I Do Love Nothing In The World So Well As You!

Can I just point out how that was pretty much entirely inappropriately timed? Hero had just been slandered, nearly to the point of never showing her face in society again; she was pretending she was dead, in a scheme to get Claudio back.

Beatrice had to watch all this, knowing if she had been Hero’s bedfellow, she could have stopped this whole thing. (My headcanon about that is she was too drunk to remember that she must be in her chamber, and fell asleep in some other room nearby.)

And then, this. And it’s clear from his face that Benedick clearly hadn’t meant to say this AT ALL. He was just sad about seeing Beatrice so upset, and you could tell from his face that blurting out his love had really not at all been the plan in that moment; he had meant to say something comforting, but this just fell out of his mouth. And he knew he couldn’t take it back, he just had to roll with it.

I think he was both relieved and disappointed that it came out like this. It’s so obvious that it had been building and he was nearly desperate to say something to her, and was waiting for the right moment. So, in that sense, he’s relieved. But he had been trying so hard to be a “proper’ suitor that he was probably a bit disappointed that it wasn’t some planned and incredibly romantic gesture.

GAH! BENEDICK JUST GIVES ME ALL THE FEELS!