Due South: An Invitation to Romance

[truepenny]

Due South 1.18, "An Invitation to Romance"
Original airdate: April 6, 1995
Favorite line:
CLERK: You're marrying a deaf-mute Mountie and you didn't recognize him?
FRASER: Perhaps I can explain.
CLERK: If he's deaf-mute, why is he talking?
KATHERINE: Now you're criticizing the handicapped?

or:
BRIDAL SHOP OWNER: Are you Miss Burns' fiancé?
FRASER: No.
BRIDAL SHOP OWNER: You must be very pleased.

Spoilers.


I should say before I get going that I love screwball comedies, and that's exactly what "An Invitation to Romance" is. Katherine Hepburn (gosh, wonder if that's where KATHERINE BURNS got her name?) and Spencer Tracy all the way. So the fact that the episode doesn't really seem to fit--even in a series which considers continuity something honored in the breach rather than the observance--is something I am happy to forgive, and in fact I see a lot of ways in which it does fit, as long as you allow it to be its own thing, on a slightly AU track from the rest of the show.

The first and most important thing about this episode is to notice that Katherine is like Fraser. She has a persona which she uses to manipulate people and to avoid having to engage with them. Exactly the way Fraser does. We see Katherine manipulating people constantly throughout the episode (and, yes, it does make me want to shake her until her teeth rattle), and the fact that this episode is in some ways a companion piece to "Chicago Holiday" (witness the reappearance of Mrs. MacGuffin) kept this exchange in the back of my head:

FRASER: Ray.
RAY: No. We are eighteen floors up.
FRASER: [already in the garbage chute] Just hold your elbows out to the side. It'll slow your descent.
RAY: My descent? [shouting down the chute after Fraser] Fraser, you cannot go down there without backup! ... Ahhhhhhh, the most annoying man in the world.
[Ray climbs into the garbage chute]

Because the episode wants us to recognize that Fraser and Katherine are alike. It balances Katherine's very overt and aggressive manipulations against Fraser's passive-aggressive techniques:

RAY: Did I mention it was my day off?
FRASER: Several times. . . . The Consulate line is still busy.
RAY: I thought I did, but then I became confused when I found myself driving around delivering mail.
FRASER: Well, this isn't just mail, Ray. This is a highly sensitive Canadian government document.
RAY: Oh. You guys planning an invasion?
FRASER: Well, I'm not entirely sure. I think I may have said too much already.
RAY: Yeah, well, don't do it today, all right? Because I'm gonna be sitting on my couch enjoying the basketball game, and tip-off is in exactly five minutes.
FRASER: Seven Four Six West Lakeside Place. That wouldn't be on your way home, would it?
RAY: No.
[Cut to: the Riv pulling up in front of 746 W. Lakeside Place]

Fraser and Katherine can't get rid of each other because they're too much alike.

Another thing this episode plays with is Fraser's problems with the opposite sex. Of all the autonomic functions Fraser can control, the one thing he seems to be completely unable to regulate is his sexual magnetism (which, okay, not an autonomic function, but I bet Fraser wishes it were). The women in this episode cannot keep their eyes off him, which he (a.) uses without seeming to notice (the poor postal clerk), (b.) doesn't notice at all (the woman in line for a marriage license), (c.) is completely baffled by:

WOMAN: May I help you?
FRASER: Yes. I'm looking for a woman. [all women in earshot look hopeful] A particular woman. Her name is Miss Burns. Would you happen to know if she's here?
WOMAN: I haven't any idea. I don't work here.
FRASER: Then how could you possibly help me?
[She smirks.]

and (d.) is helpless against: Catherine's seduction.

It's very hard to get a read on Fraser's sexuality. He is certainly attracted to women (Victoria, QED--and the lovely moment in "The Deal" (DS 1.17) when both Fraser and Ray are so distracted by the lingerie shop owner's leather bustier that they get several feet down the sidewalk in the wrong direction), but all his physical encounters are notable for the fact that the woman is the aggressor, ranging from Tammy Markles way back in "Pizza and Promises" (DS 1.5) which is unmistakably Fraser as victim of sexual harassment, to Janet Morse in "The Bounty Hunter" (DS 3.6)--whom he seems to be genuinely attracted to. But every single time (Inspector Thatcher, Denny Scarpa, Katherine Burns, Victoria Metcalf, Frannie's pursuit of him, even the hug from Mrs. Gamez in "They Eat Horses, Don't They?"(DS 1.4)), it's the woman who takes the first step, the woman who grabs him, the woman who initiates the kiss. The woman who reaches out to take what she wants.

