welcome back, boomerang

I know we didn’t see all of Ainsley’s interview (shoe interruptus), but we saw a fractured version of it.

We saw Martin’s freakout, which means they must have aired the questions that MADE him freak out–the questions about Malcolm and his litany of issues.

And then Dani asks Bright this the next day:

This leads me to believe two things.

One: Dani watched the interview with Dr. Whitly. In its entirety.

Two: it greatly disturbed her. And she was worried about her friend. She knows how wildly inappropriate it was for Ainsley to have aired all her brother’s personal shit on live TV just for the sake of ratings, to have completely thrown him under the bus and driven over him like that for all of America–including his colleagues–to see. Like he’s some poor, broken thing to be pitied instead of a human being with feelings (who is trying really damn hard).

But Malcolm isn’t ready to deal with any of that on his own yet, let alone with Dani, so he gently (read: awkwardly) shuts the conversation down.

I know I’m reading into one line, but let me tell you, I am SO HERE for Dani watching this interview, thinking it was complete and utter bullshit, and wanting to check in with Bright the next day to make sure he was okay.

Thank you for taking care of me. What are friends for.

Then I listened to his album, wherein he sings about:

decomposing in a field with his love and getting eaten by foxes

being dug out of the dirt by his love, who he implores to kiss him “like real people do”, implying that neither of them are real people

observing the world as an outsider (“happy to lie back, watch it burn and rust; we tried the world, good god it wasn’t for us”)

rising from his grave to crawl home to his love

“the bog man”

me: (listens to “Take Me Home, Country Roads” for an hour)

my spotify algorithm: