mostly Lie to Me
I have blazed through all the Lie to Me that there is so far, and I find myself a little disappointed. I really loved season 1. Season 2...much less so. And it's entirely because Gillian went from being an equal partner in the plot, with agency and an interesting role, to being a fairly one-note subordinate. If this continues through the rest of the season, when it returns, I'm afraid this show might lose me as quickly as it gained me, and that's frustrating, especially since it began with such potential to do an interesting spin on the traditional cop partner relationship.
My interest in the show is almost entirely centered around Gillian and Cal's relationship, though I'm also interested in all of the dynamics between Cal, Gillian, Emily, and Zoe. Loker and Torres do very little for me, though I don't hate them or anything. I like the potential of Reynolds to be a friend to Cal and Gillian (rather than an employee) and to have a different relationship to each of them as individuals. I liked him in the Vegas episode, for instance, having fun betting with Cal but then sort of taking Gillian's side in the end. So more of that would work for me.
But mostly I'm interested in Cal and Gillian, because unlike the usual premise of these shows, where the beginning of the show is the beginning of the partnership, we meet Cal and Gillian when they've already been working together for years, when they're already each other's best friend, when they already know almost everything there is to know about each other. It's an unusually intimate premise from which to begin, and I think "intimacy" is probably the keyword for their relationship, through both seasons. Because this isn't just your average close friendship and partnership; it's a close friendship and partnership between people who are experts in knowing whether people are lying. And particularly in season 1, so much of the interpersonal dynamics on the show concerned how you work with people when you can't and don't keep secrets from them.
In season 1, we learn that Cal and Gillian don't lie to each other (much), but that they do lie to themselves and then trust the other to support these self-deceptions. And this dynamic is dramatized throughout the season in the breakup of Gillian's marriage. Before I'd seen the full season, I'd read enough fic in which Cal and Gillian talk about "the line" that they can't cross, and I was all "WHY MUST THERE ALWAYS BE A FREAKING LINE?!?!?!?" because seriously, shows, be original. Except it turns out it's not that kind of line at all (though I'm not sure all the fic writers quite get that). Not the "we can't consummate our attraction lest our professionalism be compromised" line that everyone else has and that is generally meaningless, given that we all know that Booth and Brennan are already pretty damned compromised, so they might as well just get on with it, etc. But Lightman and Foster's line is about lying to each other, or rather, about facilitating the kind of privacy that we all need for general sanity. People need to keep secrets from their colleagues, their friends, their partners--it's just what we do. But when your colleague, friend, and partner is an expert at telling when people are lying--when you're lying--what happens? What happens is self-protective and friendship-protective lying: pretending not to see things, not acting on the things you did see, choosing which parts of knowing too much about another person you'll ignore in order to preserve everything that's valuable about the relationship. So when Cal confesses to Gillian that he followed her husband because he was pretty sure said husband is a cheating bastard and he didn't want to see Gillian hurt, and she says "you know, it's sweet that you've got this protective streak, but hello, LINE," this does not mean "woe, we cannot be together because if we were, it would compromise our professionalism (and also I'm married, angst!)," but rather, "um, I sort of know he's a cheating bastard, but I haven't gotten to the point where I'm ready to admit that to myself yet--and anyway, he's my cheating bastard, so stay out of my business." Which is so much more interesting!
There's also a side of this, of course, that involves maintaining the illusion that they're not completely crazy about each other even though they are (fairly canonically so--I'm not just playing with subtext here), but I really love that this "shippier" aspect is subordinated to the larger concerns about intimacy and privacy in any close relationship, romantic or otherwise. It's refreshing.
And then we get season 2. The theme of season 2 is "Cal is secretly a reckless adrenaline junkie with a bad boy streak, and Gillian tries to protect him from his demons." Which...*yawn* It felt like half the damn season were episodes in which Cal did something stupid and/or dangerous, and Gillian nagged him about how she was worried about him going (back to) a bad place, and he sort of pushed her away under the guise of wanting to "protect" her from his darker nature. And all of this was still very intimate and shippy--lots of emphasis on how well they know each other, with Gillian knowing things about Cal and his past that no one else seems to know, not to mention that he all but confesses that he loves her at least once--but the gender dynamics are really problematic. Suddenly, it seems that Cal sees women as madonnas or whores, and he keeps Gillian on this pedestal as his savior (and even describes her at one point as his "ideal woman," which proceeded to launch a thousand shippy fics, but which also problematically separates her from being a real woman) while also demonstrating a proclivity for flings with "dangerous" women.
And all of this is just SO MUCH LESS INTERESTING than what the show was doing in season 1!!!! Not to mention sexist. I have a tiny bit of hope that maybe they're doing some of this on purpose in order to set up some future plot about the reality of Gillian as not entirely perfect, and then Cal will be forced to confront his idealization of her. I mean, I'm not holding my breath on this at all, but season 1 did a pretty good job patiently developing the characters and particularly the subplot with the trust issues surrounding Gillian's marriage, so it's just possible that Cal-as-bad-boy/Gillian-as-savior is the first part of a subplot that will become more interesting as that dynamic is dismantled. But I'm not sure I trust the show enough to hope that. *le sigh* I will, however, tune in whenever the new episodes come back, and we'll see how it goes.
