Remember in Burning Down the House when Ray took a bullet for Fraser and then didn't respond right away because he's a little shit? And then in Seeing is Believing, Fraser catches the knife and didn't respond right away? I'm not saying it was payback or pettiness, but...
OH MY GOD I never made that connection but YOU'RE SO RIGHT! I love that! I always thought it was really funny, but a bit of a weird thing for Fraser to do, and suddenly it makes perfect sense!
It IS a weird thing for Fraser to do! Public-Service-Persona Fraser would never! But with Ray he doesn't have to be that guy all the time, Ray likes him anyway.
I think these two are really good for each other, you know? Fraser is great at keeping Ray calm and grounded, and doesn't let him talk himself down the way he does. Ray is so bad at letting go that it comes back around to being great at holding on, which is excellent news for someone like Fraser, who expects people to leave him behind at the drop of a hat. Look at how snippy he gets with Ray sometimes, especially before the Bounty. Dief gets full snip a lot, because Fraser trusts Dief to stay. Ray Vecchio gets his own version of it - Fraser does trust him, but snippy doesn't work well when the other guy is too cool to take the bait.
Fraser's escalating snippiness towards Ray Kowalski is less a sign of Fraser's "true inner personality" and more a sign of his insecurity in personal relationships. He escalates because he cares so much, and he likes Ray so much, but Fraser knows that people get to a point where he's just... too much for them, and they leave him. So somewhere in his subconcious something says: "Why don't we get that over with so we can stop worrying about how much it will hurt?" and there he is, pushing and pushing to find where too much starts for Ray. And then we get to Mountie on the Bounty, where Fraser finds out that Ray's problem isn't with too much at all, it's with too little - too little communication, too little trust, too little relying on Ray to have his back. Fraser both realizing this and acting on the information is crucial to saving their partnership, and from then on, the snippiness levels out as well.
Someone somewhere called their relationship "the validation tango", and I love that because it's so accurate! Fraser needs to know he's not too much; Ray needs to know he's enough. They balance each other out that way, and I think that's beautiful!
Thinking about Benton Fraser and how he strives to represent what, as an ideal, a officer of the law should be and how not only is he punished for it but treated as a freak by his fellow officers (in two countries) for that.
And how now, decades after the show aired, we talk about there being no good cops. Not because there aren't people who become cops with the best of intentions. Probably many flood. But the system is so corrupt that, if you start as one of the "good ones" either become corrupted yourself, you leave, or you are pushed out (every once and a while there's articles of good cops getting pushed out or punished somehow for reporting corruption). And how Fraser being pushed out to Chicago for exposing corruption in the RMCP tracks with this.
some things i like about ray and fraser that make them very different from dynamics that have similarish surface ideas
@pigtailedgirl this was the post i was working on (and then kept in my drafts for aaaages)
the fact that they became ride-or-die within a day of knowing one another. this especially on ray's side (i think pilot!fraser is mostly grieving and doesn't quite realise for a hot second how much ray would do for him, although it becomes apparent i think, latest when ray shows up in canada after having checked himself out of hospital post-got-exploded). this story gave us one scene of initial misunderstandings and then dropped all of that "unwilling allies" stuff that is staple to these kinds of stories and immediately changed gear into ray dropping everything for fraser -- his other cases, his family dinner, his hospital stay after getting literally blown up for him. and that baseline is only ever challenged once in the episode juliet is bleeding because ray is going through some seriously messed up stuff
burning down the house is a separate point i want to make, which relates to how openly affecting ray's leaving is to fraser. there's no trying to diminish that connection. there's also a lot of time given to the idea that ray hasn't simply "left" him, but is actively letting him know that he is thinking about him (that he promised to get in touch and then at the end he did). the emotional honesty of it without resorting to trying to diminish it for fear of seeming not manly enough. which, speaking of...
a lack of macho posturing. obviously fraser as a lead character not having this is very refreshing on its own, but there have been characters like that to an extent before -- the "oddball" to the "straight (literally) man." what's fun is that while ray is abrasive and at times challenged by fraser's worldview, he's never afraid of being emotionally open with him, touching him, taking care of him, letting him know how much he means to him. the show very rarely pays lip-service to more macho ideas about gruffness and not wanting to show too much emotion, and even then the actual dynamic is consistently the polar opposite of that, so much that it seems weird/indicative of something more going on when they do struggle to communicate
ray's caretaking -- speaking of all of the above, ray's core personality is based in many interesting seemingly conflicting ideas (he contains multitudes) and one of these is his intense caretaking of fraser both in body and soul. he tries to make sure that fraser doesn't physically hurt himself, while also teaching him to stand up for his emotional well-being. this starts way back in the pilot as well, when he helps fraser with his grief by offering a kind ear and making sure he isn't on his own (and is eating!) by making him come have dinner with his family. and he throws himself in front of a grenade for him. jeez. and then there's all the money he's spends on him.... and the riv (RIP. three times)
also. i like that they're playful with one another, again, from very early on. there's a sense of mutual respect in that playfulness, they're on the same wavelength practically immediately and it comes out in the ease with which they joke around with each other
i like when they argue, which happens rarely, but when it does, reads as duos (duets) arguing together rather than trying to tear each other down (handbooks for good relationships), that is, almost always (juliet is bleeding aside, but fraser knows this) when they argue, it's because of something that frustrates in relation to wanting to get closer to one another, rather than trying to hurt each other or feeling bitter/jealous/unkind about each other. the closeness is for example ray pointing out how fraser's tendency towards putting Duty first hurts both of them, or that he thinks fraser should acknowledge his less overtly positive emotions (feel his feelings) and in fraser it's pointing out that ray needs to be less self-conscious or societally bound at times where he's being prejudiced (at the bdsm club, about drag) and also in asking ray to trust his sleuthing (which ray pretty much always does especially as we move into s2, but he allows himself to ask for proof), which are both things that free ray from societal constraints and also allow him to get closer to fraser
in essence i like that the core concept of them is ray (tired, bitter, just getting on with the damn day after day after day) searching for something and that "something" is everything that fraser embodies, and ray's Mission almost from the moment they meet becomes to protect and preserve fraser's innermost needs, so that he can continue to be those things and that he learns from that and trusts that he is not so dissimilar to fraser in some ways (my man... got blown up.... and then went to canada... pilot episode..... he just needs to believe he has more value)
and that for fraser (emotionally closed off but simultaneously bad at setting any kinds of boundaries, too trusting but also doesn't allow himself to be vulnerable, not used to being put first including by himself) ray allows him to become more playful and open and not be afraid of being vulnerable for potentially the first time since he was a child, to let down his guard and not be constantly bound to his idea of Duty and Service, and yeah, to be a bit selfish
and they're never scared of being these things with each other. it's just very refreshingly poking holes in tropes
having thoughts on COTW again and how it's perfectly bookending both the Pilot episode and also Burning Down the House.
