of otps and story arcs: to mr. marlowe with love
My television watching of late led to this, bolstered by insomnia and the fact I hadn't used the psych degree in a while. Just thought I'd share. :)
I've watched a lot of television in my day; genre, like many things, doesn't define me. I've loved shows, I've loathed shows, I've left shows. I've screamed at the screen in admonishment as much as I have admiration. I've watched great ideas morph grotesquely, and stupid ideas blossom into brilliance. I have doubted. I have defended.
Then Kate Beckett rose on her tiptoes and whispered, "You have no idea" into Richard Castle's ear. I sat up in my bed, jaw slack and eyes wide, said, "well, hello. This is going to get interesting."
And now I realize that I really didn't have any idea. Until then, most of my OTPs were pretty much doomed to be chased by a monster of unspoken/misinterpreted feelings and missed opportunities -- Mulder and Scully, Sydney and Vaughn, you get the idea. (Apparently I have a thing for ships in which the male half disappears for seasons at a time. Interesting. /random observation) Hell, the very first pairing I ever shipped was doomed; my five-year-old self was like, but why can't Aja and Stormer's brother Craig be together?! (If anyone gets that reference, I will pull a Dolly Parton and love you always.) It was always one step forward and three hundred steps (not to mention ~meaningful glances) back. I yearned not just for declarations of ~feelings -- we've seen it all before, with dream sequences and "holy shit we're about to die let me love you" scenarios that always left me feeling hollow (to the point that it feels a little cheapened when we got the actuality.) Instead, I wanted progression. Actual, "hey, look where they were in episode x versus where they are now," you-can't-take-that-away-from-me maturity of both the characters and relationship. Did I want it quickly? I didn't care, as long as it was honest.
"Castle" has given that to me -- far more than any other show I've ever watched. In a land of time jumps and retconned canon, we can map the development of Castle and Beckett as people and as partners, amazingly with no deus ex machinainfluences. Their relationship is truthful -- it's messy, it's emotional, and it's always evolving, even when we don't quite notice (or get frustrated with its pacing.) To me, Castle and Beckett are two characters always on the move toward each other. Look at how in "Flowers for Your Grave," he pegged her from the word "go," but still had to earn the full narrative in "A Chill Goes Through Her Veins." In the wake of "Sucker Punch," "Knockdown" and "Knockout," we know just how much her mother's death affects Beckett, so for her to confide in him four episodes in is pretty damn amazing.
And look at how Beckett called Castle on interfering with said case in "Deep in Death." Yes, his heart was probably in the right place in wanting to help her, but he also needed to respect her wishes -- respect the trenches she'd clawed her way out of in trying to put the investigation behind her -- by letting her approachhim. And ultimately, he realized it wasn't about what was right but about what she wanted, and that the latter was far more important than the former. Would the entitled man we met in the pilot have done that? I don't think so. To me, that was their first step down a not-so yellow brick road; in order to have love, you must first have trust, and from her comments in the diner in "Knockdown," we know he's got that in spades.
I'd even go so far as to say their outside relationships -- his with Gina, hers with Demming and Josh -- have moved them forward. Watching Beckett's face as Castle walked away in "A Deadly Game" absolutely slew me (as did the parallels in "Rise"), but what sticks with me more is that they both tried to support the other even as their own hearts broke, because at the end of the day, they just want each other to be happy. Remember that saying, "if you love something, set it free"? They put the other above themselves; a partnership in the truest sense of the word. And even when people like Kira Blaine, Jordan Shaw, and Mr. Natalie Maines noted the closeness of their relationship, there wasn't a lightbulb moment. They were words -- theories -- that again had to be proved with evidence -- it had to be investigated as seriously and solemnly as any of their cases.
Even their "missed opportunities" aren't missed at all; their strength is found in the admissions, slight as they may be. The whole "the heart wants what the heart wants" conversation and the "I want someone who will be there" comments tell us -- and most importantly, the other -- where they are emotionally. It's not an inference as to what their respective romantic liaison at the time gives them, but instead, what's most important to them. I think in trying to hide what they feel, they're actually telling more. It's balance, not bullshit; they respect each other far too much for that.
