vegaspete

Hate to be a Debbie downer bc I know so many people are attached to Not Me (me included), but there’s some loose threads in the show that I think desperately needed tying up, that I feel the need to address. (SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY) Buckle up y’all, this is gonna be MAD long:

Dan is an incredible, fascinating character. He's someone who fucked up, did something awful without meaning to and regretted it immensely. He is someone who, from the start, wanted to do good. Who believed that he could create change in a fucked up system but fell prey to it anyways. He's a good person who did something terrible and has been eaten up by it, who desperately wanted to atone and receive ANY type of consequences but never did. He turns to art to channel his guilt and his anger at a system he hopes can still change, that he can still change it.

You can tell that he is actively a good person, and that he hates the corruption and power that plagues not just the police force but society as a whole.

Like, yes, acab, but we also have to acknowledge that there are people who DO want to change the system and they either get corrupted by the system or they leave it because they can't stand what the system makes them do. And that's what Dan is meant to represent. Someone who became a cop because he genuinely believed he could do good.

And then he meets Yok (whilst breaking into Tawi's house and doing political graffiti in it) and they get to know each other and Dan sees people actively DOING something, actively making a difference.

He and Yok fall in love, hard and fast. He shows the darkest parts of himself and his NEED to do good. Not just because he needs to atone but because he always wanted to do good in the first place, and he's realizing that the way he's gone about it this whole time wasn't doing any good at all.

And he goes and tries his best to help Yok and the gang but he finds out that the corruption is so much deeper. They know he's UNAR. They know where his parents live. He's realizing that no matter what he does, someone he loves is going to get hurt. Because again, good cops don't exist because they either get absorbed by the corruption, they leave, or well. They die.

I don't think Dan is going to die, but I think he's learning that he can no longer hold onto his dream of helping people if he's still a cop.

And I think this is an important story to tell.

I feel like I am watching a different show than other people or maybe my line of right and wrong is different because the Dan storyline has shown some things I find super disturbing in this fandom.

I will start by saying the way I view this show is layered and complex. There are no absolutes. No one is all good. No one is all bad and how we digest the story in of itself is a commentary on political strife. I have way too many thoughts but for today I will focus on Dan/Yok and why this story is so important if people can get past their hurt feelings and see the bigger picture.

Dan Is Not the Enemy The System Is

I can’t believe after watching this week’s episode I still see comments like “Dan betrayed them.” “I knew it was him all along” “I hate him for hurting Yok”. At face value I get it but what happen wasn’t that simple. To get to this point we have to go backwards. Yes Dan killed Sean’s father. I believe this act defined how some people see Dan and really, they have been waiting for him to be the big bad they have decided he is. Let’s look at the shooting, a rookie cop, a bad shot, he actually showed remorse, but the department covered it up. He didn’t intentionally take a life. Now should he have gone to jail for it? Yes!! So I will forever be upset about that since he did not he decided to fight injustice in his own way. He still believed in the system. That it could be fixed from within. It may be naïve but it’s not pure evil. This doesn’t make him bad it makes him idealistic. There were moments where both Black and White have shown idealism.

In any fight for justice there is no one way to achieve that goal. You need everyone, those who are willing to get their hands dirty and those who work within the system. Honestly if all parties worked together you have a better chance overturning the true enemy which are those at the top and system that keeps them in power. But you can’t yell a system so we choose to focus on people. Enter the Dan hater crew.

Fast forward to his confession on the roof with Sean. In that moment he was prepared to take his own life. Twitter was WILD with people saying they didn’t trust him cause he hesitated. Angry that Yok (who was in love with him) and Gram weren't supporting Sean’s thirst for vengeance. Taking a life is not the cure some of these people on line think it is. If you don’t think Sean would have been haunted by that then I question your humanity. Plus a dead cop on the roof would not have been good for anyone. If Gram and Yok had not been tough on Sean they would not have stopped that from happening.

