Body of Proof: "Society Hill"
Apr. 26th, 2011 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixie...Hmm. I am unsure exactly how to feel about this episode. There were little germs of things that could've been really great, but they never really developed them. (Much like the show as a whole has been going so far. Dear ABC: Please renew this show and replace all the writers with better ones!)
But before any of that, allow me to SQUEE HEARTILY for a moment over how very well this show is playing to my narrative kinks. Ahahahaha, I loved how NO ONE at the party believed that Megan and Peter were just colleagues. No one! Not even her mom! Well, I guess she probably figured it out when Megan ambushed the old dude. Still. In my headcanon, a large chunk of their dinner conversation at the end rested on how Megan should really start dating again, and Peter is very attractive, and obviously they share some common interests if they work together and really, how about it?
And then he asked her out!
...Okay, even I can't quite convince myself that "out to a bar with almost the entire cast" is a date, per se, but awwww, he "just want[s] to hang out with [her]"! He wants to be her friend! Because that doesn't line up very neatly with a plot thread or anything, oh, no.
Speaking of that scene, what the hell was she about to do to his face before she stopped herself? I can't decide if it looked more like she was going to kiss him or pinch his cheeks. Either way, it was pretty adorable.
Circling back to the party before I move on to the rest of the episode, I'm kind of in love with the way Megan was totally okay with letting everyone assume she and Peter were together. I've never heard "colleague" sound so much like a very different word. And poor Peter was kind of like, "Do I play along? Will I find a scalpel in a very unpleasant place if I do? ...Is there some possibility that I would enjoy that? Um. Can we just talk to the suspect now, please?" Awwwww.
Anyway. The rest of the episode, which was significantly less squeeful. The ham-handed attempts at feminism were eye-roll inducing. Show, seriously, almost half your cast is made up of very cool women who are smart and professional and In Charge, and one of them is already getting basically all the character development. I promise, you were doing okay on this front. Unfortunately, the plot of this one kind of blew it. Either have the guts to make a statement about how women in power are viewed or don't, but don't give us a simple mystery where every single suspect's motive was basically, "she's a pain in the ass," and, "I wanted to win that writing contest," and then shoehorn in some Grrrl Power rhetoric and expect us to think you're really progressive for it.
That was dropped ball the first. Dropped ball the second was Megan and her mother. I know Megan's mom is coming back in future episodes, so we might not be done with this plotline, but there were interesting things that could've been developed. Why does Megan resent her privileged childhood?* (If she does, why does she still dress like she's a part of it?) If her mother really did ignore her after her accident because Megan's loss of standing embarrassed her (and we only really have Megan's side on that, so maybe she did, maybe she didn't), that is fascinating, and needs to be delved into. And how much did her social status as a neurosurgeon matter to Megan, anyway? Obviously she was embarrassed to be thought of as a mortician.
This could, possibly, have been dealt with in the "truce" dinner at the end, but we got absolutely no dialogue for it. Instead, the time was used to have Megan walk to the restaurant with the song of the week playing in the background. Writers, pleeeeeease don't get into the habit of letting the Random Annoying Pop Songs you end each episode with speak for you, because largely they have nothing to do with the show. Honestly, between this and the ones that end practically every episode of Castle, I wonder if ABC has some kind of ownership in a music label, and has someone from that end chose a song to stick at the end of each episode of every scripted show the network runs, whether it fits the show or not. Much as I do in fact like Ingrid Michaelson, she does not need to be on the soundtrack to this show, dear god.
Still, I want to know more about whether in fact everyone dropped Megan after her accident, or if she was just so depressed and angry that she cut everyone off. Probably it was a combination of both. I sort of doubt that she's never had friends, as her mother accuses her of; I think, rather, her mother hasn't known her well enough to know her friends.
One more bad thing, then I'll get to the good: Kate's personal life. I am totally spoiled for exactly what's going on there, and I am SO NOT HAPPY. OH MY GOD. I THINK THIS SHOW IS RUN BY MORONS. On the other hand, Kate was sort of cute with her little secrets.
So. Good stuff! I cringed when Megan started accompanying Bud to the magazine office (show, please just give us some kind of handwavey acknowledgment of the fact that this is so out of line for a regular medical examiner. Say she has some kind of special dispensation from someone higher up in the chain of command. I beg you); however, I liked that the rest of the investigation focused on reasonably medical-ish stuff, like the amber flecks in the businessman's eyes and those of his son.
I missed Sam, but I liked Bud better than usual this time around. It's nice that he's thawed a bit towards Megan (I guess it helps that she sewed up his jacket--although I think the original filming order, that hasn't happened yet). The, "Promise me when you tell him that, it'll make sense," was funny, and I liked them bonding-through-bitching over the difficulty of pinpointing time and cause of death. Her barging into the interview room and Bud turning to the one-way mirror to give Peter the fisheye for not stopping her was pretty hilarious too.
