This episode is interesting from a meta perspective. It obviously uses the "Was it all a lie? No, not all of it" thing where one person seduces another for an ulterior motive but ends up actually falling in love. And yes, the way it was going you knew she'd die at the end. It's an easy pull on the heartstrings. And yet, does this mean these episodes are bad just because they use a cliche?
For some, they would probably just roll their eyes and I can't blame them for that. However, it is the execution of the trope that really makes it work for me, overcoming its predictability. Shihoko showed enough personality through her dialogue and actions that she felt like a likable person. Huang also did, but the fact that it's a romance with a guy that looks like Frank from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia does a lot to bring out the detail and texture. It also means that the writing was strong enough to get you to invest in an ugly character; having a pretty face in a romance story usually does half the work in getting viewers to believe that a character is lovable.
DtB also employs the cliche of cold, heartless killers/ robotic characters actually have emotions and it seems like this episode is the capitulation of the exploration of this theme. Again, another easy tug on the heartstrings. I'm more ambivalent about this trope and whether or not it's executed well. The first level of this trope is with normal humans who've been turned into killing machines. The last level would be robot killing machines. With the first level, it's almost always stupid because of course human beings would have emotions. It's not exactly a surprise that even the most coldhearted of killers feel something. The last level, on the other hand, is also annoying for the opposite reason- robots develop emotions because they're characters in the story and the writers just have them start behaving more human. The viewer feels sad because robots are innocent and cold but now they're innocent and warm. In the middle of these levels lies the potential for a genuine attempt to explore what it means to be a psychopath. What happens when your brain literally lacks the chemicals/tissue needed for empathy? Are you less than human, then?
This idea was explored pretty well in Daredevil Season 3 with Bullseye, a character that fits all too well into DtB, so much so that I wish they went back and made an episode about him. Bullseye has the ability to throw any object with pinpoint accuracy and maximum lethality, but he's been clinically diagnosed as a psychopath from a young age. This means that he can't feel other people's emotions. He'll kill someone for a rational reason and won't understand why it's wrong. He works with a psychologist, who has to use reason to impart a moral system onto Bullseye. The show flirts with the idea of Bullseye falling in love, but the entire time it's unclear if he's actually in love or if she just fills the role of his dead psychologist by providing moral guidance. Bullseye starts off with earnest intentions to try to do good by finding a moral "North Star" but it's shown that it's just as easy for him to descend into villainy without a second thought when the moral system no longer makes sense to him or if he doesn't have that North Star.
DtB has a very similar character with the boy with two different eye colors, who's shown having to memorize things to say in a social setting. Otherwise, its approach to contractors, who are basically psychopaths, is to just have them develop emotions by being with people that make them care. This might be simplifying the problem too much, but since I like the show's presentation, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.
Perhaps a more interesting idea here is that having emotions does not necessarily lead to being a good person. Most people are fully capable to being empathetic in theory because the chemicals for emotions are all there. And yet their behavior isn't all that different from that of contractors. It is those who behave the most like contractors by adopting rational emotionless thinking that get ahead in life. If DtB is focusing on this idea, then it's actually making a great point and adds a meaningful message on top of a well executed crime drama. (That's right, it's not really an action show with some emotion, it's a drama with some action). One way it could focus on this idea is by having strong human antagonists in person, rather than a shadowy organization that the viewer conceptualizes as some nebulous group rather than an individual. |