#4.06 analysis

i think rio is a little less agitated in that particular beat with rosa than he is overall in the scene, but i think it's a result of a few things at once:

rio's real purpose in bringing beth to this event is to remind her of the people he has relying on him in order to get her to shift gears from her plans of betrayal. it seems as if he had a bit of tunnel vision regarding this plan bc he didn't properly anticipate the long term consequences of introducing her to nick OR the short term realities, i.e. he seems unprepared to answer his nephew's questions about who beth is, how they know each other, and what they do together.

rio attempts to diminish or neutralize his relationship with beth by calling her a "work friend," but there's a distinct flavor of rio's explanation clearly being the kid-friendly sanitized version. this is largely bc of the crime of it all, but i think the adults at the table correctly clock—and nick vocalizes—an inquiry about whether partners is "all" beth and rio are, basically outright suggesting that there is a romantic and/or sexual component to their relationship.

there is a LONG beat—nearly 8 seconds—after nick asks what they are where no one responds. rio gives nick a challenging look telling him to back down and stay out of their business, but then he resumes eating, deciding to ignore the question entirely—until beth answers, announcing that she's married.

at this point, even rosa is giving nick a bit of a Look™ for being invasive, and she tries to smooth over the interaction by asking an innocuous question about beth's children.

when beth answers "4," rosa immediately swings her attention back to rio, emphasizing, she's married, which i read as rosa kinda gently needling rio that he's being a little loud or inappropriate because beth seemingly has long-established life built with another person—it comes off as a little playful or teasing, but i think there's an undertone that rio is in the danger zone and needs rosa to remind him of what's what.

rio nods an eye-contactless mhm in response. i don't personally read him as particularly agitated here as much as attempting not to elongate the conversation, but i also think rio didn't expect beth to weasel out of a direct question about what they are to each other by pulling out the married card when the fact has had little bearing on their relationship. i wouldn't be surprised then there that's a mix of rio finding the whole thing laughable (like, sure, grandma, yeah, she's "married") but also frustrating (this doesn't come long after beth was doing everything in her power to get dean out of jail, after all, and i don't think rio's ever understood why she's with him let alone stays with him)

rio's mood spikes to real agitation when nick asks where the ring is. at this point, the conversation has devolved and is definitely not following the conventions of polite social manners. nick is basically suggesting beth is not as married as she seems and insinuating beth and rio are more than they are, angling to get some more information.

then, of course, nick pulls the "elizabeth" card and rio's possessive streak comes out in full force to the point that he starts to straight up intimately touch beth and rub her back, loudly driving a stake into the ground with a giant flag that suggests YES WE'RE FUCKING which is truly so embarrassing for him bc he immediately and completely unravels his already mediocre attempt at being unphased and composed

Either way, if he presented her as Beth it would mean her name is sacred to him EVEN in front of his family (whom he LIVES for) OR that he feels COMFORTABLE enough in their relationship (or at least showing he is for the purpose of 406's plot but we know everything they try to pass as a game are actually real feelings) that he can share her name with his family? It would feel HUGE. To never say her name in front of everyone else but her, but then INTRODUCING her as Elizabeth to someone ELSE? It's like marry her already.

Anyways, idk if that makes a lot of sense. There's a lot to think I think.

I think this question hinges a lot on your interpretation of the scene at dinner when Nick calls Beth “Elizabeth.” We can either infer:

Nick was telling some version of the truth and that Rio had talked about her before, using the name he uses with her in private

Nick overheard Rio introduce Beth as “Elizabeth” at the party and wielded it here

Nick overheard Rio call Beth “Elizabeth” at the party and wielded it here

I personally would rule out the first and second choices.

Nick is lying in the scene—he says that he’s heard a lot about Beth, but the rest of the season suggests otherwise. He doesn’t seem to know about their prior partnership, the shooting, the supposed pregnancy, Lucy, or understand even a fraction of the real feelings Rio has for Beth—and Rio gets tempted into flaunting their sexual relationship the second Nick suggests it hasn’t yet been consummated. He’s both private about their relationship but unable to let there be any indication that it’s less than what it is, so I don’t think he went around talking about her easily prior to this scene.

Rio also gets possessive in the scene when Nick tries to intrude upon this thing—the name—which is theirs, as indicated by the hand on her back. That could be because Beth prompts it by firmly naming it as just between them when she corrects Nick, but I think it’s more than that. Nick seems to know that he’s touching a nerve when he says it the first time, and he presses harder by saying it again. That suggests to me that he’s already picked up on something with the name.

