Red and Blue make Purple

seddm

Other than completely blowing the fandom’s collective socks off this episode gave us a fantastic moment between Star and Marco that used all of their characterization up to this point, all the ongoing “emotional arcs”, to further the story, to give us… this.

I’ll be very schematic since it’s a vast matter that spanned through seasons: right now both Star and Marco have a problem with boxes. Marco, back from Earth in Lint Catcher, saw that Star’s life had changed while he was away, and terrified by the idea of losing her he grappled with all his strength to his new role as a squire. Because he feels like that’s the last special thing he has with her, he doesn’t (didn’t?) feel like her “special best friend” anymore

Being Star’s squire is all he’s focused about, as if that stopped him from being able to being something else too.

And Star is contributing to this! Most of the fandom was surprised by how quickly Star went from this (Scent Of A Hoodie, 3x05A)

to dating Tom and reacting at Marco’s return like this (Lint Catcher, 3x08A)

That’s because she was scared and hurt by Marco having left her without even addressing her confession (something that gets talked about in Booth Buddies), so she displaced her feelings for Marco on Tom: “If I date one boy who is currently available I can’t think about the one who destroyed my heart!”
(obviously this doesn’t mean like she didn’t have reasons to like Tom, Demoncism specifically showed that they had a lot in common in that moment of their lives).
And just like that she was more than happy to put her feelings for Marco in an easily manageable box that she labeled “SQUIRE”. Their relationship is a professional one now, right? So there’s no risk for feelings to re-emerge or things to get needlessly complicated. And this brings us to her reactions immediately after the kiss:

First she worries about Marco being her squire, as if that somehow magically should have stopped them from kissing.
Then she mentions she has a boyfriend, her second “emotional protective box”. Only after that she specifies that he’s Tom, as if his role mattered more than the person (note: I’m fully aware that this might have been just for the sake of making a gag, to show how much in panic she was, but given the context and the rest of the season I’m moderately confident in my interpretation).

So we’re essentially seeing another situation similar to the one in S2, similar to what Star first addressed in Sleepover:

Star’s mind is telling her that definite SQUIRE and BOYFRIEND save her from suffering again.
Her heart tells her to mysteriously close her eyes and put her hands on Marco’s arms while he gets closer and closer to her, slightly parting his lips and closing his eyes as well, between a flash and the other one.

So… let’s buckle up, because warnicorn manure is probably going to hit the fan soon. These boxes are going to fall down soon enough, now that Star’s mind has been given a push in the same direction as the heart, and that Marco was forced to admit to himself that he’s not content in living forever inside this box.

“Things are different”, claimed Star.

Then she spent the whole season trying to delude herself into thinking that thing didn’t change with Marco.

Thinking that they could have the same fun as alwasy, thinking they could take the same BFF pictures as always.

But guess what? Things changed, and you never properly talked about it, and instead of growing Star and Marco’s relationship “devolved” and got warped in a way that allowed both of them… not to think too much about it.

UNTIL TODAY.

The whole season has been about change, but it hasn’t been until Booth Buddies that they barely begin to truly accept it, instead of going against the current. We can only dream about what the season finale holds…

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Red and Blue make Purple

UNTIL TODAY.

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