Castle, "Watershed": Sharks in dem waters

And so I finally summon the will to discuss "Watershed." It's difficult to find a place to start, so I guess I'll just start with a quibble before getting to anything meaningful.

This chick.

I know that terrible actors are a hazard of the business. Hell, for Once Upon a Time, it's pretty much par for the course (though I digress), and while I recognize that Castle has, in the past, employed bad actors, something about this woman rubs me the wrong way. She's been in other episodes this past season, and I'm starting to get concerned that she might, dare I say it, became more of a cast regular. I really, really hope this is not the case, because when she delivers her lines, it's almost always rhythmic, as if she had to memorize them to a melody. Her performance is completely wooden, and it takes all the charm away from Esposito's little crush on her. I don't want to trash her too badly, because I recognize that she's a real human being, but usually we only have to put up with extras for one or two episodes at most before they disappear into the ether, and my patience with her has run thin. Please, Kendra Castleberry, who IMDB tells me is responsible for casting and who, incidentally, has an excellent name, don't bring this chick back. If there has to be a recurring tech chick, hire a better one. That is my plea to you and the writers.

Though in light of the rest of the episode, tech chick is at the bottom of my list of issues, which I will now attempt to tackle.

To be honest, I walked away from this episode mostly happy with it, but within a half an hour of viewing, things that were wrong with it began surfacing rapidly: Why are Beckett and Castle so concerned about the stability of a relationship that's been going pretty strong for five years, and why is that that they consistently seek counsel with everyone but themselves? How has Castle not grown beyond his inner petulant child in all this time? Why is it that Beckett's only concern about the DC job seems to be Castle rather than everything else in her life? And then...the proposal, the cliffhanger, and the unanswered questions.

I guess I'll start with the Caskett.

I know that Beckett's had concerns over the direction of her relationship with Castle for a good while now. As far as I can remember, this has been clear since "Squab," and the fact that she's not simply taken the time to sit down and talk to Castle about these concerns has been a source of irritation for me since they've come up. I recognize that she's a commitophobe -- hell, she's recognized it, and her father has recognized it -- but that doesn't excuse her behavior. And while I can't remember Castle expressing similar concerns in other episodes (this season), he voices them in "Watershed," and the fact that he doesn't bother to have a frank conversation with Beckett either made it all the worse. This an outgrowth of one of my largest gripes with Caskett and, indeed, the whole of the series: that the Caskett is written like a teenage angst fest, despite it being written by adults, acted by adults, and more than likely aimed at the 18-45 demographic. It was one thing when it was just Castle acting like a lovesick teenager, but when Beckett started doing it (thinking of "The Limey" opening as the most glaring example) it started to get a bit ridiculous.

At first, I was overjoyed to learn Beckett was hiding her trip to DC and the job offer from Castle, but this is because, as stated previously and often, more than anything I just want Beckett to be Jordan, and flying in and out of the city to do something while telling no one is something Jordan would definitely do. The similarity to Jordan temporarily blinded me from the reality of how immature this behavior is, which isn't a quality I generally associate with Beckett (or Jordan). It's not to say that this is anything new -- as brave as Beckett is in her professional life, she seems to be fairly cowardly personally, sabotaging relationships and leading (it would seem) a fairly solitary life outside the precinct. I feel there's an argument to be made that after her mother died, she devoted most of her energy to cultivating her work life over her personal one, which more or less stagnated personal growth. Moreover, I can understand that she was scared, that she was half-hoping to be turned down so that she wouldn't have to deal with upending her life, and she was hoping to keep the offer buried in case things didn't pan out, but once the jig was up and the cat had left the bag, her inability to have a real conversation with Castle about it was stunning in its patheticness. This is real stuff that she really has to deal with, and her response is to see her father (and I'll address my problems with that scene further down). Really, Beckett?

Beckett is not, however, the largest source of the gripe. Castle owns most of the territory in that department, as he has since the late-s4 arc.

Note the height difference.

We'll start with the most obvious: the initial fight scene. I just...this scene. First off, right off the bat, I absolutely hate how it was filmed. Beckett is made to look the subordinate in this relationship through both her body language and her positioning, and this really bothers me, because Beckett and Castle's relationship has always been characterized as one between equals, and this scene clearly does not reflect this.

Pay attention to their heights and the amount of space each is taking up in both these POV shots. On the left, Beckett has negative space all around her, and Castle looms above her (his head is cut off at the top of the frame). On the right, Castle's head hits the top of the frame, while Beckett's is well clear, and he has no negative space. This gives the impression that Castle is in control (given he is not lost in space, and given how much height he has over her), and that Beckett is subordinate to him.
Compare with:

There are literally hundreds of examples I could pull in which the height difference between SK and NF is not accentuated, and this is just three from this episode (if you want a fourth, scroll up). One could argue that part of the reason Beckett is so short in that fight is because she's not wearing heels because she's in her apartment, but that's ridiculous on two fronts: one) we've seen her in heels in her apartment before, so one can't make a character argument, and two) her feet are not in frame in this scene, so what's on them is largely irrelevant to the viewer (e.g. she could be on a Scully box and we'd never know)
This tells us that the height difference is a completely conscious choice

I've never felt that Beckett has been disempowered (as a woman, or otherwise). Despite the name of the series, she's arguably the lead character (with Castle her foil), and I can't think of a single scene in which she was shown to be subordinate or weak. One of my highest praises of the show has been the equality between Beckett and Castle, which is something I can't say of other shows that come from a vaguely Sherlockian place. I generally compare Castle to The Mentalist in this regard (possibly because I started watching both shows around the same time): Lisbon has never been on equal footing with Jane, and she always "solves" cases by essentially clinging to his coattails. In their team, she contributes almost nothing except exposition and firearm skills, acting more or less as Jane's bodyguard as he Sherlocks his way through crime scenes. This is not at all the dynamic of Beckett/Castle. Their shtick is figuring things out together (often, blurting things out together, concurrently), of contributing equally to the process. Their sexual/personal relationship is also played this way, as the coming together of two equals. Yet, this scene utterly violates that by casting Beckett as a woman scared to tell her boyfriend about her job offer because she knows he'll get "upset," by shooting her as clearly subordinate to and smaller than (and thus dominated by) Castle. It's so different from the tone of the rest of the show, from Beckett's characterization (since when is she scared and weak?), from Castle's (since when is he domineering, especially over Beckett?), it's honestly almost shocking.

Further, Castle does nothing to re-empower or reassure her. He instead acts as a self-righteous ass ("You're damn right I'm upset"), storming from her apartment and leaving her alone with half-finished dinner prep and the continued, roiling fear that she's going to lose both the job she's put a decade of her life into and him on top of it. He seems surprised when she points out that this isn't about him, then proceeds to make it about him -- "I'm sorry, tell me how this isn't about us?" It's not to say I couldn't be sympathetic, given he's just found out Beckett's been lying blatantly to his face (ergo, is there anything else she's hiding?) and given this job offer does spell the end of their relationship in its current state (and in order to maintain it, will more than likely require a major change in his lifestyle as well as her own), but it's clear from Beckett's body language that she's terrified of how this job will impact her life, and within a few hours of the blow-out, he should have called her to apologize, recognizing that the world does not, in fact, revolve around him and that they are both wronged parties and that they need to talk. But because he does not, I can't not be angry with him for the childishness with which he takes her news, and his inability to recognize how much this job offer must mean to her.

His behavior reminds me a lot of his actions in late-s4, where his response to learning that Beckett remembers every moment of her shooting isn't horror at the fact that she has to live with those images but indignant, self-righteous anger because she hasn't mentioned the "I love you." It doesn't even seem to occur to him that maybe remembering the fall from the podium and the bullet burning through her chest is a traumatic memory for her, that in light of it his "I love you" wouldn't be something she would want to spend much time considering, especially given it was prompted by his fear he would never have another chance to tell her that while she was alive to hear it (this idea is handled infinitely better by Crossing Jordan, which I will probably one day devote a post to). I mean, seriously, Castle, you told her that because you thought she was dying. For the love of god, why would she want to bring that up?

He has this tendency to make everything about him, and it's infinitely infuriating to me. The fact that his solution to the problem of their relationship is to propose to her is even more infuriating.

Really, Castle? She's in the middle of a life crisis, and you spring this on her?

Again, I think I know where he's coming from. He doesn't know what direction they're going and, by extension, she must not know the direction they're going, so he decides that the best way to give them both a firm direction is by giving her a ring. In doing so, he's stating "I'm committed to you and this relationship, regardless of what you do with your life or where you decide to go." I get the impression that he made this decision impulsively, probably on his way to meet her. And this is all well and good, but let's back up a moment.

First of all, Castle's been married like a million times, so I think it's safe to say that he doesn't imbue the institution itself with much sacredness. This gesture would be a lot more romantic if it didn't come from someone with his backstory/baggage. I don't know the circumstances of the other marriages, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were born out of exactly this sort of impulsiveness. And think about it for a moment: they're concerned about them now, after they've been through so much together already, and his proposed solution is not to hash out their concerns, but to stick on a ring on her finger and tell her he's committed? This solves precisely nothing. More to the point, he puts her in an extremely awkward (if downright appalling) position through this sudden proposal. If she were to say no, what would that say about them in his eyes and her own? He would inevitably read it as her rejecting him, and she would know that and be afraid of that, given we know she's afraid of losing him (she's afraid to even tell him about the job because she's afraid he'll "hate her"), so she pretty much has to say yes in order for them to continue to work. In this sense, his proposal is more a form of emotional blackmail than anything, forcing her to commit to him presumably for the rest of her life right while she's attempting to figure out how she's going to deal with the rest of her life as a (wo)man in black.

And I'm going to be honest here, her fears aren't completely unfounded either. What amazes me in this episode is that Esposito noticed something is wrong with Beckett without her having to say a word to him about it, while Castle only figures it out when he finds the plane stub (and it wasn't that hard to read; she was very subdued in a lot of the precinct scenes, and I can't imagine she was much cheerier at home). I feel like Castle is so wrapped up in himself he's incapable of even noticing the subtleties of Beckett, which isn't really acceptable given how much he claims to love her. And now he wants to marry her, when he clearly doesn't entirely trust her (see: "Squab"), when he feels he has to "scratch and claw for every inch," on top of his inability to read her body language?

I'm sorry, but that is just ridiculous.

And while I'm on the subject of Esposito and the precinct, I don't understand why Beckett's only expressed concern about her taking this DC job will be Castle, arguably the easiest of her problems to deal with (I mean, come on, he's a writer; he's mobile; on top of that, he's rich as sin, so even if he didn't move, flying up to and staying in DC for extended periods of time wouldn't be hard for him to do). Why doesn't she seem to care about the fact that she's going to lose her found family, that she's going to lose her relationship with Esposito and Ryan as it is in its current state? The closeness between Beckett and Esposito has been a minor theme since the beginning, with him acting as big brother to her and Ryan as little brother. Hell, Esposito helps her deal with her PTSD, not Castle. And in "Watershed," again, it's Esposito, not Castle, who notices immediately when something is up with her, which speaks to their closeness, or, at least, his perception of their closeness. Yet we don't see Beckett angsting about losing him, or Ryan, or Lanie, or the precinct, just Castle. This is another one of those bizarre fish eyes, where the sum of her life seems only to be Castle, rather than the greater weight of the friendships and achievements she's forged through her career, not to mention her relationship with the city she's spent most of her life within (because there's a certain New York pride that its denizens are imbued with, which is not something I can say for DC). This is the kind of two-dimensionality that drives me up a wall.

Along those lines, we have the treatment of Martha Rodgers and Jim Beckett, which was as flat as if they'd been steam-rolled.

The reason I say this is clear to anyone who watched it, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time here, but suffice to say that both of them acted in these scenes as nothing more significant than one of those shoulder consciences in a Looney Toons cartoon. Jim's was especially annoying, given it wasn't entirely dissimilar to Royce's voice from beyond in regards to Castle ("To Live and Die in L.A."). I could go on, but there's honestly not even a need; it's painfully obvious just on casual observation how flat their roles were.

And that brings me to my final point: the flatness of the episode as a whole. Beckett and Castle's concerns are completely one-sided, hers especially, given they're fish-eyed to involve Castle and Castle only. Both of them act childishly toward each other, making it difficult to take them seriously as adults, let alone as the serious characters they've proven to be in other episodes (Beckett especially is almost always written as a serious character, and Castle many times dropped the sillyness to act the grown-up). Their parents, brought in in cliched "consult the older and wiser" scenes, were flat and devoid of any charm that could distinguish them from the obvious plot devices they were. Beckett's final interrogation, for her "final case," is written in a completely cheesy way, to the point where it's almost hard to watch.

Another factor contributing to this flatness that I haven't mentioned is the transparency in how its written. There are two questions driving the plot of this episode: will Beckett take the job, and what direction is the Caskett going? By the conclusion, neither of these questions is answered, and only one of them is addressed with any certainty (the proposal). I would hazard to guess that the reason this episode is written the way it is is because the writers are themselves uncertain of the direction they're taking Beckett with this DC thing, and by ending the way they did, they bought themselves the summer to figure it out (because although it's implied she's taking the job through the whole "last case" thing, it's never truly confirmed). The cliffhanger felt easy and obvious, and thus was completely uninteresting.

It's not to say the episode is terrible (that designation is still pretty much reserved for "The Limey" and "Headhunters"; sorry, Adam Baldwin, I love you, but you couldn't save that trainwreck), but for a finale that is going to greatly impact the greater arc of the show, it certainly suffered from heavy underperformance, and I was extremely disappointed with it. Further, it's starting to make me question my investment to characters who are written with such flatness with such consistency.

At this point, I can only hope that s6 opens much more strongly than s5 ended, and that they go a more interesting route than simply having Beckett say yes.

Alternatively, Beckett, you could choose, as your parting gift for Manhattan, to shoot Bracken in the face.
Then I would literally forgive everything.

Castle, "The Human Factor": Guns, Badges, and Zinfandel

"The Human Factor."

Yes. Just...yes. After a brief departure down mediocrity lane, Castle comes back with this little nugget of joy. I mean, was it a flawless diamond? No. But that's okay, because that's not what I expect from Castle anyway, and I enjoyed the figs out of it.

So, because I have to talk about it, I'll start with what I loved and then move into the fascinating little dilemma Beckett has been dropped into. Because that's what I do here apparently: talk endlessly about Beckett while not getting back to Sherlock despite best intentions.

But before I get to a drawn out, angst-filled analysis of Beckett, all I want to do is just mention some of the stuff that made me happy. Starting with this:

god, I love how they light Castle's apartment
I know no one's apartment is actually lit like this (except possibly my bedroom thanks to the gold floodlight located two inches from the window), but it doesn't even matter, because everything about it looks so warm and calm and lovely

And this:

endless replay value, right here

I'll be the first to admit, I approach Castle with a consistent, burning desire to see Buffy s6 v2: On the General Misery and Extended Free-Fall of Kate Beckett, NYPD, but a) I know that is never going to happen, for reasons I've largely already discussed, and b) that doesn't mean I don't love scenes like the ones represented above.

There's something great about the idea of this fully grown man-child in sweats and a hoodie huddled on his floor at six or seven in the morning playing the equivalent of tanks, battleships, and duckies in the tub within (intentional) earshot of the woman he plans to continue sleeping with. While Castle's more childlike tendencies have been a source of irritation for me in the past (see: late s4, which I will probably one day devote a post to), scenes like this remind me of the great joviality with which he approaches life, which is part of what attracted me to him to begin with. Further, they help to reinforce the notion put forth by Montgomery forever ago, that Castle really does bring out the best in Beckett, that he allows her to experience the careless, uncomplicated joy which she deserves but I'm not entirely sure she bothered to engage in often after her mother's death, before she met Castle. The "Rise of the Machines" moment was hilarious just on its basis, but part of what makes it so fun for me is the fact that Beckett is able to let go of that intensely serious and devoted cop mentality -- which so often underscores her characterization, and which was, to some degree, exaggerated this episode for the purpose of building its climax -- to think up and execute something as ridiculous as a midnight Terminator attack.

I could read into this scene further, ramble for another six hundred words about what I think this says about Beckett, but I'm not going to do that (at least, not here, right now), because ultimately the only thing I want to say about this scene is that I loved it because I loved to see Beckett so happy, and Castle so charmingly gullible. The thought of Beckett strategically placing Castle's toys in the bedroom and smuggling the controller in with her to bed is also just an extremely amusing one, and I wanted to mention it.

What's funny is that the other portion of the episode that I loved does have to do with Beckett's intensely serious and devoted cop mentality. Or, to be more general, just her intensity in the episode as a whole.

This takedown. Ugh, just perfection.

I think the reason behind Beckett's badassery this episode was just as transparent as the reason behind the idyllic opening in "Still" -- it was done to showcase Beckett's skill as a detective, her physical competence, her extreme sharpness, and the strength of her control, confidence, and collectedness, regardless of her situation (whether it be facing off with the friggin' Attorney General, taking on a suspect in the box, or shooting down a drone). This was done in order to expose how far below her abilities she's working as an NYPD detective, to allow us to see immediately the potential that Stack reads in her.

But I enjoyed these plot elements immensely, regardless of the obvious intention behind them, because those intense qualities which Beckett exemplifies and Stana Katic plays up so well are the things which initially got me so interested and invested with her. Because Beckett is nothing if not intense, powerful, and in command. She's a badass, straight up, and this episode catered to how much I enjoy seeing that quality in her, and so strongly at that.

there's no question she owns this crime scene the second she shows up; those suits leave practically the instant she arrives because she wields her authority with such ease and confidence that all they can do is slink away in the face of her; there's a reason Stack notices her so immediately

look at her facing off with the AG without any real hesitation or care shown toward who she's talking to; her brusque "Fine" isn't even slightly respectful, and she treats him much as the same as any other mook getting in the way of her investigation; badass
I'd venture to speculate that the job opportunity with the AG was offered at least in part because the AG probably hasn't talked to too many people who are so willing to be this on-the-level with him, and he probably hung up his phone miffed but impressed with this cop he'd called to cow but who'd promptly cowed him instead

Beckett, cool as a friggin' cucumber thrown out in an Arctic winter
Castle only serves to underline how cool she is in the scene, in everything from his retrieval of her second piece (which she has no reaction to), to his extremely uncool way of firing (please, like you shot that dummy drone down, Castle), to his "That was so awesome!" reaction
(sidenote: Beckett, what's up with the trench? it looks like it's 83 degrees outside and you're dressed for a rainstorm; that plus the wild hair does make you look cool, but if I didn't know better I'd accuse you of pulling a Sherlock)

Beckett is just cool in this episode. Period. There were so many moments in this episode I had to rewind and watch again, just to appreciate Beckett being Beckett. This is the reason (or, a large reason) I love Castle, for the types of scenes "Human Factor" has me practically tripping over. In short, while I could poke a hundred holes in this episode, I have absolutely no desire to do so, because between all of the things already mentioned, all I really took from it was no small amount of joy. And that's not even mentioning the ending (oh, the ending), the life dilemma Beckett is left considering when the curtains fall for the week -- which is exactly what I'm going to talk about now: Stack and his offer.

"Where do you see yourself five years from now?"

I'll admit, another of my weaknesses when it comes to my perception of characters is that I always tend to view them by their past, and, consequently, I think of them as only viewing themselves through their past. I think it's possible that Beckett was doing just this, and so the act of Stack asking such a simple question as "Where do you see yourself five years from now?" immediately threw both of us spinning, probably down similar thought paths: Where does Beckett see herself in the near and distant future? If she's not interested in climbing the ladder (as Castle seems to think, given his plotline in Heat Rises, which I loosely consider canonical), then will she still be a detective five years from now? Ten? Twenty? Will the little team she's built for herself stay together, or will Esposito eventually move on to bigger and better things, and will Ryan eventually move to a safer position on the force, given his family? If Gates moves up and out, will she still remain the 12ths resident bulldog under a new captain (or captains), catching evil-doers until one of them eventually succeeds in doing her in?

Beckett went into the NYPD because of her mother, because she felt a deep-seated need to gain closure for herself and for everyone like her, to make sure no one has to suffer with unanswered questions as she did. It's been well over a decade since Beckett committed her life to this path, and in that time she's finally been able to gain the answers she sought for all those years, yet she's found herself utterly unable to enact any justice on the man she knows is responsible. Beckett expressed a lot of rage early on in the show over the idea that she would find the man responsible for her mother's murder, and she would have to "watch him cut a deal," but she's not even been able to get that. Bracken is above accusation or prosecution. Further, for the most part, the only results of her crusade have been a lot of deaths and near deaths (from her having to kill Dick Coonan (after his threat to kill Castle) to Hal Lockwood nearly killing both the detectives she's responsible for (Esposito and Ryan) to Montgomery's death to Beckett herself getting gunned down at his funeral). This must at least to some degree cast her career as a detective under black light, given how steep the toll has been for so little a result. I'll make a point of saying that I doubt she views the whole of her career this way, given how much she believes in the work she does and how strongly she adheres to the identity it imparts, but the thing about Stack's offer is that it allows her to do much the same thing she's doing now, just away from an environment filled with so many ghosts and bad memories, and with decidedly higher stakes.

Castle, in the typical fashion of TV shows, unwittingly encapsulates Beckett's frame of mind through his little comment, "Where one person might see roses another may see a chance to move on from an old life and onto a new one." Stack's offer is an opportunity for her to move on, to officially close the chapter on this extremely violent and volatile part of her life, which is something she's expressed a desire to do several times throughout the show. And here, at least, her out has arrived, and she's now standing at a crossroads.

I'd venture to guess that part of the reason Beckett is shown to be so happy with Castle in this episode is to impress upon us the joy that she has managed to find in her life, and at that, a simple, uncomplicated joy, with all the comfort and warmth that comes with being in an apartment so bathed in soft, golden light. Because while her quest has led to a lot of pain, it's also led to the development of a found family in the form of the precinct and her relationship with Castle. Stack's life is one of "total autonomy," that of the lone wolf. I think if Beckett didn't feel any attachment to the precinct, her team, or to Castle, she would've taken that job right there in that room, without need for a second conversation, but since she does she now she has to make a choice: give up the team and the reputation she's built within the NYPD, move away from the city she's lived the vast majority of her life within, and make the decision to once and for all let her mother's case (and Bracken) go in the pursuit of something new.

It's an extremely interesting dilemma for me to consider an answer to. By moving away, Beckett will have a chance to fully realize that part of her that is an intensely devoted cop, but in doing so she will become a lone wolf, traveling around the country (and, possibly, elsewhere) for her cases. She will lose her found family, and she will more than likely end up losing her ability to have these quiet nights on Castle's couch with a glass of Zinfandel and a fire warming her back. She will, to some degree, become someone like Jordan Shaw ("Tick, Tick, Tick..."/"Boom"), sacrificing depth, stasis, and stability in her relationship with Castle for meaning in her work. Gone will be the days of their shared, uncomplicated joy.

On the other hand, by remaining a detective, she potentially dooms herself to living the same life she's been living all these years for many, many more, to stagnating in the position she achieved so early in her career (as we know she's the youngest women in the NYPD to make detective), since she has no desire to become the paper pusher that a higher position in the force would demand. She loves her life as a cop, and she believes in it, but after twenty years of doing the same thing, when she, as Stack points out, is capable of achieving so much more? More to the point, by remaining in New York, by remaining in such close proximity to Bracken and to so many private hells, does she risk once again being brought to the precipice, and will she this time find herself swallowed by it -- or worse, will she lose anyone else inside it, or die herself? After all, her leverage over Bracken is only precarious at best, and if something new was to surface in the case, it's possible that her safety may once again be called into question, and she may not be so lucky as to survive a second time.

Neither are the best of paths, though because of the nature of the show, I already know she will opt to remain a detective. Frankly, I hope this is the case, because if she were to leave, getting her position back wouldn't be nearly so easy as it was for someone like Elliot Reid in Scrubs, if possible at all, and I would be annoyed by the fakeness of it if she were to quit, move out, and move up, then return after a period and reintegrate without much difficulty. I would be surprised if her leaving didn't trigger movement from Ryan at least (who, if I remember, has recently aired concerns given his wife and expected child), and that would more than likely domino Esposito into moving on as well. If Beckett were to accept Stack's offer, it would utterly shatter the format the show has been built on, and while I can see them going that route (e.g., at the end of this season's finale, she says she is taking the job and moving, and over the summer between seasons she builds her new life in DC; in the s6 premiere we open with her alone in some starkly decorated apartment, staring at her silent phone, waiting maybe for some word from Castle, with whom her relationship has become extremely strained, and when it rings she gets excited but quickly deflates upon realizing that it's the AG...and so on), I can't for a moment see them keeping such a drastic change in how the show is written. I can't think of any show that could truly pull that off (*maybe* Buffy, post s7), and I can't imagine that Castle would attempt to.

But despite the logic with which I of course must approach plotlines like this, I'm enjoying turning over Stack's offer, because I think, as with her mother's death and a bullet to the heart, it represents for Beckett at least the potential for a massive change in her life and how she chooses to define herself. It may not be the change I necessarily want to see, but that doesn't make it any less significant for either of us to consider.

