#some shows like to combine their Covid season with their racism is wrong season and its like a double whammy of poorly handled social issues

[puthyflapps]

I h8 when you reach the covid season of a show

[modernwizard]

Why I love Dhawan Master #51: He’s played by Sacha Dhawan!

In no particular order, here is an illustrated list of reasons I love Sacha Dhawan’s Master, most of which boil down to the way that Sacha Dhawan so expertly embodies the Master to such a degree that we can look  into this character’s mind as we never have before.

Find my full series under the HELP I WUVS HIM tag or at the why I love Dhawan Master tag.

Read more about my version of Dhawan Master/Thirteen [plus fam] in The Happy Famverse, a series of comic shorts about the domestic lives of [extended] Team TARDIS.

#51: He’s played by Sacha Dhawan!

Before I get to what I love about Sacha Dhawan, though, I have to talk about the thing I cannot stand about Dhawan Master. It’s also the thing that I cannot stand about Thirteen. Basically, the show [the BBC and writers and directors] refuses to deal with the fact that Sacha Dhawan is the first British Indian actor playing this character. He’s also playing opposite Jodie Whittaker, who’s the first White woman to play the character of the Doctor. I don’t give a fuck if Time Lords don’t do race and gender the way that Earthlings do; we’re dealing with two Earthling actors, a brown man and a white woman, whose casting is groundbreaking because of their race and gender. Their race and their gender are important. However, the show so strenuously avoids dealing with the race and gender of the Doctor and the Master that they end up in situations with unfortunately racial and gender-based implications.

Talking about Nazis, racism, misogyny, and rape below the cut.

@natalunasans @sclfmastery -- my sometime partners in meta...

Example #1: In Spyfall 2, the Master disguises himself as a Nazi officer [for some reason never adequately explained]. He’s hiding his true appearance under a perception filter. Toward the end, the Doctor messes up his perception filter, causing the Nazis to see that he’s not one of them and to attack him. The show presents this as the Master getting his just desserts; it’s even played for laughs, with the Master asking if they could just talk about this. “You’ve always struck me as such reasonable people...” Hah hah, Nazi oppression of non-white people is funny!

This episode nominally addresses race, insofar as the Master explains to the Doctor why the Nazis aren’t clocking him. That’s not really a discussion of race at all, though. An actual discussion of race in this bit would note that the white Doctor hides one Indian person, a woman, from the Nazis, but rats out another, a man, to them. It would also note that the Doctor’s outing of the Master to the Nazis exploits the fact that she’s a pretty blond white woman. Therefore she’s closer to the “Aryan archetype” that she says the Master doesn’t fit. Being closer to that archetype, she’s protected from the violence visited on people who don’t fit that archetype. In this bit, both the Doctor and the Master are using the Nazis for their own ends. The Doctor in particular seems to be trading on Nazi sexism and racism, using the Master’s color and gender against him.

Example #2: In The Timeless Children, the Master turns his penetration by the Cyberium into a sexualized encounter. [See #45: “He’s robosexual!” for details.] The Cyberium imparts to him all the knowledge compiled by the Cyber empire, so he also gains access to a vast amount of information. When he eroticizes penetration by the Cyberium then, he’s also eroticizing the acquisition of knowledge.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at what he does with the Doctor in The Timeless Children. He separates her from her fam under duress. He pins her down with a paralysis field. And then he forces her to learn about her past. This is clearly physical and psychological torture. It’s also a violation, done without her consent.

Furthermore, given the Master’s sexualization of stuff like this with the Cyberium, what he does to the Doctor here is also a sexualized violation. It’s particularly gross in terms of gender because we have a man pinning down a woman and forcing her to submit to something she does not want. If that sounds rapey, that’s because it is. It’s equally gross in terms of race because we have a brown man overpowering a white woman. This plays into stereotypes of non-white colonized people [especially men] as less civilized, lustier, and less in control of themselves than white colonizing people, especially white women, who are thought to be demure and innocent. In this example, the Master in particular seems to be trading on colonialist ideas of sex and race, using them against the Doctor.

