Re: 1/3 Tony and his fatherchreeskoJanuary 18 2010, 17:07:48 UTC
I’ll probably edit this a million billion times because I still can’t be coherent about it. Whenever I try to think about Tony and his father, I just break down into a ridiculous fangirly puddle because OMG! OMG. How could you do that to your own child and not even notice? OMG.
I hadn’t noticed the steak thing, but now that you mention it, there were a couple of similarities between this and SxSw. In addition to being fans of meat, these writers also seem to be fans of cowboys and the Gibbs-Tony-separate-from-the-others dynamic, which is cool. I like the Gibbs-Tony thing better here because it didn’t have the feel of we’re splitting up the team! Also, in retrospect, I would have liked the team being split up in SxSw a lot more if we hadn’t had the Sherriff tagging along - think of the talks they could have had! The two episodes did share the fact that the opening scene was about money. And both had a Gibbs ‘n’ Tony Fireside Chat™. Actually, the more I talk about it, the more SxSw grows on me, sort of. I still don’t like it, but I hate it less and less all the time, especially now that I know they have a happy ending. Like you said, SxSw was the first time in S6 that Gibbs really noticed something was wrong with Tony, so maybe that was when he started inviting Tony over to his house for dinner. They did a good job of bringing the two of them full circle from that point.
This episode was so superior, though, not just for Tony. In SxSw, there were all sorts of dropped threads and anvils and the whole thing felt very disjointed. Here, it was seamless. Hmm, maybe I should be yelling-in-my-head at the director/editors instead of the poor, abused, G/D-loving writers? IMDB says that they also wrote Heart Break, Probie, Stakeout, Silent Night and a few others, which indicates a degree of competence. Ooh, not to get all meta about it, but maybe that disjointedness in SxSw was supposed to reflect where the characters are in their development and the seamlessness of the story here was because they’ve worked it out.
I can only watch the talk in bits and pieces because it’s really kind of awful. When his father said, “I don’t like to advertize my failures,” I felt like maybe he was talking about, IDK, one reason he doesn’t talk to Tony. I don’t think he was talking about Tony because he just said that Tony should have known he approved by his silence! (Which I also don’t really buy - I think the issue there was not that he didn’t know how to express his approval, but rather that his son was a complete non-entity to him.) But I also knew when he said it that Tony would take it as a dig. :-(
See, I thought Tony was surprised that his father’s name was on the account, which implied to me that maybe it wasn’t before. But then I also think, like you said, that he didn’t seem that dark. So, even if his father thought about bad things, and even began the bad things, he couldn’t go through with it. Maybe he was desperate enough to think of it, but at the end of the day, he did actually care about his son enough that there were some lines he wouldn’t cross.
I also loved the mention of the cruise with his frat brothers. It fits in with the idea of the S7 personal renovation project and his attempts to be more sociable, but I also love how he realizes at the end that maybe that isn’t the best way to go about it, or maybe that he doesn’t really need it anymore. (Because he has Gibbs! And they hang out together on the sofa!! ♥) Kind of a nice parallel to the party in the penthouse.
I’m off now to watch last week’s ep. I couldn’t make myself sit through it then because all I could think about, NCIS-wise, was Tony’s backstory ep. I hope it doesn’t suck.
Re: 1/3 Tony and his fatherlittle_ozzoJanuary 20 2010, 15:31:14 UTC
I know. I know. It would be so different if he was being neglectful with a reason for it, but he genuinely seems to have had no qualms about pretty much ignoring his son entirely. When you said he saw Tony as a "non-entity", that totally sums it ups. He genuinely thinks he is the "real" Tony DiNozzo. Junior is literally that, junior to him in every single way, and, by inference, inferior. And he doesn't feel bad about that! I just! What? How can he live like that? He is the most screwed-up person on the show, by a million miles.
So, those writers actually have a great track record, because Heart Break is one of my favourite episodes ever. And, going along with the assumption the writers have planned all of this out (although I trust your analysis far more than I trust their intentions, I don't want to start getting expectations or anything), SxSW and Silent Night were both episodes with small, but really important moments for Gibbs. I can't hate SxSW because I pin so much of my Gibbs characterisation on that one moment on it, but it's still a disjointed, confused episode. Which, if it was meant to be part of the theme, that the characters are totally out of sync, is .... well, it's still not great, but I'll go with it! And I will always love any Gibbs/Tony cowboy/steak moments. Preferably Sherriff-free, though. Poor Lance Henriksen.