Now we reach Ep 13. Even in this episode Dan was loyal till he was threatened. No Dan was not a secret agent. He never intended to turn his back on them. He did exactly what he promised. He thought he found someone he could trust. Yes he was naïve and too altruistic. We can all say he should know better but when you believe in the system it’s hard to see it any other way. The moment in which he betrayed them was after he was kidnapped. The old man threatened his family and he made a choice. He believed he was saving everyone’s life. That jail was better than death. He did not want Yok to die or his parents. Even after all of that when the time came he helped them escape putting himself and his parents in danger. How is he still getting slander? What should he have done? This was not a black or white situation. It’s like the trolley question. It’s an impossible choice. To act as if he’s some big bad who was “just what you expected” is so short sighted.

Why Aren't We Talking about the OLD MAN?

Folks have pointed out how the piece could be read as an allusion to Alexandre Cabanel’s the Fallen Angel. That makes a lot of sense with Dan having made a big mistake in the past that could be read as a fall from heaven along with how he becomes aware of the corruption of the police and his dream (heaven) crumbles around him.

But I also think it’s interesting in the context of ep 13. If I understand right, Cabanel’s angel is based on Paradise Lost which has interesting themes surrounding power that feel relevant to Dan being caught up in a corrupt system. In literary criticism, the character of Lucifer in Paradise Lost is typically read in either of two ways (both of which add interesting parallels): a) Lucifer is the tragic hero rebelling against a tyrannical god and b) Lucifer is a villain recreating the power of God for himself

Dan has been against the gangs illegal…methods, from the start. He tried to convince Yok that what they’re doing isn’t the right way to go about getting justice. He convinced them to make a new plan and involve the police instead of taking matters solely into their own hands. And actually, when you rewatch the scene between Dan and Yok where he talks about going away for a while, Dan is already so full of doubt. He never was fully on board with this plan I don’t think.

But that’s not to say Dan really believes in the justice system either. He knows it’s flawed, he knows good people get fucked over again and again because of it. But is he willing to admit that? Is he willing to accept what he’s devoted his life so is a complete sham when it’s the only thing that’s been holding him together for so long?

The bottom line is, he’s lost and he’s scared but he’s in love. And then he meets this old guy, and reality comes crashing down. Sure, they might take down Tawia, but this thing is so much bigger than all of them that it wouldn’t actually matter if they cut the head off the snake. Because another will just replace it. And worst case scenario, Yok and his friends die trying.

I’m just going to get some thoughts, comments and suggestions for possible changes out of my head. All suggestions are made with the thought in mind that if you do not have the time to properly deal with the emotional repercussions of certain writing decisions, do not make them; soften the impact, change it to a situation you can deal with. 

1. Sean’s anger I gotta say that I almost forgot his anger against Tawi or Tawi as an antagonist at all over the past few episodes. And what I noticed is that Sean’s anger and his revenge-storyline got split into two, between Tawi and the police or more so the police officer who shot his father. The thing is, the two instances are not directly connected with Dan not working for Tawi not having a direct influence in that death. The issue of Tawi secretly moving drugs, influencing the justice system to drop the case without further investigation and the ‘cover up’ of how Sean’s father got killed get muddled and I would say there are multiple issues mashed into one case. It would probably give enough substance to have it as the center conflict of a show all on itself without even bringing Todd into it as a second villain. Not to mention that I think that whole arc again takes space and time from the story of Yok and Gram having their own anger against the system and their own goals of what they want to achieve. 

Now, a suggestion of change would be to keep Tawi at the center of Sean’s anger with him also being more directly responsible for the father’s death. The drugs still get discovered, Tawi needs a scapegoat for it and there’s the possibility of Sean’s father being randomly chosen as the scapegoat. Techit could’ve been the one to shoot him, placing it as a suicide due to guilt over trafficking drugs under the cover of Tawi’s company without Tawi’s knowledge. This way you do not have to introduce a new character, and the one who killed Sean’s father is one of the ‘bad ones’ to begin with, so you do not have to deal with the redemption arc and save time. (Ntm that it could make for an interesting final confrontation of Techit going ‘I killed your dad’, but that’s not necessary.)

