DI Stella Gibson and Paul Spector (Photo Courtesy of FanPop.com)
Welcome to Nearly Nightly Netflix, an idea that came to me while I was in the shower after reluctantly pausing an episode of The Fall (review coming after this necessary intro) so I could wash the stench of my local gym off of me. As a working and commuting woman, it’s often hard for me to catch television shows during their actual air date and as a television snob, I’m often a fan of shows that are produced in other countries or by video-streaming companies themselves. These two criteria are the foundation upon which my love affair with streaming services is built.
I’ve watched a lot of television, some very good (Firefly, Sherlock, Breaking Bad) some quite good with problematic themes and occasionally terrible episodes (Doctor Who, The Walking Dead ) and some mostly bad but commercially successful because reasons (Sons of Anarchy, The Vampire Diaries ). I’ve binged on Netflix for entire weekends and I’ve skipped the gym to sit in front of my Xbox watching Hulu. I’d like to think I’m well-versed in the world of television.
This blog will (hopefully) be your television compass and I will be your sage-like guide; the Dumbledore of Binge Watching, the Gandalf of “Are you still watching?”, the Yoda of eating dinner in the flickering glow of the television.
Welcome, friends.
First up on this new endeavor: BBC2’s original series The Fall starring Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan. Yes, Gillian Anderson of X-Files fame in all her British-accented glory and Jamie Dornan of *eyeroll* 50 Shades of Abuse Grey.
The Fall is a thriller mini-series set in moody, dreary, crime-ridden Belfast. It follows Detective Inspector Stella Gibson (played by Anderson who frequently dons swoon-worthy silk blouses and wide-leg dress pants) and her quest to find a serial killer with an affinity for killing brunette women and posing their dead, naked bodies like dolls. DI Gibson is on loan to Belfast from London’s Metropolitan Police, hence her crisp, clear British accent amongst a sea of Irish brogues. Dornan plays Paul Spector, the aforementioned serial killer who is a married father of two insanely adorable children (little kids with Irish accents are my weakness I swear I would let my future kids spew curses every single day if they had Irish accents).
The show follows a fairly typical (but in this case not boring or uninteresting) crime show format: it flits back and forth between Gibson’s daily police activities and Spector’s daily creepiness/murder-y stuff. It has the slow, patient pace synonymous with British television (ADHD American viewers beware, this show wrote the book on suspense) and the dreary, dark mood synonymous with Belfast life.
I’m three episodes in, and in the most recent one (“Insolence and Wine”), the writers employ a commonly-used cinematic technique: DI Gibson is correctly positing about the serial-killing Spector while said serial killer is performing the actions attributed to him by said DI. The difference between The Fall and other shows and movies that utilize this technique is that the incredibly intelligent investigator expertly psycho-analyzing a woman-hating killer is a woman.
This is groundbreaking. Yes, the killer exhibits a clear and concise hatred towards women; he is obsessed with asserting ownership over them and dresses their bodies up to conform to his standards of beauty. Yes, certain camera angles are gratuitous and seemingly misogynistic. But these aspects of The Fall exist merely to highlight the issues of violence against women that pervade our society–it does not contribute to the often dangerous narrative that promotes or glamorizes violence against women.
Unlike True Detective, a show of similar grit and leisurely pacing, The Fall does not depict the murder of innocent females in tandem with the heralded efforts of “good” men. The Fall does not portray women as innocent or vulnerable or slutty or catty. The women of The Fall are successful, they are intelligent, they are calculating, they are supportive of other women, they are openly sexual and they are unapologetic.
The first two episodes absolutely transfixed me with sedate pacing, an excellent score and a dank setting straight out of the darkest corners of the human psyche. Dornan’s Spector is intensely intelligent and creepily methodical—his rage towards women is deftly hidden, resting under the often monotonous façade of a man who seems like he is simply contemplative and/or slow to speak.
Anderson’s genius DI Gibson is a feminist hero for the ages. I’m not looking to alienate people here, but anybody who consumes television should hail a character such as Stella Gibson. Let’s face it, popular culture is in a constant state of narrow-minded flux, always threatening to become incredibly one-sided and depict only stories that are all about white dudes (even some of my favorite shows like Breaking Bad or Sherlock are guilty of this trope). Good media is innovative media, and a female character subverting gender roles is hella innovative. As of yet, the sole issue I see in The Fall is that there needs to be more POC in this series; the sole character that isn’t white is Archie Panjabi’s Reed Smith, which is problematic.
As I mentioned before, the first two episodes fed the fires of my binge-watching addiction, but the third episode sent me over the precipice. Two quotes from “Insolence and Wine” cement The Fall’s status as the show we should hold up as a bastion of female empowerment and equal and fair portrayal of women in television.
In a world where violence against women is an all-too-familiar theme, Stella Gibson puts her perfectly-dressed foot down with authority and dares the people around her to think differently. While Gibson, Jim Burns (Assistant Chief Constable) and the marketing coordinator for the Belfast police department go over the press release that will officially announce that the recent murders are linked and the work of a serial offender, Gibson refuses to let the statement refer to the victims as “innocent” and poison the public’s perception of women:
At this point in the episode I got so excited I sloshed my wine all over myself and actually asked out loud “is this real life?” I absolutely inhale television—if you tell me about a good show, I’m going to watch it. And quite often my favorite shows depict women as weak, or matronly, or fueled by insane womanly rage (The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy, respectively). As a huge fan of TV, it gets pretty effin’ old to have to nearly consistently watch your gender get thrown under the proverbial bus.
So, The Fall is not just a show that exemplifies all of the good qualities of a crime thriller, it doesn’t just personify good pacing and write the book on staging—it makes a previously undocumented statement about a universal theme of violence against women and just how problematic said theme is. It doesn’t glorify the men seeking to end it like in True Detective—it puts women on the battlefield fighting back against inequality.
Oh, and the second quote from the episode that slayed the entire game? In episode two, Gibson sleeps with a fellow police officer in a spectacular example of a one night stand that embodies modern female sexuality. He is murdered in an unrelated incident at the end of the episode, and her fellow officers are unhappy with her for subverting gender stereotypes. Her response:
Excuse me while I weep tears of joy.
I will continue my binge-watching of The Fall tonight, and I’ll give you a second review after I watch the finale.
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