![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
thirty-second naps
3x07 Mountie and Soul
I love Ray's boxing thing. I do not love that Stella apparently made him quit when they got married, because seriously? let the guy go a few rounds with the heavy bag, he needs to burn off the excess energy somehow. I figure Ray got back into it and started coaching Levon after the divorce went through; it's something to get out of the house and get excited about besides his job. Ray actually does have a few reasonably healthy coping mechanisms up his sleeve.
Aw, Welsh and Frannie went to watch the boxing together! Ship ship ship.
Hee, the first instance of Fraser and Ray just wandering into the bathroom and cheerfully continuing their conversation (to the freaked-out bewilderment of other bathroom patrons). Their total lack of personal boundaries, let me show you it.
Also, re: a debate about boxing and protective helmets: "You admit that I'm right or I'll pop you in the head." "We're not dealing with logic now, are we." "Logic smogic, you admit that I'm right or I'll pop you." "Oh, gee, in that case, Ray, I guess you're right." "Thank you very much." What I adore about that exchange is that it's actually amazingly like their argument at the beginning of Mountie on the Bounty, except that in this case it's banter and in that case it's personal and important. This is always Fraser's problem: as long as it's not about him, it's okay. I'm starting to live in a state of constant bewilderment about his being able to help other people, because obviously he can but he's still absolutely incapable of helping himself.
Actually, as well as having the 'no more logic, I'm gonna hit you' conversation, they also manage to have an MotB-reminiscent exchange where Ray insists that Fraser hit him and Fraser is reluctant to do so. I don't think there's any way in which this episode and MotB are supposed to be deliberate mirrors, but I like the fact that they do: in both cases they use more or less the same words, but intention and reaction are completely different; I like that this is an episode about them being able to really function well as partners. (Except, interestingly enough, at the end when Fraser doesn't help Ray fight Mason, which is the one point when their communication breaks down -- which again is exactly the opposite of MotB. I am definitely reading too much into it but I am still kind of fascinated by the way they work or don't work together.)
Here also the first instance of Ray's squeamishness around dead bodies. I think it's worse around ones in the morgue than ones in the street, but Ray must occasionally have a hell of a time with the police work. I don't think anything needs to be read into it, but I like it as a little character note.
We interrupt this commentary for an important screencap of Ray's shoulder blades. As you can see, Fraser appreciates them also.
Oh hey, there's a reason Mason looks familiar! He was the extremely odd desk sergeant in the pilot who directed Fraser to Vecchio by telling him to look for Armani. He wasn't so sure about the pigeons, either; he was beginning to question their loyalty. Heh. I wonder why they didn't keep him! Probably a scheduling conflict, but at least they got him back on the show, sadly sans disloyal pigeons.
And nngh it is time for a rooftop chase that Ray is also a part of! I am so used to Fraser being alone in his rooftop chases, and I adore that Ray is able to keep up (and sometimes go first)! It is all so beautifully metaphorical. This is also the first time they communicate via thumbs touching noses; I think I would be rubbish at synchronized policing with them because their little gestures are in a language that is beyond me. But I adore it.
Also, despite the fact that they miscommunicate re: whether or not Ray wants actual physical help in taking Mason down, and despite the fact that Ray kind of hints that next time Fraser should be a better friend and partner by intervening, Fraser was probably right to stay out of it. Among other things he would've been able to handle Mason if Ray'd been in any serious danger, and considering the way Ray was happily bragging about knocking Mason out, I suspect that Fraser knows what Ray needs a little better than Ray does.
3x08 Spy vs Spy
Well, at least Fraser is looking for apartments, and in apparently fairly good neighborhoods, too -- so he hasn't gotten anything because he offers the truth about Dief being a wolf and also talks to Dief in public, among, I imagine, other things. Of course this begs the question of why he didn't just try for another neighborhood like Racine where no one would care whether Diefenbaker was there or not. I am sure I could come up with a psychological reason rather than one based on available sets, but I got nothing off the top of my head.
Haha, Ray. He is totally freaked out by the morgue but he still casually steals the dead guy's jacket when he's standing in the corner busy not looking at Fraser examining the corpse. Also, they don't make a big fuss about Ray's relief that he didn't kill the guy, but Ray is pretty freaked out when he thought he had; I suppose that could just be read as frustrated bewilderment because he knows he didn't hit hard enough to do serious damage, but I like to think it means Ray's never killed anyone. (Nor has Fraser, I'm positive; Vecchio on the other hand I am pretty sure could not actually get away with fake!killing people in Vegas for a year. Mm that is upsetting.)
HI, MARTHA BURNS. You know what, this episode might be kind of ridiculous and surreal in a lot of ways but I forgive it everything because it also has Martha Burns in a cute wig playing a Russian spy and trying to give code phrases to Fraser only to get tongue-twisters in return. Whenever I even think about it I start grinning stupidly. (I think it is a shippy thing. I mean, not that I ship Fraser/Russian spy woman, because that's just silly, but ... look, go watch Slings & Arrows, okay? I can't help it.) Anyway, she is YOUNG and in a CUTE WIG and HI, MARTHA. Here, have a picture.
