also idk how to word this rly, but what level of perfection do think Cyrus held Erica to? like perfection as a spy? or just perfection in general? i also like to think that while yes, Erica was wary of people before Joshua (bc of what Cyrus told her) she was just mainly awkward, and then Joshua came along they were besties, the dynamic duo, then he died and she was like “oh Grandad was right to a degree” and she became sort of “Ice Queen” (bc it was given to her by Zoe, a first yr so-) -t1sb

Okay, so I think Cyrus held Erica to pretty high standards in terms of being a spy, because anything but perfection is *going* to compromise the mission and the standard has to be high even if people don’t meet it every time. That being said, I do think that a significant portion of the pressure Erica feels come from herself. Like, she’s got all this potential to be the best spy in history, and every time she doesn’t meet that benchmark she failed (which isn’t me projecting my own perfectionist tendencies onto her even a little bit, no ma’am).

And I’ve gone into my thoughts on Joshua before (basically that having him be a red flag parade isn’t terribly interesting to me), but as far as Erica’s relationship to other people in general, just because Zoe is the one who gave her the Ice Queen nickname earlier that year specifically, that doesn’t mean that her more anti-social tendencies weren’t manifest from long before that. Going back to most of her drive for perfection being internal, I think she’s trying to be as tuned in and focused on being the best and her peers not only aren’t on her skill level, they’re also not on her intensity level. Given that Erica identifies Joshua as the most promising undercover agent the agency had seen (or something to that effect), we can assume that Joshua had at least a similar level intensity, and that was probably what they bonded over. I could see him *maybe* making a joke about something sketchy, but it my book it would have to remain a one-off incident, because if it was a more regular thing, I could see Erica getting at least a little suspicious, and the scene is the farmhouse hits so much harder if she didn’t see it coming. Y’know?

Also, for that scene you described, I’d make it less about comparing Ben and Joshua and more about how Erica is so tired of living her life isolated and she’s not going to that anymore because if the last year and a half has taught her anything, it’s that people need other people in their lives (we can tie this back to Ben as the first person to really demonstrate that it *can* be done while still being a successful spy, but it’s not a necessary requirement). She doesn’t know that Ben’s not going to betray her somewhere down the line (seeing as she doesn’t have view we do of this all being a children’s series with Ben being the audience insert), but that’s not the point. That’s not why the relationship is so significant.