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rionaleonhart) wrote2018-08-10 10:57 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2018-08-10 10:57 pm
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Not To Boast, But I Am Quite A Well-Known Horrible Tragedy.
More of The Mentalist! I started this rewatch four days ago. I watched one episode on the first day, two on the second, three on the third, four today. This is not sustainable. I can't just keep increasing my watching pace; I've got things to do!
(I'm glad I rediscovered it now, though. I'm preparing to move house, which is stressful, and it turns out that The Mentalist really calms me down.)
There's so much that's great in 'Flame Red'. It's the first episode in which it really becomes clear that Jane isn't just 'playful exterior, tormented beneath'; he's 'playful exterior, tormented beneath, genuinely horrifying below that'. I love Jane going 'look, I thought this went without saying, but you know I'm absolutely going to murder Red John when I catch him, right?' and Lisbon going 'uh, just so you know, I'll arrest you.' I love Jane cheerfully extorting a confession by threatening to burn a man alive.
Also, this isn't to do with how terrifying Jane is, but this exchange was pretty great:
Rigsby: Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
Cho: No.
Rigsby: How do you know you’re not?
Cho: I was thinking how I wish I could go back in time and have sex with my eighth-grade history teacher, Miss Huffaker. Is that what you were thinking?
Rigsby: No.
All I really remembered about the episode 'Red Brick and Ivy' was that the writer was too eager to go 'hey, that was a joke just then! did you get the joke?' after every joke and it frustrated me. That still holds true, but this time around I was struck by the dynamic between Jane and Sophie Miller, his former psychiatrist. I wouldn't say I 'ship it, but Jane kissing her at the end of the episode really intrigues me.
I think what I love is the fact that he kisses her right by her mouth. A kiss on the cheek, a kiss on the mouth: these are gestures with clear meaning attached to them. What does a kiss by the mouth mean, if it's with someone you're not already in a romantic relationship with? Too intimate to be entirely normal, not quite intimate enough to be unambiguously romantic. It hovers in this weird, awkward, ambiguous space and I love it.
The flashback to Jane thanking her for helping him when he's leaving the hospital is also intriguingly weird. They're standing waaaay too close to be normal, but there's no sense of movement to suggest that they're pulling apart after a hug. So it kind of looks like they've just kissed, but presumably they haven't, unless Dr Miller is a fantastically unprofessional psychiatrist.
I'm so intrigued by weird almost-intimacy, and Patrick Jane is a great character for it, because he's very tactile and inclined to be overfamiliar and cares very intensely about the people he's close to, but he also has enormous 'if I fall in love with someone I'm betraying my wife and also they might get murdered' barriers to making actual romantic gestures.
He's so screwed up. It's so good. I've said before that Patrick Jane is a candidate for my all-time favourite fictional character, and that still absolutely holds true.
(I'm glad I rediscovered it now, though. I'm preparing to move house, which is stressful, and it turns out that The Mentalist really calms me down.)
There's so much that's great in 'Flame Red'. It's the first episode in which it really becomes clear that Jane isn't just 'playful exterior, tormented beneath'; he's 'playful exterior, tormented beneath, genuinely horrifying below that'. I love Jane going 'look, I thought this went without saying, but you know I'm absolutely going to murder Red John when I catch him, right?' and Lisbon going 'uh, just so you know, I'll arrest you.' I love Jane cheerfully extorting a confession by threatening to burn a man alive.
Also, this isn't to do with how terrifying Jane is, but this exchange was pretty great:
Rigsby: Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
Cho: No.
Rigsby: How do you know you’re not?
Cho: I was thinking how I wish I could go back in time and have sex with my eighth-grade history teacher, Miss Huffaker. Is that what you were thinking?
Rigsby: No.
All I really remembered about the episode 'Red Brick and Ivy' was that the writer was too eager to go 'hey, that was a joke just then! did you get the joke?' after every joke and it frustrated me. That still holds true, but this time around I was struck by the dynamic between Jane and Sophie Miller, his former psychiatrist. I wouldn't say I 'ship it, but Jane kissing her at the end of the episode really intrigues me.
