The thing is, I just never got the feeling Milch or the writers knew exactly how they wanted Al and Trixie to feel about each other. Trixie's got that brilliant speech to Sol about a pimp being like a whore's familiar, but ironically, I see that description fitting Cy and Joanie better than her and Al.
Is Al in love with Trixie? He certainly seems like it in season one episodes like when he found out she'd slept with Sol; he acted like the heartbroken jealous lover when he made Sol pay five dollars. But then we never see that jealousy again? He immediately adopts an avuncular role with her and even gives her relationship advice. Trixie's just sort of with Sol and at the hardware store full time from then on, except a couple confusing shots where it looks like she's still working sometimes at the Gem (tending to Rev. Smith, smoking outside when Al taunts Seth across the thoroughfare, etc). We don't really have a scene where she officially leaves and Al officially "lets her go" like we have with Cy and Joanie, so it's...ambiguous in a way I don't really think worked.
However, the toxic codependence between Cy and Joanie is clear. We know their history; we know she's been reluctantly by his side since her father sold her to him when she was fourteen. We feel her terror of him that is also mingled with a strained affection; we feel his obsession with her tinged also by a genuine affection but mostly the need to keep her with him no matter what. "You bring a joy to my life."
Maybe it's just more realistic to me than the sort of folksy route they went with Al and Trixie, which completely undermines his monstrousness to her in the very early episodes. It just doesn't quite wash with me that the guy who would put his boot on her throat in the pilot would then give her away at her wedding in the movie. And I'm aware it's supposed to display Al's growth as a character, and that Cy was probably written into the show because Ian McShane is so damned likable that they decided early on to eventually soften Al's edges, so they needed a true sadist in a similar position to compare him positively to. The writers might have planned originally for Al and Trixie's relationship to go like Cy and Joanie's, which would explain why their dynamic was violent in the beginning vs later on.
Boothe and Dickens have a perfect chemistry for what their relationship requires; he's a sadistic manchild who needs her validation and she's a survivor who can't quite escape her fawn response where he's concerned even when she leaves the Bella Union. Meanwhile, I never saw romantic chemistry between McShane and Malcomson, so I just don't know if I ever bought Al's heartbreak despite McShane performing the hell out of it; the closest I can reconcile it is that Al had become so dependent on her presence in his life he convinced himself it was romantic love, but because he possessed the wisdom Cy lacked, he eventually realized it was more of a paternal love that got fucked up by the sexual side of their relationship. But because the show never really explored that concept, I just can't tell for sure.
Ambiguity in character relationships is great if properly explored, but I just don't feel like Al and Trixie's was compared to Cy and Joanie.
