#beth botrelle

[ds-headcanons-accepted]

In The Ladies' Man, we learn that Ray Kowalski was a rookie when he responded to the call to Beth Botrelle's house. In the flashback, we see him in uniform, he does not appear to be a detective yet. We also learn that all of this happened eight years ago. Assuming Ray is in his mid to late thirties on the show, he would have been in his late twenties then. This leaves a lot of room for this week's question:

What did Ray Kowalski do between dropping out of college and entering the police academy? Even if I calculate very generously, I can't see a way for that gap to be less than five years!

Remember, kids: there are no wrong answers except "bad writing lol" and "someone forgot to write down that Ray Kowalski received his first citation in 1988". At least one person (me) will find your idea interesting, though I'm willing to gamble (not with money, mind you) that I won't be the only one. If you're shy, try sending your response as an anonymous ask for me to publish!

[juniperpomegranate]

It’s too early o’clock, I have not gotten enough sleep, I will need to go into work in a few hours, and I have a sudden urge to learn how to screencap so I can learn how to make icons because a) I still use old-style journal sites, it’s fun and b) there are no icons of Beth Botrelle and that cannot stand.

[hexenmeisterer]

Comparing “The Ladies’ Man” to “A Likely Story”

Some collaborative due South meta 

Here’s what happens when two friends separated by lots of geography watch due South together over Skype, read ALL of truepenny’s meta, and then start jamming in a google doc about two episodes-- which differ drastically in tone but share a bunch of themes! (crossposted here on DW, which is a better place to comment if you wanna have an actual back-and-forth discussion.)

H is me and T is the inimitable @touchmycoat.

H: In “A Likely Story,” Ray is trapped in his ideas about his love interest (what’s her name again?). He cannot for the life of him tell when she’s lying, he can’t see her true motivations, he can’t know her. He’s just using her as a blank screen to project his internal conflicts onto. This is, as truepenny points out, a theme that due South returns to almost every single time it explores romance. How many episodes philosophize on the possibility of “love at first sight?” Off the top of my head, I’ve got “You Must Remember This,” “Victoria’s Secret,” “An Invitation To Romance,” and “Say Amen”…

As Huey and Dewey say in “Say Amen,”

“Well, you know the thing is, you can't really love someone until you know them.”  “Sure you can. The hard thing is to love them after you know them.”

T: The love interest’s name is Luann— Frannie’s actually the first person to name her, well into the episode. Luann’s not introduced to us, to Ray, to Fraser by name, relation, or even profession. We’re just left to assume she has a caretaking role for Mrs. Tucci based on her age and actions. The dialogue even (intentionally?) suffers from this unknowing; Ray says, “Look Fraser, I am very sorry for Mrs. Tucci’s loss, and I will make every effort to find the killer of her husband, but the fact remains she is a very beautiful woman.” The pronoun confusion just further highlights how much it doesn’t matter who Luann is, just that she is “a beautiful woman.” This issue goes from highlight to glaring headlights when the cut from EXT. CAR, EVENING to IN. STATION, DAY is done by their conversation just rolling over, and guess what they’re talking about? Well, Ray’s talking about sex, and how little of it they’re both getting.

H: The Lou Skagnetti story and Sword of Desire, which both show up multiple times throughout the episode, explore the (gendered) stories people build around romance. The ending scene specifically juxtaposes these two stories about love by putting their endings right next to each other. Ray and Luann have retreated from each other after a failed attempt at connection, and they both soothe their disappointment by turning to fantastical love stories.

This one, told between two men, out in the “wilderness” by a campfire:

“Lou Skagnetti looked at the princess who sat across the stone table in the stone cabin high atop Sulfur Mountain, and the princess smiled at him. And for a brief second, Lou Skagnetti could hear his own inner bell ring as though it were rung by a thousand angels. And he took his hand and he placed it over his heart, and Lou Skagnetti vowed that never again would he kill and eat another princess as long as he lived. . . unless, of course, she were covered in choke cherries and brown lichen and a sprinkling of dust -”

vs. this one, read in a comfortable bedroom (with the most floral bedspread ever invented), a story that one woman read aloud to another to help her sleep:

“Gabriella's chest heaved at the sight of him. His boldness made her feel like a true princess. As he came near her, she could feel the trembling of the deep inside her most secret place…”

Notice how they could almost be the same story told from different perspectives.

Fraser’s story, though, does not offer the same easy comfort Luann’s does. His story is a funny distraction, but it's also a dark mirror held up to romance. Fraser's status as an outsider means he knows different stories than Ray and Luann. This story shows the blood and guts of love. In the context of the episode, it gestures at how the theater of "love" often leads people to act in deeply un-loving ways towards each other; how it can get in the way of people even knowing each other. (“That's one dark story.” “Yes. It is.”)

Fraser has seen Ray use his position as a police officer to stalk his ex and now he’s seen him try to date a suspect. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he’s telling Ray a story where the protagonist has been “eating princesses.” The story’s not just an accusation, though; it’s a hopeful story, a humorous story; it’s told playfully and as an act of care, and it points to the possibility of true love in the future that is not based on violence.

T: I almost wish the show had the continuity to also let this moment comment explicitly on what Fraser couldn't get from Victoria. His love for her is so mired in guilt that he thinks himself deserving of all the violences she visits on his person. It's like, Ray is pre-Lou Skagnetti and Fraser is post-Lou Skagnetti; Ray needs to stop his violence and Fraser needs to pay for his violence. The same problem of failed recognition occurs on both sides of the story.

H: I love your point about Fraser being like Ray but somewhere further along in the accountability process.

