#let me syd

[feelslikesuga]

#needthat

[fishsinsareacknowledged]

Godddd. Pulling up Nikto's shirt just to bite and chew at his scarred stomach hnhgg. Making him flustered and embarrassed while I paw at his stomach, making biscuits on his fat like a fucking cat. Chewing and biting on his flesh like I'm trying to eat him whole because he just looks so delicious sprawled out under me, blushing and trying to cover himself because he's never been viewed as something to adore before. Shaded all the way down to his lower chest and covering himself in an orange hue and he just looks so pretty looking up at me with large, wide, shameful eyes.

[emmisturniolo]

busting!

[vltravio1ence]

lemme eyp 😭😭😭😭

[currymanganese]

GUYS, I CAN'T ACTUALLY BELIEVE I'M SAYING THIS, BUT WHAT IF THEY ACTUALLY HAD A GOOD REASON FOR JOHN CENA BEING CAST AS SAMMY FAK?

please bear with me (pun intended) and let me know what you think of my speculation under the cut~

In a mind-boggling case of a seemingly big-lipped alligator moment in season 3 - John Cena appears in a bizarrely over the top (even by the tonal comedic standards set previously by The Bear e.g. Ecto Cooler punch at a kid's birthday party getting spiked with Xanax in Season One) and jarring scene that stretches on and on as he obnoxiously squabbles, blathers and exchanges nonsensical rapid-fire quips with his brothers Neil and Ted Fak as they buff polish The Bear's dining area before a food photographer from The Chicago Tribune arrives to take a photo for a review of The Bear.

In this scene, he also intimidates and threatens to 'haunt' (in a Fak family tradition ( that even the Faks find annoying) - that involves pranking and being an unrestrained nuisance to their loved ones especially when they least expect it) his brother Ted for, "stealing his SD cards"......

This scene and the increased screen presence of the seemingly plot-irrelevant Faks this season is currently being eviscerated by plenty of fans and critics alike.

Edit:

I now strongly suspect that John Cena's role was always in the works ever since S1

..................................

But what if there's a (debatable, but) really good reason for this scene and the increased involvement in Seasons 2 and 3 of the massive numbered siblings family of Carmy's pseudo cousins, the Faks?

See Exhibit A:

In season 2, episode 3, Sundae - after Carmy has already asked Sydney out to Kasama, a husband and wife owned restaurant run by Tim Flores, and Genie Kwon*, ostensibly just to brainstorm and gain inspiration for planning for the new menu, and after Sydney has already gone home and freshened up and changed her clothes, then arrived to Kasama early, despite the meeting only being scheduled for an hour after she last spoke to Carmy at his apartment, Claire calls and interrupts the whole hypothetical shebang with Syd and Carmy at Kasama (the Tagalog WORD FOR TOGETHER) with the words,

"Did you mean to give me a fake number? You do know that I know your entire family [translation: she must know Donna too and Claire assumes that Carmy's folks approve of her - and she's proven to be technically right throughout Seasons 2 and 3 ], right? And I know ALL the Faks! [translation: tee hee! they're bigger than you - to quote Neil and Ted with their Uncle, "We Faks do have a particular shape, don't we?😇" - and they outnumber you, you scrawny punk, slay!😉✨]"

Claire then proceeds to playfully threaten to have said "massive numbered siblings" Faks, which includes Sammy Fak, played by John Cena (a professional wrestler, from an industry that is mixes both bawdy over the top theatre, a performance art that values Kayfabe (legerdemain/slight of hand anyone?) and comedy, and an athletic discipline) that is TALL. BUILT. HENCH. AND BUFF AF.....Claire 'playfully' threatens to have THESE FAKS, beat up Carmy, who is short in stature and cannot fight well from all the previous physical confrontations we've seen him be involved in, despite supposedly being a former high-school wrestler, and who has already been seriously physically abused thrice in the series run thus far (not counting him play fighting or trying to fight with Richie) after being JUMPED by a GROUP of assailants, not once, but TWICE in season one, by the Ballbreaker nerds in the pilot, and the Bachelor Party attendees in the season finale (the first season started and ended with Carmy being beaten tf up, Holy Shit! 🤯); AND AFTER BEING SLAPPED IN THE FACE IN SEASON 2 BY HIS OWN MOTHER, DONNA.

