The M&M Theory of Patrick Jane (or A Study of the new Hyper-perceptive Crime Drama Heroes in the 200
The M&M Theory of Patrick Jane
(or A Study of the new Hyper-perceptive Crime/Investigative Drama Heroes in the 2008-2009 Television Season)
Sanctuary, Eleventh Hour and The Mentalist all have leads who are hyper-perceptive - they notice details that other people wouldn't normally notice. It's interesting that only the character on the Mentalist seems to notice emotional states as well as physical details . . . not talking about visual cues to emotional states, but what emotional states really are and how to approach then. Eleventh Hour and Sanctuary heroes seem inordinately . . . well, male in their denseness at time, but are socially perceptive when the plot demands it (which always thrills me to the core - I hate plot-specific competency - ick!).
It's the uber gestalt consciousness thing again - the same type of character appearing from three different places. Very different places, too - a UK retread, a webisode series to small screen, and a pilot-to-series small screen, all of which appear to be entirely independent of one another.
All three characters suffer from a major female figure in their life having died (two wives and a mother), two of whom were murdered (wife and mother) and one of whom died from cancer (wife). I'm happy to say that all three aren't sharing in the "tall dark and silently suffering inside but ready to explode at any moment" convention.
In Eleventh Hour, Dr. Jacob Hood's history of loss presents itself as a backdrop for whatever's going on, but his brooding nature seems to be a combination of severe loss, guilt that he couldn't save his wife, and a geek bent (that leads either to brooding or wearing spinning beanie hats - he's chosen the former). I don't remember a specific mention of his not being present at his wife's final moments, but that may yet be determined. Hood's geekiness appears to having been a result of always being the smartest kid in the room, so that even though he may be dead-sexy in that brooding sort of way (but doesn't appear to know that), his social interactions were limited. From the text it appears that his wife was the catalyst who brought him into the world at large and led to his socialization, but that he lost that ability to connect socially with her death. One wonders if the empathy he has exhibited in certain instances was a result of his wife's influence - if so, it's a gift that she left him, but isn't enough to mainstream him into casual relationships in society. Not so much for the small talk at cocktail parties, is Dr. Hood.
In Sanctuary, the death of Dr. Will Zimmerman's mother served as a backdrop to one episode, but has been mentioned multiple times (so no episode-specificity there, thank God). A child at the time of his mother's death (and yes, he saw her die), his psycho-drama appears to revolve around guilt. His attraction to Dr. Helen Magnus appears to have some Freudian mother-thing going on (she's older than his mother's great-grandmother), especially as he also appears to be attracted to her daughter. Whether his mother's death led to his geekiness is up for grabs, as we don't know if his hyper-sensitivity is a learned or inherent ability. The character seems to have been written to exhibit social awkwardness, but I think the actor is reading at least a capacity for social aptitude into the text - he manages casual conversation in a crowd and the hyper-perceptivity he exhibits does seem to have some empathic repercussions; like Hood, he knows what people should be experiencing or reads the signals as to what they are experiencing, but doesn't always seem to grasp the depth or internally take on the meaning of that reading. Knowing the definition and being able to apply it in a personal context for true social empathy seems to be two different things for both Hood and Zimmerman (for Zimmerman, less so, but that could be uneven writing or an actor exploring the growth of character).
Jane . . ah . . . Jane.
Patrick Jane is without a doubt the most damaged of the three. The murder of his wife and child is a direct result of his choice to use his hyper-perceptive traits to make money (very cool concept variation in choosing the good of the one over the good of the many) - he taunted a serial killer during a chat show and the serial killer taught him a lesson. However, he wasn't present at their deaths, but he discovered the bloody aftermath. Whereas Hood failed to save his wife by finding a cure for her incurable cancer (guilt accorded to him by himself and not by any outside individual) and Zimmerman was a powerless child, Jane is a seething mass of guilt and remorse covered by a bright candy shell of affability and playfulness. He is the quintessential M&M. His hyper-perceptivity has a much wider range than Hood or Zimmerman in that he applies it to the external world of things and the internal world of people. Unlike Hood or Zimmerman, he knows what people should be experiencing, can deduce what they are experiencing from their words, mannerisms, actions, and attitude, and can immediately red flag something that isn't as it ought to be under the situational circumstances. His uses the bright candy shell of his charisma as a reflective mirror, turning back any inquiry into his own emotional or psychological state and that has once been broken in the text - by a woman who claimed to be a true psychic who Jane could not help but believe was a fraud (she either proved him wrong or managed to cold read the master of cold reading).
