Three Eyed Turtle

[nell65]

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!~!!!!

Comments

[clueless-02.livejournal.com]

With TET, I always watch the episode with my hands over my face, just barely peeking at the screen. I always get caught up in the icky TR stuff.

Anyways, with Greg, his presence always screams trouble to me; and yes, I never understood why Paul kept him around, but then again, I never understood why TR kept HR around when HR started being a problem for TR around the beginning of S4. I mean instead of making robot Nikita, it would have made more sense to cancel her or design a profile to take care of her.

Okay, this is a total DON rant.

Okay, I have a meta opinion about this and a non meta opinion about this.

For the non meta opinion, I tend to ignore the TR fuck ups because when they started fucking up royally, it seemed to be a writer's convenience rather than they were characters who would screw up. For so long, the writers went to great pains to show that TR was a step ahead and then suddenly at the end of S3, they are a step slow and constantly making poor decisions. Maybe if the writers had given a substantial reason to why TR had suddenly lost their brains, I could buy it.

For the meta opinion, my concerns with Nikita running Section revolve around who she is as a person. It's not about intelligence, it's about having the stomach to do vile things to win. Paul/Madeline can boil everything down to numbers and body counts. Nikita doesn't have that kind of detachment.

The other thing is, Nikita doesn't desire Section the way TR did.

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

Oh, TET! How I love this episode! It wreaks havoc on a lot of S1/S2 continuity, but I love it so much I'm willing to put up with that.

Of course, I love the big reveal of the game Madeline and Paul have been playing, I love seeing how far they are actually willing to go with it, and I love how sort of horrible and messed up it is, even as a fraud. I adore these characters for even coming up with something that twisted, and I like to think that they thoroughly enjoyed themselves along the way.

BUT! While I know what you mean about Greg being anviliciously obvious in his evilness, and the failure to spot this that it reflects badly on Paul (and, frankly, everyone but Birkoff), I love Greg to much to care, and I was positively gleeful about his survival and secret cooperation with George! (I love George, too, by the way.)

I think this once again comes down to my meta-first approach to shows. Now, I can play the game of stay-within-the-confines-of-the-universe, and it's a fun game to play sometimes! But I have to say, my *emotional* reaction to characters (that is, whether I like or dislike a character) is usually driven mostly by meta factors. So...I love Greg because he's the kind of character we're supposed to hate, because he's funny, because he's got the kind of dog-eat-dog attitude that being in an organization like Section would likely foster, because he's an antidote to characters who annoyed me (like Walter), etc. And because I love him, I just don't care if the episode makes sense, so long as he has the last laugh!

WE've gone around on the Nikita-as-leader-of-Section thing in the past, so I won't rehash that too much, other than to say that I think she'd have to become pretty hardened pretty fast to last long. And I don't even mean (only) with respect to the ends-justifying-the-means sacrificing innocents to save the many aspect, but also (and mainly) the cutthroat politics that would be required to stay in that position. I don't think the organization was really a meritocracy, and you'd have to do a lot more than just performing your job to survive -- you'd also have to fight dirty against your rivals. If Nikita could do that for any length of time, she'd become a different person than the person we knew. I'm not saying it's not possible, though -- I think my favorite part of S5 was when she came back to Section and that operative was all, "Oh, you're my heroine!" and then she put him in abeyance anyway. If she taps more into that side, she might endure (and I'd probably find her a lot more interesting as a character, to boot).