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Oh, let me see. Ohhh. Huh.
Well. She’s not NOT caressing Mary… I mean, presumably she’s staring at the pic to remember general memories of the friendship, including Shannon, or just, the old Lilith even, before all this weirdness and the thumb movement is either at all that or even inadvertent but. It’s a Choice, for sure.
Huh. You know…
Okay, like, she does alternate between staring down and looking up at Ava, but there’s a solid chunk of 20 seconds when she’s just speaking to the table in front of her and then she really does look up directly at that line
Like, given how Bea’s side of it all–her background AND her feelings for Ava–is maintext, it’s honestly possible it was deliberate?? The scene as a whole, the mix of looking up and down is probably KTY and the director making those choices, meant to convey at what points Beatrice is more thinking out loud and speaking to herself than to Ava, at what points she’s remembering, at what points she’s actually speaking directly to Ava, gauging her reaction, but this one, yeah, anon, maybe that is deliberate. Not even on the part of Bea the character, right, she’s just caught up in this all, but from the POV of the show, yeah, maybe, just maaaaybeeee.
Hmm, but you know, Beatrice didn’t, like, know that Ava wouldn’t be homophobic, although it would of course been a relief to read that journal entry out loud and have Ava’s only response be, yeah, kick their ass!
I wonder if what initially drew her to Ava was how much of an outsider she was too, an outsider like Bea. Ava sat down next to her and spoke first, how much do you want to bet Bea’s own middle school experience (and after) wasn’t much better? As much as we can assume Camila and Mary and probably others knew, it didn’t seem to be the kind of thing people spoke about or reassured her on. In fact, that brings me to this ask by another anon:
WOW what a trip warrior nun was, I really hope it gets a second season! I ended up liking Bea/Ava way more than I thought I was. It’s so interesting how at the beginning of the show Mary berates Bea for being too ‘’cold’’ when she’s talking about Shan but then later on we see Bea and how she interacts with Ava and it’s totally the opposite (I get the feeling that Bea has a huge wall up and doesn’t really show affection towards anybody but now with Ava there she’s slowly beginning to with her)
That’s such a good observation, you can really sketch out Bea’s full characterization from just these few scenes. How much she tries to be perfect and follow the rules so–as she herself said–she can make up for her perceived flaws, so nobody has any reason to criticize her. And it absolutely would manifest as this wall between her and everyone, even as nice as Camila is, she’s a junior. In this all-woman environment she has to work even harder so there’s not even the suggestion of anything more, anything improper. As much as she really did love Shannon, she couldn’t ever show it in a way that’d imply anything like a crush, she always had to be distant and impersonal.
And then freaking Ava, so irreverent and with no boundaries just breaks through those walls. Like, the most physical contact she’ll allow herself with anybody is a shoulder touch:
And then when she offers the same thing to Ava, a comforting shoulder touch
Ava shocks her by leaning into a full body hug
Imagine the last time she had any kind of real physical contact! Even a normal gay adolescence makes you hyper aware of how you come across, but compare that to this environment, and the restrictions she placed on herself. First anon up there, you were right when you highlighted the “everyone but you” comment, because this I think is where Ava bulldozes through Bea’s walls and she’s like, oh. Ava just reached out to her when probably nobody else dares, following Bea’s own signals too, perhaps, but it must have meant so, so much to Bea.
And another anon:
I gotta say my absolute fav moment of the season has got to be when Ava and Bea were having their moment after reading Melanie’s story and Ava goes “What you are is beautiful” I mean can you imagine how mind blowing it mustve been for Bea to hear those words after having been told otherwise her whole life (no wonder she falls for Ava lol)
I wouldn’t normally have added another ask to what’s become such a long response already, but this fit so well. Like, yes, exactly, until this point, Ava’s approval is just implicit and assumed, but nothing could be stronger than that comment. And after everything, always striving to be perfect but in the background, loving so hard but having to hide it, what a comforting thing to hear. :’)
Omg, right! I was wondering if I was imagining how her voice changed, but I relistened and I don’t think I was.
Here she is to Mary:
Okay, a normal amount of upset and concerned.
And like! Obviously you can’t hear it gentling in a gif, but it just seems a special little moment, the way Beatrice and Mary react. Just kind of…charged? I do believe that they did want to play Bea/Ava’s relationship as a bit special this season already, for a variety of reasons, if only so it’d be even more dramatic if Ava has to let Bea down easily, but who knows.
Either way, Bea does mean something special to Ava, the way she reached for her to hug, the way she saved her instinctively from the shotgun, the way she listens to her and talks to her. She is the closest thing to a friend Ava has, whatever else happens.
Hmm, I like that interpretation too, because again, it is literally true, it IS the first time the Halo does something for someone else. And only time? Hm.
Well, both those theories work together, either way, it was reacting to Ava’s extreme feelings of fear for and protectiveness toward Beatrice, which, of course, you see a friend about to get shot, you react, it could have been anyone, but that’s the thing, it could have been anyone. Instead, they wrote it as specifically Bea. It’d have made the most sense if it was Mary, Crimson taking her own gun and turning it on her, and they’d just finished bonding in ep 6 and then reuniting in ep 7, but instead it was Bea. Well, intentional or not, for whatever reason the writers felt how well it’d work with Bea and they were right!
Ohhh, that’s true, I saw it as Ava saving a friend, but the way you describe it, that is technically exactly what happened, Ava almost emptying the Halo to save Beatrice, in this fancy slow mo shot.
Hmmm, hmmmmmm. You’re so right. My original takeaway of the reading in EP08 had been what Bea’s had been, that once you deal with your own personal demons (heh), you’ll get what you need, and in this case, that’ll be to get through the 20 feet of stone. But Bea’s reading was influenced by her own association with Sister Melanie’s journey and the same breakthrough by proxy she had. In terms of what had been described, this wave of energy bursting out suddenly, that’s what happened when Ava saved Bea! Tbh, I don’t know–I don’t think they wrote that intentionally? But it’s certainly a super curious and interesting coincidence and I can’t really be sure…
Gosh, it would be SUPER interesting if they pursued that in the second season. Most likely they won’t, but I’ll hope.
