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Act 3, Scene 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in If We Were Villains, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fate vs. Free Will
Identity and Disguise
Love and Sexuality
Theatre and Corruption
Summary
Analysis
The next morning, Oliver wakes up to giggling. Leah and Caroline are in his doorway. James wakes up and introduces himself, but Leah and Caroline keep teasing Oliver for having a boy in his room. James tells them that Oliver is having sex with Meredith, which makes them ask about Richard—but Oliver says that nothing’s happened to him and changes the subject. Oliver sends James downstairs to breakfast with his family and ducks into his father’s office. He uses the landline there to call Meredith and tell her that he can’t come to New York because James has shown up. She pauses and then says, “Of course.”
Leah and Caroline’s reaction to the situation suggests that they don’t see Oliver and James as “just friends”—rather, their teasing implies that they consider James a potential romantic partner for Oliver. James’s response about Meredith almost seems to remind Oliver of her existence, given that he calls her just afterward. She doesn’t seem surprised at all that he’s not coming to New York. Meredith sees how close James and Oliver are, and in a situation in which Oliver has to “choose” between them, she suspects he’ll choose James.
Themes
