A whole world out there...
(Series 3 spoilers and lots of opining ahead.) I apologize in advance for the length of this - the keep reading tab wouldn’t work for me today.
As we impatiently await news of any continuation, I keep revisiting the last moments we had on screen of Miss Fisher.
Before our hero could depart Australia to escort her wayward father back home, the writers took pity on the desperate ‘shippers’ among us and gave us one more glorious Phryne and Jack moment. He came to see her off, she told him to come after her, and they finally kissed. The collective Phrack community lost their minds.
Jack breathlessly declares that he “always feared another man would sweep you away from me.” Then, being Jack, has to cheekily add: “I never thought it’d be your father.”
Phryne’s reply left some people cold.
Why would she say this to poor Jack right after making her romantic overture, and letting him know that she did indeed want him? Why, instead of leaving him feeling sure of her affections, would she so casually toss out this ambiguous line?
As with quite a lot of the writing for Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, this is open to interpretation. What follows is my interpretation. It’s certainly not the only, or necessarily, the correct one. In fact all of what follows is strictly my opinion!
Phryne’s parting line is very much in keeping with who Phryne is, but it also illustrates what I think has been a persistent difference in the way she and Jack view the romantic relationship between them.
The gulf in how they view their relationship results in large part from the difference in the way they view sex. Throughout the three series Phryne has multiple sexual partners, all casual, most of them one and done, so to speak.
She approaches these dalliances in a straight forward manner. They are about enjoying sensual pleasures, or exploring the “energy that flares between two independent spirits —however briefly.”
Phryne likes men, and flirting. She enjoys sex. For her, a deep, emotional connection to her partner is not a requirement. The act is a physical pleasure, not a way of expressing love.
I think Jack understands that mindset. He knows that sex doesn’t always mean love, and perhaps, in his past there are encounters similar to the ones Phryne engages in, but we don’t really know, since the Jack we see exists only in relation to Phryne.
What we do know is that he’s been married. At some point, he chose to commit himself to one woman. He loved, and wanted to be loved. He wanted the assurance and permanency that comes with promising to spend your life with another person.
He also knows that it doesn’t always work out that way. His divorce hit him hard and he feels a bit of a failure because of it, but I don’t think it’s soured him to the idea of commitment and marriage. Jack is a romantic. He believes in love.
For Jack, when love is present, sex is much more than a sensual pleasure. It represents a special connection between two people, and an expression of their love for each other. Jack loves Phryne and he wants her to love him. He cannot sleep with her casually. Sex with Phryne would be an expression of his love, and if it turned out to be just one night of sensual pleasure for her, he’d be crushed. He can’t be one of her “parade” of men.
This is where I think they see their relationship differently.
Jack has never been one of the parade. From very early on, he held a different position in Phryne’s life. At first she may have contemplated a dalliance with him, but by the time he tells her that he’s married, she’s sized him up enough to know he’s not the type to have an extramarital affair. Even if he were, I don’t think she’d bite. That kind of encounter seems too messy for Phryne.
There is a definite attraction, and they enjoy each other’s company. He likes her flirting and openly flirts back. Somewhere along the line, he realizes he’s in love with her and that’s where things get complicated. He tries to leave, she won’t let him and they settle into a kind of detente.
That she works to re-establish their relationship says a lot. It’s not just about the professional part of it either. I think that is made clear in her conversation with Mac, during the estrangement in The Blood of Juana the Mad.
Phryne: “He had a nasty scare, thought I’d killed myself in a car accident and now he thinks I’m too much trouble.”
Phryne: “So he’s running scared.”
Jack may have been hard to replace for her professionally. Not too many men of the day would have been as accepting and appreciative of her skills, but, I think Phryne would have felt confident she could operate without him, or operate with him, even if on a far less personal level.
With any other man, she’d have been alright with the “running scared” part. She may have even encouraged it, but Phryne lets into her life the people she wants in, and she’s already let Jack in. I don’t know that she’s intending a romantic relationship at this point, but she wants him in her life, and she’s willing to let him set some boundaries to keep him there.
“What’s our safe distance?” she asks him. “Two steps behind, two steps in front?”
