Yuna getting the Perfect Mom treatment is almost harder to look at than her getting framed as a tyrannical controlling momager. For me, at leastâI think this is a probably a job for the myshane myilya myyuna mydavid framing because obviously fandom is for fun, we're all peers enjoying a story and sharing that enjoyment with the world for free etc etc etc. Fandom is for the joy of it, and if you want to see Yuna navigate every twist and turn of a story with perfect grace and care, go for it.
But glossing over her flaws makes me sad. She's so well drawn and well acted and I love her so much. She is a good mom! She cares so much and she tries so hard and without a doubt, Shane is her priority. She wants him happy and healthy and winning at their favourite sport. She's also putting a lot of stress on Shane. He's captaining her favourite team and she's so invested in that, and in all aspects of his career. His excellence is her vindication. His rival is her enemy. She's trained herself to take on a really practical and dispassionate perspective of Shane-the-marketable-athlete so that she can manage him effectively, and that bleeds into situations that absolutely call for a mother instead of a manager. There are no boundaries between work time and family timeâfamily lunch with her and David will include brand communcation and strategy. She's hardheaded and used to being the spokesperson of her family, which only underlines when she can't switch off career mode and focus on the personal side of thingsâit's sufficient for today to just meet her son's boyfriend; Shane really shouldn't have to defend his two weeks off a year against going to Wimbledon for a sponsor.
They're such human flaws to have, especially in that it's obvious why they developed and why she would struggle to see them as a problem in herselfâthat detached perspective is an asset she brings to her work! Of course she's personally invested in her son's career, she raised him and fought so hard for him to have the chance and now he's one of the best there ever was! She's taken mom/manager of her son, a world class hockey player, on as part of her identity, for good and bad. That's why it's hard for Shane to push back against, and why David more or less gives things the united front treatment in front of Shane but quietly pushes back when they're alone. Parents do that all the timeâdecide it's better to back your partner up even when they're wrong rather than get into the weeds.
David is characterized as being such a caring, level presence in his familyâShane and Yuna charging ahead with a goal-oriented conversation that'd maybe a bit snarky or ego bruising, and David chiming in to diffuse things or focus back on matters at hand. I love that. He's the family's ballast, but he can also default to a bystander role while someone else sets the tone. Another strength that depending on the circumstances can become a flaw. Awesome.
I know a lot of people have really warm feelings about the Hollander parents developing a familial relationship with Ilya when his own relatives have been so awful to himâI love it too! It's a really beautiful way to show that Ilya isn't just choosing Shane as a love object, he's choosing him for a whole rich shared life. That's an especially potent idea when the necessary secrecy around their time together makes so many other aspects of a shared life impracticable. I think it could be huge for Ilya as a person as wellâthe perspective of here is a father who loves his son more than his son's accolades, who I have never once heard raise his voice. And he loves me now too. And having an older woman behave maternally towards him in a way he lost from Irina and seems to have never gotten from Polina... honestly, Yuna as the good counterpart to Polina makes a lot of sense to me, though I know the usual parallel is with Irina. Someone who is positioned as family to Ilya not by being blood related but through their mutual ties to a third personâIlya's father for Polina, Shane for Yuna. Someone who puts the effort in and really cares this time. I think Yuna's biases and incisive views on hockey probably delight Ilya and having a Mom Figure who is biased in his favour would be really special to him. It's enough that she tries and she cares and she wants welcome Shane's partner into the family. She doesn't need turn into a therapist for him. She isn't that for anyone else in her life, and she doesn't need to be in order to be loving.
