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Title: She had a darkness inside her ...
Author: x_tricks2000@yahoo.com
Character: Victoria Metcalf
Fandom: due South
Spoilers: Three episodes, You Must Remember This, Victoria's Secret 1, Victoria's Secret 2
I first met Victoria Metcalf ... well, actually I heard about her well before I met her. That first hint, spoken while Ray Vecchio was sleeping in You Must Remember This, which was an episode that centered on sudden passion and spoke volumes about Benton Fraser's yet unnamed, mysterious love.
Even when we finally 'see' her our first introduction to her presence are missed opportunities, fleeting glances and uncertain recognition. Then, finally, an accidental meeting between Fraser and Victoria brings the woman whom he loves like no other - and who will nearly destroy him - fully into our presence. These early half-seen imaginings are important to the show; Victoria remains a ghost, a flimsy alibi for Benton Fraser, to almost everyone else in the show until the very end. The only other person who lays eyes on Victoria is Ray Vechhio and he too is caught up in her web of lies.
Her first appearance is deceptively normal. She's beautiful, or course, but awkward and almost shy. Yet, clearly, she still has feelings for the man who locked her up in prison for ten years. It's not too much later when we discover what those feelings are - intense passion, love and hate twined together. Victoria is clearly a woman of passion, strength and character. We see how much Fraser loves her, how he wants her, and hope desperately that she's worthy of him.
It is only towards the end of the two part episode Victoria's Secret that we begin to see just how brilliant Victoria is, and our hopes are dashed. She engineers a nearly inescapable trap for the man she both loves and hates, ensuring that he has no place to go but her arms and no life left but one beside her. In the backstory we discover that she took the place of her dead sister, an opportunity that must have come up unexpectedly and that she had the quickness of mind to take advantage of. Victoria is ruthless as well, murdering her own partner, and framing her lover for the death.
She has the charisma to lead Benton Fraser down a damming path. And the cold-heartedness to plan and execute a cruel vengeance on him even as she shares his bed. Truly, she has a darkness inside her.
Her craving for revenge is so tied up with her love that she cannot separate the two and that becomes her downfall. She is neither able to simply leave Fraser - her betrayer - nor give up on her vengeance against him. The conflicting impulses give Fraser a faint, desperate chance to redeem himself and save his partner. But her greatest weakness is her greed. Stronger than her love, or her hate, is greed. Victoria is not in Chicago simply to torment the man who turned her in all those years ago she's here to make a deal on stolen diamonds and use Benton Fraser as her catspaw. It's impossible to tell which is stronger in her, greed or revenge.
Victoria begins as a story; a woman dying in a blizzard, a criminal Benton Fraser must turn in. The woman who, with her beautiful voice and her will to survive, he also falls in love with, all those years ago. Yet, he does his duty and turns her into the law (contrasting Ray Vecchio's decision to let his beloved criminal go in You Must Remember This). She spends, presumably, ten or so years in prison. A time that ruins her life, she claims, furiously, when she meets Fraser again.
Her presence in Chicago seems to be sheer chance. It's only as time goes on that we realize that she's planned everything that's happened from the start. She frames Benton Fraser, planting evidence in his cabin in Canada that suggest he's been holding stolen goods. She plants stolen money on Benton in the guise of playfulness. She murders her partner with Benton's own gun. When she realizes that Ray Vecchio is too loyal to abandon Fraser, as she wants, she arranges to have him framed too. She even shoots Fraser's half-wolf, Diefenbaker.
Victoria must have been planning, or dreaming of her revenge for years - perhaps all those years she spent in prison. Her need for revenge consumes her life, it draws her back to Fraser even though the risk (as she is pretending to be her dead sister) is high. Just as her appearance in young Fraser's life shadowed his heart for years with regret, their three days in a blizzard re-shaped Victoria's life until that becomes all that's important to her. The most painful and poignant thing about Victoria is that, despite all she does to Fraser, it's clear that she also loves him and he - even as he comes to know her true self - continues to love her.
In all this is Fraser's partner, Ray Vecchio and he seems to be suspicious of her from the start. Clearly, Victoria quickly recognizes Ray as a danger to her plans - he's gained Fraser's trust and affection and he is himself very loyal. Victoria expands her original plan to ensure that Ray Vecchio is also accused of graft, isolated from his fellow officers, and left without the resources needed to capture her.
Victoria makes short work of her supposed partner, Jolly, murdering him as part of her plan to frame Fraser. One of her original partners back in the robbery ten years ago, his loyalty (or greed, as he's trying to get his share of the money from the old robbery) is rewarded with a bullet from Fraser's service revolver. But, all these people are secondary in her story. Everything comes down to Benton Fraser, hate, love, greed and passion.
Unlike every other criminal in due South, the mountie does not get his (wo)man - neither as a lover or a captured criminal. In the end, Victoria Metcalf escapes - worse, she nearly takes Benton Fraser with her to a life as a fugitive ( a concept that has spawned more than a few pieces of fanfic).
I remain fascinated by Victoria Metcalf for many reasons. She's more than a match, intellectually and emotionally for the near-superhuman mountie (who is very human in Victoria's Secret) and that's not frequently true in the due South universe. I also feel that she's a very well drawn example of the noir female character - powerful in her own right - and rises beyond the stereotype of the 'psycho jilted woman' character found frequently on TV. I can't help but admire her Machiavellian plans and her ruthlessness and I wish that she had appeared again in canon; and that she figured more frequently in fanfic.
