Gotta
love Mack and Yo-Yo, seriously. I love
them separately, I love them together – even though Natalia Cordova-Buckley’s
recurring status means that their relationship is kind of backburnered by
necessity, I enjoy every second we get of them and eagerly wait for more (a few
spoilers.)
Given the
setup, it could’ve gone in a very different direction. These two come into each other’s sphere when
Mack is investigating a potential Inhuman criminal who turns out to be
Yo-Yo. But Yo-Yo’s not a villain. She’s a fledgling vigilante trying to take
down the gangs making her city unsafe.
Despite a tense first meeting with Yo-Yo tying up Mack and the two of
them stumbling to communicate across language, both are ultimately able to get
a glimpse of who the other really is.
Just like Yo-Yo’s not really a baddie, Mack isn’t, as he initially looks
from her perspective, a shadowy agent on a government payroll looking to lock
her up in a hole somewhere and leave her there.
In both cases, the circumstances are more complex than they first seem.
Can we
take a second to admire how cool it is that Mack falls for an Inhuman? Between his burgeoning romance with Yo-Yo and
his partnership with Daisy, Mack is a poster boy about how people’s biases can
change through actually getting to know someone that they’re programmed to
mistrust. With Daisy, it was a matter of
Mack discovering that someone he already knew and valued as a friend was an
Inhuman, whereas with Yo-Yo, Mack meets her already knowing what she can do,
already thinking a certain way about her, but when he gets to know her, he’s
able to see and love her for the person that she is. With both, he needs a little time getting
there, but that doesn’t lessen what he feels when he does.
Since
then, Yo-Yo and Mack have been equal parts awesome/badass and cute. I love they they both simultaneously work on
learning more of the other’s language (since TV generally doesn’t like a ton of
subtitles, we usually get Yo-Yo speaking English rather than Mack speaking
Spanish these days, but the fact remains that both of them put in the work to learn.) Mack worries about Yo-Yo’s safety and she
tells him not worry, she tries to protect him when he’s in trouble, and both
will go to great lengths for the other’s well-being.
Things
have been moving gradually between them, particularly since Yo-Yo is someone
S.H.I.E.L.D. calls in when they need her rather than a full-time member of the
team, and at first, both of them are too aloof to admit they want to see each
other just for the sake of it, instead couching it all in a work relationship. But they’re making progress, and more than
just the physical side. Yo-Yo learning
about Hope this past season was huge – even though that reveal starts with a
fight, after Mack has been keeping secrets and Yo-Yo’s been feeling
distrustful, things are taken to a new level when Mack is able to be that open
with her. A lot of their relationship
might have been inching along in the background, but there’s been enough
movement that, by the end of the season, I can fully believe how much Yo-Yo is
willing to risk on Mack’s behalf.
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