#1.03 analysis

Ah, thank you so much, anon! That’s very nice! I’m so glad you enjoy reading them because I really enjoy writing them!

And I think Rio gives her the address in 1.03 for two reasons. The primary, character-motivation reason would be that it’s a temporary space and therefore it’s not a risk to give her its location. By the end of the episode, he and his crew have already cleared out of it, leaving no trace behind—as if they were never there. 

This is more of a stretch, but I could also potentially see it as a sort of test for her. It’s not like Rio knew Beth was going to come back and want a job, but she does intrigue him from the moment she gives the PF Chang’s speech and inviting her into the warehouse (which is a bit unusual—he takes her to one other warehouse in 1.08, but I don’t think he invites her to another one of his spaces until the bar in 2.04?) does give him a bit of insight into how trustworthy she is. It does seem like he had his eye on the space even after he’d cleared out because he found the calling card pearls, after all, and I could see him trying to figure out whether or not she’d send the cops to the warehouse. I’d imagine Rio at least had Beth in his back pocket as a potential person he could utilize in unusual situations; he definitely saw the benefit of her invisibility in 1.02, after all. 

Then, on the other hand, I think it’s a storytelling device that conveys the scope and weight of Rio’s power. It’s a moment where Beth is enticed and on the hook. It also has the plot convenience of giving her a way to try and contact him. 

Ah my least favorite Brio scene! (Besides the obvious 2.13, that is)

So!

I 100% firmly believe Rio had fallen for Beth by the end of S2—that it was a slow progression from curiosity to attraction to genuine interest to genuine feelings, and I think it could best be summed up by the Pride and Prejudice quote where Elizabeth asks Darcy how he could have ever fallen in love with her and he answers, “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation …  I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

I think everyone has slightly different moments that they put on the chart for Rio’s deepening feelings for Beth, and they’re all valid.

These are the big ones for me:

1x02 - Beth’s speech that convinces him not to kill her and the girls - This is the moment where she piques Rio’s interest. I think he noticed her beauty in 1x01, but I think he pegged her as one type of way, and suddenly she showed him she was a different type of way. She was bold enough to stand up to him, and she came up with a fair argument on the spot despite the high stakes. She impressed him, period, and I don’t think he’s easily impressed. 

1x03 - Leaving him the pearls - I think he came to her house expecting a booty call, and was surprised again that he was wrong about her. I’m sure he’d bedded more than a few women that were intrigued and attracted to the dangerous vibe he puts out (even if it was far outside their normal “type”), what with the tattoo and the gun and the swagger, and I think he correctly clocked that Beth was attracted to him, even at this point, but then she wants in? She got a taste of crime and liked it? I think discovering this, combined with the fact that he might have thought he was about to hook up with her, probably made him very interested in it happening somewhere down the line. I think this is the moment that sets up other moments where he lets her off the hook when he shouldn’t—he wants to see it play out. 

1x04 - “We’re not here to try, we’re here to win, bitch” - I think this is where he lets his interest in her be known a little more? I mean, he sneaks in through her bedroom, rifles through her stuff, asks about the husband he clearly knows is her husband, challenges her to admit he’s not good at his job, and then gives her that look when she asks what he wants. Then she surprises him (AGAIN!) by coming up with a legitimately good idea! She’s smart! She might actually be kinda good at this, and she’s actively chasing after it! She’s a bit goofy in the delivery, but she’s trying to show him that she’s in. But he still can’t figure her out, exactly, and he likes that, which is why he asks her point blank what she’s doing with someone like him the very next episode, and puts the idea into her head of fucking him. I think at this point he’s still just curious and attracted and wants to bone her, but he wants it enough that he sort of forgives her panicking and backtracking immediately after asking to be let in? And while he threatens her, he doesn’t harm her when he thinks she’s stolen from him?

1x06 - “Just give me a name.” “Beth Boland.” - I think this is the moment where he moves from being more amused by her to more impressed by her. She’s the leader of her crew. She takes responsibility for her mistakes. He gives her advice. He wants to set her up for success in this world. She ignores it—because she likes doing things her own way. He doesn’t like it, but I think he respects her tenacity—especially when she tells him never to point a gun at her again? Like, the audacity? Did she just forget who he is? He just leans against his car and watches her drive away and just uuuuuuugh. Yep. He’s into her. So he spends a little more time with her and meets her alone in cafés and tells her she’s pretty.

1x09 - “What you and me had is done. Over.” - I mean, the language. He could’ve said “you’re fired,” “you’re out,” “I don’t need you,” “I’m done with you,” but no. What you and me had? Over? There’s an “us” there. There’s an avoidance of naming what, exactly, they had. It’s break-up language—and it’s more than a break-up than we get in 2x09, honestly. And I’m curious whether this really would’ve been the end if Beth hadn’t tried to get him arrested, because I think this is sort of a heat-of-the-moment breakup? The feds have been breathing down his neck, he had to shut down all operations, and he had a kid turn. He just had to kill that kid, one of his own. He’s had a week. He means it when he says he doesn’t need her bitch-ass drama. He thought she was up for it, and she’s cracking here, and I think it frustrates him because he expected more from her? 

