Due South: "Burning Down the House"

[truepenny]

"Burning Down the House" (DS 3.1)
Original air date: September 14, 1997
Favorite quote:
FRASER: Ray!
RAY: Fraser! Buddy! You have a good time up there in the Northwest Areas?
FRASER: Territories, you mean?
RAY: Wilderness, huh? Exactly. Me personally, I leave the city, I come down with this skin condition. Janie! Given any thought to Friday night? Be a great first date--Crystal Ballroom, the band, martinis, me--
JANIE: My dog has a foot fungus that needs some attention.
RAY: All right. [to Fraser] Is there a karmic chi love thing happening there or what?

--or--

FRASER: I imagine, sir, that you would like something resembling an explanation.
THATCHER: That would be a good idea, Fraser, because at this particular moment, I can assume only one of two things. Either you are mentally unhinged or you object on principle to interior designers.
FRASER: No, sir. I only objected to his smell.

Spoilers.



There are so many things I want to say about this episode, I don't even know where to begin. Ergo, in no particular order:

1. I love the third Diefenbaker with a pure and goofy love. Partly it's because he looks like a wolf, so I can stop having the argument with the left side of my brain about how this animal is clearly not a wolf, you only have to look at the way he carries his tail to see that. Partly, it's because Draco is much younger than Lincoln and is enthusiastic. About everything. Like Callum Keith Rennie as Ray Kowalski, Draco as Diefenbaker is very rarely still. I'm sure this made him a little frustrating to work with, but he brings an energy to the screen that Lincoln never did.

And on the subject of Dief, Fraser's conversations with him still have the same dynamic: "Oh for god's sake. I think I've provided ample explanation. Ray was otherwise engaged, and taxi policy precluded the transportation of wolves." Dief's objections are the child's objections, or the objections of the hurt Ego Fraser can't admit he has.

2. Another couple of differences between the first two and last two seasons:

a. An increased love of wordplay. Frannie's mangled cliches--which don't kick in for another couple episodes--are one example. Or, in "BDtH," the maneuvering to get Fraser to say, and Thatcher to echo, the ridiculous alliterative phrase, "Sven's smell." The sound of the words becomes a little alienated from their meaning. "Pedestrians may be afoot," is a perfect Fraserism, like "This dog is with child." Fraser is still making puns that no one notices but him.

b. Vecchio and Fraser talk in stichomythy (call and response) a lot of the time. Kowalski and Fraser talk over each other. And I noticed that that's actually a feature of the show as a whole now, witness Ray's confessional speech while Fraser is using the Riv as a jungle gym, not to mention Turnbull's spiel on the phone which we only get part of--or the two simultaneous conversations in Thatcher's office as Fraser interrogates Sven and in the background:

THATCHER: Who are you?
RAY: Ray. [he grins at her] Vecchio.
THATCHER: Of course you are, detective.

Ironically, it's a more realistic technique just as point (a.) is increasing the theatricality of the dialogue.

3. Important words to keep in mind: NATURE, HOME, BELONG, LOST. Especially in this episode, HOME and LOST.

ROBERT FRASER: It's not an easy thing to lose a home.
BENTON FRASER: No.

This gets picked up by Motherwell's telephone call:

MOTHERWELL: Homeless, huh? What an ugly word.

And then by the destruction, following Fraser's home, of the Vecchio home. And the fact that the Consulate is moving house--notice Turnbull's preoccupation with finding a good "home" for the Queen.

And then the gift Fraser gives Huey:

HUEY: What's a sextant?
FRASER: Oh, it's a very handy little device. Say for instance you were tracking a suspect, you can use this to triangulate your location.
WITNESS: Sure, if you find yourself in a vast open territory with no distinguishing landmarks.
HUEY: I can see how this'll come in real handy in Chicago, Fraser.
FRASER: Glad you like it.

A sextant is a device for not being lost. For Fraser, that's exactly what you need in Chicago.

4. Ray Vecchio's phone call to Fraser emphasizes friendship:

RAY: Look, Benny, I don't know if they have a similar thing up there in Canada, but down here in America we have this thing called friendship, and this is something that a friend would do.

And again just before he hangs up:

RAY: You understand that I will be in touch?
FRASER: As a friend?
RAY: Yeah, Benny. As a friend.

But Ray Kowalski immediately deploys a new register:

RAY: Take a look back through history, and what d'you see?
FRASER: Any particular period of history?
RAY: Nah, the whole shebang.
HUEY: Fraser, you found him. Good.
RAY: What d'you see, over and over, is this: duets, okay?
JIMMY: Hey, Ray, what's up?
RAY: Jimmy, you owe me a fin from last week. Think about it. Lennon and McCartney, Leopold and Loeb, the Three Stooges. Strictly speaking, they were a trio, but in my opinion, they should've dropped Larry right from the start, 'cause you could see, the guy, he just was not committed to it. Anyway, I think you know what I'm talking about.
FRASER: No, I'm sorry, I haven't the faintest idea of what you're talking about.
RAY: Partners, Fraser. Partners.

(This also demonstrates, with the incursions of Huey and Jimmy into Ray's monologue, the more veristic dialogue writing I mentioned in 2b.)

As I said in my last post, I think Ray Vecchio and Fraser's friendship is true and deep and very important for both of them, but it's a different way of understanding a relationship. Ray Kowalski is going to demand more of Fraser, and he's going to demand different things. The tension in Vecchio and Fraser's relationship came from Vecchio's impossible demand that Fraser be less Fraser (and, again as I said, I think "Red, White, or Blue" shows us Ray learning to let go of that), but the ground rules of their friendship are established early and not questioned. Fraser leads; Ray balks, then follows. Ray Kowalski, though, doesn't want to follow, at least not all the time. He's asking Fraser to let him lead (notice almost subliminal dance metaphor). Which is something Fraser has a hell of a time with. But unlike Vecchio, Kowalski isn't asking for something that isn't in Fraser's nature.