All of the Tony/Senior interactiosn were really quite hard to watch, because I think Tony knew what he wanted to say, but was really going into those conversations without any expectations whatsoever. Which is kind of a defense in itself. And his dad just didn't understand, at all - and even when Gibbs talekd to him in the conference room, and it maybe seemed like he started to realise that he'd been treating his son in a less-than-normal, caring way, he didn;t seem to want to try and fix that. He never made a move to try and make things right, he just thought about what he was supposed to say to make it seem like things were right. If that makes any sense. But it was like, he was all about words, then, not actions. And Gibbs, in contrast, is the exact opposite.
I like that idea, too, though, that maybe he had started to think about doing something with Tony's account, because he was that desperate, but then whatever vague morals he did have kicked in, when he saw him, and so he fixed things with the account and decided against doing that. Because doing that really would make him pretty much entirely soulless, and although he did look awfully dark in some of those moments with Gibbs, actually stealing from his son would change my outlook - and, I think, Gibbs', entirely. Although I have a feeling Tony would still not get angry, he'd just be so, so disappointed. Like a parent, which is the wrong way round.
Yes! I loved the mention of him going on his cruise, but also his comment at the end. Because, while I hate to sound age-ist, he is getting a little too old for that - more because I think he's outgrown it, now. And also, what about his celibacy since Jeanne? Has that ended, now? I really hope so - obviously when I'm in a G/D state of mind, I think they're totally sleeping together, but otherwise, I think starting to have sex again would very much be on his list of things to personally renovate. He and Gibbs sit together on the sofa and have manly conversations about their feelings, while sitting next to one another so that they can still avoid eye contact if they really need to!
I think I pretty much loved Ignition when I saw it, but this episode has robbed a lot of my memories of it away! What I do remember is that Palmer was hilarious, like, unbelievably funny and literal, and that McGee was adorable, and Tony and Ziva were actually pretty cutely hilarious in their bored tolerance of his jet-pack obsession.
Re: 1/3 Tony and his fatherchreeskoJanuary 22 2010, 01:58:41 UTC
Heh, lowered expectations do make life a lot simpler -- any surprises can only be good! I wouldn’t count any of those episodes as my favorites, but I really enjoy specific moments from all of them. Looking at them in a list, I can definitely see the tendency the writers have to mix deep and insightful character moments with bits of slapstick. I kind of hate the way they do slapstick, but it seems to be part of their formula, so whatever. Their Tony characterization is still one of my favorites. They see him as a bit of a frat boy but they also write in moments where he does care and is competent, and the other characters slowly discover those sides of him (Heart Break, Probie, Recoil, Silent Night, SxSw). They're the ones who came up with the pre-series long-term relationship for him in Silent Night! They do an excellent job of writing revelations for Gibbs, too, where his manpain doesn’t take over the episode, but we still have little moments of watching him realize new things.
The more I think about SxSw, the more I see what they were aiming for and can appreciate the complexity. I didn't really appreciate the significance of it when you mentioned the comparison before, but after meeting his father, I especially have come to like the contrast in SxSw between how Tony dealt with losing money he never really had and how McGee dealt with the same thing. My favorite moment, though, is the beginning when Ziva and McGee are so out of sync with Tony, followed closely by the campfire scene. Really, the thing I hate most about it at this point is that it made me wish Lance Henriksen would go away, and that is just not right. It was neat, though, to see how someone from someone outside the team reacts to Tony. Given that Tony seems to be the one to clean up Gibbs' public relations messes, it was strange to see that flipped on its head with the Sherriff who would rather dump Tony at the first available opporutnity. Another way in which Tony was out-of-sorts and everything about S6 was upside down and backward.
I feel like I should disclaim this wild speculation with the idea that I know absolutely nothing about trust funds, so I could be way off. I guess the other possibility would be that Tony went all these years without actually drawing on the fund, so he had no idea that his father's name was still on the account. Which is awesome in its own way, because (a) he is that independent and (b) his personal renovation was that important! ILU Tony!!!!