I know what you're thinking: "Riddle me this, O Great and Powerful Effie ('cause I know that's totally what you all call me), how is Beckett lying to Castle about hearing his 'I love you' respectful?" I'd argue that her admission she remembers can be tempered by the entire swing conversation in "Rise," not to mention howshe sought him out (just as he'd had to do in "Deep in Death." OHAI parallels, how are you?) She knows herself well enough to understand this is a long road back -- a road on which she knows he'll always be by her side, and I'd say that's what gives her her bravery to start walking the path in the first place -- but nonetheless, she's the one that has to do the work. In the wake of her dishonesty about his admission, she's being brutally open about why it needs to be done this way. She's changing her narrative structure from "if this happens" to "when this happens," and I think that's more profound than a thousand reciprocated "I love you"s could ever be. (And can we just talk about how much I love the fact that she didn't finish her sentence in "Countdown"? Girl is going to want to be present in that moment -- as I think she was in "Knockout" when Castle told her. She closed her eyes and sighed after he said those words, and I honestly think that she was prepared to go to her grave not in pain from a bullet but in peace because she finally knew for sure that he felt the same way she did. Up until then, I think her philosophy was more that the only thing she knew was that she didn't know anything. It's fitting that Castle would be the one to change that.)
You can even look at the whole "we never talk about it" conversation in "Knockout" as ground gained. They're giving those moments purchase; weaving them into the fabric of the narrative so tightly that they can't be undone. This show and these characters have memories, and while they may wrench our hearts into oblivion, the fact that they're not being ignored, the fact that their histories are now tightly intertwined because they're shared, is the most honest element of them all. In order to have a future, you have to respect the past, and theirs is the rare one where they, not outside forces, define it. Things don't happen to them; they happen because of their actions. I honestly can't think of another show on the air right now that not only understands but embraces that concept.
The hallmark of a good story is showing, not telling. We're seeing the bricks of their foundation as they're carefully laid into place, and when the day comes that we finally see their happy ending, we won't be cheated. It'll mean more because we saw it from the beginning.
So thanks, Mr. Marlowe. Thanks for getting it. Thanks for knowing your characters and evolving them in ways that make sense. Thanks for respecting the havoc life can --and should -- wreak on them. Thanks for not shying away from the mess and the pain like you don't from the lighthearted and the meaningful. Thank you for coffee, cherries, this crazy ride and Martha Fucking Rodgers, because bitch is FABULOUS.
Thanks for understanding what it means to be human. I can't wait to see what you come up with next.
XOXO,
Effie
I've watched a lot of television in my day; genre, like many things, doesn't define me. I've loved shows, I've loathed shows, I've left shows. I've screamed at the screen in admonishment as much as I have admiration. I've watched great ideas morph grotesquely, and stupid ideas blossom into brilliance. I have doubted. I have defended.
Then Kate Beckett rose on her tiptoes and whispered, "You have no idea" into Richard Castle's ear. I sat up in my bed, jaw slack and eyes wide, said, "well, hello. This is going to get interesting."
And now I realize that I really didn't have any idea. Until then, most of my OTPs were pretty much doomed to be chased by a monster of unspoken/misinterpreted feelings and missed opportunities -- Mulder and Scully, Sydney and Vaughn, you get the idea. (Apparently I have a thing for ships in which the male half disappears for seasons at a time. Interesting. /random observation) Hell, the very first pairing I ever shipped was doomed; my five-year-old self was like, but why can't Aja and Stormer's brother Craig be together?! (If anyone gets that reference, I will pull a Dolly Parton and love you always.) It was always one step forward and three hundred steps (not to mention ~meaningful glances) back. I yearned not just for declarations of ~feelings -- we've seen it all before, with dream sequences and "holy shit we're about to die let me love you" scenarios that always left me feeling hollow (to the point that it feels a little cheapened when we got the actuality.) Instead, I wanted progression. Actual, "hey, look where they were in episode x versus where they are now," you-can't-take-that-away-from-me maturity of both the characters and relationship. Did I want it quickly? I didn't care, as long as it was honest.
"Castle" has given that to me -- far more than any other show I've ever watched. In a land of time jumps and retconned canon, we can map the development of Castle and Beckett as people and as partners, amazingly with no deus ex machinainfluences. Their relationship is truthful -- it's messy, it's emotional, and it's always evolving, even when we don't quite notice (or get frustrated with its pacing.) To me, Castle and Beckett are two characters always on the move toward each other. Look at how in "Flowers for Your Grave," he pegged her from the word "go," but still had to earn the full narrative in "A Chill Goes Through Her Veins." In the wake of "Sucker Punch," "Knockdown" and "Knockout," we know just how much her mother's death affects Beckett, so for her to confide in him four episodes in is pretty damn amazing.