(LITTERBUG: Why can't you just leave this thing alone?
FRASER: It's not in my nature.)

Fraser can't not be a weirdness magnet, and he can't not help--not, as we've seen, and keep any sense of himself. He can learn to share power and control and it doesn't take any of his self away from him. But it's a very bumpy ride.

4.5. I love the throwaway use of Leopold and Loeb, who are a famous Chicago duo, even if--one hopes--Ray doesn't want Fraser and himself to emulate them. (Although there's a plausible alternative explanation that he's thinking of Lerner and Loewe, there's an almost subterranean morbid streak to Ray's sense of humor that makes me think he knows exactly what he's saying.)

5. Watching this episode for what is (I admit) at least the third time, I noticed particularly how the Ray we're being shown is not Ray as we're going to come to know him. The chatting up girls, for one thing, the relentless and aggressive bonhomie, for another. I think the way he keeps moving in the police station, back and forth and around and around is less Ray's own hyperkinetic gestalt and more an effort to keep Fraser from being able to pin him down, from being able to see him. Because there's one moment where the character he's projecting faults:

RAY: Zoltan Motherwell's in the Evanston Institution for the Criminally Insane.
FRASER: A dead end.
RAY: Maybe. Maybe not. I got a hunch.
FRASER: You have hunches?
RAY: That's pretty much all I ever have. You know that, Fraser.

Ray's self-esteem issues glare through for a second, but more than that, this is Ray-as-detective we're seeing, rather than just Ray-as-undercover-guy, and he's, self-deprecatingly, asking Fraser to follow his lead. And Fraser does.

Also important, of course, is the fact that Ray's hunch is correct. Zoltan Motherwell is not a dead end.

6. Another instance of wordplay is Fraser calling Ray's threat to break Motherwell's jaw a "posture." Because "posture" is of course related to "imposture," which is exactly what Fraser is accusing Ray of. This highlights the question--going all the way back to the pilot--of "pretending to be someone [you're] not." Ray Kowalski is definitely pretending to be someone he's not. Does that make him an impostor? Fraser's Mountie facade is a posture--the opening sequence of this episode makes it perfectly clear that the ruler-straight Mountie in red serge is not the deep truth of Benton Fraser--but does that make it untrue?

7. One of the things I love about this episode is the meta level on which it discards all the trappings of Seasons 1 and 2. Fraser's apartment building: gone. The house on Octavia Avenue: up in smoke (I always worry about that, though the lack of continuity means we never have to deal with whether anything was salvageable or where the Vecchios are living now or anything like that). The Riv: exploded and sunk in Lake Michigan. Truly a Viking funeral, come to think of it. Even the Consualte is in a new building. The police station is the same, but all our other points of reference are gone. Our experience as viewers mirrors Fraser's experience as a character in the story we are viewing--and nowhere is this more blatant and more clever than in the introduction of Ray Kowalski.

There is a convention of TV pararealism that demands we not notice when the same character with the same name is played by two different actors. Due South actually provides an example of this in-house, as it were: Mackenzie King is played by Madolyn Smith Osborne in "Diefenbaker's Day Off and Maria Bello in "One Good Man," but we have to accept her as the same person. She has the same combative relationship with her editor, Warren (who is played by the same actor in both episodes), she refers to the events of "Diefenbaker's Day Off," she calls Fraser "Bento," as Mackenzie King does in that episode. Never mind that she goes from brunette to blonde. Mackenzie King = Mackenzie King. So here, we have Ray Vecchio being played by two different actors (also going from brunet to blond) and we have the characters--Huey, Elaine, etc.--insisting that he is Ray Vecchio, just as the characters insisted that the blonde Mackenzie King was the same person as the brunette Mackenzie King.

But this time, Fraser isn't going along. Which is itself a trope of his character--Fraser is always the little boy in "The Emperor's New Clothes" insisting on the truth that he sees instead of the truth that other people try to make him see. His insistence that "Ray Vecchio" isn't Ray Vecchio is in this case a mirror of the experience of the viewer, and his efforts to prove empirically that this new Ray is not the same as the old Ray--fingerprints, dental records, measuring his nose--is exactly what one does as a viewer. And Welsh, when Fraser finally corners him for an explanation, reacts with the same exasperation that a more experienced viewer would have toward a naive viewer protesting that this character isn't the same person: "Of course he's not Ray Vecchio." And his explanation has that same meta quality: "All we need to know is, Ray Vecchio has gone deep undercover with the Mob. Now to protect his identity, we have to make believe that this guy is Ray Vecchio." The show is moving the transparent pretense--that this character is the same person, even being played by two actors who look nothing alike--down a level, into the fiction of the story. And as is so often the case with Due South, by acknowledging the implausiblity of it, they bring the audience in on the joke, and move the whole thing from the parareal to the surreal. No, nothing about the situation makes sense. It's not supposed to.

9. Moreover, this surreal, farcical piece of brilliance is also thematic, because the question of identity is vitally important to the show, as it's been all along:

FRASER: I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude, but I rarely forget a face, and I am very confident that you and I have never met. My name is Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father and for reasons that--well, they don't need exploring at this juncture--I have remained, attached as liaison at the Canadian Consulate, and over the course of my time here, I have formed what you would call a duet with the person I am currently looking for, one Raymond Vecchio, Detective First Grade, Chicago Police Department.
RAY: [showing Fraser his badge] Raymond Vecchio, Detective First Grade, Chicago Police Department. Everyone here knows who I am, Fraser. How about you?