Benton Fraser returns to Canada on the trail of his mother's killers and for reasons that have been heavily implied and shown within the show remains there for good.
But also in COTW he gets a chance at saying goodbye on his own terms, as bittersweet as it is. In Burning Down the House everything was taken from him in drastic ways - his home and the community he build in Chicago, his best friend, his best friend's home - but in return the universe throws Ray Kowalski in his way.
In COTW Fraser quietly dismantles his ties to Chicago. He gets to say goodbye to the all the living people he loves and he gets a chance to say goodbye to his parents - and in some ways I feel his last salute to Frobisher also has him saying goodbye to the RCMP.
The people in his life know that's what he is doing even if it's not explicitly voiced, but also despite saying goodbye he gets to keep these friendships, these connections, even if they're hundreds of miles apart. Because everyone from Ray Vecchio to Meg Thatcher and Francesca and heck even Turnbull, left an impression on his life.
But then there is Ray Kowalski, you know the person the universe threw his way when everything in his life was falling apart? Anyway, that's who Fraser keeps, that's one where he says "You know what I am tired of goodbye's so I am going to whisk Stanley Raymond Kowalski and myself away on a real adventure."
And we, as the audience, are not allowed to see what happens to them. We've seen all of Fraser's adventures in Chicago but we do not get to know what happens to him and RayK in Canada. And idk, that's beautiful.
And it's also 100% my headcanon that he's leaving the RCMP (especially because with his father leaving, maybe also the weight of having to live up to that legacy falls away). I never thought of the salute as a goodbye. But I love it! That is actually so perfect.
One reason that I hc RayK as psychic (as well as interesting foreshadowing) is the scene in Ladies' man, where after the state's attorney finishes talking to him, Ray pulls a finger gun on himself (to describe it poorly). This parallels how detective Botrelle commits suicide after a call from the state's attorney.
I HAVE NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT THIS BEFORE OR EVEN NOTICED IT:
WHEWWWWW. OWIE. THAT’S SO MUCH. AMAZING NOTICE!!
I really love this general meta about Ray’s psychic powers too and I actually think it’s supported textually all over the place. MotB is always the episode where I think Ray’s own brand of “magic” is most actively visible:
He immediately calls the murderer as Andy Calhoun-oblique-stroke-Vic-Hester!
He knows Wallace is guilty as sin and if Fraser had listened to him at Illinois Lake Freight they never would have ended up on the Henry Allen!
He intuits exactly where the radar jammer is located on board!
He knows which direction to turn the submersible!
Obviously Ray’s not intuitively right about everything (crucially when he is particularly emotionally compromised, like when the ship is sinking, his psychic abilities get mixed up with his hot-headed impulsivity), but he is basically right about every single important thing in the episodes.
Stay with me on this one: I don’t think Marcus Ellory ever shows up to his mother's grave in Eclipse.
As truepenny points out in her typically-brilliant meta, Eclipse is written in the style of the Greek theatre's katabasis, a journey to the Underworld (followed by anabasis, the return to the world of the living). You've seen Hadestown? You've seen a katabasis.
This is another playwright John Krisanc joint, and as other people smarter than me have meta’d, Ray’s katabasis sees our hero venturing to the Underworld (a literal graveyard/crypt/grave); solving the riddle presented by the Underworld's guardian ("There. Now it's broken and it's working." "Good man."); learning a fundamental truth about the cyclical nature of life or undergoing a symbolic death of the past self; and then returning to the land of the living as a new or newly-knowledgeable person.
Ray Kowalski is tormented by Marcus Ellory as a symbol of his life up until this point. The two defining features of Ray Kowalski's life up until he meets Fraser are 1) Stella, and B) being a cop. "The point is, I mean, my whole life, it all starts and ends with this one guy."
But that part of Ray's life is over.
To make this a metaphor for queerness (as someone who personally married a man before coming out as a lesbian around Ray's age), in our mid-30s we're often forced to deconstruct the narratives of our lives that we've been so devoted to until this point. Have we been living for ourselves, or for other people? Has doing what society expects of us made us happy?
If you're closeted, the answer is usually going to be no. And that means you have to burn down your entire life to start fresh (the house, if you will). It means you have to grieve your past self—the one who had a heterosexual spouse and a house in the suburbs and did what society expected of you—in order to make room to rebirth your authentic self.
In the Underworld, and in the graveyard, Ray buries the man who wanted a wife; the man who wanted revenge on Ellory; the man who was a con job.
He's revived a man with a new partner, no longer motivated by vengeance, and who knows he's a damn good cop because he is.
So now that we've established all of that, let's get back to Ellory.
Ellory doesn't show up for his mother's funeral; by the time the mourners are leaving, he's still not there. "You know, Ray, I'm pretty sure he'll come," says Fraser, at 4:30PM. "We have time." But after Fraser gives Ray his own history back to him, Ellory still hasn't showed. They decide to leave, and Ray throws his dream catcher to the wind... where it's caught by Marcus Ellory.
"It's a dream catcher," says Fraser. "It tangles up bad dreams."
It tangles up bad dreams.
Ray puts on his glasses; he can't really see Ellory clearly. Then, once they end up together in the grave, no one else ever sees them. Fraser never sees Ellory. By the time Ray is reborn anew after the eclipse (literal darkness into light!), Ellory is nowhere to be seen. Suspicious!
I think the casting choice here, too, is deliberately made to make Ellory an allegorical figure as opposed to a literal one. Peter Bray, the actor, is 6'7". He's huge, and lying in the grave next to him, Ray looks even smaller than usual.
That's because we are seeing Marcus Ellory the way twelve-year-old Stan Kowalski would have. Huge, imposing, feet taller than him; essentially a cartoon villain. Ellory is exactly the same here as he is in Ray's memory, unchanged but for a little grey, even though twenty-three years have passed.
And then he disappears.