From a slashy perspective, I feel Tony and Gibbs are having sex, but not often. If we were talking about earlier-season Gibbs/DiNozzo, then I would say that yeah, they were doing it early and often. When they were sitting on the couch, though, or at the end of Ignition... they really seemed to enjoy hanging out with one another. They probably got the sex thing out of hte way because it was bothering Tony, but it seems like they both want something different now. He seemed so at home with Gibbs that I think neither of them rely on sex to build a relationship the way I can imagine that Gibbs may have done with his ex-wives. They don't really have anything to hide from each other at this point, you know? From a non-slashy perspective, I don't think Tony has worked his way up to it yet. Maybe I'm projecting, but I see sex as something that comes about for Tony -- given his specific, Jeanne-trust-related problem -- from being in a healthy-ish state of mind. So in order to be able to have that kind of trust (in himself and others), he needs to get to the place he was in life when he was capable of that sort of interaction. He's recreating the environment he had before in order to try and get himself there again. Sort of a twisted version of the idea that people need to do virtuous deeds in order to build or maintain a virtuous character. I think there's also an element of control. We know he's tried to tackle the sex thing and can't, and now he’s doing all other, smaller things because they’re tasks that he can actually accomplish. Fix what you can and worry about the rest later? Maybe if those go well, he'll work his way up. I just don't see him as totally better yet-- getting there, definitely, but he still has some work to do.
Re: 1/3 Tony and his fatherlittle_ozzoJanuary 25 2010, 12:41:30 UTC
I'm not always a fan of the slapstick they use in the show, because it's such a fine line ebtween funny/hitting my embarrassment squick - usually I'm okay with that, because Tony sets himself up as a clown and I love that he can be cringy because of it. I get paranoid sometimes that my Tony!fangirl makes me explain everything he does as either perfect, or the result of his tortured past - but sometimes, he does find things hilarious that make other people go, stop now. My favourite bit of physical humour is Tony putting the holepunch clippings in his cup and driving McGee insane by pretending it's liquid, then "spilling" it over his computers. I will also never get enough marriage jokes. But, yes, the Tony characterisation works so well, because if he wasn't such a frat boy, those small revelatory moments wouldn't be as intense. Those writers also showed how into Paula he was, and how could a teacher he could be with McGee! I forgive them for making him unable to ride a horse. Maybe. They're good at knowing when those moments are needed, too, for Tony and Gibbs - because realistically, working with them, Tony would make me homicidal and Gibbs would turn me into a nervous wreck, but those little moments of awesome/vulnerability make their personalities at their worst much more bearable.
Anything that makes me want Lance Henriksen off my screen is a bad thing. It was cool to see the Sherriff react to Tony like that, because it was so unusual for Gibbs to be the one succeeding socially. Although that Sherriff really was just impolite, too - weirdly, the more I think about that episode, specifically the Sherriff, the more I remember disliking it. To be a total dick and quote Clueless, SxSW is a total Monet - I like the idea of it in general, but on closer examination it drives me a little crazy. (Hello, new levels of ridiculousness.)
You know that quote, the "Everything is upside down," from Gibbs in 7x04? I love that quote, but it feels a little like Gibbs is late to the game. Things in S7 seems to be at least trying to right themselves, but it was S6 when everything was so <>wrong.
My dad's actually an accountant, but when I asked him to explain trust funds in more detail to me, it wasn't successful. He uses long words, it's tax return month, and I think he got suspicious of my motives. But presumably, when he was 21, Tony would have had full access to it, and Senior could have taken his name off at any time. But it makes sense that he didn't know, and maybe didn't use it before now - which makes me wonder what Tony's financial situation is at the moment. How much did that IOU put him back, after interest? I'm pretty sure, given that his income is disposable, that he'll never have to cut back on too many visits to the tailors, but it's interesting.
Sometimes Tony is just so healthy it hurts. (And sometimes, not so much.) That second, non-slashy scenario fits with how he was in Knockout, where he said he was trying to date and get back into relationships - like he was trying out his renovation even then, but wasn't really succeeding. I wouldn't be surprised if having lots of good (vanilla) sex again was his ultimate goal, because he's Tony, but the idea of him working up to that is ace. I have liked his little, half-flirtatious moments, like with the young cop in ... 7x03? With the scarf? Like he's trying, but it wasn't sleazy, just kind of cute and almost tentative, in a charming kind of way. From a slashy POV, I kind of see them the same way. I think a lot of their time together is spent hanging out without sex, sometimes talking, but mostly not talking about anything - and what I loved about that last scene in F&B is that they were talking about something pretty important, but they weren't really looking at one another while they did. I'm still toying with the idea of Gibbs sleeping with Tony in a weird attempt at sexual healing, but at this stage they seem more like very old friends. I'm not making a lot of sense, but their relationship would only be believable to me if it wasn't particularly romantic, like, they're guys, and one of the reasons to be together is that every other option is dead/they fucked up. Any fic where they say "I love you" kind of throws me out of joint.
