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Ponderings on various characters on CSI:NY thus far...
You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.
- The Velveteen Rabbit
I've been watching all 3 seasons of CSI:NY lately and it got me thinking about Flack (beyond his hotness) and that let me to thinking about other characters on CSI:NY as well as other shows. I'll get to the other shows at some other time. I've been thinking how several of the characters that I love (including most of the CSI:NY characters) have gone through or are going through a process of being a little bit more human and layered. There have been mistakes in judgement, bad calls on personal situations and self-doubt. As I've discussed with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
crimsonquills before, I like my characters distinctly on the non-perfect side.
I've been thinking about how Flack has changed a bit this season and how he's on the 'broken' side now after the events of Charge of This Post. Not completely broken but there are still chinks nonetheless. I first noticed in in People With Money when Stella and Lindsay started ribbing him about his wound getting him girls' numbers. The usual Flack!swagger was missing. Not that I would ever picture Flack in full on Messer aka Joey Tribiani "How you doin'" mode, but he's never seemed to lack self assuredness before.
Then came Consequences and the issues between him and Mac about the memo book. I've seen quite a few people compare it to what happened in The Fall in Season 1, but for me there was a fundamental difference. In The Fall I saw Flack's actions in dealing with Mac and Moran as him going through the process of realizing that his mentor (who he clearly idolized) had some very prominent feet of clay. For Consequences I saw it as Flack doubting himself. When Mac first approached him about the cocaine and memo book he became defensive quite quickly. Putting it into perspective with everything else, I think it was Flack reacting with his own self-doubts projected onto Mac rather than a direct reaction to Mac. I mean Mac can be...abrupt? But in that situation he was actually pretty even keeled when he approached Flack.
I'm really enjoying seeing where Flack is going with this. He's still essentially the same stand-up guy and still has his swagger (witness his many Flackisms that have popped up in various episodes), but he's got some deeper stuff going on.
This brings me to Mac. Mac has been quite interesting to me this season as well. He still has his own very rigid moral compass (which he tends to skew to fit his own needs sometimes, but that's a slightly separate issue), but he's definitely starting to break through on his emotional glacier. We have him being forced to talk about Claire's death with someone finally when Reed shows up (which I'm fairly sure that he hasn't done with anyone to that point) and then there was his confession to Sheldon about his father in And Here's to You Mrs. Azrael and the Peyton 'incident'. I liked that Sheldon called him on his own emotional reactions to the case at hand in Murder Sings The Blues after the public flogging up in the lab.
The other characters have had some lapses in judgement or have allowed their emotions to overtake logical thought (which is a given for Danny usally, but nice to see in the rest). For Sheldon it was Murder Sings The Blues and for Stella it was bringing her own past with Frankie into the mix in Open and Shut. Though as she told Mac, they all bring emotions into their cases in one way or another. I'm just very much enjoying the layers that adds to the show and characters and how it makes them a bit more 'Real'.
- The Velveteen Rabbit
I've been watching all 3 seasons of CSI:NY lately and it got me thinking about Flack (beyond his hotness) and that let me to thinking about other characters on CSI:NY as well as other shows. I'll get to the other shows at some other time. I've been thinking how several of the characters that I love (including most of the CSI:NY characters) have gone through or are going through a process of being a little bit more human and layered. There have been mistakes in judgement, bad calls on personal situations and self-doubt. As I've discussed with
crimsonquills before, I like my characters distinctly on the non-perfect side.I've been thinking about how Flack has changed a bit this season and how he's on the 'broken' side now after the events of Charge of This Post. Not completely broken but there are still chinks nonetheless. I first noticed in in People With Money when Stella and Lindsay started ribbing him about his wound getting him girls' numbers. The usual Flack!swagger was missing. Not that I would ever picture Flack in full on Messer aka Joey Tribiani "How you doin'" mode, but he's never seemed to lack self assuredness before.
Then came Consequences and the issues between him and Mac about the memo book. I've seen quite a few people compare it to what happened in The Fall in Season 1, but for me there was a fundamental difference. In The Fall I saw Flack's actions in dealing with Mac and Moran as him going through the process of realizing that his mentor (who he clearly idolized) had some very prominent feet of clay. For Consequences I saw it as Flack doubting himself. When Mac first approached him about the cocaine and memo book he became defensive quite quickly. Putting it into perspective with everything else, I think it was Flack reacting with his own self-doubts projected onto Mac rather than a direct reaction to Mac. I mean Mac can be...abrupt? But in that situation he was actually pretty even keeled when he approached Flack.
I'm really enjoying seeing where Flack is going with this. He's still essentially the same stand-up guy and still has his swagger (witness his many Flackisms that have popped up in various episodes), but he's got some deeper stuff going on.
This brings me to Mac. Mac has been quite interesting to me this season as well. He still has his own very rigid moral compass (which he tends to skew to fit his own needs sometimes, but that's a slightly separate issue), but he's definitely starting to break through on his emotional glacier. We have him being forced to talk about Claire's death with someone finally when Reed shows up (which I'm fairly sure that he hasn't done with anyone to that point) and then there was his confession to Sheldon about his father in And Here's to You Mrs. Azrael and the Peyton 'incident'. I liked that Sheldon called him on his own emotional reactions to the case at hand in Murder Sings The Blues after the public flogging up in the lab.
The other characters have had some lapses in judgement or have allowed their emotions to overtake logical thought (which is a given for Danny usally, but nice to see in the rest). For Sheldon it was Murder Sings The Blues and for Stella it was bringing her own past with Frankie into the mix in Open and Shut. Though as she told Mac, they all bring emotions into their cases in one way or another. I'm just very much enjoying the layers that adds to the show and characters and how it makes them a bit more 'Real'.