And Fraser can't say no.

He gets saved, again and again, by the intrusion of the A plot. "Oh thank god," he says in this episode, as Nigel's sawed-off shotgun blasts a hole in the motel room door. He can't extract himself; he seems to have no frame of reference for negotiating these situations, because Fraser's modus operandi in dealing with other people relies very heavily on the social contract. His particular brand of social engineering, at which he is--make no mistake--very very good, requires that his opponents be playing by the rules of etiquette. One reason, I suspect, that he's willing to ask Katherine to dance at the end is that dancing is a controlled form of physical contact, with rules and boundaries. He can't cope when people, like Katherine and like Frannie, demonstrate their complete willingness to run roughshod over the rules to get what they want. And the question of Fraser's desire . . .

Well, oddly enough, this episode has rather a lot to say about that, in an oblique and Fraserish fashion. We have a story about love:

FRASER: I thought I was in love once, and then later I thought maybe it was just an inner ear imbalance. We spent an evening snowed in on the side of a mountain watching the Northern Lights. It was probably the most romantic moment of my life. But in the end I realized I'd learned two things. The first is that it's easier to think you're in love than it is to accept that you're alone, and the second is that it's very easy to confuse love with subatomic particles bursting in the air. Well, I also learned I should have my ears checked more regularly.

(Is the woman in this story Victoria?)

And we have this discussion of Fraser's button:

KATHERINE: Tell me something, Constable. Why is it everywhere I go, disaster follows?
FRASER: Maybe it's the company you keep.
KATHERINE: I sure know how to pick 'em, don't I?
FRASER: Well, I don't really know Nigel, so it wouldn't be fair for me--
KATHERINE: What is wrong with you? A man is trying to kill you. You're supposed to hate him. A woman throws herself at you, you're supposed to . . . you're supposed to do something.
FRASER: Miss Burns, you are engaged to be married.
KATHERINE: Are you always so good and honorable and perfect and . . . what the hell are you doing?
FRASER: It's just a loose thread. You wouldn't happen to have a pair of sciss--no, of course not.
KATHERINE: Just yank it off.
FRASER: Well, but the button might fall off.
KATHERINE: It's a button! Take a risk!
FRASER: All right. [He yanks the thread. The button comes off.] Huh.
KATHERINE. Don't you ever do anything reckless or stupid or wild?
FRASER: No. . . . Well, the . . . no.

Which of course is deliberately paralleled at the end of the episode, when the button doesn't fall off and Fraser goes in to ask Katherine to dance.

But there's a problem here, charming as the metaphor of Fraser's buttons is. And the problem is that risk-taking and romance are bad, bad news in the world of Due South. Victoria proves that. And even in this episode, risk-taking and romance have gotten Katherine engaged to a man who (a.) is trying to kill her and (b.) she doesn't love. The surface narrative, following the conventions of screwball comedy, is in direct opposition to what the episode is really trying to say. Following desire instead of duty never works. (See also "You Must Remember This" (DS 1.11).)

For a show that is generally as funny and clair as Due South, its underpinnings are bleak. It's easier to think you're in love than it is to accept that you're alone. Not one romantic relationship in the entire series is successful, and the only ones that have any staying power, that get mentioned repeatedly (an important marker in a show that isn't continuity-obsessed), are the catastrophes: Victoria and Stella.

Katherine wants to believe in romance, and the episode--and Fraser--humors her. But we know all along it isn't true.

Comments

[belmanoir.livejournal.com]

I go back and forth on whether the Northern Lights person is Victoria. On the one hand, it's a snowed-in love story, so you'd think, yes, Victoria. On the other hand, he never mentions the Northern Lights when he's specifically talking about Victoria, and he definitely seems to consider his love for Victoria "real," so you'd think, no. And a lot of Fraser stories are about being snowed in, so inconclusive. I also like that he never specifies the gender of the person he was with, so I can totally pretend it was a guy.

"Sometimes it's easier to think you're in love than to accept that you're alone" is pretty much The Story Of Victoria, though. It's also one of my favorite lines in the whole series.

Another moment I adore in this episode is when Ray is standing outside the Consulate and he's saying to Diefenbaker, "Where is the most unromantic, disgusting place Fraser could take a woman?" and then Dief barks at the garbage truck and Ray is like, "Oh god, hang on Benny!" It's such a beautiful Due South-style ridiculous coincidence and of course evidence for Fraser/Vecchio soul-bonding. =)

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

gosh, wonder if that's where KATHERINE BURNS got her name?