This is Fraser's explanation of who he is. These are the things he's trying to hold onto. And Ray's failure either to be Ray Vecchio or to admit that he isn't Ray leads Fraser into some serious epistemological questions about what identity is. If "everyone here" knows who Ray is, and Fraser doesn't agree, how does he figure out if he's crazy or they are?

R. FRASER: What're you gonna do about the Yank?
B. FRASER: What do you propose I do?
R. FRASER: Collect forensic evidence to determine if he is who he claims to be.
B. FRASER: Of course he's not who he claims to be.
R. FRASER: Well, there are those who would contradict you. You might be delusional.
B. FRASER: You know, you might be delusional.
R. FRASER: Ah, that's a different story.
B. FRASER: Well, there you are.

Notice that Fraser reacts to his father the same way Welsh is going to react to Fraser: "Of course he's not who he claims to be." Also notice that Robert Fraser's advice, as per usual, is lunatic. But Fraser is inherently incapable of ignoring his father and does in fact proceed to collect all this forensic evidence--a process which bemuses Ray, but doesn't seem to offend or irritate him. (This is part of what I was saying, that Ray doesn't expect the world to make sense.) And there's an important exchange:

R. FRASER: But of course, one Yank is pretty much like another, anyway.
B. FRASER: People are not interchangeable like snowmobile parts.
RAY: There you go with the obvious again.

This is important both because it articulates why Fraser has to persist in proving Ray isn't Ray Vecchio and because Ray immediately agrees with him. And suggests why it's so important to Ray that Fraser calls him "Ray." (I also love the fact that there's one instance where Fraser calls him Ray and neither of them notice because they're too busy detecting.)

FRASER: Ray. Ray. Ray!
RAY: Ta-da!
FRASER: A vest.
RAY: You called me Ray.
FRASER: No, I didn't.
RAY: Yeah, you did.
FRASER No, I didn't.
RAY: Yeah. You did.
FRASER: It was a mistake. C'mon.
[Fraser helps Ray up]
RAY: You know I'm Ray. Don't fight it, Benton-buddy.
FRASER: You are not Ray. You don't even look like--
RAY: Coulda had plastic surgery.
FRASER: You could also be unhinged.
RAY: I got papers to prove it. I'll show you.
FRASER: I don't want to see 'em.
RAY: I'm Ray!
FRASER: If you're Ray, where were you born?
RAY: Ow. That smarts when you get shot.
FRASER: See? See?
[Ray laughs]

At least as important as the fact that Fraser calls Ray Ray is the fact that he offers Ray the same kind of banter he has with Ray Vecchio. They both know Ray isn't Ray Vecchio; the question is whether Fraser is going to accept him as his partner. And he is.

Ray is also concerned with identity--his name, as we'll see, is an exceptionally unstable signifier, pointing in too many directions--and he talks in terms of how he got to be where he is. The same terms Fraser uses in his self-identifying speech, now that I think of it. "I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father" vs. "So the upshot is, I go in, they say, hey, you wanna job? And I go . . . I was weak, I was down, I say, hell, I'll think about it. I'm thinking about it, and hey, my life's not great at the moment, I think maybe I could use a change, change of scene, change of luck, go undercover, get a new life . . . I could say more, but that is how I got here." Both of them equate "how I got here" with "who I am."

10. Notice that when Ray is spilling his guts, Fraser literally can't hear him, an echo of all the times he didn't listen to Ray Vecchio and won't listen to Ray Kowalski.

11. Please notice that Ray's repeated refrain of "I don't risk my neck for anybody" is proved blatantly false before the end of the episode. Yes, he's wearing a vest, but that's still an incredibly risky thing to do. Also, despite his yelling, he doesn't stop the Riv or bail out. Ray is a liar, especially when he's talking about himself.

12. An echo of "Flashback":

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.

--and compare--

FRASER: Who are you?
RAY: No kidding around, Fraser. You know who I am.
FRASER: I assure you, I am not kidding around.

I love the way the latter exchange upends the former.

13. As an example of the heightened importance of props, consider the cigarette lighter. Ray Vecchio does not smoke. Ray Kowalski has a silver lighter--which he uses to catch Motherwell's attention and then leaves. We know he leaves it, because after they've left the room, we see Motherwell peering down longingly at it. Neither Ray nor Fraser mentions the matter again. It bugged me the first time I watched this episode, because it's, you know, not a cheap disposable lighter and why would Ray leave it? And the answer, of course, is that Ray Kowalski was a smoker, and he's sacrificing that for this job, for Ray Vecchio, and thus for Fraser. (Hence the toothpicks, and the gum, and at least some of Ray's habitual jittery irascibility.)

14. I'll come back to this, but they're starting to set up in this episode a couple things that are going to be important:

a. Ray's hair-trigger temper and his inclination toward violence.

b. The fact that while Ray is extremely intelligent, his intelligence is not verbal. This makes him an especially good contrast for Fraser, whose intelligence is highly verbal.

Both of these are visible in the confrontation with Motherwell:

RAY: Now you cough up a name, or it is all aboard for funtime, and I will kick your head all over this room!
MOTHERWELL: I think I need to see my attorney.
RAY: Sure you'll get to see your attorney--right after I break your jaw!
MOTHERWELL: Is he going to hit me?
FRASER: I think it's probably just a posture.
RAY: Nah! I'm gonna break your jaw! But first let's talk about your girlfriend.
MOTHERWELL: I have nothing to say.
RAY: Gentlemen! Five! [Ray starts shrugging out of overcoat, sport coat, and holster, giving them to Fraser to hold]
MOTHERWELL: This is ridiculous.
RAY: Four!
MOTHERWELL: He's going to hit me.
RAY: Three!
FRASER: I'm sure it's a posture.
RAY: Two!
FRASER: I could be wrong.
RAY: One!
MOTHERWELL: No! Wait, wait, wait. All right. What do you want to know?
[...]
FRASER: That was just a posture, wasn't it?
RAY: Yeah, sure. What's a posture?

