i’ve mentioned this before, but it makes me a little sad to see how much kerry weaver has been lost in discussions of lesbian rep on television. i’m taking a class on feminist television theory, and she wasn’t even included on the big slide of lesbian characters and relationships on tv. we also spent a lot of time discussing intersectionality, yet somehow there was still no mention of a disabled, middle-aged lesbian who held a position of real authority on one of the biggest network dramas of its era.
it’s especially wild to me because kerry wasn’t a minor character or a short-lived storyline like a lot of early depictions of lgbt characters. she was one of ER’s central characters, a show that was the biggest network drama of its time, and the show gave years of attention to her struggle to understand her sexuality, come out later in life, navigate relationships, and eventually create a family. her story was allowed to be painful and complicated and joyful, and many aspects of it were depicted with so much care. she even got one of the earliest bury your gays moments that involved a central character </3
and yet, despite watching and following a lot of lgbt media, i had never even heard of her before i watched ER. maybe part of the reason she gets overlooked is that ER was never categorized as a “queer show,” so her story falls outside the usual canon of landmark lesbian television. but imo that makes her presence more significant. she was a lesbian main character existing at the center of mainstream network television, week after week, for years. dhe spent more time out of the closet on the show that in it. she deserves so much more recognition and respect </3
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today i offer thoughts about a detective carcy au. i’ve been thinking about this a lot since i last rewatched the good fight. and maybe this is just cause i love a good atmospheric and grim detective thriller. but god them as a crime solving duo is making me insane, especially with the same dynamic of failed mentor-mentee almost romance. yes unfortunately i think they are absolutely doomed in this universe too.
allow me to be an annoying costume design student for a second because i cannot stop thinking about how kerry and kim legaspi are basically positioned at opposite ends of the color wheel, and what it means about their relationship and the way it progresses throughout season 7.
first of all, kerry’s signature color is green. she wears it a lot throughout the show (especially in seasons 3-4), it’s her favorite color (as stated in a later season), and even her car is green.
kim’s early appearances have magenta and purple, green’s complementary colors.
“complementary” is more than just opposites. these colors create maximum contrast, and they intensify each other when they are placed together. kim’s openness makes kerry’s repression more visible; kerry’s guardedness and discomfort makes kim’s confidence and comfort with her sexuality stand out even more.
i just want to take a second to show you just how much her magenta jumps when she shows up in the back of a scene (and how it contrasts kerry’s pale lime green)
kerry’s green also ties her to the ER, to the department’s scrubs, control, and her ability to disappear into the institution. kim’s magenta separates her from that clinical neutrality. It is warmer, more expressive, more immediately visible, and it carries its own queer associations. kerry has survived by making herself controlled and unreadable, while Kim refuses to make herself and her sexuality visually and socially unobtrusive. (which leads to the false allegations that i will get to in a moment)
after kerry meets kim for the first time, she is suddenly seen wearing a purple blouse herself, which feels highly unusual for her, and if my memory serves me right then it may even be the first time the show puts her in a color like that. she has some reds in her wardrobe but they’re always darker and less vibrant. if kerry’s usual greens tie her to control and the institutional world of county and the ER, then this brief shift toward kim’s side of the color wheel suggests that kim has already begun to unsettle her carefully managed image. kerry doesn’t immediately become open or comfortable, and she even touches her shirt self consciously after kim mentions the color, but the costume choice hints that something has already moved internally: kerry begins, however briefly, to absorb the color of the woman who is drawing out a part of herself she has kept hidden.
in the christmas episode, kerry and kim meet in the same grey palette. It happens at the exact point when the relationship can no longer remain safely undefined: kim tells kerry she cannot be with a straight woman, they kiss, and kerry is left to confront what she actually feels. even within that shared color (or lack thereof), their clothes express different levels of openness. kim’s grey blouse is soft, fluid, slightly reflective, and unbuttoned, while kerry’s high turtleneck encloses her body and is further contained beneath her white coat. they have visually arrived at the same emotional threshold, but kim is already able to inhabit it while kerry remains protected behind layers. the grey therefore feels less like the disappearance of color here and more like a temporary meeting point between green and magenta, just before kim walks away and kerry is forced to decide what that meeting meant.
after christmas, while kerry is avoiding both kim and what the kiss meant, they appear in nearly matching pale blues. they are still visually aligned, but the cooler, subdued palette reflects kerry’s attempt to contain that connection and return it to the safety of the professional.
then kerry realizes her true feelings for kim and they sleep together at her place. the next morning, kerry wears kim’s bright blue shirt to work, so she is no longer simply dressed in a color that echoes Kim’s; she is literally wearing something of hers after allowing herself to enter kim’s private world. kim then appears at work in bright pink, restoring the vivid complementary palette that characterized her introduction. the return of saturated color makes their new relationship feel briefly expansive and alive, after the muted blues of kerry’s denial.
a couple of episodes later, kerry appears at work in pale lavender, a color with its own longstanding queer associations. it also places her closer to the purple and magenta tones that initially belonged to kim. earlier, kerry’s brief movement into magenta registered kim’s immediate effect on her; now a related color is beginning to enter kerry’s own visual identity. she is still unable to be open about her sexuality, hence the very pale color, but the part of herself she has kept contained is already becoming more (consciously) visible through her clothes.
