#I'm going to go look at photos of goran being cute now send help this show can fit so much in it. just. so much. muchness.

[wolves-in-the-world]

listen. the damien moreau vibes are very fun, nicholae schiller is very cute, but I want to talk about how much he cares about his father.

how laszlo schiller will turn the television back on to keep watching sports while nicholae's taking an important call and nicholae just gives him a look about it that speaks of exasperation and nothing more. how nicholae takes advice from his father, with a grain of salt, yes, but internalises it all the same, which I didn't really see until darkfinch pointed it out. how we don't see any true cruelty or resentment in this relationship at all, which compared with the absolutely toxic petrov patriarch situation is kind of stunning all by itself.

(nicholae makes a "when will he die" type comment once to his second in command/secretary, who offers to take care of it without any real weight to it - like he knows it's not a real wish, like it's the kind of petty comment that won't leave that room, that stays between friends.)

and then nicholae's dad gets rushed to hospital with a heart attack. and immediately, desperately, nicholae's priority is to be by his side, because his father can't stand hospitals, because he needs to see that nicholae's there. when laszlo does wake, back at home hooked up to beeping machines with someone in scrubs in the background, nicholae sends the medical person away immediately to get water (maybe just to leave laszlo's line of sight) and just… reassures him. stays there for him.

...…do you ever watch something in a story that feels so private it feels wrong to comment on it? because by this point we've seen the numbers tattooed on laszlo's arm several times. by this point we've seen someone call nicholae romani as an insult. and we've seen laszlo worried about his son, about his new business associate, about whether she's working against him, and we see laszlo here now scared and trying to warn him about it -

and when it's clear to nicholae that his father is jumping at shadows (at the horrors in his past that are all too real) he takes a moment to visibly collect himself then is just so kind about it. so gentle. switches to english like it's easier to lie that way and reassures his father that he'll see to it, that it's okay. and he does. and it is.

(always, inescapably, this is a character who murders, who works with monsters, who sells guns and hard drugs, who isn't above coercing someone into working for him. I know this post might get read by people who haven't seen the show; I don't want to mislead them.)

when I say I love this character I mean (among other things, admittedly) that there is so much humanity to him. and this relationship is such a surprising and real example of that.