Re: 1/3 Tony and his fatherchreeskoFebruary 5 2010, 19:00:44 UTC
The thing with the clippings in the cup was really funny. I'm trying to work up the nerve to do it to our computer guy, but I'm afraid of what he would do in retaliation. He could take away my internet and never give me new computer equipment again and that would be horrible. I think the slapstick these particular writers work in to the episode can be funny, but they also have a tendency to be a little meaner in some of their jokes than the other writers do. I don't mind because they balance it out with awesome character moments, but it's a little weird, like some part of them is stuck in grade school and the other part has a deep understanding of each character's emotions. I wish Tony were still making marriage jokes, but I do love that he stopped because Gibbs asked him to. ♥
Heh, that quote sums up how I felt about it brilliantly. I think I'd like it more now, but in the midst of all the angst and drama from last season, it seemed like too much. As a Tony fan, it would have been better if they had not bludgeoned us over the head with how horrible everything was for Tony, and either spread the pain around to other characters in that episode or left some of it out.
I can't believe I gave this any thought, but he would owe his cousin a fair amount of money. Depending on how long ago it was and how one does the math, I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that he owed $20-$50,000, maybe more. So, yeah, maybe this withdrawal was prompted by the payment in SxSw. (And, even though I've been discussing how much I dislike it, I do kind of love that these particular writers seem to be following their own threads. ♥) And obviously, this is wild conjecture at this point, but if it was the first time he had used the money, I think it would be yet another sign of him being more comfortable with who he is. Realistically, I would bet that it's not the first time, though, it's probably just the first time that the idiots at the bank confused Jr. and Sr.
The detective with the scarf was adorable. She actually looked a little like the detective in Stakeout (?), who was totally charmed by Tony's dedication to the job. <3 One of the things I find so funny about Tony is that women in law enforcement seem to find him very attractive and charming, sometimes liking him despite themselves, while other women in positions of power/authority (lawyers, McGee's publisher) seem to scare him or think he's a buffoon. I don't know why, but I bet someone somewhere has written a book on the phenomenon.
It seems that Tony and Gibbs have settled into the type of relationship people have when they've been married for a long time, or when they were good friends before they got married. They're comfortable with each other in the way that very good friends are, basically, instead of a wild, passionate kind of love. And also... I think that Gibbs loves Tony (not necessarily in a slashy way), but slashily, I also think that he could never love Tony in the way that he loved Shannon and Kelly. If he had the choice to trade in Tony and have them back, he would do it in a heartbeat. And Tony would be okay with that, maybe. So the stories where they profess their undying love for each other are really OOC because they've both moved past that point in their lives. I could maybe see them sleeping together in the same bed, or possibly even cuddling, but I really, really cannot imagine them having sex.
Or, like, the stories where they call each other "lover." I hate those a really lot.
Re: 1/3 Tony and his fatherlittle_ozzoFebruary 15 2010, 12:27:51 UTC
I remember watching S1 and being only vaguely interested up until the point when Tony made a crack about having a cleaning lady, and it being amazing what he could do without three alimonies - that was the moment I fell in love with him and the show! I can't remember if I've got the episodes out of sequence in my head, and ... right, I'll check that because I literally have no recollection of the order of episodes, but I thought he made a little joke about divorce lawyers after Gibbs asked, like someone said something about them and he was all, "Gibbs, that true?" I love it either way, though - that he stopped making them because Gibbs asked him to, or that he couldn't resist even though Gibbs asked him to. (And as much as I try not to be all fangirly and convinced Tony is Gibbs' super special favourite, he really is the only one that gets away with those marriage cracks. Although, he is also the only one foolish enough to try.)
I love that quote, and I guess maybe it does make sense to have it now rather than in S6 because Gibbs is late to the party - he really didn't realise how shitty things were until it was far too late! And I think I do like it more now, as well, because now it seems like good hindsight, rather than on-the-nose, angsty analysis. With all the crappiness going around, it would have been a little much. And Tony. I'm actually running out of words to show how much I love him, and his angst, but mostly how he deals with the angst.