In the "love-at-first-sight vs. true knowledge of a person" saga that is this show, there is one unexpected pair of people who know and love each other deeply after very little time spent together: Beth Botrelle and Ray Kowalski. They can see right through each other. They understand each other’s motivations— so not only can they tell when the other’s lying, but they can tell you exactly why. They are bound together through shared experience. And while their story is obviously not romantic, it is shockingly loving. Beth is willing to falsely confess to a murder she is unjustly accused of just to make Ray feel better, just to give him a real shot at moving on with his life after she dies. Ray is obviously willing to risk his job and his life to exonerate her, but he is also uniquely willing to admit his mistakes to her; he tells the truth exactly as it happened, and therefore sacrifices the easy self-justifications that have kept him functioning as a cop and as a person all these years.

(and, side note— how interesting is it that Beth of all people calls Ray “queer,” and his response is to laugh and nod?)

Beth does need to be saved from a death sentence, but she is emphatically not a damsel in distress (or a "princess"). She needs to save Ray as much as he needs to save her. Both of them know that their freedom is bound up in the other's.

T: So maybe in some ways this is Ray's post-Lou Skagnetti (I'm laughing as I write these words but bear with me). This is his Victoria, but antithetically; this is where he pays for the violence. Victoria was guilty and Fraser arrested her, Beth was innocent and Ray arrested her—but they both know, to some extent, that the arrests seemed immoral (Fraser in particular, where if they did actually sleep together, he’s fully abused his power as an officer of the law). Where Victoria wanted to destroy Fraser for it, Beth wanted to save Ray from it (she sought to alleviate his conscience by telling him she was guilty). But both Fraser and Ray had to be willing to destroy themselves and the roles they occupied for Victoria and Beth. The Fraser who is whole and the Victoria who seeks his destruction cannot coexist. And, to continue your reading of "Ladies' Man" as the keystone episode where Ray just really should not be a cop anymore, the Ray who is a cop and the Beth who is innocent/alive cannot coexist. There's something very interesting about these relationships between men and women that fail due to one or both of their placement in some kind of institution, because of one or both of their duties/supposed loyalties. Fraser's commitment to duty catalyzes the break between him and Victoria. Ray's abuse of his authority is no fucking good for Stella or Luann, and even when he succumbs to the ease of police authority he fucks over Beth.

Tying Ray and Fraser and Victoria back to “A Likely Story,” everybody, particularly Ray, speaks in projections; throughout the episode, Fraser is the mirror while Ray is the puppy, as in Ray doesn’t know the other puppy isn’t real, so he’s snarling and barking at the mirror, who is merely the medium through which the reflection is transposed.

H: “FRASER IS THE MIRROR AND RAY IS THE PUPPY” WHAT THE FUCK I LOVE THIS IMAGE. IT IS ABSURD AND TRUE. YOU ARE BRILLIANT. Please, expand upon this point.

T: This one particular projection:

Ray: “Let me see if I got this right, Fraser. Luann is a beautiful woman, therefore she must be bad. And since she's a really beautiful woman, that means she's got to be really bad. Is that how it goes inside your brain?”

Of all the projections, Fraser most clearly calls this one out for what it is: “Are you sure it is my brain we are talking about?” Funny, since this is the one projection that fully echoes Fraser’s hangups about Victoria. Vecchio’s line from “Letting Go” seems resonant: “Not every woman with long dark hair tries to kill their lover.” But this is clearly about Ray: his low sense of self-worth makes him look for flaws in women he believes are “beautiful” and out of his league.

H: Yes!! They're both backed into these low-self-esteem corners with regards to romantic relationships: they’re both thinking, "there's something wrong with me." Ray projects that outwards (“what’s wrong with this woman?”), but Fraser does a slightly different thing with it: “if she's into me, she must be operating on an incomplete set of data.” Fraser knows that people think he's attractive, but also thinks that they can't see/know him enough to love him in a real way. I think that's why he was so INTO Victoria-- she knew he did bad things and wanted him anyways! And she, to his mind at the time, was clear-headed about what kind of punishment he deserved for his wrongdoing. There's something more comforting about that than waiting for the other shoe to drop.

T: Both “A Likely Story” and “Ladies’ Man” are about women that Ray Kowalski has wronged, and both end with Ray apologizing—very sincerely—to the women. Fundamentally, I love that as a narrative choice.

H: Yes. Apologize, man. (Apologize and quit your job. I think these two episodes lay out a really compelling case for exactly why Ray does not go back to being a cop post-COTW.)

To summarize:

Ray is a human-shaped projector. He can’t readily name his feelings, but they do warp his perceptions of reality and he does act them out. "I don't know what I want till I see what I do." -Ray Kowalski in The Teeth of the Hydra by Resonant.

This is terrible news for everyone involved when you're a cop!

These episodes both deal with the nature of love-- its relationship to truth and to police work. “A Likely Story” shows the burdensome trappings of heterosexual, romantic love, which in this case serve to obfuscate the truth; “The Ladies’ Man” shows an intense kind of "true love" between a man and a woman that has nothing to do with romance or sex and everything to do with solidarity and truth-telling.

T: And 4, we can absolutely implicate Fraser, at least thematically, in something every step of the way, el oh el.

[spaceradars]

okay, so. due south. the ladies' man. here's the essay.

the thing i liked about due south in the first place was the way it was this charming little show about people wanting to be and do good. and by 'people' i actually mean fraser, not only as a protagonist but as that *one* particular character who does not only try to do/be good, or to help others, but constantly chooses to do so. and i think the part of choosing and the importance of choices have a great deal to do with this one, particular episode. and so does anger. because, it's impossible not to get angry when it comes to this episode. and it's the kind of anger that makes you want to grab the screen and scream at it, because you can't help but to think "this isn't fair" the entire time. and, at least for me, anger goes two ways, and is this anger what actually connects with this goodness theme that's so particularly present in due south almost the entire time.

