Jealous Fights, Basket-swiping, Hypermasculinity: An Analysis of the Men in the Gilmore World

Everybody loves the Gilmores. They love them so much, in fact, that they're willing to get into fist fights over them, abrasive verbal spats, bid obscene amounts of money for lunch baskets, fake-fight in the middle of a college lecture, COMMIT already (against all odds), claim them (like a dog would a fire hydrant) at a Tarantino-themed college party, cheat on their spouses with them, humiliate them in the middle of a dance marathon, humiliate their friends at the coffee cart, stalk them after a break-up, bleed petulance over a friendly game of Bop-it, cause this, and a number of other...things. The men of the Gilmore world are almost always characterized as jealous, hyper-masculine types who, if they don't spend all of their time raging against the machine, lifting heavy objects, working with their hands, changing lightbulbs, cleaning gutters, camping, fishing, neglecting to seek higher education, or spitting into a spitoon, instead spend their time getting kicked out of prep schools, riding around in limousines, sleeping with blonde socialites, battling severe daddy issues, raging against the expectations of their rich, waspy ancestors, wearing turtlenecks, berating the help, begrudging their privilege, drinking to excess, and spoiling the social event of the season.

The men of the Gilmore world are brooding, overly sensitive, WACK jealous, helpless to their more primitive impulses (the hunter, the protector, the aggressor), and these "impulses" are, for whatever reason, heightened at the mere divine scent of any moving Gilmore within a three block radius. Their sheer petulance should be rendered insufferable, and I wouldn't think twice about it--if it weren't for the fact that this repeat characterization of the Gilmore world's weaker sex weren't, well I think, at its core,  a subtle (or not-so-subtle) commentary on the objectification of women, male assertion over women and over the female body as territory. I mean, okay. Jess literally swipes Rory's lunch basket right out from under Dean's nose at Star's Hollow's annual Bid-a-Basket festival (2.13 A-Tisket, A-Tasket). Together, they engage in a bidding war until--alas--Rory's "basket" has been won by the man willing to pay the best price. Do you understand what I'm getting at here?

A Gilmore is a specific type of woman--a nuanced turn on"the girl next door" archetype--the sensational, intelligent, capable, self-sufficient, naturally pretty brunette with minimal issues of self-worth, self-esteem, minimal serious pitfalls other than the obvious "eats too many pop-tarts" and "drinks too much coffee." The Gilmore women (Rory and Lorelai--this article will not attempt Emily) are the evolutionary foil to the vintage "girl friday," because the Gilmores do not exist in any way to serve, assist, or better their male counterparts. They do not serve anyone but themselves. They rely on themselves for sustenance, for comfort and reassurance, and they rely on each other. They never rely on a man (for anything other than his handiwork, of course--both around the house and in the bedroom), and it is not that the men of their world can't handle this (the Lorelai-Rory relationship and their respective independence are typically and universally accepted as things of untouchable, impenetrable quirk-dom)--to the contrary--they recognize these women as one of a kind, as defying expectations, as rare and remarkable. Like an urn. Everybody loves a Gilmore, and when you have one, you become a mindless fiend, a slave to her beauty and her beckoning, and you'll fight anyone that comes sniffing around, because this one's taken. If you don't have one, you want one, desperately, and you'll do anything to get that thing of perfection on your arm.


