I knew this scene was coming but I did not expect it to be the last scene of the episode or for it to be the end frame. This was the best and just a perfect way to end the episode, though. Because they are so fucking soft here with the gentle boundary testing, and it is a nice bookend to the opening scene.
You can see that they are trying really hard to be gentle with each other. Because it isn’t about the food. Not really. It’s about “am I being too much for you?” “Am I enough for you?” “Are you sure you aren’t sick of me yet?”
The episode opens with Lucy going way over the top, because she feels like Whistler is doing a lot (maybe too much?) for Lucy. Whistler in love is all in, and she trusts that, I think. But there is something there that still feels unbalanced in Lucy’s eyes. At first I wondered, does she feel like Whistler is doing too much to make up for everything in the past and she is overcompensating to meet that level of effort? Or maybe this is just the way Whistler is and she just feels like she has to keep up with it to reciprocate. We don’t actually know for sure because instead of actually talking about it, Whistler smooths it over with a kiss and reassurance that she appreciates Lucy’s effort and that seems to be the important thing.
But then I saw this exchange and realized they are talking around their issues using the food as a focal point. This is David in the interrogation room all over again, speaking in metaphors and indirect codes because Lucy and Kate are still shit at communicating directly and just saying what they really mean to say. This pattern hasn’t changed. And after seeing this scene, what I personally have landed on about all this breakfast talk is: Lucy knows she is a lot to handle, but she doesn’t know if Whistler is fine with that.
We know Lucy has a huge heart. She likes to be over the top, likes to be open about how she love, not just with Whistler but with all her friends, and we know she cares very deeply. The entire time that Lucy and Whistler were together in S1, you get the sense that Lucy was holding back because she wanted to let Whistler set the pace. But we haven’t actually seen incandescently happy Lucy in a relationship where they get to be open about it until now. And Whistler hasn’t either. We know how Lucy is about Jesse and Kai and Ernie and Jane. How much more will that be for the person she is in love with? Lucy loves big and it makes me wonder if she has been told in the past that she loves too much. That she is too much.
Because despite getting cozy, she doesn’t assume that she is going to sleepover again. It surprises her that Kate is asking her to stay the night. And because they’re big dumb dumbs who still can’t use their words, (probably because they are still nervous and don’t want to hurt the other) they imply it with talk about breakfast. It is boundary testing in the most round about way because it is easier and less scary than just saying “do you still want me here after spending all day with me?” and “yes, I want you to stay and be here in the morning.”
This scene is super cute but also is really effective in showing two things at once: 1) there is room to grow here with the relationship but 2) they are trying to be better and that is what matters. This ep showed a lot of cracks between them still existing and the writers aren’t papering over the hurt they caused each other last season. It exists in the pauses after “but we put that in the past” and in indirect exchanges like this. Lucy and Kate do still have a lot of growing to do together because the rifts are not fully healed. But at the end of the day, they just like each other too much and choose each other first. They don’t get mad when mistakes are made. They see the intent behind it and they are trying to focus on the good. And that matters. Progress matters. Because there is still a lot of story to tell, and we are in it for the long haul.
Overall a great way to close out a season opener with the reminder that no matter what comes next, these two are it for each other. Endframe = endgame.