because, like, everytime i watch this i get angry because of how the system works, and i bet we all do. we all know how the system works, and we all know it's a chain of command, bureaucracy and, many times, injustice (because justice many times exists only if it benefits those with power, right?). this episode is the proof of that. it shows us how far people can go to succeed and keep their own interests/reputation/images intact —even if that means condemning others. and of course the episode ends well, because the innocent life that was condemned is saved, and the unjust system and its perpetrators are exposed, so it's a good ending, right? except that it isn't. i mean, it is, but there's something of a bitter taste in it, too.

and that's when i get angry again, but not really at the system this time (even if there can be plenty of more talking about that) —but at rayk. and here's (one of) the thing(s) i find so compelling about the episode. like, the whole episode is centered around him and the fact he's the one going against the clock in order to try (and ultimately, do) the right thing. it's not fraser (who's pretty much always the one who's trying to do the right thing TM, whatever that is) but ray who's trying to do the investigation/detective work that was not done eight years ago in the remaining forty-eight hours he's got to save an innocent woman's life. and at the same time (at least to me), it's impossible not to be angry at him, too. because if only he had payed a little more attention years ago to a key piece of evidence, the entire thing would've turned out differently. so knowing how the episode goes, once you rewatch it you just want to shake the screen (again) and scream at ray not to contaminate it, and/or to pay attention to that piece of paper before the others (re: those at the top of this chain of command) take it and it's more than late (and regarding this there's a lot that can be said about the role of cops and how "good" cops aren't really allowed to exist in the system because of how it works). so it's impossible (to me, at least) not to have this mix of feelings when it comes to ray —on one hand, you want him (and need him) to succeed and to prove beth's innocence before it's too late; on the other hand, there's the anger that comes with the "why couldn't you do all this detective work eight years ago????!!!!"

and i think that what left me thinking about this episode the most on this last rewatch a few days ago was the fact it just gives you (whether that was intentional or not, maybe i'm reading too much into this but ANYWAY) a lot of stuff when it comes to ray as a character (like the flashbacks to that night eight years ago during his first big case, kneeling besides jake botrelle's body could explain his disgust every time he enters the morgue. or his confession about never having k*lled anyone. or the whole "could you pull the switch?" and the story about his dog). and also a real look (maybe not the first one but certainly there's no other like this one) at ray as a character and what does he stand up for/what are his values, but not through fraser's lanes. and i mean, not that we didn't know anything about him as a character before, but this particular episode centers on him exclusively, and we find fraser at a side (mostly as some sort of emotional support, but also as a helping hand in the entire case).

one thing i noticed that i never properly thought about during my original watch/other rewatches of the episode was beth saying that they had taken her "to the d*ath room four times" like. did ray even became aware of that? where was the entire "i've got to look her in the eye" thing? or is this entire thing happening *now* because he's actually decided to go talk to her no matter what that means to *him*? or is it because of fraser's influence/the entire reassurement that comes with the fact fraser's there not only as a helping hand but offering his support? like, fraser's entire presence and his relationship with ray being that little push he needs in order to try (and do something) in order to help someone. it's just ultimately amazing the amount of things this particular episode opens the door to (and i could write more but it's like. getting too long).

and there's this one last thing. i know this trying to do and be good is part of due south as a show (and especially of fraser as a character) but today i was rewatching good for the soul and i couldn't stop thinking about how that episode and that plot is (in a way) almost like justapoxed to the ladies' man. like, in good for the soul you get this character that has a lot of power and influences and does whatever he wants with it (slapping a waiter is just what works as conflict for the episode, but we know there's much more than that), and i just feel like there's almost a certain naivety in fraser's willingness to do something about it. because, we all know there's people like this and no one does anything about it, right? everywhere, all over the world. it seems like almost impossible to stop them. and then there's the ladies man, an episode in which we're showed the the justice system works in a determinate way, too —only it's not supposed to. and it's not that we don't know that, it's just that it still feels wrong the fact it works like that, even if we know it does. and both episodes make me extremely angry because of different (and sometimes, not so different) reasons, but the main difference, i think, it's that with good for the soul you just assume things work like that sometimes, even if we ultimately want fraser to succeed (and he does!!!!!), and i actually admire his relentless efforts in trying to do the right thing. but, at least the first time i watched this episode, i honestly didn't expect him to succeed, and i was surprised when he did. with the ladies man is, once again, a race against the clock —ray can't fail. it's not that he shouldn't, he just can't.

and there's closure, another main difference. in good for the soul, there's a sense of relief at the end of the episode, and we're all glad, and it's christmas, and it's beautiful. and i think that the thing with the ladies man is that, of course you want beth to be free and to ray to solve the entire thing and find the truth... but there's no consolation in the end. there may be some closure, but the ending it's bittersweet because it's like, good, ray did it, she's free, but at the same time, eight years were stolen from her. and she knows, we know, and ray knows (maybe that explains the crying in the end, although a million different things can explain it, including relief and some more guilt and there's another essay we could make about it).

it's honestly such a bitterweet episode and very few due south episodes get as real as this one. everytime i rewatch it i need to think about it for a while because there's so much to analize and just so many things to put together, i couldn't even write them all here... but it's just so worth it, at the same time

[itwoodbeprefect]

god. okay. today’s one of those days where i can’t stop thinking about how i’m like, 95% sure that in due south rayv never uses the word queer at all in two seasons (and i’m less sure, but i don’t think anybody else in those first two seasons does, either?), and then rayk shows up and in his second episode he says there’s something queer and then they find two criminals, one of whom later happily says “so have i. it was rather fun” when fraser tells the room at large that yes, indeed, he has pretended to be a woman before, all of which happens while ray is asking fraser if fraser thinks he’s attractive. and that’s without getting into the other times rayk apparently thinks something is queer (because he does use that word), and also not mentioning the time beth botrelle sits right across from him and is mockingly pretending to speak for him and she goes “i’m here because i’m here because i’m queer” and all of the pushback we get is ray saying “kinda nutty, huh” before beth says she’s pretty well-adjusted considering the circumstances and he admits she has a point, and it’s like, oh. okay. there’s so much of this so suddenly that i don’t know how to not make something out of it.

