The Pete/Beth side plot is absolutely brilliant

This is my first watch and I just finished season 5 so no spoilers!

Everything about Pete’s tryst with Beth is utterly perfect, and it only comprises a handful of scenes. Pete experiences the whole thing alone and can’t talk to anyone about it, it totally consumes him, and yet in reference to the main story this is just a side plot. No one else knows what he’s going through and probably never will.

The sheer passion and desperation we see in him throughout is amazing. Like showing up to Beth and her husband’s house for dinner just so he can slip her a note and wait all night for her at a hotel. I had to rewind every time she unexpectedly showed up, like in the daydream scene at the office, because Pete’s bewilderment was just too good.

Then also his total resignation and jadedness when she invites him for one more night together. He doesn’t even put up a fight to stay with her, he just says, “Five more minutes.” Heartrending stuff.

The cherry on top is the brawl on the train (featuring one of Pete’s best lines of the show). The whole story could have been something out of a 19th- or 20th-century novel, and this scene would have fit right in. Made me think of Ethan Frome or Wuthering Heights with the amount of passion and rage. Not to mention the dubious psychiatric treatment that Beth undergoes, reminiscent of the Yellow Wallpaper or something.

Pete is already my favorite character but this just added to it.

This was really a tour de force for the writers, you can see where their inspiration came from and they really went all out with this story.