AND IM CALLING EVERYBODY THAT I KNOW!

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.

More so, I think seeing those “imperfections” is a microcosm about why this show got me so good. Because they could have airbrushed out the stretch marks (just like how fucking yt is editing out acne on youtubers without consent). But this show feels so lovingly made that, just like the realistic faces during the sex scenes, they weren’t concerned about looking “pretty.” In a time when it’s hard to feel immersed into period pieces because everyone has veneers, i just really appreciate that Jacob Tierney seemingly doesn’t want to sacrifice the intimate storytelling to fulfill unrealistic beauty standards.

And I do want to push back on people saying the show is only about the sex scenes because I think it does a disservice to the care that has been put into this story. Sex scenes for sex’s sake is fine, and there is something to be said about showing explicit scenes in this political climate of quickly encroaching conservatism, but there is a reason for the sex scenes, as cliche as it might sound, other than them being hot. Sex is the only way these two men allow themselves to be vulnerable with each other. It is only under the guise of sex that these two can actually communicate what they’re feeling (ex: the considerate first time scene at Shane’s apartment, “i need you,” calling each other by their first names) and once the veil of sex is lifted, they both run because, oh no, i got too tender and this is not what this is supposed to be, I’m not allowed to be feeling those things.