Due South: The Gift of the Wheelman
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truepennyDue South 1.10, "The Gift of the Wheelman"
Original airdate: Dec. 15, 1994
Favorite line:
B. FRASER: I don't carry a weapon.
R. FRASER: Is that smart, son?
B. FRASER: It's the law, Dad.
R. FRASER: Well, no time for niceties. Here, use mine.
B. FRASER: Well, I appreciate the offer, but it's imaginary.
R. FRASER: Oh. So it is.
The moment that cemented my love for Due South comes about three-quarters of the way through this episode. Fraser has started seeing his dead father. No one else can see Robert Fraser, and Benton Fraser himself is convinced that his father is merely a delusion of some sort. The show has been ambivalent--"I don't know any more about this than you do, son," the elder Fraser says. "Am I here? Am I in your head? You in mine? Damned if I can figure it out."--but then, without preamble, follow-through, or anything else, it gives us this conversation between another dead father and his son:
MR. VECCHIO: Twenty-four hours and you still haven't solved the case.
RAY: Come on, Dad, it's Christmas Day. You wanna give it a rest?
MR. VECCHIO: Hey, you don't care about your work? It's fine with me.
And that moves the entire thing one step to the left, from somewhere between parareal and surreal to somewhere between surreal and contrareal. Where it's going to stay.
This episode could just as well have been called, "Fathers and Sons in Cars." Both the elder Fraser and the elder Vecchio first manifest in the Riviera, and the wheelman of the title is a getaway driver trying to do the right thing for his son (the longest scene father and son share is, yeah, in a car). There is much discussion of what that "right thing" is, and what a father teaches his son and how he teaches him. Fraser tells Porter, "The greatest gift my father ever gave me was the courage to trust my own abilities. And I learned that through his example." On the other side, though, Ray tells Fraser, "I learned two things from my father. One: timing. Mostly when to duck. And two: you never hit a kid because it doesn't teach 'em anything." I'm guessing Ray also learned by example, and it's that single thread of darkness--that and Porter's genuine desperation--that keeps this episode from becoming cloying.
There's a theme in Due South, the obverse face of the financial motivation for crime I mentioned in an earlier post, and that's the question of how to face poverty with bravery, and how exactly do you define "bravery" in this context anyway? It's an issue in "Diefenbaker's Day Off":
LUCY: He's doing bad things, and I don't call that brave.
MACKENZIE: Sometimes being brave means knowing you have to do something and just doing it, no matter what happens.
And it comes up again, when Porter says bitterly, "I love how people like you think earning four dollars an hour is great and noble. I couldn't afford to buy my kid a Christmas gift. That's not noble. It's pathetic." Charlie's desperate to keep Lucy's respect; Porter feels he's already forfeited Del's. But they're both doing these illegal, stupid things for their children's sakes, to try to give their children what they as fathers feel they need.
I think it's important to notice--whether the writers intended this or not--that Mackenzie isn't answering Lucy's argument. And, yes, Porter's got his head on backwards--making the same mistake that the villains in "They Eat Horses, Don't They?" and Vinnie in "A Cop, A Mountie, and a Baby" make: trying to value life by the pound. Vinnie gets into a headspace where he can only see Jamie in terms of what he costs and what price he could bring; Porter's gone the other way, seeing himself only in terms of the money he isn't earning. This episode, unlike "ACAM&AB," keeps its balance: Porter's wrong, but the way in which he's wrong is pointing at the fucked-uppedness of the world we live in, not at some flaw in Porter himself.
(I also keep hearing Lear in my head all through this episode:
LEAR: ... what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
CORDELIA: Nothing, my lord.
LEAR: Nothing?
CORDELIA: Nothing.
LEAR: Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again. (1.1.84-89))
And this episode is particularly honest about the fact that there are no good solutions. It ends with Del visiting Porter in jail; there's no Get Out Of Reality Free card here. And it ends with Fraser alone again.
This episode emphasizes just how isolated Fraser is. "This is the first real Christmas dinner we've had together in twenty years," Robert Fraser says, "and I'm not even really here." More than that, Fraser is eating Christmas dinner alone. In a diner. The proprietor of which is only waiting for him to hurry up and leave already so he can close. Christmas night, Fraser is alone in his apartment. His father leaves him--again--without saying goodbye. (Waiting until he's asleep means it doesn't count, Bob.) He's alone, and he's starting to come unglued. This is the farthest we've seen him from his Mountie-self:
FRASER: Drive. Quick. Before he comes back.
RAY: Who?
FRASER: My father. Drive. Go.
RAY: Fraser, your father's dead.
FRASER: I know. And I don't mean to speak ill of him, it's just he's driving me nuts.
RAY: Your father.
FRASER: He's not really here. I know that. It's all in my mind. It's just he refuses to stay there. Or rather, he refuses to leave there. I don't really understand it, but I'll tell you, it's beginning to wear a little thin. I mean, does he think I'm completely ignorant? The next thing he's going to do is try to show me how to start a fire. You know, Ray, I've got half a mind just to tell him to pack up, move out.
RAY: Of your mind.
FRASER: Yes.
R. FRASER: Hello, son.
FRASER: Oh God he's back.
R. FRASER: What's that?
FRASER: I said, glad you're back, Dad. [aside to Ray] Not a word, all right?
RAY: Hey, no problem, Benny.
Fraser is always more biting with his imaginary companions--Dief and his father--than he is with what for the sake of contrast I'm going to call "real people," but I think this is the first time that that side of him, the human side that gets irritable and sarcastic, has emerged where Ray can see it. We're almost exactly halfway through Season 1; the Destruction of Benton Fraser is proceeding on schedule.
Original airdate: Dec. 15, 1994
Favorite line:
B. FRASER: I don't carry a weapon.
R. FRASER: Is that smart, son?
B. FRASER: It's the law, Dad.
R. FRASER: Well, no time for niceties. Here, use mine.
B. FRASER: Well, I appreciate the offer, but it's imaginary.
R. FRASER: Oh. So it is.
The moment that cemented my love for Due South comes about three-quarters of the way through this episode. Fraser has started seeing his dead father. No one else can see Robert Fraser, and Benton Fraser himself is convinced that his father is merely a delusion of some sort. The show has been ambivalent--"I don't know any more about this than you do, son," the elder Fraser says. "Am I here? Am I in your head? You in mine? Damned if I can figure it out."--but then, without preamble, follow-through, or anything else, it gives us this conversation between another dead father and his son:
MR. VECCHIO: Twenty-four hours and you still haven't solved the case.
RAY: Come on, Dad, it's Christmas Day. You wanna give it a rest?
MR. VECCHIO: Hey, you don't care about your work? It's fine with me.
And that moves the entire thing one step to the left, from somewhere between parareal and surreal to somewhere between surreal and contrareal. Where it's going to stay.
This episode could just as well have been called, "Fathers and Sons in Cars." Both the elder Fraser and the elder Vecchio first manifest in the Riviera, and the wheelman of the title is a getaway driver trying to do the right thing for his son (the longest scene father and son share is, yeah, in a car). There is much discussion of what that "right thing" is, and what a father teaches his son and how he teaches him. Fraser tells Porter, "The greatest gift my father ever gave me was the courage to trust my own abilities. And I learned that through his example." On the other side, though, Ray tells Fraser, "I learned two things from my father. One: timing. Mostly when to duck. And two: you never hit a kid because it doesn't teach 'em anything." I'm guessing Ray also learned by example, and it's that single thread of darkness--that and Porter's genuine desperation--that keeps this episode from becoming cloying.
There's a theme in Due South, the obverse face of the financial motivation for crime I mentioned in an earlier post, and that's the question of how to face poverty with bravery, and how exactly do you define "bravery" in this context anyway? It's an issue in "Diefenbaker's Day Off":
LUCY: He's doing bad things, and I don't call that brave.
MACKENZIE: Sometimes being brave means knowing you have to do something and just doing it, no matter what happens.
And it comes up again, when Porter says bitterly, "I love how people like you think earning four dollars an hour is great and noble. I couldn't afford to buy my kid a Christmas gift. That's not noble. It's pathetic." Charlie's desperate to keep Lucy's respect; Porter feels he's already forfeited Del's. But they're both doing these illegal, stupid things for their children's sakes, to try to give their children what they as fathers feel they need.
I think it's important to notice--whether the writers intended this or not--that Mackenzie isn't answering Lucy's argument. And, yes, Porter's got his head on backwards--making the same mistake that the villains in "They Eat Horses, Don't They?" and Vinnie in "A Cop, A Mountie, and a Baby" make: trying to value life by the pound. Vinnie gets into a headspace where he can only see Jamie in terms of what he costs and what price he could bring; Porter's gone the other way, seeing himself only in terms of the money he isn't earning. This episode, unlike "ACAM&AB," keeps its balance: Porter's wrong, but the way in which he's wrong is pointing at the fucked-uppedness of the world we live in, not at some flaw in Porter himself.
(I also keep hearing Lear in my head all through this episode:
LEAR: ... what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
CORDELIA: Nothing, my lord.
LEAR: Nothing?
CORDELIA: Nothing.
LEAR: Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again. (1.1.84-89))
And this episode is particularly honest about the fact that there are no good solutions. It ends with Del visiting Porter in jail; there's no Get Out Of Reality Free card here. And it ends with Fraser alone again.
This episode emphasizes just how isolated Fraser is. "This is the first real Christmas dinner we've had together in twenty years," Robert Fraser says, "and I'm not even really here." More than that, Fraser is eating Christmas dinner alone. In a diner. The proprietor of which is only waiting for him to hurry up and leave already so he can close. Christmas night, Fraser is alone in his apartment. His father leaves him--again--without saying goodbye. (Waiting until he's asleep means it doesn't count, Bob.) He's alone, and he's starting to come unglued. This is the farthest we've seen him from his Mountie-self:
FRASER: Drive. Quick. Before he comes back.
RAY: Who?
FRASER: My father. Drive. Go.
RAY: Fraser, your father's dead.
FRASER: I know. And I don't mean to speak ill of him, it's just he's driving me nuts.
RAY: Your father.
FRASER: He's not really here. I know that. It's all in my mind. It's just he refuses to stay there. Or rather, he refuses to leave there. I don't really understand it, but I'll tell you, it's beginning to wear a little thin. I mean, does he think I'm completely ignorant? The next thing he's going to do is try to show me how to start a fire. You know, Ray, I've got half a mind just to tell him to pack up, move out.
RAY: Of your mind.
FRASER: Yes.
R. FRASER: Hello, son.
FRASER: Oh God he's back.
R. FRASER: What's that?
FRASER: I said, glad you're back, Dad. [aside to Ray] Not a word, all right?
RAY: Hey, no problem, Benny.
Fraser is always more biting with his imaginary companions--Dief and his father--than he is with what for the sake of contrast I'm going to call "real people," but I think this is the first time that that side of him, the human side that gets irritable and sarcastic, has emerged where Ray can see it. We're almost exactly halfway through Season 1; the Destruction of Benton Fraser is proceeding on schedule.