That could mean that Nick heard Rio introduce her as Elizabeth—and heard Beth correct people like she corrects Nick—but I don’t think so. The correction is a loaded moment here. And, like you said, the implications of Rio using this name he uses with her mostly in private (he never uses it in front of Annie and Ruby, but uses it in front of Dean for the suggestion of its intimacy) would be significant when introducing her, so it would be odd not to show it.

So my conclusion is that Rio didn’t introduce her, but let her introduce herself. I think this aligns with Rio’s treatment of her—it both gives her agency in how she wants to be known among his family and it leaves the hard part of defining their relationship up to her. It’s a gift and a sort of punishment—classic Rio.

I suspect Nick had his eye on Beth from the moment she arrived though, and I could see Rio slipping in a private “Elizabeth” that Nick overheard. Unlike Nick, Rio doesn’t code switch between the two names depending on situation or audience—the drop in 2.10 is the only time in the series that suggests he ever does, and it suggests possessiveness or privacy about including others in the sort of “ritual”—so I don’t think he introduced her as “Beth” and I do think him using “Elizabeth” in a moment he thinks is private something that could feasibly happen.

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 do think a part of it was played as a distraction as she was still concerned with properly hiding the wire, but I don’t think it was wholly about distraction.

Beth was introduced to his family and questioned about who she was in relation to Rio. When Rio was vague about what she does for him, Beth claimed to be his partner. Rio didn’t correct her.  

Then Beth had to clarify that she was married, but still his family pushed more, asking how many kids she had. “Married-married,” his grandmother said, and Rio did not seem thrilled to have to agree with that.

Nick then asked where her ring was, sussing out how “available” she was, using the name Rio uses for her, and Beth corrected him, drawing a distinct like that that’s something just between her and Rio. 

When Nick still pressed forward in being flirtatious, Rio put his hand on Beth’s back and started rubbing, possessively claiming that she was his. The wire was on the front of Beth’s body, so while she may have been nervous about him finding it, she wasn’t in real danger there. Not in front of his entire family.

She panicked and immediately went to the bathroom to remove it. I read this scene as her being overwhelmed with the idea of betraying Rio. That seed was planted in her daydream montage where all of Rio’s lines were about the possibility of her letting him down. Then it was doubled down on when Beth was visibly affected by seeing pictures of Rio growing up— graduating and boxing. 

When Beth and Rio swap positions at the bookshelf, Rio’s close to the wire, but he’s not searching for it. Beth has the option to try and distract him by leaving the room and suggesting returning to the party. She doesn’t. Instead, when Rio starts talking about business—about how his family is intertwined in the business, about how she needs to prove herself to be invited back—she initiates sexual contact.

Rio denies it, but then starts touching her.

I think that moment was borne out of feeling emotionally close to Rio (like @pynkhues said), feeling protective of Rio the way he was of her, and not wanting to get caught with the wire. 

Yes, she ended the episode by finally telling Dean that she was cutting a deal with the Secret Service to take Rio in, but when she had the opportunity to push for information, she didn’t take it. Instead, she got intimate with Rio and she liked it. 

I was thinking about the bookshelf scene in 4.06. Do you think it meant something to Rio? If so, what do you think it meant to him? Or was it just part of his game plan?

ah thank you! i hope your day is good as well :)

and yeah! i do think it meant something to rio. he was definitely aware that beth was up to something and correctly assumed she was wired (he was flippant about frisking her, followed her into the house to see what she was up to, and knew to check the bookcase to find the wire after she'd left).

in that sense, i think he was aware that there was an element of duplicity on her end, but while i think his plan was wielding the intimacy of introducing her to his family to pull her closer and flip her allegiance (duplicity on his own part), i don't think he had a plan for that to turn into physical and romantic intimacy. after all, he doesn't initiate, and beth's initiation is quite abrupt and unexpected.

i think one of the most telling aspects of it meaning something to rio is that he establishes boundaries and instead of letting beth touch him, he touches her. besides the fact that i don't think he was quite ready to let her in like that (especially when he was already being so vulnerable by bringing her into an important space to him), i think the bigger element of this is that he wanted to force her to accept that she still wanted him on some level. with things flipped, he's the one in control and giving pleasure—pleasure that on beth's part is genuine.

season 4 was really explicit that rio is in love with beth, so i think what the moment meant to him was that it was confirmation that the thread between them still existed as much for her as it did for him. beth shut down those feelings and that part of herself better than rio ever did after 2.13, and i think this was the first real signal that it wasn't over. even if she was working with the secret service, even if she'd hired a hitman, even if she'd shot him—there was still something there, something that he could use as much as something that he didn't know what to do with.

Tbh this is something that tripped me up and that I’m still not entirely solid on my reading, but here are my initial thoughts.

