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Due South: Diefenbaker's Day Off
Due South 1.2, "Diefenbaker's Day Off"
Original airdate: Sept. 29, 1994
Favorite line:
FRASER: [to Diefenbaker] Just because you were right once doesn't make you infallible. I am perfectly capable of handling myself in any situation. I am. I am a Mountie.
Spoilers ahead.
This episode is where Diefenbaker* starts to come into his own as Fraser's conversational partner ... or possibly opponent is a better word.
I tend to think of Diefenbaker along the lines of Hobbes from Calvin & Hobbes. The question of Hobbes's "reality" is something Bill Watterson is careful to keep unanswerable and really kind of pointless, and I think it's best to regard Diefenbaker in the same light. Is he really answering Fraser? Maybe, maybe not. Does it matter? No. The Animal Companion is a standard trope in fairy tales, and that's clearly Diefenbaker's role. Also, he may be half-wolf, but there's a lot of Coyote in Diefenbaker's makeup.
Or perhaps Fraser simply needs someone to play devil's advocate.
Or someone with whom he does not have to maintain his imperturbable front. Note the use of Fraser's Batman voice in this episode. He's in fine form at the beginning, complete with traffic safety tips; it's not until he's arguing with Diefenbaker about meeting Mackenzie King that the higher and more expressive registers come out.
This episode is also where we start to get bits of Fraser's personality beyond his sheer and glorious Mountieness--such as the fact that he really likes children. Or the fact that he clearly learned about courtship, as about boxing, from an outdated book. Fraser's problem isn't that he can't deal with women; he deals with women just fine as coworkers or as people he's trying to help. What he can't deal with is romance. And he can't deal with it because there's not a woman in the series who's read the book he's trying to use.
Thematically, we're right back with the questions of honor and trust and promises--and the rather interesting fact that Fraser's moral position, which seems so simple, is actually quite a bit more complicated than Ray's.
RAY: Okay, I'm on the edge of my seat. What's this huge moral dilemma you're carrying on your shoulders?
FRASER: I've given my word to a girl.
RAY: Fraser, you do not have to marry every girl that you meet.
FRASER: Oh, no, it's ... she's a very young girl.
RAY: Well, then you do have a problem.
FRASER: No, I mean, she's a little girl, Ray. She's six years old. She's very sweet. She's asked me to help her father [...] Now I've discovered that her father is doing something illegal.
RAY: So what's the dilemma? We bust him.
FRASER: Then I'd be breaking my word to the little girl.
RAY: And this gives you a problem?
FRASER: Yes.
RAY: Oh.
FRASER: But if I don't turn him in, I'm withholding evidence of a crime.
RAY: Very good, Benny. You can go to the head of the class.
FRASER: So I've given it some thought, and I've come up with the only, only logical solution.
[Ray looks expectant.]
FRASER: You have to arrest me.
RAY: For what?
FRASER: I can't tell you that.
RAY: Well, then I'm not gonna arrest you.
FRASER: But you have to!
Fraser may be (willfully) naive, but he's also considerably more intellectually sophisticated than Ray. They make it eminently believable that he's the grandson of librarians--and that most of his knowledge of the world comes from nineteenth-century books. Exactly the opposite of Ray. (Of both Rays, actually.)
Ray isn't worried about the sanctity of a man's word
(FRASER: You won't use it against the man in question?
RAY: On my word as a transvestite.)
but the episode is careful to emphasize that that doesn't mean Ray won't keep his promises. He does, after all, get Diefenbaker's wolf license, to the deep chagrin of the Animal Control Officer--"You can't have this! It doesn't exist! It never did!"--although again, Ray's methods are a little shady. "Free Willie" started establishing the idea that maybe Ray isn't the world's greatest cop (his rivalry with Huey and especially Gardino which has more than a hint of an inferiority complex in it, his semi-antagonistic relationship with Welsh); this episode begins to lean on the idea that Ray's ethics are a little loose in the socket.
One thing I have to remember when watching Due South is not to expect continuity. Most of my TV watching in recent years has been shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly and Wonderfalls, all of which make continuity from episode to episode extremely important. With Due South, it seems to be better to imagine each episode as a snapshot, a sample taken at some random point during Fraser's tenure in Chicago. So the exchange:
FRASER: Is this legal?
RAY: Would I be offering it to you if it wasn't?
[Fraser registers skepticism]
RAY: Yes, it's legal.
should be regarded as the culmination of a number of conversations we haven't seen. In a TV show with serious continuity, Fraser wouldn't--in the second episode--know Ray well enough yet to doubt him.
This episode also returns to the question of appearances and deceit.
MACKENZIE KING: You're just this straight-arrow do-gooding Mountie out to help the little guy? Tell me why I find that hard to believe.
FRASER: Well, I understand your skepticism. Appearances can be deceiving.
Fraser goes on to explode her own imposture as a nurse, ending pointedly, "A less trusting person might assume you work, say, for a newspaper," which is, of course, the truth.
The interesting thing here is that Fraser is simultaneously proving that he is, and isn't, exactly what he appears to be. He is a straight-arrow do-gooding Mountie out to help the little guy, but he admits that he knew Mackenzie wasn't a nurse in the parking lot. She wasn't fooling him for a second, although he allowed her to think she was. He plays to her preconceptions. His Mountie-self is both who he really is and a deceit he practices.
---
*I have to admit, of the three principal Diefenbakers, the second is my least favorite, I think because I cannot persuade my brain that he reads as a wolf (it's the set of his ears and the curled tail). Either that, or because I fell instantly in love with the shaggy blue-eyed Diefenbaker of the pilot and never quite managed to talk myself around.
