The way Death in a Different Place is written is INSANE. Let me say, I’m not usually much of a shipper in the traditional sense. My aro butt prefers to view the boys as a woefully codependent but beautiful next level friendship/chosen family situation.
But Death in a Different Place? Bro…every scene reads like Hutch is about to soft launch his own coming out to Starsky. To summarize for those of you who may need a refresher, another (and much older, and married) cop is killed and it quickly becomes apparent he was leading a double life and had ongoing affairs with men.
Starsky struggles with some homophobia, meanwhile Hutch is very quietly accepting about the whole thing. There’s a brief moment in the beginning where he’s surprised and even a little defensive, presumably given the fact the guy was married to a woman for 22 years. He says things like “John being gay doesn’t take away any of the other things he was” and, to Starsky, “if he’d come out to you how would you have felt” with this sense of resignation. It’s like he’s speaking from experience. Yall can tell me if I’m delusional but that’s 100% how it reads to me. Then at the end we have the absolutely iconic scene that’s been screenshot a billion times and also is, and always will be, insane
Hutch: “Starsky, would you consider that a man who spends seventy-five per cent of his time with another man has got certain tendencies?”
Starsky: “Seventy-five – you mean three-quarters?”
Hutch: “Right.”
Starsky: “Yeah. Sure. Why not. You mean that was the case between John and…”
Hutch: “No, no, that’s the case between you and me.”
Starsky: “What?!”
Hutch: “Well, figure it out. In a five-day week, there are about eighty waking hours, right?”
Starsky: “Yeah.”
Hutch: “We work, eat, and drink about twelve of those hours, right? That’s sixty hours a week, seventy-five per cent of the time we spend together and you’re not even a good kisser.”
Starsky: “How do you know that?”
This isn’t even factoring in the significant chunk of off-duty time we know they spend together, so the number’s higher than 75%. But anyway. Why’s Hutch out here gentle-parenting Starsky into accepting they’re basically gay? WHAT the hell was the goal of this dialogue?!
