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Three Eyed Turtle
I have such conflicted reactions to this episode, and the one before it.
On the one hand - TET has awesome Paul/Madeline stuff going on.
On the other - both episodes have Greg Hillenger.
I like the first episode he is in in the (first? second? season - I've just watched them all, you'd think I could remember).
But this pair of eps? There is something about Greg and his interactions with all the other characters that triggers in me that horrible - cover my eyes because OMG (!!!111!!!!1) they are *all* going to embarrass themselves terribly over this!!!11!!!! - feeling.
There is something about the structure of the eps that is so heavy handed with it's telegraphing that "Greg=trouble" that the utter obliviousness of *everyone* else to this problem, even after Greg is deliberately guilty of murder of a sr. operative, just makes it almost impossible for me to enjoy anything else going on.
Or, seriously, for that matter - in the final scene in the hanger - when George suddenly rolls over and plays dead?
OMG - Paul!!! Wake the frak up!!!
Okay, this is a total DON rant.
I think this series of episodes in particular, though with plenty of other evidence from the very beginning through the very end, is what make me just seethe over the notion that Nikita will *obviously* fail immediately (as opposed too -- in time) at running Section because she isn't as good as Paul/Madeline. I mean, maybe she will, but Paul and Madeline fuck up all the dang time, and yes, they did eventually fail - after ten or eleven years. If they are the baseline - Nikita doesn't have to be any better than she is shown to be to be *just as good as they were.* Arrrgghhghgh! flail!~!!!!
On the one hand - TET has awesome Paul/Madeline stuff going on.
On the other - both episodes have Greg Hillenger.
I like the first episode he is in in the (first? second? season - I've just watched them all, you'd think I could remember).
But this pair of eps? There is something about Greg and his interactions with all the other characters that triggers in me that horrible - cover my eyes because OMG (!!!111!!!!1) they are *all* going to embarrass themselves terribly over this!!!11!!!! - feeling.
There is something about the structure of the eps that is so heavy handed with it's telegraphing that "Greg=trouble" that the utter obliviousness of *everyone* else to this problem, even after Greg is deliberately guilty of murder of a sr. operative, just makes it almost impossible for me to enjoy anything else going on.
Or, seriously, for that matter - in the final scene in the hanger - when George suddenly rolls over and plays dead?
OMG - Paul!!! Wake the frak up!!!
Okay, this is a total DON rant.
I think this series of episodes in particular, though with plenty of other evidence from the very beginning through the very end, is what make me just seethe over the notion that Nikita will *obviously* fail immediately (as opposed too -- in time) at running Section because she isn't as good as Paul/Madeline. I mean, maybe she will, but Paul and Madeline fuck up all the dang time, and yes, they did eventually fail - after ten or eleven years. If they are the baseline - Nikita doesn't have to be any better than she is shown to be to be *just as good as they were.* Arrrgghhghgh! flail!~!!!!
no subject
So -- I'm left with nothing but agony over the whole Greg thing. Which isn't really 'new' to TET, as Paul seemed inordinately pleased with Greg from the moment he met him --- for no good reason that I could determine other than Greg =/ Birkof, for whom Paul has nothing but contempt, and again, for no good reason.
Hoisting my DON flag:
Yes - it would have made more sense to kill Nikita soon after the whole Adrian thing.... in fact, they were headed that way... but meta - couldn't have done that. Of course, without meta - Paul would have died when shot point blank by any half-assessed operative, and not lived on. Same with the guy who 'created' Abby. And Madeline stopping and restarting her own heart, in two different episodes? With, apparently, no further health consequences? So - um - long live plot needs? LOL!
Back within the Universe of the Show - I thought Paul made stupid mistakes from the beginning, he just got away with it more often than he should have. So, I tended to see/understand the slow spinning out of control at the end of S3 and most of S4 as .... amplification of earlier trends, and not something out of the blue. (As for the vile things - I thought most the vilest things Paul ever chose to do were in fact really stupid choices that almost inevitably turned back to bite him in the face. Vile acts tend also to be stupid ones, IMO.)
