Due South: "Vault"
Dec. 30th, 2007 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyDue South 2.2, "Vault"
Original air date: December 7, 1995
Favorite quote:
FRASER: Ray, there is no need for either sarcasm or panic. We are in an eight by ten room with a ten foot ceiling. That gives us roughly eight hundred cubic feet of air. It is now three-fifteen and the time lock is not due to open until eight a.m. So there is no danger of us suffocating for at least ... [a pause while Fraser does the math in his head] ... You know, Ray, in situations like this, the Inuit--
RAY: Ohhhhh, we're gonna die.
Spoilers, of course.
I find it very interesting to watch, over the four seasons of Due South, as the show tries to figure out what to do with the Canadian Consulate. The pilot has the ineffectual inspector and his ultra-competent assistant, who is simultaneously determined to get Fraser fired and strongly attracted to him. The first season keeps Inspector Moffatt but loses the potential conflict in Constable Brighton (is she a constable? or am I remembering that wrong?). The second season ditches Moffatt, but brings back the conflict in the person of Inspector Margaret Thatcher, who like Brighton wants to get Fraser fired but is strongly attracted to him. This character (I tend to see Brighton and Thatcher as the same structural function in two different versions) also allows for commentary on sexual discrimination and sexual politics, being the show's only female character with any power (an attribute highlighted in this episode by Frannie's unavailing quest to get some respect from somebody). But even so, what to do with the consulate remains a problem. The receptionist Jasmine in "An Invitation to Romance" is replaced for three episodes by Thatcher's rather unpleasant administrative assistant Ovitz until we finally settle down with Constable Turnbull (I also tend to see the nameless Mountie in this episode--"some yutz in a hat," Ovitz labels him--as a locum tenens for Turnbull), who with Thatcher will make the transition to seasons three and four--where the consulate itself, in its new location, will play a much larger role as Fraser's residence as well as place of work. (I find that decision structurally fascinating, too, and will have more to say about it when we get there.) So season two has a number of feints and dead ends as it tries to figure out what to do with Thatcher, what to do with the consulate, what to do with Fraser's life when he isn't hanging out in the station to the aggravated bemusement of Lieutenant Welsh. (The same phenomenon also holds in respect to Frannie, as the show tries to figure out how to incorporate her--season three will again offer the elegant solution of conflating her with Elaine just as it conflates Fraser's apartment building with the consulate.)
This episode has a number of parallels to "Free Willie" (DS 1.1), not least of which is the recurring antagonist Caroline Morgan, She Who Shot Fraser In The Hat. But with Morgan comes an important echo of a conversation:
FRASER: ... And I knew you'd trust me.
RAY: But I didn't.
FRASER: Yes, you did.
RAY: No, I didn't.
FRASER: Yes, you did.
RAY: No, I didn't.
FRASER: Well, of course you did. Maybe you just weren't fully aware of it.
RAY: I was very aware of my feelings toward you, Fraser.
FRASER: Well, if you didn't know what I was planning, why'd you play along?
RAY: I wasn't playing along. I was begging for my life.
(DS 1.1)
"Things always come back around and around and around," as Lenny says in "Pizza and Promises" (DS 1.5)--not the same Lenny as Morgan's boyfriend in "Vault"--and sure enough, here's that same issue back again:
FRASER: You know, Ray, there's only one way to break out of here, rescue your sister, and prevent this robbery.
RAY: Yeah, how's that?
FRASER: It'd be dangerous; you'd be risking your life. You'd have to trust me implicitly.
RAY: Yeah, well, I don't trust you at all.
FRASER: You don't really mean that, do you?
RAY: Oh yes I do. I mean, why should I trust you? In the last two years, you've risked our lives twenty-four times.
FRASER: Boy. I had no idea it had been that many.
RAY: Yeah, well, it has.
FRASER: I didn't realize you'd been counting.
RAY: Well, I just felt that I should, since you didn't seem to pay any attention to it.
FRASER: Well, I'm sorry if it upset you, Ray.
RAY: I am not upset! I just wish you would ask me about it, let me know in advance.
