i still think y'all are making a lot of weird assumptions about how the 2x06 makeover plotline was going to go
i'm confident the plot was never going to be that the makeover in and of itself was all it took to seduce ed, for several reasons but the most important one is that on a basic structural level that would make the plot of the episode incoherent. like, the ned low stuff was still going to happen; it's not like it was originally going to be an entire episode about a makeover and they suddenly decided to replace that with a whole weird thing about bronson pinchot as a torturer after the late rewrites. (not only would there not have been time for that, ned low was being foreshadowed way back in 1x01.) so it doesn't make sense to think the ned low stuff originally had nothing to do with ed and stede having sex, that makes no sense.
what was going to happen was you had this whole plotline about escalating sexual tension that was annoying everyone on the ship, and then you had the makeover and dancing and stuff which drove the sexual tension situation even higher, and THEN the ned low situation happens and ed and stede sleeping together is still a reaction to that trauma, it's just a bit more clearly set up because you had this whole plotline about mounting sexual tension and the whole taking-it-slow thing being really difficult for both of them even before the big trauma occurred.
(and the implication was not ever going to be that ed...wasn't attracted to stede before the makeover, or that stede NEEDED a makeover for ed to want to sleep with him, or even that the makeover was particularly an improvement. i'm not sure why anyone thinks there is any chance at all of that. for one thing, we know explicitly that the whole REASON for the makeover was that there was already a lot of sexual tension, the tension was there because they both already desperately wanted to have sex! and of course the whole point of this would have been that stede never actually needed to change and become the manly pirate from his dream to win ed over, he just believed he did, that's the cut-down arc that's already there.)
#have people never seen a romcom where someone gets a makeover from well meaning people#and then the object of their affection is like ''you don't have to do this! I like you as you are!''#is that not. the WHOLE point of the makeover trope?#to reaffirm that your true love likes you as you are#OR the crew is a bunch of queer people. they might be GOOD at helping stede find a new look that makes him feel confident.#and is still authentic to his own lovely self#also it's just objectively funny to consider the crew desperate to resolve the sexual tension between ed and stede#and would have been a great opportunity to show that all was forgiven post kraken era (via @chaotic-neutral-knitter)
Maybe I’m misremembering this but I could have sworn Samba shared this same tidbit in one of his previous classes, AND he said the end conclusion of that arc was they see each other at the party at the end of the episode and decide to continue taking it slow, but they do dance together to At Last? Like I think this was clearly meant to be everything mentioned above re: the makeover trope, but also an instance of the well-meaning crew meddling to try to push these two together faster, only for the two of them to decide to follow their own hearts in terms of what their relationship needs.
Samba didn’t say this, but I’m also convinced this storyline was a relic from when they still thought they were going to get 10 episodes. Episode 6 ends with them dancing—possibly interrupted by Ned Low at the very end as a cliffhanger, and then Episode 7 is the Ned Low episode and that’s when they sleep together. I feel like maybe they still thought they could make the makeover plot line work even with fewer episodes, but as it got closer to shooting it became clear they didn’t have enough space for it—possibly because they had a better sense of the strict time constraints per episode at that point. But this is pure speculation!