I also don't think Paul is detached at all. He is driven almost entirely by his emotions. So I don't see Nikita's 'emotionality' (which has taken a lot of hits by the end of S4 anyway) as making her meaningfully different that Paul.
As for desiring Section -- there is a whole, and ancient, school of leadership that teaches/posits that to desire to lead something is in itself a sign that this person should not be the one in charge, because desire messes up your ability to judge/direct that thing clearly.
And in any case, I never thought Paul desired Section particularly - just having been dragged there against his will, he would prefer, all other things being equal, to 1) live, and 2) be the boss.
In any case -- most of my DON argglebarggling comes from the position that if you operate within the show universe - you have to take the good and the bad, and the bad includes all the TR choices we saw, including the stupid ones. So, sure, Nikita will never be 'as good as' Paul/Madeline if you get to ignore every stupid thing they ever did! ;-)
no subject
I thought Paul made stupid mistakes from the beginning, he just got away with it more often than he should have.
Really, hmmm.. I must have had my TR glasses on, because while he had the occasional fuck up during the first two seasons, I always thought he was fairly competent or at least TR together was fairly competent.
When I was talking about detachment, I was talking about TR's ability to devalue human life. Sure, Paul cannot devalue his son's life or Madeline's life -except for Sleeping with the Enemy and Hell Hath No Fury, but I'm not convinced that those episodes existed :)- and Madeline had a hard time doing the same with Paul; but for the most part, TR has no problems seeing a body count as a victory as long as the numbers balanced out in their favor.
As for desiring Section -- there is a whole, and ancient, school of leadership that teaches/posits that to desire to lead something is in itself a sign that this person should not be the one in charge, because desire messes up your ability to judge/direct that thing clearly.
But the flip side to that statement is, if you hire someone who is anti-big government to run the government, you can expect the wheels to fall off of the government.
And really Section falls outside the normal purview. Section is a force of its own and you need someone who wants the job to keep the place running. Nikita detested Section for the whole run of the show so why would she be interested in making sure that Section survived in any capacity. Her father and her may have had lofty ideas about humanizing Section, but as soon as you do that, you kill essentially what made Section Section.
I don't doubt that Nikita would make a better leader than TR in any other situation; but in the situation of Section, they were built for the type of work that Section does.
And ultimately, did Paul and Madeline fail or were they setup to fail by Philip? Sure, TR made their mistakes, but if we are to believe the show's canon that Nikita was a super secret mole since S2, you have to take into account several different things.
1)She is using her relationship with Michael as a way to undermine TR; and since Michael is super Mikey and TR's main go to guy, TR was pretty screwed.
2)She had two years to leak stuff to Center, which gave Philip two years to plan on how to destroy TR.
3)If Philip was the big boss man, then it wouldn't have mattered what TR did because ultimately he calls the final shots.
Nikita will never be 'as good as' Paul/Madeline if you get to ignore every stupid thing they ever did
To me, again, Nikita's ability to lead Section does not revolve around whether she is competent enough but whether she is capable or not of burying her humanity to make the impossible decisions.
And for as incompetent as TR may have become, they did dupe Nikita more than once so you kind of have to factor that in as well.
no subject
I have never been convinced, based on my life experiences or in my professional research and teaching, that any organization or group falls 'outside' normal human conditions.
So - I've never been impressed by the notion that the Section requires things markedly different than any other organization in terms of leadership.
I recognize that this is not a universally held position. !
There is not a resolution to this - there can't be really. It's like all those debates between atheists and theists. One side believes in the existence of supernatural being(s). The other does not believe that the evidence supports that proposition. There can be no synthesis because it isn't thesis and anti-thesis, but two unrelated propositions about the (non)existence of the supernatural.
