Meta-thoughts/Possibly Unpopular Opinion on MC 3x12
So... I had written this up the night after the episode actually aired into a notebook before bed, but I guess I just wanted to post this up before all of it gets swept off by the new episode? As is the nature of procedurals?
I had several issues with "Party Foul" that I really haven't seen discussed elsewhere, so I don't really have an outlet to discuss it otherwise except to make this post on my journal. Also, I don't want to be a downer on an already torn fandom (due to ship-issues, which, you know, I can understand? I'm a multishipper, so I win any way you go about it, but I generally worry when ships go canon [or somewhat canon] in procedural shows, because they can get pretty train-wrecky *recalls CSI and cries*). However, this issue isn't regarding ships or anything like that. It's about the witty one-liners that the show ended with for the girl's - Keisha's - case.
And don't get me wrong, I usually love the characters' wittiness. I really liked the addition of the character of Patrice. I really like the maturation in the main cast of characters' relationships - both romantic and platonic. I loved the nuanced and accurate use of a "Romeo and Juliet" metaphor. I loved seeing Hobbs pointing out the obvious as she generally does, but I was deeply disappointed... by the particular writing choices they made in finishing out the case. By the specific manner in which they chose to talk about Keisha' clear mental health issues. That Sykes was the only one who pointed out the clear coping issues she had in her inability to deal with change.
It's really more of a case where the show has sort of fallen victim of its own success, because normally, it wouldn't be such an obvious thing - because it's a common enough mistake in most tv media (sadly enough): the trivialization of more nuanced, "quieter" mental health problems (some would say "invisible") while playing up the most extreme forms for the sake of further othering the mentally ill. The "boogie man" of the psychopathy and sociopathy and schizophrenia, when they are as much about people suffering from things they cannot change - partially biological and partially environmental and partially still a mystery because science has barely begun to really manage to get a good handle on it all - than committing crimes because LOOK: HE/SHE'S CRAZY!.
And as much as I appreciate and get it: gallows humor - a necessity in the lives of people working and dealing with the worst parts and days of people's lives (and that doesn't even BEGIN touching on the inappropriateness of coarse medical humor - as recently explored by Danielle Ofri in her book What Doctors Feel), but in a show that has managed to deal relatively well and respectfully with issues like bullying, like the complexity in the lives of family with a young transgender child, like race (though some times, they do fall flat on that as well), and pedophilia and homosexuality and abuse - sexual and otherwise, and the failures/abuses in systems like foster care and surrogacy and witnesses and victims and the police department. It was just... disappointing... and sort of all the more startling and perturbing and awful because of that?
Arguably, the writing on this show has NEVER really been about subtlety really; maybe subtle in the difference between being hit by a brick vs a soccer ball as kicked by a forward striker, but all the same, I've found respite and relief in the way they've managed to at least handle complex and difficult topics "well enough" - with at least the respect a lot of these issues garnered and necessitate in order to in any way mirror the reality of the very real impact they have on people's daily lives.
But in this case, I felt like no one except Sykes and maybe Sharon (though it can be difficult to tell at times from her words) really took the idea of the girl's mental illness very seriously? And the line about her strangling herself with her IV tubes? I can't... I don't think me *cringing* at the line properly describes how horrified I was about the moment, and they wrote it as humor, and I can't imagine how horrible it must feel for anyone who has ever ended up in the hospital due to attempted suicide or repeated self-harm and seriously considering such options. (Well, hopefully, they weren't watching the episode in the first place, but...)
And maybe it's because it runs a bit too personal for me? Not just recently from work, but in my last year at uni, they literally had to set up a task force to deal with discussing mental health issues and how to even begin that sort of discussion around campus, never mind how to get the proper help to the students who needed it most. There were absurdly high percentages of mental health issues at the school, and that last year... there was a spate of several suicides - each a few months between the other - both on and off campus. (Let's not discuss its horribly structures "forced leave" mandate for all students who don't perform up-to-standard - no matter the reason. Or the mandatory requirements and "probation" these students are placed on afterwards. It's why several of these occurred off-campus.) I knew some people personally, but theirs are not my story to tell. Needless to say, maybe Keisha's age and the period of time in her life where this all occurs did play a part in further emphasizing just how horrible this situation was, and yes, it was tragic - what happened to Toby, but I just...
