Viq

The purest love dennis ever felt was crushed by years of relentless homophobia from Mac, only for those same feelings to stick to him, twisted, malformed by anger & resentment but still there. Now mac is comfortable in his sexuality, after decades. And that makes dennis hate him more than ever before, but the hatred is so different from his usual apathy interrupted by annoyance. the hatred is just that same love. Now theyre stuck with emotional distance & severe codependency, their lives too entertwined to pick apart, though Dennis did try in leaving to North Dakota.

i think the catfishing thing encompasses it completely. As Johnny he let out his repressed love while becoming more and more cruel in person to match it. He convinces himself its just his annoyance at Mac's presence, that he doesnt miss the sweetness of their earlier dynamic, missing Mac loving him as an equal, not this constant subservience. But now Mac loves this single figment of Dennis, the softness Mac himself crushed, and that must cut deep. That Mac's side of this thing they have could be laid aside so easily for someone he's never even met. This pushes Dennis to be even worse to Mac in punishment & jealousy of himself, furious he cannot bring back parts of the dynamic lost to Mac's loud internalised (& external) homophobia, one that can never truly come back, too much hurt has been cause to both of them by now.

We get so many little hints of how Dennis was quite effeminate pre the show & early seasons, especially compared to Mac's pursuit of hypermasculinity. Given he had frank as a father & the time period he was growing up, the person he was closest to (& maybe completely in love with) spouting such constant & cruel homophobia for YEARS must have hurt Dennis in a deeply personal way. So he tried to move on. He's convinced himself he doesnt have, and in fact never had, those feelings. Now Mac is confidently & openly gay, after 20 years of screwing up Dennis, why should Mac get to be happy? So he tears Mac down, but hates when Mac tries to bow below him - where's the revenge in Mac letting him cause all the pain he wants (maybe a small part of him is trying to tear Mac back down to his level)

I have so much to say on Annabel's psyche and my interpretation of it ♡♡

Those are scalpels at the bottom edges!

Alt vers. + sketch beneath