#4.04 analysis

So why did he bring her around Nick if he didn’t want Nick to know about her and seemed annoyed that Nick was using Beth to try to tell Rio that he was the boss snd Rio worked for him. It seems like if he didn’t bring her to dinner then Nick would have never known and he could continue to keep him in the dark…

My interpretation is that Rio was reacting to discovering in 4.04 that Beth had both hired and had Rio take care of the hitman meant to eliminate him, and that indicated that she was still working with the Secret Service to take him down. Introducing her to his family, while having the negative consequences of putting her in the path of Nick, had the benefit of reminding her that he has a lot at stake—people who love him and depend on him just like she does.

It's a move we've seen him utilize before when he revealed Marcus's existence to her, and a move which is much more highly effective with Beth than the cycle of threats (and he was certainly running out of ones he could feasibly use).

More than that, it seems that Beth's speech in 4.04 really did affect Rio and put him in a position of wanting her to choose him rather than forcing her hand. I think this is both why we saw him finally cave and openly confront her just one episode later, and one of the reasons why we didn't see him threaten the fingerprinted gun when he knew it could be effective.

Ultimately, the move worked. Beth was already having guilt dreams about betraying him and in the middle of the party, she panicked and got rid of the wire. She also didn't take a single opportunity the entire time she was there to pry for more information while wired, which is a detail I love.

As for the Nick of it all, I think Rio gets tunnel vision with Beth and generally thinks he's in control and can manage people to secure the outcomes he desires, even when he's wrong (as he often is with both Nick and Beth, but not most others). I think he knew it was a bit of a calculated risk, but I also think Rio didn't anticipate how loud and possessive he would be about Beth, either.

I half-agree, anon! While I don't think Rio kept buying into the lie that Dave was law enforcement and read the scene as Rio realizing Beth hired a hitman and then manipulated Rio into handling him, I do think Rio felt the significance of Beth backing out of a plan to kill him. For him, I think it was doubly weighted. First, I don't think Rio realized that Beth was feeling so trapped and desperate that she would even initiate a plan like that (he had once again understimated her). Second, I believe he was aware across season 3 that he was in love with her despite the fact that he didn't want to be, and that with that, his anger and fury at her had thawed considerably by 3.11. While I think he saw Beth's backtracking as a part of her own thawing, the more important takeaway that he had was that Beth was still working with Secret Service based on the true parts of her confession to him in 4.04. With that information, he attempted to capitalize on her shifting feelings for him by inviting her deeper into his life to meet his family in 4.06, reminding her of the parts of himself that she was always the most drawn to as well as reminding her what was at stake for him, similarly to how he introduced her to Marcus in 2.01.

IMO he absolutely figured it out, but didn't feel the need to press for more information because it was fairly self-explanatory from his end. He understood she had hired a hitman, but that she'd also called it off, and that the reason for that was because she'd decided it was better for her self-interest to work with the Secret Service to turn him in.

That's why he didn't show up to the next drop and why he searched for the wire and why he set her up as the Banker and invited her to the barbeque and let his guard just far enough down to let her know he was still attracted to her.

I think he'd worked out that she'd wanted him dead because he'd wanted her dead after the shooting, but he also realized she'd changed her mind, and that it meant something, even if she was still trying to make moves against him. He was able to see that there was some level of softening in her decision to give up on killing him, and he figured he could finagle things so that she gave up on turning him in, too. He pulled her closer—both by bringing her further into his operation, just like he did by becoming partners with her in 2.04, and by letting her really see him, just like he did by introducing her to Marcus in 2.01.

I agree with you that there was an element of pride for him. I think he realized he was still underestimating her, and that she still had the capacity to surprise him, and that she was still a worthy adversary—something I really do think he has enjoyed in their dynamic, even if he did shift over the course of season 4 to wanting a different one once Nick tried to come in and interfere.

Ah, what a great catch, anon!

I think we definitely are seeing Beth change and flip her allegiance. And I do think she chose Rio at the end of the episode—but not in a way that’s definitive and absolute. I just think the needle moved and we’re going to see that transformation process happen over the rest of the season.

I think of it like this:

3.07-3.09

Coming off of Lucy’s murder, Beth is 100% committed to the hitman plot because she feels its the only viable solution. She tells Max they can’t go to the cops because, as Ruby says, “we’ll all end up in that van.” These episodes are the height of Beth struggling in her relationship with Rio. She tells Max she feels “nothing” and Annie explicitly says that “it’s not a life” if all they do is work for Rio without pay, agency, or choice. She feels utterly trapped and sees this as the only way out. After Rio gets her fingerprints on the gun, she’s distraught, but once she has Fitzpatrick lined up, she’s proud of herself and feels incentivized because it ultimately means she will be free from him.

