S01.E05: Strange Case

[nodorothyparker]

Airdate 2020.09.13

Quote

After making a devil's bargain with William, Ruby steps into the charmed shoes of a white woman, but her transformation only fortifies her resentment of the racial divide. A betrayal by Montrose unleashes Atticus' pent up rage.

 

[DollEyes]

Ruby just gave "bloody shoes" a brand new meaning.

[peridot]

What the hell at Ruby's situation!?  The transformation was disgusting, and I'm surprised Ruby kept using it.  The ending with the manager was gross and doesn't bode well for Ruby.
I wonder why she's transforming into the lady who was controlling the monsters in Arkham?

So we finally have confirmation about William and Christina!  I don't see how the transformation is viable, wouldn't people wonder about the pieces of flesh being left around?!

Tic can be scary, I'm glad Leti had the bat with her. 

On one hand, I felt glad that Montrose could be open and happy in the bar, but then I remembered he killed an innocent person who was exploited and enslaved for a long time.

Edited September 14, 2020 by peridot

[Empress1]

12 minutes ago, DollEyes said:

Ruby just gave "bloody shoes" a brand new meaning.

That was the perfect use of that song.

[FlowerofCarnage]

I wonder if Christina is telling the truth about the real William?

So Ruby slept with a white woman disguising herself in the body of a white man...talk about a mindfuck!

So if the transformation is that messy, how did Christina transform into William so quickly and cleanly last episode?

[DearEvette]

Well, I wanted more Ruby.  Just didn't think I'd get HillaRuby.

I will say, good job show for making me go through so many emotions:

-disappointment - I was really disappointed with Ruby and how quickly she seemed to fall into being a white lady and accepting what William was doing.

- smallish understanding - I could see Ruby being seduced by the access and privilege and the idea of being 'seen' for her accomplishments and not just her race

- pissed - the way she took out her own disappointments on Tamara.  Tamara is not your enemy.  It is not her fault they chose her over you. The misplaced anger just pissed me off.

- discomfort - just seeing her having to negotiate those spaces as a black woman in a white woman's skin and having to see under the hood of how these women interact and what they talk about

- disgust - sorry, that whole metamorphosis scene just turned me off completely.  That was some next level polyjuice potion.

- frustration - why can't she see she is just a pawn?  Nobody gives you anything for nothing.  She better than anyone should know that.

- validation - finally she realizes that being in this white skin is not really worth the physical pain of the metamorphosis or the psychological landmines she has to navigate to stay in this skin and the little compromises she had to make because at the end of the day she is still a black woman.

- what the fuck - did not expect that ending. LOL.  On the one hand I could see Ruby getting some visceral satisfction of literraly sticking it to the man.  But otoh, it feels hollow somehow.

The Ruby storyline was so crazy that it overshadowed Tic and Leti progressing more into a couple.  And Montrose's coming out. 

It was great to see Shangel!! And William/Catherine is confirmed.

This show is never boring.  That hour goes fast!

Edited September 14, 2020 by DearEvette

[rollacoaster]

Dammit, nobody in this universe believes in foreplay. 

[thuganomics85]

Can safely say that I wasn't predicting that William's plan for Ruby was to transfer her into a white woman!  This show certainly never fails to surprise me.  Liked how they continued to may homage to classic genres, by having the transformations/"metamorphoses" feel like an old-school monster movie.  Only, well, just a wee bit more graphic.  Seriously, the props/make-up department was having way too much fun with all of the creepy and disgusting effects!

Nice seeing Ruby take front and center and Wunmi Mosaku really shined here (as did Jamie Neumann as "Hillary.")  I liked that they didn't make her flawless, and she did let her anger over being passed over for Tamara cause her to treat Tamara unfairly, even though Tamara wasn't to blame.  She was targeting the wrong person, but it makes sense that her anger and envy would get the better of her.  But it was interesting seeing how different her life was when she looked like a white woman, and even though being a woman in general will always come with hardships and obstacles, being a black woman (wherever during that time period and even now) takes things to a whole other level.  The world really can be a cruel place.

So, sure enough, Christina and Willam are totally the same person after-all.  Curious though that they don't seem to be on the same page: Christina in particular seems to have issues with William's decisions.  But I really don't trust either of them, frankly.

Atticus and Leti took more of a backseat here, but I still like the moments we got.  Leti got a glimpse of the rage and anger that Tic holds in, due to his upbringing and time in the war, but hopefully it will make them stronger going forward.  They certainly had a more passionate sex scene this go around!

The reveal that Montrose is gay or at least into men sexually, wasn't a huge surprise, but it certainly explains a lot.  It was nice seeing him have a moment where he seems to accept himself and be happy, but I have a feeling he can never walk back from the violence he did, and a bittersweet ending will be his best outcome.

Looks like we might finally get some information on this mysterious Korean woman from Atticus' past next week!

[paigow]

Some magic potion...barely gets you through 24 hours...and then end up looking like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly

[Cotypubby]

😲

Those transformations. Holy shit those were disgusting and incredibly well done. 
 

Gotta say, while in the first episode I found the use of contemporary music jarring, this was the perfect use of that song. I knew she was gonna do something to pervy boss, but never expected that! 
 

At the beginning of the episode, hearing “Tonight You Belong to Me” gave me flashbacks to American Horror Story, where that song featured heavily. This episode totally felt like it could have come from that series! 

[Dev F]

1 hour ago, FlowerofCarnage said:

So if the transformation is that messy, how did Christina transform into William so quickly and cleanly last episode?

As far as we know, it's only transforming back that's messy and painful. Presumably putting on the disguise is quick and painless, since it happened to Ruby the first time without even waking her.

[Roxie]

Maybe these things are obvious and I'm missing them, but (1) who is "real," Christina or William? and (2) did her/his father know about them being the same person?

[Cotypubby]

7 minutes ago, Roxie said:

Maybe these things are obvious and I'm missing them, but (1) who is "real," Christina or William? and (2) did her/his father know about them being the same person?

Christina is the real one, William is the “disguise,” the same way Ruby was (literally) inside of Hillary. I don’t think anyone else knows that they are the same, Christina says that the police chief thought he killed William, which is why he only interacts with Christina. I don’t think her father knew either, though there was so much weird magic mumbo jumbo in that episode that I don’t remember exactly what he said. It’d be interesting to watch episode 2 again now.

I also wonder the significance of “Hillary” being the same actress with the dogs in Ardham who was keeping Montrose prisoner. Was she someone else in disguise there as well, or did William base the formula he gave to Ruby on her for some reason?