Author: x_tricks2000@yahoo.com
Character: Victoria Metcalf
Fandom: due South
Spoilers: Three episodes, You Must Remember This, Victoria's Secret 1, Victoria's Secret 2
I first met Victoria Metcalf ... well, actually I heard about her well before I met her. That first hint, spoken while Ray Vecchio was sleeping in You Must Remember This, which was an episode that centered on sudden passion and spoke volumes about Benton Fraser's yet unnamed, mysterious love.
Even when we finally 'see' her our first introduction to her presence are missed opportunities, fleeting glances and uncertain recognition. Then, finally, an accidental meeting between Fraser and Victoria brings the woman whom he loves like no other - and who will nearly destroy him - fully into our presence. These early half-seen imaginings are important to the show; Victoria remains a ghost, a flimsy alibi for Benton Fraser, to almost everyone else in the show until the very end. The only other person who lays eyes on Victoria is Ray Vechhio and he too is caught up in her web of lies.
Her first appearance is deceptively normal. She's beautiful, or course, but awkward and almost shy. Yet, clearly, she still has feelings for the man who locked her up in prison for ten years. It's not too much later when we discover what those feelings are - intense passion, love and hate twined together. Victoria is clearly a woman of passion, strength and character. We see how much Fraser loves her, how he wants her, and hope desperately that she's worthy of him.
It is only towards the end of the two part episode Victoria's Secret that we begin to see just how brilliant Victoria is, and our hopes are dashed. She engineers a nearly inescapable trap for the man she both loves and hates, ensuring that he has no place to go but her arms and no life left but one beside her. In the backstory we discover that she took the place of her dead sister, an opportunity that must have come up unexpectedly and that she had the quickness of mind to take advantage of. Victoria is ruthless as well, murdering her own partner, and framing her lover for the death.
She has the charisma to lead Benton Fraser down a damming path. And the cold-heartedness to plan and execute a cruel vengeance on him even as she shares his bed. Truly, she has a darkness inside her.
Her craving for revenge is so tied up with her love that she cannot separate the two and that becomes her downfall. She is neither able to simply leave Fraser - her betrayer - nor give up on her vengeance against him. The conflicting impulses give Fraser a faint, desperate chance to redeem himself and save his partner. But her greatest weakness is her greed. Stronger than her love, or her hate, is greed. Victoria is not in Chicago simply to torment the man who turned her in all those years ago she's here to make a deal on stolen diamonds and use Benton Fraser as her catspaw. It's impossible to tell which is stronger in her, greed or revenge.
Victoria begins as a story; a woman dying in a blizzard, a criminal Benton Fraser must turn in. The woman who, with her beautiful voice and her will to survive, he also falls in love with, all those years ago. Yet, he does his duty and turns her into the law (contrasting Ray Vecchio's decision to let his beloved criminal go in You Must Remember This). She spends, presumably, ten or so years in prison. A time that ruins her life, she claims, furiously, when she meets Fraser again.
Her presence in Chicago seems to be sheer chance. It's only as time goes on that we realize that she's planned everything that's happened from the start. She frames Benton Fraser, planting evidence in his cabin in Canada that suggest he's been holding stolen goods. She plants stolen money on Benton in the guise of playfulness. She murders her partner with Benton's own gun. When she realizes that Ray Vecchio is too loyal to abandon Fraser, as she wants, she arranges to have him framed too. She even shoots Fraser's half-wolf, Diefenbaker.
Victoria must have been planning, or dreaming of her revenge for years - perhaps all those years she spent in prison. Her need for revenge consumes her life, it draws her back to Fraser even though the risk (as she is pretending to be her dead sister) is high. Just as her appearance in young Fraser's life shadowed his heart for years with regret, their three days in a blizzard re-shaped Victoria's life until that becomes all that's important to her. The most painful and poignant thing about Victoria is that, despite all she does to Fraser, it's clear that she also loves him and he - even as he comes to know her true self - continues to love her.
In all this is Fraser's partner, Ray Vecchio and he seems to be suspicious of her from the start. Clearly, Victoria quickly recognizes Ray as a danger to her plans - he's gained Fraser's trust and affection and he is himself very loyal. Victoria expands her original plan to ensure that Ray Vecchio is also accused of graft, isolated from his fellow officers, and left without the resources needed to capture her.
Victoria makes short work of her supposed partner, Jolly, murdering him as part of her plan to frame Fraser. One of her original partners back in the robbery ten years ago, his loyalty (or greed, as he's trying to get his share of the money from the old robbery) is rewarded with a bullet from Fraser's service revolver. But, all these people are secondary in her story. Everything comes down to Benton Fraser, hate, love, greed and passion.
Unlike every other criminal in due South, the mountie does not get his (wo)man - neither as a lover or a captured criminal. In the end, Victoria Metcalf escapes - worse, she nearly takes Benton Fraser with her to a life as a fugitive ( a concept that has spawned more than a few pieces of fanfic).
I remain fascinated by Victoria Metcalf for many reasons. She's more than a match, intellectually and emotionally for the near-superhuman mountie (who is very human in Victoria's Secret) and that's not frequently true in the due South universe. I also feel that she's a very well drawn example of the noir female character - powerful in her own right - and rises beyond the stereotype of the 'psycho jilted woman' character found frequently on TV. I can't help but admire her Machiavellian plans and her ruthlessness and I wish that she had appeared again in canon; and that she figured more frequently in fanfic.