Maybe I'm not being fair? I can't exactly or really explain how I would have expected the show to have done better than it did while staying true to its style, but maybe I miss the clear delineation of when they had "serious" episodes that were sprinkled with slight humor in appropriate places and a few full out "comedy" episodes structure they had been working with? Maybe I AM a bit afraid that the writers will fall back into old writing habits (at least, with the "case of the week" part of the storylines - I sort of miss when the deals relied more on the nuances of human nature, the evidence, and sharp intuition - like Sharon's or Sykes' or Mike's observations of small things - rather than these literal, forced, trap-based confessions [remember the kettlebell without fingerprints or the very convenient receipt in that father's wallet or the over-the-top mom suddenly calming down to deal for the sake of her son?]; I miss THAT. I miss the by-the-book-ness, sure, but I miss them not falling into old habits. I feel like the writers have fallen into the trap of writing in an old framework and trying to fit it magically in the new paradigm. And it stinks, and it doesn't feel... I don't know. *shrugs*), but mostly, I just wished there was a bit less light-heartedness and a bit more somberness at the end of the story.
I guess the bright point was Patrice's question about whether she had done enough. Maybe she meant intervening earlier to get her granddaughter the help she needed (be it counseling or coping skills management or some thing else to ease the slippery slope she had been on). The line where she stated that her granddaughter had a "temper" certainly hints at some prior cognizance on her part that all may not have been well with her. I don't know.
Or maybe this was all deliberate, to emphasize how easy it is for society to miss or ignore the issues and troubles that plague people with forms of mental illness or mental health problems. I'm certainly no expert, and I'm hardly the most knowledgeable when it comes to mental illness or the stigma associated with it. But if they wanted to play up how damaging to people it can be for their mental health issues is to be trivialized... Welp.
Maybe it's only me, but the writing just wasn't enough - where it mattered - this time around.
Sorry, I have serious thoughts SOME TIMES that are not always lovey-dovey. >>" I mean these were issues I had plenty of with The Closer, but many of those existed when I thought the framing of their central concept for the show was already a bit beyond my ability to suspend disbelief.
I had several issues with "Party Foul" that I really haven't seen discussed elsewhere, so I don't really have an outlet to discuss it otherwise except to make this post on my journal. Also, I don't want to be a downer on an already torn fandom (due to ship-issues, which, you know, I can understand? I'm a multishipper, so I win any way you go about it, but I generally worry when ships go canon [or somewhat canon] in procedural shows, because they can get pretty train-wrecky *recalls CSI and cries*). However, this issue isn't regarding ships or anything like that. It's about the witty one-liners that the show ended with for the girl's - Keisha's - case.
And don't get me wrong, I usually love the characters' wittiness. I really liked the addition of the character of Patrice. I really like the maturation in the main cast of characters' relationships - both romantic and platonic. I loved the nuanced and accurate use of a "Romeo and Juliet" metaphor. I loved seeing Hobbs pointing out the obvious as she generally does, but I was deeply disappointed... by the particular writing choices they made in finishing out the case. By the specific manner in which they chose to talk about Keisha' clear mental health issues. That Sykes was the only one who pointed out the clear coping issues she had in her inability to deal with change.
It's really more of a case where the show has sort of fallen victim of its own success, because normally, it wouldn't be such an obvious thing - because it's a common enough mistake in most tv media (sadly enough): the trivialization of more nuanced, "quieter" mental health problems (some would say "invisible") while playing up the most extreme forms for the sake of further othering the mentally ill. The "boogie man" of the psychopathy and sociopathy and schizophrenia, when they are as much about people suffering from things they cannot change - partially biological and partially environmental and partially still a mystery because science has barely begun to really manage to get a good handle on it all - than committing crimes because LOOK: HE/SHE'S CRAZY!.
