I really appreciate this long thoughtful response. I knew of Due South before but basically became a fan during the pandemic with the backdrop of police violence always behind me, and this episode/commentary is more timely than ever.
As I read your commentary, I realized that even though "Ladies' Man" describes best the suicided husband, I had been thinking of the title as referring to Ray. Like a sort of interrogation of the very concept of 'Ladies' Man' itself and what it actually means to be for/with women, and how much is about standing up against other men. Maybe also inverting/subverting a bit because Fraser is usually presented as the "ladies' man" in the sense of being irresistible to women, but Ray here is shown as really standing by women (very imperfectly, which is how he stood by Stella too, but still kind of more healthfully than, say, Fraser stood by Victoria).
I've only watched this episode once so far. It was very intense. The scenes in the bullpen with the police doing a celebratory count of days were pretty excruciating and worked really well.
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Date: 2020-07-29 01:34 pm (UTC)As I read your commentary, I realized that even though "Ladies' Man" describes best the suicided husband, I had been thinking of the title as referring to Ray. Like a sort of interrogation of the very concept of 'Ladies' Man' itself and what it actually means to be for/with women, and how much is about standing up against other men. Maybe also inverting/subverting a bit because Fraser is usually presented as the "ladies' man" in the sense of being irresistible to women, but Ray here is shown as really standing by women (very imperfectly, which is how he stood by Stella too, but still kind of more healthfully than, say, Fraser stood by Victoria).
I've only watched this episode once so far. It was very intense. The scenes in the bullpen with the police doing a celebratory count of days were pretty excruciating and worked really well.