Due South: "Flashback"
Sep. 9th, 2008 03:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepenny"Flashback" (DS 2.18)
Original air date: May 31, 1996
Favorite quote:
RAY: You sure you're okay?
FRASER: Who the hell are you?
RAY: Stop kidding around. You know damn well who I am.
FRASER: Who the hell am I?
RAY: Oh dear.
Spoilers.
Granted that it's a pity they wasted the last episode of the season (and at the time, the last episode so far as anyone knew of Due South) with TOO MANY FLASHBACKS, there's still actually a few interesting things going on.
1. Notice that this is a classic case of "Be careful what you wish for." Ray has spent two seasons wishing Fraser would be less Fraser-ish, and in this episode he gets it. And does not like it.
2. They don't do anything with it, but the B-plot is a commentary on gender roles and gender performance that dovetails with--if nothing else--Fraser's remark about pantyhose in "Some Like It Red."
3. Paul Gross FTW. He modulates perfectly throughout the episode from the completely non-Fraser guy in the hospital to Fraser as his memory returns. And it is a modulation; Fraser gets steadily more Fraserish as the episode progresses. (My favorite moment is Fraser walking into the bullpen with his hands! in! his! pockets!)
4. Notice, in the context of my post on "Red, White, or Blue" that there's a perfectly logical segue in Ray's head from Thatcher to Victoria.
5. I love the tiny irony in the fact that the first two memories Fraser gets back are memories Ray doesn't share. The first is his father's ghost--"I never met your dad," Ray says regretfully--and the second, that morning's accident, Fraser is actually misremembering: "It's like that time when we were hanging onto that van by our fingernails." And of course Ray actually misleads Fraser, unintentionally, on the subject of Thatcher:
FRASER: Ray, this woman, are she and I ... ?
RAY: She hates you.
FRASER: Oh. That's too bad.
6. I love also the meta-comment on the persistent mispronunciation of "Fraser"--which Fraser in his right mind is, of course, too polite ever to complain about:
RAY: Hey, Fraser, how ya feeling?
FRASER: Who?
RAY: You. Fraser. That's your name.
FRASER: F-R-A-S-I-E-R?
RAY: No. F-R-A-S-E-R.
FRASER: Ah. And you would be?
RAY: Ray.
FRASER: R-A-Y?
RAY: That's correct.
7. Fraser doesn't believe in Fraser, either.
FRASER: I jumped onto a moving van?
RAY: Yeah, it's something you do all the time.
FRASER: What am I, stupid?
RAY: No, you're a hero.
FRASER: [amused but still skeptical] Oh.
As with the end of Season 1, here at the end of Season 2, we have an examination of the way in which the Mountie is a deliberate choice, a choice which Fraser makes on a daily and possibly even hourly basis. It's not innate--which of course is what Ray was saying in "Red, White, or Blue": it's not the Tuktoyaktuk water or a genetic abnormality. It's what Fraser chooses to be, and when he doesn't make that choice, he's someone else:
FRASER: Come on, Mac, no one's that polite.
RAY: You are! And my name's not Mac. It's Ray.
When he's not Fraser, he stands around with his hands in his pockets; he reacts to women giving him the glad-eye (we have the direct contrast at the beginning of the episode, with Fraser's delayed realization that no orthodox Muslim woman would look at him like that); he's alarmed by Dief.
They play the amnesia for laughs, but all the things that make Fraser Fraser are revealed to be choices that he has made, structures he has built for himself. I don't think this makes the Fraser-persona any less true--although Fraser himself might argue with that--but the fact that he is who he appears to be is demonstrated to be the result of a lot of work and self-awareness and care. I compared Fraser in my post on "Letting Go" to a ballerina pirouetting on bleeding feet, and I still think that's true. The grace and beauty of Fraser comes at the expense of pain and sacrifice, and the cost is always present, subliminally in most episodes, but here in seeing how much easier he is with himself--kind of an asshole, yes, but relaxed, unworried--when he doesn't have the burden to carry. And yet even before he remembers, he's already trying to find the burden again. Because that part is intrinsic, even when everything else is gone.
Original air date: May 31, 1996
Favorite quote:
RAY: You sure you're okay?
FRASER: Who the hell are you?
RAY: Stop kidding around. You know damn well who I am.
FRASER: Who the hell am I?
RAY: Oh dear.
Spoilers.
Granted that it's a pity they wasted the last episode of the season (and at the time, the last episode so far as anyone knew of Due South) with TOO MANY FLASHBACKS, there's still actually a few interesting things going on.
1. Notice that this is a classic case of "Be careful what you wish for." Ray has spent two seasons wishing Fraser would be less Fraser-ish, and in this episode he gets it. And does not like it.