[mortmere]

In the opening shot of "The Ladies' Man", we see a closeup of a news article about Beth Botrelle's impending execution. Below it, they could've put literally anything, or nothing at all. What they chose to show there is a headline about a "slasher" case. (I assume the full headline is "No new clues in slasher case.") Judging by the amount of snow, the episode was filmed early in 1998, well after that [insert an adjective of your own choice] journalist introduced Paul Gross to the concept of slash the previous summer (the interview published in Elm Street magazine, October 1997) and made him want to know more: "How can I see this stuff? Where do I go in on the Internet?"

Intentional double meaning and a wink to the slash fans, or just an innocent coincidence?

[scarletjedi]

You said that you don't have to choose a Ray in Due South, because both Rays are wonderful for different reasons. Can you talk about those reasons? I love RayV, but I've had a hard time liking Kowalski. There's something about his personality that irritates me.

Sure! 

Remember, that all of this is my opinion, and one that has been shaped and polished by 20 years of fanfic. This is also long, hence it’s under the cut :D

I wanna begin by saying that I loved Ray V first. When I started watching Due South (because I read a .rtf fic names XDS - a crossover between X-Files, Due South, and Star Wars that I came to though Star Wars and read because I knew X-Files and figured I could learn enough about Due South to make it work), the show was playing on TNT in the afternoons, and may have actually been *before* Ray Kowalski made an appearance. 

I watched the first two seasons, I started reading Due South fic alongside Star Wars fic. I discovered Slash, and read a few Ray V/Fraser stories with my Luke/Wedge and Luke/Biggs fic, but at the time I was mostly reading Fraser/Frannie or Fraser/Thatcher. 

I didn’t dislike Fraser/Ray V, but I was young -- young enough that I worried about my parents finding the one slash fic that I dared print out (my dad had the internet, my mom didn’t. So, I’d print out stories on the weekend and read them over the week). 

Then I found out about Ray K and I stopped watching Due South. I was pissed! You can’t just replace one half of the duo! It doesn’t work like that! But, eventually, I came back. I missed Fraser, and figured I’d give Ray K a shot - and I loved him. They knew not to make him try and fill the same niche - and, when they finally met, the clash between them was perfectly done to highlight the different roles they filled. I dived headfirst into Fraser/Ray K fic (partially because I was older and had lost my hesitation around slash fic, and partially because my mom had finally gotten the internet). 

And that, I think, is the crux of the issue. Ray V and Ray K offer Fraser a different relationship because they’re different people and satisfy different needs - thus telling a different story. 

Let’s begin with Ray V. 

When you look at the beginning of the series, Fraser, like the protagonist of any fantasy story, is orphaned (literally, the first scene is Bob Fraser’s death) and alone- he’s the odd duck, the isolated character to facilitate his travel. it’s hard to go off and be a hero when you have responsibilities at home (hence why in Star Wars Luke doesn’t leave Tatooine until Owen and Beru are killed, or why Harry Potter is hated by the Dursleys). With no siblings (yet), and his mother and grandparents dead before the series, Fraser has no family. 

The driving force of the series is thus born, Fraser is looking for the killers of his father - the last of his family (even if he was a terrible father). The family relationships in the show are all very important, and are highlighted in different ways, thus giving us the theme of the Ray V seasons - the importance of family. 

Because, Ray V is *lousy* with family in a way that most Italian-American families are - you don’t always like your family, but you *all* gather for dinner when Ma makes her Sunday Gravy. And, in the *pilot* when he’s known this crazy mountie for less than 12 hours, he invites Ben HOME to his FAMILY for FOOD. (Ben is clearly uncomfortable, and it’s played for comedy, but it’s also heartbreaking. Ben is not used to effusive emotion --or any emotion-- and he is certainly not used to so many people acting like such a family.) Ray, in a sense, adopts Fraser. 

Now, you can say that taking Fraser home could be a “meeting the family” moment, like bringing home a new girlfriend. Ray is defensive of Fraser’s honor when Frannie hits on him, after all. 

But, there’s something about it that smacks more of *family* to me - he brought Ben home to be his *brother* and give Ben the surrogate family he has missed. (hence why Frannie throws herself at him - and also why Fraser keeps turning her down. Textually it’s because she’s his best friend’s sister, but thematically, she’s his new sister as well) 

Further, Ray V doesn’t react with jealousy when Victoria blows into down on her ill wind - he’s proud, and supportive, and then defensive when he realizes how terrible she is for Ben. 

I mean, yeah, Mrs. Fraser does dance with Ray V, but it’s because Ray V is the “safe” option. Now, if you want to say that’s because Ray V and Fraser are lovers? I can see why! It was certainly important in the few fics I have read, and I see it.

I think, ultimately, Ray V as Fraser’s New Family was the intent of the writers, and the writing on this show is *tight*. It makes sense that, with a plot focused on finding what ended your old family, you find new family. 

But then came the brief hiatus, Paul Gross taking over more creative control, and Collum Keith Rennie. PG said in an interview that they’d taking Ray K in a new direction, “very homoerotic, the fans will love it”

And...they did. Ray V’s telephone call - the ache in his voice because he knows that he’s not gonna be able to say goodbye (like Bob) is palpable, and feels almost like a breakup, signaling a shift in tone. This is no longer a show about the search for family - Ben found his family. Even with Ray V off screen, there’s no doubt that Fraser is a Vecchio -- but about finding a *parter* 

There’s red ships and green ships but no ships like partnerships. 

This half of the show gives us not only this line, but highlights the relationship between Buck and Bob (that was began in Ray V’s season), and focuses more than ever on pairing Fraser off (with more female love interests than Victoria, even though none of them pan out) and on Ray K’s divorce. 

Textually, they are two bachelors lonely for love. Thematically, the focus is on romantic parings, not brotherhood. 

