#done to get away from the house (i.e: K changed everything; from her appearance to her background) will forever haunt me; ngl.

[yeonban]

I just saw this on twitter and immediately jumped to post it on here because this is EXACTLY how I view Watari in relation to the Wammy House project. He does care about orphans, we know that from the fact that he's founded and funded dozens of normal orphanages around the world, but the genius children at Wammy's House are the sacrifices; the ones who are indoctrinated into either seeing justice/competition as their reason d'etre or groomed in a way that'll make them want to live up to Watari's expectations no matter the consequences. It's no surprise that Watari brings all of them directly to Wammy's House when they're at their most traumatized and most malleable; many of them (if not the majority) wouldn't have chosen this way of life/thinking if they hadn't been raised in it and praised for it. That's why they're all willing to die for the cause and why some of them are even willing to kill for it, that's why everyone at Wammy's House is obsessed with either L or Watari, that's why it's been stated that "once a Wammy's kid, they're always going to be a Wammy's kid"

[roominthecastle]

I find it interesting that even though we are supposed to believe Liz, Tom and Agnes is now a happy family, there has hardly been any true loving scene between them since... I don't even remember. Not even when they reunited after fake death did they seem that happy. Either TPTB didn't think to add that or it's on purpose. Thoughts?

I think the k/2 relationship has been sanitized, anon. One good visual example is what you also mentioned, their “big” reunion scene in 323 where everything is. So. Ridiculously. White. I think this is why their togetherness feels off and muted and - once again - fake. Nothing that went down between them has truly been dealt with yet they are already playing house again. They look like something out of a magazine - an attractively arranged but emotionally shallow image manufactured to sell some cheap crap you don’t even need. *cough*thespinoff*cough*

They def don’t act like two people deeply in love who are finally together as they were always meant to be. Their dynamic is lacking for a tv couple, I completely agree, and I’m not talking about the lack of sex scenes here (if I never see one btw these 2 it will still be too soon). They are more like roommates than soul mates. It’s not passion-affection keeping them together but “format and convenience”, so to speak. They are two people who fell back into a pattern and settled for it bc it is familiar - a lukewarm faux-marriage which remained their only frame of reference and which they can squeeze back into again but only if they can delude themselves and each other to their reality. Tim has to deny his own psychopathic nature and Liz has to pretend he is not the same selfish creep who used the same setup to violate her in every way imaginable. These are interdependent conditions, so if one wobbles, it pulls the other with it.

ok, more behind the cut but fair warning: I will wander off-topic bc k/2 interests me only to the extent it comments on Red & Liz’s relationship. which it does. imo + i am finally all caught up and have a lot of swirling thoughts, so again, beware of the ramblings:

Liz and Tim are back together almost as if nothing we witnessed in S1/S2b actually happened the way we *saw* it happen. Past transgressions are briefly touched upon but never with the intention of exploration. If they are brought up, it is done either to quickly wave them away or to put a revisionist spin on them. And so the authenticity of the dynamic suffers bc it is not an honest portrayal of a real reconciliation (which could never have been this fast and so complete) but a “quick-fix” for both, and if one of them strays from the script, the other is instantly doubtful. It’s just another fantasy. The only difference is that now Liz is complicit in maintaining it too bc poor woman thinks this is her only shot at having a Normal Life™. It doesn’t make the dynamic any healthier and it also warps her relationship with Red into something mostly ugly and irrational because he refuses to play along. His reluctance is perceived as a threat. But just like the fantasy, their distorted bond is also pierced by bouts of clarity (those are my favorite moments) and maybe someday this clarity will prevail.