The Do-si-do is a square dance figure in which the woman circles first her partner and then the man on her right, before returning to her partner. The dancers move among multiple other dancers, but alway return to dance with the partner with whom they started.
Is she asking whether or not they have a chance at an ongoing partnership that might include intimacies without exclusivity? Friends with benefits?
In a waltz the dancers revolve in perpetual circles, but never change partners during the dance. The bodies are close, but not touching. It is intimate, but not necessarily sensual.
The circular nature of a waltz seems to imply that Jack thinks he and Phryne will continue to orbit each other, but not really get anywhere.
The tango is a very sensual dance marked by stylized body postures and abrupt pauses, coming together and then pulling apart. By eliminating the tango, she’s accepting that there will be no casual sex.
She doesn’t leave it there though - she adds: “A good waltz is slow, and close.”
She’ll go along with his idea of their partnership. They can be close, even emotionally connected, without sexual intimacies, but she’s not yet willing to rule out the possibility that things might evolve into something more.
If they are a waltz, he’s forfeited his ‘safe distance.’ She’s not going to lay off the flirting and innuendo, and he can choose to take it or leave it. He chooses to take it, telling her: “I’ll try to stay in step, all the same.”
He won’t give her up, but the song that plays at the end tells me that Jack doesn’t believe she will ever care for him the way he cares for her.
“I found out that I love you
And I thought you loved me too
You were only passing time with me…”
By the end of the second series he’s ready for more with her. When he comes to her at the end of Unnatural Habits and tells her he doesn’t alway do the noble thing, he is indicating a readiness for a physical relationship with her. We don’t get an outright declaration of intent, the writer’s still want to have their fun with us, but, along with moony smiles and sighs, we do get this:
We all know the Phracking frustration that was series 3, and this is where the different ways they see their relationship really comes to a head.
We begin with what are very obviously preparations for a big date, interrupted and postponed, until we wind up with a jealous, drunk Jack ranting about parades. (I already defended that rant, so I’ll only touch on it here). He rails about her other men, she asks “what other men?”
This is huge. Jack still doesn’t understand that he is not “other men.” A long time ago she set him in a different category. He’s already more than the other men she’s slept with, and he really should know this, but he’s hung up on the sex.
Intellectually, he knows that sex doesn’t equal love. Emotionally, he can’t make the separation. He gets jealous of other men that have been with her, and he fears that if she can casually throw them aside, she’ll do the same to him. Or, worse, that one day, one of those men will come to mean more to her, and he’ll lose her forever.
But, Phryne loves Jack, with or without sex. He is her friend and companion. The only intimate male constant in her life. She confides in him, relies on him and stands at his side. Even if he had decided to choose another woman, she’d still stand by him.
Jack finally gets the assurance he needs when she implies she’s not pleased with his attempted romantic overtures to date.
It looks like we’re finally getting somewhere, but, alas, and we find ourselves standing in a field with a rusty old plane running in the background.
Before she leaves, she gives him her final and most resolute bit of communication so far.
Phryne Fisher, the woman that lives life independently, on her own terms and who will never commit to any one man, has told Jack Robinson that she wants him with her on the journey. Phryne is straight forward with men. She doesn’t play games, and she doesn’t deceive. She tells Jack, ‘Come after me. Pursue me. I won’t turn you away and I won’t run from you.’
He can’t quite leave it at that and has to teasingly inquire about other men,
and we get the line that started this lengthly dissertation.
She’s telling Jack that he needs to stop fretting about other men. It’s not about other men. It’s not about sex. It never has been.
It’s about throwing herself recklessly into dangerous situations. It’s about driving fast. It’s about being able to pick up and fly off somewhere at a moments notice. It’s about living freely and independently. It’s about ‘a whole world’ out there to explore.
The only worry Jack has is that her adventures might take Phryne away from him. She’s not going to be the kind of woman to ever settle down and live quietly and conventionally, but she’s willing to make compromises to find room for him in her life. She’s telling him that where ever life leads, she wants him at her side, she wants them to be together.
Asking him to come after her is as hopeful a declaration of her love as she could give him, but telling him that there’s a whole world out there, is not thoughtless, teasing or cruel.
It’s honest and it’s Phryne.
You didn’t think I’d end without showing this again, did you?
