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andrasteI was trying to think how to open this post but I think anything I can say beyond 'wow the OFMD finale did not work for me' is too spoilery.
So here is a thing about me: I love it when my favourite characters die! Many of my blorbos end up dead (some of them multiple times, due to the nature of the canons they inhabit) and usually I'm all in favour of this. Even leaving aside examples like Charles Xavier* and Magneto and Starscream who are guaranteed to always come back in some form, some of my favourite scenes in fiction are my favourite characters dying. Londo and G'Kar? Blake and Avon? Valjean and Javert? Lord Asriel and Marissa Coulter? Bialar Crais* and Talyn? Rorschach? Roy Batty? Nicholas D. Wolfwood? Kosh? All terrific deaths that make a satisfying ending to those character's stories.
I also have no objections to death being the end of a redemption arc - in addition to several of the exmples given above, I've been eating that kind of thing up with a spoon ever since Atlas sacrificed himself heroically in the 1980 version of Astro Boy.
All of which to say, I have spent several days trying to work out why I hate Izzy Hands being dead, and cannot remember the last time I was this poll-axed by a fictional character dying. (The answer might be ... never? That would certainly be something, at the age of forty-three and a life spent in fandom.)
Clearly it's not because he's my favourite character in the show, because I love it when those die! And it's not an objection to the way it happened, either - I think dying pointlessly because he's subject to more realistic laws of biology and physics than the rest of the cast while trying to manage Ed's mood one last time is the most Izzy Hands way to die there could possibly be, and therefore great. And Con O'Neill sold me completely on the death scene just like he sold me on every other thing he did in this show.
Part of it is that Izzy's arc is the only one in Season Two that really did work for me* - everything felt so rushed that I feel a lot of important stuff happened off screen and with little real exploration. I liked a lot of individual elements of Season Two but felt like none of them had enough room to breathe because there weren't enough episodes and we spent too much time going off on irrelevant tangents instead of developing anything properly. So the only storyline I unreservedly liked being definitively concluded leaves me without much reason to come back next season, assuming there is one.
Another part of is tonal whiplash. I probably would not have loved it if Benton Fraser or Ray Vecchio had died, because due South was my silly little procedural and I struggle to imagine a scenario where I'd not have found the death of a main character in that show jarring. And I really did think, especially after Episode Six, that OFMD was going to distribute the queer joy in a way that included Izzy Hands. Instead, that gorgeous drag performance turned out to be his second-last night on Earth and, boy, I have a lot of feelings about that. I was not ready to go from his funeral to the wedding scene, that's for sure - not when he'd become an accepted part of the crew rather than a comedy villain.
Izzy absolutely had a lot to atone for, but I feel like he actually made a good start on that this season, by trying to be a good first mate and get between Ed and the crew during his Kraken phase - to the point of eventually shooting the man he loved to save them - to accepting his role in Ed's crimes (even before the deathbed apology he tells Stede that it's the two of them who were to blame for what happened) and embracing his new role in the Revenge's crew. And - and here we get to the real problem for me - he did a fuck of a lot more suffering and atoning than Ed did. Because I think the real issue I have with Izzy dying is what his death scene apparently does to Ed's character arc, which I just don't understand at this point. I think the show really bit off more than it could chew in regards to taking him down such a dark path in the first few episodes and still wanting him to be the romantic lead.
After a half-hearted apology that's a deliberate parody of shitty apologies, he has done precious little this season to make up for anything he did to the crew at the start of the season. Sure, he said sorry to Fang and to Izzy himself - the two crew members he cares about and has pre-existing relationships with. So where's the apology to Jim, Archie and Frenchie? To poor Ivan and all the leather daddy extras who died and didn't even get names? Ed is now willing to apologise to people he actually cares about (especially to Stede, who he loves and sees as an equal instead of a minion) but he's still treating everyone else as props in his psychodrama.