Okay, that's a bit harsh. The men of the Gilmore world are not all bad. They're not all drooling, jealous cavemen. They're nuanced, of course, because the writing is good, and they have histories and emotional baggage and can often be quite sweet. But WITHOUT FAIL, these men are jealous. They're jealous and obsessive, or their jealous and evasive, and so it's always an issue when my friends and I sit down and try to talk about which of Rory's boyfriends is our favorite (yes, we do this), or whether we truly prefer Luke to Chris for Lorelai, because none of the men that consort with the Gilmores are, in fact, good enough for the Gilmores. They're sulky and fractious, grumpy and stubborn. They don't play well with others, and I would chalk it up to a one-dimensional writer's tick if it weren't for the unfailing nature, the consistency in characterization of each and every single boyfriend in the Gilmore world, in conjunction with the distinctive, very specific differences maintained between each one. The Gilmore boyfriends are: Dean, Jess, and Logan for Rory, Christopher and Luke for Lorelai. No, I have not forgotten Max Medina. My first impulse with Max is to call him an exception, because I don't really count him among the "principles." But then I think back to the impulse marriage proposal--they're about to break up, Lorelai is fed up, and so he must stake the defining claim, and when she turns him down, he attempts to woo her with the romantic presentation of 1,000 yellow daisies, and while it works for a moment, Lorelai is, ultimately, unconvinced. She calls off the wedding. She blames herself for being irrational and irresponsible, but we know, and the complications of her character tell us: Max wasn't good enough for Lorelai, and that's why she couldn't bring herself to marry him. (I also don't count Jason Stiles, although, if I did, we might file him under the "rich boys" element below.)

The concept of these men not being "good enough" is heightened by the fact that the Gilmores are, well, a very well-to-do, well-respected family in Connecticut, and that Emily and Richard Gilmore, Lorelai's meddling, yuppy parents, are constantly making the personal lives of their daughter and granddaughter their business du jour. Emily and Richard frequently burden themselves with the task of finding a man that is good enough for Lorelai, or pairing Rory with a suitor that is good enough. "Luke is not good enough for Lorelai," Emily literally says in 5.7 You Jump, I Jump, Jack, and while the intended meaning of "not good enough" is the more obvious issue of class, there is a definite initiation at this moment of the many other ways in which it turns out that Luke is not, in fact, good enough for Lorelai. He really is a bigger mess than we understand at first--the secret daughter, the daddy issues, the pathological introversion. Jess and Dean are boyfriends of Rory's who are continuously deemed as "not good enough." The reason, outright, is still an issue of class. Dean, however, turns out to be the most despicable of all Rory's boyfriends (Cheating on Lindsay? Sulking on a daily basis? Breaking up with her twice in front of a whole group of people?) and Jess (while, arguably, and surprisingly, the least despicable of them all) turns out to be traumatized (due to issues of abandonment) in such a way that he cannot make himself emotionally available to Rory--until it's too late of course.

Then, we've got our rich boys: Logan and Christopher. Christopher Hayden is Rory's father. He's from a respectable, rich family who've known the Gilmores for many years, and he ran out on Lorelai after Rory was born. Logan Huntzberger is...a Huntzberger, the equivalent of a Vanderbilt or a Rockerfeller, a galavanting playboy of infinite wealth and wise-ass snark. These boys are, according to Emily's standards of class and money, "good enough" for the Gilmore girls, despite their many personal and social inadequacies. These boys are not, however, truly good enough, because of these personal and social inadequacies--which are often exaggerated and, by way, insufferable. They're possessive, clingy, adulterous, and imbued with this mocking, sad sense of entitlement that imbues all the yuppy douche bags of the Gilmore world. They do a nice job of furnishing gifts: Burkin bags, diamond necklaces, college tuition, Oxford English Dictionaries, but they do a terrible job of furnishing any type of emotional stability or ability to function in a give-and-receive type relationship. They run away from their problems, and they run hard. They're total wrecks, is what I'm saying. They represent the misguided values that Lorelai and Rory have avoided, because Lorelai and Rory do not live their lives the Gilmore way. Sure, Rory has been known to humor her grandma in terms of having a Cotillion and, later, becoming a member of the D.A.R.. She also attended Yale (more a product of her intelligence than her social standing). She was, however, raised a normal girl under normal financial and social means. She cannot tolerate rich, whiny men who cannot get their acts together. This we learn. Her mother, who rebels against the monied lifestyle has raised her to be level-headed, a hard worker, and self-supporting. Like herself. Rory is a positive role model for young women, the type of fictional role model that I do not see anywhere today.

