Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-410526-20160206155158/@comment-27121183-20160207234113

Larkwings wrote:

They're definitely ship teasing. Of course love doesn't have to be romantic love, but the way that scene was set up, camera cuts and all, is definitley meant to imply something, especially when RT knows this is a popular ship. Bastards. Queerbating. Feel free to call it what it really is. I don't think RT is doing that right now, with that scene, but there's potential for them to go that way.

On a very shallow level, queerbaiting's kinda cute and seems harmless from the fan perspective. For the show, it lets them demonstrate they know some of the inner circles of the fandom and win over those people without actually doing anything canonically. But if it goes nowhere romantically, there's going to be a whole lot of hurt feelings and finger pointing when the series wraps up. Not seeing your much-teased ship sail can in fact ruin an entire show.

RT needs to be careful with this, especially as we don't have any known gay characters on the show as it is.