#also the link is to the meta that jonathan whitesell (bryan's actor) has read

[tempestaurora]

I don't know if Briller broke up or not because it wasn't explicitly stated but if they really did, isn't that kinda ooc for Bryan? He knows there's a big chance that, despite their solutions and plans for survival, all of them might only have two more months to live and like ????? Is this really a good time to be having fights or big crisis in your relationship? Would he really want to spend what's left of their time away from Miller when they were planning on growing old together last season?

I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t think any of that (the corn etc) was really on Bryan’s mind.

First, Bryan had no knowledge of there being only two months left. At the time, they assumed six. We have to assume now that he knows, even though he wasn’t in the last episode.

Second, walking away from Miller during that argument is super in character Bryan, and I’ll be happy to explain why, because I love talking about him. (You can find my original Bryan/Briller meta here, and it’s basically just about what I could discern of their relationship during season three.)

What we know of Bryan isn’t much, but we know that he is hardcore, wrapped in a puppy. I say this because Bryan, it’s safe to say, has killed. Long before Polis. He has killed because his entire station was wearing the outfits of Ice Nation - people they would have had to kill to get to this point, to have their clothes, and to survive. Bryan would have killed to save his people - something that a lot of people on this show do.

He’s wrapped in a puppy because - you have seen him, right? He just looks gentle and kind and good, and he was worried that he was the bad thing for Miller back in season two, and he rushed to Riley as soon as he saw him. Also with the floppy hair and the smile it’s just difficult not to love him okay. Hardcore wrapped in a puppy.

Keep that in mind.

Bryan will fight to keep his people safe. He’s done it before, and he did it again when he voted to set off the bomb. No, not only that: he suggested setting off the bomb. It was his idea to save the slaves. It was his idea to just plain out attack the Ice Nation to get into the station. He will do what it takes, and he fights for what he believes in: and that seems to be saving his people and keeping them safe.

If we’re splitting couples into head and heart, Miller is the head, Bryan is the heart. He didn’t let anything else overshadow his need to save his friends. He didn’t think about the water and how they could suffer in the future - he thought about the people suffering right now. He wanted to help them now.

So when he asks Miller if he thought that saving the slaves was the right thing to do, and Miller says no, this is meaningful. Not in just the sense that these people are Bryan’s people; these are his friends and family - but in the sense that this is a fundamental position of Bryan; something that makes him who he is - the fact that he’s the heart, not the head. In relationships with these sorts of people, head and heart work together - but only after having issues and butting heads because of the differing opinions (see Bellamy and Clarke).

Right now, Bryan and Miller are just butting heads because their priorities don’t exactly line up. Miller’s priorities are living in the future, Bryan’s are deserving to live right now. (You might have noticed, as I have throughout writing this, that Bryan and Miller seem to reflect a lot of other relationships back at us.) I truly think they did not break up in 4.02 (I think that was the episode), and it was a fight; a meaningful one, yes, but a fight all the same.

(Remember that whilst Bellamy and Clarke only took about ¾ episodes to get to an agreement, they only knew each other when thrown into a high stress situation, both as leaders. Miller and Bryan aren’t leaders - and their relationship before the ground would’ve been fairly simple. They’re hitting their butting heads period now because this is the first time a serious situation has come up - especially one they both feel strongly about, and one they’re not going to move on. In the Pike debacle, lives weren’t immediately at stake, and Bryan was willing to change sides. This isn’t the case anymore.)

I don’t know what they plan to do in the rest of the season with Briller, as there’s a lot of different directions they could go. But, hopefully, the writers have chosen to show them working past their issues (just like Bellamy and Clarke did back in season 1, as they do seem to be reflecting them - and I’ve spoken before about some similarities between Bellamy and Bryan) and leading them to both being saved from the radiation.

They want that future together, they do. Just because they had a fight doesn’t mean either has gone nope nada don’t want that anymore. They want that future with the chickens, the corn, the house by the lake - and whilst it’s far less likely, what with the end of the world coming, their differing opinions don’t mean that they’re going to stop being together - especially when long standing relationships, like theirs, have a track record of getting past issues.

Besides, I think there was an important line from Bryan in 4.02. When Miller asked why Bryan turned against Pike, Bryan said “I did it for you, Nate”.

They may oppose each other as head and heart, but their number one priority, I think we’ve seen, is each other.