Words are not Ray's friends. He is intensely physical and intuitive--thus the instinct vs. logic problem that is going to bite them both on the ass--and he barely scraped through what education he has. And this adds to his insecurity; the dead giveaway is "I knew that" as a response to things he clearly did NOT know. One of the things I'm going to try to remember to pay attention to is Fraser's coping strategies for dealing with his friend's weaknesses.

15. Ray Vecchio and Ray Kowalski do have some things in common: "I don't know if they have a similar thing in Canada, but down here in America, we have this thing called friendship . . ." "I don't know where you come from, but I come from this little place called America where we got this big thing called electricity."

However, Kowalski doesn't object to Fraser licking the electrical socket on the principle that Fraser licking things embarrasses him, as Vecchio would; he objects on the principle that it's dangerous. This Ray seems less inclined to take Fraser's weirdness as a personal affront.

Also, Ray Kowalski has a deep-seated need for Fraser to like him, although he's bad at showing it. While Ray Vecchio and Fraser do like each other, and their relationship comes to be very important to both of them, there's also a way in which they take the relationship for granted. They don't have to become friends; they just are. It's different for Ray Kowalski, who is very aware that people are not snowmobile parts. Notice the way he hunches in on himself and then straightens again during this exchange after the reveal on Ray Vecchio's postcard:

RAY: Something I should worry about?
FRASER: No, no. No, everything is all right. Everything is actually fine.
RAY: Okay. Well.
FRASER: Hey, Ray! Would you . . . would you like to go and get something to eat with me?
RAY: Yeah. Uh, I just gotta . . . I'll put away these files, and I'll meet you at the car.

And contrast this with the scene in the pilot where Ray Vecchio finds Fraser in the diner and invites him home for dinner. Easily. I think it matters a lot that Fraser is the one to reach out here, and that he does so awkwardly. And that Ray, for the first time in the episode, is actually knocked off his game--another place the truth of Ray Kowalski comes through.

Comments

[lydia-petze.livejournal.com]

I've been loving your recaps for a while now ;-)

On the subject of Draco being young and enthusiastic and perhaps a little difficult to work with at times, go to YouTube and have a look at the Season 3 and 4 blooper reel, if you haven't already. The Draco/Dief parts are the best bits :-)

[(Anonymous)]

Hello, Sarah! I discovered your Due South analysis posts a while ago, but never posted a reply before. I hope you won't find it too strange that I do so now. I just wanted to say that I loved (loved, loved, loved!) every single word that you wrote about this episode.

I originally watched Due South as a teenager (mostly the first two seasons) and rediscovered it a couple of years ago (last two seasons, this time), when I completely fell in love with it again. While I liked Ray Vecchio quite a lot, it was Ray Kowalski, and his and Fraser's unforgettable "duet", that made the show really shine for me.

Your analysis touches all the things (little and big) that I love about the show, not to mention that it points out several details I didn't notice on my own (such as the significance of Ray leaving the lighter with Motherwell, or who were Leopold and Loeb - which I hadn't known, I assumed they were a comic duet, of all things!).

I look forward to reading your opinions on the rest of the show. Thank you for everything you've written so far!

Andrea

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

The evidence of Ray K's non-smoking may in fact be tics from Callum Keith Rennie who was a bit of a nervous chain smoker. But it integrates well into the Ray K persona.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes. If it weren't for the lighter, I'd assume that was all it was--or possibly not even notice it at all. The lighter, though--it's a strange moment, and they hit it just hard enough that, for me at least, it demanded attention and therefore demanded that I figure out what it meant.

If nothing else, they've managed to make a virtue out of necessity by making the nicotine twitch part of Ray's character.

[cabell.livejournal.com]

Excellent recap as always.

I hadn't noticed so much, as you point out here, that the realistic overlapping dialogue was more characteristic of RayK than RayV, but I think you're right. This is actually a point I always mention when describing the show to non-viewers--as a former conversation analyst (very rarified subfield of sociology), it jumped out at me the first time I saw the show (I started with season 3).

[winterlive.livejournal.com]

I love your recaps, man. I think the first thing Kowalski ever did to win me over was failing to be embarrassed by freaky Mountie habits. :)

[j-s-cavalcante.livejournal.com]

This post is BRILLIANT. Thank you for posting it. I spend a lot of time thinking about Ray Kowalski and what motivates him, and I think every word you've written here is solid GOLD. The explanation of the lighter left behind is a work of genius. I had never understood why Ray would leave a lighter with a pyromaniac...or why the camera would focus in on it for valuable seconds.

I think you're right. Also, the one time that CKR's cigarettes are most obvious in his pants pocket (*cough* I may have been looking closely--for artistic purposes *cough*) is in "The Ladies' Man"--certainly a time when he might have been tempted to have a cigarette, even if he didn't actually go that far.

I agree about the "Leopold & Loeb" comment. There is no way a Chicago cop would get those two confused with the songwriting duo. Not even a linguistically challenged Chicago cop. :)

[innocentsmith.livejournal.com]

I have to thank you for coming up with this explanation, too, because Ray leaving the lighter there has bugged me every single time I watched this episode. Which is...a lot. The first time I saw it I was sure it was going to become a plot point - I mean, you leave a lighter on the lap of an arsonist? It's clearly Chekhov's Gun! - and then it just wasn't. Drove me nuts, and seemed really not too bright of Ray.