And this is what I really can’t stand about Thirteen and Dhawan Master. The BBC’s inability to thoughtfully address their races, their genders, and how those inflect their interactions -- that failure writes both characters into really gross situations where they use racist/sexist beliefs and stereotypes to hurt each other. While the Master in particular has exploited racism, sexism, and a combination in the past [see Simm Master for copious detail], the show has portrayed this as bad and wrong. In this recent season, though, no one calls the Doctor out on the racist/sexist way she feeds the Master to the Nazis, and no one seems to have registered the particularly racist/sexist resonances of the Master’s torture of the Doctor in the last episode. Gross, show. Really gross.

I write about these failures for a reason. First of all, the intersections of race, class, and gender are on my mind as I, a white nonbinary person in the US, watch the Covid 19 pandemic and recent police brutality expose the racist, sexist, classist, etc., etc., etc. underpinnings of this society. Second of all, this particular mini essay requires writing about what I don’t like before I can explain what I do like.

I don’t like Dhawan Master as written and narratively presented. Because the show thinks that it can ignore his race and gender in conjunction with the Doctor’s, he comes off as an exceptionally gross racist/sexist in ways that the show never comments on. By the same token, Thirteen suffers from the same inability of the show to deal with the intersection of her race and gender [especially apparent in her scenes with Ruth Doctor].

All that said, I absolutely love Dhawan Master as played and interpreted by Sacha Dhawan. If you’ve been following my series, you know that I praise the actor for his thorough attention to detail and his skill in making the Master a very specific character who thinks in an unusual, multivocal way, exhibits many traits of neurodeviance, and clearly deals with several lifetimes’ worth of rage, pain, and grief. His focus on expressing what the character is thinking and feeling encourages the audience to try to understand the character and to commiserate. And he’s largely successful! It’s a testament to his talent and skill that he takes this character made so unintentionally GROSS by the show and turns him into someone perceived by many viewers as relatable and sympathetic.

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 4x06-- The Gang Offends Everyone

Thoughts under the cut. 

Another long episode, yay! But it’s a minute shorter than 3x04, so I feel slightly better about it. 

Lucca bought herself a Birkin bag with a portion of her poker winnings. Clearly she knows it’s a status symbol, but the second she realizes people are noticing it, she’s slightly embarrassed. Or maybe I’m reading this wrong. I think she wanted to impress everyone and show off and then started feeling uncomfortable. I am a little shocked she decided to take it to work.

Tbh I don’t think I would notice if someone carried a Birkin bag into my office.

Marissa knows a lot about Birkins, which tracks. As she says, she was raised around rich people. I would bet ELI knows about Birkins and the types of stitching too. 

Landau is back with an absolutely ridiculous idea: Running Adrian for President in 2024. Landau mentions that this year we started with a diverse field of candidates but “no candidate of color went the distance.” I know what he means but could he maybe phrase it in a way that doesn’t make it sound like it’s the candidate's fault? Also, question, what is running Adrian as a candidate early on going to do other than create more noise in the field and prevent people from unifying behind one candidate? 

(And, surely, there are more qualified people to run than Adrian Boseman, but this is TV and I will be quiet about this.)

As far as I can tell, this plot is about forcing Adrian into a new realm where optics matter more than money, thus forcing Adrian/the audience to confront a lot of the choices Adrian tends to make. 

They want him to stay on the stage until Iowa so black voters can “see themselves up there.” So it’s almost like their plan is to pick a moderately convincing candidate they know will lose in order to appease black voters??? What’s the point, to say they care but not enough to find a candidate who could actually win? Maybe I’m being too cynical. Or maybe it’s because it involves a fictional character that I’m so critical.

That said, the way Landau/the DNC have been written on this show? They CLEARLY are not supposed to actually understand black voters.

Just… don’t turn into season 7 of TGW, show. Peter running for president was such a poorly executed idea. 

I can’t tell if this plan would be to run someone in 2024 no matter what (meaning if Biden doesn’t seek a second term or if we have to deal with 4 more years of 45) or if it’s contingent upon 45 being reelected. If the latter, then that means that Adrian, in his own self-interest, would.... Want 45 to get reelected? Odd thought.

Adrian promises he won’t tell anyone and shakes on it. He immediately tells Liz.

I love how Diane’s name is on the letterhead but she is almost never looped into conversations like this. This is more personal than professional so it obviously makes sense that Liz would be the one he confides in, but it happens more generally too. 

