#bathroom break analysis

God, I love that whole scene start to finish. There’s so many perfect moments—so I’m just gonna break down my love for the whole scene if that’s okay?

First, we get this longshot of Dean in the restaurant where Beth took him to dinner. I love this because it sets up such a nice contrast between the place Beth chose and Rio’s bar. 

This restaurant is white and neutral and clean—much brighter, fancier, but also emptier. It’s a nice restaurant, but it feels sparse and barren in comparison. Who knows what the music in this scene is. It’s so nondescript that when you try to Shazam it, it just registers “Small Cocktail Party Atmosphere” noises—i.e. only the sounds of the various people chitchatting in the background of the scene. All of this just emphasizes the state of Beth and Dean’s marriage—which is boring and empty. 

Then we get this jolting change to the pair of them in Rio’s bar. Now, I didn’t watch this on live TV, but I’ve never gotten the sense that there’s a commercial break between those two shots? The shift between those two scenes is almost jarring, especially when we go from that quiet sort of background music to the louder hip-hop/rap music of Young Fathers. It’s darker in here and packed full of people—particularly younger people. There are a lot of hipsters here. This is not Beth’s usual scene.

Maybe Dean realizes that, but it doesn’t seem like he does. He just pretends that he finds the place “super dope,” emphasizing just how much he doesn’t fit in here either, as well as the fact that he’s oblivious that he’s already messed up his chances for the night with his “we each have our own superpower” speech. He’s still optimistic that this is going well.

And then he asks her where she found this place, and Beth could tell him anything—that Annie likes it, that she found a review online—but she says, “A friend.”

And I love that because she’s about to show us just how much she doesn’t view him as (just) a friend—but that first she claims him as one anyway, because the opening scene in 2x04 does establish them with a sense of camaraderie that we haven’t seen between them before when Rio wants to celebrate with her. Even lying and calling him a friend here as an answer to Dean’s question shows that there’s been a marked shift between 2x01 and 2x04 in terms of Beth’s feelings about Rio—more of an acceptance than a reluctance to acknowledge his place in her life. 

If Rio hadn’t reappeared on the scene and pulled them back in at the end of 2x01, I believe there’s a real possibility that Beth would have returned to normal life. She’s nervous when he reappears. She tries to leave the park before he finds her. She’s shocked in that scene, both by Marcus and by what he’s asking her to do. In 2x02, she’s resigned and vulnerable and afraid. In 2x03, they have the nice scene at the park where he tells her to be a boss bitch, but there’s still a distance, both physical and emotional, between them. She sits as far away from him as possible on that bench. 

That gap between them finally closes here at the bar, and I love that this line calling him a “friend” is the only verbal cue of that shift in a scene that is otherwise so powerful for its silence. 

Dean, however, is anything but silent in his role in this scene. Dean complains about the how the “service lacks a little professionalism” in a bar, where he’s perfectly capable of getting up and standing in line like everybody else—but of course, Dean sees anything but being waited on hand and foot as some sort of personal offense. How dare he be inconvenienced, right? Plus, Dean complaining about “professionalism,” when he’s had affairs with his employees on top of his desk in his glass office? What’s that saying about throwing stones while living in glass houses???

And god, I love how easily Beth catches Rio’s eye once she notices him. It’s like he feels her looking at him, and he looks at her, and his face doesn’t even register surprise. And she’s adorable fiddling with her hair, and I’m lowkey obsessed with the way he like smacks his lips open and closed over his teeth as he swallows his drink. 

I know people love this scene for the fuck-me eyes they’re shooting at each other, but I didn’t even register that the first time because it’s so brief? I love how brief it is, because it just underpins how much they’re on the same wavelength. They don’t need to draw it out here. They just know.

Beth disappears the moment she makes eye contact with him, and he just shifts his hips on that stool because she’s unsettling him (and because he’s a little turned on). I love imagining Rio’s walk to that bathroom—how he must’ve been intrigued and a little confused and very pleasantly surprised to find it unlocked, because as much as I imagine he’s imagined getting Beth into bed, I don’t think he could have ever dreamed this would be the scenario. It just underscores her capacity to surprise him, which is the exact reason he’s drawn to her in the first place (!!!!)

I love the way Beth looks at herself in the mirror, because she knows what she’s about to do—which means she knows, she’s confident that Rio will follow her—because it means she’s certain that he’s going to accept her invitation (because she would never do this if she wasn’t positive he was going to reciprocate). All of her denials of that electric charge between them falls away. She allows herself to admit that she knows that he’s attracted to her. That she’s attracted to him, too.

