#i knew there was a reason mouse and knox are the main foils in pirate au

[gregorygerwitz]

Pls pls pls tell me about 9×03 and the mouse centric viewpoint so I can watch this show through you lmao

Okay, I've definitely been thinking about this and like... nothing else, for the last... ~5 hours? I could check message time stamps but honestly, that's not relevant. I just had a little thought spiral about this today, and I'm gonna keep going through it.

Prefacing this entire thing with this: I know why the Knox story is relevant in s9. I know why it went where it did, I know what purpose it serves for the Jay&Hailey&Voight storyline where it went. I just have a lot of thoughts about Mouse at all times.

Warnings: mention of death and murder, references to addiction, I swear one time

This babble brought to you the fact that Mouse was an army Ranger for 4+ years, and just because he looks innocent and calm on the outside 95% of the time, it doesn’t mean he isn’t still very capable of fucking some shit up if pushed. The Intelligence unit is very lucky that he chooses to use both the fact that he’s a trained killer and his tech skills for good and not evil.

To TLDR the episode's purpose in the narrative, just to give you the gist: bringing Knox into the story and getting into his shared history with Jay is used to highlight Jay's loyalty even in horrible circumstances. The quick version (because I hate it, actually) is that, when they were overseas, Knox killed civilians as "revenge" for one of their unit members, and Jay didn't say anything about him being the one who did it (which could be another entire essay, don't let me write that, I have notes and sources and a bunch of nonsense to babble about but it would start fights within the fandom and I don't want to do that thank you). It's presumably used to show why he spends the rest of the season standing by Voight despite everything that he does.

So, I do understand why it went where it went, and yes, to some extent, season nine is where this story and therefore this episode belongs. But I'm really tired of everyone standing by Voight when he's shown time and time again that he doesn't deserve it, and that's even the point of the rest of the season - Jay tries to get Voight to work with him instead of handling things virtually alone, and then Voight goes against the one thing he said he was gonna do and doesn't let Jay in.

Which isn't even really the point of this post, I'm just saying, I see what the writers were doing, I just personally think there was a more interesting story that could have been told with a slightly different cast (and I really miss Mouse)

But, because of the fact that Mouse has been gone for five years by this point, he's not there for the Knox storyline. He's not even mentioned in an episode specifically about someone from their time in the army who he would have also known but I'm not bitter I'm fine I'm totally normal about it. If he had been there for this, I'd like to think the story would have nothing to do with Voight or the secrets he kept from Jay or any of the story we got in canon, if that makes sense. Instead, it would be more about the different roles that Knox and Mouse played in Jay's life.

Plot twist, this has way less to do with me missing Mouse and almost everything to do with how much I love narrative foils.

Because the things is... Mouse and Knox are very similar. They're both former army rangers who dealt with substance abuse issues when they got back to Chicago, who had trouble forming strong connections, who turned to crime to make money to stay alive when the government failed them. They both have felonies records. They're both, for the most part, alone in life - Knox after his divorce, and Mouse after being pushed away by his parents.

The key difference between them, the only difference between them, is that Mouse had Jay.

Jay was there to help Mouse clean up his criminal record and take care of the felony theft. He was there to help him with the pills and be there through the rough patches. He was there to answer the phone at three in the morning on the worst nights. He was there to help him get a steady job to set a regular routine. Mouse had a support system, even if it was small, even if it started out as just Jay.

The episode, had it taken place during Mouse's era of the show, could have been a fascinating exploration of these two relationships that Jay has with former members of his Ranger unit - Knox, who he hates and resents so much that he didn't even want to give him a second chance, and Mouse, who he loves, whether it's read as platonic or otherwise, who he's willing to give a million chances to, who he's given money to so he could buy drugs.

And, look... it's not like Jay and Mouse didn't do shady shit overseas. Maybe they didn't, you know, kill civilians out of a righteous idea of revenge, but we never did find out what extenuating circumstances meant from back in 3x03...