It really is an absurd episode, though. The ballet and the spy set-up alone are enough to push it to the brink of absurdity, but of the normal due South kind; the really weird thing is Pike. It's not the fact that Pike's a spy and knows all sorts of things, either, because that's no weirder than the norm; it's the way he drives that gives everything the really surreal edge. I don't really know why I fixate on that as the really weird part, but I do. Also, "Don't you ever sleep?" "Well, of course I do, Ray. As a matter of fact, I had a thirty-second nap coming down the stairs. It was very refreshing." That line is either the epitome of the nutty surrealism of this episode, or it is just Fraser's sense of humor. I'm inclined to believe the latter, even though Ray makes no particular response. (What's really weird, too, is that David Cole, who wrote this one, also wrote Dead Men Don't Throw Rice, which is kind of surreal also, but he also did perfectly reasonable ones like Chinatown and Perfect Strangers. Who knows!)
Argh, I wish Ray's apartment was better lit! Chili lights do not cut it, although I love them. It looks like he also has a glass case with trophies in it, although I can't for the life of me tell for certain or what the trophies are; it also looks like he has a pair of red boxers flung over a lamp, which, whaaat the hell, Ray, I don't even want to know. I do love the complete ridiculous clutter of his living arrangements, though. He has a dart board on a cabinet. For some inexplicable reason he has a little chalkboard tacked onto the wall of the kitchen island. And I love Ray's turtle! "The turtle and the wolf are natural, enemies, Fraser. The fighting, and the ... rrr ...!" I am really glad the turtle does not canonically have a name, either, because it's fun to read all the ones people come up with. (I believe the most common are Turtle and Speedy, both of which I am quite fond of, but there are lots of others, and they are basically uniformly awesome. I secretly suspect the turtle really is called Turtle, though.)
Ray sleeps in the cells! Oh Ray, bless. I guess there wasn't room at the Consulate. And then he gets to have a scene with Martha, who is redheaded again and wearing a silly cardigan. I will refrain from taking more loving screencaps, but oh god, I am so extremely fond of her. I am also extremely fond of Ray's reaction to a Russian spy pointing a gun at him, which is apparently to accelerate the car and say things like, "Look, I don't care, lady, go ahead, shoot, I don't care if you kill the both of us, I'm nuts!" He did see that the other car was trailing them, but I still think it is time to observe that in his own way, Ray is just as completely unhinged as Fraser, even if he's mostly willing to gamble his life on his gut rather than some innate belief in the goodness of the human spirit.
Of course, we find out some details about what Vecchio's up to from slightly surreal Pike, which is pretty cool, although I want to know what exactly is meant when Pike says that the Feds discovered Vecchio was a dead ringer for Langustini three years ago and started grooming him for it. I mean, really? They were making sure Ray had the chops to go undercover as a mob boss and Fraser never found out? Part of me says 'retcon' and part of me wants to make up vague paranoid theories about Zuko and surrounding plotlines. I don't know, but I do know that we also get trivia like the fact that Ray Kowalski has astigmatism (like me! which begs a completely different question, which is: if his eyesight is bad enough that he has to wear his glasses for anything approaching a clear shot, how the hell does he see anything the rest of the time?) and that he graduated high school with a 62% average. That makes my inner academic overachiever panic, but I figure Ray was the sort of kid who found everything more interesting than balancing chemical equations and knowing why it was important that Archduke Ferdinand got shot. (I don't know if this means that Fraser and Ray would have hated each other as teenagers or ended up in the weirdest friendship ever.)
No, really, that one is just ... strange. How about someone figure out what's in Ray's trophy cases! or possibly write a fic where he and Fraser play darts.
Those of you I owe drabbles now, I'll get to them in the next day or two; my routine right now is "Go to work all day, come home, deplete all useable brain cells on a couple episodes of due South, sleep, wash rinse repeat." But Saturday I do not have to get up early, so I can write things tomorrow night.
no subject
You can't say things like that! Now I want to read it!
no subject
Here's a high school AU that I like: Popularity by
Apparently I can't stop reccing stories. It's addictive. : )
no subject
(Slightly related, you know what movie I really want to see? The Life Before This. I originally wanted to see it because it has David Hewlett in it, but looking at the cast list more recently, I found out it also has Martha Burns and Callum Keith Rennie in it!)
no subject
(gslk;sd oh my god do you know how many tiny Canadian films I want to see now? Between due South, Slings & Arrows, and the Stargate stuff, I am beginning to suspect I recognize everything. And then I try not to think about it too hard or I start making up weird and elaborate crossovers. I am beginning to suspect that the C6D fandom is EVIL, Carrie.)
no subject
no subject
or possibly write a fic where he and Fraser play darts.
Distraction by
no subject