how you mentioned jack wheeler makes me curious cuz most of the time other fans interpret him at worst, a neglectful dad (my headcanon too). bcs he seems like he still loves vert in the very few episodes he appears in, though that might just be the trauma of being separated from his family for years hitting him. sooo any headcanons of mr wheeler?
if the past several posts haven't been clear, i don't like how a lot of s2 was handled. so just to preface: i characterize jack with inspiration from the episode 'legacy', but i don't treat the fact that he got swept up in a stormshock + was surviving in battle zones, fighting sark, etc. as canon. he never left home, which is why vert did.
but we can talk about the episode itself first. i'm gonna be more focused on jack's behavior than the actual plot since there were a lot of holes coughs i understand certain events were necessary for the continuation of the overall story.
straight off the bat, i agree that he's negligent. any of the flashbacks regarding jack's time on earth imply that he prioritized his car over his family, his first instinct upon being taken to a new dimension is to see how that tech can upgrade his car so he can keep racing. second instinct, when he sees the second stormshock, is to go straight into it without concern for his family back home. it could be argued that he was overconfident and assumed he could get back home like he did the first time, but even still it's weird as hell to drop everything to put yourself in danger when there is no reason to.
jack lacks remorse. he's hardly torn up over abandoning his family, accident or not. it's the very first thing vert confronts him about, and jack opts to distract instead of take accountability - and once again shows interest in a car over his own son. maybe racing and a "car club" is something they have in common, but the attempts to swerve the topic are obviously on purpose since jack does it multiple times in the episode when having to confront the impact his actions have had.
never, throughout the episode, is there a willingness to go home. jack doesn't want to. doesn't care how his wife and son are doing, doesn't even really seem to care that his son is right in front of him after the better part of a decade. when he goes 'aww look at you' it's just another attempt to distract - and also display ownership, but i'll get on that later.
he's also very dismissive of anything that doesn't hold his interest or pertain to jack himself in any way. vert's feelings don't matter, vert's accomplishments don't matter, vert's knowledge and experience of the very thing they're trying to fight doesn't matter. it's always jack knows best, jack should be listened to, and jack isn't built to be a team player - arguments that position him as authority, and make it so he has an excuse to not defer to vert even when the situation calls for it.
sure, could be argued that jack's just a little old fashioned, and hasn't adjusted to seeing vert all grown up. but when that presents itself as anger and insult whenever his authority, superiority, or experience is questioned, that's not jack being a little old fashioned. that's jack being used to getting his way, maybe even through threats to get it. i am personally of the opinion that jack was like that before he got sucked into an aftershock and thrown into a fighting ring. especially with how familiar that back and forth seems to be between jack and vert.
that "now learn something else: i'm your father. sons learn from fathers" wasn't a new argument to them, even if it's been years since jack's probably said it to vert. jack slams his hands on the hood of his car because he's pissed off when vert tries to joke a little (at jack's expense). vert's noticeably quieter for the rest of the episode. doesn't have anything to say even when jack's talking to him for once - not that anything jack is saying is actually relevant to vert, since the majority of jack's dialogue is focused on bragging about himself or his car.
you know when a parental figure berates you, tries to knock you down a peg, or overreacts aggressively to something you do? and two seconds later they try to hug you instead of apologizing, and you understandably don't want it? that's what watching a lot of this episode felt like. it was very uncomfortable.
vert's reasonably upset with his father's actions, both what led jack to the battle zone and also for how he behaves the rest of the episode. when jack can't quickly patch over those emotions he gets frustrated.
i agree that jack feels guilty over it. you can see that he doesn't really know how to connect with vert (and doesn't really want to, imo,) but when the guy who's supposed to be jack's son - his responsibility, someone he cares for - looks like a kicked dog every time jack rejects him, it's hard not to feel bad. it's also hard not to feel uncomfortable, when jack doesn't want anything to do with that emotional load or take accountability for the fact that he is the one causing those problems.
jack wheeler wants to be a hero. that's the entire tone of the episode. jack manufactures issues so that he can keep being this lone wolf figure fighting on his own in a strange world, kind of like self-fulfilling prophecy. i quite literally assumed jack had put another tracker in his car after the sherman pointed out that the previous tracker had likely been destroyed when bf5 took down tors-10; jack's dismissal was so fast, bored almost, because it meant 'problem solved!' instead of 'here's an excuse for jack to keep fighting'. (obviously, in the episode it turns out its a 'celluar-level' tracking device that he can't help/maybe didn't know about, which makes zero sense because i dont recall the bf5 or vandals being tagged that way when they were subject to the fighting ring in earlier episodes, and therefore imo was just an excuse for jack to not come home.)
