#the worst thing is it isn't something owen was even doing intentionally and it can be fully understood by his own trauma

[theghostofashton]

thinking about how tk reacts to being called the coach's son, how upset he is, how he turns to recounting his accomplishments, trying to create that distance between them, and thinking about how many times he's done this before. what it must've been like to grow up as owen strand's son in the aftermath of 9/11. the boy whose dad saved so many people and lost his entire crew, then rebuilt his entire firehouse. thinking about how many times tk's been called the coach's son, accused of being favored because of who his dad is, unable to exist outside of owen's shadow for all incredible, wonderful, heroic reasons that somehow don't feel that way. the tension between loving his dad and being so proud of him and resenting him a little for all of it.

[thisbuildinghasfeelings]

Okay, sorry, but apparently I'm back on a Tarlos spiral already 😅.

Are you scared too that they will actually kill off Gabriel, after hearing their last interview? It seems more and more likely, and if it is I really hope they manage to do it justice, though I can't see it right now, what with everything else it's bound to happen. That was my biggest reason for not wanting him to die right now, needing to explore Carlos' feelings without throwing him into a happy wedding right after (even with a time skip, which seems a shortcut to me at the moment), but then again I'm not a writer 🤷‍♀️ and I'm ready to be pleasantly surprised.

Of course it may as well be something else entirely, with the build up we had I'll bawl for Robert too for example, or maybe it will be a mix of different things that will pull our hearts in a lot of different directions. Jim did say there would be a lot of curveballs.

Surviving till Tuesday will be hard.

I've been extra scared for Gabriel since the finale promo. I still struggle to understand how they can possibly go from Gabriel's death to a happy wedding, but I am pretty certain that SOMETHING is happening with Gabriel. I'm hoping that it's something short of death. The promo opens with Carlos asking Gabriel to be his best man, the episode is called Best of Men, and then they showed us glimpses of the wedding that included pretty much every single character EXCEPT Gabriel. Either Gabriel isn't at the wedding or they intentionally avoided showing him to us. We see Owen standing up with TK as his best man. If Gabriel is Carlos' best man, he'd be up there too...but we don't see him. However, we also don't see someone else in Gabriel's place, which makes it seem like they are very intentionally not showing us who is up there with Carlos. There are a few reasons they might do this--I talked about this a little yesterday, but I've thought it through even more now:

(1) Gabriel is dead and someone else is Carlos' best person--Iris, for example. I think Iris is the only other person we don't see in the promo at the wedding. It's possible we don't see her because she's standing up there with Carlos in Gabriel's place and they didn't want to give that away.

(2) Gabriel is alive and well and standing up there with Carlos but something is going to happen to Gabriel before the wedding and they want us to worry about him. Gabriel gets injured and they want us to think he might not make it, so they didn't want to give it away that Gabriel makes it to the wedding.

(3) Gabriel is alive and mostly well and he's at the wedding but something about his appearance is a spoiler. Maybe he has some visible injury or he's in a wheelchair or something, so they avoided showing him.

I really want it to be 2 or even 3. But could it be 1? Yeah, I think it's possible. I've been pretty adamant for a while now that I didn't think Gabriel would be dying, but I left it open to change my mind if I got additional evidence. The finale promo was that evidence for me. HOWEVER, I still don't think it's inevitable. I'm still holding out hope for Gabriel. Mostly I'm trying to prepare myself a little in case it happens. I don't need a repeat of the premiere where I was writing long, rambling posts about why there's no way Carlos could possibly be secretly married to Iris right up until the day the premiere aired! That mindset didn't make it any easier for me to come to terms with the whole secret marriage thing.

Ultimately, if Gabriel does die, it's not going to ruin the episode for me. First of all, it would give Rafa yet another chance to show off his incredible acting skills. Also, I'm comforted by the knowledge that Carlos and Gabriel are going to get a nice moment together when he goes to ask Gabriel to be his best man. Even if the worst happens, they will get a moment of further mending their relationship. I really hope we get Gabriel telling Carlos he's proud of him or something like that, especially if Gabriel is going to die. That's something Carlos needs to hear! As I said, I still really struggle understanding how they could possibly pull this off and make it work...but we don't really know all that much of what's happening in these last two episodes or how much time they're spanning. In the end, all I really care about is that TK and Carlos are getting married. Everything we've heard about the wedding makes me believe wholeheartedly that it's going to be amazing. I think they're going to do it justice. And we're so close!! Only 4 days away now!