2x01/2x02- The touching!!! - I mean. He’s got legitimate feelings by this point, right? Even if he’s not really engaging in them? He would kill her otherwise, I think. He just killed Eddie for talking to the cops—she set him up for the cops. She actually got him arrested! But I think more than anything, this plan just shows him that she’s bold enough and crazy enough to match him. She’s not on his level, but she could be, someday. He touches her face, because he can, and sees that she lets him. Oh, sure, it’s performative. It’s show for Dean, it’s manipulating her, but he’s also escalating in the ways he’s touching her. He knows he’s got her feeling all sorts of ways, too. He reveals to her that he has a kid, and that’s manipulative, too, but he wouldn’t do this with just anyone. I think he knows the effect it will have on her. Then, when she fails to kill Boomer, I don’t think he’s actually that surprised—she couldn’t pull the trigger on him all that long ago, and he’s good at reading people. I sort of headcanon that he showed up at her house in 2x02 to kill her, but couldn’t. He touches her face again. He’s soft for her, and he knows it, even if he wouldn’t admit it out loud. He promises to teach her because he wants to bring her more into his world. 

2x04 - Bar Bathroom - He believes she did it, that she crossed over, that she got her hands dirty, that she can’t leave his world, and he’s excited. Then she initiates sex? While on a date with her husband? In public? I’ve talked about it a lot, but this is a huge shift for him. He gets openly jealous, destructive, and starts escalating in trying to maintain her total focus and attention. He flirts, but it’s more lighthearted than it was before—he’s not trying to get her off-kilter, he’s trying to get her to come closer. He’s still too into “the game” to just outright invite her into bed again, but he tries so very hard. He’s got it bad. 

2x06 - “You know, I think this thing with me and you has run its course, yeah?” and “Oh, you think you’re special, huh?” - Yes? She does? She knows he won’t kill her? He knows he won’t kill her? He knows that it’s true, that she is special, which is exactly why he says it! He wants her to believe that she’s not because she’s got him all messed up. Again, he uses break-up language her. “This thing with me and you”? “Run its course”? What thing, Rio? You think this is how he fires his boys??? No fucking way. Then she bests him in the 50/50 deal and he’s pissed, but fuck is he turned on. I 100% believe she drives him fucking crazy but he could never fall so deeply for anyone that didn’t challenge him on that level.

2x07 - The Dubby - Dude knew it was gonna fuck up some things professionally, did it anyway. This reminds me so much of Darcy paying off Wickham for Lydia. It doesn’t benefit Rio at all. He doesn’t even really want the credit. He was soft with her the very next episode in 2x08, offered to help her—for free—deal with her problems. Laughed with her. Teased her. I still think he was avoiding how genuine his feelings had become (I mean, there’s a reason he avoids giving her the dubby in person) but I think he knew, at this point, that she was different, and he stopped denying the feelings. 

2x09 - The kiss - Now it wasn’t just that he stopped denying it, he had to openly confront it. He stopped holding himself back here, and we saw that just in the kiss. He had to engage with the idea that maybe it was more for her, too. I think that sex was intense, and I 100% think he lets himself sink into the idea that they could have something real, in their own fucked up way. I don’t think he’s felt this way about anyone (ever, or for a very long time) and I think he comes to accept it, even if it’s outside of his comfort zone. He is so relaxed and so comfortable in her bed. And she dumps him by quitting. There’s no “you and me” or “what we had.” It’s “I’m done.” It’s “no more cash, no more pills.” It’s not about them at all, and I think that fucks him up a little (and is tied to his work comment later). 

2x11 - 20 questions - Rio is more impressed and amused that Beth broke into his house and learned his real name than anything else (I’m convinced it is his real name, not another alias). He allows her to follow him all day, which means, in his own way, he allows her in to his life and his privacy—even when they’re separated! I think he knows it’s not over between them, which is why he allows himself to play the game again and rile her up and make her want him—because it’ll be so much sweeter if she comes back to him. He’s willing to play the long game. 

2x12 - “That’s what I am? Work?” - There is so much good analysis of this scene from pynkhues and lunafeather, but this is resignation and frustration and exhaustion at her inability to commit one way or another. He has feelings for her, but he’s mad at her, he’s disappointed in her, and she’s dumped him (or rather, quit) but now is trying to demand that he name this thing between them in a way that she won’t? At this point, he’s made the gestures, done the flirting, and let himself be vulnerable with her in a way that she just has not reciprocated. I think he knows they’re not over, not really, but the only reason he wants to hurt her so badly in this scene is because she has hurt him.

