#turn meta

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When Ben lies, he's really not the best at deception, but in this particular deleted scene, he seemed so sincere that it's difficult to tell whether or not he was telling the truth. In the past, several fans have even asked if he was lying. The assumption is that yes, of course he was, but then again, what if he wasn't?

In the aforementioned gifset, I noticed something I hadn't before: in the background of each gif, the blocking deliberately puts Anna in between Abe and Ben. Blocking is never an accident, so that makes me wonder: was Anna the woman who got in between Ben and his best friend from his scar story? Although Ben and Abe obviously love each other like brothers, there's often a bit of underlying tension between them that makes them snappish with each other, so it begs the question: was there some unresolved history?

They even do it in the first promotional image! In my observational experience, they typically put the characters who're the most important to one another, and/or potential love interests, side-by-side. It's possible they'd intended to do a love triangle at first, but dropped the idea, especially since there seemed to be seeds planted for this in S4, in particular.

Although I absolutely do NOT need another Anna love interest, the idea of young!Ben crushing on Anna after she "held his hand while he cried from a bee sting" is cute, and I personally headcanon that he outgrew said crush, but not before Abe found out and put a bit of a wedge between them. It could also explain why Caleb was so gleeful teasing Ben and Anna (in 4x1) about the doxy rumors, because let's face it: Caleb would ABSOLUTELY be the friend who teases everyone about their infatuations.

[More under the cut because this got a lot longer than I intended.]

Oh gosh, I just rewatched that part. He says her name so softly. And then, just as softly, “No, no–”, and closes his eyes, shakes his head, spends a long moment looking down and opening his mouth but not speaking…

Thank you, I’m glad you like my analyses, and it’s funny you should ask about this! Let me refer to the notes I wasfrantically scribbling longhand all through the ep, where I scrawled…

“YOU’RE MY CAUSE ABRAHAM” GOD DAM N MARY I WEEP !!!!!

…I adored that line. Just as I adored Mary saving him later in the ep.

You’reright that this relationship isn’t my top priority(if only because literally nothing else comes close to the one that is), andit’s no secret that I’ve had a lot of frustrations over the years with Abe. ButI adore Mary, and I’m actually very supportive of their marriage working out.Yes, there were points in season 3 that seemed to be backsliding towardAbe/Anna – which frustrated me at the time – but now, with the benefit ofhindsight, I think I understand why that happened. I think that backsliding wasultimately in service of a larger point: that Abe and Mary’s relationship is succeeding for the same reasons that Abeand Anna’s failed.

Itdoesn’t look like Abe and Mary are suited in the beginning, right? Season 1 pushes that~star-crossed forbidden romance~ angle hard, and Mary, while not unsympathetic evenback then, is cast in the role of the uptight wife who’s an impediment to Abe’swork as well as to his and Anna’s ~love.~ Mary does not share Abe’s politicalsympathies, as Anna does; she does not share Abe’s history, his childhood, hiscircle of friends; they’ve been married a couple years or so by that point, yetthere’s a sense that Abe and Mary … still don’t really know one another verywell. Abe sees Mary as an obstacle, Mary sees Abe as wayward, and the spyworkand Anna affair has them at odds…

…untilEnsign Baker is shot. And suddenly, both Abe and the audience realize that Maryis (as Abraham himself says) much more than the lovely rose Thomasdescribed. She is, in fact, every bit as cunning and ruthless as Abraham, whenshe needs to be – which can make her a helluva asset to him, or a helluvaimpediment, depending on whether their goals at any given moment align.

Fortunately,with each season, their goals have aligned more and more – partly because Abelearns to value Mary more, but largely because Mary slowly comes to accept thatshe’ll never succeed in stopping Abe, so she might as well help his dumb assany way she can. Teamwork brings out the best in Abe and Mary’s relationship. Iseldom like Abe more than when he’s listening to Mary’s ideas and we see thetwo of them collaborating and supporting one another. There’s some lovelyAbe/Mary content in … 3.01, I think? Where she’s, y’know, stuffing pistols upher petticoats for him to cover up Eastin’s murder (which was her idea), andthen they tumble into bed together all playful and sweet. Watching that, Iremember thinking: “Thank GOD! Abe has FINALLY realized how well they worktogether! He’s FINALLY learned to appreciate his wife!”

