#2.06 analysis

Personally, no, I don’t think so. I think his feelings were growing for her, but he felt conflicted about that—and I think we saw that across a lot of his behavior, from inserting himself into the Boland Motors scheme to flaunting Dylan to being unable to face her when returning the dubby, not to mention that I don’t think he planned at all to get the dubby in the first place. I really do think Rio was surprised by how hard he was falling for Beth—I do think we see the moment he actually fully realizes it after that first, soft, tentative kiss in the bedroom where he opens his eyes and just takes her in before breaking completely—and sorting through what that meant in terms of his business was messy and complicated, especially when it was competing against his nature. For instance, I think he knew much more clearly how he felt about her in season 4, but that didn’t stop him from treating her badly, even when it was against his own self-interest, from stealing her campaign money to kidnapping and threatening to harm Annie.

More specifically, though, I do feel like we saw that he was still setting her up to take the fall across season 2, most blatantly with the pills operation that he runs through her cars. I do think the money he gave her was always a bit of a trick and he was planning to insert himself into whatever scheme she came up with irregardless of them sleeping together, but I think the pills was something he thought up after the bathroom break. The show was very deliberate in having Beth voice that it was her name on the door—meaning that she carried all of the risk while Rio was safe in the shadows. Ultimately, that did come to fruition and Beth lost her husband’s family business (and put a mark on the Boland name which was important in the downfall of Boland Bubbles as well, as Dave doggedly went after Dean because of the record).

I don’t think Rio was intentionally trying to orchestrate a situation where Beth did take the fall, but he deftly created a situation where if their scheme fell apart, she was the face and it would be her in cuffs, not him. They repeat this beat when he forces her to be the Banker in season 4, and he deliberately lays out that this is a system he finds both effective and beneficial when Dean is arrested as well.

I think she was absolutely embarrassed and angry in the car, particularly because Annie and Ruby were there to witness it knowing that they'd just slept together, but also because I think it tapped into the humiliation she felt in 2.05 realizing—again with an audience—that Dean had had many affairs and that it was just about "a warm body."

But I think she was jealous, too. When she's with Rio, he makes her feel special. While I don't think she ever quite grasps the full extent or significance of it, I do think she even recognizes that he makes exceptions for her and that she is special and that he has real feelings for her (2.12 confirms this when he actually gets her riled up enough to demand whether she's actually just work, which Beth would never do if she wasn't confident that she meant more than that to him).

Because Rio makes her feel special, though, giving her hyper-focused and intense attention, valuing her ideas, and giving her every indication that he's attracted to her (and after 2.04, that he's interested in sleeping with her again through blatant flirting and innuendo) I suspect she thought she was the only one. Couple that with Beth's naivete about relationships (considering the only one she's been is started when she was fifteen) her compartmentalization, I simply don't think Beth considered Rio's life and relationships outside of what she knew about him.

Like, she's introduced to Marcus, but we get no insight into her wondering about who his mother might be or what the state of Rio's relationship with her is until she spies them together in 2.11 (another place where I think she's jealous).

On top of that, I think Ruby correctly clocked that she was jealous when she suggested stealing the pills was a reaction to seeing Rio with Dylan rather than about wanting a cut. Beth trying to insist, "You think I care who he sleeps with?" is one of her worse attempts at lying, haha, and Annie even tells her to drop it because she's not convincing anybody, so I do think the writer's wanted us to believe she was jealous too.

I think it can’t be ruled out since they are married and Beth is currently fighting to save their marriage, however, I will say that the intimate scenes have always served a narrative purpose so I don’t think we’re about to get them “just because.” I also think that we have gotten 4 intimate scenes in 38 episodes and they have all been in direct response to Rio:

Beth sleeps with him in 2.06 after being turned on by Rio and she imagines Rio during the encounter. Narrative purpose: Contrast the connection between Beth and Dean with Beth and Rio; show Dean discovering the “affair” to set up Dean hiring the baby hitmen.

Beth tried to use Dean to get pregnant in 3.03 after lying to Rio to spare her life. Narrative purpose: Sets up that Dean is still tempted to cheat even when Beth and Dean are at their “best,” showing Dean hasn’t grown that much. Shows the extent of Beth’s desperation and how emotionally dishonest Beth is with Dean and how she will use him for her own purposes.

Dean kisses Beth in 3.04 right after telling her “we were so good with [Rio] gone.” Narrative purpose: Shows that Dean fundamentally misunderstands his relationship with Beth and the impact Rio has on that relationship; contrasts against the money-making scene with Rio showing there’s more spark in her antagonistic relationship than in her marriage; sets up Dean’s jealousy being a major issue in season 3

Beth attempts to seduce Dean in 3.07 after successfully stealing from Rio; Dean explicitly expresses surprise that she’s initiating sex now that Rio is back. Narrative purpose: Shows Beth enjoying the cat and mouse game that she and Rio used to play which sets up her attempt to play off his attraction to her in 3.08; parallel shots call back to 2.04 mirror shots in the bathroom; costuming in the robe calls back to 2.09, which ultimately compares to 2.06 as her connection and dynamic with Rio still does more to turn her on than her own husband.

