![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
you're a really bad influence on me, bento
I should probably sleep now, but I did two more episodes, so here is more of the due South rewatch. (It occurs to me belatedly that this is a bigger project than the Doctor Who version was: that was two seasons of thirteen episodes each, and I believe all of dS is somewhere in the realm of 66 total. Well played, self.) It's a good thing I really like this show.
1x01 Free Willie
And we have all the trappings of s1&2 due South: the Riv, Diefenbaker looking fairly consistent for the rest of the show, Ray calling Fraser "Benny" (which is probably worth paying attention to: in what instances does or doesn't he use it?), and the awful apartment on West Racine. I love that awful apartment. It's somehow way less depressing than the Consulate office; probably because you get the impression Fraser actually lives there.
I really love the way Ray and Louis really rile each other up. Seriously, what is that about? Huey's pretty even-keeled and Fraser is chill, so they have to go at each other to burn off the requisite amount of testosterone? I don't know!
The little sequence where Ray and Fraser leave Willie in the interrogation room and go to get sandwiches: probably one of the central thematic things in the show. Fraser already knows what's going to happen and simply takes a moment to get lunch, allowing Ray's that-was-my-case! hissy-fit to wash over him without effect; Ray doesn't want to hear a story about fighting over patches of ice, and he definitely knows what is important and what's not important, and Fraser knowing the name of the vending machine guy isn't important: except of course it is -- the whole point is that Fraser knows how to do the big things by paying attention to the little things. I also don't buy a lot of Fraser's seeming obliviousness to certain social cues because he really does have a very astute understanding of human nature, or ... Maybe it's more accurate to say that he has a very specific idea about what human nature should be -- and then he acts it out himself, which in turn calls to something in the people he's interacting with, so they respond to it. This theory works best with one-shot characters, the basically ordinary people Fraser interacts with during the course of the show; anyone who spends more time with him necessarily has to be a little bit immune or respond in a more complex way, or you'd end up with Stepford Chicago and that would be ridiculous. I think it remains that Fraser does, with a few notable exceptions, have a gift for making people become Better People.
Something I really dig about Ray Vecchio: he's sort of a closet ... I don't know what the word is I'm looking for, because 'intellectual' isn't quite it, nor is 'nerd'. He just makes the best little comments sometimes, of the sort me and my humanities major friends tend to make/find funny. Like Some Like It Red's "I ain't no English major, but that prose is so purple I'm getting diabetes." "Ray, I think you just mixed a metaphor." "Hey, like I said, I'm no English major." Here it was Willie saying "End of story," and Ray immediately saying back, "Afraid not, Tolstoy." I don't know, I may just be easily charmed.
TINY WELSH OMG. <3 I love how he's kind of bewildered by Fraser but willing to go with it because Fraser's respectful. (I also love how Ray seems to have this persistent notion that Fraser is trying to get Mountie Points. Wtf, Ray.) And although unlike Captain Walsh, actual Welsh does not have a lava lamp nor a wave machine, he does have a model ship, which is win consistency considering that MotB is not for two seasons and they couldn't possibly have been planning it.
Elaine delights me. Possibly Elaine delights me because after watching the seasons with lots of Francesca, I am just desperately relieved for Fraser's sake when the most Elaine does is ask if she can call Fraser at home and obviously appreciate it when he talks to her. And it's not like we the audience wouldn't be doing the same -- I'm sure the majority of dS fans develop massive crushes on Fraser, although possibly not this early in the show (I don't think my own Frasercrush was particularly epic when I first started, but it still didn't strike me as odd that lots of people found him attractive). Anyway, yay for Elaine and my audience-identification with her without any accompanying embarrassment.
"Why does this have to be my life? Mounties, dogs ...!" Man, poor Vecchio would not have lasted a day if the first thing that happened was Fraser crawling around the top of his Riv looking for an igniter while a wolf licked him like a prelude to lunch followed by his beloved Riv drowning in the lake they call Michigan. And I observe this with the greatest possible fondness. Ray Vecchio's default state: incredulous whining. Somehow it manages to be unobnoxious, too.
I am fond of how Fraser takes all Ray's money, too. He tells Ray Kowalski that money and friendship don't mix, which is pretty funny considering that he is taking Ray Vecchio's money all the time. Although -- possibly that is an s1 thing that stops after the Victoria debacle? I hope so, because that would be consistent and kind of awesome.
