[Episode Update] Episode #4.44: "Carry That Weight" (pt 2)

[kira]

Some people are finding things tough to bear in Episode #4.44, "Carry That Weight" Part II.

• Martina's unpredictable behavior gets her in trouble at work
• Greg, Charles and Jem dread telling Chelsea the truth
• Rena feels the pressure and considers breaking a confidence
• A violent scene from a play brings unexpected consequences
• Hannah hides her trauma from Ryan and makes demands of her husband
• ...and a distressed Clark makes a decision that could cost him dearly.
  .

A teaser from the ep:

Spoiler

Their chauffeur, a muscular man who's always looked more like a movie star than a driver to Hannah, holds the weapon steady, his sparkling eyes boring holes into Nick next to her.*He's sweating.*They all are—it's a hot night, and every one of them is afraid for different reasons.*

"Whatever Vaughan's paying you," Nick says now, his voice low and tight in his throat, "I'll more than match. You know I will."

"I'm doing my job, Nichols."

His job was to be trustworthy.*His job was to see them safely home.*Hannah wants to scream.*

"I understand that.*But you can take a better job when it comes around.*I'll pay—"

"Not enough, you can’t." The driver aims the gun. "Shut up and take it."

ASF's URL is http://www.skyfalls.com. As always, there's a printable version of the episode available on the site, and both a detailed previous episode recap and a quick summary that will remind you of stuff you need to know for this episode. And of course, we have easily accessed character bios so you can learn more about everyone you come across.

BTW, remember the Viewers Voice poll a little while ago, where you were asked to pick where Chelsea should end up after leaving the hospital? Gotta say I was a bit surprised... though I shouldn't have been. Y'all do love throwing wrenches into the action! The results of the audience's decision will be shown in either #4.45 or #4.46, so stay tuned.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the episode, which is a bit darker (duh) than last time. Please let me know your thoughts either here, on our mailing list, or via our feedback form. And don't forget to follow ASF on Twitter: @aboutSkyfalls. Thanks!

[Dana]

Hi Kira.

I liked that you brought back some other characters which we haven't seen in a long time. I especially liked Ross Granger in this episode - well, not neccesarily him as a character, but his scenes. He's definitely not impartial when it comes to Clark. From what I remember it was hinted before that he might have repressed same-sex tendencies. It certainly looks like he's trying to prove to himself that Clark doesn't attract him. He's inclined to suspect Clark just because he doesn't want to think of his own unsolved problems. This will be interesting to follow - especially since given Clark's family history, he's not 100% not suspect in my opinion. It would be just too simple to have the obvious guy (Noah) as the murderer. And so unlike you. On the other hand, having the 2nd nutcase (excuse me Beth ) in the family would be a little far fetched as well. Oh well... that's why you are writing and not me . I know you're going to solve this OK .

I also liked Martina, difficult as that may be to accept. We've seen her as the attack victim, as the lover, but rarely as an attorney. It will be interesting to follow how she manages to keep her work separate from her relationship with Mike. These two will definitely get in trouble before they get better. Martina, as a lawyer, is bound to see the world in shades of grey. You've reinforced the fact that sometimes she is defending the bad guys and there's nothing she can do and altough she doesn't like it, she accepts it as part of the job. On the other hand, for Mike as a cop everything is black and white - people are either guilty or they are not. These are two opposing point of views which, in my opinion, are hard to reconcile. Perhaps until now they did not clash, but working on opposite sides of the same case will make it all surface.

Hannah - Nick - this scene did not really convince me. It looks like after 7 years she's just starting to realize what kind of business her husband is in. Having the PlayCity kidnapping trigger back old memories, and thus her remorse, was not really plausible to me. I can't really see people having these kinds of epiphanies. But I'm not a psychologist so I may be wrong.

My favourite character this episode would be Ross.
My favourite scenes would be Rena seeking counsel and Ross taking over the Reilly case.

[kira]

Hey Dana! Thanks as always for your helpful end encouraging feedback. I'm actually shocked on two counts -- that Ross's were your favorite scenes, and Hannah's were your least favorite! Just goes to show you can never predict an audience's response.

This was a kinda strange melange of characters, what with Marty's boss, Lynn, Ross and Ryan (and even Rena's dad!) showing up. An odd mix but as I've said, I just needed to switch focus from the omnipresent kidnapping/Marty/Beth plots, though those were all touched on too.

