#areyouserial

JUST IN CASE YOU WERE INTERESTED IN AN UPDATED MOOD BOARD OF JAMIE REAGAN'S MISERY 👍I think I'll be top-left forever. 🌽

OMG YOU’RE RIGHT. This is the missing link I needed to complete my analysis. Updated table attached. 👍

Jamie’s totally an Acts Of Service giver of love, but what’s his favorite type of love to Receive? Don’t @ me. (It’s physical touch of the 🌶 variety natch)

Noble’s a little more complicated, I think. He barely knew Jamie/Jimmy and tried to give him a Porsche, so gift-giving is definitely a thing. He’s overall a generous guy. But I think that’s more ~shallow~ and once he’s on the Next Level with someone, either romantically or friendshipally, he’s mostly about physical touch to express his affection. But words of affirmation come naturally to him too. And of course, when he’s far from Jamie and physical touch isn’t an option, it’s easy for him to compensate with (more personal/intentional/thought out) gifts.

GIRL I'M READY

Would it have been more meaningful for Jamie to have the Joe Conversation rather than Danny? Yes absolutely. That would have been (something close to) an admission that his Concerns were rooted deeper in his fear/PTSD/what have you. It would not have excused his behavior, but it would have explained it in a way that earns him a little more justified sympathy. Between that and a legitimate apology, maybe we could have come away from the episode not hating Jamie Reagan’s immature, emotionally constipated guts. 

But that’s not how things went. There are two factors that gave viewers the idea that Jamie’s Concerns were Joe-related: 

The synopsis. Using the wording “fraternal organization” automatically brought to mind the Blue Templar, whereas saying “softball team” or anything else wouldn’t have carried the same association. 

The Danny scene. Seeing that scene beforehand as a sneak peek further rooted the idea in viewers’ minds that Jamie’s entire position in this episode would be related to Joe. And it’s the only actual mention of Joe in the episode. 

Without those two things, would the audience have made that connection so readily? Would they have jumped from softball team to Blue Templar so fast to justify Jamie’s bullshit? PrObAbLy NoT. There was no subtext to Jamie’s scenes to indicate any Deeper Reasons for his actions, beyond just what was obvious on the surface (ie he’s a controlling asshole, The End). It was the audience’s own, mostly unfounded projections that Jamie’s behavior was related to the loss of his brother, and people were quick to minimize or write off his shitty treatment of Eddie because of it. 

So why did Danny get that scene instead of Jamie? Who tf knows. Maybe the writers wanted to give Eddie and Danny a chance to bond, since we’d gotten Eddie/Erin scenes but no Eddie/Danny moments. Maybe they didn’t think Jamie was That Bad, with his FeMaLe EmPoWeRmEnT and his No-Go bullshit, to need more than that final scene to polish things up; or maybe they truly didn’t realize how one-dimensional Jamie’s scenes came across. 

Alternatively, if they did leave that conversation to Danny, then Jamie should have outright acknowledged the Joe Thing in his apology rather than bullshitting his way through some “I’m not you. Only you’re you” crap. Either way it’s a disservice to everyone to insinuate Jamie is acting out of Joe-related concern without ever having Jamie so much as hint at it himself (again, it was all based on those two factors, with no Jamie contributions at all).