Veering into a little more personal speculation bc the show didn't give us much of an 'after' for this to play out inâI don't think that Ilya sees the Hollanders as a flawless, but I do think he spends a lot of the early years of his and Shane's career/rivalry envious of how 'perfect' everything is for Shane. He's well-spoken in English and French, he's treated as smart and reliable, and his parents show up to support him at all these events, and he likes that they're there. But Shane isn't perfect. His family isn't perfect. Ilya has a front row seat for both. Crucially, and the part that he might read as perfectâthey do love each other. Shane talks about his parents casually, easily, and with a lot of liking, and that's a point of friction until they can reach an understanding of how different Ilya's family dynamic back in Russia is. Ilya sees at the spaghetti dinner that they're all operating from a baseline of genuine care, and he relaxes into that so happily.
He's on his best behaviour, but he isn't blind. He knows Shane is tightly wound and terrified of failure and exposure and letting people down. And he's absolutely heard the expectations of excellence in Yuna's words. She loves Shane so much, and she's already expecting him to be a role model and public spokesperson on LGBTQ+ issues thirty minutes after saying she's sorry she made him feel like he couldn't tell just her, his mom. For Shane, who Ilya knows is dedicated to rising to meet expectationsâ"Will you disappoint them?" "No."âthat's brutal.
So I don't think Ilya would castigate Shane for not appreciating his parents enough actually. I think by his middle twenties he definitely understands that there's room in loving, caring relationships for people to mess up and step on each other's feelings. I don't think he'd pull the 'at least you have a mother' card. Because this definitely isn't his first look in at someone else's family dynamic ever. Maybe he said all that at some point when he was like thirteen and a child and hurting so badly, but I don't see Ilya, who reads people so well, who does have at least one longtime close friend with an interesting family situation (even if we get scraps of Svetlana's family/their shared childhood), deciding that the Hollander parents are perfect and Shane is an ingrate.
Shane is safe with his parents. He likes them. He reverts a little to childhood snark and sure, he takes his bad mood out on them a little in one scene when he's in a complete emotional tailspin and can't talk about it with anybody. Crucially, they were pushing him, and he pulled back on that bad mood as soon as he caught himself, and was willing to let them see a true reaction in the first place. David opens up the floor to talk about anything that might be bothering Shane in a way that says this has probably happened beforeâsomething bubbling under for Shane that makes it hard for him to put a smile on. Shane says no, but he forces that smile for them anyway. He steps away. David pushes back on Yuna's approach now they're alone. She acknowledges that she was doing too much. Nobody succeeded here. They all love each other anyway.
They all love each other and try. That's enough! None of them needs to be perfect! It's better actually if they aren't!
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I was thinking about that interview of Tierney's where he talks about his experiences as a child actor, particularly being sexualized as a teenager.
I remember seeing a comment a while back about how the show's emphasis on Shane's early career, and particularly Yuna's enhanced role in it, essentially gives him something of a child star type background too.
And it made me realize how complicated a relationship Shane would have had with sexuality before Ilya came into the picture.
This is not an anti-Yuna post, by the way. I do not for a moment think she put him in any of those really sexual ads until he was well into adulthood.
But the point I think with the discussion is that, like women in general, young people in the public eye end up viewed and treated like sexual objects through no fault of their own. When I was growing up, there was a lot of focus on the Olsen Twins: who were kids, playing kids, in very family-oriented movies and tv shows, no hint of sexuality, and adult men were having countdowns to their eighteenth birthday. We could also look at the creepy way people have behaved toward the Stranger Things boys.
Shane's nowhere near that famous, of course. But both he and Ilya are clearly well-known enough to be paired as rivals long before they ever met. And Yuna's extra focus on Shane's visibility - intended to protect him, would have put more eyes on him even as a kid.
I think what this amounts to is that, at least before Ilya and his flint of desire, sexuality would be this complicated and mostly negative element in Shane's life. It's an external imposition, by creepy adults when you happen to exist in their line of sight. As he gets older, and his attractiveness becomes more marketable, it's a performance. And of course, on a personal level, it's an obligation. It's what you do with your girlfriend, even if you have to basically dissociate through the entire thing.
And I think that's a factor in why Shane ends up drawn, so fast and so hard, to Ilya. With Ilya, there's the "flint of desire". With Ilya, sex is simple and easy in a way that everything else isn't. With Ilya, he can let him take charge, follow direction, and not have to worry about performance or obligation. He can just feel what HE feels. And it's private and personal, something only between the two of them.
With Ilya, because it's Ilya, something that has always been complicated, murky, and uncomfortable becomes a matter of simple passion and pleasure and that would have been addictive even before emotions became involved.*
(* Though honestly, I'm not sure I could pinpoint exactly when emotions became involved, and I'm pretty sure they couldn't either.)
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Its so important to remember that when Shane says "Ilya noooo, Ilya ewww, what the fuck Ilya" that this is him giggling and kicking his feet. The man is not a killjoy he just loves being chased.
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i know this was like a month ago but jacob on the shift saying what makes connor so perfect for the role is that he was so good at playing âwhat i wanted out of ilya, which was a slyness. that ilyaâs always trying not to laugh, especially at shane. that he doesnât want shane to realise how much he likes him, and how charmed, how endlessly charmed he is by making shane uncomfortable. it actually lights him up inside, he really loves it.â
literally the mandate of heaven that jacob tierney has đđđ it lights him up inside i-
something something ilya likes to cause a hurt then soothe it.
these images are the same to me. he likes to push too hard to bruise to needle to sink his teeth in to know heâs making an impact. and then follow it up with a good fucking or to say in so many words i love you. to know he is loved enough for his impact to be felt. it lights him up inside. and god you just KNOW shane bruises up so pretty, and he looks so pretty when he cries đŽâđ¨
and by popular demand. of course shane has built up so many layers of protection in his unimpeachable skill his work ethic his diet his routine he is going through the motions like a little roomba living in a state of desperately hoping no one looks at him long enough to see anything real. heâs constantly at a remove from the world his walls are up so high. and here comes ilya who does look too long who wants to touch and push and prod and provoke, who gets a reaction out of shane every time. those carefully built up walls and he crashes through them so easily. for shane i think it has to hurt a bit to feel real đľâđŤ
I was thinking about Shane's propensity for clarifying questions and how funny they can be. (I think we've all made some cracks about "is it very upsetting" or "sick like...crazy?").
But it occurs to me that the first real clarifying question that we see him ask is not a question exactly, but it's "with Rozanov's permission" in that press conference.
Because Shane can see that Ilya's struggling. And Shane really has three options here: ignore it and let Ilya flounder on his own, use it to his own benefit, or jump in and save Ilya but possibly wound his pride in the process.
Shane is autistic. We know that. We also know that he probably does not know that. But he probably does know what it's like to have people jump in and "help" him in ways that sometimes make things look or feel worse. (As much as we love Yuna Hollander, I can't imagine that her overbearing presence made things easy for a teenaged boy on a sports team.)
So he asks. In a very practiced, almost casual way. (and more personally with the foot touch). He waits, for the acknowledgement and the nod, and only THEN takes over the question. Afterward, Ilya gets his chance to answer in a way that makes him look cool and unconcerned. He gets to keep his pride.
I feel like sometimes we blame Shane's autism for a lot of things that happen in the series, but I think this is one point where it was actually a benefit. Because Shane is used to asking questions about things that other people would take as a given. And because Shane is used to having well-meaning people "help" in ways that don't always feel like help. So Shane is able to give Ilya what he needs in this scene (and probably cement the idea that what should have been a one-night stand is definitely something worth revisiting.)
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I have to admit, I can't see Shane and Ilya ever doing one of those playoff sex bans.
I know athletes are superstitious and we did hear about beards and all. But they spent so long with so little time together as it was, I can't imagine them willingly depriving themselves on one of their few opportunities.
Besides, if episode 4 showed us anything, it showed us that they play shit when they're not fucking. So for the sake of their respective teams, they HAVE to bang. It's the law or something.
