Last week and this week I'm featuring TV episodes that have been nominated for 2021 WGA awards.
But how do you "get them back"? How do you earn their redemption?
You Make. Them. Pay.
It seems obvious, but it's so hard. More often than not the redemption doesn't come at a high enough cost, which probably means the writing staff loves the character just a bit too much, and so they're cutting corner and hoping the audience doesn't notice. But whether viewers can put it into words or not, they always do.
Sometimes a show will also choose the wrong cost--they cut off the guy's arm, when given what he did they should have done something that cut out his heart. Or the journey from bad to good happens too fast: FRINGE took three seasons to redeem the child-abducting, double-universe-destroying Walter Bishop, and he was actually trying to his Not-Son Peter's life.
Or we get suffering without resolution--which really means without Choice. We need that scene at the end where the character chooses to face the ones they've hurt, or makes a new, harder-for-them choice on how to move and exist in their world.
The journey home doesn't end when you land in Chicago, it ends when you choose to walk through your front door and face what you left behind.
The second season of OZARK ends with Wendy (the terrifying Laura Linney) effectively seizing control of the family business. Marty (the equally fantastic Jason Bateman) wanted out; Wendy went around him, worked a deal with the cartel, and now they're in deeper than ever.
As we open the third season we see that decision blossoming into Wendy entering into a relationship with cartel head Omar Navarro himself, while Marty looks on in horror. And it seems like the season is going to be a battle royale of Marty vs. Wendy, with someone not going home.
By the time we get to the penultimate episode "Fire Pink", written by Miki Johnson, that initial opposition has been complicated by other twists, most especially Wendy's brother Ben, whose serious mental health issues have ended up jeopardizing everything, starting with himself.
Wendy spends the episode desperately trying to find a way to save Ben's life. It's a great episode to watch for its brutally step by step journey into truth, every moment of denial and possibility from Wendy countered by another terrible decision by Ben, until there is no good choice left to her.
Is There Any Sad as Sad as Sad While Holding a Milkshake?
Even before "Fire Pink", Wendy has already faced consequences for getting into bed with Navarro: Her husband is kidnapped and tortured. Her family and the business are put in great danger.
But none of those events strike close enough to home to redeem her. To pay her debt she has to bear some terrible cost on herself. Johnson makes the moment all the more painfully perfect via a parallel: as Wendy got in with the cartel in Ep. 210 by making the decision on her own to have Ruth's dad killed, so must she now decide on her own to have her brother killed. Only with that blood on her hands can she return to grace.
NEXT WEEK: We Dive Deep into the Tricks and Techniques of WANDAVISION. (And Probably I Mention FRINGE, Because I Cannot Stop Watching or Talking About It.)
