orockthro (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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pofinterest_chat2013-11-19 05:42 pm
orockthro) wrote in pofinterest_chat2013-11-19 05:42 pm
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Episode Discussion 3x09
Well dudes, it's that time of the week again. o___o
Tonight's episode (3x09, The Crossing) might be a doozy, so let's hold onto our butts, keep our heads, and don't blink.
Spoilers beyond this point! And also feelings.
Tonight's episode (3x09, The Crossing) might be a doozy, so let's hold onto our butts, keep our heads, and don't blink.
Spoilers beyond this point! And also feelings.
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So angry I'm sitting here instead of sleeping.
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o__o
Show. Show. Show, what the fuck!?
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(Although the part of me that can't help analyzing narrative arcs can recognize what they probably consider to be foreshadowing. I said it last week: Carter's not safe because Taylor is cared for. But mostly OH THE STUPID as soon as Reese kissed her I knew she was toast.)
GOD DAMN IT. (I need to go to bed, really, but SHIT.)
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And of course I've been doing just that in my head since. My favorite scenario (aside from "Everybody lives!") is the one where Carter and Fusco change places for the episode; it's Carter who gets nabbed by HR and tortured, and Taylor who gets saved by Shaw, and they have a tender phone call where it's obvious how much of a dire crush Shaw has on Carter, and then Carter escapes just like Fusco did (and I know they'd never do that, because we can KILL a woman but we can't break her fingers, oh no). And meanwhile Reese is trying to get Quinn to the FBI on his own, until Fusco joins him and they hole up together in the morgue, and have the chance for a real heart-to-heart (and it can be bro-talk, I won't insist on the kissing). And then, if we have to have the ominous twist at the end, it's Fusco who goes down, and Reese is equally furious, not because he was in love but because A HERO FELL.
But if they insist on Reese/Carter and dead!Carter, I could write that better too. Dammit.
OH. WELL. Sticking in a comment below about what I did like, just for the sake of some balance.
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I can't decide if I'm more angry or more depressed.
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This, yes. That just made me burn. And it's not like he couldn't have been motivated by both things and say so - although, um, he didn't exactly have a choice until the point when he walked away from Finch, and the next thing we see is him drinking himself to sleep. I'm happy to believe that Carter had an influence on his decision, but it wasn't bang like magic on meeting her. And Finch was a much bigger influence.
Also, this just throws him right back into his season 1 characterization, which is sad. I'm actually okay with Carter dying if it's on her own terms (and at least she had a real arc), but for God's sake don't do it so Reese has something to avenge. He would have had that anyway.
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Same here.
And to do that they had to retcon two seasons of Reese's characterization, by making it that Carter's arrest in the Pilot is what gave him the will to live, and not, you know, getting a chance to save people by Finch.
You know, if they just had avoided doing that, I might have been less angry. Was he lying when he told anyone who would listen for two years that Finch was the one who saved him and gave him a purpose, when he told Finch on the rooftop that he'd be dead already if Finch hadn't found him? I don't mind Reese being grateful to Carter too, but I have never felt their scene in the pilot was any kind of magic that created either romantic sparks or was the one thing that gave him the will to live. If Finch hadn't sent the lawyer to pick him up, he'd've walked out of that precinct and never been heard of again.
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Yes, it's certainly possible, and I very much hope that was the case.
I'd give a lot to know when and how they made the decision. Given the way they've publicized this episode, the way Henson's been talking about her character development, and what Emerson had to say about the secrecy surrounding that last scene--I just don't know. It's hard to read.
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I guess the showrunners felt differently. :/
*sigh*
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More thoughts after sleep.
O__O
My only thoughts right now are this: FUCKING HELL THEY DID NOT JUST DO THAT I AM PISSED. Anyone but Carter. I'd have been fine with Fusco, fine with Reese, fine with FINCH even. It would have sucked, but I'd have understood it. But not Carter. No.
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We can get through this. I think.
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Fusco was AWESOME, and so was Shaw. I think it was a nice subtle step in Shaw's development that she obviously cared what happened to Fusco, and that she acknowledged she was making a choice and choosing Lee. And Kevin Chapman hit his torture scenes out of the park, and I cheered when Fusco escaped. I also loved the film noir touch of the fortune cookie factory, and the Shaw and Fusco scene in the car near the end (and heh, she wants him to drive).