Ellory is the final boss of Ray's katabasis, his eclipse-fueled nightmare, tangled up in and cleansed by the dreamcatcher Fraser made him—just like Fraser's recitation of Ray's citations tangles up and cleanses Ray's own poor consideration of himself.
But it’s not about Ellory, y’know?? It has nothing to do with Ellory, not really, and everything to do with Ray’s own perception of himself and the story he tells himself about his own life. In this way, I think it’s more powerful a read if Ellory is not there; it’s all Ray. Just Ray, letting go of the man he thought he was and choosing to become the man he wants to be.
For me, Ellory’s just a bad dream. He’s a larger-than-life demon of Ray’s own making. He’s probably in hiding or dead, but Ray doesn’t actually need the real Ellory to exorcise that demon. He just needs the right angel.
Ray Kowalski dies and is reborn (like due South!), at the end of what I consider to be the two-part opener of Season 3.
Happy 27th birthday, Eclipse (Sept. 21, 1997)! You're one of the all-timer episodes of TV.
Ellory is holding the dreamcatcher the whole time we see them in the grave - until it gets too dark to see much of anything. You'd think he would have dropped it while flailing before they fall into the grave, but it's like he can't let go.
Like @sammeltassensammelsurium said - how on EARTH did Ellory get out of that grave? Ray needed help, and I suspect Fraser did also. Unlikely that a even a taller man much heavier than either of them would have made it. Also, how could he have disappeared so fast? Fraser neither saw (okay Eclipse, but still) nor heard him as he approached.
Fraser KNEW Ellory hadn't been there! He made no move to catch the malfeasant who had overpowered his partner!!!
I was already so passionate about this headcanon—probably the one I am most strongly passionate about in the entire series next to “Ray and Fraser are in love”—but these AMAZING POINTS MAKE ME EVEN MORE PASSIONATE ABOUT IT
MARCUS ELLORY ISN’T THERE *rips off shirt like the Hulk*
Ray says his whole life begins and ends with Marcus Ellory.
No.
Ray’s whole life begins and ends with HIM. Always has.
rewatched the due south pilot again with someone new. gradually pspspspspspssss at everyone i know about this show.
but yeah, two scenes really stick out to me this time about ray in terms of core features in how i come at him:
the second time they meet: their first meeting did not go well, he thought fraser had ruined his case, he was generally quite done with Stuff (and later on of course we will learn more about why he's so run down), there's this stranger demanding his time, and oh- oops he's just insulted his dead father accidentally and, huh, this oddity of a person is taking it pretty well to be honest...
the second time they meet is entirely on ray. he seeks fraser out having done research on the case, but first he apologises to him very sincerely for having said those words. that is the first, big thing that ray offers fraser (the next, of course, is giving over his entire life and soul to him, but i don't think he realised that in that moment...)
after he gets blown up and is lying in hospital: he apologises again, this time for screwing things up. we know by now that he had a bad relationship with his own five-years-dead father who never thought he was good enough, that he's struggling under his caseload at work, we've got a sense he isn't super respected there either, and although we've met his family which is actually very loving (if loud and argumentative) he's giving a sense of being pretty lost in the world at that point
and nothing that happened before was his fault. he's been helping fraser, against his superior's wishes, done some good sleuthing/detective work, and saved fraser by putting himself in front of the explosion. and then he apologises
I feel like a lot of the time ray's thought about in terms of his abrasiveness with people generally, his shield against the world
he's quick to assume the worst of people and doesn't let others in, but fraser neatly bypasses those walls. on purpose? by accident? bit of both? i think he does sincerely See more to ray in their first scene, the "like you, he is pretending to be someone he's not" line feels like it's talking about more than just ray having been undercover in the previous scene, and because he's fraser he never belittles or mocks or gets aggressive about ray's behaviours throughout their first meeting, which probably also draws him in on top of the need to Make Things Right
i think beneath some of the goofier stuff (which, honestly, i dont think theres thaaat much of, but id have to do a proper count and parallel how many times he's there as "comic relief" vs when fraser is, and also times where ray is shown to be extremely competent which is often -- maybe i'd wish for more dramatic episodes for him but that's more to do with how good marciano's acting is than a real disservice done to ray himself) and the more petulant/childish manifestations of insecurities (it's hard being friends with a Saint, as he puts it very fairly in my opinion, although i also think that line partially relates to some other stuff he'd said about Fraser Please Taking Better Care Of Himself throughout the whole season) there's this ray, and that core is quite obvious pretty much from the get-go
a ray who meets sincerity with sincerity and takes fraser in with honestly barely any prompting at all on fraser's part. a man who maybe was desperate for something/one to believe in, who isn't super macho about admitting fault, and then -- in the hospital scene -- a man who's so used to thinking of himself as a screw-up to the point that he'll apologise for getting blown up to save fraser
there's a lot ray gives fraser. for one thing, fraser would be dead multiple times over without him. but ray Needed him to appear in his life in order to get through the damn day. he saw some storybook larger-than-life weirdo and grabbed hold of him immediately and then realised that the rest of the world seemed to want to eat said weirdo alive and pretty much said over my dead body and he's done pretty well living up to that
did, though, very much appreciated fraser finally properly telling him in red white or blue how much he means to him and how valued he is, because ray doesn't always see it. (funnily enough, they had another bomb threatening to detonate at the time. almost a full circle)
two scenes in which ray says sorry, one in which he was right to do so and one in which he was wrong. there's more to it, but that's the... Thing im thinking about
In the way that Call of the Wild does not understand the purpose of Bob Fraser, his lesson in love, his grief, and his relationship with his son.
In making Caroline's death, the loss of wife and mother, a murder mystery plot and something Bob took horrendous "unfinished revenge" action on, and the worst, everyone lying to Fraser about, they've under-mined one of the most poignant moments of young Fraser and his heart in series.
His witness to his father's grief. A way to connect to his father's humanity. Which was something Fraser remembers and can reflect on and share forward. Hope that says my father valued love. He shucked duty, and action, and wanting to live, for his mourning of.
Perhaps also the one moment in series they gave Bob of being a good father as well. Of him coming out of his own grief to tend his son.
Instead, it's ret-conned, because now the question how does this tie to the revenge or pre-revenge must include. And that Bob Fraser doesn't just shift and mourn from the loss of his wife, and recover by the strength of self and son to look after, even if the argument and series proves he undermined/failed in isolation and duty. No, now he put lies and this quest to atone for a plot on top, worse above, as reason d'etre.