And, even though I've been discussing how much I dislike it, I do kind of love that these particular writers seem to be following their own threads.
This. I adore that they're so focused on Tony's money problems and where it comes from, and they pretty much gave Tony the rich, English side of his family, right? It seems like they've really thought about Tony's backstory, even back then - and that they were just going to go ahead and do it no matter what other writers thought. It's pretty adorable. I also love their obsession with Tony's obsession with the red Ferrari ... 504? My car knowledge is crap.
She was so cute - and so was Heather Kincaid, the detective he interviewed that, without looking, he remembered was on the volleyball team? I love Ziva, but I thought she was pretty awesome. My non-G/D side kind of wants Tony to have kept her number and called her up, once he was less screwy than he was in T&C. I loved the detective he wins over in The Good Wives Club - by using personal experience to crack a case and being faintly serial-killerish and growling. Now the mystery of his dad has been solved, I'm so interested in his mommy issues.
I know there's so much fic about Tony and Gibbs having really hot, kinky sex, but I think their relationship has been going on so long that really, the two of them starting to sleep together is a little strange, because at this stage, when they're both finally healthy enough to actually start having a real relationship, they're at the stage when the sex would be, like, twentieth on their list of priorities anyway. And saying "I love you" is a little redundant, or not quite as necessary. And massively OOC for both of them, especially with one another. Oh, and they're guys. I'm not trying to be sexist, but there is just no way. They say far more by sharing dip than they could ever do with words. I do buy hot sex more if it's set early in their relationship, like Gibbs breaking Rule #12 pre-series and pre-Hiatus, but if they were screwing around then, it was totally unequal and seriously fucked up.
And yes, Tony will never, ever be equal to Shannon and Kelly, but I think Tony himself would be horrified at even the possibility. I think he's very different to he three ex-wives, too, but nobody will ever be what Shannon was to Gibbs, or even close.
I can barely even cope with Tony calling Gibbs 'Jethro'. It makes me feel weird every time I read it, and even that one time he said it, with Jenny, on the show. Although I didn't mind that quite so much because I always thought Jenny and Tony were a little bit weird and personal about Gibbs behind his back, so it made sense.
I’ll probably edit this a million billion times because I still can’t be coherent about it. Whenever I try to think about Tony and his father, I just break down into a ridiculous fangirly puddle because OMG! OMG. How could you do that to your own child and not even notice? OMG.
I hadn’t noticed the steak thing, but now that you mention it, there were a couple of similarities between this and SxSw. In addition to being fans of meat, these writers also seem to be fans of cowboys and the Gibbs-Tony-separate-from-the-others dynamic, which is cool. I like the Gibbs-Tony thing better here because it didn’t have the feel of we’re splitting up the team! Also, in retrospect, I would have liked the team being split up in SxSw a lot more if we hadn’t had the Sherriff tagging along - think of the talks they could have had! The two episodes did share the fact that the opening scene was about money. And both had a Gibbs ‘n’ Tony Fireside Chat™. Actually, the more I talk about it, the more SxSw grows on me, sort of. I still don’t like it, but I hate it less and less all the time, especially now that I know they have a happy ending. Like you said, SxSw was the first time in S6 that Gibbs really noticed something was wrong with Tony, so maybe that was when he started inviting Tony over to his house for dinner. They did a good job of bringing the two of them full circle from that point.
This episode was so superior, though, not just for Tony. In SxSw, there were all sorts of dropped threads and anvils and the whole thing felt very disjointed. Here, it was seamless. Hmm, maybe I should be yelling-in-my-head at the director/editors instead of the poor, abused, G/D-loving writers? IMDB says that they also wrote Heart Break, Probie, Stakeout, Silent Night and a few others, which indicates a degree of competence. Ooh, not to get all meta about it, but maybe that disjointedness in SxSw was supposed to reflect where the characters are in their development and the seamlessness of the story here was because they’ve worked it out.
I can only watch the talk in bits and pieces because it’s really kind of awful. When his father said, “I don’t like to advertize my failures,” I felt like maybe he was talking about, IDK, one reason he doesn’t talk to Tony. I don’t think he was talking about Tony because he just said that Tony should have known he approved by his silence! (Which I also don’t really buy - I think the issue there was not that he didn’t know how to express his approval, but rather that his son was a complete non-entity to him.) But I also knew when he said it that Tony would take it as a dig. :-(
See, I thought Tony was surprised that his father’s name was on the account, which implied to me that maybe it wasn’t before. But then I also think, like you said, that he didn’t seem that dark. So, even if his father thought about bad things, and even began the bad things, he couldn’t go through with it. Maybe he was desperate enough to think of it, but at the end of the day, he did actually care about his son enough that there were some lines he wouldn’t cross.