I love the way Rio comes in, how he looks out the door as he closes it, as if scanning to see if they’re safely alone. The way he doesn’t lock the door because he’s still not sure, and that’s up to her. The way he stands across from her, waiting. The way I read his face as looking at her, almost challenging her, to see what she’ll do next, because he’s still not convinced it’s happening. 

And Beth turns around and she walks toward him, and there’s this moment in the shot that’s one of my absolute favorite moments of this whole scene, and it’s when they seem to be eye-to-eye? They’re level with each other, as if they’re the same height when Rio is actually half a foot taller than Beth. It is just so symbolic of them being on even footing. 

And then Rio does the same thing that he does in 2x09, which is inch closer an closer to her even though he won’t make the first move. He just wants to make the leap as easy as possible for her—like he wants it to be easy for her to kiss him, so he’ll make his lips as close as he can to hers and just wait.

And then she just locks the door.

GODDAMN!!!

God, and then she just walks over to the sink and hikes up her dress and invites him to fuck her, and the positioning is so significant because:

Despite everything and all the ways that they’re closing the gap, there’s still something holding them back, so she chooses an impersonal position that allows them not to be face-to-face, and

It’s a position that emphasizes that she wants him to fuck her, like it’s an invitation for him to do the work to please her and impress her and pleasure her, and

It’s a position where Beth stays standing, exactly like she’s been standing on her whole two feet this entire episode, and it underscores the balance of power between them in a position that I think typically and conventionally suggests the man having power over the woman, but that’s subverted here?

And then there’s the way he looks at her in the mirror, and it’s often described as reverent, and no wonder, because it takes him a second to even react, to start moving towards her? There’s hesitancy there? He blinks and his eyes flick up but don’t meet hers in the mirror because he’s shocked. Even though she confirmed she wanted to fuck him in a public restroom when she locked the door, the way she wants him to fuck her—without words, from behind—is yet another surprise! Like damn, how many more ways can she floor him in one scene?

One of my very favorite parts of this scene is him splaying his hand on her thigh. And for so many different reasons! He could touch her anywhere, and it’s the thigh? I love that. It’s sort of sexy and forbidden in the way that most people don’t go around touching each other’s thighs, but it’s not exactly obscene, you know? This is a quickie, it has to be, but he knows that doesn’t mean it has to lack any build-up and tension—he’s not skipping over the pleasure of being able to really touch her for the first time.

Also, the splaying of the fingers—it’s like he needs as much of her as possible underneath his hands immediately. He needs to feel her. He’s tapped her, ghosted his fingers across her face, and slid his hand across her shoulders briefly before this, but this is lingering and full, not done by half measures. When he finally gets to touch her like this, you can tell how much and how long he’s wanted to in the flex of his fingers as he seems to be pulling her back into him as he presses himself against her. He wants them to be as close as possible. 

And then there’s just this juxtaposition between the ways he’s being gentle with her and the ways he’s being rough with her? I mean, he’s about to bend her over and fuck her against a bathroom sink in front of a dirty mirror, right? But then his hand moves to her breast, but it’s so… soft? Like he’s still testing her boundaries? And then he buries his head in her neck, and she just sinks into it? And then you get this shot of them in the mirror, and he’s not even at her neck, not really—so he must just be… biting her shoulder? And then her head falls forward like she can’t even control herself, she’s just given herself completely over to sensations, and then he yanks down her panties like that?!

I don’t know. I’m obsessed with the fact that his knees are bent into hers here, because I’m like, how much closer can you possibly get? Oh right. Much closer. But then he doesn’t even finish taking the panties off of her—she sort of has to kick them off? So we’re reminded again that she wants it? 

I die when he seems to almost roughly move his hand from her spine to her shoulder to push her forward, that they then just give us a perfect shot of her hand gripping the counter tightly as she prepares for him to fuck her in the way she wants to be fucked.

And then it’s this return to Dean and her in the car, his incessant chatter, unable to read her yet again after Rio has read everything so perfectly. And Beth looks down at her lap and she readjusts her dress and it’s this moment of power, this secret she has. She is satisfied, both sexually and emotionally, by crossing that line. She looks like she feels a little heady with power, and I am into it!

And then when we return to the bathroom, there’s been a position change. They’re getting closer, allowing themselves to be face-to-face now, but still not talking, still refusing to look each other in the eyes. And I am straight up obsessed with this, because I know Rio wanted to watch her face in that mirror (can you imagine? He absolutely wanted to see the faces he could get her to make) and I know Rio wants to kiss her (he was waiting for it when she faked him out and locked the door), but he’s following her lead and he’s trying not to spook her. I’ve always been convinced that he knows how fragile this scenario is, that it could slip through his fingers at any moment, and that he made a conscious decision to avoid doing anything to risk that happening. 