“A partnership is like a marriage, son” 

Ray K comes in, and he doesn’t try to be Fraser’s brother. Fraser has a brother, and wouldn’t welcome Ray K to try and fill Ray V’s shoes. They spend an entire episode showing all the way Ray K would never wear Ray V’s shoes (and not just because Ray K wears boots like Steve McQueen and Ray V wears Italian Leather), and also showing us that Ray K *is there for Fraser anyway*, symbolically taking a bullet the way Ray V did. 

(We also see Ray K fall hard for Fraser’s sister in a way that’s dropped, showing the audience, thematically and sub-textually, what they can’t textually because of the censors)

This new Ray, he’s sharp, he’s prickly, he’s “d-u-m, dumb” the way Vecchio was slick, as a way to disarm and play off of the straight forward image of Fraser’s serge. He’s a paradox - a crack shot who wears glasses, a vulnerable tough guy, a romantic punk. He gets under Fraser’s skin in such a way that Fraser begins to relax around him as well. I admit, I have an existing fondness for the tough-guy-with-a-heart-of-gold, and Ray K is that to a T. He’s not perfect (stalking his X, hello), but he tries to be better, and that I appreciate. It makes him a dynamic character. He has a temper, but he flashes quickly and then cools - it’s a good foil to Fraser’s simmering anger. 

Remember, Fraser told Ray V about Victoria, and Ray V was sleeping. 

Fraser tells Ray K about Gerrard. and Muldoon. and Bob. 

Ray K tells Fraser about Stella. and the Bank. and Beth Botrelle. 

The audience gets more of Fraser underneath his serge as a result of his relationship with Ray K - who is, himself, an “orphan” (estranged and living at a distance, his closest “family” is his ex-wife) can connect with Fraser on that level because he gets it in a way that Ray V, who has never not had his family, can’t fully. 

All of this comes to a head in the finale, when the Rays meet, and we see them clash - this is the “bringing the boyfriend home” moment. Ray K, the “boyfriend” meets Ray V, the “brother”, and the Brother wants to know if the boyfriend is good enough. They tense, and then they both go after Fraser because Fraser draws people in his wake like he walked through a line of streamers. 

They go north, and Ray K steps up as Fraser’s parter, taking an interest in the North in a way that Ray V never did (Ray K goes on the quest, Ray V tried to install modern plumbing). An that quest? The closest to “ride off together into the sunset” that I’ve seen outside of Disney. 

Ultimately, Ray V sees Fraser like his family: He doesn’t need to understand him, because he loves him and that’s what families do. 

Ray K sees Fraser like his spouse: What he doesn’t already understand, he tries to because it’s important to Fraser to be understood. 

Both are amazing partners for Fraser to have. Both fill different niches. Both are telling different stories. 

[alwaysalreadyangry]

due south: the ladies man (redux)

In the fall of 1998, I was a student of Derrida’s in his seminar at The New School for Social Research, “Justice, Perjury, and Forgiveness.” Despite the ambitious title, Derrida’s singular focus that semester was forgiveness. He was particularly interested in the notion that to be pardoned or forgiven is only actually meaningful in the face of the unpardonable, the unforgivable. To forgive someone for a minor mistake, or to say “pardon me” when accidentally bumping into a stranger on the street, is perhaps a nicety, a well-meaning mannerism or gesture, but where forgiveness is really needed — where it actually changes human relations — is where (and when) it is given to the unforgivable. In this way, the power of forgiveness depends upon the unforgivable.

Since then, I have maintained a correlated interest in the acceptance of the unacceptable, in the toleration of the intolerable, pairings that indicate a deeper problem; deeper in the sense that humans regularly accept the unacceptable (unlike forgiving the unforgivable). People regularly accept theoretically changeable facts of the world that are, even by their own accounts, totally unacceptable. Adjustments and acquiescence to unhappiness and dissatisfaction are common expectations of a practical life of “doing what one has to do,” and yet, it remains a basic ethical instinct to say that we should not accept a life that does us and others real measurable harm — at home, at work, in school, in society. And yet we regularly do. We do, that is, until there is a revolt against the unacceptable, against the intolerable.

richard gilman-opalsky, specters of revolt

this is an interesting section in the introduction to the book i’m reading. the book is mostly about revolt and its possiblities -- both the possibility of revolt haunting the capitalist world, but also the possibilities of what revolt can do.

but i think there’s something interesting in this passage -- and as someone who really struggles with derrida that’s not something i expected to find myself saying. after these two paragraphs, gilman-opalsky starts talking about revolt. which i am also interested in. but i do find myself thinking about the moments before. all the unforgivable moments before. before revolt; when revolt is a ghost, a potential body rather than a real physical force. and then i also think a lot about the idea that forgiveness given to the unforgivable has the power to change human relations.

which all relates back to my meta on what the ladies’ man in due south says about law enforcement and the US “justice system”.

because the bit i was struggling with the reading of the most was: the scene between beth botrelle and ray kowalski at the end of the episode. it’s not that i found it hard to reconcile it with the rest of the episode; on an emotional sense i understand why that scene is there. it’s about the system, not him. she understands... and also, it’s him facing a final, impossibly hard emotional truth. and... it’s ray giving the crime scene back to her, and making it back into a personal tragedy. or the scene of the crime done to her.

but on a craft sense; or on an ideological sense, i wondered exactly what the final embrace between them was saying. ray apologising multiple times; beth botrelle hugging him, and kissing him on the cheek. it’s a brutal, beautiful moment; why?

so i’ve been talking with @zielenna about this episode, and one of the other things that came up was the way in which it talks about masculinity, but especially through this very male police hierarchy. all of the cops around and especially above ray are men. the woman he has to fight to exonerate and her lawyer are both women -- and this is not a coincidence. no, it’s very much about patriarchal systems... the patriarchal arm of the state and the ways in which masculinity & homosocial relations are used to keep men in line, to keep them as enforcers of it.

