I probably should wash my hands
So I go to take the screen out of my window, so I can go for a smoke. What is this? I say, because there's a shadow at a bottom, and as I lean in to look, it's looking back at me. Hello small toad! I spend a bit of time getting the screen out and down, so I can get out without squishing the little guy, presuming he'll hop off it and away, and proceed to tread uber carefully across the yard, lest I smush another one.
I come back, and sure enough, not on the screen. Unfortunately, sitting on my window sill. Uh oh, says I, and try to pick him up. At which point he jumps onto my chaise lounge. Well, crap, says I, and try again. A couple times, actually, since he manages to escape the two-hand grab, I'm used to catching crickets, and is hopping perilously close to the side of the chair, where he'll fall down between it and my bed and force some major furniture moving. Happily, I finally snare him before he can slip between my fingers, and deposit him several feet from the window. The screen's back in, but I have an inkling he'll be back. Are toads attracted to light?
Rebecca Duvall. We know Derek sleeps with his leading ladies, and indication is he'll sleep with non-leading ladies if they're willing. But we've never seen him with someone who is his "professional equal," which is why I'm excited about Rebecca. That plus the fact that she's a contained arc, and I don't think the show has a particular desire to bring her back as Marilyn next season. She's merely representing another hitch in the road with our establish cast.
What I'm curious to see, is how they develop. What Derek/Karen have is her potential for depth, and his fascination with her innocence, her tabula rasa. Yes, she stands up to him in a sassy way, sometimes, but this takes us back to the original situation, when she was (faux) seducing him as he sat, passively, on the couch. She pulled away, which was interesting to him, but until that point she was playing out a situation that must have happened 1000 times before: the girls he sleeps with are motivated to sleep with him, and his power as director is a major factor.
Ivy started out differently. There's nothing saying he hasn't felt an artistic connection and taken an active role (this may be his leading-lady MO, if he spent 4 years on MFL he's either having serial relationships or branches out.) But here it began out of respect. Ever since then, he's always the one who touches her first. Minus a couple of casual moments in the early morning, which can be ascribed to intimacy carry-over, and were not themselves romantic. (We might or might not read into how he shifted his arm to brush her fingers when she was covering for her voice being gone, or how the fact that she was covering led to the touch in the first place.)
Rebecca is the question. There's going to be professional respect. There is also equals, in a sense, Rebecca has, and is used to, artistic input and has the capacity for changing the show in order to perform it better. Which has to attract him. I'm curious about the touch question, though there are certainly others. But it's all spec so we'll assume that they definitely flirt, possibly sleep together.
It's not like Ivy doesn't play the seductress. She does, and Derek likes it. Such as at the end of The Coup, or when she's hanging out on his bed in lingerie in The Understudy. Still, it's only ever an invitation. And an invitation is what he's always after - he won't touch her unless she indicates it's okay, through physical signals, or verbal ones. To the point where, at the end of the party, when she stands there but doesn't give him anything else, he moves closer and invites her to bed, but specifically refrains from touching her.
If we keep with our supposition that typically, the women he sleeps with take initiative, we can carry this into these Karen!Marilyn hallucinations. In which K!M is forward, not just in attitude (and Ivy is certainly that), but physically. It's out of context, but the previews have her going back to an almost-kiss, then moving around behind him, leaning down, while he sits passive throughout. Granted he's gotta be freaking, but likely also craves it, whether as affirmation that (the woman) wants him, or whatever. Probably symbolic of how his relationship with Ivy is vastly different than others he's had, and his problems adjusting.
So, touch. Ivy's going to touch him first eventually. It's dramatically unsatisfying if she does so in the context of seducing him, because she's just replicating every other woman he's slept with, and we already know that Ivy is different. Plus it's just not her MO. It also reads wrong if she's doing it to try and manipulate him, which is arguably what she's doing when she's playing the seductress role anyway. In The Coup ending their honest but perhaps uncomfortable-for-both conversation, and certainly in The Understudy.
