#ps also seriously some of these takes about malcolm's mental health i am like

[alittlebitoftrauma]

so, about ainsley

So, I think one of the biggest differences between Malcolm & Ainsley is their motivations: Malcolm is desperately searching for the truth because of a desire to rescue the girl in the box and a resultant deep sense of guilt: his attempt to save the girl in the box was interrupted, in a way; his search for the truth is the part of him that’s still trying to save her, even if that just means figuring out what happened to her and bringing closure.

Ainsley is searching for the truth in order to find out the truth. She was too young to really understand what was happening when Martin was arrested, and so her family broke apart without her being able to do anything about it; she feels that if she can discover the truth about her father and why he did what he did, she’ll figure out the truth about what happened to her mother and brother.

Both Malcolm and Ainsley are deeply focused on getting to the truth, and both have a streak of ruthlessness that helps them on it. What is Malcolm’s biggest obstacle to discovering the truth? His own brain, which repressed memories in order to protect him. This, coupled with his guilt, means his ruthlessness in chasing the truth is turned inwards: he’s going to find out what happened no matter what happens to himself. Standing in Ainsley’s way, though, is her family; thus, her drive to find out what happened leads her to be ruthless towards them instead, especially when she’s this close to finding something important out.

And this doesn’t absolve Ainsely of using Malcolm’s trauma as a way of getting to her dad, and it doesn’t make Malcolm’s reckless disregard for his own life a good thing. They’re both characters with flaws (which is good! It wouldn’t be half as good a show otherwise!). It also doesn’t help the general audience’s perception of Ainsley that Malcolm is more fleshed out, and--partly from some of the writing, partly by sheer dint of the differences in their screen time and all the interactions between him and the nypd crew, where he’s humanized by becoming friends with them--we just tend to get a more sympathetic view of him. 

Ainsley we see a lot less, and when we do see her, it’s very often in a scene with Jessica and Malcolm, where there’s the friction/tension of a dysfunctional family to begin with, and the topics of those scenes is usually to introduce more things to stress Malcolm and ratchet up the tension. In scenes we have with Ainsley and Malcolm alone, she’s pushy and, yeah, a bit ruthless (grabbing his phone to see the voicemails), but she’s also shown to genuinely care for Malcolm, reassuring him about being fired, asking him if he’s all right. There’s genuine, sweet warmth between them. And when she confronts Martin with Malcolm’s trauma--yes, she’s using her brother’s private pain as leverage to get a good interview/to get one up on him, but she also is literally confronting her father about how he hurt her brother. It’s not kind of her and not a good move, but there is concern for Malcolm there.

The thing is, I hadn’t really thought this through about Ainsley, but I wrote half a post the other day about why this--the different motivations--were a large part of what separated Malcolm from other similar protagonists such as Sherlock*. Sherlock? Was a fucking prick, but dear god did fandom love him. In most cases, especially in the early seasons, he was absolutely driven to find out the truth just for the sake of finding out the truth. 

Malcolm is a warmer person to begin with, sure, but that wouldn’t matter as much if it weren’t for Malcolm’s driving need to save every murderer he comes across (because they’re murderers, the same as Martin, and Martin said he and Malcolm were the same, so if he can save them and they can be made whole then it means he can be saved and made whole himself)--and that his motivation to investigate comes from a place of deep empathy, so much caring and regret about the girl in the box that his mind can barely let him live with himself. So in this world we’ve got a crime procedural about brilliant young profiler Malcolm Bright, who’s trying to find out the truth about his father so he can fix himself.

In another world, though, we have a show set at a tv station, about brilliant young reporter Ainsley Whitly, who’s trying to find out the truth about her father so she can fix her family. Though, lbh, network tv being network tv, this is a show about Andrew Whitly. And in this world, even though he’s a Sherlockian dick who causes emotional hurt to people around him when they get in his way, Andrew is beloved of fandom, gets the shit whumped out of him, and fandom despises his ‘useless, stupid’ younger sister, Malory, who lots of fans think is being used as a stooge by Martin.

Sigh. I’m not even the biggest Ainsley fan, and I think she’s being naive in her dealings with Martin, and, yeah, the whole interview with Malcolm bit was Bad and Mean, but. Jeeze. Come on, people. Not being a walking empathy hug wrapped in a softness blanket doesn’t make you a psychopath who’s indistinguishable from a literal serial killer.