So I'm over a month late,
but what can I say other than the fish have been biting and it happens to be
the Easter season, which is unsurprising busy in my line of work. Nevertheless,
here comes part three. If you happened to have missed parts one and two they
are here:
I'm calling part three
"The Demon of Disconnect," but it seems, from this largely
character-driven script, that's about the only thing these two men have in
common. Sure they are both cops and for sure they have a bad taste in their
mouth from a murder they keep skirting the edges of (and Rust's bad taste is
literal), but these are two fundamentally different human beings.
I am tempted to scratch
that last line out because I think maybe they represent two extremes of a
solitary human male. That ties into my theory about the show in general, but I
promise to get to that later. Either way, I believe they function
metaphorically as snapshots of what tethers most dysfunctional men away from a
happy middle.
I said about the only
thing they shared was this "Demon of Disconnect," but that isn't
entirely true. They are both dominated by their testosterone -- Marty in his
pursuit of extra-marital encounters, and Rust in just a pure risk-taking,
hyper-masculinity. But neither men seem capable of confronting what really
plagues them, which is their propensity to disconnect not only from the women
in their lives, but from themselves.
Let's start with Marty
because he's easier. Marty represents sort of an "everyday man" in
the series. Marty is the sort who doesn't care to dig too deep on anything and
will keep any feelings he has buried beneath a facade of "Life is OK!"
Is your boss a real butthole? Play along. Job wearing you out? Grin and bear it.
Partner dragging you down with crazy monologues about life's futility? Ignore
him, but invite him to dinner because you feel obligated. Wife unhappy? Say
what you have to so the boat won't rock.
Whatever you do, if you
are the "Marty-Everyday-Man," just don't dig too deep. Flash a smile
and a coy answer if you want to stay sane. Learn the rules of the game and play
it as best you can -- that's manning up and finding success. If you're good at
it, you can play for years before anyone notices.
Make no mistake, Marty
isn't stupid. He's not as smart as Rust, but he is intelligent in a much
different way. Marty has learned to work the system while working his cases;
learned to work his wife while working on his affairs. That takes know-how and
not a lot of men can pull it off. The problem is, Maggie is even smarter than
he is. She knows when the clothes are in the wash, something is up. She sees
through him in all the ways that Marty is unable to see himself.
Marty's character is
disconnected at every level of his life, even from his children. He is so
smothered by the need to be perceived as "normal," that he refuses to
let those closest to him see his brokenness. (At least until the end, but more
on that later.) The women and the alcohol serve as outlets to his pain...
disconnects that ultimately rip him apart.
Marty doesn't really know
why he behaves the way he does. His inability to form genuine intimacy operates
in a blind spot. And we all have blind spots. Marty is wearing a mask and if it
weren't for a few really dumb mistakes, he probably could have worn his mask
for most of his life and no one would have been the wiser.
That's the first kind of
male psychosis: it's a walled-up man, self-imprisoned and self-defeating. This
is hardly a life at all, rather a death by a thousand cuts.
When confronted about his
distance, he insists that his wife can't possibly understand the stress of his
job. Actually, I think he's right -- there is no way she ever could, or anyone
else for that matter -- but being fully understood is not the point of
intimacy. We all want to be in relationships where our partners really
"get us." We especially desire relationships where our pain is readily
understood and fantasize that by being understood, the pain will leave.
Sometimes though, we best serve our pain
by simply let it out.
Intimacy for Marty was the
only healthy release valve, but he was never able to muster the courage to just
let go of his pain. He is disconnected and feels he has to stay that way to make
it. That's his demon.
Rust is a little further
along than Marty when it comes to unhealthy release valves for his own pain.
He's mostly a teetotaler at the beginning of the story having learned enough to
see that numbing the pain doesn't really work. When he does turn back to the
bottle, it's with a purpose. He's interviewing prostitutes in a bar. Problem
is, like every addict, Rust can't have just one. He's an extremist, selective
about what he goes to extremes over maybe, but definitely an extremist.
Like Marty, Rust mostly
avoids deep relationships also. When he does find one, it doesn't last. Not
because he's out cheating like Marty, but rather because exactly like him, Rust
cannot find intimacy in his relationship. Rust has too much self-respect to
cheat; he lives by a code of sorts and that's about the only thing keeping him
sane.
Rust has accepted the pain
of the job. He admits as much by saying he will no longer "avert his
eyes." It takes fortitude to look pain full on without blinking. Rust has
that fortitude in spades, whereas Marty does not.
Looking at the most
barbaric human acts imaginable without blinking requires disconnect. Both Marty
and Rust know this and each disconnects in his own way. Rust mostly awakens
from the slumber before Marty, but neither do so without some cost. Rust's cost
is deep, affecting him at the most personal levels.
But in the process he
develops something else -- the little priest.
To be continued.
