I'm going to answer some of the asks I have about Hailey in one swoop by doubling down on what I said yestersay: this is not self love.
This is not a woman having some epiphany about her worth.
Look, maybe I would have bought the self love angle if the show had given her an arc where she understands that she can grow past this and thrive, but that had to be explicit. What we got was Hailey falling apart while taking off her ring once she was essentially told "he isn't fighting for you, move along" (by Voight, which is an entirely different but equally important conversation).
Frankly, I don't want to be told that this is a good thing for Hailey, or that this is her moving on in a healthy way. This was someone who was so used to abandonment being beaten down enough until she just accepted it. It's shameful that this show wrote a character who spent years healing from her past and learning to let people in, only to treat her like this. Just please, don't simplify it to self love.
Can you elaborate or give some examples when you say body language is a big indicator between Tracy and Jesse?!
When it comes to body language, those two tick every box for me…
Eye contact, lingering eye contact, they way they have a tendency to glance at one another’s mouths when they’re talking or they’ll do one of those full body once overs they think is so subtle and no one notices. How they stand so close and lean in no matter what’s going on or where they are. They never appear to be closed off to the other…arms aren’t crossed, bodies face each other, their feet touch, they rest their arms on each other. They have very little, if any, personal space between them when they’re around one another.
One thing I’ve also noticed that Jesse does is when he wraps his arm around someone for a photo or one of those side hugs, he tends to close his fist or his hand is hanging off them so he’s not directly touching them, but with Tracy he’s almost always touching her or gripping her shoulder.
The way they laugh and speak around each other — it’s as if it’s an over-exaggeration almost, like they think everything this person says is so great and funny. There’s a noticeable tonal difference in their voices too. They sync up…they’ll walk the same way, use the same mannerisms, and some could argue that’s just because they have worked so closely for so long and it’s inevitable that would happen, but as I’ve observed them, it seems more like it’s mirroring a partner’s behavior than that of a co-worker.
And their smiles of course. Jesse has a Tracy smile, and Tracy has a Jesse smile.
And writing this tells me I’m far too observant than I probably should be, but oh well.