lemme type this out so it stops interrupting my thoughts while I work
this post has 19-2 and Peach Girl spoilers below so HERE'S YA POST BREAK
I know frigging no one except a handful have watched 19-2, so I'll preface by saying it's a Canadian-produced police drama, following two Montréal cops (and their department) as they struggle through the day-to-day plus some personal issues like domestic violence, alcoholism, bureaucratic corruption, etc. It's a dang decent show with memorable characters.
Now I have a lot of criticisms for the show - mainly how I gotta shield my eyes every five seconds because DANGIT MONTRÉAL WHY DO YOU LOVE YOUR NUDE TV SO MUCH - but there's some scenes that stick with me because they just caught me so off-guard, man. The one that's distracting me right now is from when Nick and Ben search for Commander Gendron's 16YO daughter.
Imagine you're worrying about the increasingly worse state of your daughter's welfare. She's running off with guys you don't know, doing drugs, skipping class, you don't know where she is most of the time and she refuses to keep in touch, she won't even let you come within a meter of her before she backs up, and she never stays at home even when you do - after frantically struggling to keep tabs - find her again. Her mother isn't around to mediate, having died years ago. The distance between you two has been growing for years, and every conversation is fractured into so many pieces you ask yourself what you could have possibly done to your precious little girl that she spits on you so. Who do you turn to? Your fellow officers, who will condemn your daughter for her delinquency? Do you risk losing authority in the sight of your men, as a commander who cannot even maintain a household, never mind a station?
Nick and Ben find her, and they bring her to you, and she stares far off, turned to the side, as if you aren't an arm away. As if you aren't a word away from begging.
You can't keep doing this.
"I want my daughter back," you say, hoarsely.
"I'm not a child," she says, monotone.
"I know..." You're nearly inaudible, you're so quiet. "I know, but... You're in trouble, and..." Your lips work as your voice falters. You slowly, delicately reach out a hand. "And I'm here for you, okay-?"
"Bullshit!"
She slaps your hand back, and your heart stills.
"Bullshit," she says. Her smile is bitter, betrayed. Her eyes are dry, sheened with anger. "Do you think I'm ever gonna trust you?"
Your hand hovers between the two of you, so close, yet so far.
Weeks later, in your office, your mind echoes the words your daughter had shouted at you over the phone a few days ago. Your officers had discreetly sought her out again, and it was one tab too many. The echo makes you want to scream, too, but the walls are too thin.
Then, you get a phone call... it's about Sergeant Houle.
Your trusted sergeant, who supported you when you were agonised by the slow, grueling process of watching your wife succumb to cancer.
Your trusted sergeant, in whose care you left, for a single, brief moment, your daughter.
"I can take Cendrine with me," Houle says, low, imploring.
She hesitates at the edge of the hospital bed. Her glistening eyes flick between your hands, which clutch the limp palm of your unmoving wife, and your face, pained with the tension it takes not to crumble.
You nearly cannot bear to raise your head and take in her sweet, devastated features, so much like her mother's. You turn your head towards her, gaze dragged from the bedsheets.
"It's okay," you whisper. "Go, Cendrine."
You end the call. Sergeant Houle has been involved in the assault and prostitution of countless children, corruption, and child pornography.
Your daughter leaves, led by the hands of your trusted sergeant, and you let her.
-
The look on Gendron's face when he realised why his daughter would never trust him again... oh my God. The tears in his eyes... I can't imagine what it would be like to touch that kind of despair.
How do you even mend that relationship?
I felt so horrible for him, I just. God...
You might be wondering what Peach Girl has to do with this. Well, the thought of Gendron's daughter's suffering reminded me of the time Momo was drugged and assaulted by a model who reminded her of the boy she was crushing on, and I... FRICK ME, MAN. AGHHHHH I'M IN PAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN
