Syd was frustrated with him but she wasn’t trying to control or punish him, which was his expectation of how it would all go down from his family.

Syd literally took the speech Marcus gave at his mother’s funeral in S3 and immediately acted on her knowledge of looking up close at Carmy to do this little but significant thing.

He asks her later to the Ever dinner so she can be with her equals and peers when we find out one of her main complaints is he was being competitive and not sharing.

He’s in love with her but he’s not trying to use her for his own ends. He starts trying to give her the recognition she deserves instead of material things and elevating her instead of himself.

Then at the dinner he confronts Chef David, his own bad boss, after realizing he was being a bad boss to Syd, specifically.

She just completely transformed his way of looking at things and it’s because of love. (And he wasn’t trying to just get in her pants, either, although the show makes it clear he definitely desires her.)

carmy has visually etched so many things about sydney into his subconscious.

last season i wrote this post about how carmy's dream is sydney.

last week i wrote this one about how he's actively imprinting memories of her.

the "you look like syd" scene + the "you look nice" scene... are not random. it's an extension of that first meeting + the other dozen times she's walked into a frame he's already wordlessly existing in.

the camera always lingers on his reaction, his expression.

the audience is always a witness to him openly marveling at her.

this is a directorial choice + it's made throughout the bulk of the series so much it becomes a motif.

there is a real narrative + thematic gravitas to the dialogue detail of carmy saying the exact words "it started when you walked in..." the import of which has been seamlessly illustrated by how often he's recalled that very moment within the bones of the story itself.

they weren't just love at first sight. they were incomprehensible at first sight. they were salvation at first sight.

so much of the final season exemplified how sydney is the embodiment of the thing he couldn't see or connect with beneath his trauma, grief + haphazard sense of self.

she was the anchor, she was the connective tissue.

she was the water, to his fire. she was the cool breeze, the calm, the peace. these things were expressly explored via visual symbolism in the narrative.

"i like this..."

he likes being alongside her, he likes assisting her on her mission + dream, which is evident as he speaks in the internship interview.

he likes the moments where he's so outside of himself + his body + all the machinations of existing as this deeply skilled yet complicated chef (person).

when it clicks what her best bite was, we watch his microexpression almost flood with rapturous awe.

immediately the dimensions of this wordless connection is both validated + compounded.

sydney knows about her connection to carmy throughout the length of the series, even if she doesn't verbalize or give credence to it.

she is always very aware of her why, even when it doesn't make sense or falters.

she knows why she's there, why she keeps coming back.

even amongst the pitfalls + agitation.

which is also why there's more emotional distance on her end until the last season + a half.

"you write in the margins." "i appreciate you." "you're supposed to be here!"

but all carmy knows before that revelation is the moment she walked into his life + everything shifted.

he's the legacy, the access, the vehicle. she's the heart, the humanity, the cohesion.

throughout the length of the series they experience the inverse in the other.

in actuality, they found the thing they most hungered for, the thing that was always missing in the lap of the other.

This is not a continuity error it’s a deliberate choice to keep the moment between them. just them.

It’s the parallels for me - syd lying to him on the first day about why she wants to work there him clocking it . In THE REVEAL also He sees through her lie and she knows he will.

Your situationship raises her voice at you one time and tries to “partner” you and stick you in the workzone — about a billion times worse than the friendzone because that’s like the minimum of what you want from her — so you commit to the bit you were already committed to but like tenfold so she really really gets that you mean it this time. Actions paired with words, with questions! Something that forces you to listen before you act.

The last time the two of you hugged it was in a group with everyone there and you were celebrating passing the fire suppression test — for a system which nearly fucked you on what could’ve been the final shift — and this time it’s after a biblical storm that almost did you in, after the fires in YOU have been put out. This time it’s just the two of you. A private celebration where you can tell her she did it and she won’t brush it off like she always does with everyone else. She’ll just go back for seconds on the hug because there’s no reason for her to let go if it’s just the two of you.