joy is not made to be a crumb

throughout season five she is consistently the one reading him to rights when he screws something up. she gets on him for recruiting crumb in secret and lying to lady mary for centuries and feeding without asking for help, but Also she consistently doesn't have it in her to go the full nine yards. she and tom stop him from killing himself, she stops lady mary from killing him, she bats the potentially lethal werewolf blood out of his hands before he can drink it, she goes back on her word that she'd stake him if she ever saw him again, and she stops tom from killing him despite knowing that it's a mistake as she does it. this is a trait of hers that we see highlighted several times as something she can't bring herself to do despite knowing it's the right thing, not entirely unlike how annie couldn't let harm come to eve. annie has her whole episode about learning that unfinished business isn't always something good or righteous, and when hal tells alex that unfinished business is usually something positive, she says she doesn't think that's the case for her.

norden

süden

fosten

Instead of a cutesie reference to film censorship it was an explicit statement of defiance of Maryland's criminalization gay sex, which was not repealed until 2002. This wasn't a guy saying "Oh they can't put what I do in the movies according to a completely voluntary industry code" he was saying "The State of Maryland wants to put me in jail for being gay and having gay sex."