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I'm going to talk about Hotch and Haley like I promised yesterday afternoon, but before I do, a forewarning: I am likely to be crabby and irrational next Wednesday, because mingled with my sodden-pantied lust for Tux!Flack will be an irrational, vicious loathing for Flack's Barbie. In fact, as I tried to explain to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
faylinn_drake, I'll probably look and behave a great deal like He Who Kills.
For those who don't know, He Who Kills is a homicidal Zuni fetish doll who was featured in the 1975 cult horror classic, Trilogy of Terror, and while Chucky might be the most well-known and iconic of the killer dolls, He Who Kills is the most hilariously awesome. If you don't believe me, check out the Youtube link provided above. The first time I saw him, I laughed so hard I peed my pants.
In any event, that will be me come Wednesday, a frenetic, gibbering blur of ill-repressed outrage, hiding resolutely beneath my dust-ruffled Sofa of Denial and jabbing savagely at the ankles of Flack's new love interest with my tiny, tiny spear of abject hate.
Thoughts on Criminal Minds 302:
Though the focus of the show was centered on Special Agent Strauss, her team-disrupting meddling, and her utter inability to function as an effective leader in the field, I was most interested in the quiet dissolution of Hotch's family. I honestly expected more fanfare.
Unlike most of CM fen, I don't assign full blame to Haley, who's been unfairly demonized by folks who felt she was a threat to the BAU clan. Some of this can be ascribed to the writers portraying her as a shrill, narcissistic shrew. She did not acquit herself well in either of her scenes. In the first, she came across as controlling; in the second, she was petulant, and as she bellowed that , "We deserve to be happy," all I could think was, Don't you mean, I deserve to be happy? It was unfair, but because I had been drawn so deeply into the BAU family, I resented the intrusion of outside forces, even if those forces had every right to intrude.
Allow me a self-serving digression.
This issue of divided and conflicting loyalties is one that crops up frequently in my Flack/OFC fic. Rebecca is proud of Don and his job, but sometimes she hates it, too, and secretly wishes he'd do something else, take a job that doesn't require so much time, energy, and sacrifice from them, both as a couple and as individuals. She resents that the needs of strangers so often supersede hers in the eyes of her husband. She wonders what it would be like to be chosen, for once.
But she never says a word. She's bound to silence by love and fear. Love for her husband, who she knows would never be happy doing anything else, and fear that if asked to choose, he would leave her behind. Regretfully, and with much guilt and many private tears, but resolutely. It's a fear I suspect a lot of police and FBI wives live with in trembling secret, and for Haley Hotchner, that fear has been realized.
Worse yet from her view, it's been realized after she thought she had been chosen. After all, Hotch had left the house that morning to ask for a transfer so that he could spend more time with the family. Hell, the transfer from the BAU was a done deal, with paper in the system. Then he chooses the job at the eleventh hour, picks up his bag, and leaves her standing there, oblivious to the implications of her parting statement.
And she's the villain of the piece?
Most of the time, I'd side with Hotch and say that such was the risk she took when she married into law enforcement, but canon asserts that she didn't. She married a federal prosecutor. The FBI gig was an unpleasant surprise after the fact, and I doubt it was even in the fine print when they wed. She didn't sign up for it and got it as a nasty bonus ex post facto.
And let's face it, Hotch has been a really crappy husband. He leaves his wife-his ostensible high school sweetheart-to cope with a difficult pregnancy alone. She's confined to bed, and he never visits. He misses doctors' appointments when his infant son might be seriously ill, and when he thinks she and Jack are inside a mall set to be poisoned, he only calls to warn her after Morgan tells him to. He's so absorbed by his job that he worries about breaking protocol more than the potential loss of his wife and son.
So, why is Haley the bad guy here? Sure, in a perfect world, she'd stand by her man, but Hotch has given her little incentive to do so. Good sex will only get you so far, and third place is lonely when you can't see your lover for the pedestal you've put them on.
