Thoughts on fiction and gender: So, what about the men?
Every time there's a good discussion of the treatment of female characters in fiction or a mention of female deaths/refrigerations, there's always the inevitable derailment of the discussion with the very brilliant question of, "But what about the men? Do they don't die/get mistreated/etc, too?" So, I've been thinking: Indeed, what about the men? Are there problems with the way they're portrayed?
I wrote about the "Ten Best Wives on TV" list a while ago, and mentioned that the reason we don't get things like that with men and Ten Best Husbands on TV is because how good of a wife someone is is often a pretty good measure of how good of a character a woman is. Where good doesn't mean INTERESTING or COMPLELLING, but it does mean nice/a good person. As in, for (fictional) women to be considered good people (by the text? By fandom?), they often have to be good girlfriends/wives. But men can still be considered heroes and good people by the text and/or fandom while being horrible husbands/boyfriends. Fiction often happily overlooks men’s sexism and how a man treats women often has no bearing on how much the text/fandom likes him.
Like, try to make a list of women that the text sees as being good, but they're also horrible girlfriends/wives. Kara is an interesting character, but she's also a character seen as damaged and flawed by the text. Compare this to Lee's treatment of Dee, where people in canon still refer to Lee as "He's too good to cheat." [1] Nevermind the fact that he's lying to his wife, making her think it's her insecurities that are causing her to act out this way, and he's generally meh towards her.
Think of someone like Tyrol. Possibly a latent misogynist to the millionth degree, YES OR YES? And how does the text see him? With Lee, we get some minor acknowledgement of his issues in season two, but with Tyrol? The text NEVER sees what a creepy abusive asshole he is, and I just...don't get the fandom's love for him. I'm rarely this judgmental about characters, but Tyrol makes me so damn uncomfortable. So, yes, Lee and Kara trade punches in canon, but when it's in the context of a relationship? The dynamics change, and not just because of hitting girls but also because violence should not exist in intimate relationships. (And I *really* appreciate the fact that Kara never punches/hits Sam as she would Lee, even at her worst, because the relationships are completely different.) Because violence of that kind can take on additional problematic layers when sexual feelings are also involved. This is why the mutual punching in "Kobol's Last Gleaming" with Kara and Lee, as problematic as it was, didn't really keep me from enjoying their dynamic, while the same thing got me to dislike them forever in "Unfinished Business." Because those shots of Lee reflecting on their sexual encounter with rage and then punching/kicking her with renewed violence? Read very much as him punishing her for picking Sam over him/for leaving him, and that is just never, ever okay, and those feelings should ever exist in a relationship. I am never really sure how we're meant to read those cuts, but it can't be something the show is 100% condoning.
But the text is okay with Tyrol's abuse of women in fifteen different ways. His abuse of Cally is dismissed as an episode or his issues. And he was sort of rough with Boomer too, before then. Then there's the strangling of Tory, which is possibly the most misogynistic thing in a season filled with Gender Fail. And he gets applauded for it! Notice also how we're supposed to feel Tigh's pain at having to kill Ellen (and I'm fond of Tigh, so I do feel his pain a bit, but that doesn't make that narrative choice any less problematic), and we never deal with the fact that he did, in fact, poison his wife for stupid ideals. And we get a lot of that in fiction, in general, no? Where men treat women horribly, and it's seen as an act of heroism because they loved them and killed them anyway.
Maybe it's because I watched "Sita Sings the Blues" recently, but that's been bugging me lately. The fact that Rama can demand that she walk through the fire to prove to him that she never slept with the man who kidnapped her (and if she had, it would've been RAPE, and so she would still have been faithful to him), and after she does this successfully? He still exiles her from his kingdom lest the people think that he would keep an unchaste woman as his wife. And he's praised for doing what's DEMANDED of him, and he's a great king, a pious human being, and beloved of the gods. But is he a GOOD HUSBAND? Is Aeneas a good person, leaving a trail of dead women behind him and abandoning them to follow his destiny? Being a good husband often has NO reflection on a male character's worthiness. Because it's a part of his characterization, not ALL of it. Whereas with women, once they're put into the context of a relationship (and become part of a man's narrative, in a way), they often completely lose their own narrative and are seen through the POV of the man's arc. And in that context, if they're bad wives/girlfriends, they are also portrayed/seen as bad *people.*
I'm sick of men's mistreatment of women being displayed as some sort of a great suffering and herosim on their part. IT IS NOT HEROIC TO KILL/ABANDON YOUR WIFE NO MATTER WHAT. It's also NOT something to be applauded to strangle a woman who killed another woman whom you apparently never loved who killed another woman that you were also abusive towards. Not to mention that random Eight Tyrol killed for no good reason? And then he has the nerve to judge Tory. (What Tory did was wrong, yes, but out of the two of them? Tyrol deserved to get strangled a LOT MORE.)
I'm also wondering if this has to do with my general mehness towards the male characters recently? The fact that the texts are not very likely to condemn male characters for mistreatment of women, and how a man treats/sees the women is a huge part of what makes up my mind about a male character. lodessa did an excellent essay on Xander and his sexism here, where she examines how BTVS never acknowledges the fact that Xander did, in fact, once tried to rape Buffy. I agree with this wholeheartedly, although to be fair, Buffy often had a huge problem acknowledging the flaws of the main characters, which is likely responsible for my lack of love for most of them. Notice also the difference between the aired version of “Beneath You” and the shooting script. The script has Spike acknowledging the fact that he tried to rape Buffy and feeling bad, in general, about his past transgressions and Buffy not knowing what to say to him. The aired version, rewritten by the Great Joss Whedon, has Spike blaming his current pains on Buffy (oh, how dare did she ever make a big deal about him trying to RAPE her, which led to him getting a soul. ALL HER FAULT!), telling her it's her fault. Buffy’s reactions? TEARS RUNNING DOWN HER FACE, people. The fandom’s love affair with Spike is the stuff of legends, of course, and the text contributes to this by trying hard to paint Spike as sympathetic (even during/after that attempted rape). I used to love Spike to a degree that I disliked Giles and a lot of other characters for mistreating him. Back when canon still saw him as deeply flawed and the fandom still disliked him a bit. I liked him for what he was, but once the text attempts to tell me to forgive him for RAPE? Um, no. I can’t really think of a single male character I hate as much as I’ve hated Spike since season six.
Then there's also the other side of this spectrum, one that I like to refer to as Sexism with Good Intentions. "Angel" had this in abundance, and this is the kind that's easier to dismiss and maybe forgive for some people. But I find it highly annoying and hard to overlook. This is when the men are overly protective of the women and/or act as if they know what's good for her better than she knows what's good for her. We saw an example of this in "Billy," where Angel was strongly against Cordelia killing Billy and was going to do it for her. I'm so glad that Lilah ended up being the one who shot him, because in an episode that deals with men's violence towards women, it would have been WRONG to have let anyone but a woman kill Billy. But...Cordelia got there first and had the first dibs? And then a total repeat of this same dynamic in "Supersymmetry," where Gunn was strongly against Fred killing her professor. Not against killing, period, because he actually kills him to make sure that FRED doesn't. Like, his perfect image of her would be ruined if she went ahead and killed that guy in front of him. He was protecting her from something he has NO understanding of . I just...really hate this attitude where the guy feels the need to 'protect' the woman from the world/herself/violence/past/whatever [2], and thinks he knows what's good for her better than she does herself, and this is so prevalent in the male heroes? Angel, Gunn, Wesley, Lee, Paul, Mal, Xander, and the list can probably go on forever and ever.
And what about "Supernatural?" Where Dean's systematic and offensive sexism and misogyny are not only not acknowledged by the text as being problematic, but they're also JUSTIFIED by the text every time a woman he considered to be a 'bitch' or an 'evil whore' actually turns out to be evil, and then the brothers get to gleefully stab her to death and bond over that exclusion of the feminine presence from their life. But Dean is a hero, a good man, despite the fact that he thinks a woman is flattering herself by being worried that he might rape her. In his opinion, rape is a compliment. And I can't think of a single thing that's even half as offensive as that sentiment, and yet people (and women, at that!) LIKE this character?
There’s also minor things like male characters’ relationships with other men being valued over their relationships with women by the text. The bromance thing, for one, fails to interest me largely for this reason. Like, in text, it reads as Tigh picking his duty to the military over his family, but he’s actually picking his relationship to Adama over his relationship with Ellen. I’m blanking on other recent examples, but this is a whole trope, no? Where men do manly things, and women are excluded from it for whatever reason. Like, why did it take Angel three seasons before anyone thought to train Cordelia to fight demons, maybe? And often, it’s portrayed as men picking duty and brotherly bonds over frivolous things like relationships, but at its core? It’s problematic because it’s not very far from Rama picking duty over the choice to give his wife a home. Boomer and Tyrol’s early problems also sort of fit under this with his whole, “I can’t believe I betrayed my honor/duty/whatever for you!” Sometimes, I can see where they’re coming from, but they're still part of a metanarrative that excludes/devalues women.
