The Fall: Season Two

Yes, I'm finally ready to talk about The Fall. I've been ready for a long time actually (I watched it just before The Legend of Korra's finale) and was all set to comment immediately after the finale aired, only to get side-tracked by Korrasami, a lack of broadband, and a computer virus. Delightful.

So anyway...

It's funny how an ending can make or break the worth of a story in its entirety. After watching the finale of The Legend of Korra, I immediately marathoned the entire series, and enjoyed nearly every second of it. But no matter how much I may have enjoyed the beginning and middle of Merlin and LOST, the way in which they concluded means it'll be a few years before I can summon up the willpower to watch them again.

Now it looks as though The Fall will be joining them, for those last few minutes made me so frustrated that I abandoned my plans to rewatch the season in full before doing this write-up. For the most part the show is as strong as it's ever been, and in fact the fifth episode is probably the best thing it's ever done – but those final three minutes of the last episode?

Seriously, how can a mere three minutes of two shows leave me so elated in the one case (Korra) and so aggravated in the other (The Fall)? But there's a lot to unpack here, so let's get down to it.

To recap briefly, Allan Cubitt's crime drama stars Gillian Anderson as Stella Gibson, a London detective who is transferred to Belfast to assist in the investigation into the murders of several successful young career women. Paul Spector is a good looking thirty-something man with a wife and two children, who works as a grief therapist, volunteers at a suicide hotline, and who is responsible for the murder of at least three women and the attempted murder of a fourth (during which he ended up killing her brother instead).

The two things I loved most about the first season was the demythologization of a serial killer (for despite the power he wields over his victims and family members, Spector is nevertheless depicted as a thoroughly bland human being) and that protagonist Stella Gibson is allowed to be practically infallible. Cool in a crisis, unashamed about her sex life, commanding the respect of her male colleges – it was a revelation! There was no crippling backstory, no debilitating illness, no terrible mistake in her past that haunts her... she was competent and in command, and that's all she needed to be.

By the time the first season closed, Stella had the upper hand in the cat and mouse game, and Paul was forced to make a run for Scotland. This dynamic was what made the cliff-hanger ending more-or-less satisfying, for even though Spector had yet to be brought to justice, Stella had at least spooked him enough that he felt compelled to flee the country.

This time around – well, let's just say that it doesn't end on quite the same note of power imbalance.

***

For the most part the second season is on par with the quality of the first, though the existence of an extra episode (six instead of five) means that the season is structured a bit differently. A little more stretched, shall we say? Last season, watching Jamie Dornan peel an orange in the house of his intended victim was riveting. This season, watching him cook breakfast for himself in a rented cottage ... not so much.

There are other issues regarding contrivance, with a few plot points relying on rather fantastic odds. This was not totally absent in the first season (Spector is identified through the introduction of Rose Stagg as a college friend of a person already working on the case) but it's exacerbated here to an almost painful degree.

In the final episode for example, Disaster Dominoes are toppled by a) a never-before-seen contact of Jimmy's recognizing Liz, b) Jimmy confronting her at the women's refuge, driving her to tell him exactly what he needs to hear to send him spiralling into a frothing rage, c) running into a reporter not once but twice who knows the exact location of Spector, and d) managing to evade the cops and get close enough to Spector to shoot him in the stomach.

It's all a bit much, and though it doesn't do that much damage to the story as a whole, it's not the only time Cubitt has used fairly incredible coincidences to drive the plot along (don't get me started on Spector chancing across an unlocked car with a baby left alone inside it holding the keys in its hands).

***

For a while, the show also runs the risk of turning Spector into a superhuman. And if there's one thing you must never do, it's become too enamoured with your villain. Remember what happened to Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Or the disaster that was Sylar on Heroes?

Across the course of season two, Spector effortlessly abducts a woman from her house, and just as easily slips in and out of Stella's hotel room without being detected. He even manages to connive his way into the recovery room of his would-be victim Annie Brawley in order to play mind-games with her.

But thankfully, the show only almost runs the risk of turning Spector into a superhuman.

As it happens, the police work surrounding Spector may be slow but it's highly efficient, and after he's identified they only chose to hold back on the hopes that he'll lead them to Rose. They keep a close watch on him and his family (it's worth pointing out that Spector doesn't actually kill anyone this season), and they even pull off an exceptional bit of trolling when it comes to his arrest (after an altercation with Jimmy in the street, Spector is allowed to leave the scene of the crime only for Anderson to arrest him not ten seconds later).