And they’re as close as they can be, right? He’s driving into her, his entire upper body is pressed against her entire upper body, he’s holding up her legs, and she’s gripping his shoulder for stability, but there’s still the barrier of their clothes—they’re not completely vulnerable with each other—and Beth tries as much as possible to touch him as little as possible, trying to make it so just the tips of her fingers seem to flutter along his shoulder. Just wow. Every piece of this scene is as complex and rich as their entire relationship is.

I mean, look at her fingers here—just. Ugh. 

And then there’s the scene where he pulls back from her and then just comes back to her with full force, and her mouth does that, and her hand flies to the paper towel dispenser, which releases a stream of paper towels as she tumbles over the edge, and I love it because she is precarious at that moment. He’s stopped gripping her legs to hold her up because his hand has moved to the back of her head, so her knees fly up all over the place and she just loses control in all senses of the word—but she’s fine, because somehow, despite the fact that he’s not holding her up anymore, Rio’s got her. 

And then it ends back in the car with Dean asking her if she needs anything? Nah. She’s good. 

Thank you SO much. Like, ugh. This compliment just gets to my analytically-driven heart. 

Such good questions, too!!

It’s not a moment, per se, but I love thinking about how much time Rio wastes popping up at Beth’s and just… waiting for her to notice him? I mean, this is not a guy that I imagine has a lot of time to spare. I think the fact that Rio works directly with Beth and the girls (instead of sending some of his boys) is already way below his pay scale—and probably something he shouldn’t waste time to do! He does it because Beth intrigues him and makes him do all sorts of things he knows better than to do, including keeping her on at all after she’s already proven herself to be a rotten egg. 

So I basically love that he just, like, hangs out on her picnic table and apparently doesn’t even send her a text to be like, “Please notice me” because god forbid it mess up his brooding bad boy stalker aesthetic? I mean, he’s at her house just sitting there, most likely impatient, with nothing to occupy him except thoughts of how annoyed he is at his suburban mom crush for taking too long to spot him. Ugh. Disasters!!!

There’s a couple of these waiting scenes that I love in particular.

The first is when Beth looks over after hanging up the stolen stop sign. I mean, we see Beth’s eyes pop open as she’s lying in bed before we see her out in the street hammering. It’s late! 

It’s unclear whether she just doesn’t notice Rio at first, or whether he shows up while she’s working and she doesn’t realize (I kind of think it’s the former) which means… I have no idea what the fuck Rio’s plan was! We’ve never seen him communicate to her that he’s there, he always just waits. It’s absurd to me that this might’ve been his tactic in the middle of the night. And then I love it even more because he just… watches her without alerting her of his presence. God, I love thinking about that scene from Rio’s perspective. She’s insane, and he is so ridiculous.

The second scene is in 2x06 when Beth notices him sitting in the dark with his head bowed and his elbows on his knees with his hands just hanging loosely. Like, I think he’s exhausted sitting there and so pissed at her and he still just… waits patiently? He’s defeated—probably because he already knows that even though he’s got his gun in his hand, he won’t be able to use it; that Beth probably has some idea of this; that he might know he’s lost before he tries; that he’s reacting to his attempt to rile her up with Dylan backfiring in a way that fucks him professional—just on and on and on. This actually seems like a moment that Rio might surprise Beth by popping up in her house unexpectedly, but nope—he just hangs out there until she… happens to notice him when she goes to wash up some sippy cups after dark? Plus, I love that his hand is so twitchy right after his first few strides across the yard to close the gap between them.

As for the pearls, I had never considered what Rio might have thought about them until someone (I think pynkhues?) mentioned that he probably thought that they were signaling a potential booty call. Whoever said it—it convinced me instantly, and now I subscribe to this theory, although I can’t take any credit for it! (I say this to medievalraven all the time, but seriously—so many things go over my head in this show—even things that are obvious).

But I’m especially sold on this theory because Rio’s face looks so different in this scene compared to every other one. It’s so different, actually, that it’s my least favorite Rio scene! I think he’s intentionally giving her smouldering eyes but I feel like it lacks the connection and genuine curiosity and sizzle that exists between them in literally every other scene? If they’d hooked up here, I feel like their relationship would’ve been so impersonal and brief. They needed that long, drawn-out buildup and tension.