Incidentally, for my money the show to trust right now for the solid and faithful writing of a relationship between protagonist cop partners is Castle. I have been SO impressed with the way they're handling Castle and Beckett: lots of care, patience, and logical, consistent character development. fialka has some excellent thoughts on this, referencing the two most recent episodes.
My interest in the show is almost entirely centered around Gillian and Cal's relationship, though I'm also interested in all of the dynamics between Cal, Gillian, Emily, and Zoe. Loker and Torres do very little for me, though I don't hate them or anything. I like the potential of Reynolds to be a friend to Cal and Gillian (rather than an employee) and to have a different relationship to each of them as individuals. I liked him in the Vegas episode, for instance, having fun betting with Cal but then sort of taking Gillian's side in the end. So more of that would work for me.
But mostly I'm interested in Cal and Gillian, because unlike the usual premise of these shows, where the beginning of the show is the beginning of the partnership, we meet Cal and Gillian when they've already been working together for years, when they're already each other's best friend, when they already know almost everything there is to know about each other. It's an unusually intimate premise from which to begin, and I think "intimacy" is probably the keyword for their relationship, through both seasons. Because this isn't just your average close friendship and partnership; it's a close friendship and partnership between people who are experts in knowing whether people are lying. And particularly in season 1, so much of the interpersonal dynamics on the show concerned how you work with people when you can't and don't keep secrets from them.
In season 1, we learn that Cal and Gillian don't lie to each other (much), but that they do lie to themselves and then trust the other to support these self-deceptions. And this dynamic is dramatized throughout the season in the breakup of Gillian's marriage. Before I'd seen the full season, I'd read enough fic in which Cal and Gillian talk about "the line" that they can't cross, and I was all "WHY MUST THERE ALWAYS BE A FREAKING LINE?!?!?!?" because seriously, shows, be original. Except it turns out it's not that kind of line at all (though I'm not sure all the fic writers quite get that). Not the "we can't consummate our attraction lest our professionalism be compromised" line that everyone else has and that is generally meaningless, given that we all know that Booth and Brennan are already pretty damned compromised, so they might as well just get on with it, etc. But Lightman and Foster's line is about lying to each other, or rather, about facilitating the kind of privacy that we all need for general sanity. People need to keep secrets from their colleagues, their friends, their partners--it's just what we do. But when your colleague, friend, and partner is an expert at telling when people are lying--when you're lying--what happens? What happens is self-protective and friendship-protective lying: pretending not to see things, not acting on the things you did see, choosing which parts of knowing too much about another person you'll ignore in order to preserve everything that's valuable about the relationship. So when Cal confesses to Gillian that he followed her husband because he was pretty sure said husband is a cheating bastard and he didn't want to see Gillian hurt, and she says "you know, it's sweet that you've got this protective streak, but hello, LINE," this does not mean "woe, we cannot be together because if we were, it would compromise our professionalism (and also I'm married, angst!)," but rather, "um, I sort of know he's a cheating bastard, but I haven't gotten to the point where I'm ready to admit that to myself yet--and anyway, he's my cheating bastard, so stay out of my business." Which is so much more interesting!
There's also a side of this, of course, that involves maintaining the illusion that they're not completely crazy about each other even though they are (fairly canonically so--I'm not just playing with subtext here), but I really love that this "shippier" aspect is subordinated to the larger concerns about intimacy and privacy in any close relationship, romantic or otherwise. It's refreshing.
And then we get season 2. The theme of season 2 is "Cal is secretly a reckless adrenaline junkie with a bad boy streak, and Gillian tries to protect him from his demons." Which...*yawn* It felt like half the damn season were episodes in which Cal did something stupid and/or dangerous, and Gillian nagged him about how she was worried about him going (back to) a bad place, and he sort of pushed her away under the guise of wanting to "protect" her from his darker nature. And all of this was still very intimate and shippy--lots of emphasis on how well they know each other, with Gillian knowing things about Cal and his past that no one else seems to know, not to mention that he all but confesses that he loves her at least once--but the gender dynamics are really problematic. Suddenly, it seems that Cal sees women as madonnas or whores, and he keeps Gillian on this pedestal as his savior (and even describes her at one point as his "ideal woman," which proceeded to launch a thousand shippy fics, but which also problematically separates her from being a real woman) while also demonstrating a proclivity for flings with "dangerous" women.
And all of this is just SO MUCH LESS INTERESTING than what the show was doing in season 1!!!! Not to mention sexist. I have a tiny bit of hope that maybe they're doing some of this on purpose in order to set up some future plot about the reality of Gillian as not entirely perfect, and then Cal will be forced to confront his idealization of her. I mean, I'm not holding my breath on this at all, but season 1 did a pretty good job patiently developing the characters and particularly the subplot with the trust issues surrounding Gillian's marriage, so it's just possible that Cal-as-bad-boy/Gillian-as-savior is the first part of a subplot that will become more interesting as that dynamic is dismantled. But I'm not sure I trust the show enough to hope that. *le sigh* I will, however, tune in whenever the new episodes come back, and we'll see how it goes.
Incidentally, for my money the show to trust right now for the solid and faithful writing of a relationship between protagonist cop partners is Castle. I have been SO impressed with the way they're handling Castle and Beckett: lots of care, patience, and logical, consistent character development. fialka has some excellent thoughts on this, referencing the two most recent episodes.