I just thought of something.
The show compare the two of how they act after being given the news that if they fail an assignment they’d be split up. One doesn’t seem all that bothered to study, while the other does.
This could just mean that one likes to be prepared for everything while the other takes things as they go. Which is true to their characters… but I think there is another reason.
Nick doesn’t care what everyone else thinks, Judy does. That’s because she has insecurities from people underestimating her just cause she is a rabbit and seeks external validation by others.
Now I want to focus on that, the external validation part. In Judy’s mind if they don’t prove to everyone else that Nick and her are great partners then that means everyone else was right in that they don’t work well together.
But she thinks: we do work well together. We solved one of the biggest cases in Zootopia, as partners. That has to count for something. Right? Besides, we’re not that much different. We can work.
So she pushes herself and seems to leave Nick behind, a lot. She forgets she’s not alone in this anymore. She forgot the partnership of it.
But that doesn’t mean Judy does not care about Nick in the slightest. Quite the contrary, she cares for him so deeply about him. But she also understands that the world has to come first because that is her job. She’s been dreaming about becoming a cop ever since she was 9 YEARS OLD! And she said so herself she does have a bunny hero complex. So she’s going to dive head first into anything that might help someone else no matter what happens to her.
During the water tube scene, Judy doesn’t listen to Nick about running out of air if she continues chasing after Gary and leaves him behind.
People get mad about this because they think: ‘is she really gonna let Nick drown??’
But what they don’t take into consideration is this: Nick could have easily just left Judy as well to continue chasing after Gary. She wasn’t keeping him hostage in that tube and was most likely expecting him to escape it without her to save himself. She doesn’t know that Nick is afraid of losing her yet and will follow her anywhere, even into danger. So I think it’s a little unreasonable to hold it over her and use it as evidence that ‘she doesn’t care about him at all’. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
You can be mad at her for leaving Nick(even though one of them she clearly was hesitant to and the choice was taken out of her hands when she was tranq’d). But let’s not forget that her character is still growing, her development doesn’t just stop at the end of the first movie. Judy still has room to grow, along with Nick.