there’s something also interesting that the dead guy is a male cop -- and a male cop who is named, in the episode’s title, as a “ladies’ man”. no, not a ladies’ man. he was “the ladies’ man”. there’s something there about virile masculinity, about how men admire other men who treat women badly.

and so when ray dissents from the ways in which the basic instinct of the police force is to cheer the woman’s execution, to bray for her blood (dewey operates here as a stand-in for the force at large) -- there is a sense in which that can be seen as a rejection of these structures of male power. by which i don’t mean that i’m reading ray as a radical feminist. but if we’re thinking about human relations, and the act of changing them at a time of emergency (and this episode is absolutely about a state of emergency), then it bears teasing out. he is absolutely rejecting a system of male power and personal relationships that intersect with and help strengthen this power. 

this episode gives us a male mentor for ray kowalski, who up until now has had very little past beyond his family and ex-wife. a workplace mentor; a mentor who pretends to be supporting ray as a friend, but is actually out to save his own skin and consolidate his own power, his own power-network. 

this is important; it shows us the figure of ray in a long line, in a huge interconnected network of men who will let this sort of thing happen. and it also shows the ways in which personal relationships between men will be used to strengthen this network; and the ways in which women and those who are outside and marginalised by the network... can and will be crushed by it.

ray’s only one link; when he consciously shatters that link, the network doesn’t fail. but he is able to save one person, in the face of this huge monolith.

so, let’s look at beth botrelle. in the first scene we see her in, her lawyer reinds her that she does not have to see ray. she can turn him away. not only does she choose to see him -- she insists that it’s alone, one-on-one. no lawyer, no fraser. it’s a personal connection. two people who can’t forget each other; and two individuals in a system that’s out to crush one using the other.

then there’s this:

Beth: So, you're looking for forgiveness? [Ray still does not meet her eyes.] Ray: Is that what you think?

ray does not ask for forgiveness. she doesn’t give it. what she does do is try to give him some kind of easy absolution, or a way to clear his conscience. “any cop could have taken that call,” she says. but ray knows that. and then she tells him that she killed her husband; and as soon as she says it, ray is certain that it’s not true. so she hasn’t given him absolution, or forgiveness. in lying, she has given him the truth -- or some portion of it.

let’s contrast this with the end of their final scene:

Ray (softly): I'm sorry. Beth: No. Ray: I am. I'm so sorry. Beth (tearfully): No. [She cups his face with one hand, then kisses his cheek.] Beth: Thank you, Officer Kowalski. [They embrace.]

there is one constant; beth botrelle is saying “no” when ray apologises, taking the responsibility upon himself. this isn’t so different to the way she tries to absolve him earlier. only, in the earlier scene she gives him all the cop platitudes she knows from her husband -- anybody could have taken that call, don’t let it wear on you. she lies. she is all give, willing him to take what she’s offering.

but it’s false; ray hasn’t done anything to earn it. he doesn’t take it; he can’t take it. she is the prisoner, and he is the cop. she’s an incarcerated woman, he’s the man whose role as a cop put her there. and not only is she incarcerated, she’s being touted everywhere as a “cop-killer” -- the people the system hates the most, because they have targeted the officers of that very system. even if, as beth botrelle didn’t, they did no such thing. despite beth asking that they be alone together, they can’t change the nature of their relations to each other.

in the final scene, everything has changed; except nothing that happened to beth has been taken away or removed. she still lived through an atrocity; she still had eight years of her life stolen from her. and that is -- unforgivable. both in the basic sense that it’s an awful, unimaginable thing that has happened to her. that has been done to her. but it is also unforgivable in the sense that she can’t forgive it; it’s impossible to grasp the totality of it, and all of the different people and systems and -- nodes in the network of power that created her fate. she can’t forgive it because they are not all there, it’s impossible to face them all. and it’s also unforgivable, specifically with ray kowalski, because he was one part of the larger system which failed her -- and not all of it. he is complicit, but he is not the root of the corruption.

does this make sense? i find myself doing that old essay trick of looking up the different, interconnected meanings of the word “forgive”. forgiving debt, giving up resentment towards -- and then. to pardon an offender.

because beth was thought to be an offender; she wasn’t one. because it’s the system and the state that can forgive offenders, and beth is a victim (a survivor) of the state’s violence. because ray did not commit an official offence against her; because those that did (the higher-up law enforcement officials) are not there. for all of these reasons, too, she is not able to forgive ray. because of the systems they exist within; because of the systems that shape their lives, and how they relate to each other.

and also just because of the unimaginable, horrifying scope of what was done to her, the way in which her life was destroyed.

so what does she do? she thanks ray. she kisses his cheek. she embraces him. this is not the words “i forgive you” -- and in fact, in the use of the repeated “no” we see her trying to absolve, rather than forgive. the idea that you have nothing to be sorry for equals i don’t need to forgive you.

but the first thing she thought ray was there for was forgiveness. and the last thing she does is she thanks him, and embraces him. a gesture of love; a gesture that nobody could have expected, a gesture that nobody outside the situation could perhaps easily understand.

so, i’m not a derridean, and if you’ve made it this far then you’ve probably guessed that? i’m not good with theory and i’m sure the phrase “human relations” has had a lot written about it (without even getting into the idea of forgiveness). but i’m not backing out from this now. in this passage, we see derrida’s ideas that forgiveness matters most in the face of the unforgivable; that this is when it is a radical act that can change human relations, which i read as relations between humans.

is her thank you and embrace -- forgiveness? is it absolution? does one have radical power that the other does not? or do both have a radical power in the face of all that has come before this moment? we have seen ray splintering the network that he was part of, that other male cops were trying to coerce him to remain committed to. and here he is, to a certain extent, cut loose from that. he is a person, again. alone with another person. 

knowledge of the past power relations haunt this scene -- and of course there is still a power imbalance between them, even now. things have changed, but they have not changed enough. ray did all that he could; he is no longer slumped over in a chair in a prison. he has done something. he has changed something.

