Oh, sigh. I need more Nikita (more Maggie Q) in my life. Really.
Also, one of these days I’ll write my epic post about why part of my dislike of Michael is that he was so unutterably, unforgivably, willfully dense about why Division was evil and so was Percy. I mean, really? It took — (WOAH SPOILERY THING)
—- You realizing that Division was responsible for your family getting blown to fucking bits for you to finally decide you needed to switch sides?
Yep, that’s right. I’m gonna analyze a show about spies re: it’s various isms. I reserve that right.
Even though Nikita’s been screaming, “HEY, LUGHEAD, DIVISION IS SUPER EVIL YOU SHOULD LOOK INTO THAT AND ALSO INTO WHY PERCY IS A SON OF A BITCH” at you for for-frickin’-ever, it takes that to get you to see the truth?
And that the moment that Nikita calls him on it in “Dead Drop” is this wonderful moment and it says so much and I’m kind of wondering how network TV let that kind of a declaration of “the U.S. government is a racist, sexist, hateful, oppressive ball of shit” go on the air. Maybe because all the really searing things about “yeah, of course you trusted the government, you’re a white U.S. dude - they don’t do abusive shit to you from the day you’re born or come up into YOUR neighborhood with tanks and scud missiles” were unsaid. I don’t know.
I mean, even Pretty Pretty Princess Udinov gets it. Somewhat. Not entirely, but she’s lightyears ahead of Michael.
Birkhoff, honestly, is more tolerable to me in that way because he never pretended that he was in it because he believed or he had righteous revenge to get to or anything. He’s like, “Look, they forced me. Because I steal from people who can afford it because I like money and bling and I have unreasonably mad hacking skills.” No, it’s not free of problems. Yes, there are issues. Yes, Birkhoff has a lot of privilege and we can talk about what those issues are. But he doesn’t pretend it’s righteous or justified by a moral code.
It’s like, “Oh, you admit you’re a selfish grubby s.o.b. Okay, fair enough. Won’t argue with you there.”
Plus, I have a thing for geeks and I like Birkhoff and he’s slowly becoming more heroic and he calls her Nikki and she calls him “nerd” and the whole kissing thing? OH GOD I SUDDENLY SHIP THEM.
Also, this epic post would include why I don’t feel all that bad about his family getting blowed up. I mean, okay. I hate that two female characters (his wife and daughter) were murdered for the manpain factor. But there’s part of me going, “Yeah, they were there as part of a U.S. military operation that’s done a lot of killing, raping, and general evil in all these other countries that we’ve justified this and he was an ACTIVE COG IN THAT EVIL MACHINE” and maybe we could show the side of it where the U.S. military was causing lots of people’s families to get blown up all over the place, and not just one or two, BUT LOTS ALL AT ONCE.
Yes, your family got wiped out. You helped wipe a lot of other people’s families out. So if I’m going to invest in someone’s pain, it’s gonna be theirs.
I just can’t be that sympathetic to someone like Michael, who is really the epitome of what made Division and Oversight and the U.S. Government (now there’s a goddamn rogue, criminal organization if ever there was one) even really possible. I can’t. Not especially when lately, the news is filled with supremacist white ex-military (or heavily steeped in military culture and military weapons) types who go around gunning down innocent people.
Which is why I’d make that epic post about how, honestly, I ship Nikita/Owen or Nikita/Alex a lot more than Nikita/Michael and wish that N/M wasn’t written in TV stone. Because again, Owen doesn’t wrap his shit in the flag. He’s part of Division’s evil and he did a lot of evil and even did it directly to Nikita and he admits. He also got his head messed with by drugs they gave him and there’s a part of me that loves that he and Nikita and Alex get it in a way Michael just can’t.
They get what it’s like when people in power, whether it’s a spy organization or just rich dudes who think bodies are for sale reach down into you and mess you up and do everything they can to own you, suffocate you, control you, use you, and then see that you’re thrown away quietly, never to be remembered.
One day I’ll make that epic post. One day…
-
theraptorwhomurderedlove likes this
-
madamethursday posted this