I was a little anxious about showing this phase of Ross's characterization... he's been depicted as a fairly nice, stable (and oh, be honest Kira -- bland) guy, and while I've been looking forward to getting to thise portion of the storyline, I'm curious as to how it'll play. You're absolutely right that he's trying to make his problems go away, though he only sees it as being professional. (I'm actually not too thrilled with that last scene, myself ... seems hamhanded to me ... but I just couldn't seem to make it any subtler without taking up more time.)

Now the Marty scenes, I really had fun with, and I'm so glad you found her, uh, tolerable. Heh. I don't remember you having strong feelings about her one way or the other, though I recall Cruella dislikes her a lot. We Eastern European women can be hard on our own! I love legal stuff, so it was rewarding to show Marty at work, and how her experience with Alex might blow back on her work as a defense attorney. Speaking of which, it's amazing that you point out the conflict between Mike and Martina's roles in the justice system, because this very issue comes up in the next episode! I haven't done nearly as much with this conflict as I should have, though it was a major issue in their courtship back when they were on opposite sides of Tristan's trial.

Hannah... well, the reason your reaction shocks me is 'cause these were my favorite scenes in the whole episode! Firstly 'cause whenever I can actually get back to the play plot, it's a hoot. Also I've been dying to show the actual Hannah-shooting flashback since she was first introduced. I'm disappointed her epiphany wasn't very effective. I made the (very unlike me) decision not to show Hannah's hearing about the PlayCity disaster first-hand; instead, I just obliquely referred to it elsewhere. Maybe if I had shown Hannah learning of Chelsea's kidnapping and reacting to it, her behavior throughout this episode would have seemed more natural?

Actually I wonder if part of this not working for you may be due to the egregious bad pacing of the series, since character beats that should've been occuring much more closely together (and thus something you would remember) occured about eight years ago! In particular, an important plot point that I'm sure no one but me remembers is Hannah going to Ryan and confessing her guilt feelings about her association with Nick, and Ryan's suggestion that she leave her husband. So she's been getting less able to deny the grim realities of her life. In her defense, she is correct in that in the past, Nick seemed to make an effort to prevent 'innocents' from getting hurt. (Or at least, he's managed to avoid telling Hannah about the worst part of his business.)

Anyway, blah di blah, that was my rationale for Hannah's little arc in this ep. I wish it had been more successful with you, 'cause I really enjoyed writing it! I try to make characters' psychological issues believable, but maybe fell short here.

Thanks as always for your thoughtful comments and of course, for reading despite all the delays and ups & downs.

[Dana]

I think that the problem with Hannah is that from the beggining, she and Nick did not seem suited. I could just not see someone like Hannah falling in love with someone like Nick. She always seemed the correct, nice and law abiding type. Perhaps I misread her. I can just not accept that she willingly close her eyes for such a long time to Nick's activities, because it certainly looks like it. We do not know enough of Nick's and Hannah's backgrounds to understand their relationship.

So no, I do not think that showing Hannah actually learning of the kidnapping scene first hand would have helped, for me.

Now that you mention, I remember something about her and Father Ryan waaay back. But it had completely slipped my mind.

As to the play plot, why do you enjoy writing it so much? I'm just curious. Perhaps you know something we don't? I can't really see any connections with real-life (that is, Skyfalls real life ) right now. It's just a meeting place for now.

[Michael]

Originally Posted by Dana

I think that the problem with Hannah is that from the beggining, she and Nick did not seem suited. I could just not see someone like Hannah falling in love with someone like Nick. She always seemed the correct, nice and law abiding type. Perhaps I misread her. I can just not accept that she willingly close her eyes for such a long time to Nick's activities, because it certainly looks like it. We do not know enough of Nick's and Hannah's backgrounds to understand their relationship.

I agree with Dana here. Hannah's stuff in this episode, taken alone, totally worked for me, because it was well-rendered and her emerging fears made complete sense. In a larger context, though, it doesn't quite hold together for me. I always got the impression that she was well aware of the violence in what Nick does, and she chose to look the other way, or... I don't know. As Dana says, it seems odd to me that a woman who would become alarmed by this news at this point in her marriage would have married Nick at all.

