A bit like rereading our favorite novels, the desire came to me, perhaps to withdraw a little in the face of the hurricane of new TV shows that is looming on the horizon, to return to some that had excited me at the beginning of the 2000s. To revisit classics with formidable story mechanics to see if they would have the same effect on me and to check if, with the awareness and the path we have traveled since then, they would stand the test of time. Favorite series that are not quite vintagebut still a bit dated, like the post-grunge fashion of the 2000s.
Do you remember Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, in the breathtaking 24 ? Deployed over the 24 hours of a single day, the 24 episodes, machine-gunned without a break, kept us on the edge of our sofa, pumped with adrenaline, as if paralyzed, slaves to what was to come. It was with this feeling of urgency that I wanted to reconnect.
In this era where we are overwhelmed by the abundance of new series consumed in bursts, have we become more difficult to impress and satisfy?
I remember that weekend spent totally immersed in season 1 of 24. I had rushed to the video store five minutes before closing time to stock up, hoping that no one had borrowed the episodes I was in. Remember the joy and relief that took hold of us when we discovered the box in its place on the shelves.
At first, I had a hard time enduring the violence inherent in this series. Twenty years later, I have forgotten many of the little knots and details of the story, but I still clearly remembered that scene where, held at gunpoint by kidnappers on an abandoned ranch, Teri and Kim, Jack’s wife and daughter, had to kneel in front of the hole dug for their own tomb, a rifle to the back of their necks. The violence of that image gave me nightmares, but, while finding this burden painful to absorb, I had only one desire: to watch the next episode. I had even considered watching all 24 episodes in 24 hours, but at some point, you have to live.
Several years before Barack Obama, there were in the first seasons of 24 this black man, David Palmer, who aspired to become president of the United States. I also remember my perplexity at the little games of torture that Jack sometimes indulged in when a greater stake was worth the candle. Basically, Jack Bauer reminds me of another vigilante I like: Harry Bosch, the investigator of the novelist Michael Connelly. Bosch and Bauer have in common this unwavering sense of duty, which sometimes leads them to do evil to do good, or at least, to bring about what seems right in their eyes (and ours). Alongside them, we discover that Justice ultimately has little to do with the justice system, respect for rules, hierarchy and institutions. Screenwriters and crime writers can keep me captive to their stories and make me walk for a long time by exploiting this vein.
While I was visiting my favorite spies, I also went back to Homeland to find the brilliant CIA agent, Carrie Mathison, and her little charcoal suits. Intense, inhabited, even possessed by her investigations, she also reminds me of Bosch. Carrie and Harry have in common that they invest themselves totally in the investigation in progress. With them, there always comes this tipping point where it is no longer the investigator or the spy who works on a case, but the case that works them. Great pleasure to reconnect with one of my favorite fictional characters: the good bearded Saul Berenson, Carrie’s mentor. And to see again the naval officer Nicholas Brody, a seductive deceiver broken inside after eight years of detention as a hostage.
The magic still works when listening to these series, perhaps a little less vividly, given that we know the story and the key twists, but we let ourselves be won over by a similar frenzy. I noticed that the female characters were less well drawn, more Manichean and one-dimensional than what we have been accustomed to since. The wife of the aspiring president of the United States in 24, Sherry Palmer, is an opportunistic viper. And Carrie can’t be that supremely intelligent without being crazy, of course. It’s with a pang in the heart that we see her collapse at the end of season 1 due to bipolar disorder and even receive electroshocks. In the last episode, she gets fired from the CIA.
It is in this context that a scene of gaslightinga word and a concept that was still unknown ten years ago. Cognitive hijacking is a form of manipulation and mental abuse that consists of making the victim doubt their perception of reality, their memory and their mental health. The term comes from the film Gaslight (1944), in which a man manipulates his wife into stealing her jewelry by making her believe she is going off the rails. Has Nicholas Brody, as Carrie claims, become radicalized? Has he changed sides? Is he a threat to the nation? Carrie is convinced that she is making things up, so much so that she begins to doubt herself and her perceptions. But when Saul discovers that she had seen through everything, he will be the first to admit that they were in the shot and to inform Carrie.
I often reread old Connelly thrillers—they abound in Croque-livres. His female characters also suffered from being less fleshed out. But the American author, faced with an aging Bosch, introduced the surly and badass by Renée Ballard, a young investigator. The day she meets Bosch is a moment engraved in the hearts of all Connelly fans. Two loners with unusual methods, big sensitives who advance on the margins.
When we go back in time, we realize that, even if everything is not perfect, there has still been progress in the portrait that the writers paint of female characters on screen – that’s at least something.