Last part of my weird triptych, let's talk about Tony's reaction to Monica's death
Part 1: Tony and Monica's relationship (spoiler: they did love each other in their own way)
Part 2: people fearing Monica's death is a sort of tool to give Tony some redemption (spoiler: it's absolutely not)
I've read some people saying he looked relieved. Quite a lot of people actually...
COME ON. Look at him, how can you misread that scene so badly??
This face is devastation, shock, and grief (kudos to Alex too btw)
They even wrote it with the very realistic "can't compute the bad news I just received" that people often experience after learning the unexpected death of a loved one, with Tony's delayed:
"Monica? My wife, Monica?"
...
"Did you just say she's dead?"
This is why I started with Tony and Monica’s relationship, because I feel like this is the missing piece that make people misread the final scene? There need to be some love/affection going on for Tony to react as he does when learning about Monica’s death.
One of my friends came out of that ep and her first sentence was "Tony's lucky". I told her you have to be a bit of a psychopath to say that first thing after that scene!! XD
A character can be bad, morally, and yet get genuinely hurt (in this case, deliciously, because it's his own fault, but I digress). There is a weird thing going on with a lack of nuances altogether and filtering everything through black and white lenses.
Tony can be an asshole AND be devastated by the death of his wife. The two things can coexist, I would even say that it's not even weird that they coexist. People are made of shade of greys, good characters too.
You can rejoice in his pain, you can feel sorry for him (and hate yourself for it like come on, he's such a shit), you can murmur "DESERVED" sotto voce like a vengeful demi-God. Do whatever. But you can't say Tony looks relieved that Monica is dead because it's very clear he is not.
As a side note: I also want to add here that people saying he is relieved often mention that his little secret is safe... and that's a bit stupid (sorry). Both Caitlin and Archie know about Maud, this particular fact is already out of the box at this point in time and Tony was already bracing for it anyway (and probably planning ahead because that's what Tony does). Tony should also assume at this point that Maud already told Declan; that's why he called her in the first place after all.
The one thing that Monica's death prevent is the divorce, and yes, that's a good thing from Tony's POV but:
as I said I'm sure he was already planning how to avoid it anyway at this point and convinced he would (make Monica change her mind, blackmail Monica if needed, whatever, that's who Tony is)
imo that would again have been devastating as in Tony losing her more than the scandal honestly... Have you seen the world they all live in? Paul cheated with a woman who could be his daughter and he's already back in charge, married to Sarah, and even in a better place carrier-wise... Rupert exists (I don't even have to add more here), Tony is a powerful white man, people already know he has no morals, I highly doubt a divorce and a scandal would have been anything more than inconvenient at this point...
And to conclude, when asked why they killed Monica in the Podcast, Dominic Treadwell-Collins started his reply with:
"Tony needs to pay, there needs to be some repercussions for his actions"
Of course Tony is truly devastated, this was supposed to hurt him, that was kind of the point.
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