ilya’s cross is never visible when he’s around his family. not once.

at first, i tried to explain it away. maybe it was the clothes. he is only ever shown near his family whenever he is in a formal wear, and the cross isn’t visible in the joint interview with shane or at the rookie of the year event or the selfie awards thingy, so i told myself it meant nothing.

but around his family, even in casual clothes (which is shown like once), its still gone. not even a glimpse of the chain in sight.

and this is what broke me.

that cross isn’t just jewelry. its an heirloom, a quiet inheritance that ties him to his mother, someone he lost in the most devastating way. a way that leaves questions that echo for the rest of your life.

so when the cross disappears around the people who hurt them, it feels like shrinking oneself. like he has to make himself smaller to survive. like he has to hide the parts of himself that came from her, because those parts were never safe there.

alternatively, maybe its protection.

maybe he hides it because it is too sacred to be exposed in a place that broke her and nearly broke him. maybe, as an adult, rich and commanding as he is, he is finally doing what he couldn’t do as a child: keeping her safe

so the cross becomes something he guards instead of shows. a memory he carries instead of displays.

I’m watching the Moscow phone call scene, and Ilya in his grief starts talking about how his family is at their worst and are being terrible to each other. He seems resentful, almost bitter.

Shane asks “Is it very upsetting?” And Ilya responds “Yes,” and then, after a beat, “But maybe… I am upset about the wrong thing…”

Shane prompts him further, “You mean, not your father?” And from here Ilya really starts to open up. He gets sad. His heart is broken, and he lets Shane see a little piece of it. Lets it breathe out in the air.

Can we talk about this part again? The whole scene is gold, but I keep focusing on the first 40 seconds. Ilya is not usually shown to be an anxious person, but he does have little tells that he repeats throughout the show. And in this scene, he does all of them. His anxiety in the beginning of this scene is palpable. At first you see him nervously scanning the bar, knowing at any second he could see Shane. He's doing his usual self-soothing behaviors like fidgeting with his thumbs (like during the interview with the all star game) and messing with his hair/ear (like on the couch with Shane).

Then the moment happens. He spots Shane. And, fuck, he's coming right for him. He takes a big deep breath, says a quiet little "okay" to get himself ready, and takes a giant chug of his beer that finishes the bottle. As soon as Shane sits down, he starts doing little head bobs to hype himself up for whatever conversation they're about to have. While he's thinking of something to say, his thumbs are rubbing the hell out of the empty beer bottle. Trying to rub that thing back into sand. After Shane orders the same beer that Ilya is having, he does a little nose sniff. The same nose sniff/nose tug move he makes throughout the series to show that he's totally definitely nonchalant about something that's happening with Shane. Ilya asks him about his ginger ale. He can't help it. The last time they spent together is probably all he can think about. So Shane skipping his typical order and getting whatever Ilya has is throwing him off. But then. Shane makes a joke. A silly little 'Shane' joke that temporarily pulls Ilya out of his spiral and gets him to crack a smile. Very similar to the situation in episode 6 when Shane is spiraling and Ilya makes his "maybe he didn't even notice" joke.

Not “My brother is terrible”

It’s “My brother is scared” and it’s because he’s scared that he acts terrible.

From what the audience has seen of his brother, he doesn’t deserve that kind of grace from Ilya. And yet, Ilya can look beyond his brother’s actions and words and see what’s at the core of him: a scared boy.

And then Ilya says, “It makes me terrible back.” Ilya doesn’t give himself the grace of saying something like, “I’m scared too. And it makes me terrible back.” Only that he acted terribly back at his brother. Yet all we’ve seen from Ilya is give his brother chance after chance and the only time we’ve seen him snap was when his brother insulted Svetlana.

We see Ilya in the hospital, as nervous and out of control as we've ever seen him with hair as styled as it gets throughout the entire show.

Ahead of the Skip Kiss, Ilya thinks he is going back to Russia for the summer. He is with people who are not Shane, missing him, wishing he was able to be someone/something he just cant bring himself to be, and his hair looks so clean that it almost seems shorter. In this sort of dark shot almost silhouette, you can see little fly aways though. He's starting to come undone.

He gets in the car in Canada-- terrified. Hiding, but working towards something...

By the time he gets to the cottage, he's out and loose. Still tucked away a little, but no product keeping it stiff.

Within a short time, he let's it get MESSY. Not even just get messy, but Shane makes it messy. Throughout the whole show, he's always shaking his hair out of his face, smoothing it back, tucking it behind his ears, but now he just let's it be crazy. He doesn't need to exert control over it anymore because he's comfortable.

The whole time he's at the cottage, Shane's hands are constantly in his hair, messing things up in the best way possible

HEATED RIVALRY WEEK

Day 6 - Favourite Scene

Ilya opening up about his family