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eumeliaI have in mind a meta in two parts.
The first, an outside view approach; in which I will pick apart the disturbing racial and class dynamics and intersections that were huge in this episode. I think that, among other things, will put into perspective why so many of us of feeling the Lori hate in this ep (besides the Mary Sue-ness of the character, that is).
We’ll call it the Doylist approach.
The second, an internal view approach, analysing the character interactions with each other and weaving it all into a coherent and cohesive narrative of what the characters – yeah, I’ll be honest – Steve and Danny - are going though at this first quarter of the season.
For every Doyle there is a Watson.
And just to show I’m not the pretentious arse that may be assumed from the introduction above, I give you the TVTropes Page Watsonian vs Doylist. Click at your own peril, etc.
The Doyle
I had plans to start this meta with the exclamation and explanation that fandom, slash fandom in particular and women as a rule (unless they are “girlfriends)are not the target audience, nor do I think we should be, but I think that’s a meta for another day.
I do, however, want to talk about the way the show is whitewashing itself of the very place where it has come from. Hawaii, as anyone who is interested enough knows, is a very diverse place racially and ethnically speaking.
Let’s start with the clear and glaring fact that Lori Weston – white, blonde and mainlander – has basically taken Kono Kalakaua’s – Asian, dark and local – place in the team in terms of presence and action on screen.
One of the best things about Kono and Chin is that they are local, they know the islands and were consistent (in season 1) in using their local knowledge to solve crimes.
Now I’m constantly searching for them as distinguished characters, yes they have their own plots and lives, but you know what – I’d actually like to see more of it!
It’s also important to note that H50 has always been problematic when it comes to racial dynamics – simply having two white men as the leads set in a state that has a minority-majority demographic can create controversy.
They established in season 1 that the housing market on Oahu is through the roof and that the wealthy on the island are more likely to be white. This is consistent with facts in Hawaii and just so you know, the homeless phenomena that we saw early on in season 1 is a harsh reality, it’s no surprise that most of the homeless are native Hawaiians.
I’d also like to mention that the show had been quietly respectful of that harsh reality and had woven itself into the infrastructure of Oahu’s diverse population in season 1, by introducing a character like Kawika (played by Kala Alexander) who is a native Hawaiian and a community organiser (see episode 1.22), where he helps kids.
With all that in mind, why is a white MMA fighter running a charity to get kids “off the street”? Why are all the people doing the community organising and charity work white? Why are all the people that need “saving” Asian or Hawaiian or Samoan or etc.
The racial dynamics of the show have never been what you’d call stellar, but they exist and they are behaving very badly, especially when you compare them to the previous season, in which, many of the guest stars were not white and Hawaiian culture wasn’t just about being entertainment for tourists (and when it was, it wasn’t without a certain ambivalence – what with a dead man being cooked at a hotel luau see episode 1.08).
Within the team dynamics, Lori creates a disproportionate white presence, considering that in the actual credited cast there are more Asians than whites – the show is very clumsily trying to establish a supremacy of whiteness when it comes to who has presence and who has agency.
And while you can take the straight white male demographic into account here, that’s an excuse not to deal with the fact that the show is changing the way it portrays Asians and Hawaiians and other present racial minorities on the show – delving into the way it has portrayed black people is a meta onto itself and I might write it out at some point.
Max is there as the true Asian-American Stereotype; a geeky scientist who plays music. Masi Oka owns the role so well that he breathes an honesty and an agency to those traits that I suspect many of us forget the fact that he is there – along with Kamekona – to be comic relief.
In relation to Lori (as she is a symptom of this) part of why we are being told all these things about Lori is so she can establish a supremacy of presence and agency, specifically over Kono as they are both “token girls”, only now Kono is the token “Asian girl” and Lori is “The girl”. For instance; she’s like Steve, she knows martial arts (seriously show, Lori is giving Steve advice about wrapping his hands! My eyes are strained from the amount they rolled!) and is basically a mouth piece for all the gender essentialism I’ve seen on the show – but she’s a profiler and a psychologist and so, she knows best!
I am usually not one to bash characters, in fact as a practice in fandom, I find it one of the uglier faces, but in this instance Lori is just terrible. Lauren German is like a block of wood who moves and makes noises. I swear, if it weren’t for the fact that character conveys information I would do my best to ignore her existence – she is like negative space, but worse, because she hogs scenes and lines and disturbs dynamics, by virtue of being badly written and badly acted – I can’t help but wonder if that’s intentional.
