Shaw

[enemyofperfect]

Spoilers through Person of Interest 3x03, Lady Killer

So over on pofinterest_chat we've all been complaining about the latest episode, and I said some stuff about how this season's been treating Shaw. On that topic, sarcasticsra said:

...now that I'm rewatching "God Mode" (it's for a fic), I think what is happening is more flanderization than anything.

She is prone to SOME excess, what with her tendency for fast cars and big guns, and I think it's why she and John work well together, because his style is excessively flashy, lol--but it's also TEMPERED, much more than they've been showing this season. There's some excess, sure, but she's still PRECISE. And I really, really like that, because it's a great balance between John's GO BIG OR GO HOME and Harold's projected persona of please don't notice me. I really hope they eventually remember it because I think it would make a lot of things easier.

I think flanderization[1] is exactly the word for it, and the thing is, by "God Mode", I think it had already started. sarcasticsra is absolutely right about big guns and fast cars in that episode, but thinking back to "Relevance", the flashiest thing I can remember Shaw doing -- aside from being her amazingly competent, honorable, justly wary self -- is blowing up that apartment at the beginning, and even that I don't think she did for kicks.

So she was never a static character -- but of course, the best characters aren't, and the changes in season two made sense. On the one hand, Cole was dead, and on the other, maybe the break from killing people for her government did her good. Her life as she had lived it was kind of razed to the ground, there. She built something new.

But I feel like by this point, she isn't so much growing as being flattened out. I don't know -- "Lady Killer" is just one episode, and I think I could live with the rest of her season three characterization, especially if certain other characters would stop acting like concern-trolling jerks. But I just.

I want her to hand Reese shiny pieces of foil and drag him away from murder scenes when he can barely walk; I want her to wrestle with Bear on the floor and make heart-eyes at Carter and do a few jobs for Zoe on the side; I want her come to some kind of understanding with Finch, and preferably have some kind of excruciatingly awkward scene with him someday in which one or both of them is forced to admit to having feelings. I want her to troll Fusco; I want Leon to gripingly follow Finch's detailed instructions to some random storage closet somewhere and ask who the hell he's supposed to be meeting, anyway, and for Shaw to quietly say "boo"; I want to find out what she'd make of Elias; I want her to sucker punch Simmons; I want her to talk to the Machine. I want her to come face to face with Root again. I want her to do all the things!

I want her to be a person.

I guess it's that last one the show has me the most worried about.


1. Obligatory TV Tropes warning & link: flanderization. (back)

Comments

[orockthro]

:C Exactly.
I still have hope, we're still very early in the season. But they're gonna have to start acting like writers and producers again for this to work. Shaw needs a reason to do what she's doing, not just an implied one, but an expressed one. As much as I love her love of Bear, it has to be more than that. XD John has one, Shaw needs one too. And can you imagine how awesome that would be? 8DD It doesn't have to be super tragic or super intense! It can just be she likes being part of a team or a family or having people that won't stab her in the back. But we don't know because the show decided that wasn't important.
The show's strength right now is with the Root storyline, so I'm really hoping that once they start in on that properly they'll maybe get their feet back under themselves and that will be a catalyst for the other aspects of the show too.
@_@ Let the optimism flow...

...
And that turned into a convoluted reply/rant.
XD
Yayyyy?

ANYHOW your comments and theories and machinations about the show are always interesting and fun to read. A+

[enemyofperfect]

Oh, I like your thought that maybe Root's storyline will sweep up the rest of the show in its awesomeness!

The thing is, this show loves leaving things unsaid, and has a habit of quietly dropping threads for several episodes before picking them up again, so what I want to think is that that's what they've been trying to do here -- that it's not that they don't care about Shaw's motivation, it's just that they're taking their time. The problem is, they might be going for subtle, but I'm afraid that it's come across as -- kind of incoherent, instead.

But maybe it's just taking them a little while to find their feet with two new main cast members to juggle, and they're totally going to get there? I mean, I like optimism! I want to be optimistic about this show!

Agh, it's like you said on pendrecarc's entry -- it wouldn't be so upsetting if we didn't care. /o\ Anyway, thank you very much for your reply/rant -- until the show starts making sense again, all we've got to rely on here on fandom is each other. (And OMG, I -- thank you. *blushes*)