Seriously, though, Beckett, just stay in New York.
Just shoot Bracken in the face.
Fall down the precipice.
Shatter the mirror.
You know you want to.

"Recoil": Of Monsters and Mirrors

I feel somewhat bad about continuing to put off part three of my Sherlock cameras/characters case study, but I can justify this because a) I still really want to talk about Beckett, b) those Sherlock posts take an exorbitant amount of time to put together and c) this is my blog, and I can do whatever I want because no one is reading this anyway.

So "Recoil" then, finally. I keep talking about this episode without actually talking about it, and the truth is, I hadn't actually seen it since initial viewing. I know I'm going to continue mentioning it, so it was time I give it a second look, try to reevaluate my opinions and see if they've changed. And the truth is, they have, but they haven't.

"Recoil" really does present an extremely interesting scenario. I'll be straight here: on realizing the premise, I was ecstatic. I thought that this would be the episode in which Beckett, finally, begins backsliding, starts to go dark and becomes, in essence, well, s1 Jordan. I paused several times to imagine possible paths Beckett could take, the consequences that would befall her once she began following one. It occurred to me that she might choose the path of the righteous and the just, but I just didn't want to believe she would, so when she did I was crushingly disappointed. Honestly, I was devastated. I was so disappointed in her, I couldn't move from my couch for a full twenty minutes after it ended, staring in disbelief at my frozen screen. I couldn't stop asking her why, couldn't figure out what could possibly motivate her to be so...morally spotless and annoyingly incorruptible. I quickly started to blame the writers for not being brave, for choosing once again to not allow Beckett to follow a darker, more interesting arc, and while part of me still believes that, the rest of me has come to realize something very important about Beckett that I had managed, up until very recently really, to blind myself to.

“Now I'm protecting the man who murdered my mother.” - Kate Beckett

And that is, Kate Beckett is not Jordan Cavanaugh.

"No witnesses. I pull this trigger, I get off in self-defense." - Jordan Cavanaugh
not pictured: Kate Beckett

This is a hard pill for me to swallow. It always has been. I desperately, more than anything, want Beckett to be Jordan, only worse. I want her to do the things Jordan did and almost did, I want her to be the loosest of loose cannons, free-falling from a place of moral superiority and do-goodery to the bottom of the pit, covered in somebody else's blood and liking it. "Recoil" was impossible for me to choke down up until an hour ago, because in that episode's premise I could see my dreams coming true, and yet they didn't. I think it's very, very possible that the reason Beckett is not Jordan is because of how popular Castle is, that it's advertised as more a comedy than a drama, that character progression as black as an unlit basement for the lead character would probably drastically impact the show's demographic, and I'm not, for two seconds, going to live under the delusion that this isn't something which impacts how the show is written. And while I hate this, I need to accept it, and, having more or less accepted it, I need to look at Beckett on her level -- without Jordan's shadow passing over her -- because doing so reveals some things which do make her more interesting to me, and can make her not-being-Jordan-ness matter less.

"Recoil" throws Beckett into an extremely delicate moral position, one in which any decision she makes is going to result in heavy consequences, and while everyone has on opinion on what course she should take (including me), no one can make the choice for her. Beckett connects very, very deeply with her identity as a cop -- we know this because in many episodes, not just "Recoil," she can be found making statements like "I'm a cop. This is my responsibility." and believing it as she says it -- yet her life since 1999 has been utterly driven and directed by a deep-seated need for revenge, justice, and closure over her mother's murder. By s5, Beckett more or less has found the answers she's sought for well over a decade, but has found no relief in them, and she has to live every day not only with the emotional and physical bullet wounds resulting from her pursuit, but with the knowledge that the man responsible for them is safe, sound, and viewed more or less favorably by the general population (including her boss) instead of as the monster she knows him to be. We know she wants Bracken dead, and Bracken knows it too, because she's told him so point blank, multiple times. And not only do they know it, but everyone else within Beckett's circle knows or at least suspects it too -- Castle has even seen her letter to Bracken, in which she "dotted the 'i' on 'kill' with a little heart." Yet, when Beckett is placed in a situation in which she can finally act as executioner, not only doesn't she choose to do so, but Bracken chooses to remain under her dubious protection (because, let's be real, if Bracken had wanted to, he very easily could have found a hundred justifiable reasons to get his case reassigned to a different detective; in fact, he's a senator; he wouldn't even have needed to explain himself).

How does Gates and the aid not feel that tension?

Bracken's not an idiot -- he's completely aware of Beckett's position; that by becoming his bodyguard, she in affect holds his life in her hands. But he chooses to let her keep that power, and he chooses to take every opportunity to remind her that she has it, pointing out from the get-go that him being in the crosshairs "must be a dream come true" for her. And I think he does this precisely because he's not an idiot. I think he drew the same conclusion about Beckett that I've been forced to accept, that she's too moral of a being to allow herself to be ruled by the flash heat desire for revenge, and that this driving need of hers for revenge would in fact, paradoxically, serve as his ultimate protection (at least, in this instance).

I came to this conclusion because his decision reminds me a lot of two characters who made a similar, strategic choice in the Crossing Jordan episodes "Ockham's Razor" (2.10) and "Jump, Push, Fall" (4.21) --which I am now going to spoil in minor ways, so be warned. In "Ockham's" we see Dr. Ben Hothorne, Garret's bitter rival, decide to murder his wife within Garret's jurisdiction. Garret eventually comes to realize that Hothorne did this "because he knew I hated him, that I would go out of my way to believe [in his innocence] because I hated him." And this is exactly what Garret does (at least until he figures this logic out). He refuses to accept that Hothorne is guilty because he can't help but suspect his reasons for coming to this conclusion -- if he truly believes him guilty, or if he just wants it to be so. In "Jump," Jack Slokum (Ph.D., M.D., J.D.) makes a similar gamble: in his witch hunt to bring down Garret, he employs Jordan as his partner, Jordan who considers Garret her closest, most trustworthy friend. Garret, on learning this, points out that it's "smart" because "that way, he can't be accused of railroading me." Slokum enlists Jordan because he knows she will choose to pursue the truth, despite of, and, perhaps, because of, the position she's been placed in -- between loyalty to her friend and loyalty to her moral convictions (because Jordan so outspokenly serves the truth for the victims she speaks for).