Notice the way Carmy goes from being lost in his thoughts but being completely relaxed after his menu planning session with Sydney, and in anticipation of seeing her on their would be inspiration seeking meet-up (definitely not a date, no Sir! 👀) at Kasama, to being tense and jittery and apprehensive when Claire calls him (after going behind his back and getting his number from Fak).

Notice the way Carmy's voice shakes when he asks Claire if she really knows all of the Faks.....

Notice Carmy's defeated and annoyed reaction after he hangs up the phone.

No wonder Carmy is being so avoidant and conflict averse in his handling of Claire in both Season Two and Three, he has absolutely no faith in himself or his loved ones at present to defend himself should he assert the type of boundaries he may have been desiring to have with them for these past two seasons, after all - who can he count on to fully have his back even to the point of physically intervening for him if he gets into a scrape or is genuinely attacked, by the Faks on account of Claire taking offense at or misrepresenting his words and actions to them, e.g. Claire apparently twisting Carmy's self loathing stream of consciousness confession (that she eavesdropped on) and telling Tiff that they broke up because Carmy said that "Claire will ruin everything good for him?" while he was trapped in the fridge?

What if Carmy knows he has to rip the band-aid and call Claire and apologize for his part in the superficiality and disintegration of their dalliance, but is afraid to do so because he knows in so doing, if he is being fully honest with himself and with Claire, he never truly wanted to be with her in the first place?

And who knows how Claire will take that revelation - it probably won't be pretty will it?

And.....

to quote Neil Fak,

"Claire's the best."

"We love Claire."

"I did that." [setting Carmy and Claire up in Pop)

And.....

Claire. knows. all. the. Faks.....

TL;DR

They cast John Cena as Sammy Fak, and the Faks had a lot of screen-time this season because they are the physical manifestation of being haunted in their family's sense of the word:

and a satirical visualization of Carmy's desire for Syd being cock-blocked ; plus Claire is a Love-able Alpha Bitch, and Carmy is ambivalent towards her, and even a little scared to face her, because her henchmen are the Faks!

If you enjoyed this post, then thank you for reading and I'd recommend that you check out the following meta on the way Christopher Storer and Company have seemingly (and controversially) committed to sticking to the bit of lying to the audience and breaking the fourth wall throughout this entire season:

Richie and the viewer - by @whenmemorydies with my add-on in the reblogs about Richie, not Carmy, potentially being Christopher Storer's author avatar in this series (from a post originally written before season 3 premiered.

Fourth Wall being broken - by @brokenwinebox and @thoughtfulchaos773

Claire being a possible representation of addiction, being a habit that is hard to kick - by @thoughtfulchaos773 and my and @devisrina 's add-on speculating that Claire may also be meant to be interpreted or revealed as a bit of a mean girl, to reference TVTropes, she (and by extension Season 3) may be a deconstruction/ mashup /send-up / subversion of the: Girl Next Door, the Cute Bookworm, Nerds Are Sexy, MPDG, Yandere, Alpha Bitch, Loveable Apha Bitch, Childhood Friend Romance, High-School Sweethearts, Sickeningly Sweethearts, Getting Crap Past The Radar, Freeze Frame Bonus, Parental Bonus, Viewers Are Geniuses, Give Geeks A Chance, Even Nerds Have Standards, Beauty Equals Goodness, Face-Heel Turn, Cerebus Syndrome tropes etc.....and a subtler mirror version of Donna Berzatto.

Edit: See my reblog add on to @espumado 's thread on the recurrent 'haunting' theme this season and the possibility of the Claire x Carmy x Sydney love triangle being a Lilith x Adam x Eve allegory, and my webweaving about Syd x Carmy's Adam and Eve parallels. sidenote: Lilith is Adam's first wife apocryphally and in Jewish mysticism that left him, and became a she-demon / mother of demons after being impregnated by the archangel Samael - wait is 'Sammy' Fak a Samael allegory?!!

and another reblog add-on of mine to the thread linked above - on The Faks as the living embodiment of all that is fake in Carmy's life, C Storer's handy dandy tools for slight of hand,

you can't spell fake without FAK.

and please see

Clairecarmy as Ann Veal x GOB from Arrested Development

and with Richie's frustrated refrain of, "Who cares?!" whenever Claire and Claire and Carmy's breakup is brought up in 3 -

see the running gag of George Michael Bluth's (from Arrested Development) family's disdain for Ann and his relationship with her.