2. They don't do anything with it, but the B-plot is a commentary on gender roles and gender performance that dovetails with--if nothing else--Fraser's remark about pantyhose in "Some Like It Red."
3. Paul Gross FTW. He modulates perfectly throughout the episode from the completely non-Fraser guy in the hospital to Fraser as his memory returns. And it is a modulation; Fraser gets steadily more Fraserish as the episode progresses. (My favorite moment is Fraser walking into the bullpen with his hands! in! his! pockets!)
4. Notice, in the context of my post on "Red, White, or Blue" that there's a perfectly logical segue in Ray's head from Thatcher to Victoria.
5. I love the tiny irony in the fact that the first two memories Fraser gets back are memories Ray doesn't share. The first is his father's ghost--"I never met your dad," Ray says regretfully--and the second, that morning's accident, Fraser is actually misremembering: "It's like that time when we were hanging onto that van by our fingernails." And of course Ray actually misleads Fraser, unintentionally, on the subject of Thatcher:
FRASER: Ray, this woman, are she and I ... ?
RAY: She hates you.
FRASER: Oh. That's too bad.
6. I love also the meta-comment on the persistent mispronunciation of "Fraser"--which Fraser in his right mind is, of course, too polite ever to complain about:
RAY: Hey, Fraser, how ya feeling?
FRASER: Who?
RAY: You. Fraser. That's your name.
FRASER: F-R-A-S-I-E-R?
RAY: No. F-R-A-S-E-R.
FRASER: Ah. And you would be?
RAY: Ray.
FRASER: R-A-Y?
RAY: That's correct.
7. Fraser doesn't believe in Fraser, either.
FRASER: I jumped onto a moving van?
RAY: Yeah, it's something you do all the time.
FRASER: What am I, stupid?
RAY: No, you're a hero.
FRASER: [amused but still skeptical] Oh.
As with the end of Season 1, here at the end of Season 2, we have an examination of the way in which the Mountie is a deliberate choice, a choice which Fraser makes on a daily and possibly even hourly basis. It's not innate--which of course is what Ray was saying in "Red, White, or Blue": it's not the Tuktoyaktuk water or a genetic abnormality. It's what Fraser chooses to be, and when he doesn't make that choice, he's someone else:
FRASER: Come on, Mac, no one's that polite.
RAY: You are! And my name's not Mac. It's Ray.
When he's not Fraser, he stands around with his hands in his pockets; he reacts to women giving him the glad-eye (we have the direct contrast at the beginning of the episode, with Fraser's delayed realization that no orthodox Muslim woman would look at him like that); he's alarmed by Dief.
They play the amnesia for laughs, but all the things that make Fraser Fraser are revealed to be choices that he has made, structures he has built for himself. I don't think this makes the Fraser-persona any less true--although Fraser himself might argue with that--but the fact that he is who he appears to be is demonstrated to be the result of a lot of work and self-awareness and care. I compared Fraser in my post on "Letting Go" to a ballerina pirouetting on bleeding feet, and I still think that's true. The grace and beauty of Fraser comes at the expense of pain and sacrifice, and the cost is always present, subliminally in most episodes, but here in seeing how much easier he is with himself--kind of an asshole, yes, but relaxed, unworried--when he doesn't have the burden to carry. And yet even before he remembers, he's already trying to find the burden again. Because that part is intrinsic, even when everything else is gone.
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Fun for me...
Date: 2009-03-06 06:59 pm (UTC)I find it REALLY interesting that they chose to focus on Fraser's relationship & possible night with Frannie to the extent they did. In the context of the flashbacks & the "present" conversation, it seems, TO ME, very much as if Ray believes they had sex, & that is what Ray is communicating as a memory to un-Fraser.
Finally, I love the echo of Fraser Sr's 'she's not coming back & for god's sake why would you want her to?' in the 'some things it's probably better not to remember' remark (I know I don't have the lines exactly, but I think that's pretty close). For anyone who comes to care about Fraser, I think the wish has crossed the mind that he COULD forget Victoria & have a nice healthy relationship with SOMEBODY.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-10 06:30 am (UTC)I've read these off and on (and repeatedly) for a year or more, but tonight I felt compelled to stop lurking and leave a comment because I am faced with a difficult decision in real life about deciding between the safe route and the principled route. Your words: "I compared Fraser in my post on "Letting Go" to a ballerina pirouetting on bleeding feet, and I still think that's true. The grace and beauty of Fraser comes at the expense of pain and sacrifice, and the cost is always present..." help me realize that I need to dance on bloody feet. Thank you for that.