truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (ds: 3 2 1)
[personal profile] truepenny
Due South 2.7, "Juliet Is Bleeding"
Original air date:
February 1, 1996
Favorite quote:
IRENE: Dammit! What the hell are you doing? You scared me half to death!
RAY: The signal. I thought you'd remember.
IRENE: That was fifteen years ago! Are you insane?

Spoilers.



"Juliet Is Bleeding" is not my least favorite episode of Due South, but only because they followed it immediately with "One Good Man."

There are two things in particular I dislike about this episode--no, make that three. One is the complete waste of Irene Zuko, as a character and as a person. Two is the fact that the show does not earn the pathos it tries to generate with Louis Gardino's death. Three is that Ray--as he is in "You Must Remember This" (1.11)--is at his most intensely unlikable, and it is not clear that he actually learns ANYTHING from this disaster, While I am not in favor, in general, of didactic fiction, I would really like, just this once, to be certain that RAY GETS A FUCKING CLUE. See above re: point one.

And I dislike the episode in direct proportion with my liking both for Irene herself and for Fraser, who is at his best and most Fraser-ish throughout.

Irene is a Juliet who doesn't want to be one anymore, and what irritates me most about this episode is the way that, in fact, the writers box her in with her death. The moment when she starts tearing down her bed curtains is a moment that ought to lead somewhere for Irene, but she gets interrupted--not coincidentally by Ray, and I don't think it's coincidence either that when she gives him one of the torn curtains as a blanket he says, "I remember these. I always liked these." Irene/Juliet is trying to grow up. Ray/Romeo wants to stay in the past. He expects her to remember their "signal" from fifteen years ago; he likes the bed curtains she had as a girl; he wants their relationship back, exactly as it was, as if those fifteen years hadn't intervened. This comes back bitterly in the last two scenes ("Put your head on my shoulder . . . close your eyes . . . everything's gonna be okay"); Ray wants traditional gender roles: he leads and protects, Irene follows and is protected. Which doesn't work. Ray can't protect her. And the fact that he seems to be compelled to try--and that the attempt is part of what leads to her death--is an astute observation on gender politics, but it's not enough. Commenting ironically on a pattern while using the pattern doesn't actually get us anywhere we haven't been a thousand times before.

(The fact that I like the clever reworking of Romeo and Juliet's balcony scene, and especially Irene's impatience with it, does not mitigate the dead-endness of Irene's arc. She's killed in a stupid accident, because of the stupid macho posturing of Ray and Frank, and while I do think that part of what the writers are trying to do is emphasize the sheer stupidity and waste of her death, the fact remains that in so doing, they replicate the stupidity and waste of the very misogynistic trope they're trying (I hope) to critique.

You could get the same sense of irony and waste, incidentally, if Frank accidentally shoots Charlie, who's retiring to Florida after a lifetime of looking after Frank out of respect for his father. Although I suppose there would then be those who felt that Charlie somehow "deserved" his death, having protected Frank all these years, so okay. Fine. Let Frank shoot his daughter. There you've got the whole nine yards: waste, stupidity, irony, innocence. The daughter, in fact, would be even more of an innocent victim than Irene, because Irene is an adult. She chose to come back to Frank's house, knowing what he is.

... no, huh? Yeah, I didn't think so.)

I like Irene because she knows exactly what Ray and Frank are doing: "Who you dancing with, him or me?" she asks Ray, and she is clearly, painfully aware throughout of the way in which Ray, no matter what he says, and no matter what he believes about his own actions, is using her to maneuver against Frank. She knows that the past is a trap. "This is never gonna end," she says miserably. "You're gonna end up killing each other first." And yes, thank you, we GET the IRONY ALREADY.

And, yes, finally, after her death, Ray does end it. He does let it go:

HUEY: All you gotta do is say he shot her with intent, and you got him for murder.
RAY: It was an accident, man. It was an accident.

Ray finally comes back from the Planet of Stupid he's been on all episode and becomes a human being again. But it's not enough to keep the episode from feeling like as much of a waste as Irene Zuko's tragic death.

Partly, I think, this is because neither of the two deaths in the episode is sufficiently set up for. (Ironically, the only "death" that does have good groundwork laid for it is the second Riv. Alas, poor Buick.) Not in the sense of foreshadowing (like I said, poor Irene is surrounded by foreshadowing throughout), but in the sense of convincing us to care. Lack of continuity hurts them here. We've never heard of Irene before (and you'd think she might have been worth a mention back in "The Deal" (1.17)); we had no idea Ray was carrying a torch for his forbidden high school love. In fact, considering Ray's trip to the Planet of Stupid in "You Must Remember This" (1.11), and considering his pursuit of Louise St. Laurent has just achieved success in "The Mask" (2.6), we might be forgiven for finding his fraught history with Irene a little implausible. "I've always loved you," he says to Irene, and Irene would be perfectly justified (if she were a regular viewer of Due South) in saying, "Yeah? It's news to me."