…Andthen the Hewlett situation happens. And the long-cooling embers of Abe/Annaflare up for one last, miserable hurrah.

Becauseat the same time that Abe and Mary have been learning how well suited they are– both cunning, both stubborn, and both increasingly willing to engage inwhatever violence or deceit they need to in order to achieve their goals andprotect the things they love – Anna has been undergoing a paralleltransformation. Hers, however, is asoftening. She who started out the series so angry and so confident in therebel cause has discovered compassion and admiration for someone she neverexpected, and as a result, she now finds herself drawing lines she can nolonger cross. And what we see when Abe comes back from prison – which rendershim more bitter and ruthless than ever before – is suddenly, his ruthlessness frightens Anna even as her affection forHewlett baffles him.

ContrastAnna’s behavior during the Abe–Hewlett conflict with Mary’s. Because Mary andEdmund, they were friends, right? They seemed to respect one another? To getalong? In season 2, she calls him a darling man, a good man, and prays for hissafety and his soul. She even helps save him the first time from Abe! But oncethat conflict is in the open…? She loses all sympathy for Hewlett. She refusesto help Anna broker a peace. She knows that Abe intends to betray Hewlett, andher response to Anna is basically: What,you don’t want Abe killing this guy to protect his family? That sounds like aYOU problem, hon. For Anna, trying to protect both men is an absolutecrisis. For Mary, it’s no dilemma whatsoever. Abe is her cause.

Interms of priorities, personalities, cunning, aggressiveness toward obstacles,stubbornness in pursuit of sometimes selfish goals, and willingness to crossmoral lines for the sake of what they hold dear, Abe and Mary understand oneanother in a way that Abe and Anna simply cannot anymore. The reason we getthat backsliding in early season 3, though, is that Abe has not yet fullyrealized or accepted this yet. I think he’s extremely jealous of Anna’saffections, and I think he’s absolutely furious with her for protecting Hewlettbecause he simply cannot for the life of him understand why the HELL she isdoing this. For him and Mary, pragmatism demandsthat Hewlett be dealt with, and that’s as simple as that. The abstract moraldilemma Anna is grappling with simply does not exist.

Inshort: the reason Abe’s feelings for Anna flare up again in early season 3 isso that they can be definitively doused. A last violent, ugly show ofresistance to change before Abe can accept that it’s time to move on.

Things I love about this teaser:

Two of my favorite characters having real, substantial interaction at last!!! Just in time before the series is done!!! (They’ve technically met before, of course, and have both heard much about the other via Anna, but they’ve never really talked.) 

Hewlett comforting Abigail!!! Taking her hands, kneeling, apologizing for frightening her!!! I LOVE IT

And of COURSE he’s gonna help her get to Cicero. He is A Good Man.

~Anna mention~

Plus Ben mention = potential fake love letter mention...?

Abigail knows that Anna was engaged to Hewlett and legitimately had feelings for him (see 3.08). With the right prompting, might she tell him what Anna told her?

Even if she doesn’t, Abigail says she intends to go to Washington’s camp and appeal to Anna. In 4.01, Anna encouraged Abigail not to give up hope of seeing Akinbode again. Given that Abigail is now trying to do just that (reunite with Akinbode as well as Cicero, that is), and given the subtle parallel or two this season has seemed to draw between Abigail/Akinbode and Annlett, wouldn’t it be nice … if Abigail mentioned to Anna … that Anna has a chance to see a man Anna thought gone for good, too…

Did I mention I love both of them and I get so excited whenever characters who have always been in completely separate spheres of the narrative FINALLY intersect??

Things I do not love about this teaser:

An Annlett moment that I’ve never analyzed before! What a rare treat.

