In this episode of having seriously unserious fun psychoanalyzing Will Graham: why was he so eager for Abigail’s validation? Why did he crave to be perceived by her as a protector and traditional father figure?

Will’s yearning to be seen as Abigail Hobbs’ protector isn’t rooted in paternal love or selfless care. It’s an instinct born from his own ceaseless fear, a projection of his inner child, tainted by the suspicion that he himself is bad, monstrous, or corrupted. In Abigail, he recognizes not the girl herself, but a reflection of his own innocence under siege: her vulnerability mirroring his own. She becomes a token, an externalized emblem of the child he still feels he is.

This isn’t an overt or conscious calculation. Rather, it’s an unconscious compulsion. If Abigail chooses him, even for a moment, it suspends Will’s own fear, he feels safe by becoming safety, if only in that fleeting instant. Yet because this drive is ultimately about him, not her, it generates a profound dissonance. Abigail feels it: the disquiet of being seen not as herself, but as a screen for someone else’s need. She senses the forced nature of his attempts, how they skip the slow dance of mutual trust and instead leap straight into an anxious claim of “I’ll keep you safe. I am father.” Like hello who are you sir?

This dynamic poisons their connection before it can begin. Will’s efforts don’t resonate as natural or earned; they feel like an imposition, a strange intensity that can’t be reciprocated. Beneath the surface, she can tell she’s not truly being seen, she’s being used to soothe a fear that doesn’t even belong to her. And so his attempts, though well-meaning on the surface, become hollow performances that fail to bridge the gap between them.

This dynamic of projecting one’s own fear and vulnerability onto another in order to feel powerful or safe extends well beyond Will. It’s a pattern visible in the archetype of the “mama bear,” particularly in women who self-proclaim loudly and repeatedly that they’d do anything to protect their children (in a strange way that isn’t just motherly behavior but an identity signaling, like the “boy mom” phenomenon).

When these declarations come unprompted, boastful claims of “no one touches my kid” or “I’d kill for my child”, they reveal this pattern. They’re not just affirmations of love; they’re a way of masking a personal sense of weakness, fear, or powerlessness. In many cases, this is especially pronounced in women who have been in abusive relationships, single mothers, or who carry a sense of having been made small by their past. The child, then, becomes a token, an innocent, untouchable symbol of the self they couldn’t protect.

The paradox is that this fierce posturing doesn’t truly serve the child; it serves the parent’s need to dissociate from their own fear and claim an identity of strength they otherwise struggle to inhabit. The child becomes a proxy for safety and value: “If I can protect you, I must be strong.”

The child is no longer a child, they’re a totem for someone else’s fight with their own vulnerability.