Edited September 14, 2020 by Cotypubby

[Annber03]

25 minutes ago, Cotypubby said:

At the beginning of the episode, hearing “Tonight You Belong to Me” gave me flashbacks to American Horror Story, where that song featured heavily. This episode totally felt like it could have come from that series! 

It made me think of "Bates Motel". Seems that's a go-to song for creepy TV shows in general, I guess :p. 

Whooooole lotta cracking and snapping of body parts and such going on in this episode. Ye gods. There are images that will take a while to shake out of my brain. 

[lawrbk]

This was just a fascinating, if gross, episode. I like that Ruby is so complex--her desire to keep taking the potion and enjoy the benefits, her misplaced anger at Tamara, her hanging out with the white coworkers knowing their contempt and making Tamara take them to the South Side, then being disgusted at the behavior and transforming back, then the ending with the manager. She has a lot of bottled up rage. I thought she was going to seduce him and have someone walk in thus getting him fired and upending his Norman Rockwell marriage. Did NOT see what happened coming at all. He was really paying for a lot of other people in her life, and in society, no matter how disgusting he was towards Tamara. Her relationship going forward with William/Christina should be interesting. I'm guessing maybe the real William was killed like she said and she gave him the chance to 'live on' (she mentioned saving him to Ruby) maybe because he, unlike her as a woman, would have access to power--the 'rightful heir' and all? And then the whole segment with Montrose. This show and the Alienist have both given fascinating glimpses into the undercover communities that existed during their respective time periods--times we think about as so repressed and whitebread. But they were there and are woefully undercovered. It's pretty cool to see mainstream shows showing them off. There was so much going on with Ruby and then Montrose that I barely even noticed Tic and Leti! 

[AnimeMania]

I felt the majority of this episode would be considered filler, not really advancing the story much. I am not sure how much effort I should put in to understanding what happened in context to what is happening in the rest of TV Series. I would have preferred that they follow Hippolyta and Diana's journey to figure out what happened to Uncle George, it seems like that won't happen in the next episode either.

P.S. Where was that garage that Tic and Leti was having sex in?

Did the sheriff have black skin grafted onto his body?

[Chicago Redshirt]

1 hour ago, peridot said:

What the hell at Ruby's situation!?  The transformation was disgusting, and I'm surprised Ruby kept using it.  The ending with the manager was gross and doesn't bode well for Ruby.
I wonder why she's transforming into the lady who was controlling the monsters in Arkham?

So we finally have confirmation about William and Christina!  I don't see how the transformation is viable, wouldn't people wonder about the pieces of flesh being left around?!

Whiteness is a hell of a drug. In this case, literally. I think it pointed that the magic wasn't triggered by saying a phrase or wearing a pendant or something but by drinking a potion. And that even in the face of feeling like being unmade, Ruby would keep doing it to live out her dream.

I'm not sure how the ending doesn't bode well for Ruby. There's no way that the manager is going to have the guts to admit to anyone he got sodomized, and even if he did and wanted to try to take revenge or something, a) he has no way of identifying Ruby and b) she has some level of magic on her side.

I wonder if that woman was also Christina all along, and sort of like Arya in GOT, there's a limited number of "faces" she has available.

The implication seems to me that normally, Christina changes back from William in the locked room downstairs. I'm sure she has her ways of disposing of the skin without raising too many eyebrows.

1 hour ago, FlowerofCarnage said:

I wonder if Christina is telling the truth about the real William?

So Ruby slept with a white woman disguising herself in the body of a white man...talk about a mindfuck!

So if the transformation is that messy, how did Christina transform into William so quickly and cleanly last episode?

I think strangely, Christina generally tells the truth as herself. She lets herself be more deceptive as William.

Christina is an actual witch and has been doing actual metamorphosis as opposed to the kiddie level magic of drinking a potion. She also has had much more experience with the transformation, and as William said, it gets easier after time. Finally, it seems that it's only returning to one's real self that is messy, as it involves literally ripping your way out of the fake skin you're in. Putting the fake skin on seems easy and quick.

1 hour ago, DearEvette said:

Well, I wanted more Ruby.  Just didn't think I'd get HillaRuby.

I will say, good job show for making me go through so many emotions:

-disappointment - I was really disappointed with Ruby and how quickly she seemed to fall into being a white lady and accepting what William was doing.

- smallish understanding - I could see Ruby being seduced by the access and privilege and the idea of being 'seen' for her accomplishments and not just her race

- pissed - the way she took out her own disappointments on Tamara.  Tamara is not your enemy.  It is not her fault they chose her over you. The misplaced anger just pissed me off.

- discomfort - just seeing her having to negotiate those spaces as a black woman in a white woman's skin and having to see under the hood of how these women interact and what they talk about

- disgust - sorry, that whole metamorphosis scene just turned me off completely.  That was some next level polyjuice potion.

- frustration - why can't she see she is just a pawn?  Nobody gives you anything for nothing.  She better than anyone should know that.

- validation - finally she realizes that being in this white skin is not really worth the physical pain of the metamorphosis or the psychological landmines she has to navigate to stay in this skin and the little compromises she had to make because at the end of the day she is still a black woman.

- what the fuck - did not expect that ending. LOL.  On the one hand I could see Ruby getting some visceral satisfction of literraly sticking it to the man.  But otoh, it feels hollow somehow.

The Ruby storyline was so crazy that it overshadowed Tic and Leti progressing more into a couple.  And Montrose's coming out. 

It was great to see Shangel!! And William/Catherine is confirmed.

This show is never boring.  That hour goes fast!

Right there on the roller coaster with you.

I do have to say that I understand why Ruby lashed out at Tamara. Even with the drug that allowed her to become white, she has a lifetime steeped in the rat race mentality she talked about last episode. She got the talk that so many of us have about having to be twice as good to get half as far. And yet, she finds out Tamara got where she is and she isn't all that good. It's an interesting choice by the show to make Tamara basically average to bad at her job and not particularly qualified. It has to be both frustrating that Tamara got this chance and that the likelihood was she was going to blow it not just for herself but for a bunch of black women to come. It seemed Ruby tried to mentor Tamara but there was some resentment there too. And it's sad that people literally quit the job because she was hired, and it's sad that Ruby pressed her into taking the white folks to the South Side. 

 

[kay1864]

 How did Atticus know that Montrose had killed Yahima?  Blood on his fingers?