Edited to add: Showing the specific scene in which Hannah became paralyzed was powerful, but it sort of seemed to come out of nowhere. The action in the play did that? I can't believe that this woman hasn't seen guns pulled right in front of her face at any point in the past however-many years. That rang a little false, as did the double beat of Clark then reacting to the gun as well in his own head, just because we'd played the same reaction with Hannah two scenes earlier.

It was nice to see the play back in action, even if you've chosen to scale it back and just use it as a flavoring for scenes and interactions rather than as a storyline of its own. I like the sense that these people have full lives, with interests and activities that don't exist merely for story purposes. Similarly, I appreciated seeing Martina take control in a professional setting. I know I've vented before that she seems very victim-y in her personal life, but I got a different sense of the character here.

My favorite scene of the episode had to be Chelsea's. You have such a clear sense of her character, and she reacted in precisely the way that Chelsea would. Of course a hearing aid isn't the end of the world, and maybe Chelsea herself would tell someone else that very thing, but her "What am I, eighty?" was perfect. I completely understand why she's so disheartened and doesn't want to deal with any of them right now. Spot-on.

I didn't find Ross's last scene too arch or anything, which I think is what you were worried about. I actually appreciated the straightforward way in which you played it, because I don't know Ross very well and I think I'd have had no clue what he was doing if you didn't lay it out there this way. What a jackass, though. You've suggested pretty strongly that there's a mutual attraction between him and Clark. Have they ever had such an intimate moment before? I can't remember, but if they have, he's seeking it out for a reason -- even if, once it's in motion, it freaks him out and he goes over-the-top in reacting.

Speaking of Clark, I have a fairly minor quibble that I'll air because I know you're redoing the site anyway. I find his photo to be really, really distracting. It's like the features of his face don't quite line up, and it's very pixelated and strange. I kept half-wondering if he'd been in a disfiguring car accident or something! Same with Ryan, whose photo I hadn't noticed until this episode. Most of them are pretty decent, but I find those two really... amateurish, actually, given the quality of just about everything else on the site. I hope they'll be given facelifts when the site gets one!

It's good to see ASF back in action and producing regular episodes. I hope you find it in you to keep it up, because I could really get into some of these other stories if given the chance.

[kira]

Ooh lots of juicy feedback, thank you, Dana and Michael.

I've never really gotten into this major section of Hannah's backstory -- how she ended up with Nick -- and maybe that's a mistake. It's something that I've always planned to explore later on, but maybe I should've tackled it before showing her reacting in this way. Here's I am confronted by the pitfalls of the diffuse storytelling of ASF, and why my goals for it are imapcted by not having been able to cover as much, as quickly, as I need to.

I certainly don't blame either of you for finding her a strange dichotomy: someone who seems compassionate and ethical (on the whole), but who also appears to be genuinely in love with a criminal whose activities she tolerates. My intention (not that it really matters -- what matters is what's on the screen) is that yes, as Michael says, she's been looking the other way, something that Nick has enabled by telling her a filtered version of his activities. He's truthful with her, to a degree, but he omits when his orders end up harming bystanders, such as Ossie Kessleman's wife (a character I'm sure no one remembers but me, heh) and now Chelsea & Rena.

Clearly I haven't done a good job of showing how much Hannah pretends Nick is relatively justified by only harming those who owe him, or betray him, or in some other way "deserve" the harsh punishment he visits on them. She calls herself a hypocrite in this episode, and in a way she is; she's arrived upon a rationale that lets her accept what Nick does. And because she never really sees the faces of his victims, she isn't confronted by them. When she is, as she was in the news today, her ability to excuse them -- and thus, the whole structure that props up her existence -- is shaken to the core.

To elide this with Michael's subsequent comments about Clark's reaction not ringing true, I also think I did kind of a poor job in showing exactly what that Ten Little Indians scene consists of. My original intent for this was to show much more of the scene between "Vera" and "Lombard" (Clark's role), but in doing some belated copyright research I realized that I wouldn't be able to quote as much from the scene as I wanted to. As in, I only dared quote a single line.

The moment in the play is quite intense, as Vera begs desperately for her life (which Hannah associated with her own experience -- her pleas to the would-be assassin were almost identical to Vera's line as quoted in the scene) and then manages to tear the gun away from Lombard / Clark. She then holds it on him, forcing him to justify himself.