The show makes some gestures about restorative justice, but we don't actually get much evidence that Ed has grown and changed - as of the last episode he's still running away from his feelings and being a dick to fishermen and also doing a lot of cold-blooded murder of British soldiers. (I wish I had any idea how the show wanted me to feel about that! Sure, the soldiers are enemy combatants that need killing, but how does it affect Ed and his feelings about violence? We don't have time to find out, because it's time for him to have another abrupt career change instead of digging into that.)
I really did not think that the central thesis of OFMD was 'hey, bro, that's what happens, ya know? They just... get away with it and we move on.' But apparently it was? Izzy says this was his fault (which it was, but not entirely!) and the crew he abused loves Ed (uh, are we actually meant to believe this is true?) then Ed buries Blackbeard with Izzy in the front yard and settles down with his beloved. All without apologising properly for what he did or showing much evidence that he knows people he doesn't personally love are, in fact, people. I can love characters who are arseholes, but expecting me to love them when the narrative doesn't think that they are arseholes is perhaps asking to much.
In in all: a reality in which Ed gets to go to Lucius and Pete's wedding and be happily accepted and Izzy is in the ground is just ... not what I wanted out of this show. And it feels like a disservice to the leads and their relationship, not just to a supporting character I thought was the best thing on it.
In conclusion: did someone give Con O'Neill a new job yet because I want to watch whatever that is instead of OFMD Season Three.
*A thing I should compile one of these days: best and worst Charles Xavier deaths. I could probably manage a top and bottom ten at this point!
*A thought I never had until this week: Bialar Crais and Izzy Hands would grok each other. Also I want a pirate AU for Crais and a space AU for Izzy because this would work extremely well. And besides that they'd look hot in the outfits!
*Actually every single thing about the Swede and Spanish Jackie was also perfect, no notes there. Buttons turning into a bird was also good, but again, that arc is finished with.
So here is a thing about me: I love it when my favourite characters die! Many of my blorbos end up dead (some of them multiple times, due to the nature of the canons they inhabit) and usually I'm all in favour of this. Even leaving aside examples like Charles Xavier* and Magneto and Starscream who are guaranteed to always come back in some form, some of my favourite scenes in fiction are my favourite characters dying. Londo and G'Kar? Blake and Avon? Valjean and Javert? Lord Asriel and Marissa Coulter? Bialar Crais* and Talyn? Rorschach? Roy Batty? Nicholas D. Wolfwood? Kosh? All terrific deaths that make a satisfying ending to those character's stories.
I also have no objections to death being the end of a redemption arc - in addition to several of the exmples given above, I've been eating that kind of thing up with a spoon ever since Atlas sacrificed himself heroically in the 1980 version of Astro Boy.
All of which to say, I have spent several days trying to work out why I hate Izzy Hands being dead, and cannot remember the last time I was this poll-axed by a fictional character dying. (The answer might be ... never? That would certainly be something, at the age of forty-three and a life spent in fandom.)
Clearly it's not because he's my favourite character in the show, because I love it when those die! And it's not an objection to the way it happened, either - I think dying pointlessly because he's subject to more realistic laws of biology and physics than the rest of the cast while trying to manage Ed's mood one last time is the most Izzy Hands way to die there could possibly be, and therefore great. And Con O'Neill sold me completely on the death scene just like he sold me on every other thing he did in this show.
Part of it is that Izzy's arc is the only one in Season Two that really did work for me* - everything felt so rushed that I feel a lot of important stuff happened off screen and with little real exploration. I liked a lot of individual elements of Season Two but felt like none of them had enough room to breathe because there weren't enough episodes and we spent too much time going off on irrelevant tangents instead of developing anything properly. So the only storyline I unreservedly liked being definitively concluded leaves me without much reason to come back next season, assuming there is one.
Another part of is tonal whiplash. I probably would not have loved it if Benton Fraser or Ray Vecchio had died, because due South was my silly little procedural and I struggle to imagine a scenario where I'd not have found the death of a main character in that show jarring. And I really did think, especially after Episode Six, that OFMD was going to distribute the queer joy in a way that included Izzy Hands. Instead, that gorgeous drag performance turned out to be his second-last night on Earth and, boy, I have a lot of feelings about that. I was not ready to go from his funeral to the wedding scene, that's for sure - not when he'd become an accepted part of the crew rather than a comedy villain.