Leaving us with: play. Things are a bit stressful now, but in a couple eps their personal life could easily be back in a groove, and once she's in the ensemble and can leave the scheming out of the house, we can get our cute, happy Ivy back. At which point I can certainly see Derek working on something, Ivy comes in and slips behind him, excited about something, and take an emotional step forwards and run her hands down his shoulders, say something into his hear as she leans forwards, cheeks brushing, to see what he's working on. Generally, she's one step, emotionally, behind him, so how does this become interesting?
At this point, he has a problem. He's hallucinating a highly forward and flirtation K!M, who may or may not be highlighting what he wants from Ivy, or what he thinks about their relationship. And there's Rebecca, who he's becoming fascinated by, and has started thinking about in his "leading lady" way of "let's sleep together."
Which means that while he'd ordinarily be pleased that Ivy finally touched him, he's now got a whole lot of guilt, because she's taken control and he's already given control to the other women. This will make him incapable of receiving it as a friendly touch, he'll pull his defensive crap, and will have to immediately turn it sexual. (Or kick her out, because he can't storm out of his own place.) Natural enough to not beg comment from Ivy, but inappropriate enough - it wasn't her intent - that she'll later have that moment of doubt and reflection, on the order of "is sex all we are?"
Particularly poignant if he has her meeting him at his place. We've seen Derek hanging out at her place, and while there are various reasons for him to be happier there, it once again puts him in an ambiguously passive position. He's in her space, working, but waiting. By contrast, I can't really see Ivy happy lounging around his place waiting for him to get back. She's not that kind of woman: she could never be a housewife, though I can see Karen filling that role. Ivy's always on the move. So if she's coming to him, to be domestic at all, that's a step for her, one that he's already made. Notably, when he was at her apartment, they ended up companionably on the couch. If he makes it appear impossible for her to be at his place and result in domestic time, he's redefining their relationship spacially. What they have at her place is different from all other spaces, including his own.
When, theoretically, he asked her over at that time because he -wanted- to bring some of that domestic comfort into his sterile environment. Inadvertently or not, the writers are doing a pretty amazing job of throwing subtle misalignments of intention at these two, which case friction and arguments while forcing them forwards, bit by bit, in spite of themselves. Which is why they're sort of epic - every time they show a flaw, it meshes with a flaw on the other side and the result is positive.
We've seen Rebecca, and she's going to do well. She's professional and talented and smart and passionate. But she's not passionate about the theatre. We know Derek directs TV and movies, but it's clear his heart is in the theatre. Karen has, supposedly, talent and passion, a spark and potential. But she doesn't have the backbone or the skill that doesn't leave him irritated beyond belief at the time it takes to walk her into basic blocking or dances.
Ivy is the prefect middle ground. She lives for the theatre. She is smart, talented and passionate, professional enough to work with but still has that next level to achieve stardom. She's complicated, but also warm, and has a complicated, interesting background. She has all the backbone she could ever need, can be as big of a bitch as he is a bastard, and is as willing to forgive him as she is to lamblast him. He respects her, even on professional matters. He was nice, because she told him to be. A massive thing right there. It's not just about work, here, and it's not just about how they interact in informal situations. He's letting her influence how he behaves at work, his passion, and that's him putting an incredible amount of trust in her. Hell, everyone in that room saw him being nice and, apart from Karen, who believes it's further proof he wants her, everyone thought he had a stroke. Ivy makes one comment, and the result is the general consensus that he's brain damaged.
And the thing is, he was pleased about it. Not so much about the suggestion itself, since he riffed off of it flirtatiously, and proved that he took it seriously only later. Maybe because Ivy was displaying a meta understanding of the show, which typically, actresses do not (though Rebecca will.) Probably because she doesn't take too much of an interest in him (she asked what he was reading, but since he was sitting there reading it while talking to her, she had to ask.) But here, it's not about her, or even just about the show. It's not about his personal issues, which would be way too much for Ivy, even pushed forwards by her attempt to manipulate him. And which would also be too much for him, since that's a couple emotional steps down the line. But it is a suggestion for something that's in his best interest (as well as the show's).
If he's generally sleeping around, he's not had anyone, really, who cares about him.
Which might be why he played off the line and went to sex. What's he going to say "I like that you appear to like me?" But it is that emotional closeness he craves, and so as they do, sex stands in for the conversations they can't, or don't want, to have. - He does have people who respect his power, fear it, want something from it. People who say rather rude things about him, people who think rather rude things about him, people who want to use him professionally and people who respect him and help him work.