At the end of season seven, neither Rory nor Lorelai are in a committed relationship with any of the men we've watched them fumble around with time and time again over the course of the series. Rory rebuffs Logan's marriage proposal, and Lorelai rebuffs Luke, who, it turns out, is not as sweet and gracious as we all thought he was in the beginning. If you ask me, when both of these break-ups officially happen, I am ecstatic, because they're long overdue. By the end, Luke and Logan are men kept around because they're whiny and broken, men that need to be taken care of and humored and patted on the head for issues that, frankly, can bite me when compared to the issue of Lorelai at sixteen raising a child on her own, or Rory being abandoned by her father before she was old enough to sit up by herself.

The fact of the matter is, the jealous boyfriend is a staple in the Gilmore world, but it is not a mere matter of inventing drama. It is a much more complex evaluation of extreme, almost cartoonized jealousy and sensitivity as a salient aspect of male behavior. This physical and passive aggression is merely the attempt of these men to dominate over each other, to stake claim over the Gilmore women and, in turn, dominate them, too, and "Gilmore Girls" does a number on pointing these things out. Now, the jealous boyfriend is often used as an added tension in teen and women-oriented dramatic programming (RE: "Dawson's Creek," "Desperate Housewives," "Gossip Girl"). In these cases, with male jealousy made into a central arc (rather than a running factor of characterization) and a mere catalyst for dramatic teasers and suspense (rather than for, as far as I can tell, any real intellectual purpose), the portrayal of men as jealous, primitive, head-bashing animals has, I think, caused a misconception in the "real world" that this is the way that most men act, or the way that men are supposed to act, or that masculinity is, in some way, directly reliant upon aggression. Because, yeah, drama is attractive. What a tragic piece of misinformation. The story of two brothers fighting for the same woman's affection is an age-old tale, and yeah, maybe it happened...once...but this is not the way that "real" men act, at least not in my experience, and this portrayal of men as sulking and aggressive is, not only harmful to women, who, while playing along, become accessory to their own objectification, but to men as well, men who trust, men who are not jealous, good men. Normal men. Normal men are not jealous fiends. In fact, I don't know one.

Side Note: Jealous men are rare on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," as well as most other works of the Whedonverse. Xander, Oz, Angel, Riley--these men are sensitive creatures, self-sufficient and forgiving. Men who do experience jealousy, like Captain Mal Reynolds on "Firefly" or Spike on "Buffy" are characterized as either flawed, anti-heroic men of duty or love-sick puppies who like to indulge in their own misery--and both readily acknowledge their insufficiencies as problematic. They are not oblivious to these moments of uber-masculine display.

Now, my conclusion: I'm not claiming that the men of the Gilmore world are harming viewers with their constant presentations of male aggression. To the contrary, the consistency with which creator, writer, producer Amy Sherman-Palladino (who's previous work includes stints with "Roseanne" and "Veronica's Closet") has characterized her male characters to such extremes of jealousy and over-sensitivity, creates, instead, a well-informed meditation on the objectification and sensationalizing of women, certain types of "idealized" women especially, but really--all women. Furthermore, "Gilmore Girls" truly is a show that's made by, for, and about women, and so certain commentaries, like the one I just rambled on and on about for far too long are better understood. They have real relevance, because "Gilmore Girls" was never a show that relied on cheap suspense, adultery plots, threesomes, volatile love triangles, high drama, etc. It is actually a humble show, a small show that relies on its characters, which are written credibly and thoroughly, its humor, which is rooted deeply in the show's love of pop culture, its youthful exuberance. It is a show that values women. It values intelligence. It values intelligent women. Its jealous men cause drama, sure, but that drama is usually just a passing tension, a transition between charming, hilarious, many times poignant exchanges between Lorelai and Rory. Because this is not a show about "boy drama" as much as it is about the relationships between many mothers and many daughters--namely, Lorelai and Rory Gilmore.