(DS 2.2)
This is, of course, a metacommentary on the premise and operating conditions of the show (22 episodes in season one, plus the pilot, plus "North" equals 24, and it is pretty fair to assume that Fraser risks their lives once an episode--possibly even fair to assume that Ray is being conservative in his tally). But it's also a commentary on Fraser's role as hero--which is something this episode is very interested in. As in "Free Willie," Fraser is assuming that Ray is gung ho for his role as sidekick; that "you'd have to trust me implicitly," is completely pro forma as far as Fraser's concerned, and he's patently taken aback when Ray applies a reality check. The episode hits this note, in varying ways, several times:
FRASER: Ray, there is an inherent danger in all police work.
RAY: No, Fraser, what there is is an inherent danger working with you.
FRASER: Well, you didn't have to do this. You could have thrown your hands in the air like a baby--
RAY: That's what I was trying to do! I am not a baby!
FRASER: No, Ray, I know you. You were attempting to protect this institution--
RAY: No, I wasn't!
FRASER: --and its employees with your life.
RAY: Y'see, that's where you get confused. I'm not like you, Fraser. I don't throw myself into the line of fire just so that some money-grubbing back-stabbing bank doesn't have to pay higher insurance premiums.
FRASER: You don't really mean that.
RAY: Oh yes I do!
Fraser does project his own values onto Ray, and in so doing forces Ray to live up to them. I think the most telling exchange, though, is the more philosophical one about the nature of duty:
FRASER: You know, Ray, there are worse things than dying.
RAY: Yeah, name three.
FRASER: How 'bout two?
RAY: All right.
FRASER: Living without honor and dying without reason.
RAY: Which one would this be?
FRASER: Well, this wouldn't be either of those, actually. This would be more like death in the line of duty.
RAY: You know, I always thought duty was something you get paid to do. This is more like voluntary stupidity.
FRASER: Well, I'm sure there are some people who think that's what good deeds are, Ray.
RAY: Well, aren't they?
FRASER: Well, I don't know. I've never thought about it.
Ray is very obviously his father's son in this exchange (as he is even more obviously with the woefully backfiring attempt to scam his way onto disability), and his attitude highlights Fraser's ingrained streak of self-sacrifice. But the thing is, Ray is also clearly not his father's son, because he does do his duty, even if he wants to be paid for it. He chose a profession in which the idea of duty has meaning, in which, yes, he is paid for self-sacrifice. Not as noble as Fraser, but not ignoble, either.
The episode dwells on Fraser's unreality, both via his exchanges with Ray in which Ray plays the voice of sanity--
FRASER: No doubt some foot patrol will chance upon our unhappy situation and notice that something is amiss.
RAY: In Chicago?
FRASER: That's a good point.
--via his encyclopedic knowledge of everything, not merely the narratively convenient information about the vault, but also literary terminology:
RAY: I believe the Greeks have a word for this. Hubris.
FRASER: Well, no, Ray. Actually, hubris is excessive pride or wanton insolence.
RAY: What about pathos?
FRASER: Well, pathos is a quality in an artistic representation which excites a feeling of pity or sadness.
RAY: What about onomatopoeia?
FRASER: Well, onomatopoeia is wherein a word imitates the sound or action of the thing it describes, i.e. woof, bow-wow, ribbit--
RAY: Irony!
Which Fraser can't argue with. (It's also worth noting that hubris isn't as irrelevant to their situation as Fraser would like to believe.) And the episode spotlights Fraser's unreality via my favorite of Due South's narrative devices:
FRASER: I don't have the specifications for the door, Ray, but I've been making calculations based on its thickness, the depth of the existing hole, and the reflection of the tonal input as it percusses against my tuning fork.
RAY: Where the hell did you get a tuning fork?
FRASER: Well, that's not important. What is important is that I have managed to ascertain that the bolts are eight-point-three inches from the outside surface.
Whenever Fraser says something's not important, he's masking a plot hole, a point where he has just, with utmost implausibility, come up with the exact item or information that he needs to solve an otherwise insoluble puzzle. And I love the nonchalance with which the show handles it; it's so completely part of Fraser's quintessential Fraserness that it becomes a point of enjoyment rather than a failure to suspend disbelief. Fraser isn't a realistic character, and that's part of what gives the show its energy.
