#opinions on s2 ending remains to be seen by me when i get there

[cinnamnt]

reading a tiger and bunny reddit thread on the end of s2 cause i was curious and wanted to spoil myself but that’s not important what Is important is how badly this sentence made me laugh out loud

brother did we watch the same show tiger and bunny have gay sex every night and day

[chiibinomonodamon]

WHO WANTS TO HEAR ME RAMBLE ABOUT GAY FURRY DEMON SEX? XD

(damn, there's a sentence I never thought I'd say....)

Okay...so I see some Stolitz confusion and bashing online and I need to type up a defense here because I won't be able to sleep otherwise lol

I consider myself to be a Ship Critic and someone who takes shipping rather seriously.

What I mean by this is, I like to analyze and break down romantic relationships between fictional characters because it's just interesting to write for me. I especially take delight in friendly debating with opinions that I strongly do *not* agree with.

Let me start off by saying I am NOT a "this ship is awesome because gay furry sex lol" type of girl.

FAR from it. I'm generally more passionate about hetero ships between human characters (because I can relate to them more) among other reasons. So if you wanna dismiss my defense as "shallow fangirlism", you can forget about that lame excuse.

I fell in love with Hazbin Hotel when it was finally released in February and suffered waiting for each new two-parts per week. During that time, I decided to watch Helluva Boss as well, after a friend showed me a particularly soul-crushing clip (Moxxie's childhood trauma about his mother).

Yes, I like funny sex jokes as much as the next goofy adult but scenes like this, scenes that carry a very heavy emotional weight are what really get me in the end, even moreso when VERY little dialogue is exchanged. I knew I had to watch the entire episode run after seeing that the creators had a talent for this.

I saw people asking:

"How did Stolas go from using Blitz as a sex toy to being painfully in love with him?"

Oh I can tell you. I can tell you the EXACT moment this is revealed. But it's not spoon-fed to you; it's quite subtle actually and this is why lots of people miss it.

See, one of the strongest talents Vivenne has shown me is that she REALLY knows how to get her characters to communicate their feelings to the viewers JUST from their expressions and body language. These can be 'blink-and-miss-it' teeny little scenes and it may require a couple rewatches.

But since people demand time stamps for all information others post here, I'll rewatch a few scenes from S1 E7 'Ozzie's' as I'm typing this.

'Ozzie's' remains to be not just my favorite episode of HB...but probably my favorite episode of any adult-targeted animated show outside of Japan (aside from S2 E7's Mid-Season Special)

It has this huge reveal for both Blitzo and Stolas.

We'll first address Blitzo's irrational, stalkerish behavior of Moxxie and Millie.

He's obsessed with them. He finds both of them very attractive, fantasizes about threesomes with them and is constantly inserting himself into their personal lives.

Why?

Because they have everything that he badly badly wants for himself.

They have the perfect marriage and he is trying to live THROUGH them.

This was hilarious to me at the beginnning of the show but it's slowly revealed that it's one of the most tragic and depressing things I've ever seen. And it's scarily realistic too.

But you know this already so let's move on...

Blitzo follows the couple to Ozzie's but he can't get in without a date. So he calls up Stolas and yes, this is very low but he doesn't realize how much this means to Stolas (hell, I'm not sure even Stolas realizes it himself!) but the owl man is giddy with joy, he rushes over and they enter Ozzie's.

When Ozzie and Fizz mock Moxxie for being so sappy towards his wife, this strikes a chord with Blitzo (because they're his IDEAL relationship) and he speaks up to defend them.

NOW PAY CLOSE ATTENTION; THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART:

Fizz, still holding onto his past grudge turns on Blitzo to humilate him:

"Some nerve you got commenting on a relationship"

Time Stamp: 11:37

As Fizz says "-ship", Blitzo VERY QUICKLY makes eye contact with Stolas who has a look of panic on his face. Blitzo is seeking VALIDATION from Stolas in this sharp, subtle second of screentime, as if to ask

"Well, ARE we in one?"

And then what happens next...Stolas remains silent, Blitzo's ex joins in to announce how selfish Blitzo was in bed with her, tearing him down further. Stolas stands up like he's going to put a stop to it but then Ozzie notices him and interrogates him about sleeping with Blitzo.

Blitzo looks incredibly ashamed and guilty as Stolas blushes with similar feelings...and hides his face behind his menu; HIS BIGGEST MISTAKE IN THE SERIES SO FAR.

Time Stamp: 12:24

The look on Blitzo's face as he grits his teeth and darts his eyes away basically says

"Yeah, I should have known...boy am I an idiot for trusting him to stand up for me".

(look how SHOCKED he is...wow, this hurts fr ;_;)

This is a silent betrayal on Stolas's part. Afterall, his reputation is on the line, so if he were to defend Blitzo, it confirms they are in fact, dating. He chose his pride over Blitzo and Blitzo is crushed by this betrayal.

Moxxie finishes his song and kisses his wife tenderly. Stolas watches this and also wants to have an affectionate moment with Blitzo (who is rightfully glaring daggers at him) and tries to reach for his hand.

Blitzo rejects his touch and suggests they leave. As they do, Blitzo still looks furious and hurt. Stolas is now realizing how badly he screwed up with a "What have I done?" face (13:41)

He even looks disappointed with himself.

After Blitzo drops Stolas off, he thanks him and tries to smooth over the awkwardness with sweet talk but Blitzo just rolls his eyes in disgust and pulls on his face like "I don't want to hear this bullshit".

He responds coldly and curtly, "Yeah." Stolas makes more suggestions to spend time with him, which just makes him even angrier and he snaps

"I'm not fucking you tonight, okay!

I'm really just..." (14:28)

he pauses to wipe a tear because at this point he can barely hold it together (top notch voice acting and animation directing btw)

"...not in the mood, Stolas."

Stolas still tries to talk him into doing couple things unrelated to sex.

Blitzo's face switches back to anger and frustration because Stolas isn't getting the message so he goes for the blunt tactic;

"Stolas, don't act like what we have is anything but YOU wanting ME to fuck you, okay?"

(14:42)

"You make that really clear all the time."

(again his voice sounds like he's about to break down)

"But I-I just can't do it tonight, okay?"

(Finally meets his eye)

"...I'm sorry."

I believe this is code for "I'm sorry we're even in this situation and how your reputation got damaged. " Or, more painfully, "I'm sorry I'm such an embarrassment to you".

Stolas replies "Okay" and takes a deep breath to compose himself. They say goodnight and depart.

An important note here is that Stolas calls him "Blitzo" instead of "Blitzy" to show more respect.

As Blitzo zooms away coldly, Stolas looks up at the sky with tears in his eyes, surprised at how much it hurts.

He then sits down with his head in his hands in anguish...because he's getting that

"Oh...no. These feelings are real" epiphany.

And as if this wasn't enough angst, Blitzo collapses onto his couch at home, goes through the memories on his phone and starts sobbing.

I'm going to be real with you; this is the most heart-breaking shit I have ever seen in an adult show of this type. It's also the first time a show of this type got me to cry.

The last six minutes have revealed so much information without spoonfeeding it to the audience because the show RESPECTS its audience.

To recap:

*Blitzo takes Stolas on a first official date to use him

*Stolas is extremely happy about it

*Blitzo gets humilated and looks to Stolas for validation

*Stolas betrays him and breaks his heart

*Blitzo snaps that their relationship is nothing more than lust-driven sex

*Stolas realizes he's actually in love with Blitzo and it's a huge problem because (he believes) that it's unrequited.

*Blitzo breaks down because the ONE person whom he thought would protect him didn't do so.

So these two are convinced that neither one loves the other...while the irony is, it's quite the opposite.

Because if Blitzo REALLY didn't feel anything towards Stolas, he would not have gotten this emotional.

Yes, they are both lonely...but I really don't think that's all there is between them.

So..........we know WHEN they started falling...now the question is why;

I think the answer's quite simple; single-target affection.

It was mentioned in S2 that Stolas and Stella did sleep together ONE TIME...but Stolas didn't enjoy it at all. He is stuck with a wife who hates him so much that she put a HIT on him...and a daughter who thinks he's a loser. Blitzo is pretty much the one person in his life who is able to make him happy. That one small, bright spot. He enjoys the sex with him but he also simply enjoys his company, as shown in Ozzie's episode. He is thrilled to simply talk to him about his day...and do anything else that couples do. They're complete opposites. Stolas is an intellectual but naive and sheltered. Blitzo is poorly educated but cynical and street-smart. Opposites attract...though this is likely more from Stolas's POV than Blitzo's.

In other words, Stolas is into bad boys xD lmao

In Blitzo's case, Stolas is the only character who shows him physical affection which he desperately craves. He's pretty tsundere about it most of the time...but I think he actually does enjoy that attention...especially when he's always getting disrespected by Moxxie and Loona..and quite a lot of people around him. BUT he's too scared to get serious with anyone because of past trauma and he also believes that no one could possibly love him as a person. :(

Reasons I Think This Love is Real

Aside from what I pointed out in the Ozzie's episode...there's quite a lot of evidence, esp from Stolas's POV.

After he realizes he's in love, he goes to Asomodeous for an ALTERNATIVE method for Blitzo to use so they will no longer sleep together. He wants to set Blitzo free. Which means he DOES truly love him because love is about being generous to the other person. He COULD be totally selfish about it but he isn't.

Asomodeous mentions how against love potions he is and Stolas agrees. He thinks that's out of the question.

'Look My Way' music video. Lol I don't have to say anything more.

In S2 E6 OOPS

This exchange at 16:57

Fizz: Seems your taste has gotten more 'regal', lately?

Blitz: Yeah, well unlike you, I fuck who I want WHEN I want. I'm not gonna be tied down to some big blue-blood asshole.

Fizz: You coulda fooled me the way Prince was cozying up to you at Ozzie's.

Blitz (gets very defensive) HEY! Stolas only cares about have a rugged peasant raw-dog him into his mattress, okay!

It's nothing...(gets hesistant and looks away)...you know...

(Fizz gives him a 'bitch please' look xD)

"it's nothing else."

Fizz: Then why were you even there?

Blitz: OTHER very important reasons of course.

Fizz: Whatever. I don't actually care.

Blitz: Stolas is just a loud, thirsty BITCH!

(Fizz is rolling his eyes again)

Blitz: He loves feeling the thrill of getting dicked by the lower class.

It's a novelty to him.

Fizz: LITERALLY just said I don't care!

Blitz: And then he'll call me and try to see how my day was!

And he'll pretend to care about me and comment on my photos laugh at my jokes...

Fizz: (Smirking) OH! That's definitely your clue right there that it's all bullshit!

Blitz: I KNOW, RIGHT??

Fizz: (Making a 'What in idiot' expression, shaking his head)

Blitz: HE'S JUST A FAKE, PRIVELEDGED ASSHOLE...

Fizz: Sounds like you just hate him for being a prince!

No one (laughs) and I mean NO ONE pretends to care that much just for a cheap lay.

All right. IF ANYONE knows what real love is like, it's Fizzaroli...who is in a very HEALTHY relationship with Asomodeous. He recognizes the signs because he's IN that place. He sees it...and he's annoyed that Blitzo keeps denying it and brushing it off...yet clearly can NOT stop talking about Stolas (amusing irony)

To sum up (this freaking essay lol) 'Stolitz' ABSOLUTELY has the potential to be pure and true...these two just need to communicate...or Stolas has to PROVE to Blitzo that he's serious about his feelings in another way.

There is no doubt that this ship is 100% endgame and is a case of the 'Earn Your Happy Ending' Trope. I look forward to the rest of the journey. Ron is putting my feelings about Stolitz in a perfect phrase:

[saurongorthaur9]

So something logistical occurred to me that makes the "Galadriel goes dark" theory even more likely, in my view. I realized that come season 3, Sauron is going to be lacking characters to be his main scene partner. Celebrimbor will be gone. Based on footage we've seen, I think Adar is a dead man walking too. And it's too early to go to Numenor to mess with Pharazon. Sauron's to-do list includes anything from distributing the nine rings, making the One Ring, making himself King of Men, and waging war on the elves. I feel like I can see a lack of opportunities for some other character to come in and interact with him one on one heavily during this period besides orcs and/or random new human lords (OCs no doubt)... The creators seem to like the idea of Sauron having a main scene partner also and idk I feel like Galadriel remains the best option and they probably think the same. She could be that without going dark side of course - maybe if he captures her and she's his prisoner for a while. But her being there by *choice* makes for such interesting potential conversations between them as the story evolves, as we we see her potentially struggling with coming back to the light.

That's a very good point. Charlie is a great actor, but he (and Sauron) are definitely at his peak when he's got a scene partner and I think the showrunners know that. I do think the canon focus of S3 will be the creation of the One and the seducing of the Nazgul, which will be great in any scenario, but it would definitely make S3 juicier to somehow put him and Galadriel back together as scene partners.

A reasonable alternative that I could see them going with though is bringing in the Witch King as a main new character next season and focusing on his relationship with Sauron and his rise to Sauron's new second-in-command. I wouldn't be opposed to that at all.

But I also keep thinking, if Galadriel is 100% successful in resisting Sauron's Temptation 2.0 at the end of S2, where does that leave her character development to go for the next three seasons? She will have won back the trust of the elves, she will have successfully resisted Sauron, and she'll be well on her way to being the wiser Galadriel of LOTR without many obstacles left in her way.

On the other hand, if they do go with a corruption arc, I could very well see it going like this:

S2 Finale: Galadriel succumbs to Sauron's temptation and agrees to work with him to some extent.

S3: Galadriel struggles with her corruption arc, seeing how her joining Sauron is corrupting both her and everything she loves. S3 finale: Celeborn returns and plays a critical role in helping her find her way back to the light.

S4: Galadriel struggles with the trauma of anything she might have done or helped Sauron do in S3, and she reconnects with Celeborn and finds peace and hope with him and is able to contrast that to how she felt at Sauron's side.

S5: Galadriel and Celeborn found Lothlorien and Galadriel completes her arc into the wiser but grief-filled elven queen that we know in LOTR.

In my opinion, that would be such a compelling arc. It would also allow Galadriel to continue having a dynamic arc in S4, which is probably going to be the Fall of Numenor, where otherwise she could kind of fade into the background and not have much of a story for that season.

Obviously, this is all just my speculation and I know what a huge risk such a story would be for the showrunners, so I'm really trying with all my might not to get my hopes up. But gosh, if they went there, I would eat up that storyline like dessert.

[threecheersforinking]

Some thoughts about Arcane s2

(spoilers obviously)

To start off, I have a lot of mixed feelings. I don't think it was AS bad as some people are saying, and I definitely don't believe that everyone's characters were ruined/OOC. In my opinion, the overall plot was more of an issue than any individual character's choices (barring a few exceptions). I'm not even going to go into the individual characters, actually.

Because to me, the biggest issues were this:

Lack of a focus on politics

Lack of a focus on Jinx/Vi's relationship

Classism is one of the central themes to this story, and an unavoidable aspect of season 1. It's almost too obvious to talk about. The overarching conflict of Arcane has always been about the tension between Piltover and "Zaun". So why was Viktor and his little army of mannequin clones the big bad of season 2? I do not buy even for a second that Zaunites would suddenly start banding together for Piltover just because they were both at risk of being murdered by some freaky aliens. Why would people in the undercity care? They're already dying and being mistreated. It was lazy, overdone, and not consistent with the thesis of the story. Yeah, having Sevika on the council representing Zaun in the last 10 seconds of the show was great, but how did we get there? Why was that not the focus?

As for #2, Vi and Powder are the main characters and their relationship is at the core of this story. It is the most important relationship in this story. Objectively. And their relationship was not resolved in a satisfying way whatsoever. It didn't have to be perfect, it didn't even have to be happy, but it had to be satisfying and make sense. And it did not.

I truly believe that if those two aspects remained the focus of the story, every other issue that people had with the show or any individual character's choices would no longer be a problem.

I keep seeing people mad that some characters died or their ship wasn't canon but the thing is, this has always been a tragic story. I am not mad that all traces of Vander are gone from Warwick. I am not mad that Jinx and Ekko didn't end up together (even though I literally actively ship them). I don't think everything has to be wrapped up in a nice happy bow for a show to be good. It just has to make narrative sense and be consistent with the thesis of the story, which it was not.

Here's my take: I think many of this season's issues could have been resolved had episodes 1-6 been spread out over 9 episodes with the events of episode 6 being the season finale.

Episodes 1-6 had elements of the central theses that I mentioned earlier. Jinx's attack reignited the suspicion/dislike of undercity folk, therefore upholding the classism aspect; Salo even says "I can't believe we were almost about to give those people rights" (not a direct quote but you get the idea). Vi had lost all hope that her sister was still 'in there', was thinking about Jinx and mourning Powder. The physical fight between them and the role Caitlyn played in it was narratively consistent. These episodes weren't perfect, nor were they as cleanly written as s1, but they had the heart of the story in mind. The real issue is what happened afterwards. They lost the plot, quite literally.

When I heard this second season would also be the final one, I was surprised, but considering there's nothing I hate more than when a story gets drawn out just for the sake of it/because it's popular, I felt like I couldn't complain. However, considering how much convoluted bs they tried to shove into this one 9 episode season, I am confused as to why it wasn't drawn out more. Was it a budgetary reason? An issue with Netflix? I can't figure out what the problem was.

In conclusion, I don't think this season was horrible. Definitely not the worst Season 2 of a beloved Season 1 I've ever seen, at least. But it's still disappointing that the impeccable writing of Season 1 was unable to be matched.

[avelera]

OK, so, I have now seen Good Omens Season 2 and had a moment to muster my thoughts after binging it.

SPOILERS below the cut, if that needed saying.

--

Let's start with the good.

Loved that Beelz/Gabriel became canon. What can I say? I love stories about immortals falling in love over the course of several meetings at a pub ;)

John Hamm in general was fabulous

I cackled at the fact we were getting an actual fem Aziraphale/Crowley, human coffee shop AU running parallel with the absolute fanficciest of justifications that Aziraphale and Crowley HAD to make them fall in love in order to *mumble mumble* something plot whatever, lol

I loved the bits of lore flashbacks we got about Aziraphale and Crowley first meeting when they were both angels and I found the whole Job encounter overall charming.

I was deeply fascinated by the fact that Crowley consistently performed selfless angelic acts while Aziraphale consistently needed to learn and grow around doing the right thing. Even to the end he remained, for the most part, a good little soldier. Aziraphale thinks the system can be fixed. Crowley "knows" that it can't. Presumably, Crowley is right. More on that later.

Muriel was adorable

Loved that we got the kiss. Also, huge shoutout to the fandom that I genuinely went in unspoiled on that front after the whole trailer debacle. I SUSPECTED based on the reactions that the spoiler was a kiss, but I was able to successfully forget all about it so I genuinely gasped when they kissed.

I'm not really all that bummed by the ending. It's so obviously a "temporary breakup so we come back together stronger" moment so I was largely unbothered. I actually want MORE angst, not less, in fic after that, please and thank you.

Unpopular opinion praise for S2, but I'm glad we didn't get more of The Them, or Madame Tracy (though the recasting of the actress in another role puzzled me?) or Anathema/Newt, or any of the non Aziraphale/Crowley, Heaven/Hell stuff. I found all those plotlines hugely boring and I'm glad the story moved on from them.