That's the moment -- facing the business end of the gun -- that resonated with Clark, and it was really dumb of me to shorthand that portion of the scene. (I refer to it briefly in passing during Hannah's scene, but it's easy to miss ... and since Clark's not the focal character of the scene, we don't see him react to it.) Of course, Clark's also been pretty much headed for a nervous breakdown for the past month, and having Noah return to his doorstep today was the trigger (sorry for the pun) as well.

So I intended the parallel for Hannah and Clark, each being upset by the same scene for different reasons. That was kind of the raison d'etre of the two biggest scenes in the episode, heh. But I guess my dramatic license expired, so there ya go.

To answer your question, Dana, the reason I enjoy the whole play storyline is twofold: a) it's an homage to Agatha Christie (and classic murder mysteries in general), who so greatly influenced me as a reader and writer, and b) my own past involvement in the theater as a performer, so this is a trip down memory lane. The production of Ten Little Indians was supposed to be the backdrop for a behind-the-scenes theatrical mystery -- which is a standard mystery trope in itself -- but as Michael mentions, I changed directions and now the play is less integral and more background color. So the big umbrella story has moved elsewhere.

BTW, if you want to refresh your memory on Ryan/Hannah (and also to maybe see a little more of Hannah's mindset only just over a month ago in ASF-time), you can check out two scenes from #3.37: Ryan flashes back to their past and Hannah tries to confess to Ryan. In reading that again, I see that Hannah made a way better point than I just did, and God knows, much more concisely, analogizing her love for Nick with Ryan's love for the Catholic Church despite not agreeing with all its rules.

Originally Posted by Michael

My favorite scene of the episode had to be Chelsea's. You have such a clear sense of her character, and she reacted in precisely the way that Chelsea would. Of course a hearing aid isn't the end of the world, and maybe Chelsea herself would tell someone else that very thing, but her "What am I, eighty?" was perfect. I completely understand why she's so disheartened and doesn't want to deal with any of them right now. Spot-on.

Thanks! That's encouraging! I've been somewhat dreading this portion of the story, because Chelsea has never been a victim before, and I really really really don't want to turn her into one, but she's been through an utterly devastating experience and it's bound to affect her significantly. And for someone like her, who's so energetic and lively, to have the prospect of a lifelong disability (even one as "mild" as needing a hearing aid), well, that's gotta hurt.

I should mention that tinnitus (aka ringing in the ears -- though that's a misnomer, since often it sounds more like the hiss of steam or crickets) is actually a bigger problem to deal with than one might think; often it comes on gradually, so you can get used to it, but if it's sudden, it can drive people nuts. Imagine hearing a constant rattlesnake-like noise in your ear, all the time, even when you're trying to sleep. Scary.

Originally Posted by Michael

I didn't find Ross's last scene too arch or anything, which I think is what you were worried about. I actually appreciated the straightforward way in which you played it, because I don't know Ross very well and I think I'd have had no clue what he was doing if you didn't lay it out there this way. What a jackass, though. You've suggested pretty strongly that there's a mutual attraction between him and Clark. Have they ever had such an intimate moment before? I can't remember, but if they have, he's seeking it out for a reason -- even if, once it's in motion, it freaks him out and he goes over-the-top in reacting.

Huge relief for me! Yeah, I was worried that it was just way too on-the-nose and obvious. To answer your question: nope, Clark and Ross have never had that close a connection before. Clark was attracted to Ross back in the first season and thought Ross was gay, and he asked him out; Ross was alarmed and said no, he's not gay. (That's the reference in this episode.) Ross backed off their friendship and Clark resigned himself to Ross either being straight or being so far closeted that there was little point in persisting. But Clark still auditioned for the play solely because Ross was auditioning. Gradually they've been shown being friendlier, and Ross has been seen acting a bit ... well, jealous isn't the right word, maybe just protective ... regarding Clark's relationship with his rageaholic ex-boyfriend Tom.

So basically this almost-kiss is their closest moment by far, and yeah, Ross is acting like a real asshat, just as you mention.

