#kill carter smith

“or is he?”

Rewatching this I really got the sense that Ivy was Carter’s backup plan if Beth didn’t work out, which is just absolutely horrifying.

On that note, at the very beginning, while the class is reading the definitions, Carter goes over and looks down at Beth and Ivy’s desks. You could assume that he’s looking at their textbooks, but he has the textbook, and knowing what we know about him…I get the sense that he may have been looking at something else.

From what I remembered Lee was just like miming jerking off or something WHY WAS BRO FULLY HUMPING THE DESK.

This rewatch gave me so much more appreciation for Scene 1. When I was writing my crossover fic I saw it as a hurdle that I had to get over to start writing the interesting stuff, but it does so much to establish all of the characters and the world that I am now a Scene 1 lover.

On that note early scenes Carter is so much more disgusting when you go in knowing, like he is just blatantly creepy to Beth from the first line when you know.

I am SO OBSESSED with the staging and lighting it’s all absolutely perfect Danya Taymor I love you.

Also I forgot how badly Lee sucks. I knew he was annoying of course but the whole time I was watching I was just like “wow, he is just AWFUL.”

When I watched Scene 5 for the first time, it was directly after I had figured out the reveal, but I was confused because Shelby seemed to be interacting with him way too normally. On rewatch, where the camera got close on her face several times? Nope, she’s uncomfortable, and their interaction…there’s a few moments where she starts speaking to him a little too casually, seems to realize, and then pulls back. Also he’s talking to her weirdly but I haven’t quite put my finger on exactly what it was, other than the obvious.

My heart was pounding so hard during Scene 10 that I lost feeling in my extremities. I’m not exaggerating. That line never fails to be an absolute punch to the gut.

Nell and Mason are really so adorable no matter what.

Raelynn being Carter’s #1 hater is my favorite thing in the world. I just know she’s going to spend the rest of the school year bullying him.

“I could see that she had a crush on me, and I should have put a stop to it, that’s on me,” is quite possibly the single line that inspires the most rage in me in this whole play.

Shelby and Carter making eye contact one final time before he backs off and she fully stands up on his desk and how it parallels Beth making eye contact with him one last time before stepping forward…THAT’S FUCKING THEATER RIGHT THERE.

carter's line in the first scene about john proctor, "he had an affair with one of the main characters, abigail willams, a while back—no spoilers, you find out almost right away—" is pretty ironic once you know that carter represents john proctor and shelby represents abigail.

basically, carter's unknowingly foreshadowing the truth about him and shelby to the audience, but not actually spoiling it (hence the "no spoilers").