"Gilmore Girls" is a show for women to watch together, alone, in four-hour shifts or one at a time, to vent their frustrations on, to love, to quote, to admire, to enjoy. I'm not saying that men can't enjoy it, too, but really, this is a show for women. It's also a show that is unrelenting in its appeal to women--real women--not the weird idea of "women" that MTV tries to recruit--due to the strength and good nature of its protagonists and their realistic reactions and ways of coping with change and rejection, fear and loss. It is a show that is unapologetic to the men who discredit it. Not in any way that is aggressive or spiteful, but in the way that it really loves to treat issues that are sort of singular to women and to the understandings that women have about themselves, their bodies, their daughters, and the way they're perceived by both each other and men alike. I find that most men retaliate against "Gilmore Girls," call it annoying and cloying and a total chick show. Well, these things are meant to spite, but the truth is: Boys, there are some of you that just aren't in on the joke. And that doesn't mean that the joke sucks or that the joke is not worth telling. It just means, take a deep breath, you're not invited...to be in on the joke. Wah.

Chuck Premiere 1/10/10: Live Blog

So, this is something I plan to also do for the return of "Supernatural" on the 21st, and hopefully the "Lost" premiere on February 2nd. I would just tweet, but I may need more than 140 characters, and this way, anybody who wants to read this, can just read it without having to fish through their Tweet Deck or whatever. Twitter is a fun reactionist tool, but it's not great for continuity of thought or analysis.

Anyway, (very) quick preface: I only just discovered "Chuck" maybe a month or so ago. In that time, I've fallen in love with each and every aspect of the show, from its unabashed desire to both please and challenge us to its willingness to reinvent both the spy genre and the forty-five minute broadcast TV time slot.

Okay, here goes!

9:00: "Guys, I know Kung fu." (Oh, Charles. It's so good to see you.)

9:01: Not entirely convinced by Chuck's mean face...but I think that's part of the irony, why this show is so different from anything else out there. I also really appreciate that Levi is...well...lanky and awkward. 

9:04: Chuck boxers!

9:06: Agent Sarah Walker is, I think, the greatest female character on TV right now. She's young, beautiful, but she's a real woman, who's tall and strong, who has a job that's typically attributed as "male," and Strahovski is, yes, impressive. And only this show can get away with a scene in which its leading lady exits a swimming pool in a white bikini, soaking wet, swinging her blonde hair around. This show gets away with so much because of how strong Sarah Walker is.

9:09: Okay, thank god that was a car commercial, because I was going to say..."This feels like a car commercial."

9:13: I don't really like grungy, hairy chuck with the cheese puffs...But I always enjoy any physical manifestation of a character's inner state of mind. Related: Morgan looks great!

9:18: Back to the Buy More? I do hope so. The Buy More is always such a fantastic sounding board for most plot-related issues in the show, even some issues of interiority with Chuck and the gang. "Chuck" is at its best when it really works that tendency toward parallel narratives, because this creates a singular kind of resonance that is either hysterically funny or surprisingly poignant.

9:22: Oh yeah. "Heroes." THAT show deserves cancellation.

9:27: So there's a new goal, now, for "Chuck," which is balance. How can we achieve that balance between Chuck Bartowski's natural propensity for the awkward, and his new-found Spy skills. I think, so far, things are doing alright. Although I'm still not convinced. I still wish he was a normal goof. Still, I understand this as part of the progression of the show, and I'm willing to see it through.

9:32: James Franco on "30 Rock" = HELLZ YES. (I love him. He's so savvy.)

9:36: I like it when they let Casey have a feeling. Or an opinion. Because he's complex, and I really do look forward to learning more about him.

9:37: HOLY WTF MOMENT. That was weird a little. Emmett dies...I wonder at the purpose. I'm shocked, but perhaps this is the writers' way of asking us to watch the show differently now. To accept its maturation as, not just a comedy, but a drama as well.

9:44: There's budget going on here. Bigger budget. Look at the colors even, just in the frame. The show feels a little like a fairy tale. Note to self: work that out for future post.