The intersection with class in this episode was big, it was glaring, and it could have been interesting, had it not fallen into the White Saviour – Native Loser (as they said on the show) paradigm.
Within the prism of class, the show does a pretty good job at showing the disparity between those who are wealthy and those who aren’t, but alas, the only one talks about class is Danny.
And with that I’m moving on to section two:
The Watson
It is no secret that Danny is my favourite. Seeing him go through what can only be an imminent breakdown is both fun and painful, because the drama is fun, but Danny is going through a hell of a lot right now and, well, he’s keeping it tucked under shirt and no fucking tie!
I want my ties back, pronto! Not going to happen, as they signify the changes the man is going through.
Above I said that the only one who talks class is Danny – twice now we’ve heard about Danny’s financial situation; in the previous ep that he is being evicted from his apartment and essentially has nowhere to go because everything is too expensive; in this ep he can’t afford to go to the victim’s restaurant, but he weaned Grace of fish fingers with butter fish (what a lovely dad!).
I find that really interesting when it comes to his character - because when in season 1 he constantly spoke about missing New Jersey and treating Hawaii as a temporary location where he was situated primarily for his daughter - the season finale established that he chose Steve over Rachel (and subsequently Grace) and Hawaii over New Jersey.
Danny is now seeking permanence and he can't due to eviction, emotional and familial turmoil and the fact that he is broke.
People, the man is broke. He is alone on an island he can’t stand on the best of days and his best-friend/ex-lover (i.e. Steve) is himself breaking apart at the seams (you can bet they are not fucking right now, and if they are it is probably the most distant sex there ever was).
His frustration with his situation and with Steve is getting the better of him; he didn’t need to punch the thief once he had tackled him, but he did (Lori commenting on him doing a good job there, made my eyes bug out, because, er, no, he should have tackled and cuffed, not added another bruise!) and at the end when he was wrapping his hands and “provoking” Steve? I know it looked playful and charming what with the smile and pseudo-camaraderie, but there was a hell of a lot of aggression in that scene.
While Danny is not the poster boy for passive aggressiveness, he doesn’t actually want to hurt Steve (though I suspect that when he finds out about how Joe had deceived him and Steve didn’t tell Danny there will be raised voices), but he wants to hurt somebody and currently he is internalizing a lot of grief, loneliness, misery and despair.
(Scott’s acting actually moved me to tears in this ep and while I am one of those people who cries at the drop of a hat, his delivery and performance were off the charts – give him a damn award already!)
Danny’s “Dad-ness” played a major part in this episode and it really conveyed the difference between his type of support for Steve as opposed to Joe.
Joe who I hope dies by the end of the season (yeah, I was rooting for Wo Fat – taking the bullets out of the gun and putting it back in the freezer? Fucking inspired!) for what he’s doing to Steve – he is replicating the exact same behaviour Jack (Steve’s dad) did when Steve was a boy and it is utterly unseaming Steve.
Were Danny in Steve’s corner like he would be, were it not for his own crisis, there would be so much shouting and finger pointing. Because Joe is constantly pulling Steve’s chain when it comes to investigating Wo Fat and subsequently, investigating Jack.
Steve’s guilt is epic and Joe using it against him with regards to Wo Fat is malicious. I wasn’t sure whether Joe was evil or not, but now I know he is at the very least amoral – never mind morally ambiguous – Steve is morally ambiguous, but he does what he thinks is right – Joe doesn’t care about right or wrong, he is covering somebody’s ass!
Shelburn? A new clue, a new plot. Honestly, I only care about what this does to Steve.
Steve himself keeps losing people, again, left right and centre, and the distance between Danny and Steve feels like a chasm. He’s lost Catherine, which while I personally never liked that much, was a great character and what they had was special – I mean, a fuck-buddy scenario that was mutual, caring and not skeevy! Kudos show, kudos! – and she’s now gone, her parting gift of intel and sorrow was lovely.
Danny, as mentioned above, is emotionally MIA alas.
And Joe, well, Joe. He’s lost another (fucked up and horrendous!) father figure. There’s only so much a guy can take.
Both of them.
And they are not there for each other. Is it any wonder Steve’s eyes are straying to Lori (despite the utterly non-existent chemistry between then and the fact that he’s ignored her in all previous episodes)?