Did I mention I adored Gabriel/Beelz? Loved that plotline. Might rewatch that bit again just for that. I SORT of suspected it was happening but was still delighted by the confirmation. I couldn't BELIEVE this minor ship got made canon, but along the way I was sort of side-eying Beelz's reactions through the lens of, "Wait, what if Beelz is WORRIED for Gabriel?" and it worked very well so I was tentatively *glad* for the shippers who might view it that way and NEVER guessed they'd make it canon this season with more than a few tidbits for those shippers to cling to. Wow. Whole-ass parallel instead of what Aziraphale and Crowley COULD be if they actually 1) communicated and 2) understood each other's values and valued the same things.

Truly, it was a love letter to the fandom I found that to be very sweet as a choice made by Tumblr Girlie Neil Gaiman.

H'ok, now let's get into the negative. To be clear, I enjoyed the season! A lot of room is left to explore stuff in Season 3! And I'm not a deep Good Omens fandom person, I didn't read much fic after S1 dropped, I was more of a book fandom fic person for it. So my level of investment isn't such that I'm *crushed* by any of this, these are just more things I found a bit "meh"?

I really thought we were heading to a side-swap story about Aziraphale and Crowley and I was little bummed it didn't happen, though there's still room for the possibility in S3. The whole "maybe I did the good thing and you did the bad" taken to the max. I really wanted the angst of them finding each other only to end up on opposite sides again and opposite-OPPOSITE sides of where they'd been and been comfortable up to this point. I really wanted to see IMPACT and SUFFERING and DISCOMFORT and... idk, more drama? Than we got?

Like, there were SO MANY references to Crowley being selfless and doing the RIGHT angelic thing while Aziraphale did a lot of HORRIFYING things, including all the mind-fuckery stuff he did around the ball, totally insensitive to the needs and wants of the humans involved, only seeing them as tools, that REALLY made me wonder if we were getting a swap by the end.

The fact we saw SO MANY ominous references to Aziraphale FALLING because he was tempted by Crowley, over and over, because he questioned God, over and over? I thought something would come of that! I thought Crowley would get through to Aziraphale just in time to have Aziraphale fall and for Crowley to do something truly angelic, to have Aziraphale get through to HIM at the same time so they'd swap sides officially, against their will, the same way Crowley never meant to fall. It seemed like falling was something that COULD HAPPEN TO YOU AGAINST YOUR WILL and I wanted REDEMPTION to work the same way, AGAINST Crowley's will. I wanted them to get absolutely FUCKED by the moment they finally got through to each other and swapped philosophies.

So that was a bummer. Could still happen in S3 but...? I'd be a bit surprised at this point given I think it will instead focus on (*sigh*) averting the Apocalypse again.

I thought the pacing was fucking atrocious. There was so much dead time. So many scenes that were simply *not* needed and didn't add anything. So much meandering script with darlings that desperately needed to be killed for the sake of a snappier story. So much that felt like padding. With a better editor and 2 fewer episodes, I think it would have been a much tighter, better, fast paced show.

S2 recalled with a problem I have with Neil's writing in general - he's a short story writer/comic issue writer at heart. I, personally, am a long-form novel writer. Neil is not great at writing novels, he's a novella/anthology/short story person and it shows when he so often, so consistently, fails to pull a long-form story together in a satisfying way (to me, and this is just my subjective opinion).

It shows up in so many ways with how, in my opinion, S2 seemed to flounder with how to fill 6 episodes. The flashback to the Resurrectionist stuff could have been half as long and I found much of the writing pretty awful and cliche in it.

I liked Aziraphale learning that morality is complex, truly, but that was all I really liked of that bit of flashback and it could have been much shorter. I found everything around Elspeth exasperating and on the nose. It was a short story straight out of a random issue of "The Sandman" and sometimes it really feels like Neil has never managed to break out of the same stories, plots, and themes, with a dash of horror as he did from that era. He's always, always, still just writing either 1) fanfic of another person or mythology's work or 2) an original Sandman short stories/issues with no long-form plot. In his defense, they're always COOL and have an interesting VISUAL or IDEA but these stories aren't very... good? Writing? Or rather, he tends to just do the same things over and over again. Nifty idea that don't actually really *gel* into anything more complex than a single storyline?

I felt the same way about the Nazi Zombie plotline. I found that entire story beat EXCEEDINGLY tedious and pointless except to fill airtime, not to mention a bit gross to watch. I found the Magician Aziraphale plotline in general EXCEEDINGLY pointless and tedious to sit through. I thought it added absolutely nothing and was incredibly dull for 99% of the story.

Everything with Shax was exceedingly tedious and boring to me. The fight in the bookshop felt nonsensical and poorly choreographed. That needed to be a 2x speed to feel any sense of peril or urgency at all, and not knowing where it was going, or if anyone was actually really threatened at all just robbed it of any real sense of tension.

There was just... zero sense in general of important stakes in the Shax storyline or really in the season because there was no Apocalypse to build towards, no event that we knew about to worry about.

The world wasn't ending. Shax didn't seem empowered to actually do anything or hurt anyone. They were just a random action plot for... reasons? To make the climax in the bookshop come together so we could have a Jane Austen ball at the same time as 69 demons (heh) invading? There were so many logical leaps there to make that happen and the pacing/editing being garbage just... robbed it of any feeling of importance except as a time waster of a plotline. The actress is great and all but dear lord was that plotline dull.

A lot of the flashbacks in general just felt like... padding. Yes, we got a bit more Aziraphale and Crowley but they never quite... worked for me in those. It was always pointless STUFF they were doing rather than anything that contributed to the plot or even to my sense of them being in love or working towards becoming a couple! They were just... there, a lot of the time, sitting next to each other.

Some of the script pauses were SO BIZARRE. Like as if they'd just written the script and not realized how bloody often Crowley is given NOTHING TO DO in the background so he just... stands there, waiting for his next line, or taking a nap, or observing random stuff. David Tenant in the Resurrectionist bit with all his theatrics felt, again, pointless and tedious but also the best the poor guy could fucking do to fill out this incredibly boring story with any sort of entertainment. Bless them, the actors worked their ASSES off to get some fun and excitement into huge swathes of this script.

Maggie and Nina's relationship was cute but ENTIRELY pulled off by the actresses, the story was again, incredibly tedious and pointless otherwise, as many coffee shop AUs are in my opinion. Their personal charm elevated the material but it all felt like more stalling tactics with a wink-and-a-nod at fic writers, with this entire season was stretched out to justify, presumably, Aziraphale being in Heaven after being promoted to Archangel while Crowley is on Earth and they're fighting.

Quite frankly, if the "real" sequel, which Pratchett co-wrote, just opens with Aziraphale thinking Heaven's shown up to destroy him, only to promote him on the spot, basically the last scene of S2, you actually don't need 99% of this season at all to get there. In fact, it's a pretty fun comedy beat to do quickly. Basically, "Oh shit, the cops!" then "Actually, we're here to promote you!" and boom, we've reached the same spot as we got to after 6 episodes of S2.

Not that I didn't enjoy many of the character moments! But overall, it felt like stalling for time to make it a trilogy series, since only a few plot threads had any longer term importance to anyone who isn't a fanfic-writing super fan who knows what a coffee shop AU is and can giggle over there being one in the actual show.

Basically, it was very lacking in the strengths of the story that I attribute to Terry Pratchett - like the ability to pull a long-form story together, and certain clever turns of phrase.

There were so many lines where there was a pause where it was as IF they were going to say something clever, and then they just... didn't? And the line was just another cliche or a trail-off of someone mumbling "comedically"? That's where I very much felt Pratchett's absence. It indeed felt like half the writing duo was missing in many ways. And I'm not personally... all that convinced of Neil's chops when it comes to long-form stories or romance, two things that this season kinda relied on pulling off right that I was left feeling pretty tepid about after.

Look, overall, I did like it! I'm really excited for how the fandom will run with what happened and make their own stuff with it. I'm very excited for Season 3, whenever we get it, and the return of Terry Pratchett's fingerprints on the story. I think it's going to be great!

It's not that I think my time was wasted so much as I thought places where *I* would have done things differently, which is not a fair criticism of any work. From a technical perspective, really I just think it needed a tighter script or tighter editing, and they just might not have been able to do that if they were contracted for 6 episodes when they only really needed 3. Oh well. Onward and upward!

[tardis-stowaway]

I spent the weekend at DragonCon, a convention I've been attending off and on for decades. Some notable experiences and thoughts this year include:

Jodie Whittaker was there, and her panel was an absolute delight. I lined up almost an hour in advance and ended up with a pretty good seat. She talks with her hands constantly. The other celeb panels I saw (Catherine Tate and a LOTR panel with Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd, and Dominic Monaghan) were also really fun.

One of the more notable moments of the con happened as I was failing to get into a panel. A huge line formed waiting for the Science vs. Movies panel Sunday night, and it got routed down a corridor of the Hilton that I'd never seen before. It wasn't signed as a staff-only area, but it was an intensely liminal and weird space. After passing through multiple turns, I ended up finding the end of the line in an area where half the overhead lights were out! The carpet had weird swirls and a bit of color theory. Many of the locked doors along the corridor were labeled as meeting rooms (why wasn't the con using them in its constant need for more space?), but others had signs like "Fire Control." Even through my mask it smelled faintly of mildew. The Distortion vibes were strong. I am delighted to report that someone on reddit posted a photo of what I believe is the exact area where I joined the line. Luckily the people in line near me were all good-humored and fun. When the line finally moved we did not make it into the panel, but the corridor did allow us to exit with our lives and what remained of our sanity.

I spotted a Magnus Archives/Protocol photoshoot on the schedule Friday, so I went to that to see cosplay and say hi to people in the fandom. It was held at night outside on a very noisy party patio, which impaired photography and conversation. Still, I had fun! There were some very cool costumes. A Jane Prentiss cosplayer gave me (gummy) worms.

I cosplayed one day this year. I was Carpenter from The Silt Verses, during S2 when she's carrying the homesick corpse. I'd originally conceived of trying to make a backpack into a whole cloth-wrapped corpse with limbs, but I wasn't able to get that construction to work in the time I had. Instead I just had a wrapped head sticking out of a backpack with attached speech balloon saying "Please...I have to get home." Presumably the rest of the shriveled corpse is shoved in the bag. I knew that the odds of being recognized were very low since the costume is for a podcast, and not even a podcast where fanart is super widespread or settled in distinguishing characteristics. Still, I figured that horror podcast fan overlap meant that I might find other Silt Verses fans at the Magnus event. Sure enough, I had one (1) person recognize me there. Silt Verses fan with the long colorful hair, you made my con!

The Our Flag Means Death fan panel was a good time. The love was strong in that room.

Masking, while more common at the con than in your average store or public building these days, was still way too low considering how many people were crowded in after traveling from all over. I kept my mask on indoors except when eating or drinking, and ate almost all of my meals outside. We'll see if that was enough to keep me healthy.

The Brit Track needs to do a better job at getting some new voices with more varied opinions on their Doctor Who discussion panels.

I saw lots of Fourteenth Doctors, which I expected, but I was sad not to have seen any Fifteenth Doctors cosplayers.

In general I feel like I saw slightly less really impressive cosplay than in some past DragonCons, but that may have been just my habit of avoiding some of the really crowded lobby zones when possible. Still plenty of awesome cosplay work around.

As usual it was far too crowded inside and too hot outside. I'm now tired and super achey (in a too much time on my feet way, not in a con crud/covid way for now). Nevertheless, I had an excellent time.

[writingforfun0714]

So I wanted to wait and let the new Bad Batch trailer sink in before posting about it.

Warnings: Spoilers, some thoughts/opinions will be critical

Alright so I don’t think it’s any secret that I don’t care for the Bad Batch. Even ignoring the horrible, incredibly RACIST clone model, the writing is mid/passable at best and not even watchable for me. Most of S1 and 2 combined is the typical ‘mission of the week’ type of story where only a few Empire-focused episodes stand out. There are also instances of ableism concerning Echo in particular (CF99 are also super dismissive of him in general—going along with that whole fucking ‘superiority over regs’ thing—seriously wtf).

Most episodes were very bland and predictable. S1 had no stakes despite its finale. By Mando/ST it’s clear that something has happened to Kamino. Didn’t really need to see a 2pt ep of the city getting wiped. Plus AZI should’ve been sacrificed. Even Ahsoka learns the lesson that you can’t save everyone in S1 when she disobeys Anakin and Admiral Yularen. TBB S2 had no character development from anyone besides a little bit for Omega (and Tech—but that was always speculated by fans since S1 and he’s dead now so it doesn’t really matter). A lot of the dialogue felt…basic. I think the only thing that TBB does well is the music. It’s really amazing and beautiful along with the smooth, crisp animation/scenery. Shame they ruined it with racist clone models, racist tones with the ‘reg’ dispute in both seasons, and being ableist and dismissive towards Echo.

Which brings me to the trailer. Oh boy. First, right off the bat I noticed how similar the trailer opening is compared to the S2 trailer. I do like that Phee is back. She did take time to grow on me but I do like her character and am curious to see where they will go with her.

It’s interesting we are seeing Crosshair back with the group so soon. Personally I do believe that is Crosshair and not just someone else wearing his armor like some think. I like the idea of Omega and Crosshair escaping early on but Omega gets recaptured/separated and taken back to Tantiss.

I’m interested in Hemlock and his backstory (is his gloved hand robotic?). I wish they’d create more interesting and unique characters like Phee and Fennec Shand instead of relying on cameos of established characters/fan-favorites like Ventress. I loved Dark Disciple and I thought it was a great ending for her.

I know it’s officially said that Ventress’ story will follow Dark Disciple but I don’t see how unless they retcon her death or pull a ‘somehow she survived’. Either way that sucks. Reminder!! DAVE FELONY DIDN’T EVEN FOLLOW REBELS FOR AHSOKA. SABINE IS NOT FORCE SENSITIVE IN REBELS. DAVE RETCONS THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYTHING. I have no faith that they will remain loyal to DD. Anything that will be ‘canon’ will be mid at best because even Crosshair’s arc has been messy (which is due to the weird S1 ‘reset’ the characters go through. Like they totally should’ve appreciated ‘regs’ by the end of TBB arc in TCW S7–there was no need for that awkward food fight scene in S1).

I hate that this show has to rely on cameos to get the viewing numbers. Here is a list of every character cameo we’ve seen so far:

—Rex*

—Tarkin*

—Palpatine*

—The Lawquane Family

—The Syndullas/Chopper

—Nala Se/Lama Su*

—Cad Bane

—Bail Organa

—Riyo Chuchi

—Gungi

—Gregor

—Wolffe

—Cody

—Scorch

—Saw Gerrera

—Martez Sisters

—Kanan/Depa*

—Muchi/Rancor from RotJ

—Taun We/Halle Burtoni

—Ventress

*I consider these important/relevant cameos and am not bothered by them like the others*

What a list right? I might even be missing one. These were just off the top of my head. Some are big players, others smaller and almost not-relevant to the plot. Not counting the one’s I asterisked, it’s 15 characters. There are original characters but a lot of them, especially in S1 felt like one off, not important characters. And I hate Cid so much—glad to see she was absent in the S3 trailer. I’m really starting to love Phee and I’ve always loved Fennec Shand, and Hemlock is definitely an intriguing villain and Emerie feels like a total mystery (though the reveal was not shocking due to the similar design and accent to Omega). Like why can’t they create more characters like these? The rest just feel forgettable. And it’s clear that characters like Saw, Gungi, Scorch, Cad Bane and even the Syndulla and Lawquane families just felt like fan service. The rest kind of make sense that they’d show up but it also feels a bit like fan service.

Moving on..

I know a lot of people think that new weird dark trooper at the 1:40 mark is Tech. While I’m inclined to agree as I think the ‘Winter Soldier’ story is an obvious choice to pick, I also think that Tech is dead. I’ve changed my mind and kind of hope that Tech isn’t brought back.

I hope this is someone new. I also wouldn’t mind if it was a bounty hunter we’ve seen before. Due to the frame and stature, I could almost think of Boba due to him being older than Omega but it’s definitely more likely to be Tech than either of these choices.

It’s interesting a lot of cameo characters from S2 do not make an appearance in the trailer. Bail, Riyo, Gungi, Gregor and Cody are all absent from the trailer. Trailers usually show action shots to avoid story spoilers, but with Gungi, Gregor, and Cody all being capable fighters, I’m surprised they didn’t appear (usually stuff with politics is a story spoiler).

Overall I’m skeptical of the trailer. I don’t like Ventress being alive/in TBB being a Dark Disciple lover. There’s a lot of mystery surrounding the story of S3 so I don’t feel like I can give an accurate take on that. I hate how Omega’s longer hair looks. Curly haired Omega is adorable!! The animation (everything but the clone model) is definitely getting better. However, based on how S2 was marketed as a ‘darker story compared to S1’ and was like 80% fetch quest I’m definitely skeptical.

Those of you that made it through this post, thank you for your time and I hope I gave you something to think about. If you wanna learn more about the racism and ableism portrayed in this show, check out @unwhitewashthebadbatch for more info.

[mysteriouslybluepirate]

As a fandom- where do we think Izzy's story will end? [Poll at the bottom]

Now. So much of S2 is about what Stede/Ed want in the end. Sure, they're together again, but now what? For Stede, it's a pirate's life. He wants a crew, a family, connections, and adventure. Freedom from a life he hated. Even if it's short, he wants joy. For Ed, it's peace. He wants to fish, and eat good food, and spend time with the person he loves. Away from the stress of piracy. Of being hunted down and fighting to survive. To me, this is why the S2Ep7 fight happens the way it does. Stede's rising popularity shows Ed that, fuck, Stede is slowly becoming an example of the pirate life that he'd despised. Ed is dating the most popular pirate in the Republic, and fuck. That's dangerous. That's a target on Stede's back. That's more fights, future rivalries, future doublecrosses, another fight surviving against the authorities. An expanding list of people to hunt down the man he loves. Here he is, slowly watching as Stede, a man who onced loved nature and marmalade. Scared of violence and fighting. Slowly get taken over by a hardened Stede. Still Stede, yes. But scary and new. Ed's scared. So he runs. Chooses to protect his heart and go before he is forced to break up with Stede. He can't be this anymore. Leaving Stede behind, sad and confused on how things went to shit so quickly.

So....

Not to be an Izzy fan about this but... When everything settles down. When Stede and Ed are free to run and be happy, what will Izzy Hands do?

I've seen so many opinions, but honestly, I don't think even he knows the answer to this question yet. I think a large part of his S3 arc is Izzy looking at life and being like 'fuck, I'm in my 50s, but I'm still alive. So what now?'.

To be by Ed's side? Well...not anymore. He has a family. Sure, for a second it looked like they'd all split up in EP7 but we all know the upcoming bullshit in ep8 will tie everyone in tighter together. He doesn't need Ed the way he did even a few episodes ago. He's trying to form a life where he can be happy with his identity outside of Ed.

These last few episodes have shown that this life is too dangerous for Ed to feel safe starting something with Stede. There will be a compromise, and fuck. The idea of Izzy just going along with it because 'that's where Ed is' after everything is just...heartbreaking.