I also loved the mention of the cruise with his frat brothers. It fits in with the idea of the S7 personal renovation project and his attempts to be more sociable, but I also love how he realizes at the end that maybe that isn’t the best way to go about it, or maybe that he doesn’t really need it anymore. (Because he has Gibbs! And they hang out together on the sofa!! ♥) Kind of a nice parallel to the party in the penthouse.
I’m off now to watch last week’s ep. I couldn’t make myself sit through it then because all I could think about, NCIS-wise, was Tony’s backstory ep. I hope it doesn’t suck.
Reply
So, those writers actually have a great track record, because Heart Break is one of my favourite episodes ever. And, going along with the assumption the writers have planned all of this out (although I trust your analysis far more than I trust their intentions, I don't want to start getting expectations or anything), SxSW and Silent Night were both episodes with small, but really important moments for Gibbs. I can't hate SxSW because I pin so much of my Gibbs characterisation on that one moment on it, but it's still a disjointed, confused episode. Which, if it was meant to be part of the theme, that the characters are totally out of sync, is .... well, it's still not great, but I'll go with it! And I will always love any Gibbs/Tony cowboy/steak moments. Preferably Sherriff-free, though. Poor Lance Henriksen.
All of the Tony/Senior interactiosn were really quite hard to watch, because I think Tony knew what he wanted to say, but was really going into those conversations without any expectations whatsoever. Which is kind of a defense in itself. And his dad just didn't understand, at all - and even when Gibbs talekd to him in the conference room, and it maybe seemed like he started to realise that he'd been treating his son in a less-than-normal, caring way, he didn;t seem to want to try and fix that. He never made a move to try and make things right, he just thought about what he was supposed to say to make it seem like things were right. If that makes any sense. But it was like, he was all about words, then, not actions. And Gibbs, in contrast, is the exact opposite.
I like that idea, too, though, that maybe he had started to think about doing something with Tony's account, because he was that desperate, but then whatever vague morals he did have kicked in, when he saw him, and so he fixed things with the account and decided against doing that. Because doing that really would make him pretty much entirely soulless, and although he did look awfully dark in some of those moments with Gibbs, actually stealing from his son would change my outlook - and, I think, Gibbs', entirely. Although I have a feeling Tony would still not get angry, he'd just be so, so disappointed. Like a parent, which is the wrong way round.
Yes! I loved the mention of him going on his cruise, but also his comment at the end. Because, while I hate to sound age-ist, he is getting a little too old for that - more because I think he's outgrown it, now. And also, what about his celibacy since Jeanne? Has that ended, now? I really hope so - obviously when I'm in a G/D state of mind, I think they're totally sleeping together, but otherwise, I think starting to have sex again would very much be on his list of things to personally renovate. He and Gibbs sit together on the sofa and have manly conversations about their feelings, while sitting next to one another so that they can still avoid eye contact if they really need to!
I think I pretty much loved Ignition when I saw it, but this episode has robbed a lot of my memories of it away! What I do remember is that Palmer was hilarious, like, unbelievably funny and literal, and that McGee was adorable, and Tony and Ziva were actually pretty cutely hilarious in their bored tolerance of his jet-pack obsession.
Reply
The more I think about SxSw, the more I see what they were aiming for and can appreciate the complexity. I didn't really appreciate the significance of it when you mentioned the comparison before, but after meeting his father, I especially have come to like the contrast in SxSw between how Tony dealt with losing money he never really had and how McGee dealt with the same thing. My favorite moment, though, is the beginning when Ziva and McGee are so out of sync with Tony, followed closely by the campfire scene. Really, the thing I hate most about it at this point is that it made me wish Lance Henriksen would go away, and that is just not right. It was neat, though, to see how someone from someone outside the team reacts to Tony. Given that Tony seems to be the one to clean up Gibbs' public relations messes, it was strange to see that flipped on its head with the Sherriff who would rather dump Tony at the first available opporutnity. Another way in which Tony was out-of-sorts and everything about S6 was upside down and backward.
