Dan is actually the worst.
Of course, that is a big a part of what’s driving the narrative on this reinterpretation of the filming, hitting dwelling that reality, lest we have been so distracted by how disturbed Alex was that we overpassed that.
And Fatal Attraction Season 1 Episode 6 confirmed simply how Dan was primarily his personal worst enemy in touchdown himself in jail for homicide.
It’s fascinating that as we stray farther away from Fatal Attraction Season 1 Episode 1, we be taught that the seemingly charismatic “Nice Guy” everybody liked wasn’t that in any respect.
I do not know if it was a deliberate option to current Dan that approach just for issues to shift or not, however I want I may know for sure that it was.
Otherwise, we’ve this heel flip of the “Golden Boy” that has nothing to do with Dan altering up and all the pieces to do with different folks’s reactions to him.
It’s plausible that Dan has at all times been persistently himself, however it’s kind of jarring that he went from presumably being the popular lawyer within the courthouse to this man that individuals actively loathed.
Ok, so this is what is going on to occur. I’m going to seek out her physique, and I’m going to place you beneath the jail, okay? You acquired nothing to say now? That’s not such as you; you at all times acquired one thing to say.
Earl
In that presentation, they once more fall into this sample of attempting to play either side by portray Dan and Alex as equal elements villains and victims.
Because what we primarily get from that is that individuals tolerated Dan and faked the funk however subconsciously or quietly loathed him, and the primary alternative they acquired to write down him off utterly, they pounced and tore into him.
The second there was a whiff of hassle, no matter animosity that individuals had harbored towards him got here out tenfold to the purpose the place they might sit idly by and watch him go down for homicide and will boast about folks seeing him for the asshole that he’s.
The proven fact that our whole framework of individuals’s notion of Dan is rooted in characters from all sides of the justice system makes the conflicting story and outcomes infinitely worse.
Justice is meant to be blind. It was not in any capability with this homicide case, and that is disturbing, even when the person who went to jail for years is an asshole. It doesn’t suggest that he was a responsible asshole.
Somehow, the collection relentlessly sells us on the politically appropriate and conscientious idea that Alex is a sufferer in all senses of the phrase whereas concurrently making Dan a martyr.
In some ways, I want they’d stick with a selected narrative and execute it correctly. Because because it stands, their makes an attempt to ask social commentary by offering all sides of a difficulty really feel like fickle flip-flopping to appease with out taking anybody stance.
In eager to say all of the issues, they’re saying nothing.
But the hour confirmed us precisely how Dan may’ve gone away for Alex’s homicide and why folks do not give a rattling about him attempting to clear his title now.
Every step of the best way, from the second he discovered of Alex’s accusation in opposition to him, he labored counterproductive to his greatest curiosity in his try to work in his personal curiosity.
In the tip, his vanity and utter disregard for everybody round him cinched the deal in placing him in jail. I suppose we would have liked one thing to clarify how he went away for Alex’s homicide with out a physique or a homicide weapon.
For a lawyer with an intensive historical past within the authorized system, Dan was dumb throughout. Arrogance bore ignorance.
Dan: Where’s the physique?
Earl: I hoped that you’d inform me.
To borrow from Chicago PD’s Hank Voight, “Tell me the truth so I can lie for you.” Dan was the worst enemy in his personal protection as a result of he could not be truthful.
Maybe Earl would not have pressed on with this case in opposition to Dan if Dan hadn’t blatantly lied to Earl’s face, insulting his intelligence and spitting on the chance Earl gave him to get forward of issues and save face.
And for a lawyer, Dan is a horrible liar.
He then went on to hunt his boss’ assist, anticipating her to throw warning to the wind, her repute, her job, all of it, to rally round and combat for him, and he did not even have the decency of telling her the reality about something.
Worse but, he actively tried to gaslight, guilt, and bullshit her and acquired offended that she did not purchase into it.