Then there’s fandom’s love affair with characters like Sylar, Joker, and Comedian, who are all sexist/misogynistic, and even when the canon sees them as evil, they’re still seen as compelling by the texts. I’m sorry, but I lose interest the second a guy shoots a pregnant woman, blames his serial killing on his MOTHER, or blows up women to motivate men. So fandom really has no place going on about what makes female characters unlikable when they’re liking these characters.
So while there's a lot of discussion about what makes so many of the female characters apparently 'boring' in fandom, and how women are just not as interesting, THIS IS WHAT KEEPS ME FROM LIKING MALE CHARACTERS. Please, fail less at this, writers.
Now, I'm relatively okay with male characters who have these issues where they're acknowledged by the text. Not that I dismiss their sexism then, but just that I'm less likely to hate them with an utter passion. Like, Baltar may be sexist from a certain angle (although, I don't think he MISTREATS women?) but the text doesn't see him as some kind of a huge hero, so I'm fond of him. Or how Achilles is a good warrior, but the text never sees him as a GOOD PERSON, as is the case with Hector, which makes me more judgmental towards Hector's issues than towards Achilles. Not that either Hector or Achilles are greatly sexist, but just in that…I like when texts acknowledge the flaws of the characters.
I'm also really annoyed by how men are often (in text and in fandom) applauded for mistreatment of women? Fandom was muchly happy every time Max was abusive towards Tess (which was often!), and there was some discussion about how Lee needed to make a Tyrol-like cabbage patch speech about Dee at her funeral. REALLY, FANDOM? A huge reason that I disliked Jean/Scott for a long time was that he demeaned Maddie and his relationship to her in front of Jean. THIS IS NEVER OKAY. As much as I like Emma and Scott, I also MADLY love that every time Emma complains about Jean, Scott defends her and never says that he doesn't still love her, too. *This* is what makes me like Scott. Speaking of which, how often does someone in fandom think that Scott can be redeemed by blowing Emma's head off with his lasers?
Worse: there's also a whole segment of fandom that thinks it is, in fact, unmanly or whatever to treat women with respect? Like, there is NO part of Sam's relationship with Kara where he is making a sacrifice or taking her 'abuse.' She's going through a horrible time during season three, and you KNOW a wife would be expected to stick with her husband through that, yes or yes? But if a guy does it, he's a doormat. Because, clearly, WOMEN were meant to be doormats, not men. Or how the fact that Scott takes Emma's suggestions seriously and values her advice means that he's 'whipped' (I HATE THAT WORD SO MUCH!), because how dare he let a woman dictate how to run the X-men, even when that woman is as much in charge as he is? And I admittedly have a huge thing in fiction for men like Scott or Sam where they are happy to be with complicated and issued women like Emma (or Jean!) or Kara (and have no love for men like Wesley where his simplistic perception of Fred makes her easier to love than Lilah, whom he also fails to understand on a fundamental level). And fandom complains about how het relationships with equality are hard to find, but when you give them something like that, they complain about how the man is a doormat. Sigh.
But those are still going to be exceptions because the texts continue to give us men who have issues with women and refuse to acknowledge them, and fandom is often happily blind to the said issues.
1. I do think that the text sees her as being a hero, which I definitely give the show credit for since it's rare for those two characteristics to exist in female characters at once. This is one of the things I’ll always love about BSG: that it did awesome things with early Kara, and part of that was portraying her as a heroic figure while letting her have the flaws that would usually keep women from being heroes.