To go retire? I mean. I'd want that ending for him, to grow older, happy and safe, and warm and loved by his community. Maybe get him someone whose as loyal to him as he was to Ed(platonically or not).

In S1 he stated that's not a future he ever expected for himself. Sure, maybe next season we'll get some 'It's my final day before retirement' bullshit. But it will need to be set up.

To stay a first mate? Maybe! hell, Izzy loved Ed enough to 'let him' become a fisherman without talking him out of it. Clearly he enjoys the life he has on the revenge. Whose to say he won't enjoy being first mate under a different captain. Say, Olu, or Jim, or some rando they introduce next season.

To become Captain? Again, maybe? I can see it. The show ends with Stede and Ed in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Izzy and the crew run off for one more adventure (with the promise that yes, they'll visit as often as they can).

It's sad in a way. Knowing what we all know about history. How one day Captain Hands will die at sea. Either by being too slow in a fight, being caught, or their ship going down. But maybe that's what he wants?

THIS is the reason so many latched onto Izzy Hands. Stede and Ed will get a happy ending. Period. The End. But what about our crew? What about Izzy? Izzy's arc has meant so much for so many of us. I don't see him dying this season (FINGERS CROSSED) but this fucker would die for his crew.

SO. What do you think? As it stands right now.

[wolfblood-of-anubis]

something else to say about House of Anubis’ Season 3 + Touchstone of Ra

something i never liked about s3 was their choice to make Victor into a sinner. the thing about Victor is that while he’s greedy— he’s not evil. he does care about the well-being of the kids when it comes to life and death. he was afraid of Alfie dying in S1, afraid for all of them in S2 after Alfie was plunged into nothingness.

but then in S3B, when he’s made a sinner it’s just pure evil no-conscience Victor and it sucks. he’s not the same Victor we know— and i know that’s the whole point. im not gonna lie, seeing Patricia, Fabian, and Alfie become sinners was fun because it was like the longest running remaining Sibuna members got taken and now the two newbies are left. though again, i still liked it because S3 started with an Eddie and KT partnership and it ended that same way, with them together fighting as a duo.

but i would’ve been much happier if Victor hadn’t been taken as a sinner, make someone else like Benji or whoever instead.

why? lets gets into Touchstone of Ra real quick. the thing about that movie is that Victor— for the first time in HOA history is on Sibuna’s side. and not at the end, from like the middle of the movie. it makes it much more interesting because the dynamic changes, we could’ve seen Victor reacting to how they work and asking “These are the kids that pull one over on me time and time again?” as well as recognizing the potential in them, like Fabian with the hieroglyphs and everything.

instead, the movie is rushed and we get three newbies that are- in my opinion- seriously some of the laziest add-in’s of all time. the weird guy that’s kinda gross to add in that comedic effect, the smart asian girl, the vapid blonde with money and clothes. they really didn’t pull any brain muscles on them, huh?

i assume the whole point of them, and Eddie ‘initiating’ them as Sibuna recruits for the next year was their attempt at a possible sequel series somehow. and it clearly failed. but it’s still not even that fun, because a lot of the movie brings in these new kids while instead we could’ve had Jerome and Joy involved in the final mystery seeing as they were big parts of the first two. especially because we added in Mara at the last second. and then it’s just another new awkward dynamic trying to catch her up to speed as well as having Fabian be in a weird intellectual rivalry with her when she shows him up and i get it, Fabian’s used to being the brains of the operation and in comes the girl who beat him for valedictorian and she’s got a lot of answers so yeah, it’s a bit envious of him. could you blame him?

i resonate with Mara sometimes but rewatching the entire show, the girl keeps doing messed up stuff every season (well S2 isn’t terrible) but she messed with Mick during the goth girl phase, almost got a teacher fired because she was jealous, the entire Jerome revenge in S3 (while i sympathized with the first bits, the fake-love-Joy-thing was low for her) and then here you have the movie, she’s the newest member whom they never even fully indicted (even the babies get a quickie initiation ritual from Eddie).

so i guess this is to say that Mara got gradually worse (s2 didnt do much so she gets a pass there)

but oh yeah, the Victor thing. i would’ve MUCH preferred it if Victor had ended up helping Sibuna in idk mid-S3B. like he figured out that ritual went wrong, Robert’s evil, shit’s fucked. and he realizes what he’s planning on doing, releasing Ammut. so, he accidentally finds himself aligned with the kids. it would’ve been so nice to see

@frobisher-smythe @mask-of-anubis @yackers @sibxna @joymercerssecretgf @sibunaaanubis @incorrectsibunaquotes

[matan4il]

I have debated how to say this or even write it but I'm just giving in to try. Based on Max's interview and your recent anon on expectations I wanted to add my opinion no one asked for lol. But here's my thing as a long time viewer and pretty successful predictor.

I take all my clues from Oliver, he has in the past validated and acknowledged and even said he wouldn't promote if he thought it was baiting. He's very sensative to the fandom and the fact he is now leads me to believe that Buddie will be canon by the end of 5 or at least we will have a huge clue that yes its coming. Lets be real here Eddie clearly has PTSD and I don't think thats something we run over to start a relationship. But again, I think we will see it as heavily hinted if they arent already canon.

Now on to my worst case scenario. If the show really cant figure out how to write Buddie or isnt committing to it. I 100% believe that they are done with female LIs for both men. I imagine them actually being roommates for many reasons, either worried about Chris or heck saving money on rent. Have you seen LA prices. And its a cop out but I think for the remainder of the series we will have an ambiguous "platonic " family unit upgraded from S2 and S3. I get why people would be disappointed but I'm really at the point of leave women out of this and let me feel in the blanks if I have too. Give me their family time.

But again... take your clues from Oliver. He wouldn't tease if he didn't think that was the road we were headed.

Hi Nonnie! Thank you for the ask and big hugs!

Oooh, I won't lie, I was wondering whether I would get an ask about Max's interview. And yes, you're always welcome to throw your opinions at me! ;)

I have to admit I'm a bit torn. On the one hand, I do think it matters that Oli and Ryan indicated they're down with Buddie happening. And the change that Oli went through, from refusing to like Buddie stuff since it might be misleading, to liking Buddie edits and art again? It did give me hope he might know the direction these two are on and that it's the one we're all hoping for. On the other, he's also indicated recently he hasn't yet read the script for this season's finale. So... IDK. He might not know as much as we think he does. There might be something else influencing his decision to like Buddie stuff again. Maybe he just missed them, or he decided supporting the artists matters more? I really don't know. At the same time, he might also know the general direction for Buddie without knowing the specifics, like the 518 script, making my whole point moot. XD

If Buddie won't go canon, I can't see them both remaining single. Because 911 would probably want to re-affirm that they're straight by pairing them with female LI's, and also 'coz out of the main cast, they don't have that many single characters, and they can't let the only two be the single pink elephant in the room... However, they may let them be single and still more wrapped up in each other than in anyone else and raising Chris together for the show finale... But I agree with you, that if I can't have canon Buddie, I would take 'filling in the blanks.' If it helps, I think no matter what, the show will always dedicate some of its time to the Buddifer family unit. 911 has made it abundantly clear that romantic or platonic, that little family unit is precious to both the fans and the show.

As for the interview, I have to say that it doesn't scare me into "Buddie is def not going canon." At least not yet. Kristen didn't say Buddie is def not happening. She could have, but she didn't. In fact, she indicated the romantic possibility exists and nothing was ruled out. More than that, she could have implied reading Buddie as romantic is crazy, but instead she admitted it's a valid reading. Even when she claimed it's not how she wrote them, she didn't de-legitimize this option. Also, when stressing that Buddie are just good friends, she added it's where they're at right now. Which... canonically, that's accurate. Doesn't mean they always will be, and her phrasing clearly left the door open for them to be something more at some other point. Plus... these show runners said there was no need for a Buck Begins, then did one, and then said there was no need for Eddie to break down, and we know how that's going... I really am not yet panicking over this interview.

Lastly, Kristen saying she drew the guardianship bit from her mother's rl decision... except, I'm sure her mother was Very Normal about it, as in, she was probably being a responsible parent, taking possible scenarios into account, then sat her bestie down for a talk, explained that because she doesn't want her daughter to be raised by her parents she's asking her BFF to be the legal guardian and gave this woman as much time as she needed to decide on what to say. But is that what Kristen wrote for Buddie? No. Because she too knows there is nothing Very Normal about them. She wrote Eddie making the decision based on a real life-threatening event, with emotions running high, making his decision an emotional rather than a logical one, Buck saying he wished he could have died instead of Eddie (!!!) and then, THEN Eddie, in Very Not Normal fashion, makes the emotionally impactful decision to let Buck know he's been Chris' legal guardian for basically a year, not asking him about it before making the will change because they both knew Buck would not say no (and them verbally confirming this to each other). That makes it less about Eddie's reasonable decision and more about making sure that Buck was emotionally ok, as I've detailed here. But wait, that's not all! We know Eddie's parents suck and why they shouldn't raise Chris, but there's also Eddie's Tia Pepa, or his sisters... he dismisses them all, and more than that, he doesn't even bring them up as the reason he's made Buck Chris' guardian. He's not turning to his best friend 'coz his family sucks. By not going "X can't have Chris 'coz... so I need you to step in," it makes it clear Buck isn't Eddie's default. He's HIS CHOICE.

IDK, Kristen, is this really how you think things went down between your mom and her bestie when that agreement was reached? Yeah, me neither. There is Nothing Remotely Normal about this.

(Sorry for the length, thank you for the ask and please have a look at my ask tag if you're looking for another ask reply. xoxox)

[mediawhorefics]

thoughts on doctor who!! echoes of previous companions always gets me good, like billie piper as The Moment

oh i have SO much to say about doctor who rip here's an incoherent rant/list of opinions !!

i'm an rtd-era supremacist so i'm DYING with excitement over his return!!! also this 14 news ??? HELLO?????????? SO SO SO EXCITED!!!!

my first doctor was 10 and he has remained my fav through and through. tho ofc i love them all in different ways. (fun fact my beta is the one who introduced me to dw back in the day)

my top three companions are donna (MY GIRL !!!!)/rose/the ponds

yes, i am in love with karen gillan and would like a spare hand in marriage ma'am

my greatest dw heartbreak is the fact that peter capaldi is one of my favourite actors and was probably the greatest ambassador for the show and i absolutely LOATHE the writing for his era.

steven moffat IS my nemesis and i hate what he did with the show. this man should have never been a showrunner. he's good with limits and boundaries and standalone.

full offence, i hate clara with a burning passion, no shade to the actress she's very talented, but everything about that character rubs me the wrong way. from the ~born to save the doctor bullshit to the has no life outside the doctor until moffat randomly decided to half-ass giving her a career to the badly written attempts at her having feelings for 11... truly, i despite this storyline so fucking much. again ship what you like but i don't get doctor/clara AT ALL. it makes me angry just thinking about it now. and she was there for SO long UGH.

my favourite series are s4 & s5 (yes i hate moffat i love s5, its complicated). also s2 because ROMANCE!!!!!

i hate moffat writing women for obvs reasons but i do love river song. highkey as much as i love matt & alex together NOTHING beats 12/river because peter capaldi said i'm playing a whole time lord in LOVE in that one episode they had together and my fucking HEART y'all. i know i have an unhealthy crush on peter capaldi but his face when he looks at her <333 it's almost as good as ten & rose's in love and utterly devoted to each other faces.

doctor/river still don't hold a candle to 10/rose obvs that shit was it. she was IT. rip to 16 yo me watching doomsday for the first time that shit fundamentally changed me as a person. where's that deancas/tenrose comparison post ?? cut me open and that's what you'll see.

i miss rtd era side characters SO much they were SO lived in and memorable and REAL and they made the show. we lost soooo much of doctor who's heart when he left.

its cringe but i ADORE torchwood despite all of its flaws. ianto jones was one of the very first bi-adjacent characters i ever connected with and he is SO dear to me. rip to my boy it's disgusting what rtd & co did to him :((( baby's first bury your gays, i was 17 and i still haven't recovered. thank god for big finish and all the quality torchwood content they produce.

speaking of big finish... if you're a who fan who hasn't tried to expended universe, i cannot recommend the 8th doctor audios enough. he is FANTASTIC and actually one of my favourite doctors. paul mcgann is INCREDIBLE in the role and it's criminal we only have the movie and that tiny one-shot for the 50th anniversary.

@ RTD JUSTICE FOR EIGHT IN THE 60TH SPECIAL

10/donna are the best tardis team end of. that tennant/tate chemistry??? CHEF'S KISS. @ rtd fix her. @ rtd bring her back. i am no longer asking !!!!

christopher eccleston is CRIMINALLY underrated. 9 deserves SO much love. i adore him. thanks @ big finish for bringing him back to me.

matt smith was the best at playing ancient. i still don't know how he did that thing with his eyes where he looked 1000 yo but wow.

cybermen are incredibly boring and i really dislike most of their eps. i'll take 50 dalek stories over cybermen ones idc.

we never should have seen the weeping angels after blink. they've lost more and more of their appeal the more their mythology has been expended on.

i still don't understand the whole silence cult vs silence species thing and at this point, i'm too afraid to ask.

some of us witnessing the andrew garfield renaissance remember frank and his 1930s fruitiness from 2007 is all i'm gonna say.

[frodispatch]

This is just a rant and is in no way my full thoughts because it’s very hard for me to organize it all but I’m so conflicted about s4 that I just have to write something.

Okay… so retconning isn’t USUALLY supposed to happen until your try to make a spin-off or soft-reboot of an original story,

And while there are certainly elements of s4 I like, (thank you to Tumblr for supplying me with Ronance and Steddie. We’re witnessing the birth of fandom and I must appreciate) it just feels like a different show and I have kept it that way in my mind.

I’ve done so much with Stranger Things because there is so much to analyze and I’m always so surprised when people say there’s nothing under the surface in this show!

But the Duffers are trying so hard to push that THIS is the story they’ve been telling all along and while they have covered it well, like with giving Vecna powers that can make it work that it could’ve been him chasing Will in s1 ep1, I cannot believe that that’s how it is. Maybe it HAS always been this way and the Duffers have a very different eye than I do, but I feel I’m equipped to enjoy my original ideas about s1-3 and keep s4 as a separate entity.

I in fact made myself an ending to the series a while ago because I knew s4 was going to rip up my worldview but I put myself into a state of false hope for a while that lead me to believe that just maybe my complicated view of the show would actually come to fruition and that everything I’ve seen and theorized could work because I was able to make it work by myself.

But they went the simple way, of course they did. I don’t want to say they bullshitted through the writing but they certainly focused on the directory elements and visuals very heavily.

The mindflayer as an antagonist was never exhausted, in fact they set it up for him to come back at the end of s3 and they were using him quite brilliantly. The gate was closed but his influence remained since he was able to manipulate the Will/El alternates (ie. Hawkins scouts as I call them that Chrissy and Max were in the beginning of s4 before they forgot what they were doing.) (I’ve called the mindflayer the “puppet master” before, pulling the strings behind the wall that El closed.) (I’m not going to get into how that’s representative. I do not have the energy though unfortunately I don’t think I ever will and it’s just going to be locked in my head forever. I can’t get it in order.)

I don’t like the whole rainbow room thing and the restructuring of the workings of Hawkins lab. (That connects to how they’ve changed Hopper but I also don’t need to get into that right now. I should just stop the parentheses and WRITE but I’m an idiot)

The “sympathy” shown for Brenner in the beginning initially made me think someone was in denial, particularly denying the trauma caused by a father figure and they’ve just thrown Lonnie away. (I never thought I’d be upset to see that bastard not exist but they just lost that the story needs to be sort of central to the Byers. S3 was a divergence in every way but ON PURPOSE. They were supposed to look back at s2 for this season and build the balance back after our teenage dramatic capitalist over show that was in my opinion over the top and bright on purpose. That season, which I initially hated and there are still parts of it that I dislike (I still don’t understand the Hopper character development reset) works really well since all of the characters are growing and it gives us a chance to see the villain powering up again but also focus on the VERY HEAVY relationship element of the show. Both familial, especially with the Wheelers in s3, and romantic. We see relationships start to lose their stability like Jancy and Mileven. The parts of the season that shine are where they do tone shifts, the hospital, the byler fight, the end when the Byers’s are moving. The tone shows the significance and everything down to the costume design and things Mike looks at help build the characters. The best balance of the viewer being able to see the facade crumble are Billy eating dinner with heather’s parents (intentionally/blatantly unsettling as El and Max figure out what is going on) the scene of when mike and El leave the others (while they go see Cerebro I think) to go kiss helps the audience see that Mike specifically (because let’s be honest, eleven doesn’t understand relationships.) is trying to act adult and pushing aside his friends. Mike taught Eleven that a relationship meant kissing right away, by kissing her, in his naive “I want a girlfriend because I need one” way. And he is acting like his parents in s3 (costume design + blatantly showing Karen Wheelers discomfort in her family structure in case you forgot about Nancy mentioning it in s1). Like, s3 used tone SO WELL and now s4 is like “oh you liked the funny stuff? We’re going to exclusively use the trendy MCU-style humor.

Oh my god I could go on about s3 forever, I have not even said anything about how ALL of it can connect to Will or things being fake (I don’t like that they’re making the Russians blatantly “real” either since they, like Erica, were used in s3 as a device.) I’m not gonna talk about how so many characters represent certain things in the mind (Murray and Alexi in s3. Hopper, kali etc. s2) fucking not never, they’re mine and I will fight for them to exist. Billy and Heather, Eleven and Will, etc. I cannot talk about right now because I’d have to go from the beginning and I do not have time because it will send me to the hospital.

S4 loses the subtlety that made this show so great in the first season. I’m just resigned to the fact that the duffers took the easy way out since the world will watch whatever they put on screen.

Sorry that this is so long. I’m not doing very well and my ST timeline is there, but it’s hard to get it back in order. I’m gonna make a separate thing for the examples of retconning

[beautyofthend]

Kate Fleming - A Character Study

There were many things that annoyed me about the series finale of Series 6, I could talk about it for days on end. But the one thing that perhaps annoyed me the most was the way in which Kate went through massive character development throughout Episodes 1-6 and then that got all but dropped by Episode 7. Dropped in the sense that every piece of character development within Kate through those first episodes had been obvious, explicit; we can see very clearly that Kate had changed in the time she had left AC-12 and joined MIT, but as we got to Episode 7 this character development dropped to mere subtext and having to read between the lines just to understand Kate’s motives. 

I’m going to be exploring that and finding the best possible explanation for Kate’s character because I feel as though it would be very easy to misjudge her without explanation. 

To start I just want to say that this is all my opinion, I’ll try to back up my points as best I can but it is just my interpretation of how I’ve seen Kate as a character. Enjoy. 

Character development is crucial in shows that have multiple series, more so when it’s main characters are prevalent throughout. We, as the audience, need to see these characters go through change, they can’t stay as the same person the whole time. They can have certain characteristics and arcs that remain as we watch their journey but when characters go through situations, like real life, they don’t come out the other side as who they were before. We as humans change everyday, I am not the same person I was last week. Of course, not in a drastic way but events change us, we develop. So when we watch programmes we expect to see similar changes in characters. 