I’m curious to see how the boys resolve all this.
The first, an outside view approach; in which I will pick apart the disturbing racial and class dynamics and intersections that were huge in this episode. I think that, among other things, will put into perspective why so many of us of feeling the Lori hate in this ep (besides the Mary Sue-ness of the character, that is).
We’ll call it the Doylist approach.
The second, an internal view approach, analysing the character interactions with each other and weaving it all into a coherent and cohesive narrative of what the characters – yeah, I’ll be honest – Steve and Danny - are going though at this first quarter of the season.
For every Doyle there is a Watson.
And just to show I’m not the pretentious arse that may be assumed from the introduction above, I give you the TVTropes Page Watsonian vs Doylist. Click at your own peril, etc.
I had plans to start this meta with the exclamation and explanation that fandom, slash fandom in particular and women as a rule (unless they are “girlfriends)are not the target audience, nor do I think we should be, but I think that’s a meta for another day.
I do, however, want to talk about the way the show is whitewashing itself of the very place where it has come from. Hawaii, as anyone who is interested enough knows, is a very diverse place racially and ethnically speaking.
Let’s start with the clear and glaring fact that Lori Weston – white, blonde and mainlander – has basically taken Kono Kalakaua’s – Asian, dark and local – place in the team in terms of presence and action on screen.
One of the best things about Kono and Chin is that they are local, they know the islands and were consistent (in season 1) in using their local knowledge to solve crimes.
Now I’m constantly searching for them as distinguished characters, yes they have their own plots and lives, but you know what – I’d actually like to see more of it!
It’s also important to note that H50 has always been problematic when it comes to racial dynamics – simply having two white men as the leads set in a state that has a minority-majority demographic can create controversy.
They established in season 1 that the housing market on Oahu is through the roof and that the wealthy on the island are more likely to be white. This is consistent with facts in Hawaii and just so you know, the homeless phenomena that we saw early on in season 1 is a harsh reality, it’s no surprise that most of the homeless are native Hawaiians.
I’d also like to mention that the show had been quietly respectful of that harsh reality and had woven itself into the infrastructure of Oahu’s diverse population in season 1, by introducing a character like Kawika (played by Kala Alexander) who is a native Hawaiian and a community organiser (see episode 1.22), where he helps kids.
With all that in mind, why is a white MMA fighter running a charity to get kids “off the street”? Why are all the people doing the community organising and charity work white? Why are all the people that need “saving” Asian or Hawaiian or Samoan or etc.
The racial dynamics of the show have never been what you’d call stellar, but they exist and they are behaving very badly, especially when you compare them to the previous season, in which, many of the guest stars were not white and Hawaiian culture wasn’t just about being entertainment for tourists (and when it was, it wasn’t without a certain ambivalence – what with a dead man being cooked at a hotel luau see episode 1.08).
Within the team dynamics, Lori creates a disproportionate white presence, considering that in the actual credited cast there are more Asians than whites – the show is very clumsily trying to establish a supremacy of whiteness when it comes to who has presence and who has agency.
And while you can take the straight white male demographic into account here, that’s an excuse not to deal with the fact that the show is changing the way it portrays Asians and Hawaiians and other present racial minorities on the show – delving into the way it has portrayed black people is a meta onto itself and I might write it out at some point.
Max is there as the true Asian-American Stereotype; a geeky scientist who plays music. Masi Oka owns the role so well that he breathes an honesty and an agency to those traits that I suspect many of us forget the fact that he is there – along with Kamekona – to be comic relief.
In relation to Lori (as she is a symptom of this) part of why we are being told all these things about Lori is so she can establish a supremacy of presence and agency, specifically over Kono as they are both “token girls”, only now Kono is the token “Asian girl” and Lori is “The girl”. For instance; she’s like Steve, she knows martial arts (seriously show, Lori is giving Steve advice about wrapping his hands! My eyes are strained from the amount they rolled!) and is basically a mouth piece for all the gender essentialism I’ve seen on the show – but she’s a profiler and a psychologist and so, she knows best!
I am usually not one to bash characters, in fact as a practice in fandom, I find it one of the uglier faces, but in this instance Lori is just terrible. Lauren German is like a block of wood who moves and makes noises. I swear, if it weren’t for the fact that character conveys information I would do my best to ignore her existence – she is like negative space, but worse, because she hogs scenes and lines and disturbs dynamics, by virtue of being badly written and badly acted – I can’t help but wonder if that’s intentional.
