#s4e17

[steven-universe-hugs]

[canadarama]

The sheer whiplash of going from "Dean tortures a high-ranking demon for half an episode" to "Sam and Dean are Regular Guys who take a stab at a ghost hunt" to "all of the events of this show are written in a book series" is insane

[mydysfunctionalvampirefamily]

[stampedestring]

S4E17 The Boss's Daughters

Mr. Favor staying locked in this stance over the fireplace in this rancher's home reads like a lot of things to me, and I can't decide what exactly: like he's being deliberately standoffish, or he's feeling deeply uncomfortable, or he's passive-aggressively dominating the space... or this is simply how leaning against a wagon or random barrel on the trail translates into a domestic setting.

Second pic is him looking suspiciously at the rancher, who's just being nice to Maggie. Good luck to you if Gil Favor looks at you like that.

(Spoilers under the cut - I got carried away musing about this stance)

On second thought, I really like the way the people are arranged in this scene initially when the girls are present. Some background: in this episode, the rancher, Vance Caldwell, has returned to his ranch after years away after the death of his wife and daughter. He encounters Favor's daughters, Gillian and Maggie, who are traveling with their aunt Eleanor to meet Favor on the trail. Eleanor and Caldwell sort of fall in love, and he wants to marry her, but she doesn't want to give up the girls, so he proposes to adopt them, reasoning that it would give them a stable family life while Favor could see them just as much as he usually does... once in a long while between drives.

In the top left cap in the set above, the girls are working with old yarn that belonged to Caldwell's late wife or daughter, but's it's moth-eaten, and I think Caldwell wants to buy them new yarn or something. He's already given them two horses before this.

Anyway, in this scene, Maggie and Gillian are in the center of the composition, and Eleanor's seated to the side, with Caldwell near her, crouching to speak to the girls. The girls are turned toward Eleanor and Caldwell, and they're illumined in a self-contained circle like a family.

Favor, on the other hand, is not just standing to the side and watching his daughters having a nice day visiting this rancher (who is about to tell Favor that he wants to adopt Favor's daughters). His posture's not cohesive with the group - he's turned away and in shadow. Thinking more about it now, I can't help but see it as an intentional choice in positioning Fleming - he could be leaning against the wall or seated while watching the girls, but the natural way to do that would be with his body facing the girls, making him part of this "family circle." I think someone made a choice - maybe Fleming, maybe someone else - to have Favor face his body away like this to detach him from the "family."

The way Favor is positioned in the tableau, separate from the others, underscores how little of a presence he usually has in his daughters' lives. The way he connects himself by his elbow to the recess in which a portrait of Caldwell's late wife hangs also suggests to me that, similar to the portrait, he might as well be a mere memory of a person in the lives of his daughters. It's like he's part of a past that they would move on from, like Caldwell is intent moving on from his late wife and daughter, if the girls should be adopted by Caldwell.

[the-prismatic-butterfly]

guys why are we pretending riley simultaneously cheating on buffy and kinda raping her is okay and she should immediately forgive him and apologise??

[jessicatates]

Jodie Dallas in every episode - Season 4 Episode 17

[webethemonsters]

eliot letting himself get beat up for the con? then using three punches to knock three guys out? i'm being so normal about him rn

[todaysleap]

Today is January 27 and today's leap is:

Roberto! (S4, E17) January 27, 1982