The Macau shaving scene in Skyfall certainly makes you wonder whether James Bond and Moneypenny finally crossed that line. Their exchange is easily one of the most physically intimate moments between the two characters, yet the movie largely glosses over it and never meaningfully revisits what happened. That strikes me as a curious choice, considering the filmmakers were playing with a relationship that had been simmering around the edges of Bond’s character for decades.

If they wanted to suggest that Bond and Moneypenny had actually slept together, I wish the movie had committed to the idea with a little more substance and given their history some genuine payoff. Instead, the scene feels almost deliberately coy, leaving the audience to fill in the blanks while Bond simply moves on. I don’t necessarily need an explicit scene, but some sharper dialogue afterward could have made the implication far more interesting.

For such an important scene that potentially changes the dynamic between two longtime characters, it feels like Skyfall introduces sex as a possibility and then promptly drops the subject.