Truly, Call of the Wild drives me North by Northwest.
Which talk something that hits in connection? Due South equates this with madness!
Where does Call of the Wild place Fraser at end? North by Northwest. In the northern reaches of Canada looking for the Northwest Passage and Franklin's hand. The man who killed himself and his party for the hubris of his known foolish quest.
But Bob never got out of his grief to take care of his son...
One breakfast with oatmeal and a sliced banana doesn't suddenly make him a good dad. It does show that he has moved on from a state of helplessness. And probably that he was ready to finally make things right. (Even if at that moment he didn't yet know that he would be so overcome with rage that he'd try to kill Muldoon).
Benton was handed off to his grandparents. For some reason it makes sense to me that Bob would find it almost impossible to face Benton after what he thought he did.
The only thing about all of this that bothers me is that we never really explore Fraser's mother's story and why stories of his family never include her side.
But I do like that Fraser comes to Chicago on the trail of the killers of his father and the story ends with him bringing in his mother's killer.
I love Call of the Wild. And I love that we get Fraser and Ray leaving for an adventure together in the end ❤️
Thank you for writing all of this so I didn't have to!
Some thoughts about the North by Northwest issue I'd like to add:
OF COURSE going on this adventure is crazy! It's not logical! It makes no sense! Two seasons earlier Fraser couldn't have allowed himself to do this, even IF he'd had someone to do it with. His sense of self was so tied up in being a Mountie and doing his duty, he couldn't possibly have let himself want anything for himself. Now, though, with his father at peace and finally freed from his expectations, he can! It also helps that Fraser now knows there was never any way for him to meet those expectations - I firmly believe that even Fraser is aware that "I solved my last case" is far, far less than he deserved from his father.
And so, yes - I couldn't love Call of the Wild more, and I'm thrilled for both Fraser and Ray that they have each other, and that they're going on this adventure together! Both of them very much deserve good things, and this is the best ending I could have hoped for.
P.S.: The Franklin expedition itself wasn't foolish, the way it was carried out WAS. The men on those ships knew nothing about the environment they were in and actively refused help from the people who did. The hubris was in being self-reliant to the point of madness, and in stubbornly sticking to your way of handling things when that way clearly no longer serves its purpose. Fraser is nothing like those men, and I really don't see where the comparison even comes from.
me like: and what if i think constable benton fraser is probably more like his mother than his father, but she died too early in his life for him to realise this fact and so in many ways he's actually ill-suited to the kind of toxic macho ideas that seem to surround mounties as a Lifestyle and he doesn't need to impress his father's ghost who ultimately didn't give him much of anything to properly hang onto other than his diaries and an idealised version of masculinity that ben/benny/benton seems to embody more authentically than he did (despite feeling as if he's not good enough much of the time)... and that it's because of all the traits he inherited from his mother
Fraser's biggest, scariest, leap: Leaving the RCMP
Fraser has always been more than just a Mountie. He’s the embodiment of everything the RCMP stands for: honor, duty, justice. For years, it’s been his shield and his mask, giving him a sense of purpose. When everything else seemed to be slipping through his fingers, Fraser threw himself into his duty. The uniform wasn’t just something he wore, it was a way to mask his emotional isolation, a way to keep himself together when everything felt like it was falling apart.
So much of Fraser’s life was dictated for him. His father’s legacy, the choices made by the RCMP about where he was posted, even the way he was raised. It all pushed him in directions that weren’t really his to choose. For someone who values control and order as much as Fraser, it’s ironic how little control he’s had over where his life has taken him. But the RCMP demanded so much from him, and because of that, Fraser always prioritized duty over personal connection. He didn’t even think about it.
But what happens when duty just… isn’t enough anymore? When the uniform stops being a shield and starts feeling like a weight instead? Leaving the RCMP would mean that Fraser could finally reclaim his sense of self, outside of the expectations that his father and the institution have placed on him all of his life.
Fraser’s relationship with the RCMP has always been complicated. He’s dedicated, no question about that. But his career has been shaped by forces outside of his control. In the pilot episode Fraser turns in Gerrard. A corrupt officer, who also happened to kill his father. And instead of being rewarded, the RCMP tries to send him even further North. Not as a promotion, but to punish him for doing the right thing. That theme of being pushed aside and punished for standing up for what’s right follows Fraser throughout the series, creating tension between his personal values and the institution he serves.
The RCMP represents duty, but also a system that stifles him. Fraser doesn’t get to choose where he goes or what he does. He’s told where to serve, and it’s rarely because of his merits, but because he doesn’t fit into the force’s corrupt or politically driven expectations.
Chicago’s different. While it might have been a form of exile in the RCMP’s eyes, it becomes a turning point for Fraser. It’s the one place where he’s wanted by the people he meets there. Ray Vecchio at first, and then Ray Kowalski. In Chicago, Fraser finds a space where his sense of duty and his need for connection start to coexist, even if it takes him a while to realize it. Chicago becomes the place where he begins to reclaim parts of himself that he’d buried under years of service.
So, why is leaving the RCMP so important for Fraser's healing?
Emotional Freedom: Fraser starts to understand that life can’t just be about duty. His friendships with Ray Vecchio and then Ray Kowalski show him that emotions aren’t a weakness, but a strength. He’s constantly challenged by both Rays to explain why he is so loyal to the RCMP’s code of conduct and values. Leaving the RCMP would be Fraser allowing himself to live outside the rigid boundaries of duty. He’s always put other people’s needs first, but leaving the RCMP would mean he’s choosing his own emotional well-being for once.
Letting Go of His Father’s Legacy: Fraser’s spent so long trying to live up to his father’s ideals, even after his death. By leaving the RCMP, Fraser would symbolically step out of his father’s shadow, finally letting go of the past in favor of carving out his own path.
Allowing Vulnerability: Fraser has always been so guarded, emotionally cut off, choosing duty over vulnerability almost every time. But his relationships with both Rays begin to chip away at that armor. Both Rays challenge Fraser’s black-and-white view of the world, forcing him to see that human connection and emotions are not something to fear. Leaving the RCMP would mean stepping toward a life where vulnerability and connection are allowed to take priority over duty.
Picture this: Fraser is back in Chicago, after finishing the quest. Maybe they found the Hand of Franklin, maybe they didn’t. But that's not important. What is important is that Fraser found himself. It’s no longer about what he’s achieved as a Mountie. It’s about what he’s learned about who he is.
Fraser and Ray stand outside the Canadian Consulate in Chicago. The red serge hangs heavy on Fraser’s shoulders, it's almost suffocating. It reminds him of everything he’s held on to for too long.
He looks up at the building, a place that has literally been his home.
He takes off his hat first, his fingers tracing the brim, before he shrugs off the red serge jacket. It feels strange, liberating and terrifying all at once, to stand there without it.
“So... you ready to live like a regular guy now?” Ray teases.
Fraser’s heart is pounding. For the first time in years, he doesn’t have an answer. There’s no reason, just instinct. He nods, the weight of the decision settling inside him. He’s not leaving duty behind. He’s leaving behind the version of himself that’s too rigid, too bound by expectations that aren’t even his own anymore.
He reaches for Ray’s hand, tentatively, but Ray clasps it without hesitation.
Fraser smiles. Feeling lighter than he has in years. This might be the leap his father talked about.
So Fraser leaving the RCMP would, in my mind, be the logical final step in his healing. He’s leaving behind a life dictated for him, a life where duty was the only thing that mattered. The uniform, once a symbol of everything he stood for, has become a reminder of all the sacrifices he’s made. Letting go of it could be a way of reclaiming his autonomy, choosing a life where he gets to make the decisions.
And if you really look closely at Fraser's journey during his time in Chicago, you realize that it has always been about more than just duty. Fraser learns to trust, to let people in, to live without the constant burden of responsibility.
By leaving the RCMP, he is taking the final step toward healing. He’s no longer the man who was banished to the farthest corners of the North. He gets to choose where and who he wants to be. He’s Benton Fraser, and for the first time, he’s in control of his own life.
And maybe that’s the greatest and most important leap he’s ever taken.
Let me tell you something about Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of his father and, for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, remained, attached as liaison with the Canadian consulate.
There was never much of a chance that Benton Fraser would grow up to be what most people would casually call "a regular guy". From what little insight we get, no part of his childhood would have been standard. Looking at the anecdote Bob Fraser tells in Burning Down The House, we can assume that Benton grew up in a cabin his father built by hand, in a location remote enough and far enough North that living in an igloo during the construction of said cabin was a sensible thing for his parents to do. We see one picture of the family in Good For The Soul, and it is a puzzler:
Now, I wasn't around in the mid to late 1960's when that photo would have been taken, and I've never been to Canada's far North, but everything I could find anywhere tells me that that is not how (white!) people dressed then even up there, and no, I am not talking about trendy fashion. Everyday clothing looked pretty much like what we still wear today, but the people in that picture don't. They look like this guy - a European "explorer" whose picture was taken in 1889:
Side note: I am purposely only talking about white/western/mainstream society in this post because the Frasers are white.
I wonder what drove them to live like this, and so far away from other people? It can't have been money, Bob would have made enough to support them. I guess Fraser's parents weren't regular guys, either.
Anyway, we know that Bob wasn't around much while Fraser's mother was alive, and even less so after her death. He handed the boy off to his own parents instead, and Benton was raised by literal, real life Edwardians, people who were born before the invention of band-aids and bubblegum. Public radio broadcasts were cutting-edge technology when they were young. I'm glad they stepped up, and I'm sure they did their best, but they weren't exactly well-equipped to prepare a child for life in modern society. They were librarians who for some reason moved around a lot. When he was eight, they took Benton to a place called Alert - the northernmost continously inhabited place in the world. Unfortunately it's inhabited by soldiers and researchers who go there on six-months-tours, but it counts because the tours overlap. Fraser would have been the only child there, and, the times being what they were, his grandmother the only woman. What librarians would have done in Alert we can only speculate about, but between this and the fact that they helped build an English-speaking library in China before the revolution, we can safely assume that we are dealing with another generation of non-regular Frasers here. This idea is supported by the fact that they fed Fraser arctic tern for Christmas. Each bird weighs under 130 grams, and they would be hard to come by in northern Canada in December because they migrate to literally the other end of the world after breeding in the Arctic in the summer. I'm not entirely certain what this says about Fraser's grandparents, but it sure says something, doesn't it?
This bird may scream, but it does not scream Christmas to me.
Listen, I LOVE that Fraser's grandmother taught him how to box from a book.
Perhaps this one from 1922? In this book, the writer "not only describes the various moves of the game and traces the history of their development but deals comprehensively with all the factors of body and mind that make for success in the ring." Sounds like a good choice!
I do NOT love that she taught him that being in the hospital for three weeks after being shot in the back is "babying yourself". She also raised Bob Fraser to be the kind of man who tells his journal "The last time I saw Ben, he was barely tall enough to reach my belt. When I said good-bye he shook my hand. Never a tear or a complaint. Seven years old and he's already a stronger man than I'll ever be. Someday I'll tell him.", and friends, I DO NOT love that at all. That is NOT a healthy way to deal with emotions, and I think we can agree that growing up guided by these mindsets did Fraser no favors at all. Look at how he lives! His apartment is absolutely bare-bones, no personality, and after that he literally lives in his office - this is a man who gets REALLY uncomfortable when he's comfortable, is what I'm saying. Everything he does is quick and efficient to make sure he can devote a maximum amount of time to his work. I'd bet "Idle hands are the devil's workshop" was a very common saying in the Fraser household.
Look, our upbringing informs who we become, how we approach life, how we connect to those around us. Fraser's view of the world is completely different from how other people see it. Long before he's displaced geographically, he's displaced in time.
He grew up without TV, and while living with librarians gave him access to a large number of books, the libraries they worked at served remote communities and would not have been all too well funded. It stands to reason they would have had to make their books last as long as possible, and that new purchases would have been, shall we say, conservative? Copies of beloved classics, books with general appeal, books with educational/instructional value would have made up the bulk of purchases. Even if the librarians wanted to, there would have been little money to buy more controversial books - and it doesn't seem likely that Fraser's grandparents would have wanted to. Fraser probably grew up on adventure tales, detective stories and, as a teen and young adult, the classics from Austen to Shakespeare.
When he gets to Depot in Regina to become a Mountie he has nothing in common with the other recruits, and that continues throughout all his career. There's a reason he's still a Constable after all his years of service: he's severely lacking in social skills, and his upbringing is a big part of that problem*. He was raised by Edwardians on Victorian (and Romantic) mores and values, and bridging that gap to make connections with people from what's essentially a different world is very, very hard.