he purposefully drives beyond bf5's reach when being pursued by red sark and puts himself in a dangerous position for the flashy heroics and to show off. he can't play a 'good passenger' even when it's clear that if jack just got in reverb, it'd give the team a much easier time. jack insists over and over that old school works, that he's survived just fine on his own, and refuses to admit that he's not got the specs to keep up - stanford literally points out that jack has bald tires (very dangerous) at one point, and the other mods made to his car are bullshit that i don't believe he'd pull off on his own are comparably rudimentary.
everything in the episode is saying that jack needs to go home. he's not fit enough anymore, they resolve the red mobi (which wasn't jack's business and wasn't something he needed to make his own personal mission. only he did that. only he made it his mission to fight 'bad guys',) and other than the (dumb plot-hole) microchip, nothing is stopping him from returning to earth.
jack just doesn't want to stop being the main character. it's something vert's familiar with, and very fed up with by the end of the episode.
the only times jack and vert get along in this episode is when vert steps back and lets jack take the lead. when vert lets jack be the star of the show; leading them to the red mobi, leading them to safety when they put the red mobi in self-destruct. jack even suggests that vert's team - not vert himself, by the way - could be jack's pit crew; not equals, not teammates, but they're good enough to be jack's little entourage while he goes tearing through the battle zone and playing hero. (when vert replies that his team already have jobs, jack immediately pivots and makes it about himself again.)
and that leads us to jack's sense of ownership and entitlement. i don't remember him calling vert by name throughout the episode (? could be wrong.) just 'kid' or 'son', which if you'll allow me to overanalyze, cutely strips vert eNTIRELY of an identity outside of being jack's son. jack likes the idea of A son; he doesn't like vert. i can't imagine that their homelife had been much better. paired with vert's continued pushback on being called a kid, demanding jack recognize that he's a very competent, capable, supported adult (or at the very least grown up,) it shows that there was likely a lot of arguments over the same issue: jack resenting that vert is free-spirited and didn't want to listen to him.
i probably don't have to explain this to anyone, but that complex mix of ownership-resentment-entitlement and guilt read a lot to me like vert was jack's second chance of reliving his glory days. a lot of the times jack was bragging about him fighting off bad guys, destroying red sentient tech, surviving on his own, it felt like jack was both reliving glory days and making new ones - a life with no familial responsibility, just him and his car against the world. how his life could've gone as some hotshot hero who found a greater purpose beyond drag racing.
and that's without getting into how ungrateful he is throughout the episode. he doesn't think agura for winching up his car, doesn't thank any of them for saving him. again, the hint that vert's team should be jack's, that vert isn't cut out for the kind of lifestyle they're both currently living. downplaying any of vert's own achievements or applicable skills, brushing off any of the technology that would help him - and even gets a self-affirming moment where he beats the hell out of the red mobi with a socket wrench to prove it. he goes out of his way to avoid team set ups because the expectation is that he's the leader and everyone else should fall in line. the only times he acknowledges the bf5 is when they're complimenting him or giving him an opportunity to boast. (unfortunately, sherman and spinner both accidentally do this.)
on the other side of this, vert doesn't seem all that attached to his dad either. there's an element of care and concern there, but that's because vert's actually hero material: he cares for the lives of others, and upon learning that this man (who happens to be his father) has been alone in a battle zone fighting for his life for years, vert wants to help him get home. it should parallel vert's compassion for tezz and the patience vert showed in helping tezz trust them and be willing to leave the battle zone he's come to know like the back of his hand.
but vert looking at his dad throughout the episode is different. i always really enjoyed that there was so much care and effort put into minor details like facial expressions, body language and gestures, and making sure no one looked static when a scene was only focused on one character - so i am aware i might be reading too much into this part, but vert is never fucking happy about his dad being here. he smiles a few times towards the end, after that "i just hurt your feelings but im going to hug you now and you're going to act like things are okay" 'bonding moment' they had after jack lost his temper. most of the time vert looks fed up, upset, or once or twice (made me laugh) kind of disgusted, especially when jack gave him the first hug at the start of the episode.
and this is without delving into:
1) the fact that jack was literally lying about not being able to tell how long it was since he'd been home two seconds later, is able to accurately tell how long it's been since tors-10's arena was blown up. it was like he was testing how easy it'd be for vert to forgive him if he garnered sympathy.
2) the fact that any affection or "i'm proud of you" was manipulative and insincere, used either as a distraction or to try and force vert into accepting affection (that he was clearly not familiar with, time apart or not.)
2.5) LMAO when every time jack was being a dick, he'd made vert step away from the group for a second to express it, because he likes perfoming as some cool guy in front of vert's friends.