Liz kind of mocks the idea of Adrian being the future of the party, and Adrian accuses her of being jealous. “What are your positions?” Liz wants to know. Good question. Adrian jokes that Liz could be his policy adviser, and Liz reminds him she brought the DNC in to begin with, used to work in government, and knows how to pronounce Kamala Harris’ name. All fair points. Adrian is definitely the more charismatic of the two (and he’s been on Cable News-- he went viral in the universe of the show AND in the real world for it!) but charisma is the kind of thing that matters far more than it should in politics. 

“Are you saying former prosecutors are unelectable, or just black female former prosecutors?” Liz attacks. IMO Adrian hasn’t really thought about it and is just parroting what the DNC said. And this is why Liz would be better at the job than Adrian, but it will never matter because no one is ever going to ask someone like Liz when they could ask someone like Adrian. Which is, I think, Liz’s point: she’s not jealous so much as she is incredulous at how this opportunity just appeared out of nowhere for Adrian when he has no experience, no policies, and no stances. Liz has all three (maybe not policies, but I bet she knows where she would stand if she needed to make policies) but no one is asking her to run.

“Would it kill them to recruit a woman every once in a while?” Liz wonders after Adrian’s gone. Precisely. I don’t think Liz wants this for herself-- but when she sees it go to Adrian, she sees how it’s not going to any of the other qualified black women who want it more than Adrian. 

Adrian goes to see his client, a swimmer, and says they’re changing strategies because of the politics. This may very well have been his plan for a while, but putting this scene right after the other two definitely makes it feel like Adrian is doing this for his own image.

I feel like most TGF characters are motivated by some combination of power and stability. Diane and Adrian want to have power, so they compromise on their principles to get ahead or make their position as prestigious as possible. Liz (who is actually a bit like her former rival Alicia in this!) compromises on her principles when it means not getting into fights that aren’t worth it or jeopardizing job security; Lucca is usually the same way and doesn’t wade into controversies. I have lots of thoughts on this I will probably come back to as the episode goes on and we see more from Liz.

This is one of the more case heavy TGF episodes, and it’s one of the more interesting, layered cases they’ve done. An aspiring Olympic swimmer has just missed the mark for going to the Olympics. As far as I can tell the underlying issue is that the meet was rescheduled from 2019 (normal timeline) to 2020 to let another swimmer have more time to prepare. I can’t tell if the timing ceases to matter once they switch strategies (right now they’re arguing it’s racial descrimination) or if it’s just forgotten as the episode progresses. Seems to me like that’s where their case is the best-- if they moved the date to advantage one swimmer, for any reason, that’s a pretty bad look.

How is it possible that this dude who played Bree’s sex addict boyfriend on Desperate Housewives and was on The Americans and a few other NYC filmed shows is only just now showing up on TGW/F!?!? 

Memo 618 leads Diane and Julius to compare what they know. Julius explains what spooked him; Diane explains the Visitor. In the middle of all this, Marissa interrupts to share the news of Lucca’s new bag-- heh. 

I assume the middle 3 numbers of Visitor’s phone number are blank because the writers wanted to use the fact they couldn’t print an actual number to add MYSTERY! Citing the bible, Julius decides to call Visitor to get more information.

Marissa brings Liz around to see the Birkin. Something weird about the name partner coming in to admire something one of her employees owns, no? Lucca’s hidden the bag but shows it off. Liz is mesmerized by the bag (my guess is even if she had the money she’d never consider buying one-- she says it’s a good investment but idk how much she means that) and Lucca’s really embarrassed to keep explaining why she spent 20k on a bag.

Marissa wonders if Bianca bought it for Lucca. “Jesus, you are a one woman surveillance state,” Lucca says to Marissa after Marissa confesses she’s looked up the price of the bag. She is a natural investigator, yes.

Lucca explains she bought it with the poker winnings, and Marissa calculates that Lucca must have won a lot if she was willing to spend 20k on something inessential. Marissa starts her guess low-- 200k. She finally gets the number out of Lucca (or at least the range it’s in) and tells Lucca she needs to talk to David Lee about taxes and accounting. 

