The difference between Phil versus me and HR versus Carol is that no matter how mad Phil–er, either of us got or how trapped either of us felt, ours was a relationship of equals. Either of us could have walked away from the project–not painlessly, but not with career-ending consequences.

HR has kind of liked to pretend that he and Carol are equal behind closed doors, and Carol’s certainly enjoyed that pretense and the perks it’s conferred on her. But this scene exposes the sham. Carol works for him, she has entered into criminal operations for him, and in their clandestine, unsupervised operation, he can treat her however well or poorly he wants to without repercussions. She is basically running one of the most successful media companies on Earth in his stead, yet she has no power at all over him, which means she arguably has no power at all, period. They will go back to pretending after this, but we know the truth.

I can thankfully say that neither Phil nor I ever fell into HR’s role here. But both of us would come to know people who had fallen into Carol’s.