5. The parallels between The Bear and Burnt by @ambeauty - a post Season 2 post which was proven to be prescient and insightful given the Easter Egg inclusion of Bradley Cooper's character from Burnt on the photo wall of chefs at Ever in the Funeral dinner in the finale.

6. The parallels between The Bear and Boiling Point - a gritty film and mini-series set in a restaurant which features several plot elements and characters reminiscent of certain character archetypes and subplots present in The Bear - seriously think of this IP as The Bear's cynical, dramatic, older British cousin.

Decision to leave by @anderwater

This anon that recommended Boiling Point to me and wrote about its connections to The Bear.

The difference between The Bear and Boiling Point by @theblvckvenus

The similarities between The Bear and Boiling Point in this reblog add-on to @happylikeasadsong et. al's thread.

7. Claire/Carmy and the Walk In - my old post on the parallels between Strange Days (1995), Can't Hardly Wait (1998, and The Bear.

and @ambeauty 's meta on Claire as a representation of the fridge

8. My post on the possible connection between The Bear Season 3 and Andrei Tarkovsky's experimental, semi-autobiographical, psychological Oedipal drama film The Mirror (1975) - a film which was incredibly divisive upon its initial release, but has since gained wide acclaim and re-evaluation as a masterpiece, and that has had a legacy of subsequently inspiring multiple renowned filmmakers.

9. The Bear series' lead actress, and the director of Napkins, one of the only episodes of The Bear Season 3 to receive almost universal acclaim - Ayo Edebiri's trollish sense of humour and assertion that lying is the pinnacle of comedy.

10. And last but certainly not least with the inclusion of a Genie Kwon*'s, of Kasama fame, cameo in the season finale and the prominence of Kasama being key to Syd and Carmy's stymied relationship progression, courtesy Claire, see

The Kasama of it all by @gingerylangylang1979

@mod-doodles @lunasink @vacationship @chansoooo1-blog

@bioloyg @msmoiraine @nerdyblerd @ripley-stark @uncriticalbunny @prowitchazel @msmoiraine @mswyrr @anxietycroissant @turbulenthandholding @tvfantic87 @laryssamedeirss @tejidaepoque @angelica4equity @inalltheirgorgeouscolors @houseofevangelista @glitterslag

@uncriticalbunny @imliterallyjustablackgirl

@bioloyg and @ambeauty please don't say I told you so or welcome back, I'm flabbergasted that I wrote this, but I want to believe! 😭

P.S. If you're still reading this, do yourself a favour and read @brokenwinebox 's post

New Paradigm

and this follow up

Mocktail is a dirty word

and check out her #the magic trick tag!

and also check out these Sydcarmy and Rosalind x Orlando from Shakespeare's As You Like It parallels:

The Bear as a pastoral comedy

First Meetings

Fumbling with your crush

Separation, keepsakes and lovesickness

and also C Storer really did tell us in the music that this season would inspire

Mixed Emotions 🥴

[kylejsugarman]

gus is so cracked. he really came up to mike during breaking bad and was like "it is better to have pinkman on our side. its ur job now to make sure he doesnt kill himself. i know that the last time we tried to do this with nacho he killed himself, so lets try to avoid that. remember that?? how nacho shot himself in the head?? we should not repeat that mistake. make sure jesse does not shoot himself in the head. here is ur paycheck for this quarter. okay, goodbye."

[ciaomarie]

GIF by lousolversons

What do you do when the person who has unknowingly shaped your dreams and then made you part of his dreams disappears? And he's two feet away? I'd fade, too. I'd scream my grievances in a dumpster and wonder if I simply expected too much of someone. People die and leave you. People find a girlfriend and leave you. People are dealing with issues and leave you. And... maybe they were never really with you in the first place?

[nine-months-older]

sean ono lennon’s twitter is a cesspool why the fuckkkk is he starting beef with someone with the handle “sydbarrettyaoi”

[purposechef]

syd & carm put off making their wedding cake until the night before the actual wedding.

[sydneys-adamu]

I think there might be a misconception about the various instances of sydney’s spiraling and how it’s exclusive to all of the times that carmy’s yelling or pushing or rejecting and while that would make sense for someone who has no underlying feelings for her coworker that’s not the case.

when she’s spinning out again in legacy, this time in front of her mirror she thinks about a lot of things and two of those things are 1. when they meet, which we’ve seen is something carmen actively thinks about as well, and 2. the moment under the table. these aren’t bad moments, these are times where she’s felt her mind and soul match with his the most. these aren’t just things that have happened for sydney these are times with carmy that actually make it hard for her to know if this is something she wants anymore. not something she should or shouldn’t do but something she truly *wants*. and that’s amplified even more when she’s given the concrete opportunity to leave later on. if she didn’t care about having this time with him then she’d just focus on all of the times he’s been an ass. but she doesn’t. she sees the good in him that he doesn’t see in himself. she’s still!! trying to find comfort in him. it’s insane.

another obvious indicator is that syd has a family at the bear and nothing about that is minimized in the slightest but there’s a reason carmen is the last person sydney thinks about before she has her panic attack. someone who should be easy to say goodbye to, but isn’t.

so even though it doesn’t really make sense, she wants to stay.

they have created a gray area so dense—

[katiethelmie]

Vampire AU

Just some lil ideas on the vampire AU idea and extra messy sketches to get into the Halloween spirit!

Literally just make it The bear but Syd is a vampire in this universe

Having her being a vampire, how? Maybe she’s been a vampire for a long time, traveling around the world being the jack of all trades

Always having her cooking be her best skill

She came back to Chicago cause she wanted to be back home again

Found out one of the favored chefs were also back in Chicago and is now working at the beef looking for a sou, she’s intrigued.

Syds outside of the beef, getting ready to go in as she smells something she recognized when visiting that restaurant in New York all those years ago

Let’s make it like he’s a reincarnation of a reincarnation from a person she’s met throughout her immortal life

A hint of blood orange, tart and a bit sweet. Not too strong but just enough to entice her for her fangs to come out

Standing face to face with Carmen Berzatto, the smell of his blood surrounds her and she gets hungry but she abruptly stops herself

Getting the job, Syd has to suppress her urges and confuse her thoughts that if what she’s feeling is a crush, admiration, or just pure instinct to taste his blood.

Or maybe all of the above?

But then she gets to see how he is while working with him then her anger and confusion arises. He’s not what she thought he was

He calls her too green

Her dish is just “not ready yet chef”

and yet she stays because she wants to improve the restaurant and make a difference to a small place.

Maybe even get to know him better, with the life he has right now

No- Not staying just for him, that be absurd and too weird. Right?

She finally quits but still has lingering feelings and she thinks, “What if I just have a taste, then I can leave and it’ll all be over I’ll be done with him and that restaurant. I don’t have to stay.”

She’s traveled all over the world and yet this one dingy place with this blue eyed mam keeps her here tethered

But does she hate it?

“Why? Why him?”

Looking at him and smelling the hint of blood oranges hits her and she’s hooked again, she came to collect her check but she stayed yet again for him

Sprinkle a lil bit of inner turmoil, with the restaurant renovations and Claire situation. Ya know, angst

And how bout him finding out she is a vampire at the end of S2 after friends and family.

Syd gets really weak after service, throwing up and getting her vampire urges

Desperate, she turns to Carmy since he’s the only one left after being freed from the freezer

“I NEED YOUR FUCKING BLOOD CARMY.”

Finally when she takes a bite, it’s literally life changing, life ALTERING like she can’t get enough and doesn’t think she’ll ever get this again so she savors as much as she can take

Secretly also he likes it, he finally feels calm and things go quiet while feeling safe in her arms

This is where spice ensues, cause he takes her back to his apartment to feed more

Once she wakes up the next morning, the bed is a bit of a mess, blood dry on her lips and chest

But there’s no Carmy

She cleans up and heads straight to the bear, and there he is, with dishes in front of him and a cold demeanor

His aura is completely changed

For S3 they make a little deal between eachother.

Carm is her blood bank and he willingly complies as long as she pushes him and he can push her for the restaurant

He thinks this’ll be the chance for him and syd to finally connect better in a weird fucked up way

While also simultaneously being sort of robotic and detached like he sorta was in S3

Also another way for her to stay with him for as long as she’ll have him

More drama ensues etc. idk I’m not good with writing but it was fun silly idea to get into the Halloween spirit!

[iriswestallenn]

Someone needs to talk to Jeremy Allen White then

Someone should tell Jeremy Allen White to stop having Carmy stare at Syd like that. I don't know what to tell yall! I really do not. You cannot deny the chemistry. You cannot make me believe they didn't purposefully write the MOLLY GORDON (such a good actress not in this though lmao) as a cardboard cutout manic pixie dream of a girlfriend for Carmy. You cannot tell me Carmy and Claire are any sort of endgame just because they were each others childhood crushes. They wrote an ER nurse as if she bakes cookies all day. Why is she always in such a good mood and always there to lift Carmy up? Get this out my face lmao

Carmy thought of Syd while having a panic attack because the thought of her brought him back down. Are you serious? Carmy has a sex scene in the same episode him and Syd are underneath a table just talking and there is more chemistry in that scene- I'm losing my mind. The choreography during the one take table scene is more gentle and romantic than what we saw with him and Claire in that bed- I'm LOSING IT!

I've just seen a lot of tweets and posts that are like "no they need to be platonic. go to netflix for ships like this not the bear" and I'm like huh? Talk to Jeremy Allen White and Ayo then. The little touches on her back he does for NO REASON. Tell them to tone it down cause I'M certainly not seeing anything that isn't there. The characters are communicating better than they were season 1. You know what that is? Growth. Them signing sorry to each other? HELLO??? "I wouldn't even wanna do it without you." I CANNOT BREATHE!!!

Like oh I'm sorry y'all are choosing not to see what's right in front of you lmao a very sad life to live I guess idk. But also who cares? Let people ship what they want and stop trying to talk about platonic ships as if we are not being bombarded with so much fucking tv and film. The platonic ships are out there for you babes, let me have this hot romantic one in peace. Let me do that.

[thuesdaynightdykelife]

As a lesbian, trying to make a sex playlist that's actually decent to fuck to is such a struggle. Buddy, it can't ALL be from The Internet's discography.

[sydcarmyfan]

Carmy craves for Syd’s touch so much

[kylejsugarman]

it really is so fucking funny that like halfway thru the show, breaking bad was like u dumb fucks really thought that jesse dutifully accepted thousands of dollars from his crusty old high school teacher and bought an RV like he was supposed to in the pilot?? no, he drove away and immediately spent the whole bag on him and his boys at the club. no hesitation. it was only through a series of shenanigans and coincidences that jesse pulled up with an RV. at least we can take solace in the fact that for all the horrible, life-ruining shit walt put jesse through over the course of the show, jesse took walt's literal life-savings and used it to have a wolf of wall street night with his homies

[espumado]

Guys, you don't know what just happened to me!! I love soundtracks so I stopped to listen to The Bear's, i found the official FX playlist on Spotify and was listening to it when suddenly a podcast starts and I was like???? So i looked and it was about a horror film??? I, tring to understanding, went to the FX site to see the playlist and the episodes and saw that it was the song from the beginning of the ep5- Children (the lullaby) with our beloved Natalie💖...So what happened was that the music is from a horror film and instead of putting the soundtrack they put on this podcast!!! And I don't know if it was on purpose or just a mistake!!! (And all this reminded me of the people here who started a tag, I don't know who, about The Bear being a haunted/ghost story💀)

It's this scene, with this song:

And the Playlist has this podcast:

But i was like Nat why you have a horror movie song playing in your head??? And cause I'm curious, I went to find out more about the film, cause I didn't know the movie (horror isn't really my thing) and I discovered that: 