[MrWhyt]

mmm gory

[rollacoaster]

I wonder,  though, if Tamara was bad at her job due to lack of training/mentoring. There wasn't much time for that with her co-workers either quitting, ignoring her, insulting her, or loading her up with their work. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

3 minutes ago, kay1864 said:

 How did Atticus know that Montrose had killed Yahima?  Blood on his fingers?

I don't think he actually needed forensic evidence or anything like that.

He knows his father to be a violent man from having been whupped endlessly growing up. He knows his father destroyed the book with the bylaws because he thinks that none of them should be fooling around with this magic stuff.

When Yahima is missing, there's a pretty easy inference to draw about what happened. With the benefit of not being in the mix of things, it's honestly astonishing to me that they left Montrose alone with her or the pages in the first place.

[Dev F]

11 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I'm not sure how the ending doesn't bode well for Ruby. There's no way that the manager is going to have the guts to admit to anyone he got sodomized, and even if he did and wanted to try to take revenge or something, a) he has no way of identifying Ruby and b) she has some level of magic on her side.

I'd agree that it doesn't bode well for her morally, at the very least. Especially since she didn't seem to gave any thought to Tamara even as she was supposedly avenging her. Even if Ruby is untraceable (and a bloody, naked black woman is hardly going to melt into the shadows, so the logistics of the whole thing are pretty cloudy), the manager could easily point the finger at Tamara to regain some of his lost power and supposed dignity, and nothing about the guy suggests that he would feel at all reluctant to do so.

[Chicago Redshirt]

2 minutes ago, rollacoaster said:

I wonder,  though, if Tamara was bad at her job due to lack of training/mentoring. There wasn't much time for that with her co-workers either quitting, ignoring her, insulting her, or loading her up with their work. 

There's all that, true, but it didn't seem like Tamara was trying particularly hard either. Not that I can blame her. When you're so clearly unwanted (exccept by creepy pervy manager), it has got to eat at you. 

[tennisgurl]

First of all, the Pat Boone version of Tutti Frutti that the white employees at the store were dancing to is just ugh. Taking such a fun song and making it so aggressively bland and awful is a crime against music. 

Never a dull moment on this show! We get lots of focus on Ruby this week, and on gore. Lots and lots of gore. The effects of the transformation look amazing, and also amazingly nasty. Ruby's whole journey was really interesting, going from enjoying the privileges of being a white woman, getting a job easily that she was just as qualified for as a black woman, taking out her frustration on Tamara (as wrongly focused as that anger is), being increasingly annoyed at her white co-workers who talk about black people like they're the dirt under their heels but still fetish black people and black spaces as exotic and exciting, especially her creep boss, and finally goes back to her true self when she goes after creep boss. He might be a loathsome bastard, but I dont see this ending well for Ruby. Not that I think he will be running to the cops to explain this whole situation, but Ruby getting in deeper into magic and the magic cult just screams trouble. 

So William/Christina is confirmed! So is William just a construct that Christina made up as a disguise like Hilary is for Ruby, or are William and Christina two different people that share a body? 

The most obvious reference of the night was, of course, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which the episode is named after, which is about a man who drinks a potion to become another person. Of course, that was about repression in Victorian society and the duality of all people, while I am still trying to figure out what all this means for Ruby and her changes. 

Not much of Tic and Leti, but its nice to see them developing as a couple, even if we also see that Tic, as much of a nice guy as he is, has a real temper. Not too surprisingly considering how he grew up and having just come back from war, but I hope that it doesent pop up so much that it becomes a problem. 

[Roxie]

2 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

The most obvious reference of the night was, of course, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which the episode is named after, which is about a man who drinks a potion to become another person. Of course, that was about repression in Victorian society and the duality of all people, while I am still trying to figure out what all this means for Ruby and her changes.

I think one of the movie versions of the story was playing on a TV in at least one of the scenes.

[Chicago Redshirt]

13 minutes ago, Dev F said:

I'd agree that it doesn't bode well for her morally, at the very least. Especially since she didn't seem to gave any thought to Tamara even as she was supposedly avenging her. Even if Ruby is untraceable (and a bloody, naked black woman is hardly going to melt into the shadows, so the logistics of the whole thing are pretty cloudy), the manager could easily point the finger at Tamara to regain some of his lost power and supposed dignity, and nothing about the guy suggests that he would feel at all reluctant to do so.

I don't think Ruby was doing this to get revenge for Tamara. I think it was about succumbing to the temptation that Chrilliam laid out for her: being able to do whatever she wanted. Her dream had been to work at a place like Field's, and I'm assuming the story she told in the interview was basically true: her mother took her to Carson's (another Chicago department store, with not quite the rep of Field's; apparently it still exists online at least) and salespeople made her feel good despite how the world generally would treat her. By being Hillary, Ruby learned just how much of a facade that was and finally rejected that dream and made the manager pay for it. 

I don't know if there's a reason for the manager to connect what Ruby did to him to what he said about Tamara. He probably goes around cursing people out on the regular.

But yes I guess there is real moral danger that Ruby is in.

Part of me wonders if Christina actually is somewhat actually attracted to Ruby, or if this was all just the long windup/warmup to use her against Leti and Tic. Part of me thinks that Christina is desperate to make connections that are real and not based on getting over on someone. But maybe she's put a spell on me, too.

Edited September 14, 2020 by Chicago Redshirt

[Cotypubby]

I thought it was interesting with the parallel themes of transformation, with Montrose and his lover at the drag club and then the literal changing from one gender to another, as well as one race to another, with both Ruby & Christina/William. 

Edited September 14, 2020 by Cotypubby

[Chicago Redshirt]

10 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

The most obvious reference of the night was, of course, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which the episode is named after, which is about a man who drinks a potion to become another person. Of course, that was about repression in Victorian society and the duality of all people, while I am still trying to figure out what all this means for Ruby and her changes. 

W.E.B. DuBois coined a phrase called "double consciousness," which is about how black people have the challenge of being black in a world that is defined by whites. TPTB took that concept and filtered it through the horror lens. I think that the potion Ruby was taking wasn't geared to expire after, say, 10 hours or something. It allowed her to stay white as long as she was not triggered by truly being black and the dissonance that is involved.

There's another concept called "code-switching," where people talk and act "white" in the work place and other predominately white spaces, and use different language and behavior when among black people. 

Ruby switched back to herself in the first transformation fairly quickly because she was so agitated.

Her second seemed to last a pretty long time because nothing went awry.