You posit that the Sections require something different than 'any other organization.' (for example: burying humanity.)
I don't think they do. Because I don't think they are unique in the first place.
~~~~
My rant was triggered because I'd read (yet) another (!) post-season fic that dismissed Nikita's tenure with a simple 'of course' she'd fail in some brief time. So, you know. Rant. LOL!
no subject
I really liked Nikita for those first two seasons; but as the show took the HR v TR approach later on, I admittedly chose TR mainly because I was fascinated by the fact that these two individuals were attempting to 'play god.' And there were several other tropes in play that I'm very susceptible too as well.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree about the nature of Section which is perfectly awesome because agreeing about everything would be very boring! ;)
I will admit that I'm guilty of the 'Nikita fails as a leader at Section trope.' In a way, I'm right because had TR lived they would have probably hated the way Nikita ran Section, thus she would have failed as a leader in their eyes.
And maybe the point that I should have made or I tried to make but it came off as rather clumsy, say that Nikita does maintain her leadership over Section/Oversight/whatever else she was in control over, the changes that she would have enacted during her leadership would have fundamentally altered Section to the point that Section would have become a completely different entity and no longer the Section that I grew to know.
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I was a Highlander fan -- big time -- back in the day.
For me? The show ends *right before* Mac killed Ritche. Everything after that? NEVER HAPPENED. IT IS ALL DEAD TO ME AFTER THAT.
Not even The RAVEN, and I LOVE Amanda to death. Seriously. She is, like, one of my most favorite female characters ever in my whole life. In the history of ever. I love her more than I love Niktia. (Though, maybe, Nikita might have been more like Amanda if she got to live for 700 years, yeah? LOL!)
I was also a Forever Knight fan. The last episode - where the show runners killed everyone? NEVER HAPPENED.
So I'm quite sympathetic to hating the end of a show and the "Madeline and Paul" DID NOT DIE story line. I've written a piece of that myself! In all but one or two of my 'what happened next' stories, they don't die. But - then - Nikita doesn't either! LOL!
It makes me grumbly. Hey? How come I can want your guys to live but you still hate mine and gloat when they die? As though fanfic of all things was a place to find parity! LOLOLOL! Even though I'm not necessarily speaking for the majority of the HR fen, as they were, in the heyday of the fandom.
I think part of what makes the end of LFN, not great, but survivable, for me, even as an HR fan, is that Michael and Nikita don't ride off into the sunset together. (They could have stopped at the end of S4, as planned, and that would have been fine by me too. Well, you know, Madeline would still be alive in my head....!). And, for those of us interested in Nikita and fanfic - it provided buttloads of backstory. Also worth something!
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How come I can want your guys to live but you still hate mine and gloat when they die?
Isn't it obvious!! I ship TR which means I get to be evil and hypocritical!!! Just like when Paul sabotages a mission to save Madeline, it is romantic; but when Michael or Nikita sabotages a mission to save their better half, it is sappy and stupid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So There! :)
Seriously, though, Nikita can live, but Michael can't.... Okay, he can live but he has to ditch the mullet and go back to S2 hair.
Michael and Nikita don't ride off into the sunset together.
Yeah, but the implication is, HR is going to get it on as soon as Adam learns how to drive and TR, if they lived, is going to be stuck with angst ridden island sex. Well, okay, TR was going to be stuck with that fate even if they hadn't been kicked out of Section.
no subject
Although, oddly, relatively few HR post-season fics actually assume that premise is going to work as advertised.
As for selective canon -- very little open-ended series TV can escape that, I think. A mini-series can, to a large degree, and movies, and novels - anything that is conceived from the beginning as an entire, and single, entity can. But serial TV really can't be (there are amazing exceptions, I know, but they are famous *because* they are exceptions. And even some of those don't work. From what I understand, the BSG reboot was conceived that way -- but I don't think I have *ever* seen anyone in the fannish world who liked anything about the ending of that show.