And we do. Throughout Line of Duty we see our main characters, Kate, Steve and Ted, put through many events, some major, some not so. They are often put in danger or will be witness to catastrophic moments: Kate and Steve were present when Tony ended his life, Kate was present when Dot got shot, she was also present when Danny got shot. I could go on but you get the point. We’ve seen our characters go through a lot so we should expect to see their development. I shouldn’t expect to see that Kate remains fairly the same between Series 1-5. 

But let’s dig into that more. Kate is a strong, steely, kick-ass character. She doesn’t put up with things and isn’t afraid to tell someone when they’re in the wrong - she has quite happily pulled Ted up on his wrongdoings over the years. We see Kate in numerous undercover operations, we know that she is an expert at hiding her true feelings as a result of that. She can manipulate people into giving her information and she’s very good at playing on their emotions - but this only occurs under the guise of being a UCO. 

Kate follows a set guide when she becomes a UCO and we see this throughout. I find that she is pushy, never letting her questions up when she hasn’t been given the answer she wanted. She earns their trust by offering her support and being emotionally available for them (some more than others). One particular thing that she always does without fail is slate AC-12 as a means of gaining trust. Everyone she goes undercover for are under the watchful eye of AC-12 so she must show that she has nothing to do with them, that her aliases: Flynn, Foster, Francis, do not side/agree with the actions of AC-12 - this is excluding the first series where we see her using her real name Kate Fleming but she still sticks to the idea of bad-mouthing AC-12 to earn trust. Some examples over the show being: 

“AC-12, they’re robots them lot. They don’t get the difference between a corrupt officer and a decent one who made a mistake.” - To Tony Gates in S1E3

“AC-12, they twist everything and make everyone look guilty.” - To Lindsay Denton in S2E2

“You know what they’re (AC-12) like, fishing for inconsistencies. Anything they can pounce on.” - To Jackie Brickford in S3E3

“AC-12 leaving with their tail between their legs.” - To Roz Huntley in S4E2 - this is more telling as this scene actually takes place in front of Steve and in E3 she does it again, going as far to call Steve a “wanker” in front of everyone. 

The only time we don’t see her using this tactic is in S5, because she has no reason to - she’s not undercover at any point so she doesn’t need to gain anyone’s trust - and in S6 where in which she actually uses her knowledge of AC-12 to reassure Jo. 

“I know the kinds of cases that AC-12 are into, boss.” - In S6E2. She’s not trying to distance herself from AC-12 she’s trying to show Jo that she doesn’t have to worry about anything since “It’s just the way AC-12 operate.” - You could argue that she has no need to bad mouth AC-12 since Jo is fully aware of Kate’s connections to anti-corruption though. (She does also mention that she got “fed up of nicking coppers,” but this is in relation to her own personal feelings rather than AC-12 itself). 

But that doesn’t mean to say she doesn’t slate AC-12 at any point during S6, it’s just that she does this directly to Steve, “You spend too much time on anti-corruption, it starts to change the way you see things.” This shows that despite, in a way, defending AC-12 to Jo she doesn’t particularly side with them and feels very strongly about her reasons for leaving them in the first place.

All this is proof that Kate will go to a number of lengths to keep her cover, appearing to hate AC-12 and people that she trusts just to get close to the people she’s investigating. And she does this fairly successfully, she manages to pull the wool over their eyes - to an extent - and proves that she is a good officer, she is good at cutting off her emotions for the sake of the job. As Dot says to her in S3E2 “You’re a brilliant liar that’s all. Kind of unsettled me,” and Lindsay says something very similar to her in S2.

Kate is a master manipulator when it comes to her undercover operations, okay she isn’t always successful and has had her cover blown a number of times but they’ve always ended up being worthwhile and they manage to bring down the person that they were investigating. It shows that she is very good at her job. And her ability to control her emotions so well, really go against this stereotypical idea that women aren’t in control of their emotions, which isn’t a bad thing. 

We instead see this trope throughout Steve’s character - and Ted to an extent. Where Kate can take control of a situation and push her emotions to the side, Steve isn’t as successful in that department. He is an extremely emotional person and often lets those emotions get in the way of his job. For example, his anger and frustrations towards Tony Gates in Series 1 meant that his vision was clouded and he couldn’t see the wood for the trees, similar to his dealings with Dot -  both occasions needed Kate with her lack of emotions and clear vision to help him. 

Whilst I think it’s good that Jed is challenging these stereotypes and telling us that men can be just as emotional as women, and women can be closed off and cold - even the fact that Kate is a mother and she remains so steely is very telling - I don’t think it always works. I love that Kate is the resident heroine in Line of Duty, she’s always there to save the day and that’s great. But that doesn’t mean she can’t show emotion and that doesn’t mean she has to be so closed off all the time. We see in glimpses that this emotional side to Kate does exist however, after she hears Ted slate Dryden for having an affair with Lindsay (it’s an unknowing attack on her own situation), when she gets locked out of her house and most notably during S6E6 - there is a lot of emotions at play so there is a lot to talk about for that particular episode. 

With that being said, Series 6 does delve into this emotional side to Kate - with Jo being integral in bringing about that development. Unlike the previous series, this one perhaps focuses on Kate the most, showing her in a different setting through MIT and showing her making genuine connections with people outside of AC-12. 

When we have seen Kate outside of the realms of AC-12 it’s only been through her undercover operations, where she is having to pretend to be another person to get information out of others. But finally, in Series 6 we see her perhaps being her most true self. This is shown through the change in her wardrobe, she’s wearing clothes that she hasn’t necessarily worn before. I could go deeper but people have already done that and could explain that much better than I can. But to put it into simple terms, her wardrobe for Series 6 is vastly different from her wardrobe throughout Series 1-5, right down to the shoes. 

(Won’t go off on a tangent too much but one thing I did notice was the fact that throughout Series 1-5 Kate, most of the time, wears heeled boots - on occasion she can be seen sporting trainers or flat pumps but it’s rare - but in Series 6 she starts wearing flat, doc-style boots and can be seen wearing them, along with other flat shoes through the series. Up until that meeting between her and Jo and she’s wearing her heeled boots again - no doubt symbolising how the events of this meeting cause Kate to almost cut ties with Jo as she returns back to AC-12. She continues to wear these heeled boots through the next couple of scenes but returns to the flat ones she’s been wearing this whole time when she goes to save Jo - symbolising that yes she’s letting Jo go but she’s still on her side despite everything.)

Series 6 Kate stands out from what we’ve seen of her from the other series - she seems genuinely happy. She’s able to be herself, not having to pretend. Not having to manipulate others for information or form false friendships. Instead, she forms a close, emotional bond with Jo Davidson and there are many indicators that this is real and genuine and not Kate “pretending” as Jo so aptly put it. 

From the first episode it is very clear that Jo and Kate are close, the first time we see Kate in this episode the two of them are flirting with each other - in front of their team as well. 

“Don’t think I didn’t notice DI Fleming skulking in last minute like the dirty stop-out.” 

“Don’t go there, boss, glass houses.” 

It’s showing that Kate has settled into this new team and new dynamic and is very comfortable. Further pushing this sense of casualness that has been set up between Kate and Jo is in a later scene when Kate comes into Jo’s office and Kate is leaning on the back of the chair next to Jo’s desk.  

When we usually see Kate in a scene with a senior officer she can be seen doing the typical ‘stand to attention’ and the fact that she isn’t here is very telling. She also goes on to say in this scene “I haven’t shared this with anyone else, boss.” Telling us that there is a level of trust that has already been set up between these two - Kate doesn’t need to earn Jo’s trust, she already has it. 

This is very different to how we’ve previously seen Kate, she usually has to earn people’s trust: 

“I just want to help sir,” “Just give me the chance to prove myself to you,” “I’m here if you need to talk,” “If you need my help, just ask,” “I could make it disappear.” - Various phrases she said to Tony Gates throughout S1.

“Anything I can do boss?” Along with telling Lindsay that she’ll say that she was with her the night Lindsay’s neighbour alleged Lindsay attacked her during S2 and turning up to Lindsay’s apartment with a bottle of wine - trying to form a friendship. 

“Thanks for letting me in on this, ma’am. Look, I know we’ve had our differences but, for what it’s worth, I don’t think they’d have replaced you as SIO if you were a bloke,” to Roz Huntley in S4 - she’s also very good at working out how to get to people. She knows that the lack of female diversity and patriarchy is a weakness for Roz so Kate plays up to that (although how much of that is Kate pretending is another story but will get into that later.)

The only time she doesn’t use this ‘buddying up’ tactic is in S3 where she takes on a whole different approach with the ‘MOB.’ Where she had been previously seen, with Tony and Lindsay, to play nice to the people she’s investigating, to earn their trust, in S3 she almost aggravates them. She’s straight in there with questioning them and probing them so that they’ll crack - but I think she also knows that they’re weak, they don’t have that close a bond so if she pokes them enough someone will break away. 

But we don’t see this set up between Kate and Jo, we are thrown into an already established and trusted connection which is done on purpose to show that Kate and Jo have been close for a while prior to the events of S6. Further emphasising this, is Farida’s accusation that Kate and Jo are having an affair - it’s not said without reason. We see repeatedly throughout the time that Farida is in MIT, she is keeping a watchful eye on the interactions between Kate and Jo and it’s enough for her to suspect a relationship/affair. 

What is most interesting however, is the fact that this is the first genuine female connection that Kate has had on-screen. Of course, we became aware of her friendship with Jayne Akers but Kate was also sleeping with Richard, Jayne’s husband, so it couldn’t have been that close of a friendship. We also see a glimpse of a friendship between Maneet and Kate but it’s never delved into enough to make it relevant. 

This is the first time we’ve seen Kate work alongside a fellow female officer and have their connection be something that is real rather than faked - I think this also plays into a lot of Kate’s confusion surrounding her feelings towards Jo. Is her connection with Jo related to the fact that they’re both women who have had to work their socks off to get to the top or is it the fact that there is something deeper bubbling under the surface between them? 

Whatever it may be, there is a strong level of trust between Kate and Jo that sets them apart from all of Kate’s previous UCO interactions. Where she would normally have to dig for information from people, asking leading questions etc, Jo gives Kate information freely (obviously this is done on purpose on Jo’s part since we later find out that Jo wanted Kate on the team to solve the case and henceforth free Jo from the clutches of the OCG). All Kate has to do is ask if Jo is okay and boom, Jo opens up - not totally, but enough to emphasise the trust. 

This is a completely new dynamic for Kate, yes she’s close to Ted and Steve but even then there’s a professional distance set between all three of them. They know hints about each others lives but they don’t know everything; it wasn’t until Mark phoned Steve in S2 did he find out about Kate’s situation. And it isn’t until the last episode of S6 that Kate finally learns about Steve’s painkiller misuse. They are friends and they are close but there’s a small wall between them. But Jo is the one to break that wall and invites herself into Kate’s personal life via the small dates we see them on and Kate wanting to see Jo at the weekend outside of work. 

It’s not just a new dynamic for Kate but also a new dynamic for the audience. The only consistent friend Kate has had across the show is Steve, we see them leaning on each other in a sense and going out to the pub or for takeaways. We see that they’re close (even if they don’t necessarily reveal everything about themselves) and now all of a sudden, we are seeing Kate meeting up with someone else. Talking to someone else, having a friendship with someone else. And it’s nice. Kate deserves to have someone else outside of Steve and outside of AC-12, it hints that she’s able to have a life outside of her work. 

Note: Steve’s “Do you see a life for yourself outside the job?” In S2. Jo is proof to Kate that she can exist outside of her work. 

But now that this trust has been set up between Kate and Jo, we then delve into the moral dilemma that Kate is thrown into once Steve asks her to become a CHIS on behalf of AC-12. 

“Great. So either I’m accused of being a traitor or I become one to avoid being accused?” 

She doesn’t want to be stuck in the middle because she has loyalties to both parties. The trust formed between herself and Jo showing that she wants to stick by her but there’s still trust between her and Steve despite there being distance - this is told through her clothing later on (as pointed out by wecantseeyou here) and also by the fact she doesn’t strictly tell Steve she won’t do it, rather that she will think about it.  

Returning to Kate’s relationship with Jo and what solidifies the bond that has been set up between them is that scene that takes place at the end of the first episode. We see Kate watching as Buckells is laying into Jo about her decision to not charge Terry Boyle. Kate appears to be the only one watching, or at least the only one that cares enough - shown by the fact she follows Jo out when she leaves the room. If this was undercover Kate this would be something we expect to see, she would use this as an opportunity to swoop in and provide emotional support. But Kate isn’t undercover, she’s going after Jo because she genuinely wants to see if Jo is okay. 

She doesn’t ask Jo about what Buckells had been having a go at her about, she only asks “Boss, you okay?” - that’s the first one and Jo delves into the reason she had become so upset/why Buckells was having a go. This wasn’t something Kate asked about but she lets Jo talk and get it off her chest. As Jo goes to leave Kate then asks again, “Boss, is everything okay?” She wants to know how Jo is feeling within herself, why else would she ask twice? Kate is interested in the welfare of Jo, not in finding out the gossip of what was said in that room. 

What happens next is monumental and this is where Kate’s confusion really begins. Everything that happened between Kate and Jo before (dirty stop-out scene, talking at the same time etc) could all be passed off as them having a close friendship, nothing more. But there is a shift in this scene that pushes their relationship in a different direction - the music playing in the background only emphasising this.

Kate’s reaction to this moment is very telling, the way she looks down at their joined hands, she knows how it would look if someone seen them now; it’s not exactly how colleagues act around each other is it? We’ve not seen her form a romantic connection with a colleague (you could maybe argue Dot but it wasn’t set up in the way Kate and Jo have been set up) let alone a woman so this is all new territory for her but it is definitely romantic and this is the shift towards that. Kate’s panicked look towards Jo as Jo is leaving, she knows that something deeper is going on between them from this point on.  

Before I continue with Kate and Jo’s relationship I have to talk about that scene between Jo and Buckells and why it’s so important that Kate is the one watching that interaction and why she is the one to comfort Jo. I have said in a previous post about how there are many parallels/similarities between S4 and S6. I also said that it wasn’t necessarily related to Kate’s character but it absolutely is the more that I think about it. 

Series 4 heavily plays on inequality within the police force, how women are at a disadvantage to men when it comes to getting promotions and what not. This is portrayed through Roz Huntley, her frustrations being that she is now having to work extra hard to prove herself after returning to work from being a mum - this coincides with Hilton blackmailing her and putting the pressure on her to close the case. 

Now although Kate goes undercover to investigate Roz, they do bond over one thing: they are both women who are striving to be the best. Kate throughout S4 is persistently undermined by Ted, yes she gets a promotion to DS - something that Steve gets rather jealous over - but even after passing her inspectors exam and being more than capable of being a DI, Ted still turns her down, telling her that it was more than likely going to go to Steve since he has more experience. 

Kate is visibly hurt by this but does well to hide it. This moment in particular we can see that Kate is feeling isolated, she’s put on her own in the lift, pushed to the back of the frame, she holds herself - a visual representation of how women often feel in a male dominated workplace. This is no dig at Steve (it is, sorry) but Kate is a much more capable detective than Steve. Kate even swiftly points out how Steve’s attempt at an undercover operation had landed them in court. He’s not a bad detective, he is an extremely good one and does the job well but in comparison to Kate, he doesn’t match up. But simply because Steve is a man he gets a better chance of promotion before Kate - or at least that is how it appears. 

This brings me back to my earlier point of when Kate uses something Roz feels strongly towards and sides with her to gain her trust. But I don’t think this is Kate necessarily pretending, it’s convenient to have the topic come up but I do think it’s also something Kate feels strongly about. She’s just experienced first hand what it feels like to be on the receiving end of inequality and in a way, despite being there to investigate Roz, she does share her feelings on this issue. 

There is a defensiveness to Kate’s tone in this scene between her and Steve:

“It’s a crucial item and any irregularity…”

“Is something to throw in Huntley’s face?” 

“This isn’t personal. She’s at the centre of everything, I just want to get the truth.” 

Obviously Kate’s opinion on Roz does turn back to believing/knowing Roz is guilty but for a brief moment it appears she takes the view that AC-12 might just be investigating Roz simply because she is woman who made a couple of mistakes. We also go on to see Roz and Kate having a confrontation and sexism comes into play, with Roz lowkey telling Kate that she is worth more: 

“How old are you Kate?” 

“31.”

“I’ll tell you about my road to 31. I’d been a DI two years already. Then, I made life choices in the best interest of others. Not in my best interests, at all, as it turned out. And from what I know, you won’t make that mistake. You’d give up anything to get to the top. But despite all your ambition, you find yourself on the wrong side of the line.”

“What do you know?” 

“That you’ve got a son you barely see. Hardly holier than thou.” 

(Remember Roz’s “You’d give up anything to get to the top,” it’ll be important later).  

These words get to Kate because she knows they’re true. She is an ambitious woman who keeps getting knocked down simply because she is a woman. And the fact that she has given up her life with her son in order to pave the way for her career and yet it still hasn’t paid off clearly annoys her. She might not like Roz but they do agree on this. 

Something else that Roz brings up in her series is something that was mentioned briefly by Steve, Kate and is later mentioned by Jo - bringing in the link there. The something being The Masons. We first hear it in S3 in reference to Ted Hastings and Patrick Fairbank. And since Fairbank ends up being corrupt I think it’s fair to say that The Masons now = a form of corruption. In the same series Kate goes to meet a female AC-3 officer in order to request permission for an undercover operation, said officer goes on to say “Because I’m a woman, I can’t be a Mason,” this further solidifies that The Masons are synonymous with corruption. I mean, they are an organisation that exclude women from high ranking positions and get away with it. The fact that Kate seeks authority from a different, female officer because she knows that The Masons are technically a corrupt organisation is very telling of how she feels towards them. 

Roz accuses Ted of being a Mason and henceforth explaining that that is why he is always more interested in investigating female officers and why there is a lack of diversity within AC-12. This is a play on Kate since she had just been turned down the DI role in favour of Steve - and I think it’s fair to assume that Ted then only gave that position to Kate later because of what Roz revealed in that interview, and if he didn’t put a female officer in a high ranking role after what he had just been accused of, it would’ve looked bad on him. Which is really rather annoying to be honest, Kate should’ve got that role because she makes a good DI not because Ted got called out on his bullshit, but we move. 

In S6E3 Jo says to Kate about Buckells employing Ryan: 

“Family friend or something, probably got a nudge down at the Masonic Lodge.”

Now that one line was enough for Kate to know, at the time, that Jo wasn’t ‘bent,’ since she had just spoken out against a form of corruption. Jo had shown a dislike towards the idea that Ryan got a job on merit for simply being a man and that gives Kate ammunition to go after Buckells and find the evidence that would prove Buckells is corrupt. The fact he does end up being ‘The Fourth Man’ further pushes the idea that The Masons = Corruption. 

So Kate witnessing Buckells laying into Jo is another reason for Kate and Jo to share a bond; they’re both women in a very male dominated workplace who are more likely to be subjected to bullying by fellow male colleagues. If we do get another series I wouldn’t be surprised if it digs into The Masons and that form of corruption. 

