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mitochondriaandbunnies · 7 months ago

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Miami Vice S1E22: Evan

An estranged friend forces Sonny to confront a long buried secret.

Perhaps out of a fear of repeating myself-- I've said a lot about Evan, both in analysis and in fic-- I got a little stuck on this one, this time around. I guess I don't want to seem like a broken record, or like I'm overstating the importance of a single episode, but Evan is as much a distillation of everything that Miami Vice "is" as anything-- it's bleak, it's heartfelt, it's beautiful, it cuts to the heart of Sonny's inability to love himself, and it 's deeply, heartbreakingly queer.

It absolutely should have been the Season One finale. Lombard is a good episode, but it's not Evan good. On top of that, the last few episodes have all had a running undercurrent asking-- "hey-- what is *normal*, here, especially for Sonny? What does it mean to be vulnerable, to share your life and your secrets with someone? What do we mean when we say 'partner?'" that feels like it reaches its climax with Evan. And even further, Evan's whispered portent at the end of the episode-- that he made his choice, that Mike Orgel made his choice, and that now it's Sonny's turn to make his choice-- sets up much of the rest of the series thematically. The series finale is Sonny's answer: in the end, he chooses to step away instead of letting himself be destroyed like his friends.

BUT. I don't really think Network Television in the 80's really wanted the season for their very expensive and incredibly popular show to end on Sonny's Repressed Gay Trauma, because then audiences would've had to sit with that all summer, and frankly I suspect more people might have had an Aha Moment about Sonny's sexuality if that had been the case. So instead they ended S1 on Charming Mobster Dennis Farina, which is fine, but not quite as thematically powerful.

So what to say about Evan that I haven't said already? The episode opens with Evan selling guns; to demonstrate the power of the weapons, he shoots the hell out of a bunch of mannequins. I hadn't recalled that before he did this, he kissed the mannequins around their middles. It's super performative masculinity-- Evan is terrified of not being seen as a "real man," so his only options are, essentially, violence and (straight) sexuality, both of which he enacts on the mannequins. It's unsettling to the the point that one of Guzman's goons keeps making a face like "do we. Do we have to buy guns from him," and it signals to the audience that something is Not Right with this man.

Because this is an episode about gay men and what it means to be a man and how man treat one another, we get an interesting little moment where Larry is leaning over Stan's shoulder and reviewing case files with him. Stan seems irritated at the lack of personal space, and tells him to go look over files on his own desk. It's a bit of a throwaway gag, but it's also the kind of gentle, thoughtless repudiation of closeness that makes intimacy of any kind difficult between men of any sexual orientation. When Sonny talks about the way he and Evan and Mike Orgel used to talk to and tease one another before Mike revealed he was gay, this is the kind of behavior he's referencing.

The scene where Sonny has to go undercover as a far right gun nut to get information from a neonazi is both disturbingly still relevant and disturbing from an in-universe perspective. Sonny, still too pretty even in fatigue pants and a government-issue cap, looks like an underwear model doing military cosplay; he almost seems younger, like putting on the trappings of his Vietnam days transported him back there. In order to convince the gun seller he's serious, he says he's done with the military because the military is full of "women, half-breeds, and homosexuals" (which he says like it's four words-- HO-MO-SECK-SHUALS), but he turns away while he's saying it, and his face radiates pain and fear. He is wildly uncomfortable in this persona; we know he doesn't believe these things, but more than that, you get the sense that he's genuinely concerned his disguise as a Grade-A American Heterosexual Tough Guy is not going to hold up under any serious scrutiny.

I have a lot of questions about this painting, presumably belonging to Mr. Unfriendly Drug Lord Guzman, of an emaciated man with a railing between his ass-cheeks. Like. Is that so on the nose that it circles back to mysterious again, or is it literally a painting of an ass railing in the Let's Talk About Gay Stuff episode?

Castillo is extra recalcitrant in this one-- he argues with the ATF agent and insists he'll bust whoever needs busting, and then shortly after is just like NO when Sonny says he cannot be involved in this case

The ATF agent refers to Evan as Sonny's "old playmate," which feels uh, pointed

Rico asks Gina a favor and she sighs and says he "always needs a favor;" she still seems a bit irritated from No One Lives Forever

Guzman's manservant lifts him out of the pool and dries him off and dresses him, so perhaps the painting isn't all that odd for him

When Evan tries to convince Guzman to back off of the deal with Sonny, Guzman is eating a plate of fruit in a bathrobe, the sea over his shoulder, bathed in pinks and blues. Evan, on the other hand, eats the true breakfast of champions-- a cigarette and whiskey-- and everything around him is grey and white.