Other things I love about Ray Vecchio: despite the fact that he is seriously angry at Fraser because he was just almost shot and didn't think Fraser had a plan when he was walking away with the bonds, even before he sorts this out he has the teasing "She shot you in the hat?" exchange with Fraser. I just. THEY GET EACH OTHER. <3
And Ray's exasperated cry at the end of "You can't just go around rescuing everyone you meet!" is -- argh, I love when Fraser does. And it's little things, like rescuing ladies' purses and paying a kid to take care of his wolf and giving someone a pair of shoes, but it's ... really wonderful. I think the real reason I love this show, any shipping and any pretty aside, is that it's just so damn nice to watch a show about good people doing good things in a messed-up world and having just that be genuinely interesting.
1x02 Diefenbaker's Day Off
Oh, this is the first Mackenzie King episode! This probably means it is a good time to examine Fraser vs the Women, if I can get any thoughts in order on the subject.
Let's see. Fraser is more or less okay around Mackenzie when he is specifically just trying to return one of her x-rays; then he sees her half-undressed and is so incredibly flustered that he fumblingly agrees to a dinner date, which he must then attend and feels duty-bound to look his best for. There is something like actual panic in the whole ritual of his reaction, and compounded with his obvious discomfort with Elaine's completely normal and unscary overtures, and later comments to the tune of "All women are our sisters" and ridiculous things like that, I want to implicate Grandma Fraser. I doubt his grandparents went so far as to actually teach him that Sexuality Is Bad -- and I doubt he's under that impression, because a man as thoroughly well-read as Fraser is hopefully going to be fairly liberal in his thinking -- but if we assume Bob was born in the 30s or 40s, we can also assume that Fraser's grandparents were teaching him at least the remnants of attitudes from the turn of the last century. Hence Fraser's almost painful awkwardness around almost any woman attracted to him: he knows he has to be unfailingly polite, but he also knows that they were all raised across a complete culture gap, so he never has any idea what their response is going to be or how to properly defend himself against advances.
Victoria is obviously the exception to the rule; I just bet everything Grandma Fraser ever taught little Benton goes right out of his head the moment any real passion kicks in. Of course Fraser is also on a learning curve -- and the more I try to reason this out the more I suspect that maybe sleeping with Victoria was honestly his first time with a woman (in the "did he sleep with her the night before he turned her in" debate, my answer would be a resounding no, because even if he was working with impaired Victoria-proximity judgment he'd still be extremely aware of the really sticky ethical implications); to the best of my recollection it's after Victoria that he eases up around women a little. I'm basing this on his interaction with his awesome physical therapist, and the fact that he's less uncomfortable around Elaine in s2, and the fact that his epic awkward with Thatcher seems to be more bound up in the fact that she's his superior officer and also a kind of desperately awkward person than that she's a woman, necessarily, and the fact that he's actually able to deal with Frannie in s3/4 without combusting, and the fact that he's pretty damn smooth with Lady Shoes, actually. I have to see if all this holds up, but it just came into my head in a very neat and orderly fashion, so apparently I've been secretly thinking a lot about it. Actually here we also get a pretty awesome argument in favor of Fraser being bi, because I think the best defense against "Victoria was his first" is "Seriously, that cannot have been the first time he ever made out with someone," but I'm trying to wrap my head around him being with another woman and still being so damn awkward around all of them. So: maybe a man/men it is! (My money would be on Mark Smithbauer, which is where a lot of fandom's money also seems to be. But maybe I will change my mind when I see the Mark episode again. Also, more on Fraser being probably bi later; it doesn't need exploring at this juncture.) Of course alternately it could've been his real actual first time and since he's Fraser he's just instantly good at it, but I kind of doubt that.
Anyway, I think that is my Bewilderingly Comprehensive, Actually, Theory Of Benton Fraser's Sexuality; meanwhile he is still terrified of Mackenzie King, because she is basically in charge of the situation and Fraser likes being in control of situations but he doesn't know how to politely take this one back! which I imagine is also one of his perennial problems with women who are persistently attracted to him.
Speaking of Grandma Fraser, by the way, apparently she's the one who taught him how to box. From a book. Oh my god. <3 Honestly what I really want to see now is the Rays having a boxing match. I am pretty sure Kowalski would win, but at least neither of them would be put completely to shame by Fraser.
Aw, Fraser only asked Ray for a wolf license once but Ray remembered and got it for him, and Fraser's so happy about it, and Ray sort of handwaves it, like, of course I would get you a license, you're my friend! I want to draw little stars and hearts around them and write BBFs at the top. I have no shame about this.