He’s so egocentric and self-involved that he anticipated all of those favors, the good thing about the doubt, and to depend on relationships he fostered that have been inauthentic and fully self-serving as a result of he could not be trustworthy or come clean with his actions.
And because the hour unfolded, we proceeded to see how everybody’s lives needed to get disrupted, and folks have been subjected to the very worst of Dan and his methods all as a result of he could not hold his penis in his pants.
It was sickening that he sat there and allowed his spouse to argue his case for why his nonetheless grieving father-in-law ought to float Dan cash that was particularly for Beth and Ellen to make use of for his protection.
It was worse when he quietly accepted, with out a trace of guilt to be discovered, Arthur and his cancer-stricken, terminal spouse’s cash.
Dan thought he was the neatest particular person within the room always and was persistently confirmed to be removed from it, and his vanity and selfishness turned folks off and helped drive them towards punishing him.
No one actually cared if he was responsible or harmless. They simply knew that he was an asshole who wanted to be knocked down a peg, and so they in all probability harbored a myriad of emotions due to how he handled them.
So a lot of this mess may’ve been averted if Dan had been trustworthy and accountable for his affair with Alex. Instead, in his efforts to maintain that beneath wraps, he put a much bigger goal on himself, making himself the first suspect.
People could not know the extent of his deception. If he lied about one thing as apparent as his affair, he simply may’ve lied about no matter occurred to Alex or whether or not or not he did one thing to her.
Treating his colleagues and friends as in the event that they have been silly and attempting to govern them would by no means go over properly.
By the time Earl confirmed up at his place to arrest him, it was simple to know why how we acquired to that time.
And but, regardless of all of that, it is infuriating if one is being as unbiased as humanly potential, which is the purpose when investigating and convicting, the issues performed out as they did.
In the current, Mike and Dan have discovered heaps of proof and data that ought to’ve, on the very least, raised affordable doubt and stored Dan from going to jail.
They by no means discovered Alex’s physique. The account of Dan assaulting her got here so abruptly and took off like wildfire with out anybody trying into that additional.
It was 2008; CSI: Crime Scene Investigation had been on for at the very least eight years by then, thus shifting everybody’s notion of investigation and making it infinitely more durable to strive instances when even a layman anticipated a plethora of proof.
With what we all know at this stage, it is senseless that nobody seemed into all the opposite potential suspects, contemplating all the opposite prints in her dwelling, seemed into witnesses and individuals of curiosity, delved into her background a bit extra, or unearthed earlier incidents.
We get bits about the way it was an election yr, and so they needed to show that they may very well be powerful on crime even when it meant going after their very own. They’re harping on how they would not put the useless sufferer on the stand.
They’ve made all these little feedback and implied all this stuff to clarify why this case did not work in Dan’s favor, and it is simply so unbelievable.
In this effort to course appropriate, it feels surreal that everybody is tiptoeing previous the truth that Alex’s psychological sickness was actively dangerous and damaging to these exterior of herself.
The resolution to the stigmatization of psychological sickness is not to veer so far-off from doing that it turns into equally and dangerously problematic, too.
Emma: Joanna’s in her third trimester with a toddler. So when she requires reinforcements, Mom has to reply. But I’m actually sorry about that should you wanted me.
Alex: I do not care what you might be. I do not care about you in any respect.
What doesn’t ring true within the least is that each single soul concerned on this investigation and Dan or Alex’s lives have been conscientious of the stigmatization of psychological sickness and actively labored in opposition to it with out a lot as presenting a sliver of unconscious bias about it.
If it would not ring true even when 2023, it actually would not in 2008. From Dan’s boss and his good friend who needed to enlist as his protection lawyer to Clay, Earl, and others in authorized assist, nobody needed to vilify the sufferer.
However, it was like Alex being mentally sick was the naughty phrase they could not say or acknowledge. They’ve taken the “I don’t see color” method to her psychological well being, as if even acknowledging it in any respect was offensive.