3.10

Beth passes Fitzpatrick’s test, but she’s resistant to making the call and the needle nudges because she’s unable to watch it happen. She celebrates Rio’s death, but has a brief moment of reflection looking out over the picnic table, remembering that there were better times between them. She insists no one was jilted, but corrects the girls when they say it was a “one and done.” She chooses to let go of the door handle when she’s in the car with Rio, ultimately taking the chance that he won’t hurt her and she’s proven right. Her inability to lie to him returns when she can’t come with a plausible excuse for where her money is going—a marked difference from her cocky assertion that she “can’t control the world market” or the way she tries to play him when she dresses up in the polka dot dress. She’s proud of her hot tub scheme and she gets frustrated, throwing a temper tantrum, when Rio doesn’t give her his full attention and stamp of approval. 

3.11

Beth’s ire gets reignited when Rio “consolidates,” forcing Beth to print and wash while he takes a large cut of the profits. She’s frustrated by his control over her, but she can’t help but feel flattered when he tells her that he “loves” Boland Bubbles, asking him, “Really?” Rio flirts and while Beth doesn’t flirt back, she is somewhat playful. She asks when it “gets to be mine” because she “made all of this happen.” She wants credit, but the fact that she asks also means things might be different if he were ever willing to let her have anything to herself. Rio essentially tells her that will never happen until she kills him. The moment is loaded, but when Rio leaves, Beth doesn’t look victorious—despite the fact that she has an active hit on him.

In retrospect, with Beth's entire trajectory in front of me, I really like that Beth asked Rio to spare Boomer in that moment, but that she still ultimately delivered him anyway, knowing exactly what she was doing. After all, her appeal to Rio barely made sense when applied to Boomer at all.

I think it was really important that Beth's moral deterioration didn't happen in one fell swoop, and I felt that it was well illustrated by the conversation she and Fitzpatrick had about the line constantly moving.

In early season 1, Beth drew it at the thought of robbing Marion to save her own life—but by the time we got to season 4, she used violence (and her detachment to being a witness to it) to intimidate Denise just so that she could win a political campaign.

I felt that the steps along that moral descent and desensitization to violence were developed fairly well.

We start in season 1 with Beth able to enact violence against Boomer in a moment where he's directly harming Annie (1.01) but she's not able to pull the trigger on Rio when she's uncertain how big of a threat he is to her (1.10/2.01). When she's commanded to kill Boomer, she thinks she can do it—she preps! she plans! she insists!—but ultimately she fails. In that moment, she doesn't have the adrenaline provoked by fear and desperation; Boomer doesn't pose an active threat to her, and it's different to harm someone in the heat of the moment than it is in an act of cold blood—which we see, of course, in the culmination of 2.13, where she shoots Rio after he's kidnapped her, tripped her adrenaline, and then yells at and advances toward her.

After that, she feels that Rio poses an active threat to her life, and she does make plans to kill him, but they're all through a proxy: three different hitmen. Despite the fact that she thinks she's actively in danger, she refuses to be the one committing that violence. However, she both allows Lucy to get in the van (then refuses culpability, telling Rio it's "his fault") and knowingly delivers Boomer to his death (half-heartedly arguing for him to be spared in a speech that really doesn't apply to Boomer at all). She was grappling with and resisting who she was becoming and trying to cling to the idea that she was still mostly a good person—that while she was willing to do X, she wasn't willing to do Y.

She was still toeing the line when she asked Mick to handle getting the books back from Dave, but she balked at the last minute, unable to handle responsibility for harming what she thought was an innocent stranger.

However, the line moved dramatically when she manipulated Rio into handling "Dave"—a very significant step in this trajectory because Fitzpatrick didn't pose an active threat to her life. His elimination merely opened up a possibility for her to start over in witness protection. And there was no excuse this time, no denying culpability. She knew what she was doing, and she chose it with her eyes wide open.

It continued with her actively threatening the possibility of violence in her role as The Banker—also by proxy—and of course, culminates in her using Mick to scare Denise, though notably this time she's present for the act.