I feel like I should disclaim this wild speculation with the idea that I know absolutely nothing about trust funds, so I could be way off. I guess the other possibility would be that Tony went all these years without actually drawing on the fund, so he had no idea that his father's name was still on the account. Which is awesome in its own way, because (a) he is that independent and (b) his personal renovation was that important! ILU Tony!!!!
From a slashy perspective, I feel Tony and Gibbs are having sex, but not often. If we were talking about earlier-season Gibbs/DiNozzo, then I would say that yeah, they were doing it early and often. When they were sitting on the couch, though, or at the end of Ignition... they really seemed to enjoy hanging out with one another. They probably got the sex thing out of hte way because it was bothering Tony, but it seems like they both want something different now. He seemed so at home with Gibbs that I think neither of them rely on sex to build a relationship the way I can imagine that Gibbs may have done with his ex-wives. They don't really have anything to hide from each other at this point, you know? From a non-slashy perspective, I don't think Tony has worked his way up to it yet. Maybe I'm projecting, but I see sex as something that comes about for Tony -- given his specific, Jeanne-trust-related problem -- from being in a healthy-ish state of mind. So in order to be able to have that kind of trust (in himself and others), he needs to get to the place he was in life when he was capable of that sort of interaction. He's recreating the environment he had before in order to try and get himself there again. Sort of a twisted version of the idea that people need to do virtuous deeds in order to build or maintain a virtuous character. I think there's also an element of control. We know he's tried to tackle the sex thing and can't, and now he’s doing all other, smaller things because they’re tasks that he can actually accomplish. Fix what you can and worry about the rest later? Maybe if those go well, he'll work his way up. I just don't see him as totally better yet-- getting there, definitely, but he still has some work to do.
Reply
Anything that makes me want Lance Henriksen off my screen is a bad thing. It was cool to see the Sherriff react to Tony like that, because it was so unusual for Gibbs to be the one succeeding socially. Although that Sherriff really was just impolite, too - weirdly, the more I think about that episode, specifically the Sherriff, the more I remember disliking it. To be a total dick and quote Clueless, SxSW is a total Monet - I like the idea of it in general, but on closer examination it drives me a little crazy. (Hello, new levels of ridiculousness.)
You know that quote, the "Everything is upside down," from Gibbs in 7x04? I love that quote, but it feels a little like Gibbs is late to the game. Things in S7 seems to be at least trying to right themselves, but it was S6 when everything was so <>wrong.
My dad's actually an accountant, but when I asked him to explain trust funds in more detail to me, it wasn't successful. He uses long words, it's tax return month, and I think he got suspicious of my motives. But presumably, when he was 21, Tony would have had full access to it, and Senior could have taken his name off at any time. But it makes sense that he didn't know, and maybe didn't use it before now - which makes me wonder what Tony's financial situation is at the moment. How much did that IOU put him back, after interest? I'm pretty sure, given that his income is disposable, that he'll never have to cut back on too many visits to the tailors, but it's interesting.
Sometimes Tony is just so healthy it hurts. (And sometimes, not so much.) That second, non-slashy scenario fits with how he was in Knockout, where he said he was trying to date and get back into relationships - like he was trying out his renovation even then, but wasn't really succeeding. I wouldn't be surprised if having lots of good (vanilla) sex again was his ultimate goal, because he's Tony, but the idea of him working up to that is ace. I have liked his little, half-flirtatious moments, like with the young cop in ... 7x03? With the scarf? Like he's trying, but it wasn't sleazy, just kind of cute and almost tentative, in a charming kind of way. From a slashy POV, I kind of see them the same way. I think a lot of their time together is spent hanging out without sex, sometimes talking, but mostly not talking about anything - and what I loved about that last scene in F&B is that they were talking about something pretty important, but they weren't really looking at one another while they did. I'm still toying with the idea of Gibbs sleeping with Tony in a weird attempt at sexual healing, but at this stage they seem more like very old friends. I'm not making a lot of sense, but their relationship would only be believable to me if it wasn't particularly romantic, like, they're guys, and one of the reasons to be together is that every other option is dead/they fucked up. Any fic where they say "I love you" kind of throws me out of joint.
Reply
Heh, that quote sums up how I felt about it brilliantly. I think I'd like it more now, but in the midst of all the angst and drama from last season, it seemed like too much. As a Tony fan, it would have been better if they had not bludgeoned us over the head with how horrible everything was for Tony, and either spread the pain around to other characters in that episode or left some of it out.
