#rio analysis

Hi anon! Thank you for the ask. 😘

I can see why Rio may seem like he has an avoidant attachment style. He’s kind of a lone wolf. But I actually don’t think that attachment style is his problem. He isn’t the first man to be defined by one single bad thing he did when he was very young. Six months in juvie for petty theft and his ENTIRE life is ruined? He is now forever branded a criminal? Like the show’s theme professes – there’s always a choice. A lot of who Rio is, is who he believes himself to be. He believes he’s a criminal, so he’s a criminal. He believes it’s his duty to provide, especially for the women in his life, so that’s what he does. He believes himself not worthy of a conventional life, of full-time parenting, of being someone’s actual partner… so he is none of these things. Society has formed him. His life circumstances have formed him. Culture, machismo, pressure, emotional immaturity… All these things have formed his deep loneliness, and his resentment of Beth for not having to pay the same price for being who she is.

Did Rio want Beth to love him?

what a wonderful question to ponder after the edible has kicked in. kinda wish i was in the same boat now as i consider it myself!

it's a meaty question, and one for which my first instinct was to answer no?

i say that not because i think that he didn't want it, but because i think he wouldn't conceptualize his desire for what he wanted from beth or out of their relationship in such a neat or straightforward way.

more than he wanted her to love him, i think he wanted her fixation, her obsession. he wanted her to be invested in their cat and mouse game - to continue playing, to not bow out, and in the end, to offer him her loyalty - and while the business and personal is always intertwined with them, i think he cared more about her commitment to a shared vision of their partnership than to her romantic devotion. sure, he was rankled by dean, and he clearly become jealous and possessive when it came to nick because of his and nick's specific history, but clearly these weren't dealbreakers for him (and he pursued other sexual relationships regardless of what he felt about her, too).

basically, what beth and rio have is far outside of the realm of a typical relationship, and i think rio liked it that way. at the end of the day, i never envisioned that he wanted something traditional with her, but rather that he wanted something that was their own, something that other people couldn't breach.

and, perhaps more significantly, i don't think rio spent much time considering what he wanted as much as what he already knew to be true, and what he wanted her to acknowledge.

rio didn't seek validation of beth's feelings for him - what he wanted was beth to acknowledge those feelings to herself, whether that was when he was trying to get her into bed after 2.04, or whether it was by making her acknowledge her desire for and attraction to him in 4.06. and nearly every act of genuine affection or feelings for each other was laced with either secrets or manipulation on both sides, and frankly, i think this intrigued rio far more than it ever truly bothered him because he recognized that they were mirrors of each other.

really, the thing that makes me so crazy about rio's feelings for beth is that he likes her for exactly who she is. he has no illusions about her. he likes her coldness, her awkwardness, her distance, her delicate flowery facade contrasted with her capacity for cruelty. he cares far less about whether she loves him than whether she's in his orbit - but of course it helps that he always seems to be operating from a standpoint of seeing through her mask and knowing that she feels far more for him than she'd ever admit, show, or even act on.

Let me start of with that I don’t think the show is making Rio more unlikable. I don’t know if you mean that they are visibly showing him committing more violence and crime. But I’m assuming this is an ask in response to the wire-scene from Sunday’s episode.  Watch me under the cut go through the past three seasons and a little some season 4 to tell you how I see Rio’s character progression. I’m not really sure if this is what you’re asking an answer to, but if it’s not tell me! * Rio’s (non) POV * Escalation in violence * Different views on S3 * More into the wire-scene * Prediction for 4x06 / Backstory

OMFG ANON HE IS!!!! It explains the fkn dark clothing, the beanie, the hoodie && why it’s so fkn OCD. It makes perfect sense (lol)

But, is redcoat Turner???? Or, is it Eddie? Maybe he never died. hahahaha. 