In summary, Kate feels very strongly about inequality within the workplace since she is always undermined by her male colleagues and it wouldn’t surprise me that if half the reason why Kate feels so comfortable within MIT is because she’s working alongside a woman and she isn’t undermined nearly half as much. 

See: Jo’s constant, “That’s a good point, Kate,” “You’re right, Kate,” as opposed to Ted’s constant, “Steve’s right, Kate.” 

Back to Kate and Jo’s relationship. The shift in their relationship post that corridor scene becomes more obvious as it is from that point on where Kate starts to defend Jo to Steve:

“For Christ’s sake Steve, she’s my gaffer, you want me to rat on her?” 

And that moral dilemma comes into play again as Kate warns Jo that AC-12 are going to storm MIT and seize files. Kate isn't happy with what she’s done, you can see that from a mile off but she knows that she needed to do it since her loyalty now lies with MIT and she needs to protect the case she and her team are working on.  

I also think it has something to do with what she previously says to Steve:

“You know what it’s like being ex-anticorruption. I’ve had to work my bollocks off with them lot.” 

She knew that if she didn’t warn Jo about AC-12 then her whole team would turn on her and accuse her of being undercover/colluding with AC-12 when she isn’t (necessarily). And we’re back to the point she raises to Steve about her being seen as a possible traitor. 

We later see the first ‘date’ scene between Kate and Jo and much like how we were thrown into Kate and Jo’s relationship/closeness, we are thrown into this scene. We assume they’ve been there for a while and they’re in the middle of a conversation when we join them. And Jo is leading the conversation, she is talking freely whilst Kate is listening - once again, there’s a lot of trust between them. 

What is striking in this scene however is the parallels to a similar scenario between Kate and Tony in the first series. Context is different since that meeting is arranged as a means for Kate to dig for information from Tony whereas with Jo, it’s a chance for Kate to be a ‘sounding board’ as she puts it, she’s being emotionally available for Jo. But there is something that really stood out:  

Kate’s reaction to both being very different. With Tony she makes light of the situation whilst with Jo she doesn’t say anything, just simply nods her head. It’s all explained when given the context, she’s undercover with Tony and rule number one is to not form too close a relationship with the person you’re investigating as it could jeopardise the case she’s working on, so she has to keep it impersonal. But she puts it in a way that shuts down the allusion but doesn’t give anything away. 

Her reaction to Jo, on the other hand, is striking. She nods, not saying a word. She wants to call her Jo, she wants to cross that boundary and there is nothing stopping her from doing that so she can agree to it.

But whilst we’ve brought up this parallel we might as well look into other parallels concerning Kate’s relationship with both Tony and Jo. Tartan grey suits aside, Tony and Jo are quite similar, they were both groomed by Tommy Hunter - Jo in a much deeper and longer way but the point still stands. Tony was the one to introduce Tommy into the show and Jo was the one to take him out - not in a literal sense but she revealed the most information that would shut down the era that could be deemed as Tommy Hunter’s era. Both Tony and Jo form a close relationship with Kate, Jo’s being more genuine whereas Tony’s is faked and all smoke and mirrors. 

The proof is in the pudding here:

It’s awkward and unwelcome. Vastly different to this scene: 

Jo and Tony are perhaps the only two of the ‘bent coppers’ we see that don’t really do anything - at least nothing drastic like murder anyway. Out of all the ‘bent coppers’ they’re the most innocent. The fact that they both have connections to Ryan Pilkington as well is very telling. But I won’t go into it too much since this is about Kate. 

The difference between Kate’s relationship with Tony and her relationship with Jo is that it is made very obvious that she doesn’t like Tony. She shows no sympathy towards him at all when talking to Steve in private - once again proving how good of a liar she is since that isn’t given away in the slightest during her scenes with Tony. Jo, on the other hand, she is very fond of, even after Jo lures her to the lorry park to be murdered Kate is still defensive of the woman and still, in a small way, takes her side. 

That being said, of both relationships there are assumptions made. Nigel makes the dig “Her cover wasn’t the only thing she blew, ask Tony,” and Farida’s “Smart money’s on Kate Fleming,” to which Jo replies, “Kate and I have been shagging on the sly for months.” 

Now what would’ve made a REALLY good parallel between S1 and S6 would’ve been this conversation between Steve and Kate:

“He saved my life.”

“He put you in danger in the first place.”

A wasted opportunity there considering how many parallels there have been between these two series with all the callbacks to old characters and little references that have been made. It would’ve made the parallels between Tony and Jo even greater; Tony lured Steve to be murdered (note how Ryan is present there also) but ended up saving him and Jo lured Kate to be murdered but ended up saving her by taking the blame for Ryan’s death. It would’ve made for a very good reference. 

Moving back to the ‘date’ scene between Kate and Jo, I think I’m pointing out the obvious when I say that it has clear romantic undertones, from the lighting to the music that plays underneath - notably increasing as Kate says “Nah, not really my type.” The close up shot of this moment making it even more intimate. 

Then we move onto Kate being the one to ask Jo around for the weekend, which Jo initially turns down and Kate adds, “Yeah, no pressure,” before initiating the hug that then changes Jo’s mind. We have not seen Kate in this situation before at all. Not in a heavily loaded romantic scene anyway, not even with Richard Akers. There was a sense of a deeper connection with Richard, they were sleeping with each other after all, but it also felt impersonal. Kate would turn up to his house, they’d sleep together, they might have a small scene together afterwards and then Kate would leave. We didn’t even see them kiss. They were just two lonely people, stuck in a loveless marriage wanting to feel something that they were both missing in their relationships.  

But there’s an intimacy that’s been set up between Kate and Jo, this is more than just a friendship and it’s coming from both parties, with Kate being much more explicit about it than Jo; offering drinks, seeming happy that Jo turned the two men down and then asking to see Jo more - this is all Kate. But it’s not in the pushy way we have seen with her when it comes to her UCO’s. She’s not digging for information from Jo she just wants to love her. 

They also reveal their relationship status to each other in this moment, “It’s Mark’s turn to have Josh this weekend,” “I’ve just come out of a long term relationship.” If that isn’t screaming that what is happening between Kate and Jo isn’t just friendship then I don’t know what is. 

We then have Kate watching Jo as she leaves, there’s a pensive look on her face. She’s just crossed that boundary, she’s all but asked to spend the weekend with Jo and then followed it up with a hug. She’s made the first move and is clearly nervous about it. The romantic music continues under this and it sounds hopeful/happy. A stark contrast to how the show usually feels so the fact it’s playing up to this and taking the time to set Kate and Jo up shows that it’s important - the show doesn’t focus too much on personal lives. And because of that, it only signifies more, how annoying it is that these two got dropped to subtext after having it be so obvious. 

And with such focus on Kate in this moment it show it’s integral. Kate is finding herself in a position that she has never been in before and because she knows that AC-12 are now investigating Jo, it only worries her more. She might think that AC-12 are wrongly investigating Jo but there’s always that chance they could be right and if they are, then her professional integrity is going to be questioned for the first time. She’s finding herself in a position that is usually filled by Steve. And Kate is highly judgemental of Steve in that department. 

Then we have this scene in the third episode: 

This is their first sort of argument and Jo has pulled Kate up on her interviewing techniques, telling her that she was too harsh and that she’s “gotten used to nicking coppers.” It bothers Kate, she taps her foot, ponders for a moment and then follows behind Jo. She knows Jo’s right and we know this because she says to Steve in the next episode “You spend too much time on anti-corruption, it starts to change the way you see things.” 

She’s actually taken something that someone has said to her on board. This is rather unusual for Kate, who is extremely stubborn and isn’t a fan of people criticising her (but will happily criticise others - Kate really is the epitome of AC-12 isn’t she?) But the fact she listens to what Jo has to say and it changes her in a sense just goes to show how much she really likes Jo and she wants Jo to like her and also shows how much change Kate has gone through in just the first three episodes of S6. 

I am still trying to figure out why Kate made the decision to follow the patrol car but then I suppose it can be easily explained if you think of the fact that Kate will never be free of AC-12, no matter how hard she tries. Kate is AC-12 through and through, she is so deeply embedded in it she will never get out - it’s a stark parallel to how Jo is in a similar position in regards to the OCG. Going to be ~controversial~ here and say that I don’t think AC-12 makes Kate happy. It’s her home, it’s where she feels safe but it isn’t what makes her happy. S6 is, perhaps, the happiest that we have seen Kate. There were small hints throughout S5 that Kate no longer enjoyed working as a UCO/for AC-12, a number of quotes alluding to that, S5E1: 

“She couldn’t stop the hijack but the best she could do was limit the loss of life.” 

“Oh Christ I’ve been there. The lies, the fear. Got only knows what she’s going through.”

S5E2:

“Look Kate…Corbett’s embedded in a group of hardened criminals who’d execute him if they discover his true identity.” 

“I’ve been there, it’s not nice.”

S5E2 again:

“(About UCO’s) Ask her. She was undercover. Perfect job for a selfish arsehole that don’t give a toss about his own family.”  

“Look what Corbett’s missus said about undercover work, that was never you.”

“Thanks Steve, but she was right.” 

All that does is hint that it wasn’t just Ted’s betrayal that pushed Kate to leave AC-12, rather it being the last straw and it giving her an actual reason to want out. 

She does, however, go back to AC-12 in the end because she has nowhere else to go and her job is her life. She’d rather sacrifice her happiness to keep her job and to keep doing what she’s doing.

When she returns to AC-12, for the first time this series, she hits us with the “My first duty as a police officer is preservation of life, sir. That’s why I’m here.” Her job always comes first, above everything else (it’s half the reason why her marriage broke down). Other examples of this include this moment from S2E6:

“I was undercover with Denton, and I blew it. And now we’re blowing the whole case. I need to close this, Steve, or I’ve got nothing.” 

And in S5E6:

“I’m just calling it as I see it, Steve. The truth comes first…I’m not going to sit around and wait for a kicking off the gaffer or Carmichael when there’s police work to be done.”

Kate is highly committed to her work and will stop at nothing so she can complete it; no matter who she might be investigating/building a case upon. This causes her to come across as callous and cold but this is Kate. Her job is her life. And honestly, out of all three of the main characters, Kate is probably the straightest. The only thing coming to mind about this not being the case would be the concealment of her relationship with Richard Akers but even then, it wouldn’t have effected the case too much since Jayne and Kate never had that phone call. This idea that Kate is the straightest out of all three of them does change in S6 however, since she is the one to shoot Ryan and she lets Jo take the blame for it. But despite that, Kate still continues with her holier than thou attitude which we’ll delve into more later. 

I know I keep switching back and forth between Kate and Jo’s relationship but Jo really is integral to this development in Kate that I can’t not talk about it. There’s further proof that Kate is more interested in the welfare of Jo rather than wanting information out of her shown via this scene:  

Kate can be seen listening to the conversation between Jo and Steve but it isn’t until she hears Jo’s voice falter after hearing about Farida in prison does she then turn to look over at Jo. It peaks her interest and it explains why she brings up the topic of Farida at their next ‘date.’ 

“Look boss, I, uh, don’t want to speak out of term but…well, (Farida) claims that you two were close.” 

She’s not asking Jo a question here which is interesting. UCO!Kate would ask the question, she knows how to work people to get information out of them if she needed to. But she leaves this opened ended sentence that gives Jo the option to answer if she wants to (you could argue that since she knows how to work people then this is her way of working Jo but it doesn’t ever come across that way in my opinion). And she doesn’t, but this doesn’t necessarily bother Kate, at least not enough for her to push another question on Jo. 

“I imagine everyone’s got off on that little scenario. No life of their own so they pick holes in someone else’s. Especially if you’re a single woman.” 

“Yeah tell me about it, all it takes is a short haircut.”

Typical Kate to make a joke in this situation, it’s very much in character (made me think of her making a joke about putting Lindsay’s cat Bella into an evidence bag). The light joke doesn’t go down well with Jo and it causes her to back off. But we must remember that this is Kate’s first proper female friendship, we’ve only seen her in male dominated groups and she’s used to their way of making jokes. Prime example of that being half the jokes made by Dot and Nige during the first series, hardly stuff you want to hear but unfortunately it’s true to life. Being used to that sense of humour meant that Kate didn’t see much wrong with what she said until after she notices that Jo closes herself off: 

“Whatever you’ve heard Kate, it’s wrong. Farida’s a liar. That’s not me.”

“Okay.” 

Kate knows it’s a lie but doesn’t push it. Her obvious confusion is pointed out when Jo leaves the room: 

I can’t tell you what’s going on in Kate’s head but it’s probably a mixture of wondering why Jo had gone so cold on her suddenly, if she had said anything wrong and if everything that has happened between them in the past three episodes has been all in her head? 

But what happens in this scene and what is spoken about isn’t necessarily subtext. Okay they don’t actually say the word ‘lesbian’ or ‘bisexual’ it’s more alluded to. But this is a very obvious and deliberate conversation about Jo’s sexuality/Kate trying to figure out her own and wanting confirmation from Jo that she hasn’t just been imagining it. It’s done on purpose because they’re setting Kate and Jo up to go on that route - and once again, this is what makes it so annoying that they did get dropped to subtext by E7. They had painted a very clear picture in the first couple of episodes - Kate and Jo are falling in love with each other, it’s a doomed love story but it’s still a love story. 

Despite Jo being hurt by Kate’s not very well thought-out joke, she still carries a lot of trust in Kate by the fact she leaves her belongings on her seat. This seems minimal and unimportant but it rules out the idea that Kate was asking about Jo’s relationship with Farida for more information, from a case POV. If she had been and if she was interested in finding out if Jo really was as bent as AC-12 are making out then she would’ve seized that opportunity to take a look through Jo’s bag (we see her debate that opportunity when Tony leaves his phone behind after their drink at the pub in S1, but before she has chance to he’s already noticed he’s forgotten it and takes it back). But Kate is too busy wondering why Jo had lied to her, once again showing that she’s interested in Jo from a relationship standpoint. 

One thing I do love though and just from this alone we know that Kate and Jo are genuine is the fact that they bond over their hatred for Ian ‘what a twat’ Buckells: 

“I hope he’s going to give credit where it’s due.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“You brought Ryan onto the team, boss.”

“Not me. That was Buckells’ idea.”

I’m not going to underestimate Kate in this moment however because she does pull a very clever move. She doesn’t ask outright but she is able to get an answer to a question she might have been asking. Steve made a dig earlier on in the episode about how Jo may have employed Ryan onto MIT herself, allowing Ryan to interfere with the Gail Vella files. Kate doesn’t play up to that accusation but you can see that she keeps in mind, she doesn’t want to believe that Jo picked Ryan on purpose but there is always the chance that she has. So, she uses this opportunity to find out if that was the case. Knowing now that it wasn’t, she’s reassured and she feels more confident in defending Jo as we see in later episodes. 

And as previously discussed, Kate starts looking into Buckells after Jo’s quip about the Masonic Lodge. And once she gets all the information she needed she then takes it to Jo and we get this line: 

“I knew you’d come through for me.” 

There’s a perspective change, we’ve seen before how Kate actively pushes how she will be able to do something for someone in order to gain their trust, “I’ll make it disappear,” in S1 and once again, telling Lindsay that she’ll say she was there that night of the ‘alleged’ attack on Lindsay’s neighbour. But she doesn’t investigate Buckells on Jo’s behalf, or because she wants to gain Jo’s trust. It’s quite ironic really isn’t it? She’s always tried to gain trust from these ‘bent coppers’ by offering to cover their crimes - which they never take her up on to be honest - and then the one time she does something off her own back and without any of those intentions, she does - sort of - cover for a ‘bent copper.’ But as we know, Buckells does end up being bent so Kate wasn’t in the wrong to look into him, just a shame they never clicked on to his deeper corruption sooner. 

And then Jo follows up with the line: 

“I needed someone on my team I could trust completely. Someone with no chance of being bent. Who better than an ex-anticorruption officer?” 

Oh if Kate only knew the deeper meaning of that line at the time. But in the same way as The Mason dig Jo makes, this is confirmation to Kate that Jo isn’t bent and AC-12 have got it wrong. If Jo was bent, why would she encourage Kate to flush out the corruption? 

It isn’t until Episode 4 where we actually learn more about Kate’s reasonings for leaving AC-12 and it comes at no surprise that it is due to Ted’s indiscretions during S5. But what is surprising about Ted and Kate’s conversation is that Kate doesn’t hide her true feelings and tells Ted the truth: 

“You made your choice to move on, and I know that the disciplinary action against me was definitely a factor. It put you and Steve in a really difficult position.” 

“Yeah, I’m not going to lie.”  

But considering that Kate isn’t all that shy being honest in front of Ted it’s not that surprising. But given it is a tender, emotional topic for Kate I suppose you’d normally expect her to hide away her feelings but it’s quite nice that she doesn’t. She wants Ted to know that she hasn’t totally forgiven him for what he’s ‘alleged’ (at the time) to have done. 

And then we get the conversation between Kate and Steve and we get Kate’s second defence of Jo. And this time it is said with more confidence because she’s witnessed key moments first hand that have confirmed to her that Jo couldn’t be bent: 

“Without Jo we wouldn’t have got Buckells. Look, you haven’t seen the change in her I have. Now that Buckells is off her back, she’s on the Vella case 100 percent.” 

Typical love is blind moment there, ‘you don’t know them like I do.’ And the fact that she mentions that Buckells has been on Jo’s back for most of the case, is pulling it back to my previous mention of how Kate witnessing the argument between Buckells and Jo is so important - she’s now using it as an excuse to Steve about why Jo may have been lacking in her investigation into Gail Vella’s murder. 

(Just want to drop in and check that you’ve had drink or something, this is about halfway through I think so...continue).

Later on in the episode she’s seen defending Jo again: 

“He’s watching her.”

“Or meeting with her.”

“You got evidence of that?” 

We know why Kate is so defensive, she’s falling in love with Jo and she trusts her completely. But even still, it’s very interesting since she has never defended anyone quite so fiercely - at least not in private to Ted and Steve. 

In S1E5 Steve and Kate have this conversation about Tony Gates: 

“He didn’t kill her.”

“No?” 

It’s short and simple but enough to prove that no matter how much it appeared on the surface that Kate liked Tony it was all faked and she didn’t trust him in the slightest, going as far to say that he was capable of murder. 

We also see in this scene that Steve grows suspicious of Kate’s closeness to Jo (or at least that’s what it appeared to look like at the time and maybe if Kate and Jo’s relationship was acknowledged by Steve then this moment would’ve made more sense): 

There is also another paralleling conversation that Kate and Steve could’ve had in S6 from S1. And once again, this is in reference to Kate’s relationship with Tony: 

“Something happened between you two.” 

“Like what?” 

“Nothing, forget it.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I shouldn’t have asked, it’s private.”

“Yeah, it is.” 