So thank you for giving a reason for him to have done that. It makes much more sense to me now.

Also, the length of this review makes me incredibly happy, as this is one of my very favorite DS episodes. Love the meta.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes. *g*

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Marvelous. I love the deconstruction of Kowalski during that first ep, manic and energetic and so hopeful. This is marvelous.

[rusty76.livejournal.com]

These posts are making me fall in love with due South all over again. Thank you.

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

I always love seeing what other people think about Ray and Fraser and how they interact. Fantastic job.

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

The tension in Vecchio and Fraser's relationship came from Vecchio's impossible demand that Fraser be less Fraser

I couldn't agree more. Vecchio and Fraser were good friends and cared about each other, absolutely. But Vecchio is from a culture with specific norms; he's also an adult child of an alcoholic. It makes sense that avoiding embarrassment would be a big deal for him, and that he'd have trouble accepting Fraser's quirks, despite their friendship. Kowalski doesn't deny that Fraser is eccentric, quite the opposite. He just acknowledges it as part of Fraser and apparently has no baggage to bring into the dynamic.

As for Ray's jitteriness, nicotine withdrawal and all the psychological stuff might be part of it. It's also likely that he's got some form of ADHD, which would explain his impatience and the trouble he has with words. He's thinking faster than he can talk--his brain has already moved on to the next thought so he doesn't get the words right (I feel his pain, seriously).

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Ray is the poster child for ADHD.

[thatratorpheus.livejournal.com]

Thank you - great analysis. I love how Fraser and Kowalski come into the 3rd season on an equal footing. Fraser's lost his home and his partner/best friend, Vecchio. Kowalski's lost his partner/best friend, Stella, and given up his life as Kowalski. Unlike Vecchio, neither of them really have a settled outside life to ground them - their combined neediness could threaten the galaxy. *g*

Of course, that really doesn't account for Kowalski's willingness to embrace the weird. One of my very favorite lines is from his monologue in the flaming car - that Fraser and his deaf half-wolf weren't "part of a normal desire." It was such an odd way of phrasing - it got me wondering about his abnormal desires.

[j-s-cavalcante.livejournal.com]

One of my very favorite lines is from his monologue in the flaming car - that Fraser and his deaf half-wolf weren't "part of a normal desire." It was such an odd way of phrasing - it got me wondering about his abnormal desires.

Such an astute point. I never noticed that! Thank you...it spawns many thoughts...and plot bunnies. :)

[thatratorpheus.livejournal.com]

So, those were *cigarettes* in CKR's pants, eh? I totally missed that. Yeah, the lighter could signal "ex-smoker" just as Fraser's abstinence could signal "ex-drinker." And now I've got this scene in my head of the two of them on the phone, trying to talk each other out of slipping back into bad habits.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I didn't know that about the sets, or about the reason for the I first came to Chicago spiel.

[gothamnights.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Hey, there! I commented on one of your previous DS posts, and I just had to do so again, to let you know that I am hooked to your analysis of the show and to your close observation of the characters and their tics. There are things you notice that really make me think more deeply about them. For instance, in this episode, you articulated something that I had vaguely thought about, but never put into words: RayK's jitters during his first episode, and how several of the things he says about himself are lies; he truly is much nicer, braver and sweeter than he thinks he is.

Great analysis! I look forward to reading more.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I also like the fact that it's obvious Ray has no expectation of either Janie or Elaine saying "yes." It's a diversionary tactic, again, to keep Fraser off-balance.

[heresluck]

I think it matters a lot that Fraser is the one to reach out here, and that he does so awkwardly.

Yeah. This is something katallison and I talked about a lot when I was started to vid Fraser & RayK, that Vecchio does a LOT of the heavy lifting required to build a friendship, and in the later seasons -- and at this moment in particular -- Fraser has to learn to be the one doing some of that work. (My memory of the series is sketchy at this point, obviously, but my recollection is that the Fraser/Vecchio friendship never seems to be much work for Fraser, although it occasionally is for Vecchio when he's baffled and frustrated.)

All of which relates, perhaps, to your point about leading, and also to your observations about the emphasis on partnership: Fraser has to learn to let Ray lead sometimes, especially as regards detecting, but he also has to learn to take the lead sometimes, to do some of the emotional work of building and sustaining their duet -- not least because, as you say, RayK so often needs reassuring.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

In the pilot, Vecchio seems to adopt Fraser the way a man adopts a stray cat. Yes, of course it's an unequal relationship, but that's the nature of men and the nature of cats. And in "Free Willie," when Fraser says Ray is his best friend, I think that's it for Ray, game over, he can't reject Fraser, who he knows is unnaturally isolated, when Fraser has made that declaration. There is reciprocity in their relationship--I think of "Juliet Is Bleeding," where Fraser is just about killing himself to try to keep Ray from doing something he will ultimately and painfully regret--but it never quite loses that initial dynamics: Ray caretakes. (Ray's the one with the gun.) Fraser takes advantage of that, sometimes quite consciously. And Ray bitches and moans about it, but that isn't what he OBJECTS to. He objects to the weirdness Fraser carries around with him, and he objects to not being appreciated (as Frannie does in "Vault," as it happens).

Ray Kowalski, though, is a stray cat himself.

[heresluck]

Ray Kowalski, though, is a stray cat himself.

Yeah, exactly. And I think that's part of what Fraser has to come to terms with in this ep: He's been the stray cat himself for two years, and he kind of isn't anymore, or at least doesn't have to be; he doesn't feel quite at home in Chicago, of course, but it's hardly uncharted territory at this point. He can be the one to take care of someone else.