Kate has a specialty! And it's bones, teeth, and hair. Very interesting. I like when she gets involved in the cases rather than spending her day administrating. And Curtis's specialty is bugs. Awww. His song was cute for about five seconds, then it became about as annoying to me as it was to Ethan.
I question whether the quartet of Bud, Peter, Ethan, and Curtis would be so thrilled at hanging out together (does Bud even KNOW Ethan and Curtis?), but whatever, that was pretty amusing. Perhaps one day we will get a scene with all of them and the girls at the bar!
* Peter was obviously very uncomfortable at the party. Presumably his background is nothing like Megan's. Potential conflict? Potential storyline for the future? Heh, they really are a gender-reversed Beckett and Castle. Who were themselves a gender-reversed Booth and Brennan. Oh, TV-land, such a shallow well of creativity you draw from.
But before any of that, allow me to SQUEE HEARTILY for a moment over how very well this show is playing to my narrative kinks. Ahahahaha, I loved how NO ONE at the party believed that Megan and Peter were just colleagues. No one! Not even her mom! Well, I guess she probably figured it out when Megan ambushed the old dude. Still. In my headcanon, a large chunk of their dinner conversation at the end rested on how Megan should really start dating again, and Peter is very attractive, and obviously they share some common interests if they work together and really, how about it?
And then he asked her out!
...Okay, even I can't quite convince myself that "out to a bar with almost the entire cast" is a date, per se, but awwww, he "just want[s] to hang out with [her]"! He wants to be her friend! Because that doesn't line up very neatly with a plot thread or anything, oh, no.
Speaking of that scene, what the hell was she about to do to his face before she stopped herself? I can't decide if it looked more like she was going to kiss him or pinch his cheeks. Either way, it was pretty adorable.
Circling back to the party before I move on to the rest of the episode, I'm kind of in love with the way Megan was totally okay with letting everyone assume she and Peter were together. I've never heard "colleague" sound so much like a very different word. And poor Peter was kind of like, "Do I play along? Will I find a scalpel in a very unpleasant place if I do? ...Is there some possibility that I would enjoy that? Um. Can we just talk to the suspect now, please?" Awwwww.
Anyway. The rest of the episode, which was significantly less squeeful. The ham-handed attempts at feminism were eye-roll inducing. Show, seriously, almost half your cast is made up of very cool women who are smart and professional and In Charge, and one of them is already getting basically all the character development. I promise, you were doing okay on this front. Unfortunately, the plot of this one kind of blew it. Either have the guts to make a statement about how women in power are viewed or don't, but don't give us a simple mystery where every single suspect's motive was basically, "she's a pain in the ass," and, "I wanted to win that writing contest," and then shoehorn in some Grrrl Power rhetoric and expect us to think you're really progressive for it.
That was dropped ball the first. Dropped ball the second was Megan and her mother. I know Megan's mom is coming back in future episodes, so we might not be done with this plotline, but there were interesting things that could've been developed. Why does Megan resent her privileged childhood?* (If she does, why does she still dress like she's a part of it?) If her mother really did ignore her after her accident because Megan's loss of standing embarrassed her (and we only really have Megan's side on that, so maybe she did, maybe she didn't), that is fascinating, and needs to be delved into. And how much did her social status as a neurosurgeon matter to Megan, anyway? Obviously she was embarrassed to be thought of as a mortician.
This could, possibly, have been dealt with in the "truce" dinner at the end, but we got absolutely no dialogue for it. Instead, the time was used to have Megan walk to the restaurant with the song of the week playing in the background. Writers, pleeeeeease don't get into the habit of letting the Random Annoying Pop Songs you end each episode with speak for you, because largely they have nothing to do with the show. Honestly, between this and the ones that end practically every episode of Castle, I wonder if ABC has some kind of ownership in a music label, and has someone from that end chose a song to stick at the end of each episode of every scripted show the network runs, whether it fits the show or not. Much as I do in fact like Ingrid Michaelson, she does not need to be on the soundtrack to this show, dear god.
Still, I want to know more about whether in fact everyone dropped Megan after her accident, or if she was just so depressed and angry that she cut everyone off. Probably it was a combination of both. I sort of doubt that she's never had friends, as her mother accuses her of; I think, rather, her mother hasn't known her well enough to know her friends.
One more bad thing, then I'll get to the good: Kate's personal life. I am totally spoiled for exactly what's going on there, and I am SO NOT HAPPY. OH MY GOD. I THINK THIS SHOW IS RUN BY MORONS. On the other hand, Kate was sort of cute with her little secrets.