Her third, to get the interview, was again relatively short because remembering how her mom and the rest of the family were treated at department stores versus the rest of the world, plus her issues about being at Field's were triggering.

Her fourth transformation came amidst the stress of dealing with the hypocrisy of her white co-workers capped by the realization that the manager hired Tamara pretty purely hoping to bang her, and that on being rejected would reveal his racist and misogynist true colors.

The final transformation was the first one where she deliberately caused it, signalling perhaps that she has mastered the double consciousness by eliminating it.  

9 minutes ago, Cotypubby said:

I thought it was interesting with the parallel themes of transformation, with Montrose and his lover at the drag club and then the literal changing from one gender to another, as well as one race to another, with both Ruby & Christina/William. 

And Leti and Tic transforming from friends to a couple.

[rollacoaster]

40 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

There's all that, true, but it didn't seem like Tamara was trying particularly hard either. Not that I can blame her. When you're so clearly unwanted (exccept by creepy pervy manager), it has got to eat at you. 

TBH, we never saw Tamara loafing or screwing up. The main criticism of her came from her racist co-workers, who were shown to be actively trifling, and HillaRuby, who was torn between being spiteful and helpful. Tamara was essentially given very little characterization beyond how other characters perceived her.

If Tamara was guilty of anything, it was being average (and perhaps naive) in a world that expected Black women to work twice as hard to be perceived as half as good as the most mediocre white woman. 

[izabella]

What was with the guy hanging in the closet?  And what did Ruby put in the office for Christina/William?  I did not understand anything about that party, and that storyline, except that Ruby did that in exchange for the transformation potion.

[Chicago Redshirt]

5 minutes ago, rollacoaster said:

TBH, we never saw Tamara loafing or screwing up. The main criticism of her came from her racist co-workers, who were shown to be actively trifling, and HillaRuby, who was torn between being spiteful and helpful. Tamara was essentially given very little characterization beyond how other characters perceived her.

If Tamara was guilty of anything, it was being average (and perhaps naive) in a world that expected Black women to work twice as hard to be perceived as half as good as the most mediocre white woman. 

She wasn't loafing, but she committed a cardinal sin of frustrating her customers when the other saleswomen had her doing their jobs. In doing so, she cost Field's an immediate sale and she might have lost those customers for good. She also cost herself some commission.

Granted, both as a new person and in particular a black woman, she wasn't in the best position to tell them "Hey, I'm with a customer. Can I take care of that task afterward?" But I don't think that would have stopped Ruby or Leti from doing that if they were in her place.

HillaRuby also questioned how she arranged one of the displays. I don't know much about fashion or sales, but HillaRuby made it sound like the mistake was a pretty obvious one. Though again, that could be an expression of Ruby's frustration and actual expertise rather than Tamara's flaw.

[Chicago Redshirt]

11 minutes ago, izabella said:

What was with the guy hanging in the closet?  And what did Ruby put in the office for Christina/William?  I did not understand anything about that party, and that storyline, except that Ruby did that in exchange for the transformation potion.

Taking a stab at it:

This part took place in the Chicago branch of the Sons of Adam lodge, or maybe a house Lancaster (the police captain who brought Hiram Epstein black people to mutilate and murder) owns/rented to throw a function for lodge members. Lancaster is trying to formally become a lodge member. He wants to buy his entry with pages from the missing Book of Names that yet another person has. As we've seen, people are hot and bothered about pages from the Book of Names because they think that those pages would allow the reader to have greater magic, perhaps even return to paradise at the beginning of time (as both Titus and Samuel Braithwaite tried to do but failed, perhaps because they lacked pages). The body in the closet is someone Lancaster killed and is hoping to use for a lead to get to those pages. Apparently, with magic, dead men do tell tales. Ruby put what I'm assuming is an eavesdropping device so that Christina can learn whatever it is Lancaster is up to and possibly get the jump on discovering the location of the pages. 

[rollacoaster]

42 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

She wasn't loafing, but she committed a cardinal sin of frustrating her customers when the other saleswomen had her doing their jobs. In doing so, she cost Field's an immediate sale and she might have lost those customers for good. She also cost herself some commission.

Granted, both as a new person and in particular a black woman, she wasn't in the best position to tell them "Hey, I'm with a customer. Can I take care of that task afterward?" But I don't think that would have stopped Ruby or Leti from doing that if they were in her place.

HillaRuby also questioned how she arranged one of the displays. I don't know much about fashion or sales, but HillaRuby made it sound like the mistake was a pretty obvious one. Though again, that could be an expression of Ruby's frustration and actual expertise rather than Tamara's flaw.

Tamara's most cardinal sin was existing as a Black woman a hostile environment to serve racist customers, which frustrated those customers, cost Field's immediate sales and lost her some commission. I'll agree that Tamara did make some rookie mistakes, but there was a lot of sabotage happening in this situation. It was a no-win situation, and she had no support. 

I could see Leti pushing back on the dreadful co-workers. Ruby, I'm not so sure. Even as a white woman, she didn't push back that hard, and even pressured Tamara to take them on "safari" to her neighborhood.  

That's one thing I do appreciate about this show, how it examines the nuances and layers of Black culture and interactions. How rage, jealousy, inability to communicate, and internalized racism can cause folk to inflict pain and violence on self and others. I love that no one's perfect here, but are allowed to breath as damaged, struggling and fully human beings. 

And I am LOVING the discussions happening here and in the media about this show! 

Edited September 14, 2020 by rollacoaster
Punctuation matters

[shoetingstar]

Each episode is like 7th course meal. It's a lot to chew! Not literally thought, this is another show on my list I can't eat food while watching lol. Speaking of that I had such a pit in my stomach hoping Ruby/William would not go like Tara/Franklin back in the day on True Blood. I had a traumatic flashback to that storyline that was kinda amusing in the twisted way TB was, but honestly abusive to a black female character in the long run.

I noticed some parallels with the two Ladies, Both of the Ladies soaking in tubs talking to William and Tic. (I'm jealous of those big clawfoot tubs!)

William to Ruby: Does that scare you?

Atticus to Leti: Don't be scared/afraid of me.