On the one hand, very glad to see Marissa is knowledgeable about this. On the other hand, Lucca and David Lee are both family law department heads, so the implication that David Lee knows the ins and outs of gambling laws as pertain to St. Lucia while Lucca doesn’t know that winnings are taxable. I’m fine with David Lee being better at this than Lucca-- he’s a slimeball and has more experience-- but Lucca shouldn’t have to be told this. And this is the second time this season we’ve seen something similar happen.

(Another reason I’m fine with David Lee being better at the job than Lucca in general: we have seen time and time again that DLee isn’t just good, he is worth compromising the mission of your firm to have on board. So as great as Lucca is, not sure we’ve seen any evidence she is THAT good at this point in her career!)

The racism angle doesn’t work in court because the opposition brings in the argument Adrian was going to go with originally: the swimmer who beat Adrian’s client’s time is trans. Now if he wants to represent his client, Adrian has to be on record saying someone trans shouldn’t be able to compete as the gender they identify with. 

This is one of the more interesting approaches TGF could’ve taken to deal with trans rights, so it’s also one of the more interesting cases they’ve done in a while. This is one of very very few places where there could be a compelling case to look at sex assigned at birth instead of identity. So the writers focus on that, all the while acknowledging that even raising this question is pretty fraught. 

“Okay. From race to trans. Let’s go,” the judge says as we head into the credits. P sure that is not the right language to use but also VERY certain this judge has not fully wrapped his head around the concept of people being trans yet. 

Awww, using a Fountains of Wayne song over the credits is a really nice Adam Schlesinger tribute.The song doesn’t go super well with the credits but this is such a nice gesture I don’t care. 

Something else I like about this tribute is that it dates this episode. The reference might not be as easy to get in a few years, but since the characters can’t address COVID-19 (since all this was filmed pre-pandemic), this is going to be one of the only in-show ways to contextualize these episodes. (I would not be surprised if there is some sort of reference next week, and I am holding out hope for some sort of animated video or epilogue song (like the end of BrainDead))

This episode was written and directed by women! 

Adrian for some reason demands Liz-- and not any of the other black female lawyers at his firm-- join his case. This makes sense if we assume that the default state of RBL name partners is “doing what they please when they please because actual work is for associates and bigger cases are for STRL”. Otherwise it seems like a huge waste of resources. 

Liz immediately understands the optics are important in the case but also to the DNC. 

Adrian goes to talk to Charlotte about the DNC, and his timing is awkward… she wants to move in with him! (I didn’t realize his secret gf was that serious!) But Adrian is worried that since Charlotte is corrupt, she’ll be an issue for his campaign. Here is a thought: don’t take an opportunity that will invite scrutiny into your life but ultimately not lead to any type of lasting success unless literally all you care about is power? Adrian can say no! Of course, if he doesn’t want to say no… there’s his answer to all the dilemmas.

Charlotte understands this better than Adrian does. He promises her “issues” won’t impact his campaign, but he’s gotta know that’s complete bullshit, right? Her issues would absolutely disqualify him. He swears there will be no impact but… LOL. I don’t think he gets to be the one to swear there will be no impact. 

Lucca and David Lee’s meeting, in which David Lee is the right mix of professional and scheming, reminds me so heavily of the great scenes where he handles Alicia’s inquiries about divorce. David Lee was overused in late season TGW but this is reminiscent of him at his best. I’m glad that TGF is using him appropriately.

Here’s something stupid: Lucca spent $20k of the money BEFORE SHE HAD THE MONEY IN HER POSESSION. David Lee realizes the problem immediately. Lucca, astonishingly, doesn’t. Lucca is not an idiot. 

Adrian successfully gets Liz to join him on the case. Case stuff happens.

Julius and Visitor have lunch. Visitor tries to get Julius to play along. Julius continues to resist, then Diane appears. Visitor isn’t scared and threatens Julius and Diane. How else was this going to go? 

Marissa and Jay tail Visitor (this is slightly less ridiculous than the 5x10 Kalinda car chase, but only slightly) and lose him… but find Rachel Dratch, who was also trailing Visitor! Interesting.

Adrian asks Landau about his relationship with Charlotte, without any specifics. Landau gives the obvious response: “Get rid of her. Do it now.” Adrian is like, why? And Landau says “You said there was corruption there.” Yes. This is pretty damn obvious. Also this ends one of two ways: Adrian dumps her and the DNC thing proceeds, or he doesn’t dump her and then the DNC dumps him the second they do some investigative research. 

