Way back when I first committed to Grimm I
was also committing to two other series: Person of Interest and Once
Upon A Time. I had already been watching White Collar. Now three of
my four dramas have ended, and there are indications that Once is
wrapping up. I have spent a lot of time on how Grimm frustrated me;
let's look at the others.
White Collar was the most ambivalent for me when it ended. I did not find the
conclusion exactly satisfying, but it was plausible, and you could even make a
case for it being necessary. There were definitely ways it could have been
worse.
One of the faces that I was happiest to see in The
Force Awakens was Ken Leung, and that was because of his recurring role as
Leon Tao (whom I adored) in Person of Interest. They were not constantly
bringing people back, but the ones they did, they did to good effect. That was
especially true in the third episode from the end, "Synecdoche".
Samaritan has decided that the president is an
acceptable loss, so is allowing a planned hit to occur. Team Machine is
scrambling to save him, but the situation is increasingly difficult and any
protective actions they take can look like aggressive actions to the Secret
Service.
Reese's growing feeling that he is being watched is
not just the paranoia of living in the surveillance state, but that people he
has helped during his time working for the Machine are there, and they are
there to help him, which they do. How many other people they are helping is
left open to speculation, but the responsibility of saving the world does not
rest only in the hands of the team that we know. Not only are they not alone,
but their good work is part of the reason they are not alone. Not all good
deeds are punished.
We do still lose two people we care about as the
series ends, but their losses are choices, and meaningful. While Reese's
decision is much more deliberate than Root's, both of them give their lives to
protect Finch. They do that willingly not merely because they care about him
and he needs help, but also because he has taken lives on bad tracks and given
them good things to do.
Of those left, Fusco and Shaw had been pretty
corrupt too. They had not initially been brought along willingly, but it
worked. They found higher and better selves inside. The series didn't throw
around the word redemption, but the concept was always there, along with the
equally true concept that you can lose a lot and still always find more to care
about.
Once Upon A Time did something recently that I loved and knew I wanted to write about,
but I am glad I waited because they did something even better last night.
Regina - formerly the Evil Queen - was always afraid she would revert to her
evil self. An encounter with Dr. Jekyll led her to believe that she could split
off and kill her dark side, which did not work as hoped, and suddenly there was
an Evil Queen acting as a nemesis again.
In the March 26th episode, "Page 23", they
faced off. I had thought that eventually it would be necessary for Regina to reabsorb the Evil
Queen, accepting that we all have our darker urges but our choices do not need
to be dictated by them. That could have worked, but was not what happened.
As Regina had the upper hand
her darker self spat "I hate you!" Regina looked at her and said,
"But I don't. Not anymore." And she pulled out both their hearts and
held them to each other, allowing some of the love and growth that she
understood to become a gift to the Evil Queen, and being willing to take away
some of that old hate she had once known so well.
The really interesting thing is that the Evil Queen
(perhaps no longer the best designation for her) ended up entering what had
once been a potential happy ending for Regina, but one that Regina had
outgrown. That was full of hope, but not as hopeful as "Awake".
One of the Evil Queen's bad acts before "Page
23" was to place Snow White and Charming under a sleeping curse that took
advantage of their shared heart so that whenever one was awake the other was
asleep (a Ladyhawke-style separation but for sleeping spells).
Regina wasn't having much luck reversing the spell; one attempt actually made
it worse where they were both asleep at the same time.
Instead, she called together townspeople and
friends, and they each took a little bit of the spell on themselves and diluted
it. There was risk, but Snow and Charming had sacrificed their happiness for
their friends, and this was a community. Everyone fell asleep, but then all of
them woke back up.
Back in 2012 there was one other series that I tried
watching and then dropped: Alcatraz. Lives were discarded too quickly, and without meaning. Sympathetic
characters killed others needlessly, and sometimes you may have been supposed
to still like them, and sometimes not, but it was ultimately at least too cold
if not downright sadistic.
If Grimm had started out like that, I would
have given it up a long time ago. As it was, I had invested so much time and
caring that it became more frustrating than "Oh, this show looks good,
wait, no, never mind."
I referenced Carolyn Hinsey when I wrote about
character-driven versus plot-driven. Another thing she always mentioned was
playing the beats. An event on a soap might be mainly about two characters, but
other characters who cared about them would also be affected, so check in with
the best friend and the aunt and everyone else. Not only does that give the
full emotional impact, but you don't need to rush heedlessly on to the next big
thing - a lot of the shows that keep doing really stupid things also move very
fast and with very little believability.
With one weekly hour it may not be practical to take
time for each person's discovery and reaction, but it remains important to
remember that it will have an effect. Some characters may accept a development
reluctantly, or with barely-suppressed anger, or with quiet moments of grief,
and sometimes there may be arguments, but those are the things that feel real.
"Moments" over "moves", in the words of Joss Whedon.
But I already wrote about that.
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