The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 American film noir thriller directed by Charles Laughton. Despite receiving negative reviews upon its original release, it has been positively re-evaluated in later decades and is now considered one of the greatest films ever made. “The movie is best known for Robert Mitchum's extraordinary performance as serial-killer-posing-as-priest Harry Powell, a menacing religious misogynist who marries widows for their money and kills them off in the name of the Lord. Having been jailed for stealing a car, he shares a cell with father-of-two Ben Harper, soon to be hanged for murder and the theft of $10,000. Before his arrest Harper hides the money in a rag doll belonging to his little daughter Pearl, making her and his 10-year-old son John swear never to tell where the money is hidden. The plot hinges on Powell's pursuit of the money and John's determination to protect his sister and escape from a psychopath whom others assume is virtuous. Hiding his past, Powell woos, then marries Harper's widow Willa (Shelley Winters). When she discovers his motives he murders her, and the children escape on a boat down the river. A tense chase ensues. The film exists in that cinematic no-man's-land of fairy tales for adults, is a children's fairytale – strange and idiosyncratic – but also a noir thriller, laced with the darkest elements of both genres: death, guilt, greed, poverty, cruelty, biblical references and a terrifying pursuit by the scariest of bogeymen. Laughton described it as "a nightmarish sort of Mother Goose tale". John, played superbly by the steely eyed Billy Chapin, is pivotal as the boy who is alone in perceiving Powell's true motives. In a tale of innocence and experience, he must quickly grow up in the most sinister of circumstances; he must resist adult hypocrisy and stupidity, and a new "father" who pretends to be loving, but is secretly abusive. Gripping in its narrative, the film is also frequently and darkly humorous.”

“Thinking of The Night of the Hunter in terms of its visual impact on other filmmakers, there’s a striking echo to be observed between its unseen presence in films by Scorsese, Spielberg, the Coens, even Ari Aster, and the influence of silent cinema on Laughton’s own filmmaking choices.”

“We can notice the importance of one particular scene: the escape of the children in a boat (they are running away from the killer). This scene, being so important, is also one of the most memorable of the entire film. The components that make it so memorable are: setting, lighting, framing, blocking and music. In the river sequence, the usual realistic environment of the film disappears, giving place to such an artificial setting that it seems that we are watching a whole new film.[...] Again, we feel that the children are safe again in the boat, as they run away from their hunter.

“The river symbolise safety – it is what separates (even temporarily) John and Pearl from Powell. In a way, it is a metaphor for the transformation of a past full of terror into a brighter future¹ with Rachel.”

About the music: “Composer Walter Schumann called the heavy four brass chords that often accompany Preacher a “‘pagan motif, consisting of clashing fifths in the lower register,’” which cede to the lullaby “Dream, Little One, Dream” with a shot of Gish. This celestial lullaby foreshadows her adoption of the children after they escape downriver. In the opening and river sequences especially, audio-visions juxtapose fantasy and reality, and good and evil, to propel the children to safety.[...] In these sequences, Laughton’s visual constructions and Schumann’s score establish abstract contours that take root in spectatorial memory. When the overture transitions from Preacher’s pagan motif to a tranquil lullaby, celestial sounds and Gish’s presence seem to safeguard the children from Preacher’s tyranny.[...] Schumann’s pagan motif, Miz Cooper’s lullaby, and the sounds of the children’s river journey mix realistic tropes and emotional flourishes in the manner of 1950s melodrama films, which especially employed music to articulate these opposing poles. For Peter Brooks, music punctuates the wordless gestures of the melodramatic “text of muteness”: its sweeping rhythmic motions render space and time tangible to imbue characters—especially muted victims—with emotional depth².[...] Analyzed through a motivic model that binds characters to themes, Hunter’s river lullabies foreshadow the children’s eventual safety with Miz Cooper even though maternal figures are not visible.”

So there is this important and well-known scene in the film when the song plays. When the kids are finaly safe in a boat on the river (the part of the song they use in the series starts at around 3:55):

So basically: there's a father who hid some money in the kid's toy (which reminded me of the money in the cans of tomatoes- KBL); an orphaned brother and sister; children looking for shelter; during the escape they are they feel safe in a boat on a river (when the lullaby plays) and in the end they are adopted and everything is fine.