3) any casual repossession of anything vert has spent the years making his own ("keep my toolbench clean for me", like vert's some errand boy who'll wait hand and foot for him - maybe reflecting how jack used to expect vert, and his mother, to act at home.)
obviously a lot of this is my interpretation, i understand that the time this show came out, how things can be simplified for the core demographic consumption, and the fact that this was a lot to try (and fail) to unpack in a single episode probably made 'legacy' one of the looser ends left untied by the time the show was cancelled. maybe they'd been planning to explore it more, i know we see jack at the end of the montage cutting to everyone's pov so it implies he survived and maybe would've eventually found his way home.
and some of my gripes are from a lack of suspension of belief - waaa i'm being too cynical about a kid's show, i'm taking some of these points too seriously, etc. but that's how i like consuming media. hopefully i haven't sounded too aggressive throughout, because i do find what i've explained above ^ to be very interesting for vert's character. i wasn't aware that fandom played with jack much at all, so it was also interesting to learn what the general consensus is.
my opinion is this: jack's an asshole. he's a flawed human being with skewed priorities (INSANE that he looked vert in the eye and said "a man's gotta have priorities" about his car, and not his son, btw i laughed so fucking hard watching that the first time.)
and wow that took forever, i'll keep this part about my hc short. this is what happens when someone tells me to yap instead of draw sorry anon
in my hc: jack is born in the '50s, (boomer generation.) they're in utah, he was a bit of a playboy who was getting into racing in his free time, had a beautiful mustang to show for it. the culture is mormon, working class, he grew up during the uranium booms and the peak of ranching lifestyle where you could live off the land, and live modestly but earnestly. then he knocks up marlene. the expectation is that you settle down and get married quick. you work, you pay the bills, you put food on the table, and you do that 'til you die. it's rough! i'm not saying isn't.
jack had to give up his racing dreams. maybe he thought he was gonna move out to golden california, make something of himself, be more than what he ended up being. but now he's got a kid and he wasn't quite ready to be a parent, but jack does the right thing: he knuckles down, works hard, looks after his family. but that wistfulness lingers.
and it's convenient, y'know, having a son. small and young and impressionable, just a little nudge and suddenly vert's loving cars and going fast (had a draw to it himself naturally, but jack can't help himself to give vert just the slightest nudge.) and before he knows it, he's living his second chance vicariously through vert; that's a lot of pressure on a kid. especially when that kid is as willful, stubborn, and outspoken as both his parents and isn't afraid to talk back.
i don't think that jack was physically abusive - consistently. it's an older era. vert probably got smacked a few times when he was young and unruly, but once he was big enough to fend for himself, the verbal arguments became much more frequent. especially as vert grows up, goes off on his own.
what differs from canon is that i don't think jack ever rode off on his own. i hc that they don't live originally in handler's corner, either - that's somewhere in the bonneville flats that vert escapes to on his own; that's his own little corner of the world that he has away from his parents once he's old enough. because i agree that jack, in his own complicated way, does love his family, so he stays: he's a selfish fucker who doesn't appreciate his wife and thinks his kid is an ungrateful rotten brat, but he stays. he works. he eventually retires.
and vert moves out at 17. it's the worst fight they've ever had, i won't go on too much about it here since this is about jack, not vert. but. vert gets to leave and live his own life, and that makes jack very bitter and jealous. because vert both gets to have the life jack wanted, and doesn't have to make the same sacrifices jack did. (hence the complicated relationship with aj, too, where aj was a very good influence on vert when they were friends in-person, and jack could've easily seen aj turning out to be the kind of son that jack was expected to have: someone down to earth, willing to put in the work. because as much as he's jealous that vert gets to live the life jack wanted, too, there's the part where jack gets a bad rep in their small hometown because vert ended up being such a reckless wildcard for a son. and that stings.)
there's not much else to talk about headcanon-wise since i still draw a lot of jack's characterization from how he was in the episode (or my interpretation of the episode), there's just a few different setting details that are different. i really didn't like the cyclical structure of vert ending up being involved in bf5 the exact way his dad got involved with tors-10 - i think it strips away a lot of vert's integrity as a character. there are definitely points to be made about he and jack's similarities, but there needs to be enough distinction to let vert be his own person, not just a shadow of his father.
definitely fun source of inner turmoil for vert. rubs hands together like a fly. i do very much enjoy vert having a lot of angst over both looking and sharing traits with his father, but anyway,,
ty for coming to my ted talk i hope my walkthrough of 'legacy' as coherent and understandable
also i didnt proof read sorry if theres errors lmao
