For the vast majority of Longmire‘s epic six-season run, Sheriff Walt Longmire (Robert Taylor) and his most trusted Deputy Victoria “Vic” Moretti (Katee Sackhoff) danced around each other romantically without fully committing. Both Walt and Vic had their own baggage that they refused to fully unpack, and each was in some sort of relationship at one point or another throughout the show that kept them from exploring their connection further. Despite this, there was still a clear tension between these characters that everyone couldn’t help but point out, much to their dismay. The drama associated with this ended up hitting the same beat over and again until the show’s very last episode, when Walt and Vic finally made it official. But at that point, should they have become a couple.

‘Longmire’ Played the Long Game with Walt and Vic

In the show’s first few seasons, Longmire never fully committed to the idea of Walt and Vic. Sure, there were speculations that something was brewing between them by other characters, namely Walt’s first post-Martha girlfriend, Lizzie Ambrose (Katherine LaNasa), but it never really amounted to much on screen. Vic was in an uneasy marriage to her then-husband Sean (Michael Mosley), and Walt, frankly, didn’t seem romantically interested in his deputy at all. He trusted her implicitly, much more than he did Branch (Bailey Chase) or Ferg (Adam Bartley), but that could have easily been explained away as him deferring to her previous experience in a big city police department.

To go a step further, the “spark” between them that many noted throughout the 63-episode run felt more manufactured for future use than it did a contemporary development we got to watch unfold. If anything, Vic was more interested in the sheriff than the other way around, but even then, one could easily watch the early A&E seasons of Longmire without getting that impression. Maybe she just really respected the guy? Now, there’s no doubt that Walt and Vic care deeply about one another. This is true for the entirety of the series and makes sense given 1) Walt’s genuine concern for his deputies and 2) Vic’s previous law enforcement experience. Walt was a big step up from Lee Tergesen‘s Ed Gorski, and an honorable man who easily earned her loyalty.

But when the show started airing on Netflix following its original cancelation, a recurring complaint among fans was that the new seasons felt more dramatic (in a soapy sort of way) than before. The Walt/Vic romance was highlighted now more than ever, and the whiplash was nauseating. Despite that, it still took a few seasons to make Walt and Vic happen. Vic kissing Walt after he was in the hospital created a scandal that fed right into the sheriff’s civil suit, putting his unique practices under much scrutiny by the people of Absaroka County. Although Seasons 4 and 5 introduced a new love interest in Dr. Donna Monaghan (Ally Walker), that relationship too was sabotaged by the Walt/Vic emphasis. This was a real shame since Walt and Donna made a believable pair, arguably more so than the TV versions of Walt and Vic.

Walt and Vic’s Romance Doesn’t Feel as Natural as It Should on ‘Longmire’

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It’s not uncommon for people to get romantically involved with someone at work because of the high-stress situations involved, but it’s another thing entirely to get involved with someone about the same age as your daughter. While Vic might technically be slightly older than Cady Longmire (Cassidy Freeman), it still feels, well, wrong that Walt ended up with someone his daughter’s age. Yes, they’re two consenting adults, that much is true, but considering that Cady and Vic even lived together for a time, it feels like some violation of the natural order of things. What’s worse is that the show never takes the time to acknowledge the strangeness of it all. Of course, we all want Walt to be happy in the end. We especially want him to eventually move on from his wife’s death that covered so much of the show’s early years. But that didn’t have to be with somebody who was only born around the same time as Cady, especially since there were so many other options out there.

It feels questionable that, considering all the scandal already associated with the Longmire name by the show’s end, the sheriff would think getting together with his deputy was a good idea. No doubt, this is why Walt ultimately decides to retire, but that too makes it seem as if the only way to be with Vic is to give up his job. In the books, Walt and Vic are sheriff and undersheriff (at least, eventually), which puts them on more equal footing as the narrative progresses. The television show does no such thing and settles instead on retiring Walt as the series closes out. Casual fans unfamiliar with the books might not see the Vic romance coming at the end, and therein lies part of the problem. It doesn’t feel as natural as it should, and the final sexual union between the lead characters feels awkward, out of place, and unearned, despite the supposed years of build-up.

Both Walt and Vic Should’ve Treated Their Other Partners Better

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Perhaps the Walt and Vic romance might’ve worked better on Longmire had both characters treated their other romantic partners with more respect. In the first two seasons, Walt is constantly running off on Lizzie Ambrose when things are about to get interesting. He dodges her calls and advances, despite being interested, and by the time things end between them, we feel for the heartbroken divorcee who thought she’d roped her own cowboy. You can chalk it up to Walt still grieving for his wife and being focused on solving her murder, but it still feels like a kick in the teeth to a woman head-over-heels for him. What happens between Walt and Donna Monaghan isn’t much better either.

Despite being set on the warpath to find Donna after that shocking Season 4 finale, Walt ultimately breaks it off at the end of Season 5, noting that “maybe if they’d met at a different time” it might’ve worked out. Considering how far he came in their relationship, from awkwardly putting himself out there originally to bringing her back to his place, it seemed like Walt had grown and moved on. Unfortunately, something gets in the way, and as usual, that something turns out to be Vic—or at least the writers’ need to put Walt and Vic together. Speaking of Vic, for much of the series she’s a married woman, though that falls apart shortly after she and Sean are kidnapped, beaten, and nearly killed, only to be saved by Walt and Vic’s ex-lover, Ed Gorski. How Vic ended up with Sean is beyond us, but it’s no surprise that the marriage didn’t work out.

But that didn’t mean that Vic couldn’t have found happiness elsewhere. Josh Cooke‘s Eamonn O’Neill from Cumberland County caught her eye early on, and the two had a strong connection while Walt was away. Of course, the moment the sheriff returned, things got awkward, and, naturally, it all ended with Eamonn getting sent off to pasture. Vic also had a fling with Travis Murphy (Derek Phillips), but that didn’t last long either. Given how much he supported Vic through her pregnancy, miscarriage, and beyond, it’s a genuine shame that Longmire didn’t explore this relationship further. Had Vic treated Travis better before he skipped town, they might’ve had something special. They always had great chemistry, and she even seemed interested in him by the very end, but it was too little, too late.

Walt and Vic’s Romance Is Handled Differently in the ‘Longmire’ Books

A huge reason that Walt and Vic ended up together in Longmire was because that’s where these characters end up in the original Craig Johnson-penned novels. By the third book, Kindness Goes Unpunished, Walt and Vic first ignite their relationship and continue it upon returning to Wyoming. This comes only after Vic got divorced before the events of the second novel, Death Without Company, and after Walt’s previous romance ended in tragedy in the first book, The Cold Dish. From there, the pair continued and even conceived a child, though Vic would miscarry after being stabbed by Walt’s nemesis, Tomás Bidarte, in A Serpant‘s Tooth. In that same novel, Walt himself has some reservations about their romantic entanglement, and the two have an on-again/off-again quality to them throughout the books.

Frankly, the novels handle Walt and Vic’s relationship much better than the television series. There’s a straightforwardness to their dynamic that makes readers root for them, despite some of the aforementioned issues with the TV version of their romance. The books give the romance time to breathe as the characters (i.e. Walt) meditate on whether it’s a good thing or not. Walt is on the fence at first and not quite sure how to handle Vic, while Vic herself is actually the initiator most of the time when it comes to their sexual or romantic encounters. “Vic is obviously the aggressor in the relationship just because it’s her nature and there’s a point where she tells him, ‘I’m not looking for hearth and home—I just want to be with you,'” Johnson explained in 2018. Unlike the TV series, which soapily draws out their potential to the point where we almost hope it never happens, the books make Walt and Vic a thing pretty early on, noting from the get-go that it isn’t a traditional relationship. That was to Johnson’s credit and something the show could’ve learned from.

More than that, there’s a genuine chemistry between them throughout Johnson’s mystery novels that wasn’t fully replicated on the screen. Given that Longmire already isn’t a direct adaptation of the source material—instead feeding the basic concept and characters into the network procedural format with entirely new characters and plotlines—there’s no reason that the show ever had to put Walt and Vic together. Sure, it’s a nice nod to the source material, but it came across as overly forced on screen. By the time the show committed to the Walt/Vic romance, it felt more like fan service than a carefully crafted ending. Of course, Longmire could rectify this if it were revived somewhere down the line, with us checking in on where these two are in the years following their official change in relationship status and further exploring their age gap and differing life experiences.