#these screenshots suddenly look super dark on the laptop i'm using to post them hm.

[mindhowyougo]

it's interesting, because outside of thursday's single line in home about treating her right -- born from a misunderstanding that morse had taken her out to the nightclub -- these two never* really talk about whatever is going on with morse & joan. even after the bank robbery, and joan leaving, and morse tracking her down first, if they have words on it, it's not for the audience to hear. evasion of this conversation flies in the face of every similar setup on television re: the protective cop father (also supposed father-figure). is thursday not curious? does the idea of morse in the family ever cross his mind (and we know, surely it does, with the endless invitations to the house and family events). so why does thursday never say anything about it. not his business, you might say, but as he says later in the series after they've been estranged and made up: she's his little girl.

but also i'm thinking of the slow, wounded encounter at the end of coda, with thursday disheveled and morse wordlessly following him inside. morse's presence is not questioned; in fact, there's an almost devastated acknowledgement that passes between them in that moment. thursday never asks what happens between his daughter and morse, and this silence is reflected oddly in the moments shared between the two when they are alone. you never tried it on, joan says to morse in lazaretto, and it hits hard precisely because it's some of the closest they've come to explicitly naming the potential between them. but in typical Them-form, it's expressed as an absence; a lack, and in typical morse form he responds: it can turn out how you want it to, which sounds emotionally available but is still ultimately a bit passive, isn't it? he's waiting for her to find the words, define them. but she's thursday's girl; maybe she shares his inability.