So, yeah, I don't quite buy it. But I could let that slide if it weren't for the fact that Irene's death is the second unearned tragedy in one episode. The real sticking point is Louis Gardino.

Now, I know from having watched an interview with him and Tony Craig that Daniel Kash wanted out, and in fact I have no objections to Gardino kicking the bucket, for I don't like him. (I don't like Dewey, either, but I think he's more successful as a secondary character.) The problem is that we are asked to react to his death as if he were a friend of Ray's, a friend of Fraser's, and we just have not seen that. We've seen him be an antagonist, and we've seen him be an annoyance. He and Huey do help Fraser get himself arrested in "The Witness" (2.3), but at least for me, that's not enough to be convincing. And the pool-shooting scene in "Victoria's Secret" (1.21-22) actually mostly serves to emphasize that Ray doesn't have friends. He has colleagues. And that's what Gardino is.

And, you know, I also wouldn't have a problem with Ray's reaction if it were focused on Gardino as a fellow cop. I'd buy that. Because that we have a foundation for, both within the episode and within the series as a whole. And ultimately, I think Fraser's right when he asks Ray, "Do you honestly believe that by jailing him [Frank], you won't have to feel guilty anymore?" It's not Ray's relationship with Gardino that's at stake; it's his guilt. But the episode insists on ret-conning Gardino as a friend, and it jars me.

And the other thing that's wasted in this episode is Fraser. Because Fraser is wonderful. He's at his Sherlockian best in the detective side of things (the scene with Frank Zuko and the cigar cutter is beyond perfect), and I love the way he completely discards the protection of being oblivious when things go bad. He's got it in place and working at the beginning:

ZUKO: Looks like the scars have healed pretty nicely.
FRASER: I beg your pardon.
ZUKO: I mean, I'm sorry, y'know, sometimes the boys get a little carried away. Blood on the tracks?
FRASER: I've no idea what you're talking about.

But compare this to his discussion with Charlie:

CHARLIE: You want to help Frank Zuko?
FRASER: No. I have no interest in seeing Mr. Zuko anywhere other than in prison.
CHARLIE: So how can I help you, Constable?
FRASER: A police officer, a friend, has been killed. And I would like to see the killer brought to justice.
CHARLIE: Agreed. Dead cop's bad for business. Even Frankie-boy knows that.
FRASER: And yet every piece of evidence points to him.
CHARLIE: That bothers you?
FRASER: Yes, it does. If it means the real killer of Louis Gardino goes free.
CHARLIE: What a piece of work. You got Zuko in the wringer and you don't want to pull the handle? And you call yourself a cop?
FRASER: What I would like for Mr. Zuko and what the law dictates are two different things. And right now that difference is the only thing that's keeping him alive.

Here's a glimpse of the more feral Fraser we saw in "Bird in the Hand" (2.4). Because he means it, and Charlie knows he means it. Fraser and Charlie both know the score. (And notice that Charlie has the courtesy--the odd mobster's sense of honor--not to mention their previous go round. This, I think, is exactly what he, and other characters, mean when they compare Frank disparagingly to his father. This is what Frank lacks.)

And Fraser's impassioned attempt to make Ray see reason reveals that Fraser understands exactly how men like Frank Zuko work: "Ray, please, think this through. Zuko kills someone and he does not arrange for an alibi?" This is the part of himself Fraser tries to conceal, to protect. And unfortunately, Ray demonstrates immediately and comprehensively why this part of Fraser might need protection. Because Ray doesn't want to hear it. "What is it with you, man?" he asks Fraser in a later scene. "You gotta know when to hold the line." But if there's one thing Fraser doesn't know, that's it. And here, Due South DOES have continuity, because Fraser is doing here exactly what he does in the pilot. He's pursuing truth and dispassionate justice even though it alienates him from everyone around him--as the silent, glaring gauntlet of cops makes it all too clear it has.

Ray meets all Fraser's revelations of truth this way, with anger and abuse:

RAY: Get out of my way, Fraser.
FRASER: Listen. You are not thinking, and a police officer who doesn't think is dangerous.
RAY: I know where you stand.
FRASER: No, you do not. You're so full of hate all you can see is Zuko. That's all you've been able to see right from the beginning. But do you hate him enough to let the real killer walk free as a consequence?
RAY: Let go of me.
FRASER: Ray. Please. Do you honestly believe that by jailing him, you won't have to feel guilty anymore?
RAY: Get your hands off of me.

And while I suppose we can count the moment at the end ("The first time I ever asked her to dance . . .") as tacit apology and tacit forgiveness, Fraser damn well deserves better, and Ray does not deserve to be let off the hook. Which is, really, just one more way in which "Juliet Is Bleeding" is frustrating and unsatisfactory. Too much gets sacrificed to Ray's ego.

Date: 2008-02-06 07:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] starrcat.livejournal.com
Thank you so much for outlining better than I ever could exactly why this is one of my least favorite episodes!

