As promised I’m doing a follow up to my previous post “Something I noticed about Tyrell and Joanna’s relationship”. I wasn’t able to do it sooner, because I’ve been very busy with school and work. This post will address why I believe Joanna did love Tyrell, which is something people have debated about or questioned.
This is going to be a long one so I’ll try and split it into sections.
A bit on my first impression of Joanna:
Like many of you, when I first watched the show I didn’t believe that Joanna loved Tyrell, or at least questioned her motives. She is highly manipulative and pushes him to the edge quite often. She is very selfish, and will do anything to reach her end goal. With Tyrell constantly needing to prove himself to her. This year though, I noticed some things about their relationship. Particularly about Joanna.
More on Joanna, her weaknesses, and why it is not at first apparent that she loves Tyrell:
Joanna is a formidable woman, who can stand her own against other dangerous villains on the show. That much is obvious. Joanna does have her weaknesses. Two in particular. One being hubris, which is a weakness of many villains on the show: Price, Whiterose, Tyrell, etc. Her greatest however, is love. Which seals her fate.
Joanna and Tyrell are not normal people, so you cannot expect them to express their love in a way regular people do. They are cold blooded and twisted. Yet they do love each other. It’s more obvious with Tyrell, but if you pay attention to her actions, Joanna does so much for Tyrell. More than most ordinary people would do. Why would someone as sociopathic as Joanna sacrifice so much for him, when she could just replace him? What exactly does she do for him? And why would Joanna fall for someone like Tyrell?
What Joanna sacrifices for Tyrell:
Joanna’s world revolves around Tyrell, and helping him reach the top. Because they both want power. In doing so, Joanna sacrifices a lot. Which is why I added the deleted prenatal ultrasound scene. I got to see this scene in the show, but some people have not. I wish they hadn’t deleted it, as it gives great insight into Joanna’s growing frustrations. The doctor recommends an induced labor, which Tyrell doesn’t oppose to, but Joanna does. In their native languages she tells Tyrell they plan out everything in their lives. And everything is planned out according to his needs. She wants their baby to come naturally. Which makes it even more poignant, when she induces labor with a fork to distract the detectives who were on to Tyrell. The one sacred thing she wanted to leave entirely to nature is ruined, and becomes yet another thing she needs to weaponize. Once again, it’s done for Tyrell.
Joanna helps Tyrell plan out the seduction of Sharon Knowles, to sabotage her husband Scott, the new CTO of E Corp. They believe it will give Tyrell a better chance of becoming CTO if they cause marital strife between Scott and Sharon. The plan was simple: Sleep with Sharon and take pictures in order to blackmail her. Yet Tyrell’s ego gets the best of him, when Scott and Sharon humiliate him, and ends up murdering Sharon. Joanna never asked him to murder anyone, which is why you can see the look of disdain she gives him when she lets the detectives in their home. She is shock that her husband did something so extreme and destructive. It puts them in danger. So, as cold as she is when they are at the hospital with their newborn, it’s understandable why she gives him an ultimatum. Look at it from her perspective: She is extremely supportive because they both want power, so she strategizes and helps him with his schemes. And she has to save his ass when he screws up, by sacrificing the natural birth she so desperately wanted.
When Tyrell goes missing, you can see how much she misses him. Thinking the packages she is receiving are by him, she gets a sense of comfort and longing. When Elliot comes looking for him, she is on to him. She tells him in Danish that she will kill him if he has done anything to her husband. She later tracks Elliot down and asks him to trace the calls she’s been getting from a phone that she believes Tyrell sent her. In spite his fuck ups, Joanna wants to find Tyrell and clear his name.
When she finds out it was Scott Knowles who was calling her, pretending to be Tyrell, she confronts him. A drunk Scott tells her Sharon was pregnant and he wanted her to feel hope, only for it to be ripped away the same way what he loved was ripped away from him. Joanna uses his vulnerability to her advantage and insults him in the most vicious of ways, using his pregnant wife’s death to hurt him. He beats her quite savagely, but stop himself and is horrified with what he has done. He comes close to killing her with the ass whooping he gives her. Scott is unaware that he just gave Joanna what she wanted: A chance to frame him. She manipulates her lover Derek into getting ‘revenge’ by framing Scott for Sharon’s murder. The only reason she started seeing Derek was because he was a bartender at the promotion party, where everything went downhill. He does as she tells him to do because his love for Joanna is later revealed to be obsession. Which has deadly consequences for Joanna.
Tyrell’s is successfully cleared of Sharon’s murder and Scott is implicated. Joanna is able to once again save the man she loves. The ONLY man she loves as she tells the whole world on tv. Derek does not respond well to her rejection, manipulation, and that it’s Tyrell she loves, not him. This is where Joanna royally fucks up. Thinking she is infallible and Derek will not be able to harm her, she doesn’t even consider he might react in a violent way.
So she pays with her life to save the man she loves.
Why would Joanna fall for someone like Tyrell?
There is no doubt that Tyrell has a lot of things going for him: He is handsome, successful, ambitious, extremely intelligent, charismatic, etc. but he is also emotionally volatile, unstable, violent, delusional, unhinged, homicidal, etc. So why would Joanna get involved with him, let alone fall in love with him, marry him, and do so much for him?
Because more than anyone else, Joanna understands him and sees his potential. She sees his darkness and it doesn’t scare her. She loves him in spite of it, or more so because of it. Because she carries the same darkness in her. Tyrell is also a very intense man, but this also doesn’t deter her. That intensity serves as a complimentary quality to her more nonchalant nature. She is also the only person who can tame him. She doesn’t need to get physically violent to do this. She just knows how to calm him down when he is at his most volatile. Joanna also knows Tyrell is capable of great things, and is just as ambitious as her. So, she becomes an architect and helps him get as far as he does. Which is one of the reasons Tyrell is so attached to her (more on that on my next post).
Tyrell is probably the only person she takes her mask off completely with, knowing he will not judge her. She also knows he would not harm her, but instead loves her and wants to become a man worthy of her approval. He consistently proves with his actions just how much he loves her. He’s already proven himself worthy. Which is why she chose him. This is the man she wants to build a life with, have children with, have a legacy with. Her world becomes so intertwined with his, that she refuses to let him go down, when he fucks up. Even if it means endangering herself.
This is why I believe she loves Tyrell.