But at the same time, Fraser is a human being, and the point where the A-plot inside the vault and the B-plot outside the vault come together is in the thematic question of the natural human desire to be appreciated. Frannie is the spokeswoman, acting out in an effort to get someone to pay attention. I wish I liked Frannie better than I do, because she's actually very interesting: her over-emphatically "feminine" clothing and ditzy mannerisms don't change the fact that she is resourceful and tenacious as all hell. She's struggling to get something she can't have, just as she does with Fraser, and I think there's an interesting question here about the performance of femininity and what it costs you. But I don't think the show addresses that question in any particularly sustained way or with anything more than passing interest.
Because, yes, most of our attention is on the A-plot, where--as if by telepathy between siblings--Ray brings up the same thematic question:
RAY: Admit it, Fraser, you feel unappreciated. Can you do this for me? Can you do this one small thing for me? Can you admit that at least once in your perfect existence you felt the need to put yourself before your duty? Because if you do that? I can float peacefully to my death.
FRASER: Why, Ray?
RAY: I just will. Now humor me.
FRASER: All right. Occasionally--it's only very occasionally--I do feel--Is this really necessary?
RAY: Fraser. I am drowning on dry land.
FRASER: All right, Ray, all right. Occasionally, I do feel . . . what was it?
RAY: Unappreciated!
FRASER: Unappreciated. Occasionally, I do feel unappreciated.
RAY: You do?!
FRASER: Occasionally.
RAY: Well, thank you! Good! Well, from now on--for the next minute or two--can you try to stick up for yourself a little bit more?
FRASER: Yes, I will try, Ray.
This is going to get Fraser in trouble at the end of the episode, of course, where he sticks up for himself and gets fired, but the very difficulty he has in forming the sentence demonstrates how right Ray is to make him say it. And of course the hallmark of passive-aggressive strategies, at which Fraser excels, is that you get other people to do things without ever admitting you want them to. The stereotypical "feminine" gender role that Frannie is so loudly and fruitlessly rejecting is in fact a role that Fraser inhabits as naturally as breathing. Fraser would never complain about being sent to the butcher's . . . but if he really didn't want to do it, he'd find a way to make Ray go instead. This is the underside of heroic self-sacrifice; heroes can't ask for anything for themselves, any more than the Angel in the House could. So Fraser's hyper masculine performance as a hero (Fraser as hero is very, VERY butch, and the camera frames him as such) circles around to become the same thing as the hyper feminine icon of self-denial Frannie is refusing vociferously to be.
... and the inclusion of a cross-dressing episode in this season suddenly makes a lot of sense.
Original air date: December 7, 1995
Favorite quote:
FRASER: Ray, there is no need for either sarcasm or panic. We are in an eight by ten room with a ten foot ceiling. That gives us roughly eight hundred cubic feet of air. It is now three-fifteen and the time lock is not due to open until eight a.m. So there is no danger of us suffocating for at least ... [a pause while Fraser does the math in his head] ... You know, Ray, in situations like this, the Inuit--
RAY: Ohhhhh, we're gonna die.
Spoilers, of course.
I find it very interesting to watch, over the four seasons of Due South, as the show tries to figure out what to do with the Canadian Consulate. The pilot has the ineffectual inspector and his ultra-competent assistant, who is simultaneously determined to get Fraser fired and strongly attracted to him. The first season keeps Inspector Moffatt but loses the potential conflict in Constable Brighton (is she a constable? or am I remembering that wrong?). The second season ditches Moffatt, but brings back the conflict in the person of Inspector Margaret Thatcher, who like Brighton wants to get Fraser fired but is strongly attracted to him. This character (I tend to see Brighton and Thatcher as the same structural function in two different versions) also allows for commentary on sexual discrimination and sexual politics, being the show's only female character with any power (an attribute highlighted in this episode by Frannie's unavailing quest to get some respect from somebody). But even so, what to do with the consulate remains a problem. The receptionist Jasmine in "An Invitation to Romance" is replaced for three episodes by Thatcher's rather unpleasant administrative assistant Ovitz until we finally settle down with Constable Turnbull (I also tend to see the nameless Mountie in this episode--"some yutz in a hat," Ovitz labels him--as a locum tenens for Turnbull), who with Thatcher will make the transition to seasons three and four--where the consulate itself, in its new location, will play a much larger role as Fraser's residence as well as place of work. (I find that decision structurally fascinating, too, and will have more to say about it when we get there.) So season two has a number of feints and dead ends as it tries to figure out what to do with Thatcher, what to do with the consulate, what to do with Fraser's life when he isn't hanging out in the station to the aggravated bemusement of Lieutenant Welsh. (The same phenomenon also holds in respect to Frannie, as the show tries to figure out how to incorporate her--season three will again offer the elegant solution of conflating her with Elaine just as it conflates Fraser's apartment building with the consulate.)
