i will be better

im all for gooning but dont act like it has to make sense for everyone else.

like yall just want him to ,,,, abandon his black child and POSSIBLE exwife/mother of his child (idc if you condemn herbut coop clearly cares about her safety) to play house with a woman he treated like cattle bc 🥹🥹🥹🥹 shes the first person he touched without intent to harm 😍nevermind anything that happened before and after or anyones motivations

if lucy wasnt a self insert her tag would have more than pinups and the ship name wouldnt be 100% her partners name with hers tacked on the end. GHOUCY WAS RIGHT THERE YOU COWARDS

when did ship names stop being thematically relevant old school name mashing was better

Like I recently rewatched Lost and am currently rewatching The Walking Dead and missing how shows used to take their time. I know a lot of it was filler and because studios used to want to keep shows running forever if they were successful, but it gave them opportunities to have these great little character moments. These slow quiet moments where the audience gets to breathe and process a little and get to know these people we're supposed to be invested in. I feel like this season is missing that. It's so focused on plot it feels like it's forgotten it's got this cast of AMAZING characters to develop and relationships to explore.

Like when Cooper betrayed Lucy, I feel like they gave us JUST enough for the emotion to feel earned. But barely. It could have hit so much harder if we'd had JUST a moment or two of them actually talking and getting to know each other a little. And I think there probably was one or two that got cut just judging by the random bits of dialogue we get from Lucy while their walking across the desert. One or two lines that should have, and I fully expected to, be an actual conversation. Not to mention things like the FINGER. WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO BRING UP THE FINGER??? YOU CAN'T JUST FORGET ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE THAT, SHOW. COME ON!

Idk part of me was thinking maybe it's intentional because they want to get somewhere further along the story faster and maybe they will have flashbacks or something fleshing things out. But I also feel like this is true for more than just Lucy and Cooper's scenes... But also mostly those scenes.

Like no scenes where Cooper and Lucy just talk about something personal, maybe even not some serious stuff but something.

And don't let me start on why never mentioned Lucy's finger on his hand. Her mother. His name. Maybe Max? Something?

Crickets

See this link for more info-

I want to see him soften to her as she hardens to him.

I don't necessarily mean he's cringy or uncool.

But he's a literal movie star actor. A household name people recognize. And yet, everywhere he goes, he's just so... bland. He's just some guy.

He has zero arrogance, puts on no airs whatsoever. The amount of celebrity schmoozing he can muster up seems to be a sort of simple smiling politeness before he escapes somewhere quieter.

It's... not the typical portrait of a high-visibility Hollywood star.

This all goes back to what I was saying before, about how Cooper Howard specifically is a very passive person. Someone to whom things seem to just... happen, or who only steps out of line begrudgingly.

I'm intensely curious how a man like that even became a bigshot celebrity actor who hangs out a parties thrown by the wealthiest people in America. Was it in part due to a war hero status? Did he know somebody higher up who pushed him to try it? Was it a random lucky break? He doesn't seem married to the career at all, and suggests he dreams of retiring to simple life of relative isolation.

i think he was "married" to his career in the sense that he's always been something of a hustler—"i've always been good at making money"—but only for the sake of barb/his family. i go with walton's headcanon on cooper coming from a poorer background because it ties in neatly with his relative normalcy/humility (both organic + performative) but also why being as uncontroversial as possible would be important for his success.