Of course, Bracken's decision doesn't completely parallel those of Hothorne or Slokum, but I believe the analogy can still be drawn: Beckett can't let Bracken die on her watch despite her overwhelming wish that he would, because if she gives in, and he does, then that makes her as much a monster as he is. I think Bracken had the arrogance (and the cajones) to bet his life that this is the moral dilemma Beckett would find herself ensnared within -- and she is. Letting him die would betray both the person she's set out to be (a morally righteous officer of the law) and the person(s) for whom she works (the victim, and, by extension, her mother).

I think that this is something which is recognized by everyone on Beckett's team, especially Castle, which is interesting, given his fears in "After the Storm." I'd venture to posit that it's because of her actions in "Storm" that Castle, throughout "Recoil," never shows any true concern that Beckett is going to let Bracken die. We know from previous episodes that Castle has in the past been concerned over her ability to retain her humanity, yet here he makes no attempt to call her off the case, in a situation where Beckett could so easily (and nearly does) bring about an extremely fatal end to her greatest enemy without the threat of detection or legal ramifications. I can't believe that this is because he wants Bracken to die himself, because, again, of his actions in "Storm." More to the point, I can't for a second imagine that he's okay with Beckett living with blood on her hands, that he would be able to stand by and allow her to lose herself in such a dark decision. Castle does nothing to prevent her in her course simply because he believes in her, for the same reason Bracken does, even after he sees her playfully psychotic heart in the 'i' of 'kill,' even after she admits to having almost burned the letter and letting their shooter go.

This quality is at once what makes Beckett so interesting and so frustrating to me. She seems to be caught in a flux, struggling in times of moral conflict to orient herself between what she wants and what she can live with. She's long since decided who she is, long since invested in her identity as a cop, yet when her darker impulses flash to the surface, that faith in herself almost seems to evaporate. This is why she has a history of seeking independent counsel (as her current shrink is at least her second), why she finds herself running to the breakroom, terrified that she's going to lose herself off a precipice, why she tells Castle, "I've gotta make this right. I've gotta save Bracken's life." Throughout the episode, she's presented with opportunities to indirectly kill Bracken, opportunities which increase in their potential effectiveness even while costing progressively less from her to see realized (at first, she must decide to destroy evidence, then to let McManus go; by the end, all she has to do is literally, as Castle points out, stand there and watch). But as the episode progresses, we see her faith in herself steadily increase, until she makes the choice to risk her own life to save Bracken's, by shielding him from the bomb with her body.

It's hard for me to understand the strength of Beckett's moral convictions sometimes, and I think this is a sentiment shared by her team. Esposito wonders at her ability to work the case, remarking to Ryan on several occasions that he would have let Bracken die. Castle tells Bracken he wouldn't have done what Beckett did, that he would have "stood there and watched." And I? I sat on my couch, knees to my chest, begging her aloud and often to let him die. But I think what this opinion fails to realize is the thing that Ryan quietly reminds Esposito, the thing which Beckett struggles with the most: that she has to live with it once it's done. For someone like Beckett, who's constructed her selfhood on the strength and sincerity with which she believes in truth and justice and rightness, having to live with herself after making such a call would probably trigger an extreme crisis of faith.

Of course, this is precisely why I did (and do) want her to kill him, because seeing Beckett experience such a thing would provide me so much mental fodder that I would probably literally gain several pounds. I want more than anything for her to struggle with her (professed) rage and grief, over the death of her mother and over the near loss of her own life, and lose; for her then to have to look at herself in Jordan's mirror, and, perhaps, want to shatter it too.

I don't know that I'll ever see this wish granted, but I don't think I'll ever stop hoping for it (though, if I'm honest with myself, I know this will likely never come to pass), because the stronger the steel, the more satisfying it is to see it finally crack. "Recoil" does an excellent job of showing us the strength of Beckett's internal, moral steel, which I appreciate now more than I did yesterday, so now I can only hope that's it's merely a set-up for her eventual fall from grace.

You know you want to, Beckett.

Suffering in Narrative, and other thoughts

(this post is mostly spoiler-free; just some vague generalizations of character arcs)

If it wasn't already immediately, startlingly clear, I spend a lot of time thinking about characters and characterization. I do it almost exclusively for television shows, and then only for select characters, and when I look back on the ones I'm both drawn toward and do the most thinking about, it seems that I can draw one common line between all of them: they've suffered a lot, both in their backstory and a decent portion of their screentime.

I used to think this meant I was a horrible person, that I was some sort of closet sociopath using fictional characters as a proxy for squirrels and small animals. It didn't help that on fan communities, I seemed to be in the high minority, obsessed with the dark and the melancholy, continually dragging my most favorite characters through live coals as everyone else discussed UST and their theories for how and where and why the leads would finally get together (and how many times). At first I pretended to live in the shipper camp, but I rapidly ended up dropping all pretense, finding myself annoyed at how flat and domestic and boring my favorite characters were in those contexts. I never could (and still can't) figure out the appeal of turning canonically strong, independent, workaholic women into pregnant mothers who've quit their jobs to move to a suburb and advise their ironically named daughters on teen crushes while still managing to have vast amounts of sex with their OTP partner at every viable opportunity. To this day, I wonder why people like this watch the same shows I watch when, clearly, all they really want to be watching is a mash-up of General Hospital and The Brady Bunch.

I don't necessarily want to make the claim that my perception of characters is the only valid one, that the enjoyment that shippers and fannits take from shows is any less than what I get. I have the same tendency to reduce characters to the roles I find most engaging, and while I may have convinced myself that my interpretations are true to character, I can't deny that I will always decide to have my leads haunted by memories both fresh and long scabbed over, that I will see them in isolation, spiraling down a path of self-destruction and reckless disregard. But I at least have an excuse -- I specifically seek out characters who are prone to this sort of behavior. It's for this reason that it disturbs me all the more when I see them slutshamed, flattened into the role of housewife and mother, and made apathetic toward both their destiny and their past. I've found this activity in every fandom I've ever visited, no matter how brief the duration of my visit, and this is the primary reason I now avoid it to the best of my ability, despite how desperately I wish I could participate. What sucks the most about my self-imposed isolation is that I'm sure there are plenty of fans who are like me, but I'll never find them because they don't coalesce, because they're all avoiding fandom for the same reasons I am.

At any rate, I'll lay my opinions on fandom to rest (for the moment, anyway). I'm more interested in discussing why suffering can be, to me, the purest, bluest meth of narrative devices.