This episode has a number of parallels to "Free Willie" (DS 1.1), not least of which is the recurring antagonist Caroline Morgan, She Who Shot Fraser In The Hat. But with Morgan comes an important echo of a conversation:
FRASER: ... And I knew you'd trust me.
RAY: But I didn't.
FRASER: Yes, you did.
RAY: No, I didn't.
FRASER: Yes, you did.
RAY: No, I didn't.
FRASER: Well, of course you did. Maybe you just weren't fully aware of it.
RAY: I was very aware of my feelings toward you, Fraser.
FRASER: Well, if you didn't know what I was planning, why'd you play along?
RAY: I wasn't playing along. I was begging for my life.
(DS 1.1)
"Things always come back around and around and around," as Lenny says in "Pizza and Promises" (DS 1.5)--not the same Lenny as Morgan's boyfriend in "Vault"--and sure enough, here's that same issue back again:
FRASER: You know, Ray, there's only one way to break out of here, rescue your sister, and prevent this robbery.
RAY: Yeah, how's that?
FRASER: It'd be dangerous; you'd be risking your life. You'd have to trust me implicitly.
RAY: Yeah, well, I don't trust you at all.
FRASER: You don't really mean that, do you?
RAY: Oh yes I do. I mean, why should I trust you? In the last two years, you've risked our lives twenty-four times.
FRASER: Boy. I had no idea it had been that many.
RAY: Yeah, well, it has.
FRASER: I didn't realize you'd been counting.
RAY: Well, I just felt that I should, since you didn't seem to pay any attention to it.
FRASER: Well, I'm sorry if it upset you, Ray.
RAY: I am not upset! I just wish you would ask me about it, let me know in advance.
(DS 2.2)
This is, of course, a metacommentary on the premise and operating conditions of the show (22 episodes in season one, plus the pilot, plus "North" equals 24, and it is pretty fair to assume that Fraser risks their lives once an episode--possibly even fair to assume that Ray is being conservative in his tally). But it's also a commentary on Fraser's role as hero--which is something this episode is very interested in. As in "Free Willie," Fraser is assuming that Ray is gung ho for his role as sidekick; that "you'd have to trust me implicitly," is completely pro forma as far as Fraser's concerned, and he's patently taken aback when Ray applies a reality check. The episode hits this note, in varying ways, several times:
FRASER: Ray, there is an inherent danger in all police work.
RAY: No, Fraser, what there is is an inherent danger working with you.
FRASER: Well, you didn't have to do this. You could have thrown your hands in the air like a baby--
RAY: That's what I was trying to do! I am not a baby!
FRASER: No, Ray, I know you. You were attempting to protect this institution--
RAY: No, I wasn't!
FRASER: --and its employees with your life.
RAY: Y'see, that's where you get confused. I'm not like you, Fraser. I don't throw myself into the line of fire just so that some money-grubbing back-stabbing bank doesn't have to pay higher insurance premiums.
FRASER: You don't really mean that.
RAY: Oh yes I do!
Fraser does project his own values onto Ray, and in so doing forces Ray to live up to them. I think the most telling exchange, though, is the more philosophical one about the nature of duty:
FRASER: You know, Ray, there are worse things than dying.
RAY: Yeah, name three.
FRASER: How 'bout two?
RAY: All right.
FRASER: Living without honor and dying without reason.
RAY: Which one would this be?
FRASER: Well, this wouldn't be either of those, actually. This would be more like death in the line of duty.
RAY: You know, I always thought duty was something you get paid to do. This is more like voluntary stupidity.
FRASER: Well, I'm sure there are some people who think that's what good deeds are, Ray.
RAY: Well, aren't they?
FRASER: Well, I don't know. I've never thought about it.
