finch (on ice)

ilya telling shane about irina and how they were best friends and he hung out with her all the time and he was her protector and he would skip school on her bad days to brush her hair and make sure she ate something even if it was just tea and she was an angel and you know shane is calculating how best to gently bring up to his husband that that doesn’t sound like it was very fair to child ilya without ilya reacting like a wild fucking animal

ilya comes back from therapy with galina like three months after this fight (of course it was a fight) and with the same candor as ashley padilla in then mom confession sketch goes i’m only going to say this once and i’m only going to say it if after i do you promise you will not react no talking no faces no nothing and shane’s on the couch reading like uh. what’s going on? and ilya goes what i have to tell you. Is that I think I was treated unfairly. By my mom. and of course shane makes a face and ilya is reacting like a wild fucking animal

#but that was his mama and he loved her so much and she was gone way too soon and he has put her up on a pedestal :(#because what else was 12 year old ilya supposed to do and she wasn't strict like his father so for him that meant she automatically couldn'#do anything wrong because at least she was better than his father and on her good days she hugged him and told him she loved him#and ilya has a hard time computing that two things can be true at once yes she loved him yes she also treated him unfairly sometimes#<- not only does he put her on a pedestal but he also romanticizes his own role in this situation#''wasn't i a good son? wasn't i so mature and empathetic and sensitive and nice?''#because of course this is what his mother would tell him (which reinforced those ideas)#and also suddenly being nice and soft and sensitive wasn't a bad thing like his father would say#it would make him feel vindicated#which again just reinforced the feeling#ilyalogía#heated rivalry

the thing about ilya is that he’s literally nice. well maybe not nice but kind. well maybe not kind but he cares. well maybe not about everyone. but he’s a sweetie.

Something devastating to me personally is how upsetting the split between Ilya and Alexei is to Alexei in the show. Idk it this is the same in the books or not but the actor has this quiet sort of disbelief and grief on his face when Ilya makes it clear he is cutting ties. They have hurt each other inescapably, the relationship is nothing but damaging to everyone on all sides but there's still a sadness that it's been pushed past repair. Alexei is not a good brother to Ilya, in many ways he's probably not a good man in general, but there is a soft wetness to his eyes in the scene that feels like he's realizing this is the last time he might ever see his little brother. Someone he doesn't like very much and probably doesn't respect as he should but still loves. All he can see is their mother and the way he was her favourite and this is probably the last they'll ever see of each other. And just idk i know its popular to read Alexei as a man who doesn't care about Ilya at all but i think it's so much more bittersweet if he he did love Ilya hurt him all the same

I'm a firm believer that Cliff Marleau had to be told that Shane Hollander and Montreal Jane were the same person. I am of the belief that when the Fanmail video leaked, Cliff thought "oh, it must not have worked out with Montreal Jane but my boy bagged Shane fucking Hollander, so it's fine." He does think it's a little funny that both of the people Ilya's been seriously involved with are based in Montreal but he still doesn't put it together.

tonight we must all put aside our differences and join together to root for the montrealina hurricanadiens