Pros: Involvements, thoughts
Wow, what a wonderful episode!!!
I laughed a lot while watching it the first time, even though there was lots of angst and such as well, more as you thought about it. Bodie was wonderful in this episode, funny and cheeky but also deep and really caring. It kind of made me love him. He never stops being the man he is, with some qualities I find frankly off-putting, but he’s got other qualities too....
Doyle isn’t drawn to Ann *in spite* of her cold and passionless nature, he’d drawn to her *because* of it. If he can earn her acceptance, and love, then he’ll feel like it’s “real.” She’s not someone who gives away either easily. We, the audience, can shout at the screen all we like, “She’s not right for you, Ray!” and yet have just slightly little effect than we would telling someone in real life that someone isn’t right for them. He is drawn to her for the very wrongness, not (as Bodie thinks) for the challenge of seducing her, but for the challenge of proving her wrong-and thus of proving himself wrong-about his own worst nature.
Why is it that the people who truly need love and acceptance and warmth are sometimes drawn to the people who would be exactly wrong for them, always keep them guessing? I think it’s a rerun of something from childhood repeating itself, or the feeling that you need to “prove” yourself by earning the love of someone-that it’s more real if you have to work extra hard for it. But of course it never works....
Part of me would have liked to see a more bubbly, vivacious (and cute) redhead as Ann, someone who sparks up in either anger or passion, a volatile girl who could match wits and temper with Doyle, and also develop warmer feelings for him more strongly, as well. There seems to be no chemistry between the two, if you ask me. But it’s this very lack of passion that appeals to Doyle. She’s very much his opposite. Her control...her class...her ability to contain her emotions seemingly effortlessly (even too much sometimes) is what makes her exotic and appealing. And her disdain makes her someone to be won over.
If the episode hadn’t ended the way it did, and they could totally trust and love each other, I still think she’d have been very wrong for him!! Pouring his love and his cooking out on her, and her mildly amused by it, even loving him in her own way, but always with a great reserve within herself, as seems to be her nature. What happens when she gets bored with discovering the facets of Doyle? Out he goes, like last year’s fashions, like one of the horror manuscripts she tosses on the reject pile. Sorting the wheat from the chaff, and Doyle, bless him, simply doesn’t make the cut any longer.
He needs her? If he did, how long would she actually like that? How long before his emotions and feelings cloy, and she feels he’s “holding her back,” that “it was nice while it lasted?” Doomed from the start, if you ask me. But that’s the thing, people often can’t see what’s most obvious to others in the area of love.
While I don’t think the actor and actress had any chemistry, I think that actually works for the episode. The makeup is startling and a bit frightening...but I do think she was quite lucky in that she got to hug Doyle. Twice! The hug scenes, to me, look sweet and ‘real,’ even if a lot of their other relationship growth doesn’t. The comfort seemed real even if I question the passion.
This episode just makes you love Bodie. He’s really good in this episode-especially in the punch scene, where he just takes it, and uses Doyle’s moment of shocked guilt, instead of retaliating or telling him off, to get THROUGH to him. It would be difficult to do, and he does it so well.
By the way, is there a mirror to this? A scene where Bodie punches Doyle? I don’t mean the fake punch in the episode with the Muslim guy with diplomatic immunity, but a “real” punch? Of course there’s that whole “hitting him in the abdomen with a big stick” thing from Wild Justice.... @_@
I love how Bodie goes after him at the end, to make sure Doyle is going to be okay. I’m suspect his solution will be nothing more profound than a couple of drinks, but it’s better that Doyle not be alone right now, and just knowing that Bodie’s there for him ought to help.
Of course, it makes no sense for Ann to let Doyle into her flat, or go anywhere with him, until she knew for certain he wasn’t just a maniac. Even knowing he was CI5 might not have been enough, really. One had to squint and ignore that for the story to make sense, because Ann isn’t supposed to live dangerously or be stupid.
Another thing-if I found a man rooting through my desk and looking at private papers after he thought I’d just left, I’d kick him out, boyfriend or no, excuse or no. Maybe make up with him later-maybe-but no go straight to sitting on the floor and looking at family photos. She can’t even work up the feeling to get honestly mad at him....
I do think Bodie liked Ann. He smiled every time he saw her with Doyle, and he seemed proud in a silly way of Doyle being a “toad.” They seemed to get along during the meal, and he also didn’t think it was necessary to check her out, and seemed uncomfortable about it, and guilty later when Doyle found out.
I can quite understand Doyle’s feeling his privacy was invaded. For all he knew they had bugged his house, or started intruding on Ann’s life, asking questions at her work, flashing badges, get up people’s hooters.... ;) I thought he was really menacing when he turned over his gun and badge. There was something threatening about the way he handled that gun and glared at Cowley.
Bodie seemed so utterly miserable in that scene. It was really well acted while staying understated. You could feel his palpable distress when Doyle handed in his things, though Bodie didn’t do or say anything, just sat there looking down, sort of holding his hands clasped in front of his face....
Doyle isn’t mad at him anymore by the time they’re on the drugs bust, because he smiles and acts like himself. Even waking up Bodie doesn’t seem mean spirited, just his usual stunts.
"I understand," said Ann, early on. "It's a human frailty. We all need to be loved."
A frailty? This sums up Ann Holly. This dismissively, snide comment. Yes, we do need to be loved. But why is that a frailty?
I do think she cared, in her own way. She cries. Remember, she doesn't cry even when she sees a man die and is probably in shock. I think that more than anything is what stuns Doyle and makes him just stand there like a lump at the end. He didn't mean to hurt her, and she certainly hurt him as well--but all the same, he could never try to force himself back into this woman's life, if he can hurt her that badly (enough to make her cry) without even meaning to. She would never cry over anyone or anything on purpose, if you ask me. That was a moment of honest emotion expressed from her...finally, at the end of everything....
Perhaps I'm wrong and she portrays more emotion honestly throughout the episode. But I just don't see it!
The ending is beautiful. At first I would've liked to hear their words, but really, the very iconicness, the simplicity of this is better than what would've probably just been "Ray old son, you need a drink." We SEE, and don't need to hear, that Bodie's there for Doyle. It's very reassuring and a good note to end on.
I'm going to call meself an ambulance.
crossposted