Yes, I think those feelings are still there after 2x13. I think he had allowed himself to feel things for her that he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for anyone else, and I think they’re deep enough that they don’t just disappear, even under the circumstances. I don’t think Rio’s going to be engaging with those feelings or pursuing them, though. At this point, he’s been deeply betrayed by her, and that betrayal stings more because of how much he cares for her. (And at this stage, I do think it’s a deep, genuine care, and not love—I think they’d both have to have their walls down a little more and a little longer than the space that 2x09 allows to have it turn into love—but I think they’re on their way). 

Oh, he’ll fuck with her in S3. He might taunt her and flirt with her if he knows that it will make her off-balance, but I’m sure his walls are going back up and he’s cutting her off emotionally. I’m interested to see how they come up with a justification for him not killing her after this—because if they want me to believe that he’s a big, bad crime boss, that needs to be addressed, and I think based on where I expect Rio to be emotionally at the beginning of S3, I don’t think it’s going to be waved away easily by the suggestion that he still cares for her.

Ahhh, I love this question!

So, I need to analyze two things at once here, simultaneously to be able to talk about what Beth is thinking in that moment: what’s happened so far in the series in Beth and Dean’s relationship, and in Beth and Rio’s interactions.

So in the pilot, we see:

Beth is much more upset by Dean’s financial missteps than the fact that he stepped outside of his marriage. His bad investment led to bad loans led to unpaid mortgages which led to… Dean doing absolutely nothing to change this reality. Beth finally has solid evidence she can’t ignore that Dean has failed—has been failing—his family for years. She realizes this to the point that, as soon as she is financially capable, she is immediately fed up with their twenty-year power imbalance and kicks him to the curb. It’s significant that she doesn’t once mention Amber while she’s kicking him out—she just demands the passwords to the accounts and tells him she handled the mortgage because he “couldn’t.” Amber wasn’t the reason Beth and Dean’s marriage fell apart—any more than the other “three” are (how much does it say that Beth doesn’t even seem to wonder at this point if Dean has slept with other women?). Anyway, Amber is just the trigger point for Beth discovering how impotent Dean is—in every possible way.

That all of that happens before Beth meets Rio. She’s already emotionally done with her husband—she has been. It was confirmed in their very first interaction when he says “Love you” and, after telling each of her four children she loved them, she says, “Tuna fish. Keep it in the fridge.” That was us seeing them at their best. Everything that happens next with Rio—from this to 2x09—is a logical extension of Beth being emotionally and physically separated from Dean as a starting point for her character arc. 

Beth reacts to Rio with absolute terror—and that goes far beyond the scream. When Rio first breaks into her house, Beth hides how frightened she is much better than Annie and Ruby, but she still swallows thickly when he finally leaves and then immediately removes her kids from her house in order to protect them from him (by the way, how long does it take for Beth to stop keeping her children as physically far away from Rio as possible?)

In Mo Money Mo Problems:

Beth chides Dean for admitting he misses her after two days, saying “Kenny goes to sleep away camper for longer. Let’s keep it together.” 

She also starts reasserting her independence, insisting she can push a mower and figure out the satellite TV. She no longer sees Dean as a provider financially, emotionally, or even physically. His role in her life has completely been eradicated. Within the same day, she sells her wedding ring—which she only hesitates in selling because it was his great-great-grandmother’s. She’s convinced by the saleslady when she asks, “How much do you hate him?”

Meanwhile, Rio is still an incredibly ominous figure in her life. Now he appears at Ruby’s work, swinging his gun around in public. 

Then, importantly, Dean screws up Beth’s plan to steal the money to pay Rio back by ignoring her insistence that she can mow the lawn. In the middle of their burglary, she rushes back home to stop Dean from discovering Boomer tied up in her tree house. Beth tells the girls that she “choked” and “couldn’t” rob Marian, but we never actually see her hesitate—we see her gleefully discover the money only to be interrupted by a phone call with the babysitter. Now, I don’t buy that Beth is too concerned with Dean’s opinion of her—possibly only of his ability to try and take her kids away from her. We already know Beth is cold—we just saw her sell a wedding ring of sentimental value! Now we’re supposed to believe she wouldn’t rob a stranger? No way! Dean is such an embarrassment and a liability to Beth that she can’t even admit to the girls why she has to go in such a hurry.

When Rio reappears, the camera immediately pans to Beth’s reaction to Rio destroying Hans—not Annie’s, although she had been the one introducing and displaying the figurine to him. Beth’s scared in this scene. It’s one of the few times we see her cry—barely!—in a series where girl has gone through some shit!

In the last scene, Beth’s still scared of him. She yells at Kenny to go inside to get away from him, and then she stands between Rio and the house, in mama bear mode. She backs away as Rio approaches her. She lets down her guard—barely—as he asks her about the passports.

All that’s to say: by the time she sees Rio in the warehouse, she’s become painfully aware of her husband’s powerlessness and incompetency, and acutely afraid of Rio and his power over her physically and financially (remember, she’s essentially destitute once her interactions with Rio are complete).