Ray is very obviously his father's son in this exchange (as he is even more obviously with the woefully backfiring attempt to scam his way onto disability), and his attitude highlights Fraser's ingrained streak of self-sacrifice. But the thing is, Ray is also clearly not his father's son, because he does do his duty, even if he wants to be paid for it. He chose a profession in which the idea of duty has meaning, in which, yes, he is paid for self-sacrifice. Not as noble as Fraser, but not ignoble, either.
The episode dwells on Fraser's unreality, both via his exchanges with Ray in which Ray plays the voice of sanity--
FRASER: No doubt some foot patrol will chance upon our unhappy situation and notice that something is amiss.
RAY: In Chicago?
FRASER: That's a good point.
--via his encyclopedic knowledge of everything, not merely the narratively convenient information about the vault, but also literary terminology:
RAY: I believe the Greeks have a word for this. Hubris.
FRASER: Well, no, Ray. Actually, hubris is excessive pride or wanton insolence.
RAY: What about pathos?
FRASER: Well, pathos is a quality in an artistic representation which excites a feeling of pity or sadness.
RAY: What about onomatopoeia?
FRASER: Well, onomatopoeia is wherein a word imitates the sound or action of the thing it describes, i.e. woof, bow-wow, ribbit--
RAY: Irony!
Which Fraser can't argue with. (It's also worth noting that hubris isn't as irrelevant to their situation as Fraser would like to believe.) And the episode spotlights Fraser's unreality via my favorite of Due South's narrative devices:
FRASER: I don't have the specifications for the door, Ray, but I've been making calculations based on its thickness, the depth of the existing hole, and the reflection of the tonal input as it percusses against my tuning fork.
RAY: Where the hell did you get a tuning fork?
FRASER: Well, that's not important. What is important is that I have managed to ascertain that the bolts are eight-point-three inches from the outside surface.
Whenever Fraser says something's not important, he's masking a plot hole, a point where he has just, with utmost implausibility, come up with the exact item or information that he needs to solve an otherwise insoluble puzzle. And I love the nonchalance with which the show handles it; it's so completely part of Fraser's quintessential Fraserness that it becomes a point of enjoyment rather than a failure to suspend disbelief. Fraser isn't a realistic character, and that's part of what gives the show its energy.
But at the same time, Fraser is a human being, and the point where the A-plot inside the vault and the B-plot outside the vault come together is in the thematic question of the natural human desire to be appreciated. Frannie is the spokeswoman, acting out in an effort to get someone to pay attention. I wish I liked Frannie better than I do, because she's actually very interesting: her over-emphatically "feminine" clothing and ditzy mannerisms don't change the fact that she is resourceful and tenacious as all hell. She's struggling to get something she can't have, just as she does with Fraser, and I think there's an interesting question here about the performance of femininity and what it costs you. But I don't think the show addresses that question in any particularly sustained way or with anything more than passing interest.
Because, yes, most of our attention is on the A-plot, where--as if by telepathy between siblings--Ray brings up the same thematic question:
RAY: Admit it, Fraser, you feel unappreciated. Can you do this for me? Can you do this one small thing for me? Can you admit that at least once in your perfect existence you felt the need to put yourself before your duty? Because if you do that? I can float peacefully to my death.
FRASER: Why, Ray?
RAY: I just will. Now humor me.
FRASER: All right. Occasionally--it's only very occasionally--I do feel--Is this really necessary?
RAY: Fraser. I am drowning on dry land.
FRASER: All right, Ray, all right. Occasionally, I do feel . . . what was it?
RAY: Unappreciated!
FRASER: Unappreciated. Occasionally, I do feel unappreciated.
RAY: You do?!
FRASER: Occasionally.
RAY: Well, thank you! Good! Well, from now on--for the next minute or two--can you try to stick up for yourself a little bit more?
FRASER: Yes, I will try, Ray.
This is going to get Fraser in trouble at the end of the episode, of course, where he sticks up for himself and gets fired, but the very difficulty he has in forming the sentence demonstrates how right Ray is to make him say it. And of course the hallmark of passive-aggressive strategies, at which Fraser excels, is that you get other people to do things without ever admitting you want them to. The stereotypical "feminine" gender role that Frannie is so loudly and fruitlessly rejecting is in fact a role that Fraser inhabits as naturally as breathing. Fraser would never complain about being sent to the butcher's . . . but if he really didn't want to do it, he'd find a way to make Ray go instead. This is the underside of heroic self-sacrifice; heroes can't ask for anything for themselves, any more than the Angel in the House could. So Fraser's hyper masculine performance as a hero (Fraser as hero is very, VERY butch, and the camera frames him as such) circles around to become the same thing as the hyper feminine icon of self-denial Frannie is refusing vociferously to be.