Which is funny since most everyone cares about Ivy. Well, lots of people care about Ivy, since it would be dull and unrealistic if it were everybody. But she has circles of friends, right down to Sam (and Tom) who are devoted to her. And who Derek might take cues from. It was after she (inaccurately) indicated they had divined she was in trouble and went to "take care" of her, that Derek showed up post-Coup. She recycled a line "you don't have to 'take care' of the loser," so she might have picked up on this as well.
And he really does consider her feelings. "I didn't expect to (find) you laughing about it." He didn't hesitate to put Karen as Understudy, making me think it was a professional decision. But at some point he knew that Ivy would hate it, thought of her, and formed an expectation. He started to get defensive and argumentative when he thought she was fighting with him, which is typical Derek, but stopped when she turned away, because he was focused on her emotional state and the real direction of her upset, rather than his own. Whether he let himself laugh at her magazine graffiti to distract her, or purely because it was funny, he was authentically amused. Which he could not have been if he was still feeling negative emotions.
This is also a great moment because in a relationship, you have to be able to cry and laugh, talk and fight and be silent. We haven't seen them laugh much, so now we know they can. Or that Derek can - Ivy's easier to smile and laugh Derek not so much, especially when it's non-situational. Ie, he'll laugh at a joke, but who'd have guessed he'd find graffiti surprising enough to snort? Part of why I love Ivy/Derek, I admit, is that she humanizes him, a little more every episode. Though really he's humanizing himself in response to her, which makes it vastly more interesting. Domesticating a wolf is trite and doesn't work, but inspiring a wolf to domesticate himself because he feels comfortable and finds he likes it, is something else.
So, what am I looking for? Karen is going to be a thorn forever, I'm giving up on that for now. But Rebecca. I'm looking for that moment when he has to figure out what he wants. Which needs to be a moment when he also sees Ivy differently. She's not just some home he can crawl into, it's not that he does something right and she rewards him. She needs a second male-lead, because she wouldn't passively wait for him to figure it out. She wouldn't chase after him, not for their personal relationship. Though she'd snark him out, certainly. And that needs to be weighed against the decision whether to fight for her. Informed by sorting out if he -wants- her to fight for him.
I come back, and sure enough, not on the screen. Unfortunately, sitting on my window sill. Uh oh, says I, and try to pick him up. At which point he jumps onto my chaise lounge. Well, crap, says I, and try again. A couple times, actually, since he manages to escape the two-hand grab, I'm used to catching crickets, and is hopping perilously close to the side of the chair, where he'll fall down between it and my bed and force some major furniture moving. Happily, I finally snare him before he can slip between my fingers, and deposit him several feet from the window. The screen's back in, but I have an inkling he'll be back. Are toads attracted to light?
Rebecca Duvall. We know Derek sleeps with his leading ladies, and indication is he'll sleep with non-leading ladies if they're willing. But we've never seen him with someone who is his "professional equal," which is why I'm excited about Rebecca. That plus the fact that she's a contained arc, and I don't think the show has a particular desire to bring her back as Marilyn next season. She's merely representing another hitch in the road with our establish cast.
What I'm curious to see, is how they develop. What Derek/Karen have is her potential for depth, and his fascination with her innocence, her tabula rasa. Yes, she stands up to him in a sassy way, sometimes, but this takes us back to the original situation, when she was (faux) seducing him as he sat, passively, on the couch. She pulled away, which was interesting to him, but until that point she was playing out a situation that must have happened 1000 times before: the girls he sleeps with are motivated to sleep with him, and his power as director is a major factor.
Ivy started out differently. There's nothing saying he hasn't felt an artistic connection and taken an active role (this may be his leading-lady MO, if he spent 4 years on MFL he's either having serial relationships or branches out.) But here it began out of respect. Ever since then, he's always the one who touches her first. Minus a couple of casual moments in the early morning, which can be ascribed to intimacy carry-over, and were not themselves romantic. (We might or might not read into how he shifted his arm to brush her fingers when she was covering for her voice being gone, or how the fact that she was covering led to the touch in the first place.)