I'll first say that it's not necessarily the suffering itself, that my focus isn't on the event which brought about misery. I still can't watch episodes like "The Body" and "Seeing Red" (Buffy) or "Momento Mori" and "Redux" (X-Files) more than maybe once a year. While the event itself is important, I don't necessarily enjoy revisiting it, because while I enjoy my character writhing in a state of agony and anguish, I don't like seeing them in that much pain, at least not regularly.

Additionally, it's not just suffering for the sake of suffering. This is why I've never invested with characters in post-apocalyptic situations (in movies, books, or television), and this is why while I'll watch Walking Dead, I'll never connect with it. I have the same opinion of Breaking Bad -- I watch and enjoy it, but the suffering in that show doesn't speak to me or cause me to think about it. It's not that I couldn't over-analyze the hell out of it, since the characters are more than fleshed out enough; I just have no desire to do so. I considered the possibility that it's because I don't connect to shows which lack strong female presence, but I find it ridiculously easy to kill several hours turning Sherlock over and over, so that theory is out. It's not the "gritty" nature of the shows either. I always tend to think of characters under bleak lights anyway. It's also not because I refuse to connect with characters who don't have Plot Armor. If that were the case, I wouldn't like Game of Thrones (though, I don't spend any time angsting over that series' characters either, or, at least, I stopped doing so by the end of book 2, because there was zero point), or anything Joss Whedon* does (why, Joss, whyyyyyyy?). So what then?

The answer becomes clearer when I think about my top five list, the criteria for which are fairly simple: spent an uncountable amount of hours sitting around thinking about the minutia of these characters lives, before, between, and after canon; at least attempted exploratory fiction on these characters' backstories; sought fanfiction specifically oriented toward fleshing out these characters (with varying success); bothered to angst over their position on the list; and wondered at their cooperative role in the zombie apocalypse (since, as I stated previously, this list doubles as my Zombie Apocalypse Dream Team). There are other characters I've done this for, but none to the degree of these five, which is what's earned them their (fairly cemented) positions.

1. Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) - I don't even know how to begin to approach my love for Buffy. I don't even think I can. What I can say is she's by far the most complex, interesting character I've ever had the utmost pleasure of considering, both in her own context and her relationship with other characters. I can never spare enough thoughts for her, can never watch an episode without folding it into her greater arc. The depths of her grief and the heights of her triumphs are unparalleled. If Buffy was the only show I could watch for the rest of my life, I'd die satisfied anyway.
BONUS: If you want to read the best post-series fic I've ever seen, with some of the best prose and plot I've come across in fanfiction, then I am happy to share Clocks of the Long Now with you. Read first, thank me later. Lostboy also has excellent Buffy analysis on his journal, so read those too.

2. Jordan Cavanaugh (Crossing Jordan) - Oh, Jordan. Jordan is just an unapologetic, passionate, self-destructive force. It's true that she mellows out after s2, but never entirely. Her occasional bouts of moral ambiguity coupled with her overwhelming instinct to distrust the people who love her most never fails to suck me in just as helplessly as everyone around her. Her relationship with Garret Macy is somewhat analogous to Buffy/Giles, which only helps to draw me back continually for rerun. And while she doesn't live in a state of near constant suffering, as Buffy does, her life is certainly ruled, at times, by great darkness and melancholy, which she faces with almost no grace whatsoever. Half the time, she only smiles when she's sad and would rather no one know it. In considering her over the series, it amazes me how effectively she was able to hide the great majority of her adventures (or, at the least, the extent of them) from her closest friends.
Jordan is an inspiration for self-destructive loners everywhere.

3. Balsa the Spearwielder (Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit) - What? Who the hell is this? An anime character? In front of Beckett? Why? Well, I'll tell you why. Because she's awesome.
I'm not really an anime fan. There were a couple years I delved into a few (mostly Bleach and Cowboy Bebop, the latter of which is legit good programming, no joke), but the look of that style of animation never really appealed to me, and neither did the characters that tended to repeat themselves (not even mentioning the plots, ugh). But Moribito is the true exception. I even bought the discs. Like Cowboy Bebop, the animation style has a lot of flow and movement in it, and the combat is extremely fun and visceral, which helped to sell it initially, but, honestly, even if it was as ugly as Inuyasha, I'd have loved it for Balsa.
Balsa is endlessly interesting to consider, just in terms of the life she's chosen to lead and the sorts of choices she makes on the show. She's a lone warrior type, someone who travels between countries without any real sense of provenience, and while she states explicitly that her life is dictated by her desire to balance a moral scale set askew in her backstory, it becomes clear on even cursory examination that her standards for morality and humanity are not the same which motivate characters like Beckett. Further, her decision to become a bodyguard may have been influenced by her deep feelings of responsibility over the losses in her past, but it's clear that to some degree she just does it because she likes it, and we know this because of the tone of her relationship with Tanda and the conversations they have. I've always been a sucker for lone warrior characters, but what sets her apart for me is that the end of her canonical story is not the end of her wandering, and we're left with the heavy suggestion that she likely will never stop to settle, and will instead die on the road. Her world is lonely, grim, and bloody, but it's a world she chooses to remain in, despite how much other characters express their wish for her to remain with them. The story of the show almost suggests to the viewer, and to her, that she really could settle down, that she really could learn to lose her wanderlust, but then she doesn't, and the fact that she's able to do this makes her so, ridiculously interesting to me.
I just love her. I want Balsa and Geralt of Rivia to have a long, torrid romance, and then I want them to join forces in their mission to protect the world's weary travelers for coin.

4. Kate Beckett (Castle) - I admit, it's weird putting Beckett below Balsa. I'll say that had she acted differently in "Recoil," she would've jumped the list and claimed slot three, no question. I accept the fact that she's someone who places a lot of importance in her morals, who doesn't want to become just as bad as the people who've ruined her life (not becoming a monster in the process of fighting them, as it were), and while that's a mindset that's commendable, I have a lot more fun with characters who are less concerned with retaining their humanity (Jordan, Balsa), or who've long since given up on the possibility of retaining it despite extended internal struggle (Buffy). The few times when she's let the rein slip on her iron, vice-like grip over her impulses are the times I've been so into the show that at that moment, if an armed gang broke into my apartment, I probably would not have noticed.
Beckett appeals to me with her bravery and staunch resoluteness, with the fact that despite heavy pain in her recent and distant past, she still manages to remain mostly unbroken. She easily could be Jordan, who is arguably her (preceding) shadow, but she instead chooses to meet the world with a relatively easy heart. How much of this is because Castle helps to offset her burden, I'm not entirely sure (Montgomery does suggest she was far less happy prior to Castle's...invasion), but the key is that she allows him to offset it at all. Despite the closeness between Jordan and Garret, Jordan rarely confides in him openly, instead choosing to obfuscate, admitting her pain without allowing a window to its source (this is best seen in 4.3, "Intruded;" so beautiful was her obfuscation, I honestly didn't even notice what she was doing until my third or fourth rewatch). Castle accuses Beckett of not wanting to heal, of hiding away in and defining herself by her past, but the reality is that compared to Jordan and Balsa, Beckett does make a real effort to keep herself firmly above water. This is part of what makes Beckett so interesting to me, but also what makes her slightly less fun, because, ultimately, I love a good loose cannon (and, god, as the only representative from an extant show on this list, may she have the opportunity to become one; there's still time).