2. "The Inside" did this dynamic of Concerned Sexism wonderfully, where you do have Paul (and to a lesser degree, Jayne) wanting to protect Rebecca, but Rebecca doesn't need anyone to rescue her. By the time they bring their cavalry around, Rebecca has already saved herself pretty much every time. So people complaining about Rebecca getting in trouble every episode? Generally don't get this very important dynamic: that even when she gets into trouble, she does it on purpose and never because she's stupid, and um, she always comes out of it with the OTHER guy dead/in jail, so what are they complaining about? This is why we needed "The Inside" on TV forever. To screw with all of those stereotypes of the damsels in distress because the distress actually empowers her. Which is wrong, but awesome. <3
I wrote about the "Ten Best Wives on TV" list a while ago, and mentioned that the reason we don't get things like that with men and Ten Best Husbands on TV is because how good of a wife someone is is often a pretty good measure of how good of a character a woman is. Where good doesn't mean INTERESTING or COMPLELLING, but it does mean nice/a good person. As in, for (fictional) women to be considered good people (by the text? By fandom?), they often have to be good girlfriends/wives. But men can still be considered heroes and good people by the text and/or fandom while being horrible husbands/boyfriends. Fiction often happily overlooks men’s sexism and how a man treats women often has no bearing on how much the text/fandom likes him.
Like, try to make a list of women that the text sees as being good, but they're also horrible girlfriends/wives. Kara is an interesting character, but she's also a character seen as damaged and flawed by the text. Compare this to Lee's treatment of Dee, where people in canon still refer to Lee as "He's too good to cheat." [1] Nevermind the fact that he's lying to his wife, making her think it's her insecurities that are causing her to act out this way, and he's generally meh towards her.
Think of someone like Tyrol. Possibly a latent misogynist to the millionth degree, YES OR YES? And how does the text see him? With Lee, we get some minor acknowledgement of his issues in season two, but with Tyrol? The text NEVER sees what a creepy abusive asshole he is, and I just...don't get the fandom's love for him. I'm rarely this judgmental about characters, but Tyrol makes me so damn uncomfortable. So, yes, Lee and Kara trade punches in canon, but when it's in the context of a relationship? The dynamics change, and not just because of hitting girls but also because violence should not exist in intimate relationships. (And I *really* appreciate the fact that Kara never punches/hits Sam as she would Lee, even at her worst, because the relationships are completely different.) Because violence of that kind can take on additional problematic layers when sexual feelings are also involved. This is why the mutual punching in "Kobol's Last Gleaming" with Kara and Lee, as problematic as it was, didn't really keep me from enjoying their dynamic, while the same thing got me to dislike them forever in "Unfinished Business." Because those shots of Lee reflecting on their sexual encounter with rage and then punching/kicking her with renewed violence? Read very much as him punishing her for picking Sam over him/for leaving him, and that is just never, ever okay, and those feelings should ever exist in a relationship. I am never really sure how we're meant to read those cuts, but it can't be something the show is 100% condoning.
But the text is okay with Tyrol's abuse of women in fifteen different ways. His abuse of Cally is dismissed as an episode or his issues. And he was sort of rough with Boomer too, before then. Then there's the strangling of Tory, which is possibly the most misogynistic thing in a season filled with Gender Fail. And he gets applauded for it! Notice also how we're supposed to feel Tigh's pain at having to kill Ellen (and I'm fond of Tigh, so I do feel his pain a bit, but that doesn't make that narrative choice any less problematic), and we never deal with the fact that he did, in fact, poison his wife for stupid ideals. And we get a lot of that in fiction, in general, no? Where men treat women horribly, and it's seen as an act of heroism because they loved them and killed them anyway.
Maybe it's because I watched "Sita Sings the Blues" recently, but that's been bugging me lately. The fact that Rama can demand that she walk through the fire to prove to him that she never slept with the man who kidnapped her (and if she had, it would've been RAPE, and so she would still have been faithful to him), and after she does this successfully? He still exiles her from his kingdom lest the people think that he would keep an unchaste woman as his wife. And he's praised for doing what's DEMANDED of him, and he's a great king, a pious human being, and beloved of the gods. But is he a GOOD HUSBAND? Is Aeneas a good person, leaving a trail of dead women behind him and abandoning them to follow his destiny? Being a good husband often has NO reflection on a male character's worthiness. Because it's a part of his characterization, not ALL of it. Whereas with women, once they're put into the context of a relationship (and become part of a man's narrative, in a way), they often completely lose their own narrative and are seen through the POV of the man's arc. And in that context, if they're bad wives/girlfriends, they are also portrayed/seen as bad *people.*
I'm sick of men's mistreatment of women being displayed as some sort of a great suffering and herosim on their part. IT IS NOT HEROIC TO KILL/ABANDON YOUR WIFE NO MATTER WHAT. It's also NOT something to be applauded to strangle a woman who killed another woman whom you apparently never loved who killed another woman that you were also abusive towards. Not to mention that random Eight Tyrol killed for no good reason? And then he has the nerve to judge Tory. (What Tory did was wrong, yes, but out of the two of them? Tyrol deserved to get strangled a LOT MORE.)