Rebecca is the question. There's going to be professional respect. There is also equals, in a sense, Rebecca has, and is used to, artistic input and has the capacity for changing the show in order to perform it better. Which has to attract him. I'm curious about the touch question, though there are certainly others. But it's all spec so we'll assume that they definitely flirt, possibly sleep together.
It's not like Ivy doesn't play the seductress. She does, and Derek likes it. Such as at the end of The Coup, or when she's hanging out on his bed in lingerie in The Understudy. Still, it's only ever an invitation. And an invitation is what he's always after - he won't touch her unless she indicates it's okay, through physical signals, or verbal ones. To the point where, at the end of the party, when she stands there but doesn't give him anything else, he moves closer and invites her to bed, but specifically refrains from touching her.
If we keep with our supposition that typically, the women he sleeps with take initiative, we can carry this into these Karen!Marilyn hallucinations. In which K!M is forward, not just in attitude (and Ivy is certainly that), but physically. It's out of context, but the previews have her going back to an almost-kiss, then moving around behind him, leaning down, while he sits passive throughout. Granted he's gotta be freaking, but likely also craves it, whether as affirmation that (the woman) wants him, or whatever. Probably symbolic of how his relationship with Ivy is vastly different than others he's had, and his problems adjusting.
So, touch. Ivy's going to touch him first eventually. It's dramatically unsatisfying if she does so in the context of seducing him, because she's just replicating every other woman he's slept with, and we already know that Ivy is different. Plus it's just not her MO. It also reads wrong if she's doing it to try and manipulate him, which is arguably what she's doing when she's playing the seductress role anyway. In The Coup ending their honest but perhaps uncomfortable-for-both conversation, and certainly in The Understudy.
Leaving us with: play. Things are a bit stressful now, but in a couple eps their personal life could easily be back in a groove, and once she's in the ensemble and can leave the scheming out of the house, we can get our cute, happy Ivy back. At which point I can certainly see Derek working on something, Ivy comes in and slips behind him, excited about something, and take an emotional step forwards and run her hands down his shoulders, say something into his hear as she leans forwards, cheeks brushing, to see what he's working on. Generally, she's one step, emotionally, behind him, so how does this become interesting?
At this point, he has a problem. He's hallucinating a highly forward and flirtation K!M, who may or may not be highlighting what he wants from Ivy, or what he thinks about their relationship. And there's Rebecca, who he's becoming fascinated by, and has started thinking about in his "leading lady" way of "let's sleep together."
Which means that while he'd ordinarily be pleased that Ivy finally touched him, he's now got a whole lot of guilt, because she's taken control and he's already given control to the other women. This will make him incapable of receiving it as a friendly touch, he'll pull his defensive crap, and will have to immediately turn it sexual. (Or kick her out, because he can't storm out of his own place.) Natural enough to not beg comment from Ivy, but inappropriate enough - it wasn't her intent - that she'll later have that moment of doubt and reflection, on the order of "is sex all we are?"
Particularly poignant if he has her meeting him at his place. We've seen Derek hanging out at her place, and while there are various reasons for him to be happier there, it once again puts him in an ambiguously passive position. He's in her space, working, but waiting. By contrast, I can't really see Ivy happy lounging around his place waiting for him to get back. She's not that kind of woman: she could never be a housewife, though I can see Karen filling that role. Ivy's always on the move. So if she's coming to him, to be domestic at all, that's a step for her, one that he's already made. Notably, when he was at her apartment, they ended up companionably on the couch. If he makes it appear impossible for her to be at his place and result in domestic time, he's redefining their relationship spacially. What they have at her place is different from all other spaces, including his own.
When, theoretically, he asked her over at that time because he -wanted- to bring some of that domestic comfort into his sterile environment. Inadvertently or not, the writers are doing a pretty amazing job of throwing subtle misalignments of intention at these two, which case friction and arguments while forcing them forwards, bit by bit, in spite of themselves. Which is why they're sort of epic - every time they show a flaw, it meshes with a flaw on the other side and the result is positive.
We've seen Rebecca, and she's going to do well. She's professional and talented and smart and passionate. But she's not passionate about the theatre. We know Derek directs TV and movies, but it's clear his heart is in the theatre. Karen has, supposedly, talent and passion, a spark and potential. But she doesn't have the backbone or the skill that doesn't leave him irritated beyond belief at the time it takes to walk her into basic blocking or dances.