Alicia is in Lucca’s phone contacts!!!!!! (Maia’s ex, Amy, and Barbara Kolstad are too BUT LET ME HAVE THIS AND PRETEND IT’S SPECIAL.). 

Bianca calls, or maybe Lucca calls (this makes no sense because Lucca says hello first and it says incoming call from Bianca, but we see Lucca scroll through her contacts and Bianca asks what’s up). Bianca wants to do a celebration dinner, on Lucca. Lucca, knowing the power differential, can’t say no. 

Case stuff happens! Liz hates being on the wrong side and refuses to do a redirect!

Ugh the judge misgenders the swimmer. Ugh. 

A bunch of associates present Adrian and Liz with a petition to drop the case because they are on the wrong side. Good for them! 

Adrian says they’re not being hateful, it’s just a strategy. Sure. A strategy that, if successful, will set dangerous precedents. 

Adrian explains he’s actually just defending their client. As always, I don’t find this excuse satisfactory. Do you really need the business of this one swimmer? Is it worth being the one to essentially fight against trans rights? I feel like the answer to that is pretty clear. 

This case may be one of the more interesting ways to discuss if/when sex assigned at birth matters, but when it comes to whether or not Adrian/Liz have to be the ones fighting to count a trans woman as a man… that answer is way, way more clear cut. They absolutely do not need to take part in this. 

I appreciate that Liz is unhappy with this strategy and wants no part of it and admits that the associates/assistants are right. Liz also understands that this is generational and Adrian is like “Liz, I’ve won awards from covering every one of the letters LGBT” in his condescending tone. Liz, correctly, calls him out on basically trotting out the equivalent of “I have a black friend”.

Liz suggests reframing the case and leaving out the “anti-trans tone”. Adrian says “Not if we lose, Liz. Now this is not about politics. This is about rules. Are the Olympic rules fair, or are they not? That’s all.” Man, his tone is so insufferable sometimes. He always seems like he’s belittling whoever he’s talking to. He is also completely wrong here. And, as Liz points out, that’s never all.

Lucca and Bianca have dinner and Lucca still says nothing and still gets stuck with the $3,000 bill. I feel like the firm could probably pay for that as client maintenance? 

Charlotte lists out all the things she’s received as payouts. Some are small-- tickets to the bulls after an endorsement, a friends and family discount at Neiman Marcus after a zoning issue (seems pretty illegal), a speaking engagement for a judge after a favorable ruling… got a Mercedes with no money down… and she fucking bought shares in a tech stock before the IPO was announced. Well those last two seem like trouble. Any of these are potential problems, something involving stock and tech and IPOs? ANYTHING involving her getting nice things like Neiman Marcus discounts and a Mercedes? Those may be smaller scale but people would LOVE to hate on that. So she’s corrupt as fuck. No way out of this. OH ALSO SHE WAS TIPPED OFF ON WHEN TO SELL THE STOCK. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. And this is just what she admits to Adrian.

I wonder if this would trouble Adrian if he weren’t in the running for the presidency.

Adrian asks about 618. Charlotte says it won’t be a problem “because it’s the solution”. ?????? 

I have never understood this relationship and I continue to not understand this relationship.

Case stuff happens.

I’m not sure how Liz’s new strategy is any less anti-trans. She isn’t either, so she gives up mid sentence and sits down, telling Adrian “You want this, you do it.” That’s kind of like taking a stand? I know Liz isn’t going to rock the boat that much, not in the middle of court, but like, how much does standing up for what you believe in matter if all you’re doing is saying you won’t personally do something without fighting further? Liz gets as much of a say here as Adrian and the third person who would get a say is Diane (well, and STRL but shhh) and Diane would 100% take Liz’s side. So how much credit can I really give Liz? 

Does anyone really think someone would just decide to be trans to get a competitive advantage?!?!?! Jesus. That’s wild. 

Diane goes to talk to Rachel Dratch (Linda, here). Even though Jay and Marissa found Linda’s address they didn’t bother to look at her occupation?? She’s a court stenographer and she recognizes Diane.