The general them being Metamorphosis and FEAR. Ruby saying that as White!Ruby people did not fear her - they feared FOR her. They treated her like..."A human," William finished with recognition.  Montrose with his fear of who he really loves (fuck him for what he did last week though). The obvious butterfly motif was used but Locusts were mentioned twice - on the tv screen when William was opening Ruby's body (ugh!) and Montrose's lover (the bar owner - I'm forgetting his name) said it in Spanish to him. This is significant as Locusts are a source of fear, used as plagues in the bible - and if you've ever seen The Ten Commandments. I'm amazed because I just learned an interest fact about Locusts...they are actually grasshoppers. Stay with me here...Grasshoppers can jump 25 feet or something but they can not fly. And they are also solitary insects. It takes 3 particular changes in their environment to bring a profound change to them. Serotonin in their brains is stimulated and they began to form groups and change physically to the flying Locusts that terrorized Pharoah and has put fear into farmers. 

Another thing I'm curious about: Why did William explain the Butterfly change backwards? The Caterpillar actually turns in to the Butterfly but he explained it the opposite way. hmmm...

3 hours ago, rollacoaster said:

Dammit, nobody in this universe believes in foreplay. 

Or the comfort of a bed! Like no one does the Horizontal Mumbo on beds in the 1950s, apparently. 

 

4 hours ago, DearEvette said:

Well, I wanted more Ruby.  Just didn't think I'd get HillaRuby.

I will say, good job show for making me go through so many emotions:

-disappointment - I was really disappointed with Ruby and how quickly she seemed to fall into being a white lady and accepting what William was doing.

- smallish understanding - I could see Ruby being seduced by the access and privilege and the idea of being 'seen' for her accomplishments and not just her race

- pissed - the way she took out her own disappointments on Tamara.  Tamara is not your enemy.  It is not her fault they chose her over you. The misplaced anger just pissed me off.

- discomfort - just seeing her having to negotiate those spaces as a black woman in a white woman's skin and having to see under the hood of how these women interact and what they talk about

- disgust - sorry, that whole metamorphosis scene just turned me off completely.  That was some next level polyjuice potion.

- frustration - why can't she see she is just a pawn?  Nobody gives you anything for nothing.  She better than anyone should know that.

- validation - finally she realizes that being in this white skin is not really worth the physical pain of the metamorphosis or the psychological landmines she has to navigate to stay in this skin and the little compromises she had to make because at the end of the day she is still a black woman.

- what the fuck - did not expect that ending. LOL.  On the one hand I could see Ruby getting some visceral satisfction of literraly sticking it to the man.  But otoh, it feels hollow somehow.

The Ruby storyline was so crazy that it overshadowed Tic and Leti progressing more into a couple.  And Montrose's coming out. 

It was great to see Shangel!! And William/Catherine is confirmed.

This show is never boring.  That hour goes fast!

 

3 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Can safely say that I wasn't predicting that William's plan for Ruby was to transfer her into a white woman!  This show certainly never fails to surprise me.  Liked how they continued to may homage to classic genres, by having the transformations/"metamorphoses" feel like an old-school monster movie.  Only, well, just a wee bit more graphic.  Seriously, the props/make-up department was having way too much fun with all of the creepy and disgusting effects!

Nice seeing Ruby take front and center and Wunmi Mosaku really shined here (as did Jamie Neumann as "Hillary.")  I liked that they didn't make her flawless, and she did let her anger over being passed over for Tamara cause her to treat Tamara unfairly, even though Tamara wasn't to blame.  She was targeting the wrong person, but it makes sense that her anger and envy would get the better of her.  But it was interesting seeing how different her life was when she looked like a white woman, and even though being a woman in general will always come with hardships and obstacles, being a black woman (wherever during that time period and even now) takes things to a whole other level.  The world really can be a cruel place.

So, sure enough, Christina and Willam are totally the same person after-all.  Curious though that they don't seem to be on the same page: Christina in particular seems to have issues with William's decisions.  But I really don't trust either of them, frankly.

Atticus and Leti took more of a backseat here, but I still like the moments we got.  Leti got a glimpse of the rage and anger that Tic holds in, due to his upbringing and time in the war, but hopefully it will make them stronger going forward.  They certainly had a more passionate sex scene this go around!

The reveal that Montrose is gay or at least into men sexually, wasn't a huge surprise, but it certainly explains a lot.  It was nice seeing him have a moment where he seems to accept himself and be happy, but I have a feeling he can never walk back from the violence he did, and a bittersweet ending will be his best outcome.

Looks like we might finally get some information on this mysterious Korean woman from Atticus' past next week!

I was disappointed with the Tamara thing at first, but I personally have had mixed results working with other black women. I've had one mocking-me because I'm "too proper". I've had some be harder on me. And I've had a supportive kinship. Other than Insecure, I can't think of a another show that tackled the layers and nuisances of black women encountering "the other black' girl in competitive work environment.

I interpreted the scene as Ruby's initial motivations were good, she was curious but also wanting to encourage her ("They can't take your education from you."). It changed soon as she found out that Tamara had no education or training. Ruby takes nothing lightly and lost respect when she found out the girl had no training and seemed to not care to put in the best effort (in Ruby's eyes at least). It wasn't fair though, being that Ruby was a white manager (White!Ruby) in Tamara's eyes.

2 hours ago, Cotypubby said:

Christina is the real one, William is the “disguise,” the same way Ruby was (literally) inside of Hillary. I don’t think anyone else knows that they are the same, Christina says that the police chief thought he killed William, which is why he only interacts with Christina. I don’t think her father knew either, though there was so much weird magic mumbo jumbo in that episode that I don’t remember exactly what he said. It’d be interesting to watch episode 2 again now.

I also wonder the significance of “Hillary” being the same actress with the dogs in Ardham who was keeping Montrose prisoner. Was she someone else in disguise there as well, or did William base the formula he gave to Ruby on her for some reason?

This story Christina about William intrigues me. Last episode the Police/Lodge Chief had his men follow her, and then she appeared to them later as William (and beat their asses before they could shoot!). So they know William exist, Plus this episode they brought his "wife" back to him.

Call me crazy but I think Christina actually digs Ruby, in her on twisted way. The actor playing William really sold some genuine feeling towards her. If They can feel genuine feelings for someone else.

[paigow]

Were those stilettos designed by Chekov? 

[AnimeMania]

William said: A butterfly lives a full life before it dies. And a caterpillar emerges from the same cells, the essence of the butterfly, yet different.

To me, this statement is "technically" correct.

There was one scene that kind of bothered me:

Leti: This is evil. It's the devil's tools. It is corrupting all of us. No, no.

Tic: Leti, Leti, it's not. Look, it... It's not inherently evil, all right. It's what we do with it
that matters. What we wanna do? Protect ours. How can that be bad?