5. Dana Scully (if you don't know which show, I am ashamed for and of you) - I feel like a terrible person for putting her last on any list, because there are few characters who can fill me with such a sense of warmth and affection, but I guess the reality is that as much as I love her, her pain makes me more sad than it does endlessly intrigued. The thing about Scully is that she's like the rest of the characters on this list, in that she's a victim of external circumstance which forever shattered who she was and who she would have been prior to this event. But I think one of the differences is that the other four chose to become defined by their tragedies. All four of them could have let it go, but they did not. Scully is different in that she accepts her tragedies but does not become driven by them (as Mulder does). Her arc after "Duane Barry" doesn't see her transformed into one haunted by the horrors inflicted on her, even when they manifest in the most nightmarish way imaginable in s4. Her pain is marked by how little she acknowledges it, and how quietly (if angrily) she faces it. The grace with which she copes with her life, with the degradation of the career she worked so hard to build, with the loneliness that quickly came to smother her life after she met Mulder, makes her seem almost saintly. Seeing her finally crack, as in "Never Again," "Redux," "Triangle," and "Orison" (though the cause of the breaks in these episodes are different) hits with the force of a shotgun blast, because it's almost shocking to see the depths of her pain and her passion when, for just a moment, she lets the mask slip.
BONUS: BeshterAngelus on FF.net tackled the most ambitious fanfic project I've ever seen: writing the whole of X-Files through Scully's perspective. To be clear, she's not rewriting episodes; she's writing between-scenes, turning the whole of the series into one extremely long, cohesive story (a feat I wouldn't think possible, given how little the mytharc makes sense, but BeshterAngelus achieves it). All of it is completely in character, and it really helped me to understand Scully outside her shield of professionalism, without being in Mulder's shadow, as well as to understand the evolution of her arc, from the green feebie we meet in s1 to the hardened, world-weary veteran we see by s6. It's long, it's great, and if you like the show, it will probably deepen your understanding of it, as it did mine.
So just read it. Clear your calendar. Start at Season One. But read Clocks first, because Clocks is just amazing.

--

At any rate, I've now given my favorite characters, with at least a partial description as to why they've made the list. I think just from my description, it might already be starting to become clear what it is about suffering that triggers my addiction. But I'll expound anyway, because that's what this blog is for.

Suffering leads to two things (well, more than that, but I'm focusing on two), if written correctly: it can apply an intense amount of depth and complexity to characters, warping their moral fortitude and how they choose to build and interact within relationships. It can lead to unpredictability, to great internal and external violence (toward themselves, toward enemies, and toward allies). But it can also lead to great strength and courage, to a bravery that is not, as Mycroft Holmes so cynically put it, a form of stupidity. Their struggle to retain their humanity and to keep their core selves whole and unsplintered is something I find endlessly fascinating to watch and consider, especially when morals formed in daylight are thrown against the sharpness of personal tragedy and threats of violence against either themselves or their loved ones. Those moments define who these characters are, who they perceive themselves to be, what role they truly occupy in the morality play of their lives. Sherlock tells John that heroes don't exist, and that if they did, he wouldn't be one, yet we see the extent of his sacrifice in "Reichenbach." Buffy in "The Gift" makes her threat to the Scoobies, yet we see what she does for Ben, and what action she takes upon reaching the top of the tower. Beckett seems to be on the edge of finally throwing away her moral convictions, and yet we see what she does in "After the Storm" and "Recoil." I could go on.
The point I'm making is that suffering and struggle as a plot device help to clearly define these characters against a high contrast backdrop as it's painted through desperate circumstance. They become flag bearers for qualities like zeal, courage, grit, fortitude, loyalty, and rightness, things which are so rarely important in middle class, Western life. They become heroes, sometimes role models, occasionally ideals, just as they can serve as a commentary on the consequences of leading too solitary and private a life. In my case, characters like Buffy and Beckett in some way reinstate my faith in humanity, because just for a moment they can make me believe in the strength the human will is capable of achieving.

Great suffering in one character also leads to the evolution of their foil character -- Beckett changes Castle, Jordan changes Garret (and Max), Balsa changes Tanda, Scully and Mulder change each other (though Scully is arguably Mulder's foil for a good portion of the series), Buffy changes everyone. Usually the foil won't have led a life of great suffering; for the most part, they will occupy the role of Normal, Everyday Guy, which makes them (at least to me) decidedly less interesting to think about. I'm fully able to psychoanalyze Castle, to figure out his backstory and how he ended up the man he is, but the story I've seen in him isn't one of great trial. He doesn't become interesting until he steps from the world of normal people with normal lives into Beckett's world, one which is filled with moral ambiguity and ugly people and desperate choices. Scully too is far less interesting before she moves into the basement office and Mulder's life, when suddenly the world and the rules she knew before have mostly lost their relevancy.

And this is why suffering, and at that, neverending, increasingly, pressingly, desperate amounts of it, as a plot device have so enthralled me that at times I've completely lost myself to these characters' stories, forgetting homework and dinner and the need for sleep and the fact that the world is a thing that exists that goes around the sun. Because I want to be Castle, or Scully, or Tanda, or Garret, to step into a more desperate world, where the colors are far brighter and the decisions far less trivial. Because, since I can never become Buffy, I'd like to just get as close to her as physically possible, so I may see the world as she does. So I may see truth and love and passion and loyalty, naked, pure, and uncomplicated, and maybe find its taste myself.


* I mention Joss Whedon a lot as if he's the sole author of his shows; I realize he's not the whole of his work, and I greatly respect and acknowledge the part writers like Marti Noxon, Jane Espenson, Doug Petrie, David Fury, Maurrissa Tancharoen etc. contributed to his shows, but I obviously can't list everyone involved every time I mention a Whedon show.