But for now it just boggles the mind how much Liz is willing to either overlook, “reinterpret”, or “understand“ when it comes to her honey, while she holds Red to a completely different and extreme standard he will never be able to measure up to. It seems that all her frustrations are taken out on him lately. Red must be the root of all evil and the scapegoat at the same time, so Tim’s good guy status - and Liz’s fucked up choice to be with him bc he is “changed” - can be automatically validated no matter what Tim does. Again, it’s like we are back in S1. Red is not a Good Guy, don’t get me wrong. And I would welcome a healthy resistance, worry, and commentary on this from Liz if she didn’t choose to forgive everything and shack up with another criminal who has done precisely nothing remotely significant to make up for his 100% selfish and vile crimes. His grand gesture of “goodness” is that he is considering another way of living but since he changes his mind 10 times/hour, that’s hardly a solid sign + w/ the spinoff launching we know he is back to his old ways already, inviting the kind of danger Liz keeps complaining about but only with regards to Red’s presence. But according to her, it is only natural for Tim to behave this way and his lies are now an expression of “hope”. Oh lorde. I still remember when she claimed Tim was a changed man who had already reformed himself and thus became suitable marriage/father material, but it seems she just has to keep lowering the bar on that one since Tim apparently isn’t even ready to give up his fake identities yet.

The fake passports symbolize every covert and overtly aggressive, remorseless violation honey committed against Liz for years by repeatedly choosing to safeguard his own life and his mission at the expense of her mental/physical/emotional well-being, yet when she sees him still hoarding them, she just… acts like it’s no big deal. Their entire current relationship is built on strategically selective denial that only makes it look like they are dealing with things when in fact they are just brushing them off. Tim is now framed as a sexy spy boy struggling to settle down and his actual past with her is being scrubbed to support this fake (but much more marketable) image. Red is the only one left who refuses to accept/digest this obvious yet invisible lie, and Liz knows it too. And she is hostile to him, she keeps him away, she doesn’t allow him to enter the “dream home”, and this is where things get interesting.

The episode (410) where they move to their apartment is the same one where Red becomes obsessed with another apartment where everything is so white, it makes your eyes bleed. It is unnatural, sterile, sanitized (just like the big k/2 reunion scene in 323 we mentioned at the beginning). And he is down on his hands and knees with a little blacklight, looking for traces of a very personal atrocity that he knows has happened there even though there aren’t any overt signs of it now. And he keeps wondering how that is even possible. How can something so atrocious happen and leave everything looking normal and the same as it was before? How can even the memory of it disappear? He wants to avenge the murder of his friend and hire the murderer’s done-did-do cleaning crew, I know. That’s the surface agenda that acts as a conduit to much deeper issues he has been struggling with, including the k/3 fantasy unit. This gets confirmed when Dembe shows up on Liz’s doorstep saying that Red is spiraling again (he also acted out like this right after Liz told him the baby was Tim’s) and his only remaining anchors are her and her baby. If this ep with the two apartments is not a symbolic commentary on k/2′s unnatural sanitization of past transgressions and Red’s refusal to accept it, I don’t know what is, but I honestly cannot tell if it is done on purpose or not. TPTB probably thought it was ~quirky~ to have an all white apartment and that’s it. Fortunately, that’s not at all how it comes across in context of the entire show.

Red does to k/2 what he does to the “sanitized apartment”. He keeps crawling and poking around, he keeps trying to look behind loose parts to expose just one trace of the atrocity he knows happened there and what Liz is so busy suppressing, i.e. reality in favor of appearances (another topic Red dedicates a short speech to). This is why he later hires Tim for a mission that could have been given to any low level associate - he wanted to show Liz how unchanged and unfit her non-husband was (bc apparently it is still not obvious), and it did send the fantasy wobbling. Liz immediately flip-flopped on just how understanding she really was and Tim immediately questioned her love for him. Apply some pressure and this happens bc this is still a dishonest relationship. Also look at the way Red arranges this “reality check”. He enters the “dream home” uninvited when its current primary maintainer - Liz - is away, then sits opposite of Tim and close to Agnes, framing Tim as the intruder/outsider. He hates him and while I don’t think he will kill him, I also don’t think he will stop trying to pry him out of Liz’s life because Tim is a) a useless sack of shit and b) the rival. Every scene they share, they either stand/sit across from each other or Tim is forced to stand to the side or even leave the room entirely. He does not belong as far as Red is concerned and hopefully he continues to demonstrate it.