So. Good stuff! I cringed when Megan started accompanying Bud to the magazine office (show, please just give us some kind of handwavey acknowledgment of the fact that this is so out of line for a regular medical examiner. Say she has some kind of special dispensation from someone higher up in the chain of command. I beg you); however, I liked that the rest of the investigation focused on reasonably medical-ish stuff, like the amber flecks in the businessman's eyes and those of his son.
I missed Sam, but I liked Bud better than usual this time around. It's nice that he's thawed a bit towards Megan (I guess it helps that she sewed up his jacket--although I think the original filming order, that hasn't happened yet). The, "Promise me when you tell him that, it'll make sense," was funny, and I liked them bonding-through-bitching over the difficulty of pinpointing time and cause of death. Her barging into the interview room and Bud turning to the one-way mirror to give Peter the fisheye for not stopping her was pretty hilarious too.
Kate has a specialty! And it's bones, teeth, and hair. Very interesting. I like when she gets involved in the cases rather than spending her day administrating. And Curtis's specialty is bugs. Awww. His song was cute for about five seconds, then it became about as annoying to me as it was to Ethan.
I question whether the quartet of Bud, Peter, Ethan, and Curtis would be so thrilled at hanging out together (does Bud even KNOW Ethan and Curtis?), but whatever, that was pretty amusing. Perhaps one day we will get a scene with all of them and the girls at the bar!
* Peter was obviously very uncomfortable at the party. Presumably his background is nothing like Megan's. Potential conflict? Potential storyline for the future? Heh, they really are a gender-reversed Beckett and Castle. Who were themselves a gender-reversed Booth and Brennan. Oh, TV-land, such a shallow well of creativity you draw from.
Part 1
Date: 2011-04-27 11:19 pm (UTC)She doesn't have the "I wonder how this will land for the other person?" filter in anything she does.
Noooooope. Not at all.
Actually, I think you've just hit the nail on the head for why I'm not sold on this ship - it doesn't ping me enough that he really wants to fuck her. I buy it emotionally and romantically, but not really sexually.
I can understand that! Sexual attraction in general is such an abstract concept to me, though, that it doesn't make a big difference in how I perceive pairings. To make a crummy analogy, you know how people who are red/green colorblind can still understand traffic lights because one of the bulbs is always going to be brighter than the others? That's kind of how sexual chemistry between characters I ship works for me. I can tell that, say, Maddie and David on Moonlighting had UST that blazed way hotter than Megan and Peter's does, but it impacts my perception of a ship so little that it's easily overridden by the emotional/romantic/intellectual connections I see existing or developing between them. (Heh, and it helps that Peter is constantly giving her these adoring little looks. Possibly he's just adoring her brain, but then again, it's kind of all the same to me.)
(Also, that had basically nothing to do with your particular comment. I just felt like babbling a bit.)
I'm working on that, though. FOR YOUUU.
Awwwwww! ♥ ♥ ♥
LOOKING PRETTY IS NOT INSIGNIFICANT!
Hee! The pretty is sort of the only thing drawing me to the pairing right now, largely because we haven't seen them interact much. But that could change!
Or maybe it's just that Peter is a do-gooder and knows all about Bud's home life and wants to bring him out partying with the guys. IDK!
Awww, I like that idea! He does seem to be kind of the mom of the team. I can imagine him inviting Bud because he wanted to be a do-gooder.
I got so committed to my fanon of Sam/Sam's Husband that I actually haven't thought about her as a romantic pairing possibility AT ALL. I will open my mind here!
I like your fanon better, actually, but more femslash is never bad, y/y?
REALLY, REALLY, ALL WE KNOW OF THIS GUY IS THAT HE'S KIND OF A DOUCHE
Exactly! I do hope we get more on him, because there has GOT to be more to the story of why Megan apparently didn't even get visitation rights in the custody battle. And I feel like if their marriage fell apart just because they didn't spend enough time together, he wouldn't be so hateful and bitter, but rather just...regretful? Annoyed? Like, if they weren't around each other much, I'm not sure what Megan could've done to piss him off SO MUCH.
Plus I'm writing fanfic about Kate Meets The Ex For The First Time And Then She And Megan Go Drinking and DAMMIT I FEEL RUSHED RIGHT NOW TO GET THAT COMPLETE before it's completely trashed for the dumbest reason alive.
Yeah, that does suck. But I'm sure your fic will be awesome even if it does get jossed. :)
I get the feeling this isn't the first time she acted out at a society ball.
Ohhhhhh, yeah. It sounds like there's a history there. Maybe she had a debutant ball that went horribly awry?
I actually really liked Megan's explanation that the inquest into her patient's death was what got her on this kick.
I like that as well.
I think that could have been enough on its own.
I guess in TV Land it is. It's just that, uh, I did a lot of research on pathology when X-Files was still on *whistles innocently*, and I can't get out of my mind how very different the disciplines are and how much re-training Megan would've had to go through.
I desperately need to follow the "drink more, think less" mantra on this show. Too bad I don't drink.