So, this has no basis except in thematic shape and speculative play, but I've long thought that Amelia choosing Sam didn't actually happen. Much has been said of the strange, dreamlike quality of Amelia in general, but I say yes, it's dreamlike, but it was also real to a point, specifically to the point that the big elephant in her room is actually Rejection.
The shape of the season is unreliable memory, and ofc the inability to see people as they are and deal with that disappointment. I know, I know. I'm biased because that's basically the whole idea behind how I wrote fic Truth & despair, but also, it really explains so much about Sam's tenuous feelings around leaving Amelia. Amelia's husband is well-adjusted, "She'll choose what's right for her," but I actually think Sam is allergic to that way of thinking. He can't actually bear the thought he WAS LEFT/not chosen. he desperately wants to be "the first thing someone thinks about when they wake up, the last thing they think about when they sleep," so he creates a memory where he's the one that didn't show. An echo of Rowena's "...went back to his grand house!"
Which makes Sam's rejection sensitivity at the end of the season a LOT more contextually interesting. Normal people won't choose him, so what's he gonna do if his own family doesn't choose him after he fails and is left with nothing?
That's where Jody's "safe place to fall" / Church stuff really hooks in nicely. Family is supposed to be there when you fail, right? But Sam and Mary tbh are the type to cut ties with family altogether, so they feel guilty for needing them afterwards, and it creates a lot of pride and shame.