And a very rich, flavorful treat indeed, because there are a lot of layers here:

Anna’s feelings for / romantic history with Abe (engagement, breakup, affair), all of which Edmund knows about (as does everyone else present, excluding, well, Sprout) 

Mary’s own claims to Abe (romantic, social, familial, and legal), and Edmund’s friendships with her and with Richard

Anna and Edmund’s brand-new pseudo-relationship — which is platonic and undefined and more a friendship than anything romantic yet, but still something — enough of a something to let them interact in a private, intimate way in the background of the scene

…All of which creates a situation in which there are a lot of romantic, social, and interpersonal dynamics at play. And what Edmund does, with nothing more than two fingers to Anna’s elbow and a whispered, “Wait,” is kind of cut through all those tangled relationships and — as is Mr. Law, Order, Authority’s way — put everyone in their proper place.

And, to judge by Anna’s face, it’s honestly a gutting moment for her.

Anna doesn’t know it yet, but the romance between her and Abe is over. If it was still alive when he went into the sugar house, it’s dead by the time he comes out. When they have their private reunion in his secret little Culper basement, Anna is very physically affectionate … but Abe, traumatized and tired, doesn’t really respond. Certainly not in the way Anna’s just watched him respond to his family, to whom he CLINGS. And that touch to her elbow was this gutting reminder that Anna is NOT Abe’s family, that she has NO claim to him — not one that can see the light of day, at least. After all, Hewlett didn’t say don’t; he simply said wait. So she waits for her moment, when she and Abe can be alone … and I think she still doesn’t get the response she’d hoped for. Because she and Abe, in the mere couple of months or so they’ve been apart, have both deeply changed.

A cynical reading of this scene could interpret Hewlett as possessive: controlling Anna’s personal interactions with a potential romantic rival. But I really do not think that interpretation holds up. Hew never expresses jealousy about Anna being around Abe — not now, not any other time, not even once his and Anna’s relationship is explicitly romantic. “Wait” doesn’t mean “Don’t go near him,” it just means “I know you want to see him, but not yet.” So it’s much more like you said: he’s saving everyone, first and foremost Anna herself, the awkwardness of trying to insert herself into a situation that … however painfully, for her … is simply not her place.

Seriously, can we TALK about the dialogue in that scene??? “Of all the men I have forged from weaklings into warriors, you may be my greatest creation.” What a LINE!

And the reason that statement is so powerful – the reason the whole SCENE is so powerful – is that for a terrible moment, it seems as though Simcoe has won. He’ll die, sure, but that’s small potatoes compared to the TRUE victory: transforming Hewlett into a mirror of Simcoe himself. As I discussed before, this season has been having Hewlett mirror Simcoe like WOAH, and all in pursuit of the ideological question at the heart of Hewlett vs. Simcoe: Is it better to be ruthless or to exercise moral restraint? Or, to put it in 2.04 terms: Shall we be men of reason, or men of blood? Killing Simcoe under those circumstances would prove that Hewlett’s victory comes at the price of him becoming one of those men of blood he once disdained. And Simcoe, resigned to his death, is so fucking delightfully SMUG to think that he’s getting the last laugh!

…Which makes the subversion – the mercy – all the more sweet.

Honestly, what a classic Simcoe thing to do, though – even on his apparent deathbed, he underestimates Hewlett yet AGAIN, refusing to give Hewlett credit for beating him by claiming that Hew’s only able to because Simcoe taught him how. Hilarious. I love it. To be honest, though, I actually have NO idea how long Hewlett and Simcoe are supposed to have known each other before Setauket. This is just my headcanon, but I guess I always got the impression that these two hadn’t been working together for very long even as of season 1.  Hewlett’s supposedly only joined the military fairly recently (since his father was bankrupted by the trade embargoes in the early days of the war, right?), and Simcoe’s apparently never been to England. So in my imagination, I suppose I reckon the war just happened to throw them together by virtue of getting them assigned to the same unit / stationed in the same town.