Because maybe it was the right call, but he’s not sure that it was, and he sure as hell isn’t glad.
I mean, he tries and he tries and he tries, for the next few hours and days and weeks, but this time he can’t do it. Looking back at the past year he can’t unsee the lies he’s told himself and others, and yes, there’s been good things too, worthwhile and real things and maybe he wouldn’t undo any of them, but having seen Mickey again, having had the ruse exposed, he can’t go back to fooling himself that Mickey doesn’t thrill and fulfill him in a way no one else can.
And this, I think, adds a lot of context both to his feelings regarding letting Mickey go and his downward spiral in season 8. It is an excellent and important scene and it is the one scene that should not have been cut.
