101: New Girl in Town
- Writers:
- Howard Gordon (story) & Tim Minear (story, screenplay).
- Director:
- Tim Minear.
Rebecca Locke (Rachel Nichols): New girl in town.
Special Agent Alvarez is found murdered, apparently the work of a serial killer she and the rest of the violent crimes unit (VCU) had been hunting. Her replacement is Rebecca Locke (Rachel Nichols), fresh from a stint as an analyst in Washington, DC. Locke was abducted when she was 10 years old and escaped after several months of captivity. It’s later revealed that the head of the VCU, Virgil “Web” Webster, was instrumental in getting her accepted to the FBI, because he thinks her childhood experience will be useful in catching serial offenders.
The key dynamic in this episode, and in many of the following, is the one between Rebecca, Web, and Paul. The very final exchange of the episode, between Web and Paul, I think encapsulates how they interact with Rebecca. Web has just used Rebecca as bait to catch a serial killer by letting her believe she’d been fired, making her vulnerable and thus better fitting the victim profile. After the unsub is caught, Web says to Paul, “Look after her, will you.” And Paul answers, “Count on it.” This is symptomatic of the different ways in which they objectify her. Web, as we learn throughout the series, in a sense objectifies everyone, man or woman; to him, his subordinates are tools and the mission always takes precedence over their individual feelings. But that final exchange also shows that he shares, or at least is willing to exploit, Paul’s view of Locke: she is someone who needs his protection. This dynamic is explored throughout the series, and in many ways, their attitudes toward Rebecca are paralleled with those of unsubs toward their female victims; like the unsubs, they see Rebecca as something less than they are — weak, in need of protection or, in the case of the unsubs, undeserving of life.
Unlike most pilots, New Girl in Town doesn’t try to introduce every main character, instead focusing mostly on Rebecca, Web, and Paul. Which is a strength and a weakness: it does give the writers time to develop that trio, but it also means that Melody (Katie Finneran) and Danny (Adam Baldwin) are undeveloped. In especially Melody’s case, that’s a bit regrettable. Because she, as we learn in later episodes, is an empowered, independent woman and treated as such, it could have been a nice contrast to the way Rebecca’s portrayed and treated.
102: Old Wounds
- Writer:
- Mark Fish.
- Director:
- Nick Gomez.
Several women are found raped and murdered. The only connection between them is that they frequented an S&M club and dated the same top. A top who turns out to have been the prime suspect in a series of rapes years earlier.
This episode is interesting in that it both subverts and confirms Paul’s prejudices; Paul is disgusted by the BDSM scene, and by the victims’ desire to be dominated, and, as in Everything Nice, his judgement is compromised by letting his feelings get in the way. Rebecca, meanwhile, is also compromised by emotion, but in a different way: the episode seems to suggest that because of her childhood trauma, she too seeks to be subjugated. And more troublingly, the episode seems also to suggest that masochism in general is a result of childhood abuse. This is endemic of the contemporary police procedural, where deviating from societal standards tends to lead to becoming either a victim or a perpetrator of violent crime. This of course has practical reasons: in a 44 minute episode, there isn’t much time for anything other than heroes, victims, and criminals, meaning that characters are invariably put in one of those three categories. Because the tendency is to code heroes as purei, that only leaves “victim” or “perpetrator” for everyone else.
104: Everything Nice
- Writer:
- Jane Espenson.
- Director:
- Allan Kroeker.
The dynamic between Paul and Rebecca is further explored in this episode, where an eight-year-old boy is found murdered in the family pool. The script, by Mutant Enemy alum Jane Espenson, problematises Paul quite nicely. In the opening scene, Paul is looking at an ultrasound picture of the child his wife is expecting, and tells his colleagues that he’s overwhelmed with a desire to protect his unborn son. It’s a bit too obviously doneii but it sets up Paul’s attitude throughout the episode: he sees children as innocent and in need of protection. Rebecca, on the other hand, who lost her innocence at an early age, sees children as “Adults, only smaller”, and is more than willing to accept the possibility of a child being born evil(show spoiler). This nicely inverts the stereotypical attitudes of men and women toward children, coding Paul as emotional and nurturing and Rebecca as cold and analytical.
There’s an unflinching pessimism to the episode that I find very refreshing; the writing leaves no place for redemption or forgiveness for the evil child, and gives Paul no comfort when his illusions are shattered. It reminds me quite a bit of the “Sweets for the Sweet” segment of Amicus’s classic portmanteau film The House That Dripped Blood (1970)(show spoiler).
Overall
The Inside is well-produced if visually conventional, using the high-contrast, low-saturation style that is so predominant in contemporary police procedurals. You can tell from any one shot what kind of show you’re watching, which gives it a visual predictability that it, in a rather clever way, tries to work against thematically by subverting some of the tropes of the genre. It sometimes falls short of real insight and relies a bit too much on having Rebecca’s inexperience and over-confidence drive the plots, but it’s also often more interesting than most other shows in the genre. Not to mention featuring two of my favourite actors, Katie Finneran and Adam Baldwin.
- You’ll notice that despite constantly reminding us that she’s had her innocence stolen, the series still codes Rebecca as innocent: she’s a rookie, often lead by a combination of her inexperience and her empathy into dangerous situations, and Rachel Nichols tends to play her as often close to tears, soliciting our sympathy. ↩
- It would have been better to put that scene in an earlier episode; the connection would still work, but it wouldn’t be so blatant, and it would reward viewer loyalty (without demanding it). ↩
