Catherine

[Guest arcanamundi]

We could go deep on this one over at that forum if all would like.  I have much more in my head.

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I was thinking about you today, v... thinking how that was a hot thread there for a bit but it seems to have cooled.

So please by all means, light it up, dude!

[Raven Wolf]

Agreed!

[Guest LadyBlack]

Have you found your way over to the Heart of Darkness forum yet?  That's where our resident forensic psychologist led a fascinating discussion on Catherine and Frank and the German poet Rilke.

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I haven't! Where is it, please?

[The Old Man]

Here you go!

[Guest LadyBlack]

Here you go!

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Thanks for that. I'm not sure where I should be responding, so I'll do it on this thread. I won't be making a full reply because I still haven't seen "Luminary", which appears to be a pivotal episode as far as this subject is concerned. However, I did want to say the thread is incredible, I was fascinated by the comments - I loved the qutotation about the Dragons and the Princesses, I nearly cried. Took me completely by surprise.

I took some notes, and then forgot whose comments I was talking about, so please bear with me.

OK, one comment referred to the (must have been Vain68) fact that (in basic terms) in order to focus on his gift, Frank should be a loner, rather than have the distractions of a family. I wasn't sure if I was reading this right, in that I had thought that whilst Frank undoubtedly possessed a gift, supernatural or not, it was my impression that it was not wanted. When he started using it, it must have been wonderful in the sense that it enabled him to catch criminals, but horrible in the sense that it drove him to a nervous breakdown. So concentrating on it, focusing it, honing it may not have been a goal of his. If anything, I felt (by end of season one) he actually WANTED a distraction to it in that of his family. Of course, with Catherine then being kidnapped, he was not allowed an option, and that became more overwhelming during season 2. To me, he was a man trying to escape his gift, but being forced to confront it. When I questioned whether Catherine should have been there or not, it is not whether Frank should have had anyone in his life, it was that it may well take a special, particular woman to handle the consequences of what he did, and I felt that Catherine could not. This is not criticising her, I would not say that I would be able to handle it, I am not "better" than Catherine.

I need to see more of Laura "This is my thing" lady - I have to say, that quote started to grate. This is my thing, to me, it was "here is a new person. To stop you confusing her with anyone else, we're going to give her a catch phrase, so you can identify her in future". I would rather have confused her, than to have had her keep saying that. But that's probably just me.

Finally, someone was talking about the fact that there were many cop shows on TV and the one thing that made "MM" stick out was the fact that the main character lost his family. I remember reading an article about "Midsummer Murders" and about how the lead character was suddenly unique on television becasue he had a normal home life. He wife was boring. His kid got into trouble. He was putting on weight. The article was right. We had had "Bergerac", "Dempsey and Makepeace" (and no, they didn't get toegther), "X-Files", "Stargate" - whoops, not cops and robbers, and a whole host of others I can't recall just at the moment - old favourites like "McCloud", "Columbo" - yes, but we never saw her, I think he murdered her in the first episode and just kept up the pretence, "Taggert", "Second Sight", "Touching Evil" (I've remembered some), and in all there is the hidden 'tradegy' that they never got married, never had kids but they had their calling, their higher destiny instead. Even Star Trek joined in with "The Inner light"...beautiful episode that it was. Are the main characters easier to focus on without the 'distractions' of a family? Do the TV companies think that a non-shaved man with problems is easier to fall in love with than one that is married? Do we prefer the tragic hero, or the man who can supply us with a home, food, clothing and children? Are we bored with the genetically perfect male, and want to go for the unreliable, the rough, the dangerous? Is a man with problems more interesting htan one without? Did we prefer Frank married or unmarried? He's not a good experiment though, there's no control group, considering season 2 was rather different from the others. I'm still deciding.

I'd better stop rambling now!

[Guest arcanamundi]

That's some grand rambling, LadyBlack!

OK, one comment referred to the (must have been Vain68) fact that (in basic terms) in order to focus on his gift, Frank should be a loner, rather than have the distractions of a family. I wasn't sure if I was reading this right, in that I had thought that whilst Frank undoubtedly possessed a gift, supernatural or not, it was my impression that it was not wanted.

To me it seems a question of Frank - and Catherine - having to come to terms with who he is. As you observe, he cannot run away from his gift; it is too deep a part of him. To reject it is to reject himself. He has to accept his 'gift' to live. The question for him seems to be how to manage it, how to integrate it into his life.

Unfortunately (perhaps), gifts of genius, 'divine' gifts, are so bound up with fate and Providence that there often is no controlling of them. Acceptance of his gift, the choice of focusing on it or not doesn't seem to be an option for Frank Black. Certainly he wants deeply to enjoy the simple bliss of love and family and so do we all, but these are not simple times in which we live.

Seems almost a cruel irony to call the special talents of Frank and Lara 'gifts', don't you think?

To me, he was a man trying to escape his gift, but being forced to confront it.

Exactly. In that Rilke thread we were considering the role of solitude in the whole process, which I think I consider as some kind of spiritual process and which vain68 considers from the p.o.v. of attachment theory...

More anon -- I gotta go watch 'Lost'....

[ethsnafu]

My god it's full of amazing points!

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I am always touched by Frank and Lara's final onscreen pairing. The regret and the remorse that Frank feels regarding his 'gift' and the seeming confession that the solitude of insanity is preferable to existence in the real world if that existence demands the invasive and damaging gifts he and Lara share. We are later treated to Frank contemplating whether or not he 'wanted to get better'......though the exact phraseology escapes me the meaning is clear: Frank's belief that peace could be found in insanity.

