up all night

And it’s class!! IMO class disparity is such a big theme in Scott and Kip’s relationship in the books and rewatching the episode with that context in mind I felt like that angle goes like. Entirely unexplored in the episode. Like Kip is a minimum wage worker at a smoothie shop, and occasionally a waiter for hire at events, and his boyfriend is a millionaire celebrity athlete and his best friend is a hyper-successful cybersecurity engineer. And he’s not exactly unaware of his utter misplacement in their world. And he almost chafes under Scott’s generosity! And Elena’s—as honestly any working class person would in a relationship(s) that is so financially imbalanced. And at times, through no real fault of their own, both of them are completely oblivious to his perspective as a result of it.

I’ve been like collecting excerpts from the book that I felt exemplified that theme to show my pookie—and there are so many, it really does feel like a major theme of the story. But I feel like this scene really is it: Kip at a party hosted by Elena’s job, wearing a suit Scott bought for him. Relating more to the automated servers than the people, and feeling utterly out of place:

This party scene really is a goldmine for Kip’s Working Class Alienation excerpts.

It’s a theme that feels literally so omnipresent! Like it’s one of the primary conflicts of their relationship, narratively, and I felt like the episode did not convey it at all. To the point that I low-key get why some show-only viewers didn’t really understand why Kip felt so alone at the end of the episode—it wasn’t just that being in a secret relationship was probably the first time this openly gay man who is accepted by his parents and entire community felt like he was something to be hidden, it’s also a natural consequence of him choosing to be in that slice of Scott’s world over everything else, and it being alienating to him because he’s not rich. But most wouldn’t arrive at that conclusion just off watching it, not really. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to walk away from the episode thinking Scott more than makes up for the fact he can’t come out with his generosity, rather than that actually being another thing that causes friction in their relationship, and that the ending made no sense.

I kept seeing comments about Kip saying “I miss my dad” to Scott after he’d been like essentially… stranded in the metaphorical tiny island in the sea that is Scott’s world where he doesn’t belong(and can’t even begin to yet, not while they have to keep it a secret) that were along the lines of “he’s acting like Scott kept him hostage.” Because... What if i told you he basically lowkey kinda did in a way😭 And that Scott himself acknowledges that that’s what they were looking towards if he doesn’t inevitably come out.

And it wasn’t just Scott. The idea of being kept—alone, not following his ambitions, living off and for Scott and nothing else—was an anxiety that Kip grappled with and chafed under too!

And honestly all that was my favourite part of Scip’s relationship, it’s what makes reading them so interesting, and rooting for them to beat the odds so fun. But the episode didn’t really show any of the odds—just their consequences. And I feel it really hollowed out the emotional core of their story.