Even the more minor forms of intimacy have been connected to Rio. Beth reached for Dean and seeks comfort in a hug after shooting Rio in 2.13, tear-stained and numb, showing how she’d been affected by the event and setting up that Dean offers her a sense of security, stability, and familiarity in the wake of that trauma. Beth breaks down sobbing and Dean hugs her in 3.06 after Beth has to dig up Lucy’s body in order to save Max, and even when she and Rio are at their lowest point, Beth still doesn’t confide in Dean about what’s really going on. When Dean snuggles against Beth at the end of 4.02, it’s right before he’s arrested for Beth’s crimes that she’s secretly committing with Rio.

Okay, SO, this question completely stumped me and I had to mull it over with @mego42​ and she’s responsible for, like, 95% of these ideas.

THE GOLDEN GUN

The gold gun was a flashy, attention-drawing status symbol that was used as a sort of shorthand in Rio’s introduction. Combined with how he surprised Beth by showing up at her house and delighted in making a show of it, the gun represents the part of Rio that’s flashy, dramatic, and likes luxury. Gold is symbolic of wealth, success, and status, i.e. Rio in a nutshell. It’s also strongly associated with royalty, which is apt since Rio is “the King.”

The golden gun is fairly prevalent throughout season 1. It’s sitting beside him, untouched, when Beth enters the house in the pilot. He casually uses it to gesture around like it's an extension of him. It sits beside him as a reminder of his threat in 1.02 at Ruby’s diner (but interestingly, it never makes an appearance in the scene where they’re actually set to kill the girls—instead, it’s Mick’s gun). He flashes it to remind Beth of its presence at Kenny’s birthday, puts it to her head in 1.07, and, of course, slides it across the table and dares Beth to shoot him in 1.10. Essentially, in season 1, the gun has power over Beth, despite the fact that we never actually see it used. 

In season 2, things begin to shift (and we begin to see the gun less—seeing it only at the beginning, the midpoint, and at the end). In 2.01, Rio takes the gun back from Beth when she fails, unable to use it—and then he re-establishes his power at his weakest point (after the arrest) by using it to shoot Dean.

Theoretically, the gun is present in a lot more scenes that we don’t have access to—it likely had a role in Rio teaching Beth how to shoot (though she likely learned to shoot on the pearl-handled gun that Rio loaned her to take care of Boomer), it may have featured in both the sex scenes in 2.04 and 2.09 (since it’s implied Rio usually has it on him), and it was likely utilized in the drug den when he retrieved the dubby in 2.07. But mostly, we don’t see it—at least until 2.06, when Beth steals the pills and Rio shows up in her backyard and it hangs, impotent, between his legs.

He quickly proves Beth right—that he won’t hurt her—when he strides halfway across the lawn and the gun hangs loosely by his side while his other, free hand twitches in agitation. It’s only when he’s unable to get Beth to budge and answer his question that he finally tries to use it to remind her of his power—but it doesn’t matter; Beth had already established prior to this scene in her conversation with Annie and Ruby that she wasn’t afraid of the gun (and by extension, of Rio). Rio can’t even maintain the facade within the scene; when Beth challenges him and reiterates his need for her, Rio seems to subconsciously lower the gun even while he’s glaring at her, jaw working, and telling her that she isn’t special:

He then hides the gun as soon as Dean and Emma come out, and Beth handwaves away its use against her, excusing its use as Rio being “upset.” Later, in their negotiation scene, Rio doesn’t use the gun at all, and Beth strongarms 50% of Rio’s profits. I think from this point on, Rio knows he can’t use it against Beth and so he doesn’t even try—to do so would only be to underscore its ineffectiveness. 

We next see it in 2.13 when Rio hands Beth his own gun, as @elixir448 points out—pointing towards himself—and tells her to shoot Turner. It’s interesting that Rio gives Beth his own gun in this moment, particularly as the whole seems to have been planned in advance and he likely had time to procure another gun for her to use. I’m not entirely sure of his motive here on a character-level as opposed to a show-level (where it becomes important that he’s betrayed by his own gun).

@mego42 pointed out that there’s a “layer of artifice” between Beth and Rio throughout season 2, and that the gold gun has a role in that. It’s a flashy distraction piece and its bark is bigger than its bite, as shown in 2.06. Perhaps Rio wanted to remind Beth of the gun’s power (and his power over her) by forcing her to make this move before she was ready with his own piece. Either way, the artifice falls away and the gun does become powerful again—only its when Beth recognizes the ways that Rio has manipulated her throughout the season and instead turns it on him instead of Turner, effectively upending their power dynamic wherein Rio is the one in control all of the time. 

The scene ends, of course, with Rio bleeding out on the floor and Turner telling Beth “gimme the gun,” leaving Turner with all the power.

That leads us to the silver gun.

Yeah, I do! But I think Rio knew a lot more about Beth’s romantic situation than Beth knew about his, though, and I think that made a big impact on the difference of their reactions?

