What did Nicky mean?
When she says "it was difficult with you" at the rest stop when having coffee with Bourne?
shareJust a lame screenwriting attempt to shoehorn a hint of past romance between their characters. A lazy move by the filmmakers to make us care more about Nicky or make her a more interesting character. That's what it was.
shareI don't think this way. They obviously hinted a romance, but it is far from being a lazy writing.
Nicky's character was just a recurring face in the franchise and in Ultimatum she became a crucial ally to Bourne. Yeah, right, a past romance is a easy way to make her help Bourne, but the scene was displayed so masterfully, making the revelation kinda ambigous. For me it was great.
I am inclined to agree with the previous comment that its nothing more than a plot device to keep things running.
Its kind of unfortunate that they wait until the 3rd movie to do it. as you can point at plot holes in the theory from the first two movies...... firstly the age difference (there is at least 10 years between them with Bourne 33ish and Nicky 21).... also where would they have the time for a office romance? Look at Jasons Passport and its full of stamps on every page (I travel a lot, but it would take me at least 20 years to get the same amount of stamps he got) so there is no down time for him (plus Nicky was to look after all the European agents, not just Bourne)..... plus their type of work.... Bourne is a killing machine on 24 hour retainer waiting for a call..... if Conklin found out Nicky and Bourne was a item, he probably would have had Nicky posted to some Alaskan outpost before they could explain themselves.
Also when she is printing the wanted posters, she does it with no sense of remorse.... basically she is putting up wanted posters of the guy who was her "boyfriend" just 2 weeks earlier.
As said elsewhere..... I really doubt there was a relationship of any kind (unless it was a teenage crush from Nicky on the badboy Jason Bourne) other than just a professional one.... maybe they did meet up in Paris (two Americans alone there) but I doubt it.
I do think by the time we get to Ultimatum that she does fall for Jason the same way Marie fell for him (basically a form of Stockholm Syndrome) but ultimatily I think it was just something dropped in to keep the plot moving (and to make Nicky appear more interesting than she actually was, as before Ultimatum her character was a minor background one in Identity and got 5-10 minutes of screen time in Supremacy where she got a little more character development, but again, was nothing more than a plot device)
I think you've articulated it well. No hint of remorse in Nicky's actions in past movies, in how she's printing out posters, for instance.
This is an odd screenwriting misstep in the first 3 Bourne films, which are otherwise excellent.
Haha, everything's a "plot device" when it comes down to it.
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Imagine that.