And as much as I appreciate and get it: gallows humor - a necessity in the lives of people working and dealing with the worst parts and days of people's lives (and that doesn't even BEGIN touching on the inappropriateness of coarse medical humor - as recently explored by Danielle Ofri in her book What Doctors Feel), but in a show that has managed to deal relatively well and respectfully with issues like bullying, like the complexity in the lives of family with a young transgender child, like race (though some times, they do fall flat on that as well), and pedophilia and homosexuality and abuse - sexual and otherwise, and the failures/abuses in systems like foster care and surrogacy and witnesses and victims and the police department. It was just... disappointing... and sort of all the more startling and perturbing and awful because of that?
Arguably, the writing on this show has NEVER really been about subtlety really; maybe subtle in the difference between being hit by a brick vs a soccer ball as kicked by a forward striker, but all the same, I've found respite and relief in the way they've managed to at least handle complex and difficult topics "well enough" - with at least the respect a lot of these issues garnered and necessitate in order to in any way mirror the reality of the very real impact they have on people's daily lives.
But in this case, I felt like no one except Sykes and maybe Sharon (though it can be difficult to tell at times from her words) really took the idea of the girl's mental illness very seriously? And the line about her strangling herself with her IV tubes? I can't... I don't think me *cringing* at the line properly describes how horrified I was about the moment, and they wrote it as humor, and I can't imagine how horrible it must feel for anyone who has ever ended up in the hospital due to attempted suicide or repeated self-harm and seriously considering such options. (Well, hopefully, they weren't watching the episode in the first place, but...)
And maybe it's because it runs a bit too personal for me? Not just recently from work, but in my last year at uni, they literally had to set up a task force to deal with discussing mental health issues and how to even begin that sort of discussion around campus, never mind how to get the proper help to the students who needed it most. There were absurdly high percentages of mental health issues at the school, and that last year... there was a spate of several suicides - each a few months between the other - both on and off campus. (Let's not discuss its horribly structures "forced leave" mandate for all students who don't perform up-to-standard - no matter the reason. Or the mandatory requirements and "probation" these students are placed on afterwards. It's why several of these occurred off-campus.) I knew some people personally, but theirs are not my story to tell. Needless to say, maybe Keisha's age and the period of time in her life where this all occurs did play a part in further emphasizing just how horrible this situation was, and yes, it was tragic - what happened to Toby, but I just...
Maybe I'm not being fair? I can't exactly or really explain how I would have expected the show to have done better than it did while staying true to its style, but maybe I miss the clear delineation of when they had "serious" episodes that were sprinkled with slight humor in appropriate places and a few full out "comedy" episodes structure they had been working with? Maybe I AM a bit afraid that the writers will fall back into old writing habits (at least, with the "case of the week" part of the storylines - I sort of miss when the deals relied more on the nuances of human nature, the evidence, and sharp intuition - like Sharon's or Sykes' or Mike's observations of small things - rather than these literal, forced, trap-based confessions [remember the kettlebell without fingerprints or the very convenient receipt in that father's wallet or the over-the-top mom suddenly calming down to deal for the sake of her son?]; I miss THAT. I miss the by-the-book-ness, sure, but I miss them not falling into old habits. I feel like the writers have fallen into the trap of writing in an old framework and trying to fit it magically in the new paradigm. And it stinks, and it doesn't feel... I don't know. *shrugs*), but mostly, I just wished there was a bit less light-heartedness and a bit more somberness at the end of the story.
I guess the bright point was Patrice's question about whether she had done enough. Maybe she meant intervening earlier to get her granddaughter the help she needed (be it counseling or coping skills management or some thing else to ease the slippery slope she had been on). The line where she stated that her granddaughter had a "temper" certainly hints at some prior cognizance on her part that all may not have been well with her. I don't know.
Or maybe this was all deliberate, to emphasize how easy it is for society to miss or ignore the issues and troubles that plague people with forms of mental illness or mental health problems. I'm certainly no expert, and I'm hardly the most knowledgeable when it comes to mental illness or the stigma associated with it. But if they wanted to play up how damaging to people it can be for their mental health issues is to be trivialized... Welp.
Maybe it's only me, but the writing just wasn't enough - where it mattered - this time around.
Sorry, I have serious thoughts SOME TIMES that are not always lovey-dovey. >>" I mean these were issues I had plenty of with The Closer, but many of those existed when I thought the framing of their central concept for the show was already a bit beyond my ability to suspend disbelief.