Person of Interest Flailing
Sep. 5th, 2015 08:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sprocketI will shake my tiny impotent fist at POI S3!
On an aesthetic level, I appreciate Fusco and Carter's convergent arcs: Fusco redeems the corrupt, self-serving cop we meet in the pilot, Carter is dirtied (literally) with Team Machine's extra-legal activities and their consequences.
But I don't appreciate that Carter's fall from grace also deprives Team Machine of the one person who called Finch & Co. on their sometimes very dark grays of their methods.
And then there is the show's lame attempt at Reese/Carter, which... just... no. I do not see romantic chemistry and I don't see the writing that trying very hard to lay the groundwork despite that. It's a cheap shot to make Carter's death sting a bit more, one that's really not necessary. Subtract one kiss, and you have a rock-solid buddies episode. Reese doesn't need True Love to retroactively save him, he need compassion and a purpose.
(Romantic love is such a problem on POI. And so problematic! Post-Nathan Harold/Grace is the worst sort of pining nonsense, Joss/Cal was a slightly soapy thing until the show killed Beecher and used that to ignite Carter's HR takedown scheme, and Reese had the Tragic Dead Girlfriend before Carter died. Give me sassy John/Zoe over pining and angst any day. Or John/Harold, because face it, if you genderswap one of the two male leads, the show would've gone there a long time ago.)
If Carter's arc was part of a thematic questioning of Team Machine's methods, I'd be more comfortable with it. But POI doesn't have a bright moral standard other than Carter; Finch tuts Shaw's easy violence, but the difference between Shaw's methods and Reese's is a matter of degree, not of type. Shaw shoots for center mass; Reese shoots for kneecaps. Both prize violence as a persuasive tool, and Finch doesn't talk them out of reaching for it that much. Mediation, cooperation, clever sleight of hand, these aren't the ways to solve problems. But then, POI is explicitly uninterested in questioning whether systems are functional or in need of fixing, or can be fixed. There will always be gangs, whether it's Elias or the Russians. There will always be HR in the police and corruption in city hall. And there will never be enough people working within the system to counterbalance these forces. In the POI-verse, only vigilantism can solve these problems.
Some of which is undermined by Carter handing Quinn to the FBI, and I hear there's a Samaritan arc coming up? Still, I am going to spend a few days getting over Carter's death, perhaps by watching Taraji Henson own "Empire", and by rewatching Fringe S2 as a reminder of how to kill off awesome characters.
Speaking of Fringe, if you want a textbook example of titillation and the male gaze, contrast POI 3xo3 "Lady Killer" with Fringe's "Concentrate And Ask Again". The POI camera pans over Carter, Morgan and Shaw in ways that are very much about their sexiness in sexy cocktail dresses, in ways that undermine my competence kink and cry out for a Charlie's Angels quip, not in the good way; when Olivia dresses to kill, the camera frames her for narrative function.
I'm just saying.
There's an entire thing I'm not doing with the POI's fairly arbitrary contrast of Reese violence and Shaw violence; though Finch claims Shaw is more likely to unleash lethal force and dangerous mayhem, from where I sit, their methods don't look so very different. Still looking for that Shaw-and-Root thing I was promised by fandom.
On an aesthetic level, I appreciate Fusco and Carter's convergent arcs: Fusco redeems the corrupt, self-serving cop we meet in the pilot, Carter is dirtied (literally) with Team Machine's extra-legal activities and their consequences.
But I don't appreciate that Carter's fall from grace also deprives Team Machine of the one person who called Finch & Co. on their sometimes very dark grays of their methods.
And then there is the show's lame attempt at Reese/Carter, which... just... no. I do not see romantic chemistry and I don't see the writing that trying very hard to lay the groundwork despite that. It's a cheap shot to make Carter's death sting a bit more, one that's really not necessary. Subtract one kiss, and you have a rock-solid buddies episode. Reese doesn't need True Love to retroactively save him, he need compassion and a purpose.
(Romantic love is such a problem on POI. And so problematic! Post-Nathan Harold/Grace is the worst sort of pining nonsense, Joss/Cal was a slightly soapy thing until the show killed Beecher and used that to ignite Carter's HR takedown scheme, and Reese had the Tragic Dead Girlfriend before Carter died. Give me sassy John/Zoe over pining and angst any day. Or John/Harold, because face it, if you genderswap one of the two male leads, the show would've gone there a long time ago.)
If Carter's arc was part of a thematic questioning of Team Machine's methods, I'd be more comfortable with it. But POI doesn't have a bright moral standard other than Carter; Finch tuts Shaw's easy violence, but the difference between Shaw's methods and Reese's is a matter of degree, not of type. Shaw shoots for center mass; Reese shoots for kneecaps. Both prize violence as a persuasive tool, and Finch doesn't talk them out of reaching for it that much. Mediation, cooperation, clever sleight of hand, these aren't the ways to solve problems. But then, POI is explicitly uninterested in questioning whether systems are functional or in need of fixing, or can be fixed. There will always be gangs, whether it's Elias or the Russians. There will always be HR in the police and corruption in city hall. And there will never be enough people working within the system to counterbalance these forces. In the POI-verse, only vigilantism can solve these problems.
Some of which is undermined by Carter handing Quinn to the FBI, and I hear there's a Samaritan arc coming up? Still, I am going to spend a few days getting over Carter's death, perhaps by watching Taraji Henson own "Empire", and by rewatching Fringe S2 as a reminder of how to kill off awesome characters.
Speaking of Fringe, if you want a textbook example of titillation and the male gaze, contrast POI 3xo3 "Lady Killer" with Fringe's "Concentrate And Ask Again". The POI camera pans over Carter, Morgan and Shaw in ways that are very much about their sexiness in sexy cocktail dresses, in ways that undermine my competence kink and cry out for a Charlie's Angels quip, not in the good way; when Olivia dresses to kill, the camera frames her for narrative function.
I'm just saying.
There's an entire thing I'm not doing with the POI's fairly arbitrary contrast of Reese violence and Shaw violence; though Finch claims Shaw is more likely to unleash lethal force and dangerous mayhem, from where I sit, their methods don't look so very different. Still looking for that Shaw-and-Root thing I was promised by fandom.
no subject
on 2015-09-06 07:02 pm (UTC)FWIW: Jim Caviezel improvised the kiss. It was not scripted.
My constant amusement with this show: knee-replacement specialists in the NY area are making a killing since Team Machine launched.
Root-and-Shaw are ahead of you. Theirs is definitely a Thing.
no subject
on 2015-09-07 06:30 pm (UTC)*Facepalm* I can believe that. I'm not thrilled the director and editor(s) decided to keep it. Fandom's collective amnesia sounds like a much better way to go.
My constant amusement with this show: knee-replacement specialists in the NY area are making a killing since Team Machine launched.
Somewhere, there is a convention of orthopedic surgeons shaking their heads at the sudden and ongoing heavy caseload their New York colleagues are enjoying, especially those willing to take payment in cash. (Huh, I wonder what the health insurance actually looks like for the people we see kneecapped over the course of the show. Does a life of crime have copays and dental in the POI-verse?)
I cannot wait for Root-and-Shaw. The AO3 tags have promised me femslashy glory and the show is just starting to deliver on that.
no subject
on 2015-09-07 08:36 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2015-09-08 03:11 am (UTC)