The intersection with class in this episode was big, it was glaring, and it could have been interesting, had it not fallen into the White Saviour – Native Loser (as they said on the show) paradigm.
Within the prism of class, the show does a pretty good job at showing the disparity between those who are wealthy and those who aren’t, but alas, the only one talks about class is Danny.
And with that I’m moving on to section two:
It is no secret that Danny is my favourite. Seeing him go through what can only be an imminent breakdown is both fun and painful, because the drama is fun, but Danny is going through a hell of a lot right now and, well, he’s keeping it tucked under shirt and no fucking tie!
I want my ties back, pronto! Not going to happen, as they signify the changes the man is going through.
Above I said that the only one who talks class is Danny – twice now we’ve heard about Danny’s financial situation; in the previous ep that he is being evicted from his apartment and essentially has nowhere to go because everything is too expensive; in this ep he can’t afford to go to the victim’s restaurant, but he weaned Grace of fish fingers with butter fish (what a lovely dad!).
I find that really interesting when it comes to his character - because when in season 1 he constantly spoke about missing New Jersey and treating Hawaii as a temporary location where he was situated primarily for his daughter - the season finale established that he chose Steve over Rachel (and subsequently Grace) and Hawaii over New Jersey.
Danny is now seeking permanence and he can't due to eviction, emotional and familial turmoil and the fact that he is broke.
People, the man is broke. He is alone on an island he can’t stand on the best of days and his best-friend/ex-lover (i.e. Steve) is himself breaking apart at the seams (you can bet they are not fucking right now, and if they are it is probably the most distant sex there ever was).
His frustration with his situation and with Steve is getting the better of him; he didn’t need to punch the thief once he had tackled him, but he did (Lori commenting on him doing a good job there, made my eyes bug out, because, er, no, he should have tackled and cuffed, not added another bruise!) and at the end when he was wrapping his hands and “provoking” Steve? I know it looked playful and charming what with the smile and pseudo-camaraderie, but there was a hell of a lot of aggression in that scene.
While Danny is not the poster boy for passive aggressiveness, he doesn’t actually want to hurt Steve (though I suspect that when he finds out about how Joe had deceived him and Steve didn’t tell Danny there will be raised voices), but he wants to hurt somebody and currently he is internalizing a lot of grief, loneliness, misery and despair.
(Scott’s acting actually moved me to tears in this ep and while I am one of those people who cries at the drop of a hat, his delivery and performance were off the charts – give him a damn award already!)
Danny’s “Dad-ness” played a major part in this episode and it really conveyed the difference between his type of support for Steve as opposed to Joe.
Joe who I hope dies by the end of the season (yeah, I was rooting for Wo Fat – taking the bullets out of the gun and putting it back in the freezer? Fucking inspired!) for what he’s doing to Steve – he is replicating the exact same behaviour Jack (Steve’s dad) did when Steve was a boy and it is utterly unseaming Steve.
Were Danny in Steve’s corner like he would be, were it not for his own crisis, there would be so much shouting and finger pointing. Because Joe is constantly pulling Steve’s chain when it comes to investigating Wo Fat and subsequently, investigating Jack.
Steve’s guilt is epic and Joe using it against him with regards to Wo Fat is malicious. I wasn’t sure whether Joe was evil or not, but now I know he is at the very least amoral – never mind morally ambiguous – Steve is morally ambiguous, but he does what he thinks is right – Joe doesn’t care about right or wrong, he is covering somebody’s ass!
Shelburn? A new clue, a new plot. Honestly, I only care about what this does to Steve.
Steve himself keeps losing people, again, left right and centre, and the distance between Danny and Steve feels like a chasm. He’s lost Catherine, which while I personally never liked that much, was a great character and what they had was special – I mean, a fuck-buddy scenario that was mutual, caring and not skeevy! Kudos show, kudos! – and she’s now gone, her parting gift of intel and sorrow was lovely.
Danny, as mentioned above, is emotionally MIA alas.
And Joe, well, Joe. He’s lost another (fucked up and horrendous!) father figure. There’s only so much a guy can take.
Both of them.
And they are not there for each other. Is it any wonder Steve’s eyes are straying to Lori (despite the utterly non-existent chemistry between then and the fact that he’s ignored her in all previous episodes)?
I’m curious to see how the boys resolve all this.