I do think they definitely showed that Beth got more comfortable with the idea of utilizing violence as a means to an end, and understanding that sometimes it may even be necessary—something she was resistant to when she was dealing with Gil in season 3. For instance, though, her intentions were to protect the girl when she was acting as The Banker, even if she was blackmailing her in the same breath.

In that vein, no, I don't think she would've been capable of handling Boomer in season 4 because I think she needed to go through the steps of Dave, Fitzpatrick, and Denise for that to even be a possibility (unless Boomer was posing an active threat in the scene, in which case, I think she'd be just as capable as she was in pulling the trigger against Rio).

However, in a theoretical season 5, I'm still not sure we would've seen Beth go down this path. I felt like the series ended in a spot where Rio gave up his desire to see Beth get her hands dirty (when he hands her the files on Nick, he tells her "to keep your hands clean") and that he was more willing for them to work in complementary roles—not unlike him telling her in 2.08 "not your department." I also think the show underscored that this distinction was where Beth and Rio at their best in their partnership; as much as Beth wanted to be Rio sometimes, she couldn't quite emulate him unless she put her own flair into it (illustrated by both her scene with Penny and Denise). And as much as Rio wanted Beth to be more like him, the best schemes they pulled off together were the ones where she put her creative spin on it that came from her natural skills and assets.

Because the stakes were so high. He believed that the hitman was the "big kahuna" from the Secret Service on his trail—and trying to work with Beth against him—so I think he wanted to have a degree of control over it since he was feeling so vulnerable and powerless (which comes through when sadly states, "Figured one of 'em was coming.")

I think Rio absolutely has a better grasp of his feelings than Beth does, and part of that is because of personality differences and part of it is because Rio is generally less repressed emotionally and part of it is that Rio knows who he is and what he wants in a way that Beth doesn’t and part of it is that Rio has more experience and understanding of romantic relationships, even if he hasn’t been in one quite like the one he has with Beth. 

I do think Beth tried to shut off that part of herself in 2.09 when she knew she had to give up Rio in exchange for her kids, but that wasn’t a facade she was able to upkeep. She had to block his number to stop herself from reaching out (or from responding to a reach out). She was miserable without crime and grieving him. She latched onto the idea that he wanted her back (2.11) and clearly thought and hoped that something would happen between them in his apartment. She was curious about his background, intrigued to see another side of him, and in 2.12, appalled that Rio was trying to dismiss what they were as just “work” when she knew they were more than that (and I will always find it fascinating how she’s only pushed to the point of trying to name what’s between them when Rio is trying to claim it doesn’t exist). Then she shoots him, and from there, I think she buries everything she’s ever felt for him.

I will say, though, that while Beth has been protesting or refusing to acknowledge her feelings for Rio or what they have all throughout season 3 and 4, we have seen some shifts.

3.01: When Ruby says that Beth’s friendship with Rhea and Marcus won’t bring him back, Beth insists, “I don’t want to bring him back.”

3.05: When Dean tells Beth that Rio’s in love with her, she says, “It’s not me, though ... It’s money.”

3:08: When Annie reminds everyone that Beth boned Rio, she says, “What does that have to do with anything?” 

3.09: When Annie calls Rio Beth’s boy, she corrects her that “he’s not my boy.”

3.10: When Fitzpatrick says he doesn’t do jilted lovers, Beth insists “no one was jilted” but she also corrects Annie that it wasn’t just a “one and done” when she didn’t have to. Then, when Fitzpatrick asks Beth what a woman like her is doing with a “guy like that,” Beth pauses for approximately 7 seconds before she can come up with the lie of “I was just bored.” She then protests having to be the one to make the call and closes her eyes during the fakeout hit.

4.01: When Beth says she needs to give Rio something he “really needs” in order to get the gun, both Annie and Ruby thinks she’s referring to sex, asking if she’s going to “hit baloneytown again.” Beth does correct them with “not that,” clarifying that’s not what she means, but she's not as defensive or even as appalled as she is at the suggestion of sleeping with Fitz (“Ew”) or Troy (“Okay, let me just stop you right there”).

 4.04: When Annie calls Rio Beth’s boy, she doesn’t correct her. When Fitzpatrick says she just can’t live without him, she doesn’t deny it. When he refers to them as jilted lovers, she only says, “What do you care?” 

Basically, while she hasn’t started admitting anything about what they were or what she feels for him, she’s stopped aggressively denying or protesting against it. 

Her feelings about getting one over on him and handling him have shifted, too, even as she’s pressed forward with the plan.