TL,DR: Fraser is both an alien and a time traveler, and we should remember that when we talk about him.
*Other parts of the problem are his queerness and neurodiversity, but those are topics for another essay. Please know that by problem I do NOT mean there's something wrong with him, I mean that there's something wrong with how society treats people like him.
Big thank you to @sammaggs and @sammeltassensammelsurium for excellent feedback!
1x02 Diefenbaker’s Day Off // 2x08 One Good Man // 2x13 White Men Can’t Jump to Conclusions // 3x01 Burning Down the House | Normalized
due South does a main character re-casting better than any other show on TV, and they do it by playing with television's own accepted meta-narrative.
Recasting a character has a long tradition in television, creating a viewership that knows and understands the storytelling short form at play. As viewers, we realize that sometimes actors aren't available to reprise a role (or simply aren't interested in it anymore); but, for the sake of the story, sometimes the show needs that character to come back. So we lean hard into suspended disbelief and just go with it. After all, the characters in the show accept the parareality of it—why shouldn't we?
Of course, the most famous example of a character recast would be the Dick/Darren disaster on 1960s sitcom Bewitched, when Dick York was unceremoniously replaced by Dick Sargent in the role of Darrin Stephens. ("The Dick Wars" would have gone absolutely insane).
it was... not successful
But they weren't the only ones to do it. Aunt Viv from Fresh Prince, Becky from Roseanne, Daario Naharis from Game of Thrones, Greg Serrano from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (pain, agony)—recasting characters but maintaining the fiction is a storied tradition in TV. New actor, same character; totally normalized.
And shows continue to do it, even today, with a—uh—similar dedication to fucking it up doing it poorly.
why must we be punished like this
due South even engages in this trope itself in season 2, when hard-hitting investigative journalist Mackenzie King is recast and they don't even try to find an actress who looks similar. In 1x02 Diefenbaker's Day Off, she's played by brunette Madolyn Smith-Osborne; in 2x08 One Good Man, she's been replaced by blonde Maria Bello, and nobody talks about it.
yeah i'm absolutely the same person, obviously
Everyone diegetically (within the world of the show) is just like, oh yeah, that's hard-hitting investigative journalist Mackenzie King. Totally. Only non-diegetically (outside of the world of the show) does the viewer go "No, that's not the same person." Internally, the fiction proceeds as usual.
So what would happen if, say, Samantha Stephens turned to Dick Sargent and said "You're not Darrin," when everyone else in the show continued to treat him as though he was? Or if Jaskier told Geralt that he knows he's not actually Geralt, and everyone treated him like he was delusional?
Or if Fraser, even, had recognized Mackenzie King as someone entirely different, and everyone treated him like he had a hole in his bag of marbles because of it? Of course that's Mackenzie King; even her boss knows it. No, she's never been a brunette. What are you talking about?
And that's exactly what happens in Burning Down the House.
the rays vecchio
Diagetically, everyone else treats Callum Keith Rennie's character as though he is Ray Vecchio. "Oh, good, you found him," says Det. Huey. Elaine, Franchesca, literally everyone else both at the station and outside of it treat Callum Keith Rennie Ray Vecchio as though he is David Marciano Ray Vecchio. They're acting exactly as any other TV character would in the face of a recasting: as though absolutely nothing had happened.
Except for Fraser.
Fraser's specific brand of parareal Canadian plot magic means that he's immune to the recasting blindness; he's acting as an agent of the viewer, voicing our non-diegetic concerns. Fraser is (as he so often is) a character with one foot outside of the narrative. He's just always been like this and he doesn't know why.
oh this man is infuriating and hot, fuck. shit.
And for a character who already thinks he is likely insane (he sees the ghost of his dead father! He communicates with his deaf half-wolf! He is instantly committed to a mental institution upon voicing the actual true story of his life!), this is very extremely distressing. Fraser thinks he's actually lost it this time, because everyone else in due South is acting like a TV character, and Benton Fraser is acting like a viewer.
This is so brilliant on so many levels. They just fully lampshade the damn thing. It allows our protagonist to speak for disgruntled or confused viewers. It engages at a postmodern level with television as a medium with a storied history (and due South is incredibly postmodern; nearly every episode is or contains a reference to another piece of media). It's written from the perspective of someone who loves and is knowledgeable about TV tropes.
And it gives us an entirely new Ray while still maintaining respect and loyalty to the original, something no other straight (lol) recast could ever do.
Genuinely one of the most clever, witty, well-crafted hours of television ever made. I could write essays about so many different parts of it. And I guess I will!!!!!!
It’s Burning Down the House week in our dS Stacked Rewatch!
Look at how normal Fraser is about this guy. Go on, look.
Frannie trying to hide her smile is adorable. Look at her second hand embarrassment, they might as well be real siblings.
Fraser, though, Fraser doesn't find this weird, or embarrassing, nothing like that. He thinks this is hot. Right in this moment, he finds Ray exactly as cool as Ray thinks he is.
It's like these two were made in a lab for each other.
I love this take, but I have a completely different one:
Fraser knows how dorky and arrogant and wannabe Ray is, and in this moment he is imagining taking him apart like a puzzle.
it's not that he doesn't see the awkward or that he doesn't care because love is blind, it's that he sees Ray's dorkitude and attitude and that although he's a poser he IS wiry and light on his feet and Fraser looks at him and sees a dogdamn BANQUET and he is HUNGRY.
like that is fraser at his most fucking Dom, not the bird in the hand with the boot and the chair and the bamf, THIS, because he is ANALYZING and he LIKES WHAT HE SEES.
Well I succumbed and watched the Pilot and first ep of Due South last night.
Really struck me how central the theme of Fraser's estrangement from his father is in the Pilot. Fraser mentioning that the last time they spoke was Christmas, essentially saying that the only times they speak are presumably brief calls at holidays. Gerard responding with a platitude - "I guess the more you know someone, the less needs to be said" - but it becomes quite clear that Fraser feels he doesn't know Bob at all, and has to learn about him through his journals.
And yet they're cut from the same cloth: "I always thought your father was the last of a kind. I was wrong - you are." And this is tied to the mountie stereotype lol.