I'm also wondering if this has to do with my general mehness towards the male characters recently? The fact that the texts are not very likely to condemn male characters for mistreatment of women, and how a man treats/sees the women is a huge part of what makes up my mind about a male character. lodessa did an excellent essay on Xander and his sexism here, where she examines how BTVS never acknowledges the fact that Xander did, in fact, once tried to rape Buffy. I agree with this wholeheartedly, although to be fair, Buffy often had a huge problem acknowledging the flaws of the main characters, which is likely responsible for my lack of love for most of them. Notice also the difference between the aired version of “Beneath You” and the shooting script. The script has Spike acknowledging the fact that he tried to rape Buffy and feeling bad, in general, about his past transgressions and Buffy not knowing what to say to him. The aired version, rewritten by the Great Joss Whedon, has Spike blaming his current pains on Buffy (oh, how dare did she ever make a big deal about him trying to RAPE her, which led to him getting a soul. ALL HER FAULT!), telling her it's her fault. Buffy’s reactions? TEARS RUNNING DOWN HER FACE, people. The fandom’s love affair with Spike is the stuff of legends, of course, and the text contributes to this by trying hard to paint Spike as sympathetic (even during/after that attempted rape). I used to love Spike to a degree that I disliked Giles and a lot of other characters for mistreating him. Back when canon still saw him as deeply flawed and the fandom still disliked him a bit. I liked him for what he was, but once the text attempts to tell me to forgive him for RAPE? Um, no. I can’t really think of a single male character I hate as much as I’ve hated Spike since season six.
Then there's also the other side of this spectrum, one that I like to refer to as Sexism with Good Intentions. "Angel" had this in abundance, and this is the kind that's easier to dismiss and maybe forgive for some people. But I find it highly annoying and hard to overlook. This is when the men are overly protective of the women and/or act as if they know what's good for her better than she knows what's good for her. We saw an example of this in "Billy," where Angel was strongly against Cordelia killing Billy and was going to do it for her. I'm so glad that Lilah ended up being the one who shot him, because in an episode that deals with men's violence towards women, it would have been WRONG to have let anyone but a woman kill Billy. But...Cordelia got there first and had the first dibs? And then a total repeat of this same dynamic in "Supersymmetry," where Gunn was strongly against Fred killing her professor. Not against killing, period, because he actually kills him to make sure that FRED doesn't. Like, his perfect image of her would be ruined if she went ahead and killed that guy in front of him. He was protecting her from something he has NO understanding of . I just...really hate this attitude where the guy feels the need to 'protect' the woman from the world/herself/violence/past/whatever [2], and thinks he knows what's good for her better than she does herself, and this is so prevalent in the male heroes? Angel, Gunn, Wesley, Lee, Paul, Mal, Xander, and the list can probably go on forever and ever.
And what about "Supernatural?" Where Dean's systematic and offensive sexism and misogyny are not only not acknowledged by the text as being problematic, but they're also JUSTIFIED by the text every time a woman he considered to be a 'bitch' or an 'evil whore' actually turns out to be evil, and then the brothers get to gleefully stab her to death and bond over that exclusion of the feminine presence from their life. But Dean is a hero, a good man, despite the fact that he thinks a woman is flattering herself by being worried that he might rape her. In his opinion, rape is a compliment. And I can't think of a single thing that's even half as offensive as that sentiment, and yet people (and women, at that!) LIKE this character?
There’s also minor things like male characters’ relationships with other men being valued over their relationships with women by the text. The bromance thing, for one, fails to interest me largely for this reason. Like, in text, it reads as Tigh picking his duty to the military over his family, but he’s actually picking his relationship to Adama over his relationship with Ellen. I’m blanking on other recent examples, but this is a whole trope, no? Where men do manly things, and women are excluded from it for whatever reason. Like, why did it take Angel three seasons before anyone thought to train Cordelia to fight demons, maybe? And often, it’s portrayed as men picking duty and brotherly bonds over frivolous things like relationships, but at its core? It’s problematic because it’s not very far from Rama picking duty over the choice to give his wife a home. Boomer and Tyrol’s early problems also sort of fit under this with his whole, “I can’t believe I betrayed my honor/duty/whatever for you!” Sometimes, I can see where they’re coming from, but they're still part of a metanarrative that excludes/devalues women.