And we end with Fraser's little lopsided smile.
1x01 Free Willie
And we have all the trappings of s1&2 due South: the Riv, Diefenbaker looking fairly consistent for the rest of the show, Ray calling Fraser "Benny" (which is probably worth paying attention to: in what instances does or doesn't he use it?), and the awful apartment on West Racine. I love that awful apartment. It's somehow way less depressing than the Consulate office; probably because you get the impression Fraser actually lives there.
I really love the way Ray and Louis really rile each other up. Seriously, what is that about? Huey's pretty even-keeled and Fraser is chill, so they have to go at each other to burn off the requisite amount of testosterone? I don't know!
The little sequence where Ray and Fraser leave Willie in the interrogation room and go to get sandwiches: probably one of the central thematic things in the show. Fraser already knows what's going to happen and simply takes a moment to get lunch, allowing Ray's that-was-my-case! hissy-fit to wash over him without effect; Ray doesn't want to hear a story about fighting over patches of ice, and he definitely knows what is important and what's not important, and Fraser knowing the name of the vending machine guy isn't important: except of course it is -- the whole point is that Fraser knows how to do the big things by paying attention to the little things. I also don't buy a lot of Fraser's seeming obliviousness to certain social cues because he really does have a very astute understanding of human nature, or ... Maybe it's more accurate to say that he has a very specific idea about what human nature should be -- and then he acts it out himself, which in turn calls to something in the people he's interacting with, so they respond to it. This theory works best with one-shot characters, the basically ordinary people Fraser interacts with during the course of the show; anyone who spends more time with him necessarily has to be a little bit immune or respond in a more complex way, or you'd end up with Stepford Chicago and that would be ridiculous. I think it remains that Fraser does, with a few notable exceptions, have a gift for making people become Better People.
Something I really dig about Ray Vecchio: he's sort of a closet ... I don't know what the word is I'm looking for, because 'intellectual' isn't quite it, nor is 'nerd'. He just makes the best little comments sometimes, of the sort me and my humanities major friends tend to make/find funny. Like Some Like It Red's "I ain't no English major, but that prose is so purple I'm getting diabetes." "Ray, I think you just mixed a metaphor." "Hey, like I said, I'm no English major." Here it was Willie saying "End of story," and Ray immediately saying back, "Afraid not, Tolstoy." I don't know, I may just be easily charmed.
TINY WELSH OMG. <3 I love how he's kind of bewildered by Fraser but willing to go with it because Fraser's respectful. (I also love how Ray seems to have this persistent notion that Fraser is trying to get Mountie Points. Wtf, Ray.) And although unlike Captain Walsh, actual Welsh does not have a lava lamp nor a wave machine, he does have a model ship, which is win consistency considering that MotB is not for two seasons and they couldn't possibly have been planning it.
Elaine delights me. Possibly Elaine delights me because after watching the seasons with lots of Francesca, I am just desperately relieved for Fraser's sake when the most Elaine does is ask if she can call Fraser at home and obviously appreciate it when he talks to her. And it's not like we the audience wouldn't be doing the same -- I'm sure the majority of dS fans develop massive crushes on Fraser, although possibly not this early in the show (I don't think my own Frasercrush was particularly epic when I first started, but it still didn't strike me as odd that lots of people found him attractive). Anyway, yay for Elaine and my audience-identification with her without any accompanying embarrassment.
"Why does this have to be my life? Mounties, dogs ...!" Man, poor Vecchio would not have lasted a day if the first thing that happened was Fraser crawling around the top of his Riv looking for an igniter while a wolf licked him like a prelude to lunch followed by his beloved Riv drowning in the lake they call Michigan. And I observe this with the greatest possible fondness. Ray Vecchio's default state: incredulous whining. Somehow it manages to be unobnoxious, too.
I am fond of how Fraser takes all Ray's money, too. He tells Ray Kowalski that money and friendship don't mix, which is pretty funny considering that he is taking Ray Vecchio's money all the time. Although -- possibly that is an s1 thing that stops after the Victoria debacle? I hope so, because that would be consistent and kind of awesome.