There’s two things I don’t think should be ignored: the show has an established history of Beth balking or determinedly standing her ground at the suggestion sexual coercion (Boomer, the man in the drug den, Fitzpatrick, Troy) and then the obvious parallel to Beth snapping and grabbing for Fitzpatrick’s belt when she was yelling at him that he had made it very clear that this was what she “had” to do to get him to do his job. I personally read that scene as Beth behaving aggressively in order to turn Fitzpatrick off to her because she shed her demure role and took off her mask.

In this scene, Beth reaches for the belt and there’s a motivation outside a desire for intimacy for the sexual act in terms of wanting to distract Rio and maybe to even please him in hopes of getting an invite back in order to keep the Secret Service investigation going, but the logic falls apart from there.

Beth doesn’t need to initiate sex to distract Rio. He’s not looking for the wire and his back is turned. Beth has the ability to lead him out of the room and away from the wire with a plausible excuse—returning to the party because his family is waiting—but she doesn’t. Instead, she keeps him in the exact place she doesn’t want him to be for longer.

Initiating sex in order to keep the Secret Service deception in play doesn’t quite work either. She’s got Rio talking and telling her about his family and business—valuable information. Instead of pressing for more while they’re (seemingly) in private, she pivots so that they become silent and stop talking. Not only that, throughout the conversation, her dialogue is ambiguous and reveals her hesitation with the plan, even if she presses forward with it at the end of the episode when she tells Dean about it (setting herself up for chaos when she ultimately fails).

I read the Fitzpatrick parallel as a contrast. Like I said—we have repeated references to Beth standing her ground against unwanted sexual contact (the only exception being with her own husband in an attempt to get pregnant to save her own life). Unlike the moment with Fitzpatrick—obviously a disingenuous initiation where the mask is dropped—the initiation with Rio seems to be a moment where the mask is on. She plays up being coy and coquettish, batting her eyelashes and aiming to pleasure him.

It reads as distraction, as manipulation, as desperation—but like I said. The logic falls apart based on Beth’s characterization and the fact that the episode established that although Beth says she’s afraid of Rio, the tide has really changed. Her dream sequence reveals that she’s not stewing over the possibility that Rio might kill her if he finds out what she’s doing. What’s actually weighing on her is the idea of simply disappointing him and betraying his trust. All of those reasons are false motivations that make up the mask to hide what Beth really wants.

Rio gently grabbing her wrist and shaking his head while looking her in the eye as he pulls up her skirt is Rio calling her on it. He’s not going to let her pretend that this is anything but what it is: Beth wants him. He turns her on. Despite everything else, the intimacy they share is real. He knows it. He wants her to know it too.

So he touches her. He feels exactly how turned on he can get her in just a few seconds. He hears her pant in his ear. He makes her fall apart on his hand. And he knows that she knows that that wasn’t faked. It was real.

Rio cut through the bullshit in the wire scene in her kitchen and here he cut through the bullshit in his grandmother’s house. This is the truth, raw and bare, and he didn’t need to get her naked to see it this time.

They’re each holding something over the other’s head (the fingerprinted gun, the fingerprinted cash). They’re each setting each other up as their fall guy (the secret service, the banker). They’re each stringing each other along with half-truths (the “if I make another cookie I’ll die” speech, the eight ball shot in exchange for the loan). They’re each diminishing what this is (Beth says she just needs him alive, Rio says she’s just a work friend).

But this episode, Beth said they were partners and Rio didn’t correct her.

They’re on the same page. The power is rebalancing.

He's referring to taking down Nick, anon!

Earlier that day, Nick discovers that the key to his file cabinet has been moved because the girls accidentally replace it in the second drawer rather than the top drawer while he's talking to his assistant about the girl (Annie) he supposedly hooked up with.

Later that same day—which you can tell because Nick's wearing the exact same outfit with the maroon tie and navy button-up and black blazer—he appears at Rio's bar, showing him the picture, and Rio laughs at him, telling him he got "played."

That night, Beth shows up in Nick's office to give him a campaign shirt, but she's instead surprised when Nick reveals that he knows she (or her sister, or whomever) broke into his office and that he's going to give her the files himself—but not without the catch that he's also going to ruin the lives of everyone around her.

Again, we can tell it's the same day because Nick wears the same outfit, only at this point he's shed the blazer.

It's still the same night when Rio knocks on Beth's door. She's also wearing the same outfit—a black sweater with a little tie at the neck.

Interestingly, however, before coming over, Rio has changed from his dark navy button-up to a black jacket with pockets and bigger buttons.

The reason?

The scene in Beth's kitchen is very much in conversation with another scene where Rio wears the exact same shirt:

In that scene, Beth is introduced to Nick for the very first time when she calls herself Rio's partner and piques Nick's interest so that he pries a bit about whether that's all that they are. After "playfully" interrogating her about her missing ring, Rio introduces him with agitation, saying, "My cousin," to which Nick corrects, "Brother," and Rio emphasizes, "Cousin."