Then there’s fandom’s love affair with characters like Sylar, Joker, and Comedian, who are all sexist/misogynistic, and even when the canon sees them as evil, they’re still seen as compelling by the texts. I’m sorry, but I lose interest the second a guy shoots a pregnant woman, blames his serial killing on his MOTHER, or blows up women to motivate men. So fandom really has no place going on about what makes female characters unlikable when they’re liking these characters.
So while there's a lot of discussion about what makes so many of the female characters apparently 'boring' in fandom, and how women are just not as interesting, THIS IS WHAT KEEPS ME FROM LIKING MALE CHARACTERS. Please, fail less at this, writers.
Now, I'm relatively okay with male characters who have these issues where they're acknowledged by the text. Not that I dismiss their sexism then, but just that I'm less likely to hate them with an utter passion. Like, Baltar may be sexist from a certain angle (although, I don't think he MISTREATS women?) but the text doesn't see him as some kind of a huge hero, so I'm fond of him. Or how Achilles is a good warrior, but the text never sees him as a GOOD PERSON, as is the case with Hector, which makes me more judgmental towards Hector's issues than towards Achilles. Not that either Hector or Achilles are greatly sexist, but just in that…I like when texts acknowledge the flaws of the characters.
I'm also really annoyed by how men are often (in text and in fandom) applauded for mistreatment of women? Fandom was muchly happy every time Max was abusive towards Tess (which was often!), and there was some discussion about how Lee needed to make a Tyrol-like cabbage patch speech about Dee at her funeral. REALLY, FANDOM? A huge reason that I disliked Jean/Scott for a long time was that he demeaned Maddie and his relationship to her in front of Jean. THIS IS NEVER OKAY. As much as I like Emma and Scott, I also MADLY love that every time Emma complains about Jean, Scott defends her and never says that he doesn't still love her, too. *This* is what makes me like Scott. Speaking of which, how often does someone in fandom think that Scott can be redeemed by blowing Emma's head off with his lasers?
Worse: there's also a whole segment of fandom that thinks it is, in fact, unmanly or whatever to treat women with respect? Like, there is NO part of Sam's relationship with Kara where he is making a sacrifice or taking her 'abuse.' She's going through a horrible time during season three, and you KNOW a wife would be expected to stick with her husband through that, yes or yes? But if a guy does it, he's a doormat. Because, clearly, WOMEN were meant to be doormats, not men. Or how the fact that Scott takes Emma's suggestions seriously and values her advice means that he's 'whipped' (I HATE THAT WORD SO MUCH!), because how dare he let a woman dictate how to run the X-men, even when that woman is as much in charge as he is? And I admittedly have a huge thing in fiction for men like Scott or Sam where they are happy to be with complicated and issued women like Emma (or Jean!) or Kara (and have no love for men like Wesley where his simplistic perception of Fred makes her easier to love than Lilah, whom he also fails to understand on a fundamental level). And fandom complains about how het relationships with equality are hard to find, but when you give them something like that, they complain about how the man is a doormat. Sigh.
But those are still going to be exceptions because the texts continue to give us men who have issues with women and refuse to acknowledge them, and fandom is often happily blind to the said issues.
1. I do think that the text sees her as being a hero, which I definitely give the show credit for since it's rare for those two characteristics to exist in female characters at once. This is one of the things I’ll always love about BSG: that it did awesome things with early Kara, and part of that was portraying her as a heroic figure while letting her have the flaws that would usually keep women from being heroes.
2. "The Inside" did this dynamic of Concerned Sexism wonderfully, where you do have Paul (and to a lesser degree, Jayne) wanting to protect Rebecca, but Rebecca doesn't need anyone to rescue her. By the time they bring their cavalry around, Rebecca has already saved herself pretty much every time. So people complaining about Rebecca getting in trouble every episode? Generally don't get this very important dynamic: that even when she gets into trouble, she does it on purpose and never because she's stupid, and um, she always comes out of it with the OTHER guy dead/in jail, so what are they complaining about? This is why we needed "The Inside" on TV forever. To screw with all of those stereotypes of the damsels in distress because the distress actually empowers her. Which is wrong, but awesome. <3