I can't believe I gave this any thought, but he would owe his cousin a fair amount of money. Depending on how long ago it was and how one does the math, I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that he owed $20-$50,000, maybe more. So, yeah, maybe this withdrawal was prompted by the payment in SxSw. (And, even though I've been discussing how much I dislike it, I do kind of love that these particular writers seem to be following their own threads. ♥) And obviously, this is wild conjecture at this point, but if it was the first time he had used the money, I think it would be yet another sign of him being more comfortable with who he is. Realistically, I would bet that it's not the first time, though, it's probably just the first time that the idiots at the bank confused Jr. and Sr.
The detective with the scarf was adorable. She actually looked a little like the detective in Stakeout (?), who was totally charmed by Tony's dedication to the job. <3 One of the things I find so funny about Tony is that women in law enforcement seem to find him very attractive and charming, sometimes liking him despite themselves, while other women in positions of power/authority (lawyers, McGee's publisher) seem to scare him or think he's a buffoon. I don't know why, but I bet someone somewhere has written a book on the phenomenon.
It seems that Tony and Gibbs have settled into the type of relationship people have when they've been married for a long time, or when they were good friends before they got married. They're comfortable with each other in the way that very good friends are, basically, instead of a wild, passionate kind of love. And also... I think that Gibbs loves Tony (not necessarily in a slashy way), but slashily, I also think that he could never love Tony in the way that he loved Shannon and Kelly. If he had the choice to trade in Tony and have them back, he would do it in a heartbeat. And Tony would be okay with that, maybe. So the stories where they profess their undying love for each other are really OOC because they've both moved past that point in their lives. I could maybe see them sleeping together in the same bed, or possibly even cuddling, but I really, really cannot imagine them having sex.
Or, like, the stories where they call each other "lover." I hate those a really lot.
Reply
I love that quote, and I guess maybe it does make sense to have it now rather than in S6 because Gibbs is late to the party - he really didn't realise how shitty things were until it was far too late! And I think I do like it more now, as well, because now it seems like good hindsight, rather than on-the-nose, angsty analysis. With all the crappiness going around, it would have been a little much. And Tony. I'm actually running out of words to show how much I love him, and his angst, but mostly how he deals with the angst.
And, even though I've been discussing how much I dislike it, I do kind of love that these particular writers seem to be following their own threads.
This. I adore that they're so focused on Tony's money problems and where it comes from, and they pretty much gave Tony the rich, English side of his family, right? It seems like they've really thought about Tony's backstory, even back then - and that they were just going to go ahead and do it no matter what other writers thought. It's pretty adorable. I also love their obsession with Tony's obsession with the red Ferrari ... 504? My car knowledge is crap.
She was so cute - and so was Heather Kincaid, the detective he interviewed that, without looking, he remembered was on the volleyball team? I love Ziva, but I thought she was pretty awesome. My non-G/D side kind of wants Tony to have kept her number and called her up, once he was less screwy than he was in T&C. I loved the detective he wins over in The Good Wives Club - by using personal experience to crack a case and being faintly serial-killerish and growling. Now the mystery of his dad has been solved, I'm so interested in his mommy issues.
I know there's so much fic about Tony and Gibbs having really hot, kinky sex, but I think their relationship has been going on so long that really, the two of them starting to sleep together is a little strange, because at this stage, when they're both finally healthy enough to actually start having a real relationship, they're at the stage when the sex would be, like, twentieth on their list of priorities anyway. And saying "I love you" is a little redundant, or not quite as necessary. And massively OOC for both of them, especially with one another. Oh, and they're guys. I'm not trying to be sexist, but there is just no way. They say far more by sharing dip than they could ever do with words. I do buy hot sex more if it's set early in their relationship, like Gibbs breaking Rule #12 pre-series and pre-Hiatus, but if they were screwing around then, it was totally unequal and seriously fucked up.
And yes, Tony will never, ever be equal to Shannon and Kelly, but I think Tony himself would be horrified at even the possibility. I think he's very different to he three ex-wives, too, but nobody will ever be what Shannon was to Gibbs, or even close.
I can barely even cope with Tony calling Gibbs 'Jethro'. It makes me feel weird every time I read it, and even that one time he said it, with Jenny, on the show. Although I didn't mind that quite so much because I always thought Jenny and Tony were a little bit weird and personal about Gibbs behind his back, so it made sense.
Reply
Leave a comment