... and the inclusion of a cross-dressing episode in this season suddenly makes a lot of sense.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-12-30 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-30 10:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-30 10:45 pm (UTC)I have very mixed feelings about that episode, but there ARE things about it I love. One of them is this line:
RAY: Y'see, that's where you get confused. I'm not like you, Fraser. I don't throw myself into the line of fire just so that some money-grubbing back-stabbing bank doesn't have to pay higher insurance premiums.
Because despite how ridiculous and sketchy Ray's attempt to collect disability is, what it does do is remind us, right from the start of the episode, that Ray DOES throw himself into the line of fire for FRASER.
I also love how you can see Fraser getting annoyed with Ray---at the beginning when Ray is being a jerk to the bank people, and particularly when Ray is messing up the Greek terms, Fraser gets this INCREDIBLY ANNOYED expression on his face, but when he actually turns around to look at Ray, it's gone.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-30 11:54 pm (UTC)(A side note: watching Yutz barrel through the park gives a new appreciation for how good Paul Gross makes that seriously ungainly uniform look.)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-31 12:00 am (UTC)"Letting Go"'s "Mmmmmmmoody!" moment just slays me.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-31 01:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-31 01:09 am (UTC)And he takes out the armed robber without even breaking stride, so he's not useless, either.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-31 01:20 am (UTC)My reaction to the takeout was surprise -- "huh, wouldn't have expected that of the stuffed shirt." I'm watching the ep again now, and I'm still surprised at it.
It's possible, though, that what I'm seeing is Yutz as the reincarnation of Season1!Fraser, again contrasted to New!Fraser. There's still a difference, just not the difference I thought there was. New!Fraser has been a bit Rayified, which may account somewhat for the "unorthodoxy" of his methods commented upon by his new superior officer.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-31 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-31 01:30 am (UTC)Those are also tough lines to deliver; playing off an animal (or, more likely, the sidewalk and the camera) is an art.
I merely add that I was not surprised by the thing with Mountie Will and the hat-shooter and the bank door. That just figured.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-31 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 12:25 pm (UTC)You mentioned previously that you believe Fraser is a recovering alcoholic, which is why he no longer drinks (there is a line later on in, I believe, the second season that touches on his views on alcohol).
I think Fraser has some level of depression, which explains some of his risk taking, such as jumping off a cliff (Letting Go), jumping across rooftops, or locking himself in a vault and then flooding it, just to name a few. There are other, smaller, clues throughout the series that suggest this, but the risk taking is the big one, at least to me.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-13 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 03:48 am (UTC)Choosing to be the Mountie could be his way of putting something between himself and emotions.
I have to say, after the whole Victoria mess it seems odd that Ray can speak about Fraser's perfect Mountie life, and question if he's ever done anything just for him.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-31 06:22 pm (UTC)Regarding the Consulate... it develops into a very interesting metaphor for "home," and everything that's wrong with it. Fraser ends up having his "home" on Canadian territory again, but we see in "A Likely Story" just how "suffocating" home is to him (and why can't anyone else see that! The guy is actually, technically, homeless, sleeping on the floor of his office, and apparently paying for the privelege, and nobody realises, least of all himself, that he's drowning.)
Frannie is an inconsistently written character... in this I actually like her. Her attempts to thwart the robbers are at cross purposes with Fraser and Ray's attempts to thwart the robbers... but she's the only one of the hostages who puts up any kind of a fight, bonkers though it may be, and you can start to see some motivation, why she's quite so desperate for a man for example. She IS unappreciated, even by her own brother ('trust me Frannie, nobody respects you,') and she is not stupid (even if she is somewhat delusiional.)
Due South does the politics of disenfranchisement so well... Fraser as foriegner, issues of race and ethnicity (another great Frannie moment, when she tells Welsh he's being racist about Italian Americans, and when RayK, playing to his cover story, looks at Welsh and flirtatiously says, "ciao,") issues of sexuality, the construction of gender, issues of madness etc. It's the fact that dS speaks to these issues that gives it resonance to so many different people.