I mean, Fraser takes care of people all the time, in the sense of helping them -- as you say, he can't NOT help. But as I've rambled about elsewhere, he reaches out to other people without actually moving himself; he touches other people's lives but doesn't really enter them. But at the end of BDtH, he's reaching out to RayK in a totally different way -- hence the awkward.

And Ray's response is one of relatively few times in the show when we see him really smile.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes. Ray doesn't need material help. He doesn't need someone to stand up for him against the Man or the Mob or someone to bring him justice. He's a cop; he's got that part covered. He needs Fraser to be his friend.

Thanks for the analysis

[keerawa.livejournal.com]

I just found this series of looks at due South episodes, and I'm knocked over. It's so damn thoughtful, looking at what's happening and why. I paarticularly loved the way you suggest that Ray leaving the lighter behind is a sacrifice. Excellent, thanks very much!

[keerawa.livejournal.com]

Well, obviously Fraser lives at the Consulate now because his apartment building was burned down by a copycat performance arsonist. I mean, duh.
*laughs* Obviously!

[heresluck]

...you know, rereading your comment, it occurs to me that this is one of the things I find most compelling about RayK. It's also a terrific bit of characterization re: the divorce from Stella: for so many men, the wife is the best friend and often the only really close friend. And this is pretty clearly true for Ray; he really doesn't seem to have other friends.

Of course RayV is divorced too, but that bit of info is not as crucial to his characterization as it is to RayK's -- it's one of the first things we find out about RayK.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes. The first thing we learn about Ray Kowalski (that isn't about the job) is the whole Stella thing. Whereas the first thing we learn about Ray Vecchio (that isn't about the job) is his enormous, loud, Chicago-Italian family.

And in a lot of ways that sums up the difference between them. Ray Vecchio couldn't have his identity knocked out from under him by his divorce, because he had his mother and sisters. He has something he always belongs to. And, of course, it's also a responsibility he can never disavow. Ray Kowalski has neither of those things.

[heresluck]

...and over the course of his seasons, RayK does get his family back -- the GTO is simultaneously a sign of his badassery and a constant reminder of his newly regained family. And he and Fraser finally achieve... not the same relationship that Fraser has with Vecchio, of course, but a friendship, a partnership.

And his slow process of getting those things is the reason that RayK's part of Call of the Wild moves me so. I am not actually a huge fan of that two-parter, for a variety of reasons, but seeing Ray get the rug pulled out from under him when Vecchio returns, seeing how tentative he suddenly is with Fraser, just kills me.

Having just jumped two seasons ahead of your commentary, I'll stop now. *g*

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

And Ray K., unlike Ray V., is always aware of how--what is the damn word I want? Fragile, ephemeral, transitory, dependent on other things . . . there is a word for this. He's always aware he can lose it again. (The episode in which the GTO gets lost--I can't remember which episode that is, either, because apparently today my brain is made of Swiss cheese--is the trope for this one.) Ray V.'s arc through the series is, in one sense, getting out from under his family, learning how to be someone other than his father's son. Ray K. is about the next step.

[(Anonymous)]

Am I the only one that notices that Fraser has not shaved in his Northwest Territories opening scenes? Here is the man himself, at home and as he would be. He makes no pretenses, he is nothing other than himself, Mountie and real human in harmony, and when he talks to Ray Vecchio on the pole line, he does so as the real Ben Fraser. He exists. He is happy, and he talks to Ray V that way. It is only when he resumes his city persona that he loses that. In a very real way, he's starting all over again. So yes, there are clues that all will be different when he gets back to Chicago. It's also kind of funny that Ben Fraser's idea of a vacation is going back to the life he led before he went to Chicago in the first place, and that his lines mirror the lines in the pilot. "Litterbug" = "Fishing over the lmit."

*breathing in*

[themadblonde]

Paul Gross+ stubble= cream

I read these essays through before I ever saw an episode of Due South. Your descriptions & passion for it drew me in despite myself, & not long ago I was able to obtain the run of the show & have been watching when I can & re-reading your essays as I go. For this reason (though it took me a while, having never seen the show & really only skimming the posts @ first) I knew to expect a second Ray to step in for the first.

From the pilot, I adored Ray Vecchio. I think Marciano is a WONDERFUL actor & brought so much more to the character than the writers gave him to bring. I found myself dreading the beginning of season three because I knew that he would be gone, & I was half afraid I would hate the new Ray & half afraid I would like him better.

What I did NOT know was coming was the scene on the 'phone, where Vecchio says, essentially, goodbye to his friend. OMG, omygods, oh.my.gods., how INCREDIBLY heartbreaking. I think I stopped breathing for half of it, just to be sure I didn't miss anything.

*breathing out*
*breathing in*
{the following is a rant. please feel free to skip.} Ray K. Well I was 1/2 right to be afraid. I hate, hate, HATE Ray K. & I hate the PERFORMANCE with the fiery irritation of cactus spines between my fingers. The actor's voice is broken glass on a chalk board (even if the dialect work is pretty accurate, as I know because 1/2 my family is from Chicago). He mugs like a first year undergrad trying Mamet for the first time. He is so tense, whether as a character choice or a bad actor habit it matters not, that very little else comes through. I've seen excellent actors act through that kind of tension. You can almost hear it, like a piano wire humming when some nearby noise hits an harmonic. This was NOT that calibre of performance.

This is NOT just the fact that he is not *my* Ray. It is not just the fact that he is not Marciano. It is probably MOSTLY his voice, which is horrible beyond expression (I can never understand directors who don't cast with voice in mind. How Melanie Griffith or either of the Tillys ever had a career- well obviously it never had anything to do w/ acting), but the mugging doesn't help.