To me this sounds exactly like what the White People are doing, unless you are willing to protect everybody, I don't see how the outcome would be any different. Unless, Tic is referring to magic protecting Black People as providing a balance to the scales that are tipped in White People's favor.
This episode seems to be about anger and how it is like a stone that you skip across a lake it doesn't just hit the lake once, but multiple times. That anger can be directed at one person and then that person takes that anger and directs it at someone else, and so on and so on, etc., etc., etc. I am not sure they gave a good solution to the problem, the closest seemed to be Montrose and his lover, where Montrose gave him anger and he managed to convert it into pleasure. Does that mean that everybody should become masochists.

If all the stuff in Ruby's resume was true, she was overqualified to be a Saleswoman and the hiring guy saw that, even if Ruby didn't. Too bad Ruby didn't want to work anywhere else but Marshal Field.

[Chicago Redshirt]

5 hours ago, rollacoaster said:

Tamara's most cardinal sin was existing as a Black woman a hostile environment to serve racist customers, which frustrated those customers, cost Field's immediate sales and lost her some commission. I'll agree that Tamara did make some rookie mistakes, but there was a lot of sabotage happening in this situation. It was a no-win situation, and she had no support. 

I could see Leti pushing back on the dreadful co-workers. Ruby, I'm not so sure. Even as a white woman, she didn't push back that hard, and even pressured Tamara to take them on "safari" to her neighborhood.  

That's one thing I do appreciate about this show, how it examines the nuances and layers of Black culture and interactions. How rage, jealousy, inability to communicate, and internalized racism can cause folk to inflict pain and violence on self and others. I love that no one's perfect here, but are allowed to breath as damaged, struggling and fully human beings. 

And I am LOVING the discussions happening here and in the media about this show! 

No doubt that we have to factor in that Tamara was in a difficult, if not impossible, situation. I have been lucky enough to never have to have been "the first" at anything I've done, and whatever racism I experienced paled to what was thrown at Tamara and what was said and done behind her back. From the comfort of our 21st century couches, it's easy to wish that Tamara checked some fools, or that Ruby used her power to do it for her.  

5 hours ago, shoetingstar said:

Another thing I'm curious about: Why did William explain the Butterfly change backwards? The Caterpillar actually turns in to the Butterfly but he explained it the opposite way. hmmm...

....

This story Christina about William intrigues me. Last episode the Police/Lodge Chief had his men follow her, and then she appeared to them later as William (and beat their asses before they could shoot!). So they know William exist, Plus this episode they brought his "wife" back to him.

Call me crazy but I think Christina actually digs Ruby, in her on twisted way. The actor playing William really sold some genuine feeling towards her. If They can feel genuine feelings for someone else.

In nature, it's a one way transformation: catepillar to butterfly to death. With magic, it's a true cycle: catepillar to butterfly to catepillar, as many times as one can stand to pay the price. So it seems like starting with butterfly might be a way of emphasizing that the natural order of things doesn't matter. Or it could simply be that Chrilliam is a werido. 

Nitpick: Lancaster is so far a lodge wannabe, not yet a member and certainly not the chief. Also his police rank is captain, which is pretty high up (police officer->sergeant->lieutenant->captain) but there are a couple levels above him. I don't know for sure what CPD had in terms of the 50s ranks but there would be the ultimate head of the department as chief, and then an assistant/deputy rank below him.

That said, the two flunkies Chrilliam beat down have no reason to know who William was or his relevance. If they even admit to Lancaster that the two of them got punked by one dude, which they very well might not because that shiznit is embarassing for two coppers to say out loud,  all they could do is describe him as a tall, thin blonde man. Which shouldn't get Lancaster to be like, "WILLIAM!" as tall, thin blonde men aren't all that rare.

Maybe I'm reading a little too much into the hide-and-seek scene from earlier, but I do think Christina is really hungry for human connection. She didn't have to reveal that she was William this whole time. But maybe that's part of the con.

I will say that Abbey Lee's performance has grown on me.  

2 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

There was one scene that kind of bothered me:

Leti: This is evil. It's the devil's tools. It is corrupting all of us. No, no.

Tic: Leti, Leti, it's not. Look, it... It's not inherently evil, all right. It's what we do with it
that matters. What we wanna do? Protect ours. How can that be bad?

To me this sounds exactly like what the White People are doing, unless you are willing to protect everybody, I don't see how the outcome would be any different. Unless, Tic is referring to magic protecting Black People as providing a balance to the scales that are tipped in White People's favor.
This episode seems to be about anger and how it is like a stone that you skip across a lake it doesn't just hit the lake once, but multiple times. That anger can be directed at one person and then that person takes that anger and directs it at someone else, and so on and so on, etc., etc., etc. I am not sure they gave a good solution to the problem, the closest seemed to be Montrose and his lover, where Montrose gave him anger and he managed to convert it into pleasure. Does that mean that everybody should become masochists.

If all the stuff in Ruby's resume was true, she was overqualified to be a Saleswoman and the hiring guy saw that, even if Ruby didn't. Too bad Ruby didn't want to work anywhere else but Marshal Field.

GTFO of here with the false equivalence, magical version of All Lives Matter BS.

First, in the context of the story, it isn't all white people and all black people. I guess you can argue that the Sons of Adam and Christina and so forth are metaphorical representations of white people, and Our Heroes are metaphorical representations of black people, but that is not the same thing.

But more importantly, what Tic is wanting to do is in no way comparable to what the Sons of Adam have done.

What they have done that Tic and we know about -- and which is the tip of a very long iceberg:

• Enslaved and ensorcelled Yahima and murdered her people to get her to translate pages of the Book of Names
• Murdered at least eight people at Leti's house
• Kidnapped Montrose to lure Tic to Ardham
• Tortured Our Heroes with mind games
• Shot and killed Leti and George though they brought Leti back
• Forced Tic to participate in a ritual that was painful to him, killed the lodge's members and destroyed a massive building
• Tricked Leti into buying a haunted house

And that is mostly just members of one of 35 lodges. 

Tic has every reason to want to protect him and those close to him from further harm at the hands of the Sons of Adam and Christina. That was what he meant, not putting on a cape and defending all black people. He knows that this is not going to stop anytime soon. As long as he lives, as a direct descendant of Titus Braithwaite, he and others around him are going to be targets.