The series writing plays fast and loose and a bit broadly with his hyper-perceptivity (pointing out instances of hyper-perceptivity where any audience member with a high school diploma and a smattering of interest in something other than themselves would easily pick up the same clue), but is implying that everything that made Jane a success as a fake psychic is definitely a skill, probably based on a naturally attentive nature augmented by education and practice. His geekiness quotient is the smallest of the three in that his pursuit of knowledge is almost completely related to the world around him and empathic relations with others - getting better at the con. Oddly enough, he's the most likely to wear a spinning beanie because he knows that makes him appear docile, harmless and a fool . . . the perfect disguise for the conman who not only wants but needs to be underestimated and dismissed if his con is to succeed. Of the three characters, he's the best at using hyper-perceptivity to advance the case, the most socially ept, and the most dynamic. He's also the one character of the three who does not have a doctoral degree and the one most likely to have a very bad end.
Remember the M&M? His guilt has been internalized into a single goal - revenge. His work as a consultant with the FBI isn't about the law, it's about justice (as per text in a recent episode). He won't harm an innocent if that's within his power, but the guilty are another matter. All ends justify the means . . . if the end is the punishment of the guilty. That's Jane's definition of justice - the punishment of the guilty.
So why the very bad end? Because Jane will go outside the law to reach his means. There's always the possibility of unintentionally harming the innocent in his pursuit of justice, however much he thinks he's managed the odds against that happening to fall in his favor. His hyper-perceptivity and his skill at using it to manipulate people and events make him believe he can win most of the time, an arrogance that masquerades as an appealing self-confidence. When his finds Red John, the man who killed his wife and child, he will commit murder - there is no other option for him. Once Red John is in his sights, anyone who gets between him and his goal will become an obstacle and will be removed.
The text is setting this up already - in a recent episode, Jane informs his superior and co-worker that when they find Red John, Jane will gut him. The conversation about whether this would be justice and that she would be forced to stop him is conducted by Jane in an incredibly affable, even joyful manner which is viscerally disturbing. For the first time you see how truly dangerous this man is and can be. He has chosen to consult for the FBI for a number of reasons - find Red John, hone his skills until he finds Red John, protect the innocent from possible harm, and avenge the innocent (and assuage his guilt) by finding and punishing the guilty. From the beginning of the series, Jane has been content to allow the law to mete out punishment, but that's starting to slip - he's starting to provide his own (still small) modicum of justice. The candy coating is starting to chip away as his inner turmoil becomes more pressurized over time. The longer it takes to find Red John, the more that candy shell is going to dissolve.
In serving his own ends, Jane has inadvertently surrounded himself with a surrogate family - the FBI team from the California Bureau of Investigation, for which his consults. In the text of each episode, we see his interactions with them and, knowing his goals, wonder if the friendships that are evolving between him and his teammates are real, or whether he's trying to find out more about them to give him the edge when the final confrontation occurs and they stand between him and his goal of murdering Red John. I'd like to think that maybe he's not as smart as he thinks he is, that his tragic flaw is that he is growing to care about these people and that their friendship may be starting to fill the hollow space created by the loss of his wife and child.
What if one of his teammates sees through him as the shell starts to dissolve? What if someone else kills Red John or Red John is captured and jailed without Jane getting a crack at him? What happens if he realizes the friendships developing with his teammates are beginning to affect his resolve or his ability to maintain his dedication to his goal? And, finally, what happens when he kills Red John?
Because he will kill Red John. Or his team will stop him.
Therein lies the drama.
Note: Of course, the hyper-perceptive crime drama hero didn't appear in 2008 - Dr. Reed and Gideon in Criminal Minds, Charlie Eppes on Numbers, Spencer on Psych, and Monk on . . . .well . . . Monk have all exhibited the hyper-perceptivity I've discussed above, which goes all the way back to literary creations like Sherlock Holmes. It just seemed to me that with three new series this year all containing hyper-perceptive main characters in investigation/crime dramas, we're watching the wheel turn again. CSI appears to be one of the first heralds of the move from the Law and Order procedurals of the 90's the hyper-perceptive leads of 2008, although credit should be given to NBC, presaging the lights of the oncoming train with Goren in Criminal Intent. But that would more likely be a series of articles than a single over-long article.
Please credit me with a link if you wander off into the academic version of this madness.