And look at how Beckett called Castle on interfering with said case in "Deep in Death." Yes, his heart was probably in the right place in wanting to help her, but he also needed to respect her wishes -- respect the trenches she'd clawed her way out of in trying to put the investigation behind her -- by letting her approachhim. And ultimately, he realized it wasn't about what was right but about what she wanted, and that the latter was far more important than the former. Would the entitled man we met in the pilot have done that? I don't think so. To me, that was their first step down a not-so yellow brick road; in order to have love, you must first have trust, and from her comments in the diner in "Knockdown," we know he's got that in spades.
I'd even go so far as to say their outside relationships -- his with Gina, hers with Demming and Josh -- have moved them forward. Watching Beckett's face as Castle walked away in "A Deadly Game" absolutely slew me (as did the parallels in "Rise"), but what sticks with me more is that they both tried to support the other even as their own hearts broke, because at the end of the day, they just want each other to be happy. Remember that saying, "if you love something, set it free"? They put the other above themselves; a partnership in the truest sense of the word. And even when people like Kira Blaine, Jordan Shaw, and Mr. Natalie Maines noted the closeness of their relationship, there wasn't a lightbulb moment. They were words -- theories -- that again had to be proved with evidence -- it had to be investigated as seriously and solemnly as any of their cases.
Even their "missed opportunities" aren't missed at all; their strength is found in the admissions, slight as they may be. The whole "the heart wants what the heart wants" conversation and the "I want someone who will be there" comments tell us -- and most importantly, the other -- where they are emotionally. It's not an inference as to what their respective romantic liaison at the time gives them, but instead, what's most important to them. I think in trying to hide what they feel, they're actually telling more. It's balance, not bullshit; they respect each other far too much for that.
I know what you're thinking: "Riddle me this, O Great and Powerful Effie ('cause I know that's totally what you all call me), how is Beckett lying to Castle about hearing his 'I love you' respectful?" I'd argue that her admission she remembers can be tempered by the entire swing conversation in "Rise," not to mention howshe sought him out (just as he'd had to do in "Deep in Death." OHAI parallels, how are you?) She knows herself well enough to understand this is a long road back -- a road on which she knows he'll always be by her side, and I'd say that's what gives her her bravery to start walking the path in the first place -- but nonetheless, she's the one that has to do the work. In the wake of her dishonesty about his admission, she's being brutally open about why it needs to be done this way. She's changing her narrative structure from "if this happens" to "when this happens," and I think that's more profound than a thousand reciprocated "I love you"s could ever be. (And can we just talk about how much I love the fact that she didn't finish her sentence in "Countdown"? Girl is going to want to be present in that moment -- as I think she was in "Knockout" when Castle told her. She closed her eyes and sighed after he said those words, and I honestly think that she was prepared to go to her grave not in pain from a bullet but in peace because she finally knew for sure that he felt the same way she did. Up until then, I think her philosophy was more that the only thing she knew was that she didn't know anything. It's fitting that Castle would be the one to change that.)
You can even look at the whole "we never talk about it" conversation in "Knockout" as ground gained. They're giving those moments purchase; weaving them into the fabric of the narrative so tightly that they can't be undone. This show and these characters have memories, and while they may wrench our hearts into oblivion, the fact that they're not being ignored, the fact that their histories are now tightly intertwined because they're shared, is the most honest element of them all. In order to have a future, you have to respect the past, and theirs is the rare one where they, not outside forces, define it. Things don't happen to them; they happen because of their actions. I honestly can't think of another show on the air right now that not only understands but embraces that concept.
The hallmark of a good story is showing, not telling. We're seeing the bricks of their foundation as they're carefully laid into place, and when the day comes that we finally see their happy ending, we won't be cheated. It'll mean more because we saw it from the beginning.
So thanks, Mr. Marlowe. Thanks for getting it. Thanks for knowing your characters and evolving them in ways that make sense. Thanks for respecting the havoc life can --and should -- wreak on them. Thanks for not shying away from the mess and the pain like you don't from the lighthearted and the meaningful. Thank you for coffee, cherries, this crazy ride and Martha Fucking Rodgers, because bitch is FABULOUS.
Thanks for understanding what it means to be human. I can't wait to see what you come up with next.
XOXO,
Effie