She knows all about Memo 618 and shares her knowledge with Diane. 

Who is behind it? The Office of Legal Counsel.

How does she know this? Well, there’s a handy TGF short (YAY!!!!!!) to explain.

I love the little joke about how they won’t ever mention censorship in China in the song. Haaaaah.

The Secret Law in the song is so friggin’ cute. I love it. 

The explainer songs that explain largely unfamiliar, complicated topics are the best. And it’s perfect to deploy one here, since this is one of the most crucial concepts of the season and something that most viewers are going to WANT an explanation of. Like, I don’t need an explanation of Downton Abbey or whatever some of the lesser songs of last year were-- but I do want answers about Memo 618.

Is there a good article about some of the real cases of this happening? I assume in most cases Memo 618 is just a stand-in for whatever legal-sounding bullshit was in real memos that secretly shaped the US, but I’d be curious to read more about how this works. 

Linda gives Diane a few examples, like one about FDR and the Japanese internment camps (I did find an article from The Atlantic about an OLC memo from the same time, but not sure if it’s the one being referenced.) I am just going to assume that “M. 618” close up they show is faked. As I said, Memo 618 is more about putting a name to the idea that powerful people can author documents that shape the world but go unquestioned. I don’t think the point is that it was literally this same memo… just the same sort of bullshit.

The “Torture Memos” are another example. I appreciate the show telling me where to look for more information. There’s a ton of info around this.

I don’t believe this lip reader stuff but also don’t care.

And finally this circles back to the claim in 2019 that a president can’t be indicted. Is it a law? Nope, a memo from 1973. This is real and fascinating. 

I think the show’s approach is REALLY working here. It trusts that I can separate fiction (the lip reading, Memo 618) from fact (the spirit of Memo 618, what it means to have an entity that can make its own rules without oversight) and gives me the reference points I need if I want to dig further. It’s a satisfying way to pay off their mystery, and very much in keeping with the spirit of the show.

Linda basically explains Memo 618 as a placeholder for a law. Justify now, create the law later. Yikes.

Case stuff happens! There is a very odd last minute twist here in which the RBL client loses (yay!) but then another teammate is intersex so they try to disqualify her instead??? Wtf? Did we need this?

David Lee has sushi with Bianca and pushes Bianca to get Lucca her money. Bianca had no idea her friends never paid up (did Bianca not pay her share?) and Bianca, who CAN hassle her friends about this, gets on the phone immediately. There’s a funny montage of David Lee being confused by sushi while Bianca gets Lucca her money. 

Bianca asks Lucca why she didn’t tell her she hadn’t been paid! I’m glad to see Bianca cares, but I totally get Lucca’s hesitation. She explains she’s uncomfortable talking about her own money because it feels wrong. Huh, wasn’t she literally always talking about money on TGW? 

Lucca says she’s not sure she can get over this and be friends with Bianca. Because it’s not just money to people who don’t have it. I fully understand this discomfort. I haven’t ever befriended a billionaire, but I get it. I do want Lucca to have a friend though! I think if they’re just candid about this and don’t always do expensive things (and they sever the fact that Lucca is an employee…) they could still be friends! 

OOOH this Piper Vega looks familiar bc her sister is Alexandra Daddario. They have the same eyes.

The RBL client gets to go to the Olympics. Yay? Why did we get this instead of follow-up on the associates’ petition.

Lucca thanks David Lee and he reminds her that he gets money for managing her money. Fair point. But I think he’s got more of a soft spot for her than he cares to admit. Is managing a million and a half really going to help him that much? I imagine he deals with far bigger fortunes on a daily basis. 

Adrian says he took care of his issue, which hopefully means he broke up with Charlotte? He’s all in on the DNC.

Like, I want Adrian to be happy but Charlotte has seemed like a corrupt sexy plot device in every episode??? She makes me actively uncomfortable bc she comes across as a sex object AND ALSO a bad person?? So if they break up… good? 

Lucca arrives home to find a gift on her bed… lots of money. Is this how this arc ends or is there more (/was there going to be more without a pandemic?)

I do NOT like the zoomed out shot of Lucca that ends the episode. She is in such an awkward position on the bed???? It looks like a crime scene??? 

Season finale is up next. I’m sure it’s gonna be weird. And what a title it has.