and regarding kim and her own palette: it seems to lose intensity as the season progresses. as i previously mentioned, she first appears in saturated magentas and purples, very visually distinct. during the false sexual-assault allegation she wears black, and in her final three episodes she is wearing dark muted colors (notice that one of them is a green). the progression can be read as reflecting what the season does to kim herself. the confident, expressive woman kerry initially encounters becomes increasingly guarded and emotionally exhausted as her career is threatened and her relationship leaves her unsupported. the choice to specifically move her to san francisco in s8 is obvious enough.
another reading of her color transition could be read as the changes of her function within kerry’s visual world. kim initially appears as new, magnetic, and destabilizing, someone kerry cannot easily fit into the controlled life she has built. as kerry becomes more frightened and defensive, kim’s colors cool and recede, reflecting her increasing refusal to move toward her.
kim’s final color recalls the christmas episode, when she and kerry wore the same color as their feelings became impossible to avoid. in their last scene together, they no longer inhabit the shared color in the same way: kim is dressed entirely in greys, while kerry’s sweater is divided between grey and her familiar pale lime green. kim has reached a point of certainty after kerry’s refusal to come out and her failure to defend her following the false sexual-assault allegation, and she is no longer willing to wait for kerry to choose her. the solidness of her costume reflects that resolve, while kerry remains visibly caught between her and the professional identity she has protected.
and back to kerry: as i’ve said, her costume in these scenes is divided between grey and her signature green, visually placing her between the relationship she has refused to acknowledge publicly and the professional identity she has always protected. she remains in that same outfit when she later confronts romano over kim’s firing. this time, however, she finally connects those two parts of herself: she comes out, openly names romano’s treatment of kim as homophobic, and is willing to risk her job to defend her. the costume does not change, but kerry does. what appeared as division in the scene with kim becomes integration when kerry brings the truth she kept private into the professional world represented by her green.
what makes the arc so painful to me is that the colors seem to understand the relationship before kerry does. their palettes begin to overlap and move toward each other long before kerry can admit what kim means to her. by the time kerry is finally ready to acknowledge that connection openly, kim has already reached the point where she can no longer stay.
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i rewatched carter's intervention and i can’t stop thinking about how much work the blocking is doing, so here’s a very brief summary of some of my favorite details.
first: benton
the second carter walks into the room, the camera cuts to benton. he's probably the most important person in the room to him, the one he respects and loves likes the most, and he's almost completely removed from the confrontation. he's standing on the other side of the room, out of scrubs, head down. he barely even looks at carter, and i don’t think he says a single word until they’re alone. everyone else is participating in the intervention, but benton really doesn’t need to say anything, because his mere presence is enough for carter.
this very short silent exchange is so amazing, you can feel how betrayed carter feels:
then, as the intervention goes on, he gets up and starts looking more directly at carter and becomes harder to ignore. i don't know if "denial" is exactly the right word, but there's a shift. at the beginning he seems unwilling to engage with what everyone is there to say, and by the end he's forced to confront it along with everyone else. notice how he goes from trying to stay low and far away to fully getting higher, bigger, and eventually running after carter. obviously his words and his physical presence ended up making the most impact. there’s something so fucking devastating to me about seeing your mentee that you love and care for so much, who almost died in your arms, in a situation like this. the choice to keep him silent and distance until they’re outside is brilliant imo
kerry:
she spends the entire scene by the door. every time carter tries to leave, she's the person who stops him. what stands out to me is how little force is actually involved. and objectively, if carter had really wanted to leave, he could have. he is bigger than her, stronger than her, and kerry is physically the smallest person in that room. he probably would’ve knocked out anyone else guarding the door (just two mins later he punches benton). but she’s somebody that he likes and respects (and fears) enough to not make it physical. she opened her door to him one year ago and now she’s keeping another door closed to help him.
after carter storms out, kerry turns toward the door and away from the room. it's a tiny blink and you’ll miss it moment, but i've always noticed how she doesn't want anyone to see her face. maybe i'm reading too much into it, but just like in the stabbing, she once again seems much more affected than she's willing to show in front of everyone else. she spends the whole scene holding her ground, even raising her voice at carter, and the second he’s gone she turns away.
carter:
and then there's carter himself. the scene keeps literally backing him into dark corners, so whenever he moves, he's running into another obstacle. when you watch carefully, you’ll notice that in almost every shot in this scene you’ll see the edge of someone’s head or shoulder or arm, all meant to make it feel like he’s trapped.
later, when he turns on jing-mei, he immediately starts using his height and physical presence. he gets into her space and tries to intimidate her, and he’s so desperate that something she did six years ago is the only leverage he has against her. god knows how many mistakes he made while she was away
and again, after kerry asks him about his wrists, instead of moving her out of the way, he walks to the other side of the room through all his mentors, all the people who care about him, who’ve been there from him since day one, and storms out.
so yeah i just love how carefully staged this whole scene is. each character has a very specific job in every frame, and you can learn a lot about their relationships just by watching where they're standing, their body language, everything. 10/10 scene.