Thinking about their conversation in the car in season 1 where he told her to tell the police he was hitting it and her flustered and prudish reaction to it, I just can’t believe he thought she wanted to hook up. In a dirty bar bathroom, at that. I’m not sure if you’ve already addressed this. If so, just ignore me. 😅

(this ask is so old, im v sorry, but tysm and i'm glad you enjoyed it!)

as for your question, i've always interpreted it to be that he highly suspected, but didn't really believe he could be right until beth locked the door. even then, i think he was still shocked when she turned back around (not kissing him) and lifted up her dress.

i think this for a few reasons:

beth went to a place she suspected he'd be at because he'd already invited her there, but didn't seem to have contacted him to meet up. the place and timing was also unusual - it wasn't on two separate park benches in the daylight or in a back alley where nobody could see them, but in the middle of a crowded bar when he was out to be social. so i think he put the pieces together that it wasn't about work and it was therefore personal - and rio was dialed in and frankly just waiting to their sexual tension to break between them.

beyond that, i think the fact that rio knows that he's been invited to follow her to the bathroom - to even try the lock and find it open for him! - indicates that he was correctly reading the signals. typically a bathroom would be a place to find reprieve and privacy in a bar.

lastly, i think rio's choice not to speak - not to ask beth what she wanted or why she was there - was because he knew how fragile the moment was and wanted to see what would happen without his interference. rio's a man of few words, but he also typically likes to get to the point so he can smoke bomb out of there, and here was dead silent, waiting.

i think it's the same (but more complicated and layered) when she invites him back to her place in 2.09. he knows, but he doesn't entirely believe he's right, and that seems to be the case right up until the moment she closes the door and starts taking off her shoes and her coat.

imo, beth's unpredictability is something that fascinates him and keeps him hooked on her. in business, he finds it can be both advantageous as much as it can be disastrous, but in romance and their personal relationship, he seems to find it completely fascinating because he's always straddling a line of what he knows (that she's attracted to him, that she implicitly trusts him, that she blooms under his attention) and what he can never seem to put his finger on (for instance: how, exactly, to get her into bed, what the effect of prompting her jealousy will be, what she ultimately wants the two of them to be). rio seems like he has the upper hand because he's had more experience and he's her boss that has literally threatened her life and shot her husband, but in their intimate relationship, it's actually beth that holds the cards - partially because he lets her, and partially because she's just so elusive and unpredictable and, i believe, unusual in the sense that she has incredible levels of self-denial. frankly, i think rio's used to getting whichever woman he's interested in, and he's completely flummoxed that this isn't the case with beth, and he doesn't know why because he does know she's interested.

i think rio is a little less agitated in that particular beat with rosa than he is overall in the scene, but i think it's a result of a few things at once:

rio's real purpose in bringing beth to this event is to remind her of the people he has relying on him in order to get her to shift gears from her plans of betrayal. it seems as if he had a bit of tunnel vision regarding this plan bc he didn't properly anticipate the long term consequences of introducing her to nick OR the short term realities, i.e. he seems unprepared to answer his nephew's questions about who beth is, how they know each other, and what they do together.

rio attempts to diminish or neutralize his relationship with beth by calling her a "work friend," but there's a distinct flavor of rio's explanation clearly being the kid-friendly sanitized version. this is largely bc of the crime of it all, but i think the adults at the table correctly clock—and nick vocalizes—an inquiry about whether partners is "all" beth and rio are, basically outright suggesting that there is a romantic and/or sexual component to their relationship.

there is a LONG beat—nearly 8 seconds—after nick asks what they are where no one responds. rio gives nick a challenging look telling him to back down and stay out of their business, but then he resumes eating, deciding to ignore the question entirely—until beth answers, announcing that she's married.

at this point, even rosa is giving nick a bit of a Look™ for being invasive, and she tries to smooth over the interaction by asking an innocuous question about beth's children.

when beth answers "4," rosa immediately swings her attention back to rio, emphasizing, she's married, which i read as rosa kinda gently needling rio that he's being a little loud or inappropriate because beth seemingly has long-established life built with another person—it comes off as a little playful or teasing, but i think there's an undertone that rio is in the danger zone and needs rosa to remind him of what's what.