Other things I love about Ray Vecchio: despite the fact that he is seriously angry at Fraser because he was just almost shot and didn't think Fraser had a plan when he was walking away with the bonds, even before he sorts this out he has the teasing "She shot you in the hat?" exchange with Fraser. I just. THEY GET EACH OTHER. <3
And Ray's exasperated cry at the end of "You can't just go around rescuing everyone you meet!" is -- argh, I love when Fraser does. And it's little things, like rescuing ladies' purses and paying a kid to take care of his wolf and giving someone a pair of shoes, but it's ... really wonderful. I think the real reason I love this show, any shipping and any pretty aside, is that it's just so damn nice to watch a show about good people doing good things in a messed-up world and having just that be genuinely interesting.
1x02 Diefenbaker's Day Off
Oh, this is the first Mackenzie King episode! This probably means it is a good time to examine Fraser vs the Women, if I can get any thoughts in order on the subject.
Let's see. Fraser is more or less okay around Mackenzie when he is specifically just trying to return one of her x-rays; then he sees her half-undressed and is so incredibly flustered that he fumblingly agrees to a dinner date, which he must then attend and feels duty-bound to look his best for. There is something like actual panic in the whole ritual of his reaction, and compounded with his obvious discomfort with Elaine's completely normal and unscary overtures, and later comments to the tune of "All women are our sisters" and ridiculous things like that, I want to implicate Grandma Fraser. I doubt his grandparents went so far as to actually teach him that Sexuality Is Bad -- and I doubt he's under that impression, because a man as thoroughly well-read as Fraser is hopefully going to be fairly liberal in his thinking -- but if we assume Bob was born in the 30s or 40s, we can also assume that Fraser's grandparents were teaching him at least the remnants of attitudes from the turn of the last century. Hence Fraser's almost painful awkwardness around almost any woman attracted to him: he knows he has to be unfailingly polite, but he also knows that they were all raised across a complete culture gap, so he never has any idea what their response is going to be or how to properly defend himself against advances.
Victoria is obviously the exception to the rule; I just bet everything Grandma Fraser ever taught little Benton goes right out of his head the moment any real passion kicks in. Of course Fraser is also on a learning curve -- and the more I try to reason this out the more I suspect that maybe sleeping with Victoria was honestly his first time with a woman (in the "did he sleep with her the night before he turned her in" debate, my answer would be a resounding no, because even if he was working with impaired Victoria-proximity judgment he'd still be extremely aware of the really sticky ethical implications); to the best of my recollection it's after Victoria that he eases up around women a little. I'm basing this on his interaction with his awesome physical therapist, and the fact that he's less uncomfortable around Elaine in s2, and the fact that his epic awkward with Thatcher seems to be more bound up in the fact that she's his superior officer and also a kind of desperately awkward person than that she's a woman, necessarily, and the fact that he's actually able to deal with Frannie in s3/4 without combusting, and the fact that he's pretty damn smooth with Lady Shoes, actually. I have to see if all this holds up, but it just came into my head in a very neat and orderly fashion, so apparently I've been secretly thinking a lot about it. Actually here we also get a pretty awesome argument in favor of Fraser being bi, because I think the best defense against "Victoria was his first" is "Seriously, that cannot have been the first time he ever made out with someone," but I'm trying to wrap my head around him being with another woman and still being so damn awkward around all of them. So: maybe a man/men it is! (My money would be on Mark Smithbauer, which is where a lot of fandom's money also seems to be. But maybe I will change my mind when I see the Mark episode again. Also, more on Fraser being probably bi later; it doesn't need exploring at this juncture.) Of course alternately it could've been his real actual first time and since he's Fraser he's just instantly good at it, but I kind of doubt that.
Anyway, I think that is my Bewilderingly Comprehensive, Actually, Theory Of Benton Fraser's Sexuality; meanwhile he is still terrified of Mackenzie King, because she is basically in charge of the situation and Fraser likes being in control of situations but he doesn't know how to politely take this one back! which I imagine is also one of his perennial problems with women who are persistently attracted to him.
Speaking of Grandma Fraser, by the way, apparently she's the one who taught him how to box. From a book. Oh my god. <3 Honestly what I really want to see now is the Rays having a boxing match. I am pretty sure Kowalski would win, but at least neither of them would be put completely to shame by Fraser.
Aw, Fraser only asked Ray for a wolf license once but Ray remembered and got it for him, and Fraser's so happy about it, and Ray sort of handwaves it, like, of course I would get you a license, you're my friend! I want to draw little stars and hearts around them and write BBFs at the top. I have no shame about this.
And we end with Fraser's little lopsided smile.