I think it’s so important that Anthony had that conversation with Violet in episode 8. It’s like they were finally talking as Mother and Son. He finally let her in enough to address the broken parts of him. She finally said what she needed to say to him. He finally heard what he didn’t know he needed.
His mother, his siblings leaned on him after his father’s death. He stepped up and was viscount and in doing so he felt he had to let who he was die to become who he felt he had to be. In doing so he kept all of them at a distance. Living for them but resenting his lack of freedom and autonomy. As opposed to learning to balance it. It made him bitter and I craved every sibling interaction with Anthony. Every sibling that remembered their father and understood the role he stepped up to but regarded him as their brother that lost a parent too. Watching them call him out or try and remind him to balance his choices. Or most importantly that he is not exempt from happiness and love because of the role he was born into. Reminding him to take perspective. To allow love in because he deserves it just as much as anyone else.
With the siblings that have him as their father figure, the fear, the respect, the joy when they are seen and known by him. To have had that chat with Gregory, to dance with Hyacinth. Allowing the parts of him he shut off due to grief to be shared and seen. For years he only saw the duty he had to carry not the love he could share. He was a grieving child and the responsibility and legacy was thrust upon him before he was ready and in order to rise to it, he made it his entire personality. He was viscount, he was the head of his family. There was no other way. Meeting Kate, seeing someone face similar responsibilities, make similar choices, sometimes making isolating or bad choices, putting family before their own needs to the point of heartache— it woke him up. He felt seen. He wasn’t being asked to choose. He could always be both. It would always be a struggle but he wouldn’t bear it alone. Neither would she.
His conversations with his mother. Not just about his father and his way of working hard, living well but loving deeply as well. It was put into perspective by falling in love with Kate. By falling in love with someone that understood familial responsibility in a similar unique (and also traumatic) way. And running towards that instead of away from it.
Being called out by his siblings. Being reminded he was more than just VISCOUNT. That his family loved him not because of what he did for them but because of who he was. Except he so often closed that side of him off, a lot of them felt like they hadn’t seen him in years. I MEAN THIS BOY USED TO PICK FLOWERS FOR HIS SISTER JUST BECAUSE. He laughed often, was kind, sweet. And he’d been lost for so long.
I just love to watch these kind of character journeys.
