7. "Together. Or Not At All"
I should get something out in the open right up front on this one. Rory deserves a hell of a lot better than Amy. It's not that I don't like Amy, I do. But she never really appreciated what she had in Rory, and Rory is the kind of boyfriend that makes the rest of us pale in comparison. One of the foundation problems of their relationship is that Rory is infinitely more capable of expressing love than Amy is. I don't really think that Amy loves Rory less than he loves her. She just has an amazingly limited capacity for expressing it. Which is actually completely understandable for someone who literally had everyone she loved as a child eaten by a crack in the wall. Rory acts for Amy. Amy acts... also for Amy. And incidentally, the fact that Rory understands this and loves for for the person he can see underneath rather than the person she presents on the surface is one of his most admirable qualities. And so their on screen relationship is almost entirely defined by sacrificing themselves for one another. In Rory's case literally, and more than once. Which is why when Amy talks about her sacrificing for him by pushing him away - even though it was still an inherently selfish thing for her to do because she took it upon herself to make the decision for him - you can still sort of see it as growth for her. She's seen Rory sacrifice himself for her and she's trying to follow his example and put his needs above hers. She sucks at doing so, but hey- it's her first try. What I'm getting to here is that after all that the natural climax of their growing together as a couple is that they don't allow one another to sacrifice themselves for the other. They finally meet as equals and take the risk together. It's together, or not at all.