#dennisisms

[dennisboobs]

17x07 // The Gang Gets Ready For Prime Time

↳ Dennis + self soothing

[dennisboobs]

something i find fascinating is that dennis doesn't recognize dee as the controlling and abusive one in her relationship with ben, because he just plainly cannot conceive of women having any amount of power over a man; it has to be that she's being duped by him somehow, that he's secretly in control. it's such a perfect reflection of the way he's compartmentalized and dismissed his own abuse.

[dennisboobs]

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cat in the wall. car in the river.

[dennisboobs]

i haven't been watching season 8 in production order, but its been on my mind, and i really do think dennis' characterization is affected by it all being out of order 😭 it's all over the place in broadcast order, he goes from being relatively well adjusted in one episode, then thrill-seeking and apathetic in another, but it makes a lot more sense, for example, to have Charlie Rules The World leading into Frank's Back In Business, then into Charlie's Mom Has Cancer.

he isnt interested in playing a character or "living life through a video game", but he gets the chance to assume the identity of brian lefevre in the following episode, which he hopes will fulfill that need for a Dangerous, Exciting, Disabling thrill. and what he actually gets off on is being caught in the end. real beer with real consequences.

and after all this, these leading (cut) lines implying he's taken it to a new extreme and has been fantasizing killing or (by this point) has actually killed people, we get Wedding Massacre, where we are led to believe he's been caught after killing maureen. by this point have plenty of reason to believe he's both capable of doing so and is almost certainly guilty... and then the twist is, of course, that he didn't.

[dennisboobs]

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it's kind of crazy how season 6 textually establishes dennis recognizing and taking on so many of the things that would become integral to his character all within the span of a few episodes. the big ones are obviously the serial killer persona and the thing with him referring to himself as a god i know high school reunion semi-retcons dennis' high school self to have always been using the golden god thing but i guess he does specify he never references *nordic* gods and of course there are other obvious examples including the implication, too, which pairs with the former.

in the scene from 6x11, dennis is trying to reassure charlie but mostly himself that even if neither of them know for certain how to handle this, that dennis is methodical, consistent, reliable, and he'll get them through it, so there's nothing to be anxious about. charlie can trust his judgement and feel safe. this is where he starts explicitly leaning into the serial killer angle, because he recognizes that even though he's out of his depth, this is a way to assert control over a situation.

for the scene with the nurse, dennis has two goals; seem authoritative, and seem cool important. he doesn't succeed in getting his way, but he feels better about the situation because he's impressed himself. i've always considered his outbursts to be a sort of external pep talk or a form of self soothing (rather than genuine delusion i don't think this is the case at all), and here, at its inception, dennis is psyched about doing something that was effective. not because of how these things actually panned out, but how it made him feel - i'd say it's pretty consistent in its usage.

in both of these scenes he's trying to help (looking out for and protecting charlie, and advocating for dee) and trying to prove that he's capable, that he has things under control for their sakes, so they don't need to worry about anything. he's adopting these things to better serve the gang, because they need him (even if they don't).

[dennisboobs]

in the script, dennis is simply angry at these girls for wasting his time. he says this twice. charlie's reaction here is also unscripted. glenn and charlie take what was written to be dennis having his intentions exposed and having a temper tantrum when he's rejected and turned it into dennis genuinely believing that these girls were being underhanded and poised to hurt him.

he is angry, yes, and his ego is bruised, but i would say this reaction is more a result of him feeling like the terms of their agreement (which he believes he has clearly outlined and they are fully aware of) have been violated. in a scenario where he is crafting the terms and keeping himself in control, it's now been revealed to be unsafe for him. (and then he draws up a contract)

dennis believes he's meeting women where they're at, using everything he has in his arsenal to wrest power back from them, because to him, they all inherently hold it to begin with. his experience has been that they exclusively view him as a sex object, and so he's allowing them to objectify him, to fuck him. this is supposed to be mutual, and he assumes that he feels the same way they do. the idea is that they're both getting "what they want". he effectively operates under the assumption that all sexual encounters involve consensual nonconsent to some degree, that these women know what they're getting into, just as he does.

i don't think he can fully comprehend that not every single person wants to fuck him. not even in a particularly vain way, (though it often is) but rather as result of his unchallenged history of being sexually abused. over time he has "made sense of it" as if this overwhelming desirability of his is why he was predated on, and these women just couldn't resist his charms (something HE wanted, something HE facilitated). challenging this would mean admitting to this being a victim.

this is just how he operates, because it's got very little to do with desire on his part. it's precisely why he offers himself up as incentive and reward.

i'm fairly sure this is also why he takes these girls saying they have boyfriends entirely seriously (rather than just them catching on and trying to shine a light on his intentions) in both script and episode. he can't believe they don't want to fuck him after he starts coming off exceedingly creepy, they must have a preexisting reason for it. they lied to him after entering into their mutual verbal contract. they Wanted something, wanted dennis, and yet they were still holding out.

the kicker is, of course, that glenn also later adds this in to the contract. not originally scripted.