More Fastlane
Don't worry, it only has one season, so I can't be blogging about it for too long.
Anyway, so despite Fastlane's, as Anna puts it, "so-bad-it's-good principle of programming" I'm surprised to find, watching it in sequence, that it's actually quite a tightly plotted show in terms of character development. Oh, on the surface it's still guns, girls and gangsters, but... themes and motives are carried through and developed from episode to episode, tossed-off jokes come back as plot points, and characters grow and develop from one episode to another in ways reminiscent of Asian tv serials, but not most American tv I'm familiar with--and especially not in action shows. The character plotting is handled as though this were meant to be a limited-run series, not a show that got cut off due to funding.
Dammit. Why did they cancel it? It's doing exactly the thing with its characters that I wish most other shows would do, pushing them forward when all other American tv gives up and lets its main characters stagnate. Even Ugly Betty, which I loved for its initial pacing, gave it up upon becoming a huge hit guaranteed several more seasons, and let character relations more or less solidify except where dictated otherwise by the soap-opera twists.
In Fastlane however, nothing about the characters is allowed to simply become an entrenched habit. Van's initially displayed tendency to hook up with the female marks, for instance. It's set up in the first episode, reinforced in the second, and already Deaq calls him on it--in the third, it's expanded to show that it's not just hot girls, but that he generally gets way too involved with the marks. In the fourth, Deaq gets to put his money where his mouth is as a girl he's attracted to gets involved (and Deaq has his own character arc relating to trust issues and keeping distance that gets explored here), and Deaq's and Van's own relationship gets a slightly new understanding. Episode 5 is basically Billie's episode, though other things are touched on and reinforced, then in Episode 6 we get introduced to Van's father which suddenly explains a lot of things about Van. Among them, as Billie notes, why he "always gets so close to the mark." And--having dealt with his father--in episode 7, that yields real changes in Van's character as his relationship with his next female mark is changed entirely. As he tells Deaq, he no longer feels any guilt or responsibility for her, or about putting her behind bars. (Then he angsts about that.) By end of the episode, he has, to quote Deaq, "an entirely new messed-up thing" about relating to marks, and as viewers, we've actually seen how it grew and developed. This is just Van, mind--there's also similar evolution in Deaq and Billie, in Deaq and Van's partnership (of course) and in their group dynamic as a team. Even though it's a catch-a-crook-per-episode show that would appear to be a prime suspect for static characterization, everything the characters go through actually has real, visible, traceable consequences. I love it.
Plus it has dialogue like this (episode 8):
Billie: One more thing?
Van: (sighs) There's always a thing.
Billie: Alexa? She's a good friend of mine. We came up through the academy together.
Van: You have a past? I always thought you were like, genetically engineered in a lab.
Billie: And men find Alexa... well. Let me see if I can put this in your terms. There wasn't one guy in the academy that didn't want to (makes a face) shizzle her wizzle.
Van: Ok. (snickers) I never shizzled a wizzle and... (laughing) I don't know what that means. (to Deaq) Is she trying to say she's hot? Is that what it is? She's hot?
Billie: Keep your meat hooks off of her.
Van: What?
Billie: What? Listen, she just went through a rough divorce. Lughead detective from Bongo(?) left her for his bond. The last things she needs is another flagboy cop to hit it and quit it.
Van: Ok, you know what? I'm personally offended by that. I mean, I can't believe this. This is like... racial profiling... without the race part.
Deaq: (rolling his eyes) Don't worry Billie, I'll keep him in check.
I love Van dammit. I also love Deaq dammit. I recall I begin to love Billie more as the show goes on.
Anyway, so despite Fastlane's, as Anna puts it, "so-bad-it's-good principle of programming" I'm surprised to find, watching it in sequence, that it's actually quite a tightly plotted show in terms of character development. Oh, on the surface it's still guns, girls and gangsters, but... themes and motives are carried through and developed from episode to episode, tossed-off jokes come back as plot points, and characters grow and develop from one episode to another in ways reminiscent of Asian tv serials, but not most American tv I'm familiar with--and especially not in action shows. The character plotting is handled as though this were meant to be a limited-run series, not a show that got cut off due to funding.
Dammit. Why did they cancel it? It's doing exactly the thing with its characters that I wish most other shows would do, pushing them forward when all other American tv gives up and lets its main characters stagnate. Even Ugly Betty, which I loved for its initial pacing, gave it up upon becoming a huge hit guaranteed several more seasons, and let character relations more or less solidify except where dictated otherwise by the soap-opera twists.
In Fastlane however, nothing about the characters is allowed to simply become an entrenched habit. Van's initially displayed tendency to hook up with the female marks, for instance. It's set up in the first episode, reinforced in the second, and already Deaq calls him on it--in the third, it's expanded to show that it's not just hot girls, but that he generally gets way too involved with the marks. In the fourth, Deaq gets to put his money where his mouth is as a girl he's attracted to gets involved (and Deaq has his own character arc relating to trust issues and keeping distance that gets explored here), and Deaq's and Van's own relationship gets a slightly new understanding. Episode 5 is basically Billie's episode, though other things are touched on and reinforced, then in Episode 6 we get introduced to Van's father which suddenly explains a lot of things about Van. Among them, as Billie notes, why he "always gets so close to the mark." And--having dealt with his father--in episode 7, that yields real changes in Van's character as his relationship with his next female mark is changed entirely. As he tells Deaq, he no longer feels any guilt or responsibility for her, or about putting her behind bars. (Then he angsts about that.) By end of the episode, he has, to quote Deaq, "an entirely new messed-up thing" about relating to marks, and as viewers, we've actually seen how it grew and developed. This is just Van, mind--there's also similar evolution in Deaq and Billie, in Deaq and Van's partnership (of course) and in their group dynamic as a team. Even though it's a catch-a-crook-per-episode show that would appear to be a prime suspect for static characterization, everything the characters go through actually has real, visible, traceable consequences. I love it.
Plus it has dialogue like this (episode 8):
Billie: One more thing?
Van: (sighs) There's always a thing.
Billie: Alexa? She's a good friend of mine. We came up through the academy together.
Van: You have a past? I always thought you were like, genetically engineered in a lab.
Billie: And men find Alexa... well. Let me see if I can put this in your terms. There wasn't one guy in the academy that didn't want to (makes a face) shizzle her wizzle.
Van: Ok. (snickers) I never shizzled a wizzle and... (laughing) I don't know what that means. (to Deaq) Is she trying to say she's hot? Is that what it is? She's hot?
Billie: Keep your meat hooks off of her.
Van: What?
Billie: What? Listen, she just went through a rough divorce. Lughead detective from Bongo(?) left her for his bond. The last things she needs is another flagboy cop to hit it and quit it.
Van: Ok, you know what? I'm personally offended by that. I mean, I can't believe this. This is like... racial profiling... without the race part.
Deaq: (rolling his eyes) Don't worry Billie, I'll keep him in check.
I love Van dammit. I also love Deaq dammit. I recall I begin to love Billie more as the show goes on.