Originally Posted by Michael

Speaking of Clark, I have a fairly minor quibble that I'll air because I know you're redoing the site anyway. I find his photo to be really, really distracting. It's like the features of his face don't quite line up, and it's very pixelated and strange. I kept half-wondering if he'd been in a disfiguring car accident or something! Same with Ryan, whose photo I hadn't noticed until this episode. Most of them are pretty decent, but I find those two really... amateurish, actually, given the quality of just about everything else on the site. I hope they'll be given facelifts when the site gets one!

Oh GOD yes, I know. I hate almost all the images now, though Clark especially because he's such a major character these days and I'm always looking at that goddamned photo. It seemed to look a lot better nine years ago, or whenever it was that I originally picked it out! Clark's been one of the most difficult to 'cast', oddly enough, maybe because he's the only character closely based on a real person (a friend of my family's, who died in 1989), and I just can't push the real guy's image from my mind. Danny was a drop-dead gorgeous pianist with thick black/brown hair and beautiful brown eyes you could drown in. Unlike almost everyone else on ASF, Clark's original "portrayer" (Thorsten Kaye, IIRC) was never ideal either, but he was as close as I could come.

ANYway, with the new revamp everyone is getting recast, and I've found decent substitute so you can look forward to some bigger, and God knows much clearer, images. (The Jem and Tristan are so much better it's scary, though they'll never be as perfect as my originals. C'est la vie!)

Man my fingers are tired and I'm sure your eyes are all tired from reading all my blather. In short: thank you so very much for your incisive, edifying comments. I learn a great deal from your feedback!

[Michael]

Originally Posted by kira

To elide this with Michael's subsequent comments about Clark's reaction not ringing true, I also think I did kind of a poor job in showing exactly what that Ten Little Indians scene consists of. My original intent for this was to show much more of the scene between "Vera" and "Lombard" (Clark's role), but in doing some belated copyright research I realized that I wouldn't be able to quote as much from the scene as I wanted to. As in, I only dared quote a single line.

...

That's the moment -- facing the business end of the gun -- that resonated with Clark, and it was really dumb of me to shorthand that portion of the scene. (I refer to it briefly in passing during Hannah's scene, but it's easy to miss ... and since Clark's not the focal character of the scene, we don't see him react to it.) Of course, Clark's also been pretty much headed for a nervous breakdown for the past month, and having Noah return to his doorstep today was the trigger (sorry for the pun) as well.

Yeah, I didn't really absorb the content of the scene from the play, especially because -- as you said -- we saw it play out from Hannah's POV, so by the time we got to Clark's scene, I wasn't sure what to grab onto. The explanation of its content helps a lot.

Originally Posted by kira

Thanks! That's encouraging! I've been somewhat dreading this portion of the story, because Chelsea has never been a victim before, and I really really really don't want to turn her into one, but she's been through an utterly devastating experience and it's bound to affect her significantly. And for someone like her, who's so energetic and lively, to have the prospect of a lifelong disability (even one as "mild" as needing a hearing aid), well, that's gotta hurt.

I think the benefit of doing something like this with Chelsea is that you can play her humor, even if she's depressed/miserable/whatever. She'll still make bitchy remarks in lashing out at people, she'll play up the melodrama, etc. Obviously you don't want to veer into caricature, but having a natural way of lightening things up will really add some texture to her situation.

Originally Posted by kira

Oh GOD yes, I know. I hate almost all the images now, though Clark especially because he's such a major character these days and I'm always looking at that goddamned photo. It seemed to look a lot better nine years ago, or whenever it was that I originally picked it out! Clark's been one of the most difficult to 'cast', oddly enough, maybe because he's the only character closely based on a real person (a friend of my family's, who died in 1989), and I just can't push the real guy's image from my mind. Danny was a drop-dead gorgeous pianist with thick black/brown hair and beautiful brown eyes you could drown in. Unlike almost everyone else on ASF, Clark's original "portrayer" (Thorsten Kaye, IIRC) was never ideal either, but he was as close as I could come.

ANYway, with the new revamp everyone is getting recast, and I've found decent substitute so you can look forward to some bigger, and God knows much clearer, images. (The Jem and Tristan are so much better it's scary, though they'll never be as perfect as my originals. C'est la vie!)

Wonderful! I'm glad my comment didn't come across as too much of an insult, but I figured it was worth mentioning. Nice to hear you've found images you find more fitting and effective.