This episode was a weird one, as it’s the only episode Anika isn’t in at all. So much of Anika’s journey is about her take on what she’s done, and trying to clear her name from all of the bad press she’s received before we met her. This episode was a chance to get to see the people who were affected by Anika’s actions, but without the lens of her own narrative applied to it.
With every episode up until now, all of the information we’ve gotten about Anika and her past has been through what Anika wants to share with Sean, and how she wants to share it. I wanted to take a minute to explore what her story looked like to the people around her, without any sort of personal spin on it. And who better to share that than Cole, right after we take that car ride with him?
I hope this showed a side to Cole that maybe gets wiped out through Anika’s perspective beforehand. He was a teenager in teenage love, and it turned out that there was a lot more to that than he was ready to handle. I think he has so much in common with Sean (more on that soon! Spoilers!) and I wanted to see what they were like in a room together: two guys who couldn’t make things work with the people they loved and cared for.
To me, Cole is soft and sweet and really, truly cared for Anika, but unlike the love interests in comic book movies, didn’t sign up to be in love with someone with super powers. While everything seems big and crazy as a teen, this was so much more than he was ready for — but, I think if he could have had the time, he would have found a way to be ready for Anika as best he could.