The podcast mentioned an essay by Audre Lorde entitled "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." (which with all due respect to Lorde , fails as a metaphor. Tools are tools are tools. If the master has a saw, it can be used to cut beams to construct or it can be used to destroy. etc.). But they are consciously trying to address how then do you dismantle the house. And in the case of the show, I think it is an even more slanted answer. There doesn't seem to be a reasonable way to fight back against monsters and actual magic without having some magic of one's own.

Field's represented the pinnacle of a dream for Ruby, but presumably, almost all white-owned department stores would have presented the same issues. It turns out that there was a black-owned department store that had some success back in the day, but eventually folded.

https://chicagocrusader.com/the-black-department-store-on-king-drive/

Anyway, we will have to see what it is Ruby wants after this experience. Presumably, something more than selling clothes and cosmetics.

[paigow]

7 hours ago, shoetingstar said:

I interpreted the scene as Ruby's initial motivations were good, she was curious but also wanting to encourage her ("They can't take your education from you.").

Bizzarely, it sounded like something William Wallace might have said....

[AnimeMania]

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

The podcast mentioned an essay by Audre Lorde entitled "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." (which with all due respect to Lorde , fails as a metaphor. Tools are tools are tools. If the master has a saw, it can be used to cut beams to construct or it can be used to destroy. etc.). But they are consciously trying to address how then do you dismantle the house. And in the case of the show, I think it is an even more slanted answer. There doesn't seem to be a reasonable way to fight back against monsters and actual magic without having some magic of one's own.

This is exactly what I was trying to point out since it seemed that is what they were alluding to. Albert Einstein "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results."

[Penman61]

Intersectionality: It's not just for grad seminars anymore...

[luckyroll3]

There's a good chance that William may have been a real and separate person at one point, and when he died, Christina used that as her opportunity to gain some status in their order.

10 hours ago, rollacoaster said:

TBH, we never saw Tamara loafing or screwing up. The main criticism of her came from her racist co-workers, who were shown to be actively trifling, and HillaRuby, who was torn between being spiteful and helpful. Tamara was essentially given very little characterization beyond how other characters perceived her.

If Tamara was guilty of anything, it was being average (and perhaps naive) in a world that expected Black women to work twice as hard to be perceived as half as good as the most mediocre white woman. 

 

8 hours ago, shoetingstar said:

I was disappointed with the Tamara thing at first, but I personally have had mixed results working with other black women. I've had one mocking-me because I'm "too proper". I've had some be harder on me. And I've had a supportive kinship. Other than Insecure, I can't think of a another show that tackled the layers and nuisances of black women encountering "the other black' girl in competitive work environment.

I interpreted the scene as Ruby's initial motivations were good, she was curious but also wanting to encourage her ("They can't take your education from you."). It changed soon as she found out that Tamara had no education or training. Ruby takes nothing lightly and lost respect when she found out the girl had no training and seemed to not care to put in the best effort (in Ruby's eyes at least). It wasn't fair though, being that Ruby was a white manager (White!Ruby) in Tamara's eyes.

I think that it was less that Tamera didn't care about her education, and more that even with no education, Tamera was still chosen over Ruby who was more qualified than even the male manager. And as we learn, it also had a lot to do with the manager's gross ass intentions.

[Cotypubby]

50 minutes ago, luckyroll3 said:

Tamera was still chosen over Ruby who was more qualified

I forget, did Ruby actually apply for the job and get turned down? Or did she just think it would be impossible to get so why try, and then got upset when she saw a different Black woman get what she felt should be hers?

[TiffanyNichelle]

All I can say is this was the most extreme example of passing I've ever seen! I liked this take on it, more than just a black woman who is light enough to pass for white but a black woman who is literally putting on the skin of a white woman. So interesting.

Now I don't know if it was the late hour I was watching or my tv but there was something weird with the police captain's chest right? We never got a solid full on look at it but that wasn't hair covering his torso?

ETA I think William was a real person, maybe even Christina's twin but then he died and she took his body on. Her father had to know about it right?

Edited September 14, 2020 by TiffanyNichelle

[Cotypubby]

1 minute ago, TiffanyNichelle said:

Now I don't know if it was the late hour I was watching or my tv but there was something weird with the police captain's chest right? We never got a solid full on look at it but that wasn't hair covering his torso?

It looked like he had the torso of a Black man grafted onto his body like some Frankenstein creation. Which I don't really understand why so I assume that will come up later in the series.

[Joimiaroxeu]

Okay, that took a turn. The answer to Ruby's problems is to become a slender White woman? William, no! And what did William pull out of Ruby when he split the White woman open?

Interesting take on the phenomenon of passing. And being overqualified for a job yet still not considered because of your race and physique.

Interesting take on the main argument against affirmative action too, before affirmative action was a thing. Even Ruby assumed the Black woman hired instead of her at Marshall Fields was less than qualified.

What the hell? That guy hanging in the police chief's closet was not what I expected at all. I don't know how Ruby didn't pass out when she was in there with that thing.

Bunny hop mambo. Whatever, poor Ruby, even as a White woman no one wanted to dance with her.

Oh, so Hillary's vile boss sensed on some level that she was Black and that's why he was pushing up on her. Ugh.

Did Chicago have a big drag scene back in the day? At least a Black one?

Even before it happened I pretty much knew what Ruby was going to do to Hughes. Holey sh!t. I'm going to need a whole tanker of brain bleach to get that stiletto heel stuff out of my head.

Well, it was no, "Tell Cersei it was me" but it was in the neighborhood. 🤗

TMW you find out your hot boyfriend is actually his sister. 😐 So is Christina gay or bi, or was having sex with Ruby just a means to an end?

[Chicago Redshirt]

36 minutes ago, Cotypubby said:

I forget, did Ruby actually apply for the job and get turned down? Or did she just think it would be impossible to get so why try, and then got upset when she saw a different Black woman get what she felt should be hers?

Ruby probably had applied to Marshall Field's and other department stores a while back. She was about to apply again when she saw that Tamara had just been hired. At that point, she just left without applying, having jumped to the (presumably right) conclusion that the chances of Field's hiring two black women werre basically non-existent. I think that the events of this episode were just a day or so after her discovery of Tamara.

34 minutes ago, TiffanyNichelle said:

Now I don't know if it was the late hour I was watching or my tv but there was something weird with the police captain's chest right? We never got a solid full on look at it but that wasn't hair covering his torso?

ETA I think William was a real person, maybe even Christina's twin but then he died and she took his body on. Her father had to know about it right?

I'll have to check it out on rewatch. I didn't notice the police captain's chest. I think someone mentioned the possibility that he got a skin graft from a black person.