Evan smiles completely genuinely when he sees Elvis, and Elvis makes no move to attack him, which makes me cry

Like. He and Sonny were such good friends that Sonny's alligator missed him

Just throw me in the bay and forget about me as the fish chew me to death, I guess

When Sonny refuses Evan, Evan says he'll happily take Rico instead, and that's when Sonny really starts getting angry-- it's one thing for Evan, who Sonny blames for the death of an old partner and friend, to put Sonny's life in danger, it's another thing altogether for him to casually suggest Rico could be another bit of collateral in their shared history

Thank you script writers for lines like "I wouldn't have had to pull Freed's jacket if you'd been straight with me" (that really is the issue here, isn't it, Rico? Sonny can't quite do that, can he!) and "we are involved... *pause* in an operation." The gay subtext in the gay text episode is logged and noted

Evan encourages Guzman to shoot them all, himself included, and casually tells Sonny and Rico that Guzman used to "shoot people just for being left-handed," which feels like a metaphor for.... something, some kind of... human difference that has been, historically, punished and marginalized... couldn't tell you what, though

Tubbs speaks French to Michelle-- do we ever hear him doing this again? Does Tubbs speak French for real, or is he just like, repeating something he heard on a perfume ad or something?

When Sonny comes in, looking all hangdog, and tells Tubbs they need to talk, Tubbs tells Michelle he wants a rain check-- Michelle's response is "I bet you would," which is very ambiguous-- it seems equally likely that she's telling him he's got no chance or that she straight up doesn't believe he wants the rain check because she's pretty sure Crockett's his ex

I've talked at length about the gas station scene, but the fact that Rico's response to Sonny's confession about Mike is "how did you handle it" rather than anything else-- the man knoooows half of Sonny's issues here are coming from his internalized homophobia and self-loathing

I don't think Evan has changed his clothes for three days?

Logistically, it makes no fucking sense for Sonny, Evan, and Mike Orgel to all be queer men, but the episode really doesn't do any work to make Sonny or Evan obviously heterosexual, either. It's very easy to read either Sonny or Evan's guilt and trauma as coming partially from their own identities, and the way they both talk about their bad reactions to Mike's coming out reinforces this. Evan's line, "I've found more ways to hang that rap on myself than you or the devil will ever know about" mirrors Sonny's earlier insistence that Rico is not his "priest" and that he doesn't have to "bare his soul" to him; Vice is not a show that frequently has its main characters suffering from religious guilt or trauma, so it seems very meaningful that both of them are bringing their despair back to the idea not just of guilt, but sin. And perhaps even more specifically than that, sin that they refuse to let anyone-- friend, priest, or devil-- see.

Gina and Trudy show up in regular police uniforms at Guzman's arrest, which I think is the only time we see them dressed like that in the entire series

Peter Gabriel's Biko initially seemed to me like a really weird choice for the end of the episode, given the specific milieu it was written in and for (South African apartheid and the police murder of an anti-apartheid activist), but upon this rewatch it dawned on me that what they were trying to do was, a bit clumsily, tie the two ideas together. Mike Orgel died because he was part of an oppressed minority group, and if you read Evan as a closeted queer man, he has followed after him (and warns Sonny-- potentially a third closeted queer man-- that he will also need to make a choice about how to lead his own life soon enough.) I don't necessarily love slotting in one marginalized group for another there, but it's a very 80's sentiment, I think, so I'll let it stand. I think it's meaningful that the lyric "you can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire" precedes Evan's warning to Sonny. Was Mike, then, the candle?

The episode ends with Sonny tenderly cradling Evan's head while Rico stands with his hand on his shoulder; he's allowed touch and intimacy with Rico (as he was at the gas station) that he could not have ever really had with Evan except under extremely extenuating circumstances and now death. Mike, Evan, and Sonny couldn't find a way to "deal with it," as Rico put it, but the implication is that maybe Sonny and Rico can.

#miami vice #miami vice s1 #evan #s1e22 #sonny crockett #rico tubbs #evan freed #my gifs #william russ

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miqojak · 1 year ago

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I - and I'm not exaggerating - and every friend I've brought to this game (XIV) have been so severely sexually harassed (either openly or via DMs) that we've all quit. I'm the only one willing to come back to XIV (at least two of them said fuck it and gave up houses they won before the lotto change, too) - and these are RP friends I've had for a decade, some of them, and they're so scarred from being so badly and so frequently sexually harassed in XIV that they don't RP at all in any game, anymore (my gay roommate had to take 'gay' out of his OC info to get people to stop whispering him things that amounted to molestation - no one should have to hide their identity to avoid unwanted harassment of any kind).