Rio knew that the first time they had sex, Beth’s husband was waiting outside. He also knew that she chose to have sex with him despite the fact that he shot and nearly killed that same husband. On top of that, he also knew that she didn’t want Dean to know that they slept together, and Rio made a conscious choice to bite his tongue. 

When they slept together a second time, Rio knew that Dean had taken the kids (with the implication being that he had left her too) and he was right in understanding the emotional status of Beth and Dean’s marriage (dead), but he didn’t know about Beth’s bargain to give up Rio and crime to get the kids (and Dean) back in the house. He didn’t know the nuances of that decision, and I think that was part of what made Beth’s dumping of him so brutal—he thought Beth had used him and then taken back her husband, and I always take his scoff in 2.06 when Dean comes out of the house to be partly motivated by Rio’s annoyance that she’s still with Dean. Rio really doesn’t know how much he knows about Beth and Dean’s marriage—he knows that marriage is broken, but he doesn’t know how or why. He can only guess the true reasons Beth has really stayed with Dean this long, you know?

But he still knows more than Beth.

Beth doesn’t know if Rio was ever married to Rhea or not. And she didn’t know—but I think 2.06 confirmed—that she assumed that he was single and completely unattached when she invited him into the bathroom. I think it was naive, but I think that makes sense because Beth’s relationship experience is really, really limited. She doesn’t have a comparison point. Beth has no ex-boyfriends, no flings, no nothing. She, Annie, and Ruby all got married young, and casual dating doesn’t seem like something Beth would understand. Even Annie is not a casual dater—she gets together with someone easily, but she falls fast and hard and seems to commit early too. 

She never got to see a comparison point in terms of how he behaved with other women, either. I think that’s the reason Beth finds Dylan so shocking. In her mind, Rio’s attention has always been so intense—he literally tunnel visions to Beth whenever he’s around her, and I think it made her feel that she was special and unique. In seeing Rio with Dylan, she learned that she wasn’t, but she also learned that Rio was different around another woman... open, playful, warm. 

To me, both of those realities being revealed to her at all, let alone in front of Annie and Ruby, are the reasons that Beth takes being a “side piece” so much harder than Rio might’ve. 

Rio knew she was married, but he also knew she chose Rio over Dean (at least at first).

Not comparable at ALL, but I find just spending a week with my nieces exhausting! Catering to someone else’s whims, needs, and wants all day makes me bone-tired—and I have help and a time limit and it’s for fun. The thought of parenthood is so daunting just because of that extremely limited experience.

Beth not only has that multiplied with the number of children she has, but also in the number of activities she has them signed up for. Managing the household, the cleaning, the cooking, the schedules, and the emotional needs of everyone in the family—what she was doing pre-pilot was labor, and Dean was not only emotionally disinvested in performing that labor, he was also disinterested in appreciating or noticing it. When Beth thought she was 30 seconds away from being arrested, she realized Dean was not only not equipped to take care of his children, he was not equipped to take care of their house. He didn’t even know the day-to-day goings-on in it. 

One of the most impactful Beth/Dean scenes for me is when Beth comes home after working all day to a messy house—something Dean has never come home to I’d argue in his entire life. Dean then complains about how hard everything was, how he felt like he was being tugged in ten different directions, and he says, “It’s exhausting!” And Beth just yells, “YEAH!” I love that scene so much and Christina conveys so much loaded history and emotion in that single word, it destroys me every time. The fact that it’s followed up with Dean basically having his own disassociative moment where the kids run circles around him in a montage scene and that he then follows that up with an immediate return to a lack of interest in helping, supporting, or emotionally connecting with his wife when their dynamic flips back to “normal” in 2.10 is literally infuriating. He knows what it’s like and he just... doesn’t care. 

Ooh, that’s a great question!

I’m inclined to think that he recognizes that it’s a combo of all three, but that he might be more laser-focused on the professional reasons than the personal? One, I think Rio might be reticent to admit just how badly his plan backfired—it did not get Beth jealous and back into bed like he wanted, it actually drove her farther away from him and made her double down on not acknowledging that anything had happened between them. I think Beth actually does a pretty good job in her scenes with Rio to not reveal what she knows or what she thinks about what she saw in the parking lot with Dylan. I also think that Rio might poke that bruise a bit if he saw a clear opportunity to do so? 

2.06 is such a fascinating episode because it’s one of the earlier standout episodes where everything happening between them is distinctly personal, but they’re trying so hard to act like it’s just business. In my mind, Rio only gives Beth the errand to make her jealous. Beth only steals the pills because she’s jealous. Rio tries to threaten her and fire her but frames it like he’s dumping her (“I think this thing between me and you has run its course”) and he’s unable to pull the trigger. He scoffs and says “okay” when her husband shows up like he’s irritated at the idea that they’re still playing house. The 50/50 deal that Beth wrangles from Rio only works because he has feelings for her and treats her differently than he’d treat anyone else. Still, they acknowledge nothing—the closest we get is Rio repositioning Beth for desk sex, something that I think he threw out only to rattle her, because I suspect he knew before he even said that it that the answer was going to be a definitive no.