In honor of Pride I'm spending this month looking at writing techniques in queer stories. This week I'm focusing on two great queer shows, GENTLEMAN JACK and EUPHORIA.
As much as I binge watched the early seasons of HOUSE OF CARDS, in the end I always had the same problem with it: there was never anyone truly on the level of Francis and Claire. Different characters would be set up to be their equals and legitimate threats, but in the end they'd always prove one or another kind of dupe.
In some ways the show tried to use that issue to its advantage by making the two of them each other's antagonists. But eventually their desires would usually intersect, leaving them once again allies.
GENTLEMAN JACK begins with a similar problem. There's no one quite at the level of Anne Lister. As antagonists go Christopher Rawson comes closest, but he has little direct interaction with her during the season; almost everything works through Christopher's much softer and more human brother Jeremiah.
Her personal life is similar. Her great love Ann is terribly fragile much of the time, as well as seemingly naive. And her family, while they know her well, mostly accept being bowled over by her.
Unlike HOUSE OF CARDS, which had many seasons and kept returning to that same "Francis is Smarter than Everyone" well, JACK has only had on season and Anne has had to confront plenty of problems. In a sense her great antagonist will always be society itself, which is so much harder to fight or even just pin down in any meaningful way.
But in the finale we see her at the court of Queen Marie of Denamrk. And the Queen proves to be if anything smarter than Anne, and absolutely disarming. Similarly, on the road to Copenhagen she has an encounter with a younger woman who sees right through her. Both encounters open up aspects of Anne's character that we haven't seen. She's both more playful and more humble in their presence.
The first series ends with Anne and Ann getting married. And with it, Ann also stops being the swooning girl we've known for eight episodes. She asks for what she wants. She prods Anne and tweaks her for the way she is. And once again, the show feels better and more interesting for it.
It's true for a lot of shows that their greatest strength is also their greatest potential weakness. Think the mythology of LOST or X-FILES; or again, the magnetic characterization of someone like Francis Underwood.
And a lesser writer than Sally Wainwright might have thought giving Anne equals as allies or antagonists might diminish her. But in fact the opposite is true. The harder she has to fight, the more clearly she's seen and called on her moves, the bigger and more interesting the show (and she, too) become.
TOMORROW: EUPHORIA RETCON BROADENS THE PICTURE