It’s very interesting that all the ‘moments’ between Kate and Tony were all faked on the basis of Kate wanting information between him but because of one comment from Nigel, Steve decided to pull Kate up on that accusation. Yet in S6, despite appearing suspicious of Kate and Jo’s relationship he never once brought it up? You could argue that Steve knows Kate better than anyone and he has learnt not to push her on those topics because she will just tell him to piss off, but, how many times has Kate slated Steve for getting involved with witnesses/suspects? That would’ve been Steve’s perfect opportunity to tear a strip off Kate and say that she is no angel and she’s not protected from falling in love with the wrong people. But alas Jed Mercurio would rather have focused on a straight relationship where one half only appeared in a handful of scenes <3

But back to the ‘You got evidence of that?’ Moment before I get too annoyed, the fact that Kate wants to reveal to Jo about Ryan’s movements is very telling. She wants to protect Jo and she genuinely believes that Jo is a good person/isn’t bent. We see that this trust runs even deeper when she goes ahead and tells Jo anyway despite Ted telling her not to - but she’s clever enough to not mention any collusion she has with AC-12.

“I need to talk to you in private.”

“Something wrong?”

“It’s not personal. It’s work.”

This is the first use of the word ‘personal’ from Kate and the fact she feels the need to state that what she wants to talk to Jo about isn’t to do with them and their relationship is…interesting. A few people have pointed about how the use of personal within Line of Duty could be argued to allude to relationships/love interests - Farida left for ‘personal reasons’ after all - for Kate to use it here and to make that separation between personal and professional shows that Kate and Jo’s relationship runs deeper than being just colleagues. We know that already from how they’ve acted around each other but now we’ve had it explicitly confirmed. 

Ironically though, this is the moment Jo starts taking a step back from Kate in order to protect her. She now knows that Ryan is watching her and if Ryan is watching her then he will be able to see what’s forming between herself and Kate and that puts Kate at the centre of danger. Look what happened to Farida, she was in a relationship with Jo and then she ended up in prison. Worse could’ve happened but Jo did what she could to protect Farida - she used harsh words to hurt Farida and push her away (a similar tactic used by Tony Gates to his wife), but because Farida kept pushing and ended up ratting on Jo, Jo had to take drastic action by planting those burner phones. 

And now it’s happening to Kate but she knows that Kate isn’t Farida and she won’t cave as easily - as we go on to see later on. 

That being said, Kate does give Jo a confidence boost. She tries to get rid of Ryan. But Kate’s support isn’t enough, it’s too late for Jo. But just the fact that one word from Kate gives her enough to stand up goes to show how much Jo has come to rely on Kate and how much she trusts her. 

But as we know, Jo gets threatened by Ryan so Jo does the only thing she knows how to do and that’s to push Kate away. 

She tells Kate to drop her issues with Ryan otherwise she’ll request a transfer for Kate. Kate mouths the word ‘ma’am’ completely unable to use her voice. She’s annoyed and evidently so. But she isn’t just annoyed at the fact Jo has told her that she would get rid of her if it came down to it. She’s annoyed because, in her eyes, Jo doesn’t know the danger she’s putting herself in by keeping Ryan on the team. (Of course we know that Jo knows Ryan and his connections but Kate doesn’t, she’s been defending Jo to high heaven and truly believes that Jo is innocent). Kate has seen firsthand the sorts of things Ryan has been involved in - she doesn’t learn just how much he’s involved until later on but she did see some of things he got up to as a kid and knows that he could be just as dangerous now as he was then. 

You could argue that she’s also annoyed at the fact that she went against AC-12 and people she inherently trusts in order to protect Jo and now she’s just got that thrown back in her face.

And then we move on to the big episodes. What happened at the end of E4 clearly created a rift between Kate and Jo, we see Kate trying to pull Jo to one side but gets rejected, and she’s hurt by that.  

Kate expresses her hurt to AC-12 in the following scene: 

“Jo’s become cold and distant towards me, I don’t know what’s going on in the background.” 

Shows that there’s a distance between them now but Kate is still sympathetic towards her. She doesn’t like that Jo is pushing her out and I think this is when it really starts to click for Kate that something isn’t right. She gets those suspicions evidently confirmed when Steve reveals that Jo’s DNA was found at Farida’s house and henceforth that she’s related to Tommy Hunter. (Also the fact that Kate is using ‘Jo’ here and not ‘Davidson’ as you would expect her to reveals her personal relationship with Jo).

Despite that distance, Kate is still defensive of Jo and still trusts her: 

“You’ve put Jo under surveillance, why?” 

“Our in-depth forensic examination of Farida Jatri’s home detected Davidson’s DNA.”   

Her face the moment she finds out that Jo lied to her about her relationship with Farida is heartbreaking but I think the fact that we see Chloe and Ted’s reaction to this also, is so important. They’re very clearly aware of the feelings between Kate and Jo even if it is never said, and we’re back to being annoyed that Kate and Jo’s relationship wasn’t acknowledged in E7. Everyone was aware of it so why wasn’t it mentioned?!

“Davidson’s DNA is a partial match for Tommy Hunter.” 

…

“I know, from Steve, that you’ve formed the view that Davidson isn’t bent, Kate. But I’m sorry, it appears that she’s pulled the wool over your eyes.” 

And then there’s the explicit confirmation that Steve is aware of Kate’s feelings towards Jo.  

She’s just been bombarded with a lot of information, information that goes against everything that she has believed in/defended for the past couple of episodes. She’s conflicted and doesn’t know what to think. Kate Fleming, who is usually calm and collected and in control of her emotions is now finding herself caught in a moment that she usually isn’t in. And now she’s wondering why she couldn’t see it, why she couldn’t see that something wasn’t right. She’s usually so sharp, quick to pick up on corruption - she spotted Dots pretty early on. But she knows, deep down, she knows and I think that scares her more. 

Kate has always pulled Steve up on his lack of integrity, for getting himself stuck in situations that would cloud his vision and now suddenly the tables have turned. It’s her getting in that situation. It’s her having her vision blurred because of her relationship with someone and she doesn’t know what to do. 

That being said, her trust in Jo is still very much there. It’s why she formulates the plan. She wants to prove that Steve and AC-12 are wrong about Jo, that just because she’s related to the OCG overlord doesn’t mean that she herself is corrupt. But she also needs to prove it to herself, she needs to know that she didn’t get it wrong. That she didn’t let a corrupt officer slip through her fingers because she fell in love. She’s an ex-anticorruption officer, she should be able to spot when a police officer is bent, more so than anyone else. 

She later reveals what her plan had been to prove Jo’s innocence to Ted and Steve, she wants to shout it from the rooftops that she was right about Jo and they were wrong: 

“Only one site was disclosed to MIT officers. However, I took the decision to inform DSU Davidson of all three possible sites.” 

“It’s a big call, Kate.” 

“Well, I believed it paid off, sir. You said yourself the information on Jo’s family history strongly suggests she’s colluding with organised crime, but that doesn’t fit with what I’ve seen first hand. We needed to know one way or another. She had plenty of time to tip off the OCG and she didn’t. As far as I’m concerned that’s proof she isn’t bent.” 

It’s the fourth defence of Jo and is said with even more confidence because now she has evidence to back it up. She knows for definite that Jo isn’t bent and her conscience had been appeased; she didn’t get it wrong.  

And even after all that, after everything Kate does, Ted still hits her with the “Steve’s right, Kate.” She’s undermined yet again. She wants Ted and Steve to trust and like Jo as much as she does because she loves Jo. 

And then we get another hostile scene between Kate and Jo but Kate is still trying to let Jo know that she is on her side, that she has her back, that she has spent months defending Jo’s arse to AC-12 and Steve: 

“I’m telling you the truth, Jo, because I trust you with it.” 

Jo fires back by telling Kate to request a transfer but this has come after a warning look from Ryan. Jo knows what’s going to happen next and she wants to get Kate out of the way before she’s asked the unforgivable, she evens mentions that AC-12 would take her back in the hopes that that would be enough to turn Kate. 

“You’ve been distant with me for days, is this personal?” 

“I’m your senior officer, I should be distant.” 

“I thought we were friends, what’s happening here?”

“So you can tell AC-12?”

“No, I wouldn’t tell them personal stuff.”

And there’s the ‘personal’ again, twice. They’re talking about their relationship, Kate is making it about their relationship. She’s trying to tell Jo that the reason she trusts her so much is because she loves her and that’s something she wouldn’t tell AC-12 because it doesn’t concern them. 

“And as for requesting a transfer, I respectfully decline. I’m not leaving.”  

That is very much in character for Kate, sticking to her true stubborn self there. But she’s angry at Jo because she won’t let Kate help her. Jo is angry because Kate doesn’t realise the danger she’s putting herself in - a nice parallel to the other conversation they shared where the roles are reversed and Jo was trying to help Kate by getting her to drop the subject of Ryan and Kate was annoyed because Jo was blind to the danger she was in. 

Kate’s ‘I’m not leaving,’ does have much more meaning to it than we first realise however. After shooting Ryan, she runs off with Jo - she has no reason to, she was lawfully carrying a firearm and serving her duty as an officer. But she gives Jo the chance to tell her everything, she doesn’t leave her side and does everything she can to protect Jo i.e the car chase scene. She takes Jo’s side despite everything and sticks to her words of ‘I’m not leaving.’

Later on, Jo manipulates Kate, playing on the one thing Kate wants to address, “The personal issues we discussed,” she knows that’s the only way Kate will come out with her (at least, that’s what she thinks). Kate is desperate to explore whatever is going on between them and Jo plays on that.  

And judging by Kate’s hopeful face, it seems to do the trick. Kate’s hopeful face being that she thinks Jo might actually open up to her and tell her the truth, and invite Kate into whatever is going on in her life/head. Poor Kate.  

She knows deep down that something isn’t right but she goes along with it because she trusts Jo so much and I think she truly believes that she’s gotten through to her. 

There is a dilemma going on within Kate here, she wants to trust Jo but knows deep down she can’t because of the AC-12 officer that is embedded in her (Ted’s ‘That’s my officer out there,’ coming into play here). She keeps the gun on her person which shows despite her constant defence, she’s still suspicious. However, she doesn’t phone Steve until after she’s arrived at the address showing that the trust for Jo is still there. Obviously that changes when she realises that the location is dodgier than she probably first thought. 

“Let’s not hang around here Jo, we’d rather be inside with a glass of wine.”

Sticking to her character once again here, trying to be hopeful, trying to be right about Jo’s character. 

“Jo wanted to give you a way out.” 

This line from Ryan is crucial for Kate’s trust in Jo. It may get lost amongst the other, more pressing events, but even just hearing first that Jo tried to save her probably brings her some reassurance in the long run. From this line alone she knows that Jo never intended to kill her and was coerced into setting the scene up. 

“I’ve done my bit. I don’t have to stay here and watch.” 

Jo was only told to ‘get rid’ of Kate. She was never told to kill her. She was the one to entrap Kate but she was never going to be the one to kill her, that was on Ryan. This is another crucial moment adding to the reason why Kate would run away with Jo and give her the chance to talk. 

E6 opens up with Kate being her typical self and taking control of the situation. But even so, she’s struggling. As I’ve mentioned a lot throughout this, Kate is normally calm and collected, she very rarely lets her emotions get in the way of what she wants to do. But there’s no room for her to hide from her emotions here, she hasn’t had the time to compartmentalise them, she hasn’t had the time to process and understand them. And that unsettles her, she wants to take control - and she does as best as she can - but she’s faltering. The person who she loves has just lured her to her death and she doesn’t know what to do with that information.

“You lured me there to be murdered.” 

Confirms that she knows that Jo wasn’t going to be the one that actually murdered her, just that she was the one to lure her. 

“Kate.”

“Didn’t you?”

She cuts Jo off, she’s angry and understandably so. But because she hasn’t had time to process her emotions she isn’t being as cool as she normally would be in a high-stress situation.  

She is really struggling and it’s understandable of course. And then we have that scene:

“I always worried you were pretending.” 

“Pretending?” 

“You know what I mean…to lure me into trusting you.” 

Kate’s ‘pretending?’ Is more offence at the fact Jo felt she had to suggest it - Kate was far from pretending, her behaviour across the series is enough to prove that she is in love with Jo. I also think it’s to do with the fact that Jo had the audacity to ask the question now, of all situations to bring up the topic, Jo could’ve picked a better moment. But Jo doesn’t let up, using Kate’s preferred tactic of getting information out of people:

“You still won’t answer, were you lying to me Kate?”

“This is about you Jo, not me.” 

Deflecting the question that she has every right to deflect, given the circumstances. But she neither confirms nor denies said question - she’s trying to keep control of the situation, she’s trying not to let her emotions get in the way of what she needs to do. She needs to find out the truth, she needs Jo to tell her everything before the law inevitably catches up with them. 

She turns the question back to Jo, asking if she was the one lying, that maybe she didn’t want Kate on the team at all. She then goes on to reveal that she knows Jo lied about her relationship with Farida. It’s coming from a place of anger and frustration and like I said, Kate is well within her rights to feel like that.  

Then we have Kate doing something surprising, she drives away as she hears police sirens. I’ve been trying to place why she was so determined to keep Jo away from the police, to give Jo that chance to explain herself but then all of a sudden, Kate hanging the phone up on Carmichael made it all make sense. 

The moment Steve told Kate that the observations on Jo and Ryan had been pulled as a result of Osbourne and Carmichael, she knew that something bigger was at play here. If Osbourne is the real H/The Fourth Man (extremely bloody likely) and Buckells was just the messenger, then it’s fair to say that it was actually Osbourne who ordered Kate’s death. And if that is the case then it makes sense he would pull the observations off, meaning that there would be no witnesses to the murder. But Kate’s not a stupid woman, she’s worked for AC-12 for God knows how long and she’s been part of the investigation into H/The Fourth man for just as long. She knows it’s someone higher up in the force and that information from Steve told her that something was going to happen at the meeting. 

But upon hearing that Jo tried to give her a way out, she knows that she can trust Jo, that she is just another pawn in this sick game, that she’s vulnerable and in need of protecting/saving. She must guess pretty early on, that it is The Fourth Man that is manipulating Jo and she knows that Jo isn’t going to reveal that in an interview, especially if it is someone high up. So that’s why she takes Jo out of the situation, that’s why she sacrifices her credibility and her integrity, as Ted said Ryan is a ‘sprat’ - he’s not important - she can get more information about the top man from Jo. Kate gives Jo that chance to talk and to prove herself before she is silenced by Osbourne and Carmichael. It helps that Jo trusts Kate and wants to tell Kate the truth. 

And then we have the emotion, oh the emotion:

“Jesus Christ, Steve’s in on it.”

She’s lost control of the situation, she’s lost control of her emotions and everything has just come tumbling down on her. And for a brief moment she feels as though everyone has turned on her: Jo, Steve, Ted, everyone she trusts most in the world and she can’t bear it. I can’t even begin to imagine how utterly alone she must’ve felt in that moment.  

“You bastard, Steve!”

“Stay there, Kate.”

…

“You gave me up! You told them!”

“Kate, I give you my word, I didn’t.”

“That’s bullshit.”  

“I promise you, I’ll get you to safety. Both of you.”

Kate doesn’t comply until after she’s assured that Steve will protect both her and Jo - shows that despite everything she still has a loyalty to Jo and she still wants to protect her. Despite what’s happened she can see that Jo is vulnerable and has been used her entire life, she gets that impression just from the little bit that Jo reveals to her. She feels for Jo, sort of in the same way she felt for Dot but this is on a much deeper level and to be fair, Dot did worse things than Jo. Kate might be an expert at compartmentalising her emotions but she still has a heart - we see it in glimpses across the whole show but it comes in tenfolds where Jo is concerned, as a result of how they’ve been set up. As much as she’s angry and upset and how much she feels betrayed by Jo, Kate still wants her to be safe and protected. Kate knows that Jo has been trying to get out of the clutches of the OCG i.e employing Kate in the first place. Jo holding the gun and taking the blame gives Kate enough assurance that Jo is being true to her word when she says she wanted out/didn’t want to kill Kate. That’s why she wants Jo safe, because she believes in her. 

Being put in that cell on her own now gives Kate the chance to compartmentalise her emotions, she has time to think over the events of the night. She has time to think about her feelings for Jo, the love, the loss, the betrayal. We see that this works, later on when Patricia tells her that Jo had taken the blame for Ryan’s death.   

She’s back to her usual stoic self, emotions cut off. She can’t allow herself to react about what Patricia has told her because it would give too much away, if she reacted then it would make it even more obvious that Jo wasn’t the one who shot Ryan. She can’t even show that she’s relieved or grateful that Jo had taken such sacrifice for her/kept to her word. 

“Are you sure you’re okay? I know nobody’s coming after you over Ryan Pilkington’s shooting, but if you ever need to talk about it.” 

That is not the face of someone who is fine. She’s very clearly trying desperately to push her emotions down, put them to one side because she has a job to do. Jo has given her this chance to solve the case and she sure as hell isn’t going to let her down. 

“Did she say anything about her family history? She told me her dad was a police officer.” 

“No. Never even gave us that much.” 

Proving my earlier point that Jo inherently trusts Kate and was willing to give her more details before they were interrupted. 

“She’s scared, Steve. After what happened to Tommy, Dot, Lakewell, never mind John Corbett.”

“That’s why we’ve got her on the VPU at Brentiss, security cameras monitoring access to her cell.” 

Even now, after everything Jo put her through, Kate is still defending her. She still has Jo’s back and it just makes it even more annoying that Steve doesn’t bring up the Jo conversation to Kate. He has seen Kate defend her this whole series, he knows that Jo lured Kate to her death and now he’s there, listening to Kate defending Jo and worrying over the fact that she’s scared and vulnerable. I know at this point there’s a sense of trust between Jo and Steve (as a result of Kate) and Steve is much more aware of the situation Jo has been in her whole life, he does feel for her and understands Kate’s defence of her. But the fact that he’s not even suspicious of how Kate’s opinion hasn’t changed despite learning of Jo’s collusion with the OCG and almost being killed, just highlights how Jed was so quick to drop Kate’s development, pushing it to the side for the sake of making a political point. 

And here comes the complete reversal of all the development Kate has had across this series, and more to the point, the memory loss she seems to go through. 

“The stuff he’s hiding. I never thought I’d look at the gaffer like this.” 

But she did? In S5 when they were only suspecting that Ted may have ratted John Corbett out to the OCG. She was willing to report it, that was how much she believed it. And now she’s acting as if that never happened? 

“Maybe we should let sleeping dogs lie.” 

“Come off it Steve. How many times have we criticised coppers that’ve took retirement to dodge disciplinary action?”

It’s a valid point and strengthens my previous mention of how she might be the ‘straightest’ out of all three of them. She is the embodiment of AC-12, truth and integrity - or at least she likes to believe that she is. Kate often sits in a place of judgement and thinks of herself as an innocent being that could do no wrong. This is hardly the case, she has made plenty of mistakes and although she hasn’t got herself into the vast number of predicaments that Steve has found himself in, she isn’t exactly free from this sense of ‘corruption.’ It does get pointed out to her on two occasions, the first from Richard Akers, “Holier than thou doesn’t suit you Kate,” and the second from Roz Huntley, “Hardly holier than thou.” 

The fact it’s mentioned twice and is very much the same quote shows that this attitude Kate upholds, is a part of her character. And we see it again with this moment: 

“She’s got a right to know what happened to her husband.” 

“Maybe she already does. She might be blackmailing the gaffer.” 