I just calls 'em as I sees 'em. As always, your mileage may vary.
Talk amongst yourselves.
(or A Study of the new Hyper-perceptive Crime/Investigative Drama Heroes in the 2008-2009 Television Season)
Sanctuary, Eleventh Hour and The Mentalist all have leads who are hyper-perceptive - they notice details that other people wouldn't normally notice. It's interesting that only the character on the Mentalist seems to notice emotional states as well as physical details . . . not talking about visual cues to emotional states, but what emotional states really are and how to approach then. Eleventh Hour and Sanctuary heroes seem inordinately . . . well, male in their denseness at time, but are socially perceptive when the plot demands it (which always thrills me to the core - I hate plot-specific competency - ick!).
It's the uber gestalt consciousness thing again - the same type of character appearing from three different places. Very different places, too - a UK retread, a webisode series to small screen, and a pilot-to-series small screen, all of which appear to be entirely independent of one another.
All three characters suffer from a major female figure in their life having died (two wives and a mother), two of whom were murdered (wife and mother) and one of whom died from cancer (wife). I'm happy to say that all three aren't sharing in the "tall dark and silently suffering inside but ready to explode at any moment" convention.
In Eleventh Hour, Dr. Jacob Hood's history of loss presents itself as a backdrop for whatever's going on, but his brooding nature seems to be a combination of severe loss, guilt that he couldn't save his wife, and a geek bent (that leads either to brooding or wearing spinning beanie hats - he's chosen the former). I don't remember a specific mention of his not being present at his wife's final moments, but that may yet be determined. Hood's geekiness appears to having been a result of always being the smartest kid in the room, so that even though he may be dead-sexy in that brooding sort of way (but doesn't appear to know that), his social interactions were limited. From the text it appears that his wife was the catalyst who brought him into the world at large and led to his socialization, but that he lost that ability to connect socially with her death. One wonders if the empathy he has exhibited in certain instances was a result of his wife's influence - if so, it's a gift that she left him, but isn't enough to mainstream him into casual relationships in society. Not so much for the small talk at cocktail parties, is Dr. Hood.
In Sanctuary, the death of Dr. Will Zimmerman's mother served as a backdrop to one episode, but has been mentioned multiple times (so no episode-specificity there, thank God). A child at the time of his mother's death (and yes, he saw her die), his psycho-drama appears to revolve around guilt. His attraction to Dr. Helen Magnus appears to have some Freudian mother-thing going on (she's older than his mother's great-grandmother), especially as he also appears to be attracted to her daughter. Whether his mother's death led to his geekiness is up for grabs, as we don't know if his hyper-sensitivity is a learned or inherent ability. The character seems to have been written to exhibit social awkwardness, but I think the actor is reading at least a capacity for social aptitude into the text - he manages casual conversation in a crowd and the hyper-perceptivity he exhibits does seem to have some empathic repercussions; like Hood, he knows what people should be experiencing or reads the signals as to what they are experiencing, but doesn't always seem to grasp the depth or internally take on the meaning of that reading. Knowing the definition and being able to apply it in a personal context for true social empathy seems to be two different things for both Hood and Zimmerman (for Zimmerman, less so, but that could be uneven writing or an actor exploring the growth of character).
Jane . . ah . . . Jane.
Patrick Jane is without a doubt the most damaged of the three. The murder of his wife and child is a direct result of his choice to use his hyper-perceptive traits to make money (very cool concept variation in choosing the good of the one over the good of the many) - he taunted a serial killer during a chat show and the serial killer taught him a lesson. However, he wasn't present at their deaths, but he discovered the bloody aftermath. Whereas Hood failed to save his wife by finding a cure for her incurable cancer (guilt accorded to him by himself and not by any outside individual) and Zimmerman was a powerless child, Jane is a seething mass of guilt and remorse covered by a bright candy shell of affability and playfulness. He is the quintessential M&M. His hyper-perceptivity has a much wider range than Hood or Zimmerman in that he applies it to the external world of things and the internal world of people. Unlike Hood or Zimmerman, he knows what people should be experiencing, can deduce what they are experiencing from their words, mannerisms, actions, and attitude, and can immediately red flag something that isn't as it ought to be under the situational circumstances. His uses the bright candy shell of his charisma as a reflective mirror, turning back any inquiry into his own emotional or psychological state and that has once been broken in the text - by a woman who claimed to be a true psychic who Jane could not help but believe was a fraud (she either proved him wrong or managed to cold read the master of cold reading).