Yes, I think so, but I bet it was combined with the fact that Paul's wife is Martha Burns.

The first is that it's easier to think you're in love than it is to accept that you're alone

This line is near the top, if not at the top of a list of lines that completely embody Fraser's character. It's sad but really practical, which makes it sadder still. *hugs Fraser*

[diabolicalfiend.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, he never mentions the Northern Lights when he's specifically talking about Victoria, and he definitely seems to consider his love for Victoria "real," so you'd think, no.

But he's saying that with the clearness of being a long, long way away from the woman, so perhaps this is a simple, logic deduction, something that isn't possible with Victoria 'really there'.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's more Cary Grant and Carole Lombard than Hepburn and Tracy. Of course, I'm only saying Cary Grant because Paul Gross has some very Cary Grant-ish qualities, which I think the show picks up on with the North By Northwest references. But Katherine is definitely a Carole Lombard type - a dizzy blonde rather than a high-strung brunette.

That thing with the buttons shows up in Slings & Arrows, Season 2, doesn't it? Anna and the Canadian playwright?

I think one of the really interesting things about Victoria is that in her case, for once Fraser makes the first move. Sure, we find out later that she engineered everything to make it possible for him to do so. But all the same, he chases after her, he asks her out, he kisses her and so forth. There's never any doubt as to what Fraser wants. What I'd like to know, but never will, is whether Victoria is a cause or an effect. Is Victoria so important because she was the first and only woman to get past Fraser's many, many defenses? Or was she the reason he developed those defenses in the first place?

- KSC

[(Anonymous)]

Me again - I forgot to say that I don't think the Northern Lights woman was Victoria. I don't think Fraser would speak so flippantly about Victoria, and I doubt they would have seen anything of the Northern Lights, what with the howling blizzard and all. I think that the woman in question was from an earlier period in Fraser's life, before his Victoria-trauma made him shut down a whole side of himself. Fraser likes people very easily - it must have taken him a while to realize that he doesn't fall in love easily at all. I can see young, innocent Fraser getting involved with a woman who's in love with him, realizing too late that he's not in love with her, and (given his overactive conscience) feeling disproportionately guilty about that. That whole speech is very cynical for Fraser, isn't it? He's definitely tailoring it to his audience; for one thing, he leaves his One True Love out of the story because it's not relevant to Katherine, who's obviously not in love with her fiance, and for another, the story serves as a warning to her to back off: Fraser's not the romantic type. Which is sort of true and sort of wildly untrue, depending on what episode it is and whether or not you happen to be Victoria. No wonder Fraser envies Ray's "existential honesty."

- KSC

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Actually, my feeling is that Fraser is being neither flippant nor cynical. He's telling a very hard, sad truth. And I don't think Katherine hears him, any more than Ray hears him in "You Must Remember This" when he's talking about Victoria.

One of the other ways in which Ray Kowalski mirrors Fraser is that they're both men who have had their hearts broken before they enter the narrative.

[(Anonymous)]

One of my favorite moments in the episode is when Fraser delivers the letter Katherine's house. Katherine is talking on her cell phone while she is babbling at Fraser and she covers the cell phone speaker instead of the microphone. She broadcasts at all times, but she'll shut out others when she feels like it.

[bghost.livejournal.com]

I've often wondered if the Northern Light's story was Victoria or not... it seems rather cynical and sad if so. But sometimes Fraser tells stories in a manner designed to conceal, not reveal the truth. That is not to say that Fraser's stories aren't true... they are. But the truth people walk away with from his stories aren't the true truth. For example, a ten year old being hit with a dead otter, so hard that it leaves deep scars clearly visible over twenty years later... that's not funny, so why do I laugh at it? And the Northern Lights story... even if it's not Victoria, how sad is it that love can be mistaken for an inner ear imbalance, and that Fraser is portrayed as always, always alone?

And, if people can forgive me plugging one of my own stories, here is my take on the Northern Lights story. It ties in with a bunch of themes you keep touching on Truepenny, regarding Fraser's sexuality, at least I hope it does so well. (Don't worry, it's very short.)

http://archiveofourown.org/works/349772

[libskrat]

The more I watch Fraser with women, the more he reminds me of an unholy amalgamation of Bertie Wooster (chick magnetism, inability to say no) with Jeeves (passive aggression).