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It is interesting that both Frank and Lara's gifts are more volatile, aggressive and mutable during S2: both of them appear to undergo some psychic metamorphosis caused by their involvement with the more arcane aspects of the MM group (either that or by some science employed without their awareness). As the MM group's interest in them originates with their gifts there is the feeling,for me at least, that there is some predestined 'fate' for both of them. The group's activities with Lara suggest that the group has sacrificed her wellbeing in order to encourage the evolution of her abilities at the cost of her sanity: they appear to actively prevent Frank from seeking her out and have her undergo a ritual that leaves her dangerously insane but with powerful prophetic abilities. Did the group intend to turn them into apocalyptic oracles regardless of the cost to their wellbeing? If Catherine was Frank's touchstone, was her death at the hands of the Marburg virus an attempt to weaken Frank's psyche and make it easier to force upon him whatever change they had planned?

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Now if that isn't ramble I don't know what is....

Till then,

'Open the pod bay doors please Hal'

ethsnafu

[Guest LadyBlack]

I've finally seen "Luminary"!!!! Actually, I've seen most of "Luminary", the DVD decided to give up right where Frank is talking tot the parents, giving some explanation at the end? I presume the story line was fairly open at the end, in that we don't ever find out where Alex went, except over to a better life. However, I looked for something to aid with this thread, and I came away with rather a simplistic explanation. If we look at Peter Watts' wife, it's almost as though if Catherine had been just like her, Frank would now be in the group, with much the same attitudes as Peter. Yes, this is too simplistic, and I don't want to start insulting anyone's wives here! By that, I took from this episode, that Peter's wife, who appeared to be a quiet, unassuming, housewife, mother, was basically the steryotypical "perfect" mother (which isn't to say you can't be a "perfect" mother, just in this particular scenario, this series, these storylines, if you don't question what your husband does, you don't know what he may be up to) whereas because Catherine isn't, maybe that kept Frank questioning what he does, the morality of his gift and so on.

Well, I think I'm going to go think about it some more.....:-)

Lovely epsiode though!

[Guest Copper1234]

I never looked at the episode that way before, in the sense of Catherines and Franks relationship even though obviously was a theme of that episode. I always viewed it from the standpoint of Franks journy how it was reflected of Alex's journey. and in that sense how it effects the relationships you have with the onews you love. How Alex turned his back on the world and at that moment was unshackled however still had pangs of guilt (giving the telescope to a classroom of kids roughly his brothers age, giving the atch to the sheriff..the trinkets to the wives at the bar) wanting to be free of those responbilitites but still efecting him, how it reflected Frank and his personal journey with Catherine having to let her goand be on his own in a sense.

You noted Franks and Peters marriage duality and Cahterines role in that. Would Frank have turned out more like Peter if Catherine was more "dutiful perfect wife" ? Very interesting question. Never looked at that point of view before..

and I would expound on the end of the episode but wouldnt want to ruin it.. even if you did only miss a couple minutes..

Copper

"Just to do that thing that would charm you, that would make you say Yes, this

is the real me. Do that and you're alive"

[Guest LadyBlack]

I never looked at the episode that way before,  in the sense of Catherines and Franks relationship even though obviously was a theme of that episode. I always viewed it from the standpoint of Franks journy how it was reflected of Alex's journey. and in that sense how it effects the relationships you have with the onews you love. How Alex turned his back on the world and at that moment was unshackled however still had pangs of guilt (giving the telescope to a classroom of kids roughly his brothers age, giving the atch to the sheriff..the trinkets to the wives at the bar) wanting to be free of those responbilitites but still efecting him, how it reflected Frank and his personal journey with Catherine having to let her goand be on his own in a sense. 

You noted Franks and Peters marriage duality and Cahterines role in that. Would Frank have turned out more like Peter if Catherine was more "dutiful perfect  wife" ?  Very interesting question. Never looked at that point of view before..

and I would expound on the end of the episode but wouldnt want to ruin it.. even if  you did only miss a couple minutes..

Copper

"Just to do that thing that would charm you, that would make you say Yes, this

is the real me.  Do that and you're alive"

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Oh please expand, I don't mind! So Frank was seeing in Alex's journey the consequences of him being selfish, it was making him face up to the fact that if he goes off and does his own thing, then his family suffers for it. I wonder if he has been focused only on his point of view then? You almost want a "pre-Millennium" season, to see if he had considered giving up his work for his marriage - I know we see much of that within the series but it's like the damage had been done by then. They've tried to compromise and it didn't work. Frank's had a breakdown, but he still went back when he was offered the work. And how about if he had said from day 1, "I have a gift, nothing else is going to come first"? I would suspect then that he would have ended up working with Peter wholeheartedly, having nothing to stabilise him at all. Hmmmm, it's looking more and more as though Catherine was an absolute godsend in the end!

What I really missed, was the conversation between her and Peter Watt's wife - when Catherine turns up to talk to Peter and he goes off to the airport, and she says to Catherine "You have time for a cup of coffee". I thought that there would be a conversation where his wife explains Catherine's role to her, and probably have received an unqualified "No!" for her pains!

Unless of course there is more to come.......I haven't finished season 2 yet, so obviously I haven't seen the epsiode where she dies and anything after "The Pest House".