If we are to take Chrilliam at face value, William was an heir to the Chicago lodge that Lancaster killed/had killed to try to jump in line for lodge membership. If so, it didn't work. It seems to me that Samuel gave no f---s about almost anything that he didn't have to. So he may not have even known that William existed, let alone that it was Christina in disguise.

32 minutes ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

Okay, that took a turn. The answer to Ruby's problems is to become a slender White woman? William, no! And what did William pull out of Ruby when he split the White woman open?

Interesting take on the phenomenon of passing. And being overqualified for a job yet still not considered because of your race and physique.

Interesting take on the main argument against affirmative action too, before affirmative action was a thing. Even Ruby assumed the Black woman hired instead of her at Marshall Fields was less than qualified.

What the hell? That guy hanging in the police chief's closet was not what I expected at all. I don't know how Ruby didn't pass out when she was in there with that thing.

Bunny hop mambo. Whatever, poor Ruby, even as a White woman no one wanted to dance with her.

Oh, so Hillary's vile boss sensed on some level that she was Black and that's why he was pushing up on her. Ugh.

Did Chicago have a big drag scene back in the day? At least a Black one?

Even before it happened I pretty much knew what Ruby was going to do to Hughes. Holey sh!t. I'm going to need a whole tanker of brain bleach to get that stiletto heel stuff out of my head.

Well, it was no, "Tell Cersei it was me" but it was in the neighborhood. 🤗

TMW you find out your hot boyfriend is actually his sister. 😐 So is Christina gay or bi, or was having sex with Ruby just a means to an end?

William was helping Ruby out of the pupa, if you will, of "Hillary." She was too new/weak to transforming back to break out of the skin of Hillary.

Not to drag on Tamara, but I'm guessing that the average Marshall Field's saleswoman would have had more than a seventh grade education.

I think HillaRuby could have danced with whoever she wanted -- either with the manager or any of the regulars at the bar. It was more that she wasn't feeling it. 

I tend to doubt that boss man sensed HillaRuby was really black. I think that he was just a horndog and was in fact hitting on female underlings but they are not going to admit that publicly. 

No idea about the drag scene.

I think Christina is beyond such petty labels as gay and bi. I think that manipulating Ruby could have been done without sleeping with her, so it was probably something that she wanted to do.

[Soup333]

This episode was largely a miss for me. I didn’t mind the Ruby plot, as I realized that it had more to do with understanding that while Ruby’s access your freedom was white female skin, Christina’s access is white male skin. Fine, whatever. 

I did wonder what the hell was going on with Hippolyta and why so much time was wasted on Montrose.

The show is asking A LOT for me to give a half a second’s damn about Montrose’s drag queen lover. I don’t care about Montrose at all, much less this dude. 

[grawlix]

2 hours ago, Cotypubby said:

I forget, did Ruby actually apply for the job and get turned down? Or did she just think it would be impossible to get so why try, and then got upset when she saw a different Black woman get what she felt should be hers?

Ruby went to the store with the intention to apply for a job.  When she entered the store, Ruby saw a Tamara working at the counter.  Ruby felt/knew that there was no way Marshall Fields was going to hire another black woman (as she explains to Chrilliam in a later conversation).

[rollacoaster]

1 hour ago, Cotypubby said:

I forget, did Ruby actually apply for the job and get turned down? Or did she just think it would be impossible to get so why try, and then got upset when she saw a different Black woman get what she felt should be hers?

I don't think she had. I got the impression that she was getting all her ducks in a row education-wise, to make sure that they wouldn't be able to turn her down based on that at least. It was pretty telling that how Ruby's attitude changed towards Tamara when she found out she only had a 7th grade education. A bit of her classism came out.

It's interesting that Ruby assumed she needed all that education to work at Fields, when we don't even know what the qualifications to work there were. We really don't even know if there were any particular educational requirements to work the counter there, even for the white women. We might could presume that being reasonably attractive, well-spoken and well put together might be enough to work the counter, and Tamara presented those things. Ruby's resume, at least in the manager's eyes, qualified her for a management position (as a white woman).  It may have actually disqualified her as a Black women, as she might have been perceived as a threat, as someone who was striving above her station.

5 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Maybe I'm reading a little too much into the hide-and-seek scene from earlier, but I do think Christina is really hungry for human connection

This is an interesting theory. She did seem to be really enjoying it, and didn't she say she'd never played? 

11 hours ago, shoetingstar said:

I was disappointed with the Tamara thing at first, but I personally have had mixed results working with other black women. I've had one mocking-me because I'm "too proper". I've had some be harder on me. And I've had a supportive kinship. Other than Insecure, I can't think of a another show that tackled the layers and nuisances of black women encountering "the other black' girl in competitive work environment.

It's delicious how this show is digging into these intraracial issues. I've experienced similar issues that you have in the workplace and in social spaces. Both Ruby's and Tamara's situations and reactions resonated, and I appreciate that the show runners were willing to allow these very real and human interactions to play out as they did. It makes for interesting viewing and discussion. 

Another interesting angle is how the main characters are dealing with the death of Yahima. What Montrose did was an egregious breach of trust: of both Yahima and Tic.  I think that Tic's initial rage was more at the thought that source for being able to decipher the papers had been taken from him. Leti's horror and grief seems to be more about an act of violence being enacted against a vulnerable being that had previously endured trauma. I'm not sure how much empathy Tic had for Yahima.  He might have some deeper feelings about Their death, but, I'm thinking that as a soldier, he had to learn to compartmentalize his emotions to be able to function in a violent environment. Sad as he may be about it, his first concern is to protect his people from magic users by learning to wield magic, and Yahima was key to be able to do that. 

And, poignantly enough, Tic really needed to feel that Montrose did what he did out of love for Tic, to protect him. In some twisted way, it was a protective act, misguided as it was. I wonder if Montrose will come to terms emotionally with what he did to Yahima, and in the past to Tic, now that he's allowed a more tender side of himself to peek out just a bit with Sammy. He, too, has been compartmentalizing his emotions in order function in a dysfunctional environment. 

Layers and layers of generational trauma. 

[Cotypubby]

6 minutes ago, rollacoaster said:

I don't think she had. I got the impression that she was getting all her ducks in a row education-wise, to make sure that they wouldn't be able to turn her down based on that at least.

That’s what I thought. So Tamara wasn’t chosen over Ruby if Ruby didn’t apply in the first place. I thought her anger towards her because of that was really misplaced. Tamara didn’t do anything wrong, Ruby was just too late.