I think what I love is the fact that he kisses her right by her mouth. A kiss on the cheek, a kiss on the mouth: these are gestures with clear meaning attached to them. What does a kiss by the mouth mean, if it's with someone you're not already in a romantic relationship with? Too intimate to be entirely normal, not quite intimate enough to be unambiguously romantic. It hovers in this weird, awkward, ambiguous space and I love it.
The flashback to Jane thanking her for helping him when he's leaving the hospital is also intriguingly weird. They're standing waaaay too close to be normal, but there's no sense of movement to suggest that they're pulling apart after a hug. So it kind of looks like they've just kissed, but presumably they haven't, unless Dr Miller is a fantastically unprofessional psychiatrist.
I'm so intrigued by weird almost-intimacy, and Patrick Jane is a great character for it, because he's very tactile and inclined to be overfamiliar and cares very intensely about the people he's close to, but he also has enormous 'if I fall in love with someone I'm betraying my wife and also they might get murdered' barriers to making actual romantic gestures.
He's so screwed up. It's so good. I've said before that Patrick Jane is a candidate for my all-time favourite fictional character, and that still absolutely holds true.
no subject
There's so much that's great in 'Flame Red'. It's the first episode in which it really becomes clear that Jane isn't just 'playful exterior, tormented beneath'; he's 'playful exterior, tormented beneath, genuinely horrifying below that'.
That is the best thing about him! He was hurt and tormented and it made him absolutely terrifying!
I'm so intrigued by weird almost-intimacy, and Patrick Jane is a great character for it, because he's very tactile and inclined to be overfamiliar and cares very intensely about the people he's close to, but he also has enormous 'if I fall in love with someone I'm betraying my wife and also they might get murdered' barriers to making actual romantic gestures.
That is very true! He is very touchy-feely, likely to come off as romantic, and highly likely to go massively to pieces emotionally if things get anywhere romantically with someone else at any point during most of the show's canon.
no subject
no subject
Jane isn't just 'playful exterior, tormented beneath'; he's 'playful exterior, tormented beneath, genuinely horrifying below that'
I watched the first season in a slightly odd order so I ended up reading fic about some episodes before I'd actually seen them, and I remember thinking that certain bits of Jane's characterization (and even certain things that he did) in fic were just fanon until I watched the episode and realised that no, he's really that messed up in canon as well.
That scene where he's explaining his plans to Lisbon with a cheerful smile was one of those scenes that really took me by surprise.
unless Dr Miller is a fantastically unprofessional psychiatrist.
There is a reason why I've always referred to her as Word's Skeeviest Psychiatrist :D Because I absolutely believe that she took advantage of Jane when he was vulnerable. I actually wrote a post about Jane and Sophie when I first watched ithis episode in 2009 :D
no subject
I remember thinking that certain bits of Jane's characterization (and even certain things that he did) in fic were just fanon until I watched the episode and realised that no, he's really that messed up in canon as well.
The first time I saw 'Flame Red', I was taken aback by Jane talking about how people deserve to suffer and die for the bad things they do - I was going 'is he a proponent of the death penalty? that... doesn't really fit with my reading of his character' - and then he mentioned his plan for Red John and I went 'oh, wow, of course. Wow. This guy's more damaged than I realised.'
I still don't think he believes in the death penalty; I think he believes in revenge. If someone harms you, the state shouldn't be able to kill them, but you should. The state doesn't have a stake in their suffering. That belongs to you.
That post of yours was really interesting! (There was definitely something very weird about the Sophie-and-Jane dynamic.) And I love your description of Jane as a 'morally dubious cupid' in the comments.
The Mentalist really cries out for character analysis. A lot of my fandoms just have me going 'I LOVE THIS, I LOVE THAT,' whereas The Mentalist makes me go 'let's pick apart these characters and find out what they're thinking,' and I've found that other people's posts on The Mentalist tend to be heavy on the analysis as well.
no subject
Yes, this. I think that the very first scene in the pilot episode was a perfect introduction to Jane because it 's a great display of his motivation when he basically gives the murdered girl's mother an opportunity to kill her daughter's killer.
The Mentalist really cries out for character analysis.
Agreed. The plots on The Mentalist don't always hold water, but the characters are really well written. They characted arcs are unsually consistent for a procedural and you can easily imagine the characters having an inner lives beyond what we see on screen.