Original airdate: Sept. 29, 1994
Favorite line:
FRASER: [to Diefenbaker] Just because you were right once doesn't make you infallible. I am perfectly capable of handling myself in any situation. I am. I am a Mountie.
Spoilers ahead.
This episode is where Diefenbaker* starts to come into his own as Fraser's conversational partner ... or possibly opponent is a better word.
I tend to think of Diefenbaker along the lines of Hobbes from Calvin & Hobbes. The question of Hobbes's "reality" is something Bill Watterson is careful to keep unanswerable and really kind of pointless, and I think it's best to regard Diefenbaker in the same light. Is he really answering Fraser? Maybe, maybe not. Does it matter? No. The Animal Companion is a standard trope in fairy tales, and that's clearly Diefenbaker's role. Also, he may be half-wolf, but there's a lot of Coyote in Diefenbaker's makeup.
Or perhaps Fraser simply needs someone to play devil's advocate.
Or someone with whom he does not have to maintain his imperturbable front. Note the use of Fraser's Batman voice in this episode. He's in fine form at the beginning, complete with traffic safety tips; it's not until he's arguing with Diefenbaker about meeting Mackenzie King that the higher and more expressive registers come out.
This episode is also where we start to get bits of Fraser's personality beyond his sheer and glorious Mountieness--such as the fact that he really likes children. Or the fact that he clearly learned about courtship, as about boxing, from an outdated book. Fraser's problem isn't that he can't deal with women; he deals with women just fine as coworkers or as people he's trying to help. What he can't deal with is romance. And he can't deal with it because there's not a woman in the series who's read the book he's trying to use.
Thematically, we're right back with the questions of honor and trust and promises--and the rather interesting fact that Fraser's moral position, which seems so simple, is actually quite a bit more complicated than Ray's.
RAY: Okay, I'm on the edge of my seat. What's this huge moral dilemma you're carrying on your shoulders?
FRASER: I've given my word to a girl.
RAY: Fraser, you do not have to marry every girl that you meet.
FRASER: Oh, no, it's ... she's a very young girl.
RAY: Well, then you do have a problem.
FRASER: No, I mean, she's a little girl, Ray. She's six years old. She's very sweet. She's asked me to help her father [...] Now I've discovered that her father is doing something illegal.
RAY: So what's the dilemma? We bust him.
FRASER: Then I'd be breaking my word to the little girl.
RAY: And this gives you a problem?
FRASER: Yes.
RAY: Oh.
FRASER: But if I don't turn him in, I'm withholding evidence of a crime.
RAY: Very good, Benny. You can go to the head of the class.
FRASER: So I've given it some thought, and I've come up with the only, only logical solution.
[Ray looks expectant.]
FRASER: You have to arrest me.
RAY: For what?
FRASER: I can't tell you that.
RAY: Well, then I'm not gonna arrest you.
FRASER: But you have to!
Fraser may be (willfully) naive, but he's also considerably more intellectually sophisticated than Ray. They make it eminently believable that he's the grandson of librarians--and that most of his knowledge of the world comes from nineteenth-century books. Exactly the opposite of Ray. (Of both Rays, actually.)
Ray isn't worried about the sanctity of a man's word
(FRASER: You won't use it against the man in question?
RAY: On my word as a transvestite.)
but the episode is careful to emphasize that that doesn't mean Ray won't keep his promises. He does, after all, get Diefenbaker's wolf license, to the deep chagrin of the Animal Control Officer--"You can't have this! It doesn't exist! It never did!"--although again, Ray's methods are a little shady. "Free Willie" started establishing the idea that maybe Ray isn't the world's greatest cop (his rivalry with Huey and especially Gardino which has more than a hint of an inferiority complex in it, his semi-antagonistic relationship with Welsh); this episode begins to lean on the idea that Ray's ethics are a little loose in the socket.
One thing I have to remember when watching Due South is not to expect continuity. Most of my TV watching in recent years has been shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly and Wonderfalls, all of which make continuity from episode to episode extremely important. With Due South, it seems to be better to imagine each episode as a snapshot, a sample taken at some random point during Fraser's tenure in Chicago. So the exchange:
FRASER: Is this legal?
RAY: Would I be offering it to you if it wasn't?
[Fraser registers skepticism]
RAY: Yes, it's legal.
should be regarded as the culmination of a number of conversations we haven't seen. In a TV show with serious continuity, Fraser wouldn't--in the second episode--know Ray well enough yet to doubt him.
This episode also returns to the question of appearances and deceit.
MACKENZIE KING: You're just this straight-arrow do-gooding Mountie out to help the little guy? Tell me why I find that hard to believe.
FRASER: Well, I understand your skepticism. Appearances can be deceiving.
Fraser goes on to explode her own imposture as a nurse, ending pointedly, "A less trusting person might assume you work, say, for a newspaper," which is, of course, the truth.
The interesting thing here is that Fraser is simultaneously proving that he is, and isn't, exactly what he appears to be. He is a straight-arrow do-gooding Mountie out to help the little guy, but he admits that he knew Mackenzie wasn't a nurse in the parking lot. She wasn't fooling him for a second, although he allowed her to think she was. He plays to her preconceptions. His Mountie-self is both who he really is and a deceit he practices.
---
*I have to admit, of the three principal Diefenbakers, the second is my least favorite, I think because I cannot persuade my brain that he reads as a wolf (it's the set of his ears and the curled tail). Either that, or because I fell instantly in love with the shaggy blue-eyed Diefenbaker of the pilot and never quite managed to talk myself around.