The final 4.15 scene goes down like this:

BETH: Now you're knocking? [Beth acknowledges the change, the gradual shift from barging in to sending a text that he's there to knocking and waiting to be invited in. She steps aside, doing so]

RIO: You said to. [He signals that he's listening to her and adapting his behavior based on her needs.]

BETH: When have you ever listened to me? [Beth doesn't feel like she has an equal say in their relationship.]

RIO: Nah, don't be like that. [Ready for a new shift in their relationship, Rio playfully denies this.]

BETH: What do you want? [She's wondering what he's doing here, but interestingly, Beth doesn't typically ask this question of him. Often, she waits for him to speak. This is a callback to the first time he broke into her house in the pilot and the first time he let himself in because "the door was open" in 1.04]

RIO: I'll take an apology. [This is the first time—ever—that Rio has explicitly asked for one, but there's a playful edge to it.]

BETH: What did I do now? [I suspect Beth knows that he's here about Nick, but pretends not to because she can't read Rio's tone.]

RIO: You hurt my feelings. [Again, there's a playful quality to it, which Beth catches and isn't sure how to respond to.]

BETH: How's that?

RIO: [Takes a long breath, looking down before making eye contact with Beth again, more sincere] If you need something, darlin', all you gotta do is ask. [Here, he's acknowledging that he knows that she broke into Nick's office to play him, but he's offering that if she needs information on Nick to hand over to the Secret Service, he'll help her.]

BETH: [Pauses, absorbing] He's your brother. [Meaning that she doesn't believe that he would actually make this move against Nick because they're too close.]

RIO: Cousin. [Like 4.06, Rio signals the emotional distance between them by correcting that he's "merely" his cousin.]

BETH: Family. [Beth still thinks that family trumps everything and that Rio can't mean what he's offering.]

RIO: He's in our way. [Rio finally accepts the partnership Beth claimed in 4.06 by aligning his interests with hers.]

[They stare at each other, reality washing over them]

rio: what are you doing?

beth: i don't—i don't know.

not only is this a continuation of beth being unable to lie to rio the same way that she lies to others (that's been established since 2.02), she's literally choked up when she says it. before this, while she's frantically searching for a place to stash the wire, her eyes are almost glassy. she is affected by what she's doing, and there's a double meaning to this dialogue. rio's asking her what she's doing literally in that moment, but also asking her what she's doing overall—i.e. what choices she's making. and beth really doesn't know. she's scrambling and she's desperate, but she's weighed down by guilt and anxiety about the path that she's on.

rio: don't know? or don't want to say?

beth [deflecting]: just... curious.

rio: oh yeah? you figure it out yet?

beth [slightly nervous]: what's that?

here, rio calls her out directly on the fact that she's hiding something and can't admit something to him. beth offers a flimsy excuse about how she's curious about why he brought her here or curious about the photos that she's looking at. rio asks her if she's "figured it out" which again works as a double meaning—not only has she figured out what's going on, has she figured out what she's going to do? beth asks, "what's that?" like she's asking him if he's figured out what she's doing, if he's on to her.

rio diffuses the situation, saying, "grandma loves grisham."

then, jumping forward a little bit:

beth: thought this was business.

rio: same thing.

beth: why do they care about me?

rio: gotta know you're good enough.

beth [beat, surprise]: for you?

rio: for business.

beth [serious]: what if i'm not?

the lines are absolutely blurred in this conversation. rio has reiterated over and over again that she is "work" (2.12) and that they are "just business" (3.06) but in this episode he calls her a "work friend" and doesn't correct her when she says that they are partners, on top of the fact that he signifies that "business" and "family" mean the same thing to him. his business includes his most intimate inner circle.

beth muddies those waters once again when she asks if his family wants to know if she's good enough for him romantically, not professionally, even though that aspect of their relationship has otherwise been absent in this conversation so far.

when beth asks "what if i'm not [good enough]" it's just as ambiguous as their previous statements and seems to hold the double meaning of what if she doesn't live up to expectations and what if she's bad for business because she's currently betraying him.

the conversation seems to take place on two levels: what's happening in the moment on the surface and what's happening in the long-term with the moves she's making against him.

and i think that's important because beth saying she doesn't know and expressing doubt that she is good enough means that beth's not solid in her decision even if the end of the episode shows that she lets dean in on the plan. she's uncertain through the entirety of 4.06, both in her dream sequence where she's worried about letting rio down and in expressing anxiety that rio might find the wire (but not clarifying that there is a very real possibility of rio getting her naked) and then again when she's alone with rio in the bedroom.