Bob and Fraser both repeat the lines, "You're going to shoot a mountie? They'll hunt you to the ends of the earth," and they're both wrong. No one wants to pursue Bob Fraser's death except Fraser, and no one's happy with Fraser for solving the case because it uncovered corruption. He gets exiled for it. Bob and Fraser are the only mounties who "always get their man," lol, and it's because of Bob's neglect in the course of duty that Fraser follows in his footsteps and becomes so similar to Bob. He idealizes his father and wanted to grow up to be just like him - we can see that admiration in the drawing of him he finds in Bob's things that he made when he was a child eg, or in the song Superman that plays while Fraser reads his journal in the diner. But he doesn't know him. And he pursues duty above all else because he has nothing else of his father.
And then you have Ray, who seems to exist as the opposite of Bob. If there's one thing Ray is, it's there. He is there for Fraser to hunt down suspects, to invite him to a loud family dinner, to save him from an explosion, he tracks him down to apologize for being dismissive, to invite him to dinner, and he flies to the Yukon when he can't reach him by phone. In the diner scene in particular he's directly positioned as a contrast to Bob's absence both in life and death. Fraser is alone trying to understand his father through his journals (looking for something "he missed" ie his dad), and Ray joins him, ending the thematically significant song montage, and eases his solitude. Fraser says he doesn't have family, and Ray shares his own with him.
And after the pilot case, there's nothing drawing them together except friendship. They're not a mismatched pair of cops assigned together who have to learn to get along, they work together unofficially because they can't help but spend every waking moment together.
Bob represents absence and Ray represents presence, distant admiration vs actually knowing someone.
And I'll probably have more to say on that as like, poles Fraser is caught between, if/as I rewatch more of the show. Ray's position is a little muddy especially because pre VS he buys into Fraser's image to an extent, as pointedly examined in Heaven and Earth. But again, more on that another time.
So me and @mannequin3thereckoning rewatched 2.04 Bird in the Hand, 3.02 Eclipse and 4.03 The Ladies' Man (or 4.05, depending on the region; I like this ordering of the episodes better, it makes the season more equally paced to me). Somehow we picked a nice equal distribution between seasons 2-4 (sorry s1, I just did not have that much free time!)
It was fun to compare the impressions between us, a person who's fresh off a rewatch and one who didn't touch dS for some years :) Unlike my rigorous friend, I don't have it in me to do a separate post for each episode. It's all pretty chaotic, but here goes:
Bird in the Hand
It was funny to notice how much easier it is to judge the pacing of an episode while also chatting about it in real time compared to a regular watch. This one is pretty much perfect!
It's a great showcase for the side of Fraser that sometimes gets lost between screen and fic, or screen and meta—his lowkey permanent annoyance with his circumstances ("I'm not sulky. I don't sulk," he said. You know, like a liar!) and his masterfully contained intense anger. It's so funny how annoyed he gets with Turnbull! Finally, someone at the consulate who gets more shit than he does haha.
Also another great example of Ray consistently ready to both stir up shit and take shit for Fraser in a highly stressful situation where Fraser's hands are tied. “He’d shoot him for you if you asked"—even Dad knows <3 Linking this wonderful art to express my endless appreciation for how well-oiled Ray and Fraser's banter is. No one does put upon like Ray Vecchio. No one.
And, I mean, the emotional centerpiece of the episode is BRILLIANT. The tone balances on the usual dS edge between wacky and weighty juuust right for juuuuust long enough via Ghost Dad, and then it cannonballs right into heartbreaking because of the Ghost Dad in the span of two lines, sustains it for one of the most effective conversations in all of dS and eases out of it by—you guessed it—Ghost Dad diffusing the tension with continuous murderous overtures.
And I think Fraser's ✨Plan✨ in this one is a rare example of his speechifying that actually bares his underbelly as opposed to only expressing his beliefs illustrated by his experiences. He's very self-aware: he says to his father, "I'm no better", I, too, can't ask for help, I, too, can't express my love and my hurts—and then he goes and does exactly that—and then he immediately follows it by turning the tables on everyone and going "ah, but I stunned you all with my emotional openness on purpose so I could get the upper hand in the stand-off"—but it works both ways, and it's clearly also him using the excuse to actually be vulnerable for a second. Man, Fraser is a thing to behold in this episode.
But you can actually see how far he's come since the pilot, and how his partnership with Ray affected him—it's cool that this happens only two episodes after Ray bullies him into admitting his dissatisfaction with his circumstances. And here he's expressing grief, not the anger, not the desire for revenge, but grief, out loud, to everyone. "You broke my heart." Jesus.
10/10 episode, highly recommended.
Eclipse
This episode is like a favourite well-worn hoodie to me. Apart from the iconic "Do you find me attractive?" exchange it offers so many joys.
It's funny (The "now it's broken and it's working" exchange and "Mom, how you've changed—into cuban cigars" are both beautiful moments).
There's Fraser's "I'm acquainted with loss and, on occasion, loneliness" line which is I think a great thing to learn about him early in the season both if you tuned into the show without seeing s1-2 and if you're Ray Kowalski.
There's the great Ray intro, doubly so because we already had the intro, and were even given a lot of the info there that Eclipse reinforces (like Ray's compulsive need to express his vulnerabilities in hope of protecting himself from being judged too harshly, but also his competence—even if my man should really keep those glasses on—and his ability to think on his feet and his obsessive tendencies and his soft romantic underbelly and I could go on, we learn so. much. stuff. by the point we hear Fraser's exposition on Ray's professional record we're not even surprised).
I love that Fraser is immediately comfortable with his new position of being the more emotionally stable one in the duo, haha—while Ray Vecchio had his insecurities and great moments of learning to trust himself with Fraser's help, Fraser is clearly both fascinated by Ray Kowalski's openness and ready to offer his shoulder to lean on, with an added bonus of being in less danger of being perceived while near this dude who constantly makes himself available for perception.
Random little notes: I really love how Ray says his own name with so much disappointment when introducing himself: "I'm... *frustrated sigh* Kowalski." I love how he tentatively asks Fraser to repeat "friend" after his declaration of friendship. I love that he's a dork who throws the dreamcatcher like a frisbee. I love the b-plot letting us hang out with the station gang a little and see them stand up for each other. I love the insane angle on Ray's face while he's being interrogated (see: my eyelashes gifset). I love the birthday party. I love the crypt as a setting, and I love everyone in that impromptu holding cell.
And, in the words of my wiser friend, "ray finding out his imposter syndrome was caused by a guy who doesn’t even remember him is so very ray". I take my hat off to everyone involved in making this episode.