“Steph? No.” 

“You seem pretty sure…what?” 

“We’ve become…”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Steve.” 

Before I get into the main issue, I think it’s made pretty obvious in this scene that Jo isn’t the only one Kate is being cold towards, it’s everyone. She’s coming across as very cynical and unsympathetic. But you could argue that this is Kate, she’s almost the stereotypical ice-queen who has no emotions and doesn’t care who she hurts which, if this was pre-S6 Kate I would say is very much in character. 

But this isn’t pre-S6 Kate. S6 has shown the more emotional side to Kate, it’s seen her with her walls broken down, she’s opened up, fallen in love. And I know the events of the previous episode would be enough for her to put those walls up again but surely, if you are going to go to the effort of developing a character you could at least show the change that this development has had on her? 

I would’ve fully expected her to shrink away after what happened, I think that’s a completely normal reaction, even more so where Kate is involved. But given how she has gone through things in this series that she hasn’t gone through before, I would expect a different reaction from her? More emotional or more obvious that she’s trying to hold herself together. But I don’t see that, I just see her back as her S1-5, AC-12 self. 

It’s so hard because it makes total sense for Kate to revert back to her old self, she’s been burned and she’s hurting. But like I said, if she’s gone through this development over the course of S6, it’s set up in a way to make you think that she’s not going to handle this situation as she normally would but she ends up doing exactly that - any development Jed has put her through has now been reversed. 

But my main issue with this scene between Kate and Steve brings me back to my earlier point. Steve is shown to be aware of the possible thing that’s happening between Kate and Jo - little looks when Kate is defending Jo, the fact that Ted mentioned how Steve had been talking to him about Kate’s trust for Jo. 

Now Kate, throughout the entirety of show, has consistently berated Steve on his lack of control when it comes to women. She has torn a strip off him at every opportunity, when the situation with Lindsay occurred, she was so unbelievably angry and annoyed with him, that he had just quite possibly ruined the entire case because “Steve can’t keep it in his pants,” (thank you Lindsay Denton for summarising that up perfectly). 

This would’ve been the PERFECT opportunity for Steve to turn it back around on Kate. He’s aware of the situation and he would finally be able to pull Kate up on something that he is known for doing and something Kate never stops short to criticise him on. He could’ve taken that opportunity to humble Kate and make her aware of the fact that she’s not innocent and she’s certainly not free from falling/being interested/getting involved with the wrong person. A simple “What and Jo’s different?” From Steve would’ve sufficed. We don’t even need a verbal reaction from Kate, just a look that one, would’ve acknowledged Kate and Jo’s relationship and two, would’ve put Kate in her place and make her realise that she should be the last person to pass judgment on Steve since she has now found herself in a very similar position.

What’s more, and I have mentioned this before and it’s what makes E7 so frustrating, Kate and Jo have been constantly paralleled to Steph and Steve throughout the series, all the romantic scenes, alluding to relationships bubbling for our two main characters. So that scene is where I would expect the parallel to occur again but it doesn’t? And I just have to ask, why on earth would you parallel these relationships, show their romantic scenes side by side, have their development evolve in similar ways just to then only focus on one relationship? 

Okay the possibility of a relationship occurring between Kate and Jo went out of the window the moment we knew Jo was colluding with the OCG but Jed still took the time to explore it, to delve into it. So for it to not even be mentioned or acknowledged, I just think, why waste our time if it’s going to end up not being relevant? I mean the fact that a heterosexual relationship where one half got barely any screen time took precedence and verbal acknowledgment (aka not subtext) over a queer relationship occurring between two of the main characters of the series? I don’t even need to say it. 

But if subtext was all we’re going to get for Kate and Jo in E7 then I’ll just get back to analysing and reading between the lines because Jed can’t stick to and acknowledge storylines that he has spent the entire series building up and I need to make sense of it for some peace of mind. 

I’m going to call this outfit the ‘Proving Jo Davidson is innocent’ outfit since Kate wears it when she hatches her plan to prove just that and again, when she’s gathering evidence that would mean Jo would be able to get witness protection.   

I promise you that these are separate scenes but honestly the fact that we have the same shot with Kate sitting in the same place, from the same angle only just emphasises my point even more. This was Kate on her proving Jo is innocent mission that she never let slip. Her goal hasn’t changed since E5, but perhaps now she is even more determined because she now knows that it’s what Jo wants. Jo got Kate on the team for a reason and now that is what Kate is doing. 

And because I’ve *briefly* touched on the fact that Kate/Jo are always paralleled to Steve/Steph I think it’s only right that I point out how in both of the scenes shown above, there is a Steve/Steph scene paralleled to it, either before or after. Both the Steve/Steph scenes taking place in Steve’s car with Steph on the phone/over voicemail with the scenes showing that Steve is unsure about his relationship with Steph - which you could argue is the exact opposite to Kate and Jo. Kate might be unsure of her feelings and how deep they go but she is sure of one thing and that Jo is innocent and will do everything she can to prove it. 

We go on to next to see AC-12 discussing new messages that have come through entailing The Fourth Man’s plans for Jo. Kate refers to her as “Davidson” a stark contrast to how she has previously referred to her in the presence of Steve and Ted but this is most likely to do with the fact that has had to cut her feelings off for the sake of saving Jo so she is trying to make it as impersonal as possible. 

I won’t even talk about how easy it could’ve been to include a scene between Kate and Jo in that ambush scene. Before or even after, if Jed wanted to keep that element of surprise that AC-12 had managed to intercept before the ambush could take place. A simple moment where Kate went into the van and said “You alright?” would’ve sufficed. 

“You’re safe now Jo.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean really safe. To apply for witness protection. All my notes, all my records will show that you acted under the control and coercion of others. You can live the life you should’ve lived. Be free to be the person that you really are.” 

I have spoken about this before but will briefly go into it again. ‘The person’ that Kate is referring to is the person Kate has been defending for this whole series. Kate was the only person to see through Jo’s walls and glimpse the person that existed outside of the clutches of the OCG. Jo could be herself around Kate, probably felt liberated and had moments where she realised that Kate is something she could’ve had if she wasn’t stuck in that life, so it’s only right that Kate was the one to set her free - even if it’s at the expense of her own feelings but we’ll get into that now.

Although Kate is coming across as ‘cold’ during this scene, she isn’t unsympathetic. Everything she is saying to Jo is coming from a compassionate place. It’s vastly different from the previous scenes shared by Kate and Jo so it feels more harsh but Kate is having to cut her feelings off to provide the protection for Jo and to henceforth save her. She still cares deeply for Jo but she’s not allowed to show that, and it’s more for her own sake than anything. 

If Kate allows herself, for even a moment, to let that emotion escape then it’s all going to come out. Everything she has have ever felt for Jo will be free and then she won’t be able to let Jo go because then it will be even harder. She can’t let herself come to terms over what she feels for Jo because she has to set Jo free, she can’t be selfish, it’s either her feelings or it’s Jo’s freedom. And considering she has spent so long defending Jo it’s obvious what option she favours. 

Then she gets straight back to the point, not allowing her facade to drop:

“If you tell us who the top man is.” 

Now remember how I said to remember Roz’s quote because it will be important later? Here’s why it’s important, “You’d give up anything to get to the top.” ‘Top’ in the context of Roz and Kate’s conversation is referring to Kate wanting to better her career but ‘Top’ could also refer to the fact that Kate, along with AC-12, have spent years digging into institutionalised corruption to find out who the orchestrator behind it all is, and now she’s so close to finding out who the ‘top’ man is, because of Jo. 

You could argue that this idea completely reverses the points I’ve just made and offers the alternative that Kate only cut her emotions off in order to get to the top - which is what Roz’s quote alludes to. But I do think that both standpoints can coincide with one another. She cuts her feelings off for Jo so she can save her, but because she has had to do that, that makes her able to dig for information and solve the case and hence find out who the top man is. 

And therein is the last scene that Kate and Jo share and to quote Kate Fleming on this one “Thanks for making me feel like shit.”   

But Kate’s story isn’t over just yet so we will continue. 

“Sir, during an unlawful search an item was found that relates to the sum of £50,000. You’re not under caution so anything you say to us at this time can’t be used in evidence. That’s loyalty right there.”

I know she’s having a dig at Ted’s previous comment about loyalty to Steve whilst he simultaneously reveals Steve’s issues from across the series to Kate, but I also like to think it’s a dig at the fact that despite Ted continuously undermining Kate, she has still stuck by him and still fought his corner - to an extent. But the fact she does stand up to Ted and isn’t afraid to do so is something I have to give her, she is staying very true to her character there. 

I think this has been pointed out before and although it probably is a reach but this is Kate’s reaction after Ted says “…of a woman I cared deeply about…” 

I do think that this is a moment where we’re meant to assume that Kate could be thinking about Jo as a result of Ted’s words. The focus is on Kate’s reactions rather than Steve’s so I think it’s a fair assumption/association to make and it’s not out of the realms of possibilities. 

“If I decide to come back.”

“Will you?”

“Well someone’s got to keep you lot in line.” 

She just can’t stay away from it, no matter how hard she tries. AC-12 will always pull her back. 

“You don’t realise what you’ve got until it’s gone.”

It’s a loaded statement from Kate and comes with many meanings to it, her missing AC-12 ( to an extent) and wanting back in, her missing her friendship with Steve and now losing Jo without having the chance to tell her how she really feels/that she wasn’t pretending. 

“You just going to stick to the one drink?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Still early enough to drive up to Liverpool.” 

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea to keep seeing Steph.”

“But you want to?”

“Yeah. But what chance has it got?”

“You wanna be careful mate, you’re going to end up on your own.”

Having to read between the lines here again but Kate is encouraging Steve to go for Steph because she can’t go for Jo. It makes sense when you consider how much those two relationships have been paralleled against each other, one was doomed from the beginning but at least the other has a chance to *be* something. And this conversation could’ve been spun differently to acknowledge Kate and Jo’s relationship also:

“But what chance has it got?”

“More chance than me and Jo.”

It’s really that simple. I’m fine with subtext, it works sometimes. Not everything has to be said. But across the whole series Kate and Jo have been everything but. Everything that has happened between them has been obvious and deliberate. So the fact it got dropped to subtext in the last episode doesn’t make sense? If their relationship from the beginning had been pure subtext then fine it works, but like I said, it hasn’t. Kate and Jo’s relationship needed to be addressed and acknowledged, otherwise why the set up if you’re never going to bring it up properly? 

Okay, you can argue that it dropping to subtext and having to read between the lines is a representation for how Kate is having to suppress her feelings for Jo but your audience deserve better than that Jed. And not to sound like a stuck record but you don’t have your character go through massive development for her just to end up as the exact same person she was before she went through said development. She has to change, even if it’s just a little bit. No one stays the same after what Kate has been through. 

 Which brings us to the therapy scene. 

“Me and my partner are separated.” 

I have also already spoken about the vagueness of this line so won’t go into it too much but, subtext again, she could also be referring to Jo. I would just like to point out as well that music that underplays the moment in which she talks about Steve is very different to the music that underplays the date scenes between Kate and Jo and the scenes between Steph and Steve so you could say that that rules out any allusion to a possible romance between Kate and Steve (and honestly thank God because there’s more sexual tension between two planks of wood than there are between Kate and Steve and if they EVER went down that route, another type of anger would escape my body because, just let women and men be friends without it being a *thing* please).

She looks so washed out and unhappy in this scene - a striking comparison to how she looked during E2. 

She looks drained but it’s understandable considering that this is the first time that’s properly opened up and given way to accepting her emotions and feelings - even if she isn’t addressing the elephant in the room. So, you could argue that this scene is that small change we have from Kate as a result of her development from across the series. But given that this scene, at a push, lasts 30 seconds, it’s not enough. I’m not expecting a half an hour scene of Kate opening up about everything but something a bit more than a nod to her kid and husband that she has only mentioned once throughout the entire series - along with a couple of text messages in the first episode. It just felt as though this scene was chucked in because they couldn’t show Steve going to therapy without showing Kate going as well, considering that they’ve both been through similar ordeals. 

But I’ll take it because it’s still part of Kate’s development, in a sense.

Digging into it more, it’s very obvious that Kate has lost the happiness we seen her with at the beginning of the series, she’s lost her warmth - a warmth that was depicted via Jo through clothing and scenes they shared together. There is a warm light in that scene but it’s situated behind Kate, a visual representation of how Jo is in her past now and how the loss of warmth in her life has left her cold and miserable - which further explains how she comes across in this episode. 

I’m going to return my earlier point of Kate not necessarily being happy at AC-12 here. I’ve mentioned throughout how Kate is AC-12 through and through and she will never truly escape it. She goes back to AC-12 in the end because it’s her home, it’s where she feels safe and comfortable but that doesn’t mean to say it makes her happy. And I think the fact that when we see her at the end of this episode and we see that she is the most unhappy she has been this entire series, it’s meant to signify that (and like I mentioned before, there were a few moments throughout S5 & S6 that emphasise how she might feel that undercover work/being in anti-corruption might just not be for her anymore). 

Kate set Jo free from the OCG but who’s going to set Kate free from AC-12? Jo did for some time, made Kate realise the life she could have outside of anti-corruption but that got ripped away from her and now she’s gone back to them, tail between her legs and probably feeling even worse than she had when she left in the first place.

Questions I wanted to address throughout this piece, is Kate Fleming a master manipulator?

Yes, to an extent. She knows how to use people and their feelings to her advantage. She knows how to get information out of people, we have seen that time and time again across the show, but it’s only ever under the guise of being a UCO and half the time I don’t think she enjoys it all that much (as we see in S5 with her allusions to that there). Outside of being undercover Kate is a genuine person, we see that via the connection she makes with Jo. She never pushed Jo for information, they built up trust between them and shared a bond. Jo worries that Kate would go running back to AC-12 with all the dirt on Jo but Kate reassures her, “I would never tell them personal stuff.” And she doesn’t. We know that she could, we see her do it with Tony Gates the moment she finds out the extent of his relationship with Jackie Laverty. But the fact she doesn’t, is telling us that outside of being undercover, Kate, despite what people might think, is an authentic person who can form relationships without it being faked for beneficial reasons.

Are her motives clear?

Not always. On the surface she is quite a hard person to read but once you pick her apart and piece everything together, you realise that she is an incredibly smart woman who, despite holding her cards close to her chest, plays them very well. She doesn’t reveal things easily which is testament to her being a good undercover officer but when you dig into it, I think her motives can be clear. She’s very career-driven, often putting that above everything else. She always want to get the job done and to the best of her ability. As I’ve mentioned throughout, she is the embodiment of AC-12, integrity and truth. She very much holds up the law. 

That doesn’t make her innocent and doesn’t mean she doesn’t bend the truth/law to her all the time either. But I do think that’s Jeds way of saying that no matter how hard you try to be good, you’re always going to end up in tricky situations that you have to worm your way out of, as depicted by Steve’s quote in S2 “Maybe there are some people out there who always tell the truth and ones who always lie. The rest of us choose our moments.” 

How has Kate been developed across the show? 

In short, she hasn’t been developed all that much and where she has been developed it’s been reversed by the end of it. From S1-5 she remains pretty much the same person, not much bothers her or effects her. Partly think that’s because of her burying her emotions and her trauma but I don’t want to give Jed too much credit where it isn’t due. 

S6 was where we seen the most development from Kate. We seen a whole new side to her, we seen her experiencing things for the first time, having feelings that have never been delved into where Kate has been concerned. S6 Kate felt miles apart from S1-5 Kate, or at least she did until E7. Kate had the potential to be fleshed out and to be shown that not even Line of Duty’s resident heroine is free from trauma and emotions but that, like I’ve said, got scrapped for the sake of a political point. We needed more than a 30 second therapy scene to address the issues and dilemmas going on in Kate’s head. We needed the relationship that she had been involved in, that had been set up, to be acknowledged and addressed. That relationship with Jo was so integral and important to Kate’s development, it needed to be brought up, even if it was just in relation to Kate’s development and Kate’s character. 

Jo and Kate were never going to end up in a relationship, it was doomed from the beginning but it still brought about a change in Kate and her character deserved to have that tied up and acknowledged to an extent, at the very least. We, as an audience, deserved that also. Kate went through so much in this series and the fact that all we got was a 30 second scene therapy scene to address it is, quite frankly, insulting.

I don’t care that Buckells was H, looking back on it’s obvious. I understood the political point of it and Jed was making a good point, in a sense. But with shows like Line of Duty, where it’s main characters remain constant throughout you have a due diligence to develop them and flesh them out into 3D characters who have good sides and bad sides - and that goes for ALL of them, Kate included. And she is but to an extent because she isn’t explored enough. Jed will start it, pave ways she could go and then forgets about it. As much as we all follow along for the plot and wanting to find out who these corrupt officers are, we also become invested in the characters, we want to know more about them. We want to see them go through things, we want to be able to relate to them and go on journeys with them. 

As much as we watch for the plot, we’re also watching for the characters. Like come on how many of us shouted “Oh God Steve, watch your back!” When the van toppled over and not “Oh shit they’re about to be ambushed!” I could go on but you get my point. The main plot is interesting and well thought out but we’re also watching the characters and we want to see them be developed with justice. 

Kate Fleming is a complex character and she deserved to be fully developed throughout S6 (and the whole show considering, you know, she’s a main character) and didn’t deserve to have that development fizzled out for political point scoring.  

And if you made it this far, well done. Have a drink. 

[nikadoesanart]

Why I think Bones animated the light novels in the order they have so far

Before I start, I will preface this by directly quoting Asagiri as he did say himself:

“...each of the plots in [novel] Volumes 1 through 4 are independent with their own timelines that follow different protagonists, meaning you can start them in any order.” (55 Minutes, Afterword, Yen Press translation)

This was of course written at the time of 55 Minutes being written (which was first released in October of 2016), but this has so far held true for all of the following light novels except for Storm Bringer. So officially speaking, you don’t necessarily have to read the bsd light novels in numerical/release order or chronological to the story order either, though you’d probably want to have read or watched 15 Years Old before Storm Bringer. Also, considering that 55 Minutes and Dead Apple are the only ones that take place during the main story, you may want to have at least finished season 2 or read up to the end of ch 37 in the manga so that you’re familiar with the characters (because these two take place shortly after where s2 left off).

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to why I personally think that Bones has decided to adapt the light novels that have been animated so far in the order that they have. Seeing as Dead Apple was pretty much requested by Bones for Asagiri to write (according to his afterword in the novel), I won’t really be going over it.

Anyway, my theory is that they chose to adapt Entrance Exam>Dark Era>15 YO because in that order the light novels are most relevant to which part of Dazai’s past and mental state are tied to the current main story arc being animated. This doesn’t make Dazai the protagonist in the main story, in fact he never has been as of yet, but this is how the audience is able to slowly uncover Dazai’s past and try to learn about how his mind works. Keep in mind that even the novels with Dazai’s name in the title and even what few scenes there are focused on Dazai and his POV in them, they are not actually from his POV and we are given the absolute minimal clues as to what he may be thinking.

