to manufactured triumph

TERENCE STAMP & KIEFER SUTHERLAND as JOHN TUNSTALL & JOSIAH GORDON "DOC" SCURLOCK

Hell yeah

1988 ★彡 I love these pics of him so much <3

"We had like a bromance but… fine, we were just lesbians. Or at least Faith was. I think Faith probably swang both ways. She had a definite thing for Buffy, no doubt. There were a lot of innuendos and there was a lot of heat there." - Eliza Dushku at Dragon Con Atlanta, 2011

4.11 // Breaking Point

sharpie doodle of Ed Teach frowning in bewilderment/gay judgment

3x02 - Two Daughters

Oh god, there's two of them now /lh

As for @auburnlaughter's other note: yes, the return to Buck in "Arrow of Time", if I'm not mistaken! I'm interested to see how that plays out. We'll definitely talk more about it then.

@mave000 has some thoughts to share!

I like that you called characters out on stuff here, but also gave them grace, in a way. Like with Ian. He’s immensely morally gray here. But you let him be responsible for his actions instead of saying Don is the only one to blame and who should feel bad here, as I’ve seen many do, unfortunately. Yes, Don definitely is at least partially responsible. But it was still Ian doing the torturing. Also, Ian is a grown man and not dependent on Don. He could have refused to do anything he didn’t want to do/agree with. But you also gave them room to redeem themselves. Like, for example you’ll wait and see what Don’s therapy arc will do. [...] Something I see a lot is people behaving like Don shooting Crystal was wrong (I think it’s even in the show). And I’m like, why? She was driving at them in a car full of explosive stuff and clearly intending this as a suicidal move. Only because Ian hesitated/wasn’t as quick, doesn’t mean Don was wrong to shoot her. If she wasn’t stopped, she would have killed and/or severely hurt everyone on that road. Or maybe I’m missing something. Of course killing is bad, but I don’t see how he could have avoided it except maybe hoping that Ian will do the job for him. Like, people say he should have waited for Ian to shoot her, but every second was putting her and the ammunition closer to the other people. So, I would say time was of the essence. And also, what’s the difference between Don shooting her and Ian doing the same thing? Like, nobody is saying Ian would have been wrong for shooting her.

Interesting point! If I may speculate, I do wonder if the audience blames Don more because the show focuses on Don. Ian is a side character who doesn't arc, and basically acts as a plot device, while Don is a main character who does evolve, so we spend more time watching him wrestle with his choices. Thus, the audience feels it can disregard Ian's actions because he's there just to further another character's arc (Charlie in SZ, Megan in Spree, Don here). Meanwhile, the audience has a bigger reaction around Don's choices because he's a main character.

The question I wanna know the answer to is: why is killing Crystal any different than any other shooting of a suspect? The VCS shoots randos in pursuits all the time. Why is Crystal so special? Two theories. 1. She's a character we've spent time with, we've had multiple scenes setting up her backstory, and watching her emotional progression. Thus, the death of a character like that is more impactful to the audience than if Colby shoots Gangster #3 in a firefight. And 2. we're setting up Don's therapy arc, and we need something to get his ass on the couch. Don's too macho to go to therapy on his own, so he needs to be forced; the only way to force him is his job, but why would the FBI force him to go to therapy? Uhhhhhh, maybe he kills someone? Yeah, yeah, write that down, write that down!

I think the answer to all of our questions stems from the same source: the show does something for the sake of a character/plot (today it's Don), and the audience feels the way the show wants them to feel. Which, on one hand, is the entire point of film and TV, to make the viewer experience an emotion, so, success! On the other hand, audience members who engage in complete surface-level consumption are my mortal enemies who will die horribly by my blade.

mave000: Very true, I think that’s probably it, main character vs recurring character. Maybe it’s also that people love the idea of Ian, this Rambo/Superman like character that comes in to solve problems and look/be cool. So of course he wouldn’t care about a lot of stuff and the audience doesn’t expect (or really want) him to. Like, he’s there to do what “needs to be done” and that’s it. It’s super unsatisfying for a fan, but you are right, sometimes you just have to accept a show for what it is.

Emphasis mine, but this is probably the big point in all of this: I imagine the writing team wasn't predicting that a group of 20-40 year old gays on tumblr.com would over-analyze their work 20 years later. They were thinking about reactions of the senior crowd who left CBS on to the TV all day, and maybe the mathematicians at CalTech. And, of course, studio execs at CBS. We might be making a mountain out of a mole hill on that one.

Mave: Also, great point on why we and the characters care about Crystal’s death at all. On the one hand, it would be emotionally impossible to care about every death on a show. On the other hand, why do there need to be so many deaths at all? Like, in the early bank robbery episode in season one, several people die in the shooting at the start, I believe. But we/Don et al only care about his coworker. Totally understandable why he cares about his coworker. But nobody even blinks an eye at the dead bank robber. Like, why do action scenes need bodies nobody cares about ever again anyway? In that way, copaganda in a lot of shows has kind of normalized police shootings with dead perps at the end. And people actually rooting for that outcome (at least in fiction). I really always loved watching all these procedurals growing up (also, I’m not from the US and it was all kinda fantasy to me), but you cannot think deeply about most of them. Things will start falling apart.