Izzy absolutely had a lot to atone for, but I feel like he actually made a good start on that this season, by trying to be a good first mate and get between Ed and the crew during his Kraken phase - to the point of eventually shooting the man he loved to save them - to accepting his role in Ed's crimes (even before the deathbed apology he tells Stede that it's the two of them who were to blame for what happened) and embracing his new role in the Revenge's crew. And - and here we get to the real problem for me - he did a fuck of a lot more suffering and atoning than Ed did. Because I think the real issue I have with Izzy dying is what his death scene apparently does to Ed's character arc, which I just don't understand at this point. I think the show really bit off more than it could chew in regards to taking him down such a dark path in the first few episodes and still wanting him to be the romantic lead.
After a half-hearted apology that's a deliberate parody of shitty apologies, he has done precious little this season to make up for anything he did to the crew at the start of the season. Sure, he said sorry to Fang and to Izzy himself - the two crew members he cares about and has pre-existing relationships with. So where's the apology to Jim, Archie and Frenchie? To poor Ivan and all the leather daddy extras who died and didn't even get names? Ed is now willing to apologise to people he actually cares about (especially to Stede, who he loves and sees as an equal instead of a minion) but he's still treating everyone else as props in his psychodrama.
The show makes some gestures about restorative justice, but we don't actually get much evidence that Ed has grown and changed - as of the last episode he's still running away from his feelings and being a dick to fishermen and also doing a lot of cold-blooded murder of British soldiers. (I wish I had any idea how the show wanted me to feel about that! Sure, the soldiers are enemy combatants that need killing, but how does it affect Ed and his feelings about violence? We don't have time to find out, because it's time for him to have another abrupt career change instead of digging into that.)
I really did not think that the central thesis of OFMD was 'hey, bro, that's what happens, ya know? They just... get away with it and we move on.' But apparently it was? Izzy says this was his fault (which it was, but not entirely!) and the crew he abused loves Ed (uh, are we actually meant to believe this is true?) then Ed buries Blackbeard with Izzy in the front yard and settles down with his beloved. All without apologising properly for what he did or showing much evidence that he knows people he doesn't personally love are, in fact, people. I can love characters who are arseholes, but expecting me to love them when the narrative doesn't think that they are arseholes is perhaps asking to much.
In in all: a reality in which Ed gets to go to Lucius and Pete's wedding and be happily accepted and Izzy is in the ground is just ... not what I wanted out of this show. And it feels like a disservice to the leads and their relationship, not just to a supporting character I thought was the best thing on it.
In conclusion: did someone give Con O'Neill a new job yet because I want to watch whatever that is instead of OFMD Season Three.
*A thing I should compile one of these days: best and worst Charles Xavier deaths. I could probably manage a top and bottom ten at this point!
*A thought I never had until this week: Bialar Crais and Izzy Hands would grok each other. Also I want a pirate AU for Crais and a space AU for Izzy because this would work extremely well. And besides that they'd look hot in the outfits!
*Actually every single thing about the Swede and Spanish Jackie was also perfect, no notes there. Buttons turning into a bird was also good, but again, that arc is finished with.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-28 08:24 am (UTC)I can love characters who are arseholes, but expecting me to love them when the narrative doesn't think that they are arseholes is perhaps asking to much.
I’m not following OFMD at all so can’t comment on specifics, but THIS is absolutely on the money. I think sometimes in fandom there’s a tendency to miss this distinction. A character being ghastly is one thing; a character being ghastly and the narrative giving them a pass for it is another.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-28 08:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-31 02:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-11-05 02:36 am (UTC)Luckily I am responding in the traditional fandom way by reading and writing thousands of words of fix-it fic ...
(no subject)
Date: 2023-11-10 11:07 pm (UTC)Fix it is always great!!
(no subject)
Date: 2023-11-12 12:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-11-12 02:19 am (UTC)