Clay was an attention-grabbing character. You may see he was real, sympathetic, and intuitive.
Given his personal experiences with a mom who was mentally sick, he picked up shortly that Alex had some points, however he by no means let that detract him from courting and caring for her.
I liked what he needed to say about pushing too laborious for her to get assist and help when she was evidently nonetheless not acceptant that she had an issue and wanted it.
It was very self-aware and delicate, and it was a type of moments the place they succeeded in hanging the fitting nuance with the psychological well being challenge.
We have not seen the total extent of Dan vilifying Alex for being mentally sick as his main protection. Surely, it was ugly and even worse coming from somebody who touted himself because the sufferer’s voice.
Clay studying Dan for filth had its entertaining facets. And it stays weird that Mike and Dan even suppose they’re going to get wherever with half the folks they converse to when Dan is standing of their face, a convicted killer, talking callously in regards to the homicide sufferer.
It speaks to Dan’s entitlement and the way he nonetheless hasn’t discovered in some ways.
Nevertheless, it nonetheless stays irritating that everybody is so keen to sacrifice justice as a result of, as Clay put it, they hate Dan greater than Alex.
Clay knew firsthand that Alex had some points that seemingly may’ve brought about larger issues and even resulted in her touchdown in authorized hassle or worse, and but it felt like he was so staunch in his ethical argument and excessive floor that nothing else mattered.
Clay: Alex, it might damage me rather a lot, however that will help you, Alex, I might hand over no matter we’re to one another for you to not be in ache.
Alex: We’re nothing.
Clay: Ok, then, no matter we may very well be.
Alex: Nothing. We’re nothing!
He introduced up issues about Alex needing assist, however in all of this advocation for Alex “posthumously,” there was no assist when she was nonetheless round.
It makes it really feel like everybody can pat themselves on the again for not vilifying her for being mentally sick after the very fact when none of them have been round to do any of this earlier than she died.
We noticed how alienated and remoted she was or how the folks round her ran off or fell again. It’s a number of nice discuss with no actual motion, and it feels hole.
What makes issues worse is that they allude to the truth that Alex might not even be useless and pulled off some sick, perverted motion of sending Dan to jail for her homicide.
What are we speculated to make of that?
Mental sickness would not warrant a demise sentence, that’s actually the reality. But hating somebody would not excuse a miscarriage of justice both.
Additional Notes:
- Mike is the one best character on this whole collection, and I really like each rattling second of his display time.
- Dan is at his most likable when he and Mike are simply bros collectively, getting excessive, investigating, and bickering. I may watch a complete facet collection of them as non-public investigators and all of the antics that include that.
- Ellen may be very a lot underused. It appeared like we might get extra in-depth with how Dan’s imprisonment impacted her life, however she’s largely grow to be filler.
- Her fixation on her advisor and good friend’s affair feels too on the nostril with all of her different Jung fixations and parallels to her father’s case and previous.
- Alex’s remedy of Emma was so brutal and upsetting as a result of the poor lady prioritized her daughter over Alex. Did not one of the cops converse to Emma extensively since she knew Alex was alive when Dan left?
Over to you, Fatal Attraction Fanatics.
What are your thoghts on the road they’re attempting to toe between Dan and Alex as victims? What was your impression of Clay? Was the investigation into Alex’s homicide dealt with poorly? Hit the feedback beneath!
Fatal Attraction streams Sundays on Paramount+
Jasmine Blu is a senior workers author for TV Fanatic. She is an insomniac who spends late nights and early mornings binge-watching approach too many exhibits and binge-drinking approach an excessive amount of tea. Her eclectic style makes her an unpredictable viewer with an appreciation for complicated characters, numerous illustration, dynamic duos, compelling tales, and responsible pleasures. You’ll positively discover her obsessively live-tweeting, waxing poetic, and chatting up fellow Fanatics and readers. Follow her on Twitter.
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