and it’s not enough -- because nothing could be enough. forgiveness is impossible. but in the face of the power relations that both hold them still, and haunt them, we see a radical act; an embrace. tenderness. halting, emotional honesty -- contrasting with the comforting lies she tells in the earlier scene. in the face of this system, which can perhaps only be saved by its total destruction, by revolt, by a radical, collective act -- this is what can be done to change power relations. an embrace. a few words. it’s not quite forgiveness; he still does not ask for forgiveness. he does not ask; she bridges the gap. personal tenderness; two people, who are trying to live as best as the world will let them. who are trying not to be defined by the roles in which their relative positions of power would have them. embracing in a way that is not about desire, or about one person’s power over another; embrace as transmission of emotion, empathy, understanding. when i started writing this, i thought it was forgiveness. i don’t think it is forgiveness; i don’t think it’s less of a gesture on beth’s part for that. because --

it’s not enough, and it’s not enough. of course it’s not enough; between two people in this situation, enough is not possible. between any amount of people in this situation, enough is not possible, because the atrocity was already committed. what is so upsetting, the reason why ray cries, is because her tenderness with him is not justified, is not reasonable. the maybe-forgiveness, the attempted-absolution. she can’t give it; and yet she gives it, or something like it. ray has done all that he can, and he does not deserve what she is giving him in return. what she is giving -- an act of love -- is radical in a way that he can’t answer in kind. which is why it’s so beautiful, which is why it’s so sad.

ray can’t be forgiven because he’s not responsible; and he can’t be forgiven because he was complicit. it’s a double-bind. and in the face of that knowledge; love. understanding. thank you. gratitude. 

at the end, it’s gratitude. what is gratitude? kind words said, in earnest, in response to an imbalance -- in response to kindness, specifically an act of kindness which creates an imbalance between two parties. but here, the imbalance is insurmountable. the gap is so wide. it can’t be breached

the words fly tenderly across that gap anyway. thank you.

and so we have ray crying in his car -- we return to that image again. and of course there is so much more to be said about masculinity; about the ways in which it has been shed, and changed by ray’s relationship with beth. this is what a change in human relations means, this is what it can look like. so i have to end on it. ray, sobbing, unconsoled. 

what is unforgivable cannot be forgiven; but that doesn’t mean it’s not a radical act to try.

[lark-in-ink]

Ok seriously who wants to beta this Due south fic I'm writing and prod me to write more. (it's an au where RayK cleared Beth botrelles name as a rookie and ruined his career by getting his boss jailed so when Fraser shows up in Chicago RayK is a bitter ex-cop turned bouncer and they meet way earlier so RayV is around while they're dating)

[papermoonstheatricaldiary]

CRIMES OF THE HEART

January 12, 1983

CRIMES OF THE HEART is a three act play by Beth Henley.  Set “five years after hurricane Camille” [1974], it tells the story of three sisters, Meg, Babe, and Lenny, who reunite at their grandfather's home in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, after the youngest, Babe, has shot her abusive husband. Past resentments bubble to the surface as the sisters are forced to deal with past relationships and Babe's incident.

Henley finished the play in 1978, but was not successful in getting it produced. The play was first performed in February 1979 at the Actors Theatre Louisville and  continued to be developed, with productions in various regional venues across the United States. The play was seen off-Broadway in December 1980 in a production that transferred to Broadway eleven months later (see below). The play received the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.  It was made into a feature film in 1986.  It was revived off-Broadway in 2001.  The play is regularly produced in amateur venues.  

CRIMES OF THE HEART began performances at Broadway's John Golden Theatre on October 23, 1981 and played a total of 535 regular performances and 12 previews.  It was directed by Melvin Bernhardt, with scenery by John Lee Beatty, costumes by Patricia McGourty, and lighting by Dennis Parichy. The original cast featured Mia Dillon (Babe Botrelle), Mary Beth Hurt (Meg Magrath), Lizbeth MacKay (Lenny Magrath), Peter MacNicol (Barnette Lloyd), Raymond Baker (Doc Porter), and Sharon Ullrick (Chick 'the Stick').  The production was nominated for four 1982 Tony Awards.  

In January 1983, the cast featured J. Smith Cameron (Babe Botrelle), Kathy Danzer (Meg Magrath), Jana Robbins (Lenny Magrath), Tim Choate (Barnette Lloyd), Tom Stechschulte (Doc Porter), and Sharon Ullrick (Chick 'the Stick').  

I saw this now-classic Pulitzer Prize-winning play just a few weeks before it closed on Broadway.  To date, there has not been a Broadway revival, although it has been seen in off-Broadway and in a ton of community theatres, including nearly every one within 50 miles of me. In fact, in December 1984, I was cast in such a production, playing lawyer Barnette Lloyd (“Lemonade?”).

This final cast included Jana Robbins (above), who was understudy and standby for many a Gypsy Rose.  In fact, when Paper Mill produced the musical starring Betty Buckley, Robbins took the role for more than a dozen performances when the star was out.  

This was J. Smith Cameron's Broadway debut, but I would see her again in the hilarious Lend Me A Tenor (1989) and the less-than-hilarious After the Night and the Music (2005).  My favorite of her many roles was as Alexa in As Bees in Honey Drown (1989).  

One of my clearest memories of this show is not about what happened on the stage, but what happened in the lobby.  CRIMES was performed with two intermissions and during one of them I saw Anne Meacham (above), huddled against the theatre's outside wall smoking a cigarette in the cold. I recognized her instantly as the batty housekeeper, Louise, on my favorite soap “Another World,” a role she had just recently left. I didn't know it then, but this amazing actor was a much-respected actor of the works of Tennessee Williams, a southern writer with whom Beth Henley is often compared.  In fact, the two were friends!  At that moment, I was one degree from Tennessee!  We spoke about the distracting noise from the theatre alley next door.  Superstar Bee Gee Barry Gibb was playing the title role in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the adjacent Royale (now the Jacobs).  Because CRIMES was much longer than Joesph, the screaming fans gathering at the Royale stage door could occasionally be heard in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, while Meg, Lenny, and Babe were sorting out their sisterly feelings.  After a few brief (but cherished) words, she snuffed out her cigarette and we bustled inside to see how things would turn out for the Magrath girls.  

