#ipop

Noa Kirel / Paamon

What CW struggled to accomplish with AE and Peter is communication with each other and understanding their goals and aspects of what they wanted. CW also got jelous of how they were doing with their novels- they often weren't always on the same page since CW thought his writing was brilliant but the others never agreed, thus feeling betrayed. They kept criticizing his stories, and how they were in love and he wanted to be with her. Lack of communication on all parties tied with jealousy and what felt like betrayal.

What Doc and Bean struggled with was also quite similar- Doc was taking over a lot of aspects of their games and was making big decisions that wasn't fully his call. He kept pushing her boundaries of what she wanted their game to be, adding in more and more of what Montreal knew would make more money but ruin the true meaning. They struggled with lack of communication and dishonesty.

What Ian and Poppy did that broke this loop was they communicated.

While they've been working together for eight or nine years, they were never on the same level until the end of season one. They struggled to find balance since Poppy wanted to be as powerful and respected as Ian, however she was turning into an asshole while doing it, due to her feeling like no one was listening to her when they all listened to him. Ian was afraid of Poppy overtaking the game from him and him being left with nothing left to him, causing him to be in that hospital bed from passing out due to not taking care of himself after their fight.

Even after the fight in episode five, in the hospital they genuinely talk about how vulnerable they feel and how they view eachother as people. After exchanging how they truly viewed eachother in that current moment ("you look like a little boy"/" well all i see from here is a scared little girl") because its the first time both of their massive ego's falls down and they let eachother in. They've been vulnerable with eachother before, but never to this extent.

Ian cries, which genuinely shocks Poppy given that shes never seen him do that before. Poppy comes back to comfort him (mirroring how he comforted her in the Quarantine episode) and she faces her fears of singing to comfort him (much like how Ian was afraid of getting sick, but left his compound anyway to make sure she's okay) and even sing a song her dad used to sing to her, really showing that they view eachother as found family.

I'm really excited to see how things tie up in the next episode, which ofc is the season finale. Thank you all for reading, sorry if i broke your heart.