By the end I realized I’d changed my mind about him.” It made her realize that she wants to produce that feeling in people — that she wants to be a writer.
For years, you’ve been the one making all the calls, producing your vision, and now you’re sharing leadership with a “younger, smarter lion.” For Ian, Poppy’s take on the new expansion feels like a serious threat — to his vision, to his masculinity, to his overall self-esteem.
He’s been spending long nights toiling away at Zeus, skipping meals and having nobody to talk to because the person he most wants to confide in is the one person he can’t.
After Poppy rushes to his hospital bed, she learns the truth: all that happened to Ian is that he fainted.
It’s also a dark reveal, though, because it shows how serious this rivalry has become for Ian: even if his life wasn’t in serious danger, his monomaniacal focus on beating Poppy landed him in the hospital.
Then he requests her to rub his head and talk to him until he falls asleep, prompting her to see him as a “little boy.” Finally, as Ian asks for her opinion on Zeus — even if everyone else loved it, the two of them both know it’s derivative nonsense — a final, bitter argument ensues, and all their resentments get rehashed.
I love that Poppy’s greatest act of kindness in this moment is to follow through on her honest confession that she was terrified of singing in public, baring her soul to him.
But I think my favorite detail, the one I focus on whenever I re-watch, is the first words they say to each other after Poppy comes back.
When Poppy says it’s okay, she doesn’t need him to keep expressing what she knows he feels, because she knows him almost as well as he does.
But now, by seeing each of them at their most selfish and controlling, at their most scared and vulnerable and naked, we know these two people really well.
When he asks Brad for help moving, he gets quickly rejected; Brad can’t have people thinking he’s a nice guy, because people will use him.
• Jo reveals to Brad that at his brother Zack’s suggestion, she bought a bunch of shares in the company, knowing their turn to mobile will be profitable.
• This show does a good job with tiny character details and callbacks, like when David, inspired by Jo’s idea for him and Brad to move in together, lets out a wolf howl.