CRIMES OF THE HEART rates 4 Paper Moons out of 5

[dsvirtualbar]

Favorite Minor due South characters as voted by Tumblr fans 2. Beth Botrelle (The Ladies' Man) "You can rest easy, Kowalski. They took me to the death room four times. One time, the needle pricked my skin before the call came and they had to stop. I would prefer they killed me."

[itwoodbeprefect]

another thing about the ladies man that always gets to me is when ray picks up that piece of paper next to the body in the flashback and he gets literal actual red blood on his hands from this act that later almost kills beth botrelle. the subtlety is set to sledgehammer but as tv it really really Works for me, perhaps especially because it’s not even just his hands but he also kneels in the blood and touches his face with his hands and he’s marked by this, left bloody, but it’s also just... messy. the entire scene is a mess and now so is ray for having visited it, for something he’s later hailed for as a hero while in his mind he’s still kneeling in that blood and trying not to throw up

[juniperpomegranate]

ten first lines from last ten fics

@plaidadder tagged me on this one, but since it’s been, um, almost ten years since i last published anything, here’s ten first(ish) lines from the last ten fics I started (and am working on finishing):

10) From the untitled Hannial/due South in-progress fic:

“Well,” the man grumbled, as he stopped by their broken-down SUV, “I s’pose I can take you as far as the next cabin. It’s an inconvenience, but hop in.”So they had, Hannibal next to the driver because Will was shivering and hadn’t moved fast enough. He could already see what Hannibal was thinking, and that not only was Hannibal only waiting for a justification—by his own standards, if no one else’s—but also that Will would not be able to stop him.

9) From the blackmail fic:

"You gotta pull Vecchio," Ray said. "In two days, either Beth Botrelle is gonna be dead, or he's gonna be dead, but either way I'm gonna be out of a job, so you need to pull him and you need to pull him now."

8) From the boyfriend curse fic (I really need to work on my titles):

Knit two, purl two, slide three stitches onto the cable needle, hold it to the front of work, knit next three stitches, move stitches on cable needle to working needle, knit three, purl two, knit two…

7) From a different fic, the file name of which would give everything away:

“You’re quiet today, Benny. What’s up?”

Fraser visibly shook himself out of his reverie. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, it’s—well, I’m sure it’s nothing, Ray. Well, that is, I hope it’s nothing.”

6) From The Haunting of Ray Kowalski (which will get finished, you know, eventually):

“Mother of God, you don’t even know what I look like.” The man threw his hands up and rolled his eyes. “That’s great, that’s just great. You go undercover as a guy and you don’t even know what I look like? No wonder you look like a bag lady.”

5) From a Victoria Returns fic idea:

She'd been watching him for weeks. It was a habit, a learned response to the sorts of things she'd lived through--things she'd thrived through, she liked to think. It was a habit and a defense, that was all.  

4) one of the many werewolf fic ideas rolling around the place:

"You never spend more than a week in a boy's shape anymore," their grandfather had said to him. "Depot would demand you keep human shape for weeks at a time, perhaps even months."

Diefenbaker--rarely, for him, in his gangly teenaged shape, all lanky limbs and sullenness--had folded his arms. "Ben doesn't need to go alone, though," he argued. "I can be a wolf for months at a time. Wolf-dog, even, I know how to imitate dogs enough to pass."

3) From something that may evolve into a fic in it’s own right, and/or be part of something bigger, still not sure. Either way, it’s Ray and Ray getting along (for a certain value of getting along):

“I can’t believe you never took him apartment hunting, Stanley,” Ray said, as he slammed a newspaper—pointedly folded to the APTS section—in front of Kowalski. “I get back to find you’ve been letting him camp out in his damn office—"

“It’s Ray,” Kowalski said, for the fifteenth time that week. “And I did take him apartment hunting—three times! He kept telling landlords the wolf was a wolf and anything like a decent neighborhood was too pricey for him.”

2) From a might-be-finished-one-day Leverage/dS crossover:

He doesn’t know how he’s gonna break it to Nate—he just knows he’s got to bring it up, because he believed, deep in his bones, that you didn’t run a con on your own crew. So he dug up a picture—the first ever picture taken of him by his Nana—and had it ready on his tablet.

1) From the Big Fic:

“Ray, can I ask you something?”

Ray looked up from the menu, watched Benny fiddle with the salt and pepper shakers. He was  shaking them and watching the grains settle and shift with the movement, and that was enough to ring bells in Ray’s head, because Benny didn’t fidget. He told lame jokes, he had a deadpan sense of teasing humor, he had nervous tics, but he didn’t fidget.

“Sure,” he said. “You know you can ask me anything.”

I’m supposed to tag other people, so, uh... @amimijones, @inconclusionray, @cerulean-beekeeper, uh...@plaidadder has already done this, so she’s off the hook. IDK, if you’re a fic writer and you wanna do it, do it! I don’t think I know who else is a fic writer on tumblr that I’m mutuals with....

[lark-in-ink]

I write an AU where RayK hasn’t been a cop in a decade (he got harassed off the force after he cleared Beth Botrelle’s name as a rookie) and what does he do a mere 2,000 words after meeting Fraser?  He jumps in front of a bullet for him.  

[lark-in-ink]

Due South AU where Ray Kowalski remembered and followed up on the bloody suicide note and cleared Beth Botrelle’s name but because of the people implicated in the note his cop career stalled out and he was harassed off the force.