I'm sure TPTB will further demonize Haley in future episodes when the divorce papers turn up, but she endured all she could and then some, and Hotch made it damn easy for her to walk away without regret.
faylinn_drake, I'll probably look and behave a great deal like He Who Kills.For those who don't know, He Who Kills is a homicidal Zuni fetish doll who was featured in the 1975 cult horror classic, Trilogy of Terror, and while Chucky might be the most well-known and iconic of the killer dolls, He Who Kills is the most hilariously awesome. If you don't believe me, check out the Youtube link provided above. The first time I saw him, I laughed so hard I peed my pants.
In any event, that will be me come Wednesday, a frenetic, gibbering blur of ill-repressed outrage, hiding resolutely beneath my dust-ruffled Sofa of Denial and jabbing savagely at the ankles of Flack's new love interest with my tiny, tiny spear of abject hate.
Thoughts on Criminal Minds 302:
Though the focus of the show was centered on Special Agent Strauss, her team-disrupting meddling, and her utter inability to function as an effective leader in the field, I was most interested in the quiet dissolution of Hotch's family. I honestly expected more fanfare.
Unlike most of CM fen, I don't assign full blame to Haley, who's been unfairly demonized by folks who felt she was a threat to the BAU clan. Some of this can be ascribed to the writers portraying her as a shrill, narcissistic shrew. She did not acquit herself well in either of her scenes. In the first, she came across as controlling; in the second, she was petulant, and as she bellowed that , "We deserve to be happy," all I could think was, Don't you mean, I deserve to be happy? It was unfair, but because I had been drawn so deeply into the BAU family, I resented the intrusion of outside forces, even if those forces had every right to intrude.
Allow me a self-serving digression.
This issue of divided and conflicting loyalties is one that crops up frequently in my Flack/OFC fic. Rebecca is proud of Don and his job, but sometimes she hates it, too, and secretly wishes he'd do something else, take a job that doesn't require so much time, energy, and sacrifice from them, both as a couple and as individuals. She resents that the needs of strangers so often supersede hers in the eyes of her husband. She wonders what it would be like to be chosen, for once.
But she never says a word. She's bound to silence by love and fear. Love for her husband, who she knows would never be happy doing anything else, and fear that if asked to choose, he would leave her behind. Regretfully, and with much guilt and many private tears, but resolutely. It's a fear I suspect a lot of police and FBI wives live with in trembling secret, and for Haley Hotchner, that fear has been realized.
Worse yet from her view, it's been realized after she thought she had been chosen. After all, Hotch had left the house that morning to ask for a transfer so that he could spend more time with the family. Hell, the transfer from the BAU was a done deal, with paper in the system. Then he chooses the job at the eleventh hour, picks up his bag, and leaves her standing there, oblivious to the implications of her parting statement.
And she's the villain of the piece?
Most of the time, I'd side with Hotch and say that such was the risk she took when she married into law enforcement, but canon asserts that she didn't. She married a federal prosecutor. The FBI gig was an unpleasant surprise after the fact, and I doubt it was even in the fine print when they wed. She didn't sign up for it and got it as a nasty bonus ex post facto.
And let's face it, Hotch has been a really crappy husband. He leaves his wife-his ostensible high school sweetheart-to cope with a difficult pregnancy alone. She's confined to bed, and he never visits. He misses doctors' appointments when his infant son might be seriously ill, and when he thinks she and Jack are inside a mall set to be poisoned, he only calls to warn her after Morgan tells him to. He's so absorbed by his job that he worries about breaking protocol more than the potential loss of his wife and son.
So, why is Haley the bad guy here? Sure, in a perfect world, she'd stand by her man, but Hotch has given her little incentive to do so. Good sex will only get you so far, and third place is lonely when you can't see your lover for the pedestal you've put them on.
I'm sure TPTB will further demonize Haley in future episodes when the divorce papers turn up, but she endured all she could and then some, and Hotch made it damn easy for her to walk away without regret.
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