- comically evil man steps in to help the headteacher and undermines her authority, slowly stealing her job

- everyone begins to realise he is bad news (or at least one or two vocal people) but his love interest is both manipulated to defend him aggressively AND pregnant with his child

- she then is forced to realise that everybody else is right and she has been manipulated while facing having to have and raise the baby without him and with the knowledge of who the father is

WATERLOO ROAD (2006-; 17.01)

JON RICHARDSON as DARIUS DONOVAN in WATERLOO ROAD (2006-; S17)

BUT WHEN YOU INTRODUCE PARENTAL ISSSUES oh I am going to think about that man

i feel like this interaction with leoni is SO TELLING about why darius acts the way he does. it's really common for children who suffered abusive upbringings to struggle with issues around control. throughout his entire time on the show we see darius go to extreme lengths just to grasp at more and more control. he is always looking to put himself in situations where he has more control over whoever he is with – he feels intimidated by jack, so he makes jack vulnerable by having him open up about his alcohol issues. he then uses that vulnerability to his advantage to get rid of the competition. he does this with stella as well, constantly trying to get his fingers around her job. he HAS to have absolute power and I feel that ties back to what he's expressing here to leoni. as a child nobody believed in him and nobody supported him, especially not his dad, so he had to put the work in and he had to believe in himself. he was taught that he had to be selfish and had to put himself above anybody else if it meant security and control. he manipulates even the people he seems to care about (nisha) because he has been conditioned that THAT is survival.

this scene is why i believe he definitely suffered from a (verbally at least but you never know) abusive upbringing. he says his dad wanted him to fail and that still seems to be the truth. his dad is generally right about him here, saying that he lies and scrounges, but you've gotta wonder where all that comes from. and it's probably from comments like the one above let's be real

and even when he is drugged and having a breakdown, finally tearing his protective walls down, darius is still making everything about himself. he's a DICK and he's horrible even to nisha who he seems to actually care about. it's like that need for survival and control is fully ingrained into him, but in this scene we finally see how pathetic and desperate he is under all of the borders and lies