Heyo itâs me, Iâm here to ruin ya day
Thoughts on Mitzi and Mordecaiâs parallels and how desperate they are to find answers about Altasâs death?
mordecai heller and mitzi may: a piece on grieving.
FIRST of all, i apologise that this response took a very long time to cook up. i wanted it to be as fleshed out as possible because i do have a lot to say in this regard. the train of thought initially departed because of the widespread misunderstanding around mitziâs character. to which i thought to myself: well itâs strange that people can easily extend their empathy towards mordecai, who (to me) has undoubtedly done worse. but whatâs even worse is that, if you really look closelyâ if we made a venn diagram for these two, thereâs a large chunk of overlap between them.
(p.s. now that i am proofreading all of this i realise its a bit different from what you asked but nonetheless i hope it captures the complex nature of grief as a theme in lackadaisy, especially when discussing the parallels between mitzi and mordecai)
so letâs break it down.
if someone wanted to read lackadaisy and asked me if there were any main themes that circled around the storyâ i would say: grief. more specifically, the consequences of untapped grief. mean the story itself starts off with the mysterious and brutal death of atlas may, who was THE big cat behind the lackadaisy. atlas himself was an enigma, and i have mentioned this before in another post. his position within the story bears a lot of similarities to rose quartz as they play the ghastly spouse that haunts the narrative.
however, this is not about atlas, but instead the two people that served as his vessel after his passing:
his wife, mitzi, and his right-hand man, mordecai.
instead of dissecting this theme individually, finding the differences between the two, i thought it would do the analysis more justice to extract it directly from the source material itself. initially i wanted to talk about how this grieving bleeds out onto others around them (e.g. mitzi forging a check from wick, mordecai kneecapping viktor).
letâs take âhamstringâ and âmonomaniaâ for example, as they both converse over asaâs claims at their lunch. but if you really think about it, it was never about that.
this scene embodies a power struggle between the two. for one, mitziâs mentions of mordecaiâs âobsessionâ as a deflection. she sees his rigid loyalty as both a flaw and a threat. by framing mordecai as overly fixated, sheâs able to position herself as the more pragmatic party who is trying to keep afloat. which is true and mitzi, rightfully, views mordecai as a ârelentless former associate.â his meticulous nature, his refusal to let go of the past, and his allegiance to ideals that no longer align with businessâ survival paints him as the wildcard to her. then again, itâs hard to take empty words from someone that had abandoned the very concept he claims to protect.
thatâs not to say mordecai doesnât return the sentiment, because he very much does. to him, mitziâs pragmatism looks more like opportunism, evident in her willingness to bend rules, and in his perspective, betray atlasâ vision to keep the business alive. while she plays the capable leader, that imagery clashes with his perception of her as someone who lacks disciplineâ possibly bred by the history that mordecai knows her to be atlasâ wife and nobody more. he sees mitzi as culpable in the lackadaisyâs downfall and he makes sure she knows this.
but at the end of the day, they are having this conversation inside the same car. while one might interpret this being the main divergence between the two, we can see a striking commonality in which they are failed actors starring in roles they never wanted.
what do i mean by this? while the dont outwardly acknowledge it, grief survives in this scenario as a subtext. you can tell by the use of dialogue. mitziâs sarcastic tone and pointed remarks, almost shoving the spotlight towards mordecai, suggests a stage of denial and pain that comes with her grieving over atlas. remember what mordecai said to mitzi in response?
âlosses are endemic to this business. youâve brought them on yourself in your persistence⌠as though you could bring the remains of atlasâ estate to anything but further disgrace.â
his crticisim of mitzi isnât just about the state of the lackadaisy, in fact, mordecai subconsciously targets himself for his own inability to move on. mordecai and mitzi are different people, that is no question. but this scene serves as a great analogy that this conversation could very much be happening in their heads. this is a conversation not between two people but between one and oneself.
hereâs also another thing to note: their seating arrangement.
whether or not tracy meant for this to be intentional, thereâs a lot you can take in this scene in regards to their character. mitzi sits in the passenger seat at the front, where the light is more prominent. it symbolises her active role as the current face of the lackadaisy and the one taking on visible responsibility for its perseverance. however, note that she is still in the passenger seat, not the driverâsâ mitzi is losing control, she is struggling to move forward in the wake of atlasâ passing. but sheâs still not fully in charge of its trajectory, think of how asa and mordecai looks down on her current position.
occasionally, sheâd glance back at mordecai to speak, which definitely shows her discomfort and mistrust towards him, sheâs unwilling to fully confront him. and in my opinion, not only does this reveal her vulnerability, this also shows her internal discontent.
mordecai, on the other hand, is sitting behind her (literally AND metaphorically) in the shadows. he sits in the back, detached from the lackadaisy but not completely. he observes mitzi from behind, his direct vision fixed on the back of her head, almost as if heâs reflecting on her choices and her strugglesâ perhaps⌠confronted with his own betrayal.
plus, if youâre thinking: what about the holes in the windows? GREAT question. despite how they want to present themselves, be it independent (mitzi) or calculated (mordecai), theyâre both incredibly vulnerable individuals.
as they sit in this confined space together, they breathe in the air of their inescapable bond and mutual dependence. their dynamic equal parts antagonistic and deeply intertwined.