The Ladies' Man, which I'm very glad my friend suggested, bc otherwise I probably would've forced her to watch it anyway, and I'm not a fan of such cruelty.
Let's get some things out of the way:
Ray looks incredibly good in this episode. It's a crime to look this good AND suffer prettily on top of that. The fact that the camera that was already pretty obsessed with CKR these two seasons gets, like, terminally stuck on him here does Not hurt matters.
I have some Questions for the episode, and I'll get to them, but it's my top one dS episode on a pure viewing pleasure level because it pushes my buttons.
Can't say much about the cold open because it's pretty much perfect, tight and tense and we get the Homoerotic Calling Off Your Rabid Dog Partner When He's Losing It Before He Kills Someone, which is a timeless classic (complete with the obvious and iconic Look at me! Look! At! Me!), and Ray and Fraser are perfect characters to act it out. CKR is on fire, no notes.
One moment I somehow forgot from my many previous rewatches that really struck me during this one is Fraser's almost casual admission of imagining murdering his father's murderers—thinking again about Bird in the Hand up there. It's a great reminder late in the show, where we see this aspect of him less often, and it's cool that he can safely share it in the face of Ray's rawness, you know, as opposed to it being a great and painful admission when he's the vulnerable one.
A brief interlude to shake my fists at the sky and wail Why, o Paul Gross, did you have to add the singing—it's not just that the joke didn't age well, it didn't even land at the time, and I don't think it would in any episode, but especially here???— and the bark tea flirting—which is par for the course as far as dS goes and could be cute but it feels totally disconnected from the rest of the scene, let alone the episode, so, again, ???? It's not that I wanted a mournful monotony of an episode with no laughs—I would pick a different show then—but like, I think better jokes could've been made. Like later in the episode, where during a climactic scene they drop the "actually, all that exposition makes me feel a little thirsty" line, it works.
Back to the point: Dixie Seatle is fucking amazing??? Her and CKR work so well together that all the noise of failed gags and nonsensical continuity of Ray's cover and whatnot is super easy to wave away because they're the emotional core of the episode, and they deliver. They have such a fragile thing going on, with him being exhausted from all the guilt and her also being exhausted from his guilt on top of the, you know, the whole death penalty thing.
Which, speaking of, UM, that's one of Thee Darkest Premises in the whole show and encountering it for the first time was a trip, during a season I was not a fan of and considered dropping. And yes many rewatches later I'm still confused but grateful about it all. The world in this episode is brutal in the way it rarely is in the show; integrity and redemption and whatnot are big motives in dS, and the big point is usually that the world, imperfect and unfair as it is, can respond to kindness with kindness and this is worth upholding. It is Not So here; scenes like the whole precinct cheering away at the prospect of Beth's impending execution are just—wow, okay.
So, as far as dS goes, this is a super solipsistic episode. It's perfectly self-contained, and even though it could have, I don't know, implications for Ray the way some of Fraser's Bad Shit did for Fraser, it just isn't addressed in the end. And I don't think it should be. It's a character study, and whoever decided they needed a very heavy one for Ray is my hero. (Note: I think this is the reason I never read a coda for this episode that I enjoyed. Having your blorbo break down in tears right in front of his boyfriend right before the credits with no follow-up kind of begs for a coda, but—newp. It works so well because it cuts off with no big resolutions.)
And whoever wrote those two closing scenes deserves a medal; to have this much restraint is an achievement for late season dS. CKR and Dixie Seatle also deserve a medal each for creating something this excruciating with super precise line deliveries and body language.
Small things my mind always catches on:
Welsh and his pink duster, looking out for Ray
CKR's rolling over the car stunt (steam comes out of my ears)
tiny flashback Ray checking his hair in the mirror at the crime scene because of course he does
Ray casually fiddling with Fraser's hat as they walk around
Sam Franklin's whole deal. I mean, there's tension there. For god's sake he pats Ray's cheek like a proud mentor he played the whole time when Ray takes his gun during his arrest. I mean. Uh. Yeah.
the fact that truepenny quit her meta right before this episode is a human tragedy
Probably like 40% of what you've read above have been brought up or articulated by @mannequin3thereckoning, so thank her for all the fun. I hope we can do this again some time <3
It's been two weeks since I finished Due South and went back and watched the Pilot again. And I'm still not over how lonely Fraser was in Canada. Reading his father's journals alone, sitting alone in the diner, his fellow Mounties clearly not understanding or appreciating him. The Pilot is so quiet in comparison to the rest of the show, and he's so obviously used to being on his own in that quiet.
I want to talk about something controversial. I think Due South season 1, or Paul Haggis era, had better directing than later parts.
I'm noticing in terms of of themes coming together that you realize have repeated. Cuts and timing for comedic or dramatic beats. But also the way scenes are positioned.
For example, and I realize this is more Kathy Selvin, but it really stuck out to me the difference in keeping characters and therefore their reactions in framed focus when I watched that moment in Juliet is Bleeding with the spin camera that goes with Fraser's movement that keeps our view on both of them while still moving in the van scene. Using cuts, movement and close up to convey get it all.
And then I watched Strange Bedfellows, and the scene where Ray K is telling Welsh about being on scene for Stella, and Fraser in back... and despite it's supposed to be a conversations shot, a three for, where we should be seeing Welsh's mood, Ray K's reaction, Fraser to Ray K and then Fraser and Welsh's button... the blocking is horrid. Half of it is Ray K weaving out of view on the corner in his emotional beats, Fraser blocked by the others listening in back, so no real capture of him, and they all seem to be stumbling over each other to transition from focus, not aligned to be right for the camera to seamlessly or do it with style .
The later seasons style is much more frenetic than the thoughtful shot style. It feels Canadian and as one that isn't a compliment. (Because Canadian style is budget, it's handheld and frenetic to cover getting it done and moving forward aka less set up time, it's artsy in parts *see the variety of experiment DS employs in later season, Dief POV, zippy cab guy, Fraser slow-mo, long loop of station, black& white, etc. etc.* just for the fun of trying something different instead of having it's confidence to stick to definitions, and it's like PG loves the big and epic set pieces stories are built around instead of reverse)
Due South is fantastic in it's interplay between comedy, realism, dramatics and magical realism oddity of character. But it's another blow to it's dramatic edge when you both take it off the character's and then the seriousness off the film design too.