9:48: "Chuck, what happened?" "Something...awesome."

9:55: Buy More! And look! It's not a total reboot this season. We're back at the Buy More. Morgan, Casey, and all. Oh, the good times that shall ensue.

9:58: Eye of the Tiger! Tear. Sniffle. Man, I miss my Winchester boys.

Phew! I am fatigued. Only made it through half of tonight, but I can't wait to write about "Chuck" again.

What's Real and the Old Elevator Trick: A (Very) Current Analysis of "Dollhouse"

(This article is SPOILER HEAVY. Stay away unless you're up to date.)

"Angel" had an elevator, too. Remember that? More and more with every recent episode of "Dollhouse,"I am reminded of Whedon's obsession with the corporate conspiracy, namely how much Rossum has begun to resemble super firm Wolfram and Hart, with its elusive 'partners' and 'company heads,' people or supernatural beings that we don't know, apparently don't trust (or trusted to easily), the people we 'least' expect who dwell on the top floors of very tall and shiny buildings, doing whatever it is they do up there, folding their hands together on top of their clandestine desks, thinking up schemes and drinking expensive caffeinated drinks, or existing purely as the essence of evil, hanging out in a bare white room in the shape of a panther or a little girl with a bow in her hair or something creepy like that. I cannot help but think: What's more mysterious than taking an elevator ride to a floor in a building you've never been to? Especially when the person sending you on your elevator ride says something like, "Someone upstairs wants to meet you," and then they don't come with, because they're not invited. Unlike you, because there's something about you that's special, only you're not quite sure what it is yet.

Anyway, the elevator trick is just like that trick in which a character walks into an office (probably on the top floor of a very tall, shiny building), and there's somebody in there talking to that character, but their chair is turned around, and so the character (and we) can't see who it is. We can only hear their voice, which is maybe vaguely familiar, but not enough to raise any flags yet. Then, the mysterious chair-person turn around, and the character (and YOU) are like, "Whoa! It's Jonathan! That geek who tried to kill himself with a sniper rifle in the bell tower at UC-Sunnydale! Wait, what's he doing in that chair?" Yes, what is he doing in that chair? And was he the person you least expected? Probably, but you didn't know till you saw him. And didn't you sort of trust him? Yeah, well, because he's harmless or one of the good guys or whatever. This is an example I took from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," episode 3.17 Superstar, you know, "Buffy," Joss's baby and claim to fame.

Joss does this a lot, and so do tons of writers and directors out there. Think "Fringe," season one finale: Olivia is sent on a strange elevator ride up a tall and shiny building. When she gets to the top, and she meets William Bell, it's not like we've seen this man before and are having one of those smash identity switch brain implosions (like what "Dollhouse" just pulled on us in 2.11 Getting Closer), but the man in question, William Bell, has been the man in question for quite a while, (Who is William Bell? Where is he? That was the foundation of "Fringe" Season one.) and so, naturally, we're expecting to be shocked a little bit upon our discovery of who and where William Bell is. It would not be half as impactful (or surprising) had William Bell just been some random no-name old guy. Or even a robot. No. Abrams does the "pluck and surprise" (a shitty term I just coined, just now), in which he plucks an actor from a current or previous work (ie: Abrams was working on Star Trek at the time), one that fans know, who they'll easily attribute to this current or previous work, and then relies on, not so much surprise (a little surprise), but excitement. Look! It's Nimoy! It's Spock! And didn't Abrams just do a Star Trek revamp? That old dog!

