#sfthblr

Starting with the more obvious, Bitch Wife (Fandom seems to be calling Belladonna/Bella so we'll go with that) She's, as the name implies, a bitch, to both her husband and son. (And she canonically has killed dogs) However, when Jimmy is freaking out over how mad his dad's gonna be about the gun, she does support him. (Though not without the insults). You could argue she's only doing this because he's now working in the Mafia now, and she's trying to pull him away from her husband.

While I'm sure there is a level of guilt tripping going on, it also seems to me she was a little happy to have her son "joining the family business". He was clearly terrified of his father finding out what he'd done, and she was ready to help him cover it up. Even later on, when going to kill her husband, she tells Jimmy to step aside. Almost trying to keep him as involved in his father's murder as possible. (I may be reaching with the last bit here, but I do believe there's much more to her than being a "bitch wife") In her own, twisted way, she cares.

All that to say, Johnny may be the "better" of Jimmy's two parents, but he's in no way perfect. We can look at the little things such as snapping at his boss during work to leaving Jimmy on read when he said "love you". His biggest issue is because of how awful of a person Bella is, he thinks he's automatically a good person. But he's not. While he's not physically or emotionally abusive to Jimmy the way Bella is, he's hardly a good father. How I see it, he does want a good life for Jimmy, but never gave him the support needed to go anywhere. Feels a bit like an absent parent (maybe spending too much time at work). He's also terrible at taking accountability for his actions. When Jimmy says "you aren't a good dad." He switches it to his job is the problem ("you're in your ACAB phase"). Johnny may not be the main "problem" of the house, but he's still a part of the problem, and his refusal to admit only adds to it. Jimmy really said it best himself; "You're both toxic as hell." (Johnny and Bella's relationship really screams "accidentally got pregnant young and felt as if they had to get married before the kid was bron" to me)

Thing is, later on, Johnny sort of admits he's a part of the problem, however it's the adds on of still blaming Bella that really sticks out to me. (Full line from the next screen shot; "And maybe we're both bitches, but I got the capacity to change. Once you're out of the way.") He's getting better, sure, and he is the better of the parents as Jimmy says, but he's not without strong flaws.

Lastly Jonnie (I'm running out of screenshots and these were the main three I wanted to talk about)

Jonnie is my favorite character. His role throughout the whole story is really unclear if he will end on the "good" or "bad" side. (It's also just genuinely unclear which side is "good" because all we have as a marker is Jimmy, as our protagonist, is "good," but whose on "his side" changes constantly. One of the many reasons I love this play)

He's a friend to Jimmy, that's clear, but he's also much more into the Mafia stuff, especially at first. He's stated to be the brains of their friendship often. Based on what we know about him, I feel like I'm not reaching when I say he doesn't have a great homelife either. After all, he's only 18, recently graduated highschool, running around with the Mafia, and not once is there even a mention of some worried parent. As the "logically" one of the two, he knew he and Jimmy needed to do something with themselves. Jimmy constantly mentions wanting to get out of his parents way, and look to Jonnie for answers. And, when you have an in with a group of powerful people, it's no surprise a desperate teenager would jump at the opportunity.

He cares about Jimmy, that's clear. When the Park Ranger's body disappears, he sends Jimmy home before his dad can find out about the gun missing and says he'll deal with it. And he did. He finished off the park ranger and buried his body as well. Covering up for Jimmy's mistakes before going to Albert.

When Jonnie shows up at the house, confronted by his best friend, he emphasizes he's doing this for them. For Jimmy. He's already killed a man at this point, of course he thinks it's too late for any change. He doesn't possibly have another option. This entire time, he's trying to protect Jimmy, the ways he goes about it get increasingly more questionable as the play progresses until he's got a gun to his head. But he still insists, it's for Jimmy.

Now we can't really be sure what went on in the house while Johnny and Bella were having their moment (which is so good by the way, Luke and Tom killed it in that scene), all we know is Jimmy managed to get away from Jonnie and Jonnie ended up shooting Bella. To me, it seems like Jonnie's change of sides happened during this scene. Maybe he left Jimmy to go help Bella. Maybe he intended to shoot Johnny. Maybe he was going to help Johnny because of something Jimmy said. Regardless, his actions proved he did have more of a choice than he thought, which follows through into the final scene in which he saves Johnny from Albert's poisonous flowers.

(I've talked about Jonnie's involvement in the shoot-out in more detail here if ur interested)