Ivy is the prefect middle ground. She lives for the theatre. She is smart, talented and passionate, professional enough to work with but still has that next level to achieve stardom. She's complicated, but also warm, and has a complicated, interesting background. She has all the backbone she could ever need, can be as big of a bitch as he is a bastard, and is as willing to forgive him as she is to lamblast him. He respects her, even on professional matters. He was nice, because she told him to be. A massive thing right there. It's not just about work, here, and it's not just about how they interact in informal situations. He's letting her influence how he behaves at work, his passion, and that's him putting an incredible amount of trust in her. Hell, everyone in that room saw him being nice and, apart from Karen, who believes it's further proof he wants her, everyone thought he had a stroke. Ivy makes one comment, and the result is the general consensus that he's brain damaged.
And the thing is, he was pleased about it. Not so much about the suggestion itself, since he riffed off of it flirtatiously, and proved that he took it seriously only later. Maybe because Ivy was displaying a meta understanding of the show, which typically, actresses do not (though Rebecca will.) Probably because she doesn't take too much of an interest in him (she asked what he was reading, but since he was sitting there reading it while talking to her, she had to ask.) But here, it's not about her, or even just about the show. It's not about his personal issues, which would be way too much for Ivy, even pushed forwards by her attempt to manipulate him. And which would also be too much for him, since that's a couple emotional steps down the line. But it is a suggestion for something that's in his best interest (as well as the show's).
If he's generally sleeping around, he's not had anyone, really, who cares about him.
Which might be why he played off the line and went to sex. What's he going to say "I like that you appear to like me?" But it is that emotional closeness he craves, and so as they do, sex stands in for the conversations they can't, or don't want, to have. - He does have people who respect his power, fear it, want something from it. People who say rather rude things about him, people who think rather rude things about him, people who want to use him professionally and people who respect him and help him work.
Which is funny since most everyone cares about Ivy. Well, lots of people care about Ivy, since it would be dull and unrealistic if it were everybody. But she has circles of friends, right down to Sam (and Tom) who are devoted to her. And who Derek might take cues from. It was after she (inaccurately) indicated they had divined she was in trouble and went to "take care" of her, that Derek showed up post-Coup. She recycled a line "you don't have to 'take care' of the loser," so she might have picked up on this as well.
And he really does consider her feelings. "I didn't expect to (find) you laughing about it." He didn't hesitate to put Karen as Understudy, making me think it was a professional decision. But at some point he knew that Ivy would hate it, thought of her, and formed an expectation. He started to get defensive and argumentative when he thought she was fighting with him, which is typical Derek, but stopped when she turned away, because he was focused on her emotional state and the real direction of her upset, rather than his own. Whether he let himself laugh at her magazine graffiti to distract her, or purely because it was funny, he was authentically amused. Which he could not have been if he was still feeling negative emotions.
This is also a great moment because in a relationship, you have to be able to cry and laugh, talk and fight and be silent. We haven't seen them laugh much, so now we know they can. Or that Derek can - Ivy's easier to smile and laugh Derek not so much, especially when it's non-situational. Ie, he'll laugh at a joke, but who'd have guessed he'd find graffiti surprising enough to snort? Part of why I love Ivy/Derek, I admit, is that she humanizes him, a little more every episode. Though really he's humanizing himself in response to her, which makes it vastly more interesting. Domesticating a wolf is trite and doesn't work, but inspiring a wolf to domesticate himself because he feels comfortable and finds he likes it, is something else.
So, what am I looking for? Karen is going to be a thorn forever, I'm giving up on that for now. But Rebecca. I'm looking for that moment when he has to figure out what he wants. Which needs to be a moment when he also sees Ivy differently. She's not just some home he can crawl into, it's not that he does something right and she rewards him. She needs a second male-lead, because she wouldn't passively wait for him to figure it out. She wouldn't chase after him, not for their personal relationship. Though she'd snark him out, certainly. And that needs to be weighed against the decision whether to fight for her. Informed by sorting out if he -wants- her to fight for him.