As I've said, the demythologization of a serial killer is one of the most important elements of the show. Although many women seem to be under Spector's spell (Sally Anne, Liz, Katie, Anne Brawley, even the woman he meets briefly on the train) Stella refuses to be awed or impressed by him. Slowly but surely, Cubitt strips away Spector's allure and mystery, eventually revealing him for what he truly is: a pathetic twat with a half-baked philosophy and delusions of grandeur.

Which is why I found that ending so frustrating. On the one hand, I suppose there's something sublimely ironic in Spector getting shot as a direct result of the one good deed he's ever done (getting Liz to a safe house). And I guess I should be thankful that nothing so ludicrous as Spector snapping Anderson's neck and cutting himself free of the handcuffs before making a dash for the woods went down. On the other, I don't know what this means for season three. In the interview room, Spector promises Stella that "it's not over between us", and I gave a dry laugh at his nonsense, eagerly awaiting the moment when a cell door clanged shut behind him and the reality set in on his face: that he was going to rot in prison for the rest of his life.

A good story should know when to end, and if this had concluded with Rose's rescue and Spector's permanent incarceration, I would have been perfectly satisfied by a well-told crime drama. An eleven-episode series that depicted a woman successfully hunting down a serial killer: that's all it needed to be.

Instead we're left with a cliff-hanging conclusion in which Spector is grinning like a loon as Stella struggles to save his life. In hindsight, his words now seem more like a supernatural portent than the inept blustering of a powerless convict.

Where can the show go from here? As far as I can see, there are only two options: one is that Spector dies, perhaps to free up Jamie Dornan's schedule so he can destroy his promising career in the 50 Shades of Grey franchise, and with the third season centring on a brand new case. Sorry, but if this is all the closure we get on Spector and the other significant people involved in his life (Sally Anne with her convenient miscarriage, Katie with her serene acceptance of Spector's crimes) then I'm going to feel utterly cheated.

So what's the alternative? That Spector survives, is taken to hospital, and – what? Escapes after seducing one of the nurses? Becomes a Hannibal figure that Stella has to consult when another serial killer starts up? Recovers and then is sent to prison with the six episodes devoted to the courtroom drama? I honestly can't tell you which I'd least like to see, and yet I'm struggling to see what other course of action Cubitt could possibly take.

Anyone have any better ideas as to what could happen?

***

As it happens, there is a lot of meta out there on the subject of The Fall, some of it good, some of it bewildering, some of it downright frustrating (usually to be found in the comments section of any given article), but the wide variety of opinions and interpretations indicates at least one important component of the show: that it doesn't take you by the hand and tell you what to think. There's very little in the way of exposition, and its suspense is maintained by leaving viewers in the dark about what to expect. As characters, Stella and Spector are practically inscrutable, and it's difficult to get a fix on what Allan Cubitt is trying to convey in any given scene.

As such, some articles have accused The Fall of being grossly misogynistic while others apparently believe it's been written by a "feminazi". I mean... what do you say to that? But there is one thing I want to address (very quickly, because I want to spend more time talking about Stella) and that's the accusation that men have been portrayed unfairly on the show.

Beyond the fact that the co-lead is a serial killer and that Jim Burns is rather clueless, I've been under the impression that most of the men are pretty nuanced characters; neither fully good nor fully bad, but as otherwise normal people who have varying degrees of sexist attitudes inside them. Hey, just like real life!

And of course, this complexity is what makes it a good show. Take Jimmy's attack on the women's refuge. It's a terrifying scene, in which Liz and the other women are rendered completely helpless in the face of his fury. He brushes them off effortlessly, he produces a gun, and finally someone manages to smash a vase over his head before he flees at the sound of sirens. But before he goes, he yells at Liz: "he was my son too!"

So what do we make of this? Are we meant to extend a speckle of sympathy to a man so wrapped up in a hyper-masculine culture that he's not allowed to grieve properly for his son? Or is it a case of Jimmy ranking his own unhappiness so far above everyone else's that he considers it his right to storm into a private house and threaten everyone in it? I've honestly no idea. Cubitt doesn't give any answers, he just writes the scene.

