thinking about how physical trust and intimacy mean so much more in the context of curt and owen's lives than the average couples. in the spying game, you can't let your guard down for a second, because one wrong move could cost you your life. a drink with a friend? they could poison you. a handshake? they could easily inject you with something. a hug? they can stab you in the back.
curt and owen have known these rules for years, and so their relationship speaks to the complete and utter trust they had in one another.
they shared drinks. they hugged. they presumably had a more intimate relationship behind closed doors.
and i'm just thinking about how easily curt's fear washes off his face when owen reveals himself in the russian weapons facility. curt is still in a very compromising position, but he knows that he's safe, because owen would never let anything happen to him.
he's been taught over and over not to trust, and yet he does.
and some of that trust breaks through in their final confrontation on the staircase. even with owen pointing a gun at his head, curt tries to reason with him. curt doesn't just love owen, he trusts him. and in their line of work, that might mean even more than love.
and so when curt makes the decision to kill owen, it's certainly not that he doesn't love him anymore. no matter what owen did as the DMA, curt can't help but love him. but as owen monologues on the staircase, curt comes to an even more crushing conclusion: he doesn't trust him anymore, and that kind of trust can't be rebuilt.
following owen's death, i don't think curt ever truly learned to trust again. perhaps not even tatiana, who had saved curt again and again, could earn his fragile trust. because if owen -- skilled, bright, lovely owen -- couldn't be trusted, than who could?
Am I the asshole for faking my death for 4 years, putting on a fake persona, murdering over a thousand people, and plotting revenge on my ex after he left me to die?
I know the title sounds bad, but let me explain. I, thirty something male-
i feel like people never talk about owen's line just after the reveal when curt says "you're dead" and owen responds "ah, well, part of me is." guys. the part of him that's dead is the part of him that loved curt. the part that trusted. the part that got joy from anything other than revenge and torture. owen isn't just mad at curt for leaving him -- he's mad that curt killed every ounce of goodness inside of him. he's grieving the person he used to be, and he blames curt. he hates who he is now, and the only thing he can do to get some relief is to hurt the person who he thinks did this to him.