Okay, fine. But "Fringe" is a lesser show than "Dollhouse." "Fringe" is a crowd pleaser, in that it sort of tip-toes "X-Files" territory without taking too many risks, without breaching formula or updating the genre, and also without delving too deeply into its characters or in politics or major issues of today. "Fringe" is like "Lost," only lame and sort of unoriginal, but it satisfies our (my?) weekly craving for procedural brain candy without having to succumb to the bygone charms of "Bones," or the directional failures of "House." Similarly, "Angel" is also a lesser show than "Dollhouse." "Angel" does some neat stuff with redemption and sex and tragic heroes and all that, but once vampire lovechild Connor enters via hell portal, the wheels come off, and I have trouble looking at the screen for too long without finally having the urge to look away in shame. The last season is fine, one-note, but fine, and it has some great moments (a la, Fred's soul is incinerated, enter Ilyria, exit Wesley's will to live), but it's no "Dollhouse."

"Dollhouse" is creepy, and it's better, because it's politically relevant. It examines the backfiring of certain technological advancements, things like human trafficking, slavery, violence against women, pure neuro-claustrophobia (ie: I'm trapped in my own brain), rape culture, our social construction of rape, and a million subtler, less expected manifestations of rape (that's a whole other Media Studies dissertation). These things are reasons "Dollhouse" is being cancelled, because we here in America can't handle our TV getting all mixed up with our politics, and so these types of shows typically only do well on pay cable options like HBO and Showtime. Again, beside the point--"Dollhouse" is better than the elevator trick, or the smash identity switch, or the "pluck and surprise," all of which it has recently or not so recently employed. Now, I completely approve of Joss's choice last season to surprise us with Alan Tudyk as the elusive Alpha. This was exciting. We were all sort of waiting to see who it would be, and I think Tudyk was an unexpected choice (because, I mean, Wash is so sweet and so dead), but a perfect choice (because Tudyk's range is off the heezy), and who doesn't love Alan Tudyk? And it's one of the many throw-backs a disgruntled Mutant Enemy writing staff has given to the failed masterpiece "Firefly." I even bought Summer Glau as Bennett Halverson. I mean, we knew she was going to be on the show, because we read the spoilery news on Whedonesque, and then she was, and she wasn't a doll (even though she would have made a great doll), but something better--a foil for Topher. FINALLY, a way to excavate Topher, because Fran Kranz can actually handle his shit, and also because whenever "Dollhouse" does major character excavation it's always a treat, and it's always well-done, and I'm always ALWAYS impressed.

So the only reason I'm a little bit pissed about the old elevator trick in Getting Closer, and about the major revelation that, SHOCK, it's been Boyd Langton all along, is because we're just being yanked again, back and forth, back and forth, and it is, I'm sorry, at the expense of what "Dollhouse" does when it's at its best: excavate its characters, excavate its politics, excavate the reason it's so good so often. I still hold that the best episode of "Dollhouse" is 1.9 Spy in the House of Love, and not because of any plot twists, or the revelation that Dominic is the infiltrator, leaking info to the NSA, or because of any super-cerebral bullshit concerning the existential nature of the soul, but because of its delicate examination of Adele, our commander, our matriarch, and the smaller, less exciting revelation that she is, in fact, the client Ms. Lonely Hearts, who employs Victor as a companion, not only for sex, but for genuine human connection. Loneliness, the desire for true human connection, true identity among a baffled crowd of masked nobodies--that's what "Dollhouse" is about. It's why Echo is becoming self-aware in these episodes, because she's searching for that connection, that thing that makes us all 'real' and not 'dolls.' It's the reason Ballard struggles now, because he is still 'himself,' but he's not. He's not 'real.'

What is it to be 'real?' Is it the architecture in our brains that makes us real? Well, maybe, on a technical level that only Topher Brink can decipher, but is it not, to the rest of us, the understanding that we created ourselves, that we put ourselves together as a sum of our experiences, our memories, the convictions instilled in us, if not by genetics, then by our own choices, the losses that are particular to us, the gains, the sacrifice, the things that, even in a sea full of people, allow us to be different, to be our own? What makes us 'real' cannot be defined by the plot conventions of the science fiction genre. It cannot be defined at all in fiction, but for individual examinations of characters that are, in fact, real (Adele, Topher), as opposed to examinations of characters that are not (Echo, Dr. Saunders).