The inversion is true as well. Tom Anderson is competent and observant and someone Stella feels comfortable enough to confide in, but my eyebrows shot way up when he questions her if they've just slept together because she's secretly attracted to Spector. Wow, dude. Really? If this was a concern, isn't it something that should have been brought up before spending the night with her?

Again, his conduct is open to a variety of interpretations.

My point in all this is to say that any show that deals with feminist issues loses some of its credibility if it portrays women existing in a sea of male ineptitude and cruelty. It's the reason I disliked The Mists of Avalon, why I wasn't too keen on Maleficent, and why Agent Carter and The Legend of Korra are so awesome (Peggy grapples against sexism in the workplace, but her fellow agents aren't characterized as bumbling oafs, and despite making Korrasami endgame, the creators of the show felt no need to denigrate or ridicule Mako).

The Fall does an excellent job of portraying men as immersed in a culture/system that gives them distinct advantages, without making them grotesque caricatures. Sometimes it oversteps the mark a little (I'm not on board with Stella saying that maleness is "a birth defect" – an apparent lack of emotional/spiritual strength is taught, not genetically ingrained) but for the most part Cubitt allows men to simply get on with their jobs while at the same time exploring feminist issues through the women themselves.

But enough about dudes on a show starring Stella Gibson. A recent post on my Tumblr dash pointed out some of the show's strength, which are worth listing here:

The Fall deals with violence against women

The Fall deals with the aftermath of violence against women

The Fall shows the violence against women in a way that isn't made sexual or appealing for the viewers

The Fall deals with how women can be misled into abusive relationships

The Fall deals with prejudice in the workplace

The Fall deals with victim blaming

The Fall deals with toxic masculinity

The Fall passes the Bechdel test So. Fucking. Hard

The Fall references the Madonna/Whore complex

The Fall contains a ton of random guitar puns

The Fall has several characters that just had to be cast as women - and doesn't dismiss or oversimplify them

The Fall has several characters/background actors that could (and probably would have) have been male but are cast as women anyway

The Fall has female characters that express their intelligence - and it's presented to the viewer as okay

The Fall has female characters that express their sexuality - and it's presented to the viewer as okay

The Fall has male characters that express their emotions - and it's presented to the viewer as okay

The Fall does all this without being preachy or patronising

The Fall stars Gillian Anderson as super cool lady cop without turning her into some kind of perfect stereotypical 'Strong Woman (TM)'

All of these elements come to a head in the long-awaited interrogation scene between Stella and Spector, which is of course the highpoint of the season (if not the entire show). And what are we meant to take from it? I was somewhat appalled to see the TV Tropes page categorize the scene as containing Foe Yay, an interpretation that seems to be backed up by the final scene in which Stella – on seeing both Spector and Anderson shot – runs to Spector instead of Anderson. Having said that, allow me to blow a hole in this godawful theory.

To do that, I have to backtrack a little and talk about Anderson. When news came out that Colin Morgan was joining the cast for season two, I was a bit nervous that his character would end up side-lining Danielle Ferrington (who had been built up as Stella's protégé, a character profile that was now being attributed to Morgan's character in the promotional material).

As it happens, I didn't need to be too worried on this score: his screen time is somewhat limited and Danielle is still an important cast member (many celebrated the fact that Colin's character got to arrest Spector, while forgetting that Danielle was the one who tracked him down in the first place and shot Jimmy when he raced out of the trees).

I think Colin did a convincing job as a contentious investigator, but the role is... not underwritten exactly, but definitely one that exists more as a foil to others than as a three-dimensional character in his own right. And it's a reasonable challenge to pin down in what capacity he exists as a foil.

To Stella he first exists as a tool in her psychological war against Spector, and then as a one-night stand to let off steam afterwards (damn, this woman can compartmentalize!) In the first instance, Stella is apparently struck by Anderson's physical resemblance to Spector and so uses him to project Spector's own mirroring technique back at him (as it happens, this rang a little false to me: I can't see much of a similarity between Morgan/Dornan and was initially under the impression that because of his dark hair, slender frame and long eyelashes, Anderson was chosen due to his resemblance to Spector's victims).

Still, the parallel between them is made pretty damn clear in the season's final scene in which the two men are handcuffed together, discussing Stella in the moments before Jimmy bursts from the trees and shoots them both. 

