the wedding grinch

ava and deborah share an intimacy so instinctive it initially defies categorization. we see and name that from the start of their intimacy.

almost immediately after ava begins caring for deborah post-surgery (despite being her writer, not an assistant), they begin sleeping in the same bed—not sexually, but with the kind of embodied trust reserved for soulmates. when the dynamic shifts—when ava is hospitalized with a ruptured ovarian cyst—deborah storms the ER, demands competent care, threatens legal action. she insists that ava be protected.

this becomes a pattern: they defend, protect, rescue one another. repeatedly.

deborah keeps ava on as her writer through every misstep, every betrayal, every slight. even after a betrayal so severe it warrants legal action. and yet, deborah drops the lawsuit. the woman who sues for sport, for fun (as damien notes in season 2: “why doesn’t she just fire you? she loves firing people”) chooses instead to forgive. to give grace. she does what she never does.

in that same vein, deb, the woman who “doesn’t do funerals” cancels a major show on tour to speak at ava’s father’s funeral. she turns a tour bus around when his ashes are misplaced. she refuses to listen to the rest of her team because ava matters. ava is important. she climbs into an actual dumpster to recover them. she risks her public image, her legacy, her career, to preserve ava’s peace of mind.

they forgive each other in ways that rewrite their DNA. ava returns again and again, even after humiliation, rejection, grief. she returns to deborah even after losing her relationship. she returns after requiring therapy to move on from deb. she fights for deborah—not just for a job, but for recognition, acknowledgment, and most of all: affection and devotion. and deborah, sharp-edged and self-protective, softens. she allows herself to be reshaped. but only for ava.

their relationship is more physically and emotionally intimate than anything either of them shares with anyone else. their glances linger. their hands find each other and hold just a beat too long. their physical closeness—touches, brushes, embraces—is neither casual nor professional. deborah teaches ava to float in a pool, gently cradling her, whispering reassurance. “you got it,” she says, when ava begs, “don’t go.” and she doesn’t—not really. she never truly leaves. ava’s presence calms deborah’s performance anxiety; when asked to choose one person to focus on in the crowd, she doesn’t just choose ava—ava is all she sees. the words flow for her. they always have and always will. and deborah knows it.

this isn’t one-sided, either. it’s not unrequited. it’s not one-sided. ava isn’t just pining after deborah. they circle each other. they’re caught in each other’s orbit. so when ava explores new romantic relationships, deborah’s jealousy, possessiveness, and territorial claim over ava simmers to the surface. she mocks. she jabs. she lays possessive claim: “she lived in my guest suite.” when ava cruelly distances herself (“i just wrote jokes for her”), deborah’s face crumbles. this isn’t about the work. it never was.

they are intertwined. deeply. dangerously.

when deborah finally wins late night, ava is the first person she wants to hold. in fact, they hug, ava pulls back to look at deb in her driveway, deb still holding her in her arms, both of them sharing a deeply intimate and gleeful moment looking into each others eyes, and they hug again.

and when ava (temporarily) quits, and truly leaves because of a culmination of stress leading to a breakdown, deborah breaks. we see it in 4x06: deborah, disoriented by the loss of ava, finds a photo of herself in ava’s drawer and finally understands the depth of ava’s devotion. she misses her so much that she’s touching her sweater ava left in her office. rubbing the shoulders of the woman who crashed out and left. she can’t even focus or enjoy herself. she spirals. rosie’s words (“laughing with the best people in the world”) only deepen her ache. deborah misses that. she misses her.

deborah once said marriage was about laughing together. and ava makes her laugh. constantly. effortlessly. they can’t exist normally without the other. they are inseparable. the oxygen feels differently without each other. it’s why she begged her not to leave in the woods. it’s why she can’t stop thinking about her. “you got in my head,” deborah admits in one episode. “you’re in my head,” ava echoes. more importantly, deborah confesses “you made me want more for myself”.

they make each other better. ava challenges deborah’s ego. deborah challenges ava’s cynicism. they’re not here to comfort—they’re here to elevate each other. yin and yang. two halves of a whole.

ava has sacrificed everything for deborah. her time. her heart. her relationship. her sanity, at times. she’s lost, over and over, and still, she chooses deborah. she stays after cruelty. she writes through tears. she demands vulnerability. and she’s the only one who sees deb intimately, even more than family in her life, even similar to marty who has known deborah similarly for years. she knows her behind the sarcasm, the power, the performance.

again, this isn’t unrequited. deborah is fiercely protective of ava. even in silence. even in subtlety. when others dismiss ava, deborah defends her with a raised eyebrow or a single, cutting line. she doesn’t need to say “she’s mine.” it’s written into her every movement.

and this all culminates (and is evidenced) in 4x09. on live television, she says it:

“and now i’m being asked to fire someone i love who did nothing wrong.”

not “someone i value”, not “someone who matters”, not “someone important.” she chooses not industry words, but her heart: someone i love.

the rainbow lens flares that follows on screen when deb draws her line? the rainbow line? that’s intentional. unmistakable. the line is ava. no one can take ava from deb, and that’s the point. even bob pointed it out: “for her? really?”

deborah vance, who has fired friends, estranged her daughter, sued employees, and does not do funerals—burns down everything she’s built, everything she’s ever wanted, for one person.

ava.

that is not mentorship. this is not family. it is not platonic. that is a love story. it’s a gut-wrenching, electric, volatile, transcendent love story. not just age difference, but so much more. it transcends careers, family, trauma—it’s irrevocable devotion.

and they are soulmates. they are messy, magnetic, irrevocable soulmates. they are drawn together by a force neither of them can name, and neither of them wants to escape.

they are caught in each others’ orbit.

because if this exact story were between a man and a woman, no one would hesitate to call it what it is. no industry execs would hesitate.