The only people to reach out to me over the 4 years I've played - besides about 6 people who actually just wanted to write story? - have all been grotesque attempts to convince me to change my sex-repulsed character's mind. Jak was a prisoner in a nazi internment camp and came out riddled with trauma, and people would still - even knowing this - insist she suddenly not have trauma so she'd screw them... and then ghost me when they couldn't force me/the oc to ERP.

At the end of the day, idgaf what people do with their time. I just don't consent to having it forced on me. I'm as much a perv as anyone, and know my shit in the D/s community, etc. And no means no. You also don't walk up and whisper-emote touching someone intimately without their permission. You don't keep pushing for ERP when someone makes it clear they don't want it.

People need to be open and clear in what they're seeking from RP - or it not only wastes everyone's time, but causes legitimate permanent harm. I no longer reach out or even attend public events because of how prevalent this sort of thing is (if I'm just going to be pressured to have sex, and be ghosted if I don't, why try? Which is exactly what my friends who have given up tell me, too). I had to shut my Yakuza fc down because no matter how hard I tried to run a cohesive, intricate, overarching plot that included my members...people only joined to hit on hot criminals and try to get in bed with them, then they would quit within a month or two if they didn't get erp (usually with myself or the other leader, my irl partner, lmao).

I had someone in WoW reach out while I was just questing recently and mentioned he does like ERP, but not just ERP. I stated that it's not my primary interest, but as part of a story I don't mind it. I didn't judge him at all! Kinks are all weird, and sex is part of life. Some of us want it all the time, some want it never, some can't feel that way without knowing you intimately! So if someone treats you weird for just being honest? Block them, and move on with life - because for me, my number one complaint is how many people have led me on bc they wanted ERP, but 3 scenes in they ghost because they got none - and if they'd just TOLD me that to begin with, I could have saved us both from embarrassment and feeling like shit. I've been ghosted this way so many times in XIV, even, it's made me feel like that's all Jak must be to people...a hole. A sex object. Just a piece of meat to be penetrated. And if she doesn't present herself as such, she's thrown away like garbage.

Just be honest and direct with RP partners - you're not the bad person for being honest. The one being a judgy puritan prick is the a-hole.

I leave my opinions here because I so rarely check Twitter these days and go to bed.

#the best rp partner I've had in YEARS - basically the first person I met here #won't play his character in RP anymore #he also gets ghosted - but by female characters when he won't ERP them #my partner had someone in their first erp scene start hitting on him ooc - that was the beginning of the end #my gay roommate was harassed/molested/abused severely by some once-big names in the tumblr XIV RP community #one of jak's former partners had to insist someone stop whispering him sexy stuff - he had to use 'I'm in a relationship IC'#and the person still insisted #when you say you don't want to ERP...so the highlander who won't leave you alone thinks he's being clever by asking for a sauna scene #if I had a nickel for every time sex obsessed people were dishonest and abusive in XIV I could buy a large house irl #honesty! the number one rule about sex is consent - and that requires honesty - so these ppl don't even know or understand basic sex safety #if you can't be honest about what you want...then you're lying to that person and using them to achieve satisfaction without their consent #it also sucks to realize that your gpose shots that aren't sexy and unclothed will never get the same traction as playboy spread shots #this community has managed what drama in WoW and GW2 couldn't... its made me basically unwilling to be active in rp communities anywhere #I want to be... but I can't shake the feeling that I don't matter because I'm not selling my OC's body #anymore you face more stigma for NOT being sexually aggressive #people used to bail on you if you were an ERPer... now it's the ERP community throwing people away who don't rp like they do #if everyone were just honest about the genre/style of writing they're looking for and wasn't ashamed of what they want...#This is not just an XIV problem either! It's worse in this game than any other MMO I've been in #but they're all like this now - people are either gross when they're up front about it...#or they hide it from you and spring it on you and then bail when it turns out they should have just asked about ERP to begin with #it's not 2006 anymore - no one cares that you're writing teh secks on the internet these days...and if they do they can go fuck themSELVES #most of us just want the courtesy of being seen as people and having our consent and feelings respected...a modicum of honesty isn't hard

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