The series writing plays fast and loose and a bit broadly with his hyper-perceptivity (pointing out instances of hyper-perceptivity where any audience member with a high school diploma and a smattering of interest in something other than themselves would easily pick up the same clue), but is implying that everything that made Jane a success as a fake psychic is definitely a skill, probably based on a naturally attentive nature augmented by education and practice. His geekiness quotient is the smallest of the three in that his pursuit of knowledge is almost completely related to the world around him and empathic relations with others - getting better at the con. Oddly enough, he's the most likely to wear a spinning beanie because he knows that makes him appear docile, harmless and a fool . . . the perfect disguise for the conman who not only wants but needs to be underestimated and dismissed if his con is to succeed. Of the three characters, he's the best at using hyper-perceptivity to advance the case, the most socially ept, and the most dynamic. He's also the one character of the three who does not have a doctoral degree and the one most likely to have a very bad end.
Remember the M&M? His guilt has been internalized into a single goal - revenge. His work as a consultant with the FBI isn't about the law, it's about justice (as per text in a recent episode). He won't harm an innocent if that's within his power, but the guilty are another matter. All ends justify the means . . . if the end is the punishment of the guilty. That's Jane's definition of justice - the punishment of the guilty.
So why the very bad end? Because Jane will go outside the law to reach his means. There's always the possibility of unintentionally harming the innocent in his pursuit of justice, however much he thinks he's managed the odds against that happening to fall in his favor. His hyper-perceptivity and his skill at using it to manipulate people and events make him believe he can win most of the time, an arrogance that masquerades as an appealing self-confidence. When his finds Red John, the man who killed his wife and child, he will commit murder - there is no other option for him. Once Red John is in his sights, anyone who gets between him and his goal will become an obstacle and will be removed.
The text is setting this up already - in a recent episode, Jane informs his superior and co-worker that when they find Red John, Jane will gut him. The conversation about whether this would be justice and that she would be forced to stop him is conducted by Jane in an incredibly affable, even joyful manner which is viscerally disturbing. For the first time you see how truly dangerous this man is and can be. He has chosen to consult for the FBI for a number of reasons - find Red John, hone his skills until he finds Red John, protect the innocent from possible harm, and avenge the innocent (and assuage his guilt) by finding and punishing the guilty. From the beginning of the series, Jane has been content to allow the law to mete out punishment, but that's starting to slip - he's starting to provide his own (still small) modicum of justice. The candy coating is starting to chip away as his inner turmoil becomes more pressurized over time. The longer it takes to find Red John, the more that candy shell is going to dissolve.
In serving his own ends, Jane has inadvertently surrounded himself with a surrogate family - the FBI team from the California Bureau of Investigation, for which his consults. In the text of each episode, we see his interactions with them and, knowing his goals, wonder if the friendships that are evolving between him and his teammates are real, or whether he's trying to find out more about them to give him the edge when the final confrontation occurs and they stand between him and his goal of murdering Red John. I'd like to think that maybe he's not as smart as he thinks he is, that his tragic flaw is that he is growing to care about these people and that their friendship may be starting to fill the hollow space created by the loss of his wife and child.
What if one of his teammates sees through him as the shell starts to dissolve? What if someone else kills Red John or Red John is captured and jailed without Jane getting a crack at him? What happens if he realizes the friendships developing with his teammates are beginning to affect his resolve or his ability to maintain his dedication to his goal? And, finally, what happens when he kills Red John?
Because he will kill Red John. Or his team will stop him.
Therein lies the drama.
Note: Of course, the hyper-perceptive crime drama hero didn't appear in 2008 - Dr. Reed and Gideon in Criminal Minds, Charlie Eppes on Numbers, Spencer on Psych, and Monk on . . . .well . . . Monk have all exhibited the hyper-perceptivity I've discussed above, which goes all the way back to literary creations like Sherlock Holmes. It just seemed to me that with three new series this year all containing hyper-perceptive main characters in investigation/crime dramas, we're watching the wheel turn again. CSI appears to be one of the first heralds of the move from the Law and Order procedurals of the 90's the hyper-perceptive leads of 2008, although credit should be given to NBC, presaging the lights of the oncoming train with Goren in Criminal Intent. But that would more likely be a series of articles than a single over-long article.
Please credit me with a link if you wander off into the academic version of this madness.
I just calls 'em as I sees 'em. As always, your mileage may vary.
Talk amongst yourselves.