This comes back to the "criminals aren't humans in the eyes of the police state" thing we discussed on the SCTN for "The O.G." The VCS doesn't care if they kill the banker robbers because, hey, they decided to commit a crime, they've signed away their rights at being a person, this is on them! Even though we Woke Liberal Snowflakes (/sar) know that people are still people even if they do bad things, because we have working brains. But for the police state to continue operating, it needs to trick the populace into thinking otherwise. And it has! This is one of the reasons I continue with SCTN: procedurals like NUMB3RS perpetuate the copaganda, and it sucks, but it also has other artistic value, and we can hold space for both, but we have to verbalize that. Art, like the humans that make it, contain multitudes.

A revelation: @treading---lightly is LDPAnon! Some Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus shit going on!

....And much like that, it was probably really obvious they were the same person based on Treading's blog. Huh. I owe Lois Lane an apology.

Treading: Re: the torture. As we know, torture doesn’t work, but it’s portrayed as an actual way to get real, viable information here. Fully bullshit but also par for the course with copaganda, imo. HOWEVER. Focusing on Don’s regret really pushes my limit because it’s trying to play both sides. Torture is bad…because it makes the enactors of state violence feel sad sometimes??? And they can get therapy to move past it and accept that sometimes they have to torture people a little for the greater good??? I love Don as a character and Rob’s performance but this really grinds my gears.

Again, pure copaganda. The perpetrators of police violence are human people who sometimes to do bad things for the right reasons and get sympathy; the victims of police violence are animals that cannot be reasoned with and can only be controlled through pain and fear and death. DI-GUST-TING!!!! Fucking hate it in this country!!!

Treading: Ian! Here’s where my cognitive dissonance says yeah it’s fine we’re watching copaganda and having a great time with it. I love his performance in many, many ways, including that it introduced teenage Treading to LDP (I’m Mexican American, but somehow my first LDP exposure was this and not La Bamba. This is my Truth). He’s perpetually interesting to me. His earlier conversations with Megan + hospital flower line that was cut, I think it shows Ian as someone who really does want to connect with people, and genuinely enjoys the time he spends with the VCS/Eppes brothers, but also always holds himself at a distance because he thinks those connections will lead to him messing up on the job. So he’s always pushing and pulling at his own boundaries and setting up walls if he thinks he’s getting too involved emotionally.

Not La Bamba NOR Stand and Deliver? Crazy!

I think you've summarized Ian and LDP's performance perfectly. From the way LDP and Sanzel spoke, this is the exact thought process behind Ian. I crown thee Numb3rs tumblr (numbl3r? numblrs?)'s Ian Edgerton Expert!

Treading: Personally, I read him as possibly aroace, possibly pan, or a combo…whatever he is, he’s coming at it in an intellectualizing/analytical way. He’s someone who could enjoy sex and romantic relationships, and maybe on some level actively wants them, but prioritizes his work and sees these as liabilities so he’ll always pull back and not let the relationship go too far (like we see with Nikki later on). So imo he IS being romantic/flirty with Charlie, but won’t actually let it go anywhere because of how messy it could get with the Eppes/VCS. This also seems to more or less line up with LDP’s read of Ian, which makes me happy!

Maybe this is why most of us fans are obsessed with Ian. He's the one that might actually be played as queer.

Treading: Re (9), gambling with Megan’s life - I do find that scene a bit contrived because I feel like moving Megan (without a stretcher!) vs waiting for EMTs is not the safest move anyway, which makes me think Ian is fine to take the car and head after Crystal. But then, that’s maybe an Ian way of looking at it vs the team focusing fully on Megan in the moment, regardless of it actually makes sense to move her or not.

That is a fair point! I think this might be a writing team decision - if Ian catches up with Crystal now, what about the rest of the episode where they track down Crystal's daughter and have the standoff? It's easier to write that in if Ian is forced to stay.

Navi being in 24 makes sense! It was one of those shows that every actor of that caliber was making cameos in during the '00s.

Finally, @rattboxwarriorr, thank you for your kind words! More than likely, between me and Treading, we will hit every Ian episode lol. Ian really did make a big impression for only being in 9 episodes!

Ooh, "doylist" and "watsonian" are terms I haven't heard in a while! Most modern fandoms tend to be extremely watsonian in their discussions, which it's great to see meta analyses again! But it can lead to Johnlock Conspiracy levels of mass delusions (I was a TJLCer, I can say that). The Pitt fandom almost has a good balance of the two, but it's gotten lost in the discourse. It's still tough being a fan.

may I also offer: Crystal is a white woman, and a white woman from a ‘good’ family, who had a respectable middle class job at that. Not your ‘typical’ expendable criminal. 🙄

Not La Bamba NOR Stand and Deliver? Crazy!

oh wait, on reflection, I did see Stand and Deliver in a high school math class. This is also where I first saw Numb3rs - not sure which came first, but Numb3rs caught my attention more somehow. We also watched Kangaroo Jack in geography class. My school was…not great.

I crown thee Numb3rs tumblr (numbl3r? numblrs?)'s Ian Edgerton Expert!