Anderson serves as a foil for at least one other character: Jim Burns. This is somewhat amusing since Colin Morgan and John Lynch played father/son on Merlin (the casting agent had to know this, right?) but is more interesting due to their responses to Stella's observation that they each bear similarities to Spector.

Jim is horrified that Stella could compare the two of them, and though she concedes that there's a difference between Spector's serial killings and Jim's forceful pleas for sex in Stella's hotel room, both exist on the same spectrum of line-crossing behaviour.

Later, Anderson asks Stella if the reason the two of them spent the night together was because of his resemblance to Spector, insinuating that perhaps Stella is secretly attracted to the man they've just arrested. Unlike Jim, Anderson seems more intrigued than outraged, and in her response, Stella is very clear in rejecting his theory. 

One might say that this is an inconsistency of character; that having told Jim (more or less) that all men are capable of monstrousness and therefore drawing a correlation between Jim/Spector, Stella is now being hypocritical when she denies one existing between Anderson/Spector. But that's not what's happening here.

Demythologizing the mystique of a serial killer is at the very heart of this show, and the only way that can be done is by people like Stella refusing to call Spector a "monster" or ignoring the ways in which the men around her abuse their power, however inadvertently, on whatever scale. To quote one of my favourite passages from Agatha Christie in A Pale Horse:

"Evil is not something superhuman, it's something less than human. Your criminal is someone who wants to be important, but who never will be important, because he'll always be less than a man."

Spector is not a monster, not "more than" a man, not someone who has strength, but rather a lack of it. As such, Stella can just as easily look beneath any superficial physical resemblances between Anderson and Spector, and I for one see absolutely no reason to disbelieve Stella when she asserts that she finds Spector repugnant (and I suspect that at least part of her considerable coolness toward Anderson at the police station is due to the assumption he made about her "attraction" to Spector).

And if you believe her claim in the hotel room, then the final scene in which she rushes to Spector's side is put into a totally different context. Her desperation to save his life is born out of her desire to make him face justice and serve time for the innocent lives he took. She chooses justice for Rose and Sarah and Alice and Fiona over Anderson.

Of course, Anderson and Ferrington seem gobsmacked at Stella's choice, and in his typical self-absorbed fashion, the reaction from Spector seems to imply that he at least thinks her actions are born out of genuine concern. Or perhaps he's just enjoying her distress. Who can tell with this guy?

Naturally Spector thinks he's the most important and powerful person in any given place, which is why he refuses to speak to Anderson or McNally in the interrogation room. It results in a glorious power play, in which Stella lets Spector stew by keeping herself out of sight, waking him up in the middle of the night to announce more of the charges laid against him, and dressing up McNally to resemble his victims – but unfortunately Spector holds the trump card: Rose Stagg's whereabouts.

In what is perhaps foreshadowing for those final fatal minutes of the season, Stella ranks the woman's safety above her own pride and deigns to sully her hands with Spector in order to get the information they need.

The interview itself is in many ways the climax of the season. It's what we've all been waiting for since the beginning of the show: to see hunter and prey face-to-face at last. It's meticulously performed and choreographed, with the actors often addressing the camera directly just to pull the audience right into the midst of their battle, with each getting the chance to speak, neither interrupting the other, and both utterly confident in their own rightness of cause.

And if this is the big confrontation between them, then who comes out on top?

Each of them makes a somewhat misguided attempt to tap into the other's psyche by examining their childhood. Spector rejects Stella's suggestion that he was the victim of a paedophile priest, telling her that he made himself too physically disgusting for anyone to touch, but his attempt to mock her about her father and hint at sexual abuse also falls flat. Disappointingly, it's only in a deleted scene that we hear Stella speak about her father, and in such a way that demonstrates Spector was trying to tap a chink in her armour that simply doesn't exist. In other words, she understands him far better than he does her.

Stella remains cool and distant. She doesn't allow any disdain or disgust to mar her expression. She doesn't rise to his pathetically petty jibes about her father or her state as a "barren spinster" (oh Spector, you fool – do you really think she cares?)

Spector has more of a visible struggle to keep his cool; his anger simmers closer to the surface. I'm sure I spotted a couple of eye twitches in the face of Stella's impenetrable gaze. He's rendered mute when Stella points out the undeniable hypocrisy inherent in his protectiveness of children when every woman he's killed was once someone else's daughter. His philosophies on why he murders women and how it frees him from morality and restraint sound exactly like what they are: the pathetic masturbatory fantasies of a complete loser scrambling for any excuse to justify his behaviour.

