#fandom text

Buck: Just admiring the view.

Tommy: *smiling* You know, as much as I appreciate the mental strip down. Everybody IS RIGHT THERE.

Buck: *leaning in close* True... but right now, nothing else seems as enticing.

Tommy: Behave.

Buck: No promises.

The scene where Laura comes face to face with her past self is incredible for several reasons, but one of the ones that sticks out to me is that it is truly a marriage between powerful writing and poignant acting choices. As the audience, I think it's our instinct to watch it from the perspective of present day Laura, and to focus on her, but let's talk about past Laura for a moment.

The conscious decision not to have her fight back or defend herself at any point is an absolute masterclass in writing. The fact that she just stands there and takes it, never once getting angry at present day Laura or attempting to swing back, but instead insisting that she's a good person and repeatedly asking "why?", is such a delightfully subtle way of cluing us in that her self-loathing is very present even in 1949. It's why she has to keep lying to herself, and it proves what present day Laura said about her becoming such a master at deception that she's genuinely fooled herself.

What really drives the scene home, however, are Michelle's acting choices. The juxtaposition between present-day Laura, in all of her uninhibited grandeur, and 1949 Laura whose self-restraint is so palpable that it's almost a third person in the room, is sublime. The two Lauras aren't just styled differently, their respective physicalities are poles apart. They even speak differently, with Michelle not only changing the the volume, speed, and rhythm of her speech, but also her accent. Present day Laura leans into the Scottish burr, while 1949 Laura actively tones it down.

So I wonder why people were so quick to call Frankie butch when the pilot dropped. Is it because she works in manual labor? Andi likely does too, we see her do some software engineering but her job likely involves maintaining or even constructing animatronics. Is it because Frankie isn't outwardly typically feminine? Going by her earrings and her enjoyment of cutesy things she probably has a "girly" aesthetic preference she doesn't get to indulge in due to lacking money and free time. Is it because she's thick? Someone's body type doesn't make them butch or not.