SO I have to hope it gets better. I have to hope either HE gets better or I become immune to THE VOICE & the rest. I have to, actually, be glad that he's not as wonderful as Marciano because I was starting to become obsessed w/ the show, & knowing that, even if I do get used to Ray K., it will never be dearer to me than it was @ the end of season two is actually a good thing. I can always go back & enjoy the first two seasons & know that the show dwindles & has an ending. To an obsessive personality, this can be a relief, not unlike seeing your childhood crush with a middleaged slump & 3 obnoxious children. & if it gets better & there is more to enjoy, though in a different way, that's good too.

& the less said about Thatcher's disastrous haircut the better. Except that she looks like Servolan, & NOT in a good way.

Re: *breathing in*

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting. I also love Ray Vecchio and have a hard time with RayK, and for quite awhile I thought it was Callum Keith Rennie that I didn't like. Then I saw him in Wilby Wonderful and realized I would have to revise my opinion, because he's great in that movie, and the character he plays has a kind of profound sweetness and inner poise that's miles away from RayK. But I know exactly what you mean about the tension. It's a combination of the jittery tough-guy act and the speech problems that make me want to finish his sentences for him. I have the same problem with Thatcher, actually - her nervousness makes me nervous, and I bite my nails every time she repeats herself or lets a sentence trail off without finishing it.

But I think my main reservation about the Fraser/RayK friendship is that it starts as something artificially imposed on them, and it continues mostly because both characters are trying to replace someone they've lost. Fraser has a gap in his life left by RayV, and RayK implies in Eclipse that he sees Fraser as some sort of substitute for Stella. Fraser has a line in Invitation to Romance about how it's easier to believe you're in love than to accept that you're alone, and I think that also applies to Fraser's friendship with RayK, at least in its inception. In a way, Fraser and RayK have more things in common than Fraser and RayV - they're both damaged loners, for one thing - but for that very reason I have a harder time understanding why they're friends. This is just my personal reaction, and I can't really explain it, but I watch these two interact and it seems to me that in real life they would avoid each other.

good point...

[themadblonde]

While I agree w/ truepenny that Ray K is a much more deeply written character, I have to agree with you that the FRIENDSHIP between him & Fraser does seem much more artificially imposed.

In general, I have issues w/ actors who work from the outside in. Partly that's because of my own training, & partly because I've seen very few actors who are good enough to make it work really well. On the other hand, Rennie does seem to be relaxing into the part more, the voice work has become less extreme, & by "Strange Bedfellows" he was having some real moments. He's not as consistent as Marciano, but the gods know he's trying.

& for what I've seen of the third season, it seems we feel much the same about Ms. Scott's work. It was "Bounty Hunter" before she dropped her slightly shortsighted sneer & had a really honest reaction. Which is totally weird to me as I thought her work in Season Two was pretty good for the most part. I have to wonder what she was doing during the hiatus. Did she get trapped in a sitcom or something? Anyway, she's been a lot less interesting during most of the first shows of the third season & I find that a bit sad.

Have to say...

[themadblonde]

I just caught the text of your icon. I LOVE that song!

I know what it means to freeze to death
Lose a little life with every breath...

Nobody like JT.

Re: Have to say...

[cabell.livejournal.com]

Hee, thanks!

It's actually the cover of my Fraser-themed mix CD: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cabell/307983138/

ah-ROOOO!!?!

[themadblonde]

Ooooh, excellent mix! I've recently become obsessed w/ a song that (for some reason, probably caught me @ just the right time) I can't help but associate w/ the series, to the point where I've made an entire fanvid in my head (have neither the tech nor patience to make an actual one).

Breakdown by Jack Johnson: http://www.last.fm/music/Jack+Johnson/_/Breakdown

Can't you just see clips of "All the Queen's Horses" intercut w/ "Victoria's Secret" & "Letting Go?"

"This engine screams out loud
Sayin the beat gonna crawl westbound
So I dont even make a sound
Cause its gonna sting me when I leave this town
All the people in the street
That I'll never get to meet
If these rails dont bend somehow
And I got no time
That I got to get to
Where I dont need to be
So I

I need this here
Old train to breakdown
Oh please just
Let me please breakdown
***

But you cant stop nothing
If you got no control
Of the thoughts in your mind
That you kept in, you know
You dont know nothing
But you dont need to know
The wisdoms in the trees
Not the glass windows
You cant stop wishing
If you dont let go
But things that you find
And you lose, and you know
You keep on rolling
Put the moment on hold
The frames too bright
So put the blinds down low..."

Probably just where my brain is, but it's a cool song.

Re: ah-ROOOO!!?!

[(Anonymous)]

I keep doing that with John Prine songs. My mental soundtrack for Hawk and a Handsaw is a song called The Late John Garfield Blues that includes the lines:

Midnight fell on Franklin Street
and the lamppost bulbs were broke.
For the life of me I could not see
But I heard a brand new joke.
Two men were standing upon a bridge,
One jumped, and screamed, "You lose!"
He left the odd man holding
Those late John Garfield blues.

Old man sleeps with his conscience at night,
Young kid sleeps with his dreams.
While the mentally ill
Sit perfectly still
And live through life's in-betweens...

And then for Victoria's Secret/Letting Go I kept listening to Prine's album Common Sense, which has all sorts of lovely little depressing bits about mistakes and lost friendships and what not. Fleetwood Mac is good for those two episodes, too. In fact, I'm not crazy about Sarah McLachlan, so I usually mentally replace the song in Victoria's Secret with the Fleetwood Mac song "Dreams," and the one in Letting Go with "Storms."