Dan’s involvement can still be possible if the police is paid off for looking away from the drugs being transported, but Dan is the new cop and wants to do everything right and notices the drugs. Therefore the case with Sean’s father happens. Dan again finds it odd because maybe the amount of drugs in the report don’t add up with what he saw and details don’t work out in the report, but he’s told by the superiors to stay still.  Again, you still have the conflict of him realizing that the police is not that great organization you always thought, and even when he did the right thing in noticing the drugs an all, it still went sideways because the powerful people control the playing field instead of the law.  This way also Dan’s redemption for indirectly causing the death of Sean’s father takes up less space in the writing of the story because he is not the one who pulled the trigger. 

2. Dan’s guilt His guilt in the show about shooting an unarmed civilian even given the circumstances and how he got basically reassured by the rest of the police that it’s not ‘that bad’ sits incredibly deep. (which is understandable btw, I’m not trying to talk this down.) The thing, that also came to mind after the last episode is that with my basically non-extent knowledge about psychology I would assume, that after that incident there’d be an issue with even using a gun again, much less pointing it and shooting at somebody, no matter if good or bad. And yet, where also the amount of Dan’s later revealed guilt doesn’t make sense to me, he holds Yok (another unarmed civilian) at gun point in the beginning with no issue.  That’s where the disconnect for the writing of the character comes from for me. What we know now about his character does not make sense to me when looking back at the beginning. (I also feel like Dan is not written as a 30+ adult.) Again, with the suggested changes of the story with Sean’s father, it would work out again, and you could even make it a point of him having the gun, yes, but no ammunition? Something like that.

Now, this does remove the police as a problematic organization from Sean’s storyline to a degree, but you can fill that “empty space” with possible issues of police officers mistreating Yok’s mum at some point, and creating an arc for his personal goal of fighting for the better treatment of disabled people. 

This would also create a pattern for the relationships, that I personally think would be very cool:

Sean falling for somebody from a privileged up class family, the same class of people, who caused his father’s death. Yok falling for a police officer, who is part of the organization that makes the life of his mother difficult.  And finally some more thoughts about Gram and Black: Gram has been shown especially in the scene with Yok’s fireworks as somebody who is more cautious and on the side of being scared. Black on the other is more on the extreme side of feral. So, Gram as somebody who is not prone to violence and is interested in fighting within the system of law and changing that playing field falls for somebody who doesn’t have a big issue with violence. So, you would have opposing standpoints of what to do when the laws you have do not work the way they are supposed to. 

(Ntm them being the opposite to Sean and White, with Sean being the angry one and White the cautious one, and creating a parallel of what White said about Sean being the bravery and himself being the fear in that training scene, with this time Gram being the caution/fear and Black being the anger.)

Also, keep Eugene as the friend. Possibly also the friend for telling Gram, that she knows he’s into Black and she understands him being scared to admit it. And maybe even making a comment about Gram looking after Black, because that boy has self-destruction written all over his face. Eugene could’ve just ‘faded out of the picture gracefully’ same as Namo to give space/screentime to more important things. 

And ending in the note, that for the Gramblack angst, you basically just need really short scenes of him seeing “Black” and Sean getting closer and being upset. And he can voice that in other scenes with Eugene als this confusion about Black changing, to further show that there’s still the option of friendship if you’re into the same guy. Wouldve made both characters deeper, imo.

It is just it has been the same thing over and over and over.

Maybe they will be right but at this stage it doesn't make sense.

Dan has been established long before meeting Yok as someone that uses his art to go against the system , even if he is still part of it.

We have seen with Yok how he is trying to find a way to resolve his conflict, he is a cop but he has seen first how corrupted is that system.

And then we have his guilt about killing a man, in the flashback he is the only one that reacted in a human way, meaning he felt guilty and tried to go against all the justifications of his chief.

Dan is an overall complicated character cause he is living a huge ass conflict, a naive hope to change thing and a big baggage of guilt.