Among various commentators are those who complained that his motivation was too mundane, too uninteresting. Wow, did they miss the point.

And yet there was a singular moment in the interrogation when Spector did seem to have the upper hand. He points out that in their first telephone conversation, Stella neglects to mention Joe Brawley when she lists the names of Spector's victims.

What to make of this? Did she choose not to mention him because he wasn't Spector's intended victim? Did she simply forget? This (good) recap suggests that Spector was making a clumsy attempt to accuse her of misandry, though a part of me wonders if perhaps this was meant to be a failing on Stella's part. After all, Joe saved his sister's life at the cost of his own. That makes him a hero in my book, so doesn't he deserve to be counted among the victims, especially since Spector holds him in such contempt?

Was Stella remiss in excluding him or is the retrieval of the scissors and the fact that Spector is charged with his murder enough to "cover" for his death? As with a lot of other elements of this show, I don't know – and perhaps we're not meant to know.

But Stella finally, beautifully, cuttingly gets to point out the unequivocal truth of Spector's being: that his killing is an addiction, as mundane as any other, and that he's going to jail for it. "The last thing you are is free."

Which again leads us back to those final frustrating few minutes. Throughout this entire drama, what I've enjoyed most about Stella is that I can count on her to know exactly what she's doing. She's written as unapologetically infallible. She makes all the right calls and never loses her cool. She stares down street thugs who surround her car at night. She sails through any attempts by others to stymie her with manipulation or threats, sexist or otherwise. She's wonderful.

But season two ends by giving Spector the upper hand. His shooting makes Stella a failure. This will make her colleagues question her decisions, and the press will no doubt have a field day attacking her competence. As his blood flows out between her fingers, she's powerless to stop Spector from serving jail time for his crimes.

I wanted so dearly to see him behind bars, facing a life of boring monotony, knowing that he wasn't half as clever as he thought he was; that it was a woman who ensured his capture and incarceration.

Going out this way makes it feel like Spector won, and that's unbearable.

Miscellaneous Observations:

Watching Spector casually put his feet up on the table in the face of Anderson's questioning reminded me of a documentary I watched a few years back about one of New Zealand's (very few) serial killers, and how after his arrest he took all his clothes off and danced around his cell naked. The police were baffled until a psychologist explained that such men are absolutely convinced of their superior intelligence, leading to a firm belief that they can do whatever they want without consequences. Of course, he lost his shit when he was actually tried, convicted and sentenced to prison, realizing at that point that the police and justice system weren't nearly as stupid as he thought they were.

Kudos to Aisling Franciosi for making me want to throttle Katie. We're all conditioned to some extent or other to hold teenage girls in contempt, but it's rather difficult not to when it comes to a girl as deluded as she is. At times I found myself thinking her obsession with a man like Spector was a little too much to swallow – only for news to emerge that a twenty-six year old woman currently has plans to marry Charles Manson in prison. Again, this show is painfully accurate in its depictions of serial killers and the misguided women who adore them.

In another fun casting-related incident, Colin and Aisling were quasi-love interests on Quirke.

It seems a sort of terrible irony that Jamie Dornan will be starring in 50 Shades of Grey. I've never read it, but various reviews have made it clear that he'll be playing a character who's not that far off from Spector in regards to his need to control and abuse women (given E.L. James's complete ignorance surrounding legitimate BDSM practices). How many more Katies will this spawn?

I was annoyed that Reed was missing entirely from the final episode, and it does unfortunately feel like a bait-and-switch to have Stella and Reed take steps forward in a relationship together, only for Reed to back out and the show to promptly introduce Anderson instead. (Though given her track record in dead love interests, perhaps it saved Reed's life!)

So is Anderson going to die? It seems rather absurd that every man Stella sleeps with winds up dead, but it didn't look as though he had a protective vest on, and for both men to manage a miraculous recovery from gunshot wounds to the stomach seems a bit of a stretch. I guess we'll just have to wait for casting news.

But my favourite scene, the one that made me clap my hands in glee, would have to be when Olivia innocently asked her father whether he worked for Stella, and he's forced to respond affirmatively. Weeks later, and that still makes me cackle.

And now all we can do is wait.