Bless your heart...

[themadblonde]

I don't like her much either, so it's been a real problem having those songs stuck in my brain- though @ least they're some of her better ones. Ever heard her version of Old 55? *yikes!* Unfortunately, I'm not much on Fleetwood Mac either (sorry) but then I probably only know the stuff of theirs that got played to death on the radio.

Thanks for the exchange. I love getting new musical brain fodder. I need to look up that Prine song. A lot of his stuff is on the grim side for me, but my husband & best friend adore him, so I'm sure I'll be able to find a copy.

[azdaja-dafema.livejournal.com]

This was really really interesting. Good insight to Kowalski in that first episode, having watched it earlier today it's amazing how I missed a couple of things, particularly the extent to which pains were taken to differentiate Kowalski with Vecchio so very completely. Definitely going to re read this when more coherent/awake, and going to search out your other reviews.

[peoriapeoria.livejournal.com]

might this be a way of yanking the guy's chain? after all, Ray is already cooncinved the guy was in in it?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have just watched this ep, and I liked it better than I thought I would, since I'd been warned that it was coming. The thing that amused me greatly is that Callum Keith Rennie is trying to do a more over-the-top Americanish accent than David Marciano was, but he also slips. I watched this show and went, "There is no way that man is from anywhere so far south as Chicago." Occasionally his r's and his o's slip. He sounds like me trying to do that accent--there are just noises that are not natural for him to make when he's talking fast. So I looked, and sure enough: Alberta.

[bghost.livejournal.com]

I know that it's years since anyone posted on this, but just wanted to say thank you for such a detailed and thoughtful analyses of the episode... I'm definitely going to be digging through your other dS reviews (if I can figure out how to wade through the history etc) since you obviously know the show inside out!

thank you.

[bghost.livejournal.com]

I've been reading through these from the very beginning, and have finally come back to this one, which was the first one I stumbled upon.

You're absolutely right about the importance of "home" and "lost" in this episode (and due South as a whole.) Something interesting happens, which is that Fraser loses his home, and immediately goes back to work... obviously to find the "performance arsonist" responsible (and where other than due South could that possibly have worked?) But also I think to try to find some balance again. As you say, he needs some help to navigate Chicago (hence of course the compass we see in the title theme! and as you point out the sextant) But we never see the issue of his homelessness properly dealt with. It's as though every body takes it for granted that Fraser is just odd, and so of course he sleeps on his office floor, and nobody has a problem with that, not even Fraser.

Except, Fraser does have a problem with it... in the episode "likely story" he actually says to RayK that he's feeling "stifled" in the consulate, and Ray doesn't even notice the cry for help. He "bivouacs" in an old lady's backyard in the same episode, and although he is literally keeping a death bed promise to her husband and looking after her, it's also obvious that he is taking the opportunity to escape the confines of the consulate.

Yes, Fraser is Spartan in his needs, but he's also the great outdoors man, and the freedom he had in Canada has contracted and contracted throughout the series. In previous episodes people used to comment on how awful his apartment was... his Consulate situation is even worse. Now he doesn't even have neighbours, nor even a bed to sleep on.

The theme of Fraser's homelessness keeps on popping up for the remainder of the series (which makes that radiant joy when he says "I'm home" so poignant) but I think it's really important that this is a major theme, obviously understood as such by the writing team, actors etc, and yet so little of it is made on the surface. Even Turnbull's "cardboard box" is preferable to Fraser's situation. (He says of Turnbull's "cardboard box" that it is "very nice.")

It's as though often as he asks for help, and he can't do it consciously, or verbally, or even admit to himself that he needs it, people keep thinking the fact that he's squatting in his office is just one of his character quirks.

And it really really annoys me!

[esoteria80.livejournal.com]

Fantastic review, this. Just watched this episode and googled for reviews and this old entry came up. Captures a lot of my own thoughts.

The handover between Rays is exceptionally well-handled; it never really works, having a new actor play an established character (Doctor Who I think is the only show that ever succeeded with it), and even if you introduce a wholly new character, I think the audience often struggles with acceptance. Due South handles this poisoned chalice brilliantly, putting Fraser in the position of the audience, baffled by how the rest of the characters are accepting that Ray Vecchio suddenly has a whole new face and personality. His gradual acceptance of Kowalski (not just in this ep, but if memory serves, the following one in the crypt), helps takes us with him and accept the new character. Very cleverly done.

This...

[themadblonde]

I think this really captures the friendship of Vecchio & Fraser.

However, re Kowalski, I'm seeing Ray K frequently object to Fraser's weirdness. Just rewatched Mounty & Soul (I don't know S3-4 as well as the earlier ones) & Kowalski spends most of the episode complaining about Fraser not knowing how to behave, licking things in the morgue, not knowing the lingo, not knowing how to help a friend who's in a fight with a giant, etc. He says "He's from Canada" like "He's not human. He doesn't know how to be human." In other words, weird. And he expects Fraser to learn & change.

smoking & drinking

[themadblonde]

Every time I go through the show again, I see a little bit more that it's very firm on the "smoking & drinking are BAD" line. How many detective shows have ever existed where the detective doesn't drink??? Like a fish??? Not smoking is more common these days, but tea-totaling detectives & cops?? Unheard of.

10 years later...

[themadblonde]

My feelings about RayK have morphed over the last decade. I am a much bigger CKR fan these days & even appreciate his dialect work more. I guess it's like listening to Joni Mitchell enough times to make it familiar enough to love. Regardless, I recant some of my earlier....cant...& can now honestly say I enjoy the 3-4 seasons almost as much as 1-2.