Getting closer doesn’t necessarily mean that they work as a romantic couple, though! And I think that’s where the show is going to go. Tomstar looks more and more like Jarco: Tom/Jackie would like to have, with their partner, a relationship like the one they have with Star/Marco. Tom compares himself to Marco and tries to outdo him with Star, Jackie was more mature and simply understood that Marco would have never been her best friend, and thus never her best possible partner. I hope that Tom is going to understand this too, that he’s sticking with Star because he yearns validation, but that he’s never going to get real love from their relationship. And the same goes for Star, who had the right idea, initially, in Club Snubbed, when she confronted Tom:

but after the dance hormones and teenage confusion kicked in, and Star overlapped her crushing feelings for Marco to Tom, and found an easy solution in him. And it shows: when has Star been a good girlfriend to Tom, so far? She has been a good friend, helping him when he needed in Demoncism, but after that? She always goes to Marco when something important turns up.

And this is not because she doesn’t respect Tom, and not even because he’s incapable of helping (we’ve seen the progresses he made today!), but because she’s doing what Marco did while dating Jackie: still putting her best friend at the first place, while simply “coasting” her romantic relationship. The big difference here is that Jackie truly liked Marco, until she realized she deserved - they both deserved - more, while I’m still not sure that Tom truly likes Star, he might be mostly blinded by having finally found someone who accepts him and validates him (at times).

But if we were to ask Star and Tom “Why are you dating?” at this point of the show, I doubt they’d be able to give a real answer.

Tom DID grow and improve this episode, and Star and Tom’s relationship DID get stronger. It’s just that, in light of everything I’ve said before, I don’t think this means it’s not still going to end. Jarco became stronger each and every episode until the moment Jackie felt Marco’s cape, after all. And just like Tomstar it seemed to get stronger because Jackie (Tom) cared about it; Marco (Star), not as much.



Please note that this answer is heavily based on the hierarchical order of the characters in the show, and on it being a work of fiction. If this was real life, if Tom had been one of the main characters since the beginning, I’d never be so dismissive, and I’d consider the hardships between him and Star as hurdles to overcome together, to become stronger as a couple. But personally I don’t think it’s the case: the parallelisms between Jarco and Tomstar (even if they’re vastly different ships) are increasing, and the show is never dropping the Starco angle, nor the idea that Star’s ultimate emotional growth in this season goes hand in hand with this weird “love triangle” (and the plot, obviously). So I’m seeing all of my opinions in the context of a show that’s biased toward its main characters, and that usually follows some schemes overarching whole seasons. No disrespect is meant to other ships, well beyond what my personal preference might be.