In s1 we don’t know much about his past yet but Entrance Exam/Azure Messenger helps to highlight his eccentricities while also showing his cunning, but also addresses the question of how Dazai and Kunikida are able to work together. Atsushi himself starts the arc off by questioning how two people with seemingly such incompatible work ethics and personalities are able to work together and even became work partners in the first place.

This was cut out from the anime but the novel also shows how Dazai can act sketchy at times and acts on his own behind people’s backs. There were also a lot of overall changes from the Entrance Exam novel to the point that I find it more fitting to refer to the novel as Entrance Exam and the animated arc as the Azure Messenger arc due to how much was cut and changed, but that’s not the point here.

Next, Dark Era shows not only that Dazai used to work in the Port Mafia, but also some of his closest connections within it and why he left, which becomes relevant during the Guild arc. It also introduces us to the Lupin bar, which Dazai is later shown holding a match box from there as a relic of Oda, who he always thinks about/remembers in difficult situations. Dark Era is also where we’re introduced to Ango and what led to Dazai pretty much despising and refusing to forgive Ango.

15 Years Old mainly shows us the relationship between Dazai and Chuuya. This includes how they first met, the earliest instance we know of when Dazai can act his age, but also touches on the topic of Mori’s leadership. It takes place shortly after when Mori became leader, so the choices Mori makes during this time are crucial to both him and the PM. The importance of Mori’s leadership is later mentioned again during the Cannibalism arc, and we see Chuuya respecting Mori as a fellow leader at the end of 15 YO. We also see in 15 some of Dazai’s mentality as a strategist and leader when directly under Mori’s influence, and it is Mori’s teaching that got Dazai to a point that the only reason Fyodor was able to be found in s3 was because Dazai claimed that it’s how he would act in that situation. This is shown in some of Dazai’s unnecessary cruelty and use of excessive force during the arc (ie. continuing to shoot a dead body). 15 also shows not only how Dazai and Chuuya first met but also how they are both able to act their age around each other. Their constant bickering shows that they can both act like the teens or young adults that they are (depending on when we’re looking at) but also that they already have at least some respect and trust for each of them being their own person and each having their own strengths. They’re both being used as very important and powerful tools by their respective groups during 15, but they still realize that the other can each make their own decisions. Dazai is the one that tells the Sheep that Chuuya is his own person and Chuuya assures Shirase and Yuan of the captured members safety and he later realizes the extent of Dazai’s foresight after asking him to spare the kids, which Dazai mentions was part of his original plan anyway.

What’s interesting to me is how during the Rimbaud fight, Dazai claims that he’s started to become interested in living again yet only 1 year later in Storm Bringer, he is at his absolute worst in terms of what we’ve seen so far of his mental health. In regards to everything that went into Dazai’s mental health plummeting between 15 and SB and then improving again between SB and the Dragon Head Conflict, for now we can only hope to one day learn more about the DHC, how Dazai and Oda first met and what happened to Dazai during Chuuya’s first year in the PM. Also do keep in mind that 15 Years Old was originally written at Bones’ request (you can read the full afterword here).

In my opinion, when you think of these as some of the reasons for the order of the light novel adaptations so far, it makes sense to me. I do still question why we got Dead Apple instead of getting 55 Minutes animated, as they take place at around the same time on the timeline. However, if Dead Apple and even the Walking Alone OVA have proved anything, it’s that Chuuya’s mere presence alone brings in the money. Entrance Exam and Dark Era are respectively light novels 1 & 2 but #3 is Untold Origins of the Agency, which has a short story about Atsushi’s entrance exam being planned (A Day at the Agency) followed by the story of how Ranpo and Fukuzawa met and how this led to the need for the ADA to be founded. Personally, I don’t think Untold Origins is too necessary to the main story until Bones gets to animating chapter 71 onwards. In fact, if you want to look at the order of the Japanese release dates for the novels, Gaiden (January 2016) came out between Untold Origins (May 2015) and 55 Minutes (October 2016), yet with the official translations for the novels it’s been skipped over. But at the end of the day, the order Bones has chosen so far is by no means wrong or right. I’m not sure if the information regarding who chose which novel to adapt when is available to the public (if it’s in an interview or one of the guidebooks, hopefully there are translations available so please lmk if you know anything!), but hopefully Asagiri was involved in that part of the decision making as bsd is originally his story.

If you want to see my more in depth predictions for when the remaining light novel anime adaptations would take place (as in which order they’d be animated) and my estimated screen time for each, you can check it out here.

Also last minute thought/realization but they probably could’ve animated A Day at the Agency instead of Entrance Exam and achieved almost the same goal? I think I’ll revisit this idea later after rereading the novels eventually.

[supercantaloupe]

on Aelwyn Abernant, the Reformed Villain Squad, and redeeming teenage antagonists

an analysis on antagonist character development in Fantasy High. spoilers through sophomore year and (mildly so) the most recent roll20 oneshot. essay under the cut bc i am very long winded

the turnaround with Aelwyn in s2 is handled so well  i cant get over it. she was such a major antagonist in the first season and just. despicable. she had no pathos. we hated this bitchy older sister who tried to kill Adaine and her friends and raise an evil dragon, and when she gets knocked on her ass and thrown in jail, we cheer.

and then s2 fucking starts saying “hey she’s in jail still if you’d like to look into that” and pursuing that thread ends up being almost as comedic an idea as it is a reluctant one; it’s also quickly shunted to the background as soon as more pressing leads present themselves, to the point where we almost forget about her until Adaine is kidnapped and then the first time you see her it’s just. viscerally upsetting.

she’s bad. she did evil. she got what she deserved.

but she already got what she deserved. last season.

she got her ass handed to her by a bunch of 14 year olds including her little sister (how embarrassing!). her plans were thwarted. she got punched in the face and made fun of. she already got her punishment.

it just……immediately registers as over-the-top Wrong to be told “hey, remember that antagonist you beat last season? she’s still being punished for that, except it’s way worse than just going to mumple.”

and there’s that reminder that like…this is a teenager. a child. who has been manipulated and abused. which is a really fascinating look at this character we used to see pretty much unilaterally as a one dimensional bitchy villain.

i mean we got a more in depth look at Penelope’s and Biz’s motivations in s1 (Penelope being the popular rich girl sorceress obviously hungry for power and the alllure of the high school clout that is being prom queen, but also we know that her having to turn on her best friend Sam Nightingale as part of the scheme was something she was reluctant and not happy to do; and Biz being that predatory incel creeper type dude besides just a nerd with computers and a lack of social graces). and they were as much willingly active in the plot as Aelwyn was. yet in s1 they really never do bother to explore Aelwyn’s motivations. i remember after watching s1 but before s2 that was one of my biggest lingering questions: why tf was Aelwyn involved?

well. she was manipulated and abused. her terrible parents raised her in an awful environment that conditioned her to Listen and Obey and Behave and Be Perfect, and then Kalina helped cinch the noose around her neck with threats and coersion into the KVS Kaper and the NMK crown debacle. she doesn’t freely choose any of it; she’s coerced, manipulated, abused.

and she already got justifiably punished for her bad actions in s1. the torture is almost literal overkill. it’s just……there’s this immediate turnaround in sympathy and view of the character. on first watch, it’s viscerally upsetting to see her getting so brutally punished for actions she already faced consequences for, and on rewatch, it makes your skin crawl to know she’s being tortured for terrible things she had little choice in carrying out. and tortured by some of the very same people who coerced her to behave terribly in the first place, to add insult to injury.

and it’s still fucking frustrating when they rescue her and her memory gets reset and she goes back to her parents because it’s like “well shit, she’s evil again, and we just wasted all that effort for nothing” but it’s also sad cause we know she’s running back to her abusers and she isn’t happy about it but doesn’t feel like she has a choice. and it’s sadder still that what eventually inevitably gets her to turn to good for good (i.e. away from her parents) is just. a full dissociative mental breakdown.

(but then she survives and it’s gonna be good!!! until Adaine dies in her fucking arms. which is. almost funny. she’s been through so much shit and that isn’t something that Brennan would have just. preplanned. like a written in plot point. no, that was just an unpredictable consequence of the battle. what a juicy fucking moment. she’s been through All That Shit™️ and has finally turned to fight for good and her sister just fully dies in front of her. yeowch)

and she turns out okay in the end. she comes out the other side alive and whole and supported by her sister and her friends, with the hope of a future and recovery. there is an acknowledgement that A) she can and will grow from her mistakes and damage, B) it’s going to be really hard, and C) the post-s2 one shots both prove that she’s doing okay now. hell, she has a whole squad now of other former-teenage-villains-turned-good-guys. she has friends now, Ragh and Zayn, with common ground, and a secret handshake and everything. they’ve all grown from the mistakes of their past into better, happier, healthier people

and about Zayn and Ragh. we’ve seen a lot of characters, protagonist and antagonist, teenage and adult, PC and NPC do some really fucked up shit and get punished for it. but why do they get happy endings? why are Aelwyn, Ragh, and Zayn the only members of the RVS and not someone else like Biz or Penelope or Dayne? 

well, the latter two are dead by then; but then again, Biz and Ragh were also killed by the Bad Kids in s1, and subsequently resurrected. (Zayn died too, but was neither killed nor revived at the Bad Kids’ hands, so i’ll get to him in a sec.) and there are plenty of adult antagonists the Bad Kids face who are killed and left that way by the Bad Kids without second thought: Johnny Spells, Coach Daybreak, Captain Wicklaw, the Abernant parents (presuming Arianwen doesn’t survive in the forest for very long, which i doubt). why do some characters get second chances while others don’t?

in the case of Zayn, his death was pretty much out of the Bad Kids’ hands, and they later found out he was manipulated by Daybreak into being bad anyway because of his sad living situation. he was a pretty minor antagonist in the scheme of things, and when we re-meet him as a ghost in the s1 epilogue, he’s pretty obviously remorseful for his actions. and dying seems like a steep enough punishment to me for the shit he did to contribute to the KVX caper; returning as a ghost, free from the trappings of his unfortunate living life, he now has the room and freedom to grow into a better person.

in the cases of Daybreak, Spells, Wicklaw, and the Abernant parents: these are bad people who should know better. these are fully grown adults who actively choose to do evil. whether they think it’s the right thing to do or not (in Daybreak’s case), whether they think it will benefit them and don’t care about anyone else (in the Abernants’ case), or whether they don’t care much at all and are just doing shit because they feel like it (in the cases of Spells and Wicklaw), these are all adults who consciously make the decision to do terrible things and hurt other people. of course Johnny Spells, who is generally a punk thief and thug, is not on the same level of bad as Angwyn, who kidnaps and tortures his own daughters for political gain, but the point remains. these fuckers should know better. they’re grown ups. they had their chances to be good and they chose not to heed them. their minds are set on bad actions and they are a continued danger to other people as long as they are alive. when they die, the Bad Kids do their damndest to make sure it stays that way.

now, in the cases of Penelope and Dayne: these are teenagers who actively chose to participate in an evil plot. Penelope, Dayne, and Biz were all fully cognizant of what they were doing trying to raise KVX back to his former power. why? well, to some extent, we can only speculate. i suspect Penelope was just one of those Regina George bitches who is rich and popular and powerful and obsessed with power and popularity within high school as if that’s the end-all-be-all of existence (which, like, when you’re currently in high school, is a somewhat understandable worldview i think). Dayne being her boyfriend and a musclehead jock probably falls into a similar line of thinking. they are actively and willingly trying to cause harm, and teenager or not, must be stopped. they’re killed, anyway, during the Climactic Battle™️ anyhow; it’s not like the Bad Kids were going to gain anything at that point by keeping them alive.

now, Biz: Biz is the creepy Nice Guy incel type, sees woman as a prize he deserves to win, yadda yadda. he does, like Penelope and Dayne, actively choose to help KVX. there might be something to be said about his motivation the Bad Kids discover after the arcade battle by detecting his thoughts (that being to upload the captured maidens from the palimpsests to “call the shots” himself) is an altered memory; whether this was his original motivation from the start or not, i’m not sure. but the Bad Kids do kill him – and then resurrect him for important, time-sensitive information. and they beat it out of him – he gets two of his fucking fingers blown off. and Riz reattaches them once they have their info, and they realize his memory is altered. of course, the Bad Kids don’t know at this point that the altered memory was something he, Penelope, and Aelwyn had planned and agreed on and done to themselves, but this points to something important in my opinion: the Bad Kids, and the narrative/show as a whole by extension, acknowledge that external manipulation affects how guilty someone is in a crime.

which brings us to Ragh. Ragh, introduced from episode 1 as the meathead jock. Ragh the archetypical one-dimensional high school bully. Ragh who works with the harvestmen in effort to (ostensibly) end the world/provoke international war. Ragh, whose low intelligence but high loyalty and internalized homophobia led him to be fully swayed and blindly led by his coach and captain, who have actively chosen to do evil. Ragh who is killed in combat by the Bad Kids and resurrected for information, not Daybreak. Ragh, who the Bad Kids realize was probably not aware of exactly what he was being made to do and how bad it really was. Ragh, who by their kindness in sparing his life and directing him on a better path, becomes a well-rounded character and an active ally to the Bad Kids during and after prom, an invaluable companion during their quest in sophomore year, and overall a really good friend and person. 

(it might also be worth considering the case of Jawbone here, too, who started out a very minor antagonist in a fight but ended up becoming a major NPC because the Bad Kids talked to him, found out he came from an unfortunate situation and set of circumstances, and showed him kindness in offering the school guidance counselor position, a kindness that isn’t really owed but given anyway and ends up changing his entire life for good.)

and then, Aelwyn, whose case is already discussed above. so, why is the RVS what it is, why them but not others?

if you’re familiar with Avatar: the Last Airbender, you’re probably familiar with Zuko’s character arc, and how it’s often lauded as a masterful example of developing a villain into a hero over the course of a narrative. what makes Zuko’s arc so well done and exceptional is that he starts out as a kid in a bad situation under the influence of bad adults seeking to do bad deeds, but he later realizes the error of those ways, actively removes himself from that situation despite the difficulty and danger in doing so, goes through a lot of shit and reflects on his past mistakes and learns from them, and then actively chooses to fight for good in the end with the help of close, trusted friends, found family. 

this, i believe, is the same in the case of Fantasy High and its treatment of the RVS. its members, like Zuko, are all teenagers who came from shitty situations and were manipulated by evil adults to do bad. they are punished for their bad actions, and they learn from their errors and mistakes. with the kindness and help of good people, friends and chosen family, they are able to escape their abusers and bad situations and grow into their own people. and they actively choose to improve themselves with that help and fight for good.

Fantasy High, through the arcs of Jawbone, Zayn, Ragh, and especially Aelwyn, asserts that it is not your fault if you come from a bad situation and are forced to behave badly as a result. it does not pretend that you are absolved of any responsibility for those actions; quite the opposite, as even though they were externally manipulated into their evil actions, all of those mentioned characters face tangible consequences for their actions and later express remorse for their mistakes. but Fantasy High also asserts that even if you have made great mistakes in your past, even if you came from a bad situation beyond your control, even if you were manipulated and abused, with care and love and support and a hell of a lot of work and effort, you can improve your situation and find good, happiness, peace, you can thrive. evil adults who should know better don’t get redeemed. teenagers who aren’t coerced but actively choose evil don’t get redeemed. but abused kids deserve another shot at happiness. with enough work, and some love and help along the way, they can get there, even from the lowest imaginable point, from rock fucking buttom. it’s possible. 

[annapogorilayas]

LoD season 3 rewatch Thoughts

kate's undercover had no right to be so successful this season, she was about as subtle as a fire extinguisher through a glass office door brick through a window. it's hilarious to me that on paper, this was her best undercover op - it was the only one in the show's history where nobody figured it out!

it blows my mind every time i remember that danny waldron was only in one episode of the show. one. he's easily one of the most important non-trio characters. and he was in one episode. his influence to episode count ratio is up there with jackie lav's.

this was really the first season where the AC-12 office itself became a character. won't elaborate

ted saying "none of my people would ever plant evidence" while dot was running around putting phones in steve's gym bag is almost as funny as steve saying "this'll be good for me" before AC-12 thoroughly ruined his life

"the jury obviously thinks i must've shagged you into conspiring to kill a protected witness" "steven!" everything about the Truth and Reconciliation scene in 3x04 is absolutely A fucking star.

dot's line about how steve shouldn't be carrying a firearm because "this isn't the bronx" is funny as fuck in light of later seasons, when this mid-sized midlands town appears to have a violent crime rate on par with baltimore in the 90s

lindsay denton continues to be the GOAT. "because i'm a police officer" is, without question, my favourite scene in the whole show. i'm still emo about the fact that nobody went to her funeral. AC12 would be nowhere without her. her ghost would've been a better AC12 commanding officer than S5 Ted.

the repeated references to the real-life operation midland didn't age too well. (cw child sexual abuse)

i loved the scenes with lindsay and steve investigating danny's list. they are the dysfunctional buddy cop duo we deserve.

i wasn't expecting to laugh out loud in 3x06 and then we had individual reaction shots of everyone in steve's interview listening to the lindsay tape. even the lawyer.

i'm still not sure what exactly made kate clock dot's involvement. i'm torn on whether she went to AC-3 for undercover authorisation purely because the CO was a woman (and therefore not a mason, because she was investigating ted) or if she went there because AC-9 was dot's former unit and she was investigating him. we know she was suspicious of dot before lindsay's murder because she went to his flat and he saw he wasn't there. i'm tempted to think she was suspicious of all three of them; hastings was being oddly friendly and doing masonic handshakes with fairbanks, she just found out steve had lied about his involvement with lindsay which destroyed her trust in him, and dot failed to pass on her request for the second post-mortem and then pressured her not to look further into morton's statement about the caddy while pointing the finger at steve.

CW: child sexual abuse every time steve interviews someone about the sands view child abuse, we get long lingering shots of steve's expression. and then when steve visits dale roach in the home he's angrier than i think we've ever seen him with a suspect - same again three seasons later when steve interviews fairbank in prison. does anyone else wonder if jed was leaving crumbs to imply steve was abused or that there's something in steve's past that makes this a particularly difficult issue for him? on one hand, steve tells joe he had a nice childhood with a loving family. OTOH, when steve gets worked up about a case, it's usually because it has a personal connection to his own past (he got quite worked up about danny waldron's team lying to cover up the shooting of an unarmed man, and he was very determined to prove michael farmer was being framed)

it's "moaning about the trajectory of the writing" time:

as much as i think S3 was part of the LoD Golden Age, it was definitely the beginning of the end of the more authentic dialogue and rapport between characters. the trend of the season premieres being full of extremely clunky exposition began here also. aaaaand just as i wrote that, maneet appeared and made her charming little "get you a lead" joke. miss you babe </3

in my opinion, LoD at its most interesting was never about "which of these four characters is The Bad Guy?" it was about "how is this guilty but morally ambiguous person going to deal with the mess they've gotten into?" i feel like we gradually saw less and less of that as the show moved towards a traditional whodunnit with the introduction of balaclava man and H.

S3 really was Peak Ted for me; S5 and S6 sadly made me forget how much i loved his character. his "whole bloody barrel" speech to gill in 3x06 remains another one of my favourite moments on the show.

S3 was the peak of Kate the Brilliant Detective, just like S2 was the peak of Kate the Emotion-Having Human Being.