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Season 1, episode 2 starts with a scene of Carmy and Chef Fields and some hapless baby chef with a broken sauce, all in New York City. The cookware is fancy copper stuff. It's clean and high-strung and gourmet. Carmy is being psychologically tortured but you can see that the work is very high level. He is a chef prince in New York City.

Cut to: Appalling sandwich shop in Chicago. Everything is still chaos and filth.

Cut to: The gang is cleaning the kitchen after service.

Sydney is cleaning the range hood, which is probably a greasy sticky mess that hasn't been cleaned in years. You can see that her arm is aching from reaching up for a long period of time.

The first lines in this scene are an exchange between Syd and Carm.

Sydney: Chef, do you want me to strain that oil for you?

Carmy: No, no, I got it. Thank you, Chef.

I have never worked in a kitchen but I worked in movie theater once and cleaning the butter machine was the worst job. You feel like you'll never be clean after cleaning up rancid oil and grease. It's just sticky and a pain in the ass.

She is fully volunteering for a couple of the worst cleaning jobs in that kitchen. She's not delegating to Richie or Sweeps or Manny or Angel. She's putting herself at the top of the signup sheet. To be fair she is still staging but she's the only other trained chef in the restaurant besides Carmy.

But when she volunteers, he, chef prince of New York City and apparently unequivocally one of the best and most acclaimed chefs in the country if not the world, immediately responds "no baby don't worry about it I'll do that for you, you're too pretty for such things" 😂

She will do anything for his horrible restaurant.

He will do anything to make her happy.

One thing that they've never managed to do is sooth each other through touch because they are both so jumpy about that part of their relationship.

But we have seen Richie "anchor" Carmy a couple of times and it is clearly quite helpful for Carmy.

Carm also reaches out to everyone and awkwardly pets their arms in reassurance.

It would be a treat (if not an unbearable taunt) if he could finally be there for her when she needed help, reliably, and soothe her fears and reassure her with something as shocking as a HUG.

Is the fire suppression nozzle that hangs beside Syd & Carmy at the stove kinda suggestive of a dick? Yes let's make it so.

And in "Sheridan," which I'm rewatching for vibes, he comes in the kitchen, says "May I?" and then loudly pulls on latex gloves and gets all up in her slimy prawns?

Oh, that man is sliding on a condom. Good lovers protect their partners.

He wears one of the same black latex gloves, I think, in "Tomorrow" when he is plating her blood orange hamachi.

Is he also maybe covering up a recent burner burn? Yeah...maybe. But also, protection for them both. It's the respectful thing to do.

The Faks and their STDs and unwashed hands, and Donna with her salmonella and her finger buttering are established as explicit counter examples modeling what not to do.

Later, after Carmy has fucked around on her, the long lag between when he's done with Claire and when he's angling for Sydney (May, June, July, August, September, October) is not just about cleaning up his act but making sure his STD panel is clean.

He's not wearing latex gloves 30 seconds later when she asks him to strain the stock. Maybe it's a continuity error maybe he took them off