Date: 2008-02-06 07:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sasha-feather.livejournal.com
Very well said! I found the episode dreary and heavy-handed.

Am I just imagining this, or are Frank and Ray supposed to be cousins, according to an earlier episode? And isn't Irene supposed to be Frank's sister, making her Ray's cousin?!

Date: 2008-02-06 07:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] truepenny.livejournal.com
Ray calls Frank "cuz" at the end of "The Deal." However, he does not call Mrs. Zuko Aunt Angelica (or whatever her first name would be) in "JIB" (just as Irene says, "How's your mom?" not "How's Aunt Renata?" or whatever her name would be), nor is there any reference to the possibility of blood kinship between Ray and Frank or Ray and Irene. I assume the scriptwriters decided to abandon the cousin-thing in favor of the star-crossed-lovers thing. Which, yeah. Clearly they were meeting Ray for a hot date on the Planet of Stupid.

(Also, just as a random sidebar, where the hell is the YOUNGER Mrs. Zuko? You know, the mother of Frank's children?)

Date: 2008-02-06 09:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sasha-feather.livejournal.com
*phew*

I too wondered who the children were and how they fit into the whole picture. I thought at first the kids belonged to Irene.

Date: 2008-02-06 09:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] truepenny.livejournal.com
Well, Frank has a daughter in "The Deal."

I don't know about the kids in "JIB." Because why would Ray ask Irene how Frank's kids are doing? But on the other hand, if she's getting the hell out of Dodge at the end and not taking her kids with her . . . "Yeah, Frank's a monster, but he's so good with the little ones, y'know?"

I suspect that's a continuity glitch within the episode itself.

Date: 2008-02-07 03:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] faroutgal.livejournal.com
*waves hello*

I've been reading your fantastic essays on due South. I eagerly await each one.

This episode I kept finding myself pulled out of the story, thinking about the meta if you will. I love Ray Vecchio and clearly the new showrunners were trying to flesh out his character but they do it with this explosion of action/emotion. Personally, I think the quieter stuff works better for Ray (like when he's talking to his own dead father).

And from a writing standpoint, as you eloquently state, had they forshadowed Irene in a prior ep, like they did with Victoria; made the Guardino death more about a fellow officer down; and not killed Irene (the daughter idea was brilliant), that would have been an outstanding ep. Her death does leave ashes in your mouth.

But I find that the writers are very sloppy with how they write Ray and frankly, how they write women. They create these fascinating characters and then don't follow thru. The woman who says "are you dancing with me or him" should have lived. She should have walked away from both of them.

Anyway, sorry to blither on in your LJ. I look forward to your next review. (I do love this show, I just want it to be better sometimes)

Date: 2008-05-26 11:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thatratorpheus.livejournal.com
I love these reviews so much I'm reading them again. :-)

About the foreshadowing of Irene, I assumed that was the point of Ray's little revelation in "You Must Remember This" - that the woman he thought was the right one turned out to be wrong (Angie?), and the one he thought was wrong he let slip away and she ended up marrying some goomba six months later (Irene?).

Yep, an unsatisfactory episode with some brilliant moments. In an earlier review, you noted how successful Fraser is in a world that abides by rules of social conduct - that's what I love about the scene with Fraser and Charlie (and Dief). There's such a sense of ease and competence about their interaction - different sides, but on the same page...or something...

Date: 2015-06-27 10:12 pm (UTC)
libskrat: (pika omgwtf)
From: [personal profile] libskrat
WHERE did they get that horrific excuse for a lounge singer? He is PAINFUL to listen to. Flat more than half the time.

Date: 2015-06-27 10:34 pm (UTC)
libskrat: (Default)
From: [personal profile] libskrat
More seriously, I'm more inclined to give the ep the benefit of the doubt re Gardino than you are. The ep leans on Huey being Gardino's friend, as it absolutely should and as it has set up quite well; the two are partners, they're practically never seen apart, and they are often set up as antagonists to Ray and Fraser in the boss's office.

As for Ray... you know, I've had four coworkers die suddenly and unexpectedly in my relatively short career. (Um. That sounds suspicious, doesn't it? One was suicide, two were motor-vehicle accidents, one was illness.) I was close to one, passing acquaintances with the other three. So I can assert with some confidence that you don't have to be closely connected to someone in your workplace -- you can be FAR less connected than Ray was to Gardino -- to have their death hit you and everybody else like the proverbial ton of bricks.

Sometimes the reaction can be a thousand bags of stupid. Sometimes people overstate their connection to the deceased, as I agree that Ray does when speaking of Gardino to Irene. Sometimes people do that to bury past conflict along with the deceased, which is a thing I can easily believe of Ray. I saw all of that, and I won't aver I'm wholly innocent of some of it myself.

I wonder if your reaction to Ray's reaction to Gardino's death is conditioned by Gardino obviously taking the Mercutio role?

But you're 100% right about Irene. Gah. WTF.

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