With this, we come to understand the foundation of the show, and the science fiction plottery becomes ancillary, as it should, because Whedon's shows are never about their outer story (Vampire Slayer fights vampire, related big bads; Thieves ride in Space Ship, thieve; Vampire with soul masquerades as Private Investigator, fights evil; Morally ambiguous corporation builds super computer comprised of human brains to take over world). They're about the arcs of basic human connection and what happens when we can't get it, how desperate we become without it. Buffy sleeps with Spike, alienates her friends. Angel isolates himself for fear he'll, again, lose his soul. Captain Reynolds tries not to be in love, because there's baggage, acts all macho instead. Adele sleeps with an active. These are all people (or vampires) attempting to connect with one another and failing and the desperation that ensues. This is what hurts so bad about Joss Whedon's work. Nobody's ever really happy, but isn't that, like, the way it is anyway? Even without Mutant Enemy manifesting it for us on the screen?

It's just, okay--"Dollhouse" is cancelled. Everybody knows. So what gives with the tendency toward all-out closure, driven by plot? The show is good enough, JOSS is good enough, so why not just character sketch for six episodes? Allow for an open ending? Why not just show us the terrifying truth about the Dollhouse and Rossum, give us some exposition on, you know, Anthony and Priya and Caroline and Madeline, and leave Epitaph One as nothing but resonance? Leave it a quiet, sad truth, not a "shape of things to come," a shape that, as now-dead Clyde reassures us in the Attic, can be prevented if only Echo can get out and stop things with her fancy new personality, if we just tack on a ticking clock for some instant, watered down tension in an already doomed situation, if the show becomes a slave to plot progression and, as a consequence, watches its character integrity perish by the wayside.

Because we're doomed. It's certain. Echo can save us, maybe, but even with Epitaph One as a fabulously rendered reference, we still don't know. That episode is so good precisely BECAUSE we don't know. We don't know what Safe Haven is, or if it exists at all. If the contents of the episode are any indication of the future for our wayfarers, then everybody is probably going to die anyway. All we have is this broken building, this beautiful shot of dilapidation and desuetude. I like it. Leave it like that. Let it rest already. "Dollhouse" is a sad, dark show. That's why it's dead now. So show us what will be lost, not the plot points we must follow if we wish to prevent that loss, because what's lost is always much more resonant and interesting when we know what it is, not simply that it's lost. And what I mean by what's lost is, again, what's 'real.'

The show is ending. I don't know why we need a wild goose chase, complete with elevator rides and identity twists to get there. I'm thirsty for character. I want to know more who. I've had it with the what. "Dollhouse" is going down, and so there's no need to wrangle more viewers or to satisfy our desire for closure on Rossum. There is, however, a need for complete vision, something "Firefly" never got, because it was decapitated with zero notice. And complete vision can't be reached through plot alone. So maybe Rossum comes down, or maybe it doesn't. Does it matter if we don't know who we're losing? Or, for that matter, what is gained? So this is why I wish season one would have just been it. Let it rest. If I'm left with nothing but Epitaph One and then all that wonderful characterization of Adele and Topher and resonance of tomorrow--then that's all I really want anyway. I'm okay with sad endings. I'm okay with the apocalypse, as long as it's done well.

What I'm saying is this: Joss, you don't need to distract us anymore. There's no need for sleight of hand, for trickery. No need for fireworks or a big bang in the end. If anything, you've earned a little stagnation. "Dollhouse" is more effective when it ends sad and quiet, just unplug the ventilator. There's enough built, enough exposed already. The surface is raw. Anything is going to hurt now. So let resonance and residual vibrations take it from here. And again, that's just me. I'm a masochist with story endings. I like my characters to hurt, and I don't like plot-driven anything (which is part of why I'm boycotting Avatar), because I don't think that it's what happens that stays with us in the end. It's the impact. It's the who. Who is being impacted, and how have their lives (or un-lives) been changed forever?