rio nods an eye-contactless mhm in response. i don't personally read him as particularly agitated here as much as attempting not to elongate the conversation, but i also think rio didn't expect beth to weasel out of a direct question about what they are to each other by pulling out the married card when the fact has had little bearing on their relationship. i wouldn't be surprised then there that's a mix of rio finding the whole thing laughable (like, sure, grandma, yeah, she's "married") but also frustrating (this doesn't come long after beth was doing everything in her power to get dean out of jail, after all, and i don't think rio's ever understood why she's with him let alone stays with him)

rio's mood spikes to real agitation when nick asks where the ring is. at this point, the conversation has devolved and is definitely not following the conventions of polite social manners. nick is basically suggesting beth is not as married as she seems and insinuating beth and rio are more than they are, angling to get some more information.

then, of course, nick pulls the "elizabeth" card and rio's possessive streak comes out in full force to the point that he starts to straight up intimately touch beth and rub her back, loudly driving a stake into the ground with a giant flag that suggests YES WE'RE FUCKING which is truly so embarrassing for him bc he immediately and completely unravels his already mediocre attempt at being unphased and composed

if we're talking the endpoint of canon, i think it's really hard to tell and predict? beth and rio's relationship is so nebulous and while it's happening in plain sight of the kids in a lot of instances, they lack too much context to really be able to understand what it is (or isn't).

in terms of marcus, i think he has enough of a personal, individual relationship with beth from the post-shooting time period that he seems to think positively of beth and like her (she's the nice lady who gave him juice and had him over to play with his new friend, and he seemed to like drawing a picture for her). but i think it would be confusing how abruptly she was ripped out of his life, particularly since he was still seeing her through soccer practice, but also knew that rhea physically tried to drag him away from and avoid talking to beth (not to mention that he was no longer allowed to have playdates with jane). he didn't seem particularly phased by seeing beth at the barbeque with rio, but i think marcus would have questions that bubbled up if the shape of that relationship started to look different since it doesn't really add up.

beth's kids seem fairly neutral about rio but open to trusting him, i.e. kenny trusted him to help him with homework in the backyard even though they've never met before, and jane referred to him as "mommy's friend with the drawings on his neck." they don't seem threatened by his presence in beth's life or seem to understand the romantic tension that exists in their relationship, although i don't doubt that they have (at the very least unconsciously) picked up on the fact that his presence coincides with a lot more tension in beth and dean's relationship. additionally, they may perceive dean's increased agitated and jealousy surrounding beth, even if they can't name it. although it isn't shown in canon, i wouldn't be surprised if they became a lot more suspicious or anxious about rio's presence in beth's life once dean officially moved out and they formally separated/divorced. while they seemed mostly unphased about those possibilities during s2, i think it would be different once it felt 'real' — think about how stressed and anxious jane got in response to the flipped dynamics in the house once dean was home and beth was at work, for instance.

by 4.16, i don't actually think any of the kids have any real, concrete inklings about beth or rio's involvement in crime besides sara. i don't take kenny to be perceptive and we really have no confirmation that sara and kenny and ben have any relationship or communication.

i've also always headcanoned that rio would be pretty anxious about marcus's morality, particularly because it seems like he's gone to great lengths to provide marcus with a "normal" childhood playing t-ball and soccer, not to mention that he dresses him in preppy clothes and seems to maintain a fairly good relationship with marcus's mom, who is not a part of the crime world. he doesn't at all seem to be trying to make marcus a "mini me" but instead seems to encourage or at least support marcus's differences.

i think that beth is also trying to replicate that situation—as normal of a life as possible—for her own children. in that sense, i actually think both beth and rio would put off being completely honest with their kids as long they could. they both seem like they don't want their children to be like them, but beth in particular struggles with enabling her kids out of a sense of guilt and anxiety for failing them in some way. i think it's also clear that they both love and care for their children very much and want to do right by them as much as possible, and their choice to stay committed to crime is complicated because it's both supporting and in conflict with that goal. i think because of that, both of them would have a tendency to avoid that level of honesty with the kids in fear of it damaging the kids' view of them or the relationship they have with them.