Michael Emerson and Amy Acker continue to give me chills in their scenes together, and I liked that we saw Finch having to make choices, and WHAT was that line about
Finch going through men like tissuesJohn not being the first one he'd hired? (I bet he was the first he told the truth too, though. Or Finch's version of the truth.)And I did find the Reese/Carter scenes touching, though I am bummed the writers apparently thought Reese thanking Carter meant he couldn't even mention Finch. And that it meant OTHER THINGS DAMMIT.
I could have done without the anvilicious "look here we are on the subway just like in the pilot" conversation, but I liked them using the image. And the phone ringing, ringing, ringing at the end was a nice if slightly cheesy touch.
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I've speculated that, and so have others - i.e., Finch tried other agents. I love the idea of possibly seeing them, maybe they come back and are a threat to Finch and Reese is really emotionally conflicted about their existence.
Except now they've done and rewritten Reese's entire character arc and motivation - it was all for love of Carter! - that none of it makes sense anymore.
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I can see Finch having tried other agents and them not working out, but I still want to believe that it was only Reese to fit the bill so perfectly. Sigh, but now they've shredded that bit of their relationship for me too. Still, amidst all the other crap, I have kind of pushed that bit out of my mind.
Did the writers who are writing this season never even see the show? Did someone say "OMG, Reese and Finch are looking too gay?" or what??? Not only can we apparently not ever believe that a man would be upset about a woman's death unless he was in love with her, we can't show two men who are devoted friends without a rampant case of homophobic backpedaling.
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I thought that bit felt out of place, but I loved the scene toward the end where she goes to release him and they used the dialog from the pilot. That was perfect.
(Also really loved that she got one scene with a yellow border, even if the scene with her telling Finch she'd figured it out was terribly written and her coming to such a specifically accurate conclusion didn't actually make any sense.)
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Yes, so many Carter fans wanted her to be told about the Machine and her figuring it out, while clumsily written, was still a cheat because she couldn't live after finding out and getting her yellow box.
As a Rinch fan though, I've always maintained that Carter and Fusco shouldn't be told about the Machine or let in on the location of the library -- I think the only thing that would have hurt me more when they totally threw out all the stuff Reese ever said about how it was Finch who saved him and gave him a purpose was if he'd taken Carter to the library for safety or something. Sigh.
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Somehow, the worst part is that I dared to expect better of a tv show, for once.
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I know, I know. I felt the same way. I put all my eggs in POI's basket, saying over and over again how it was different and intelligent and consistent with canon and didn't use all the other tired old tropes... and then third season started.
{{hugs}}
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I liked the Harold/Root scenes ("you have the relationship you want and she respects that" was the explanation I wanted for why the Machine talks to Root and not to Harold, and I was obviously massively smug about the bit about how many people Harold went through before John since I used pretty much that exact line in Fealty)
But now in retrospect, they are making me angry all over again because I am convinced they fridged Carter for Harold as well; they're going to use Carter's death to make Harold change his mind about talking to the Machine.
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You're probably right there. I just get angry and upset all over again every time I read someone else's perspectives on this. There is just SO MUCH WRONG about it. I don't know why I can't stop torturing myself by reading comments and posts and I'm not sure if it's theraputic or not. Misery loves company I guess.
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Ugh. I just feel BETRAYED, weirdly. This is the first show I've been really actively fannish about in a LONG fucking time and it just pulled THAT bullshit and I kind of want to scream.
Uuuuuuuuuuuugh.
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I think reading this post by Gingerhaze helped. I don't agree with all of it, but seeing it through a more positive lens... was good for me.
http://twitlonger.com/show/n_1rrvsgr
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Maybe next week will make up for this somehow, but I'm doubting it. And even if so, it's still going to be hard to rewatch the episode that should have been pivotal and tremendously moving.
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... thinking about it, unlike all our other 'dead but not' characters she probably had to die (first) because she was the good guy, unlike them, she didn't 'need' the second chance. The tragic hero in a show with essentially post-tragedy characters. Except that now she is missing as exactly the unique moral point in this universe.
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