I wanted to understand what this means for Nat, what it has to do with her. When the scene starts the song says "fear is just a dream…" then she thinks about her fears: her brother, mother and a mom's funeral (Marcus), then the song continues "so dream, little one, dream", like, it's not real, no need to fear it!

So…this is ep5 called Children, where: 1-Syd and Marcus take his mother's stuff out of the house and talk about their family 2-we find out that Ever is going to close (a funeral will happen) 3-Marcus and Nat talk about his mother and to start a new project to honor her while Nat is resting from pregnancy discomfort 4- it's the ep The Computer appears and Nat defends Marcus 5- there are the Faks, including John Cena, talking about their family and the hauntings 6- Syd and Uncle Jimmy talk and he says he wishes he had done more for the kids (she reminds him that he is there for them) and finally 7- Carmy goes to the basement and finds a box with photos of the family (Donna and Mike and himself too and a baby that could be Nat?!!!) then some riffs of the song Mixed Emotions by Rolling Stones start and it cuts to the credits with the lyrics right in the part: You're not the only one, You're not the only ship, Adrift on this ocean. And that's it! Just these lyrics and then just instrumentals. They cut the song to fit the scene and without any other part of the lyrics!!!

Carmy my man, Nat needs you! And she was the one who reminded him in the first season: "did you know i recently had a brother die too?" She's trying. She wants help, she already told him, "the thing that pisses me of is that you never ask her how i am doing!!!" but he can't ask her that "because he feels trapped, because he can't describe how he feels, so asking someone else how they're feeling seems crazy to him" (like, he literally told her that in S1). They need to talk, they need each other, they need family (a new one probably...the restaurant...uncle Jimmy too?? She talked with him about be a parent last season and he is always there for them, saving them). Nat managed to talk to her mother, even asked for help (it’s not a solution for everything, but it was a start)...but Carmy...there's still a long way to go, a next season thing. But I think it may be a thing they need to do together somehow, i dont know...

Nat is afraid of her past, motherhood and knows family is complicated, she is looking for a brighter future¹. She and Carmy (and Mike) are children of a abusive/alcoholic parent and live with the consequences of that (some people here have already talked better about the subject). So they are like the kids from the movie, who are muted victims—with emotional depth², in a complicated family, going throught the river until they reach a safer place with better people.

And also, last seasons they showed the "pyromaniac tendencies" of the Berzatto brothers, there were these references to setting the restaurant on fire as if that was the solution to their problems...and now in season 3 I thought that had been forgotten...instead, the ep1 already starts with (first a train, and then) a lake, which appears other times throughout the season... Copenhagen Carmy living in a boat on a river!!!, and all happy and safe, drawing on a bridge over a river!!!

We also had a scene with water being thrown on the kitchen countertop and "flooding" the space (with a song by Trent Reznor and Atticus for a war doc! that the director describes as profound, haunting, unsettling and deeply moving!!!) in a moment that the crew is cleaning the kitchen and everyone is tired and overwhelmed; there is Donna talking about the fish tank that breaks in a dream that takes place in a place she doesn't know that looks gray except for the tank (surreal, like a noir thriller maybe). These don't seem so safe, but they seem to be about the past, something to be overcome... And there's even a scene of Syd reflecting in front of a lake... Several water references...and I have no idea if that really means anything...or if i am going to deeper into this?😅

...but Nat, dear, are you okay?!...you feel like in a horror movie with your remaining brother seeking safety together somewhere or with someone, running away from a curse, a haunting in your family??? (in S1 Carmy talks about how she blames the restaurant, not her mother or Mike, she says the place sucks up all the work, money and time and all they get back is chaos and resentment) But seriously, someone help her!!!...and Carmy...She must have felt very lonely this season with Carmy like that...But I guess this all means that everything will be fine in the end, like in the movie!

Seriously, I couldn't come to a better conclusion about this but it left me curious and confused... And of course, it might mean nothing and just be an interesting song from an amazing movie that director Chris Storer likes because he likes great movies and that's all 🙃 But with all the movie references, great directors and hauntings...maybe I'm not so crazy😅 <<<I tell myself to feel better🫠