melancholia

See, the thing is, that as much as Beecher/Keller pwns at everything and is my OTP, Beecher/O'Reily was my first love in Oz. And it's like every. single. time I watch season 1, I am smacked in the head all over again by how there is no practical purpose to O'Reily deciding Schillinger's prag is his new BFF. I realize O'Reily must have been bored at some points, and he's probably used to having someone around all the time, like Cyril, but dude, Schillinger's prag? Surely there are more appropriate people to cut from the herd and target as your new bosom buddy. That can't be good for your rep. I. Just. There's no good reason. Other than O'Reily being something of a bottomless pit of need. Not as bottomless as either Beecher or Keller, maybe...okay, that's not true. He may, in fact, be just as bad.

And this is the thing--I sometimes wonder how well Keller ever really knew Beecher. Keller's area of expertise, I think, was Schillinger, and I think Keller did underestimate Beecher. And Beecher kept underestimating Schillinger...or maybe was too crazy for revenge against to think about rationally. But I think that Keller was just so, so far out of his depth when it came to Beecher, and...I was going to say he didn't even realize it, but I think he did, at least at some points. And it's the points when he realized it that he became dangerous.

So basically, what I'm saying is that I think Keller underestimated Beecher, and Beecher, in some respects overestimated Keller. I think they got caught in the weaker/stronger mentality, and both liked that about the other. They never really got to know each other. And, to be perfectly honest, I don't think they wanted too. The comfort that they took from each other was enough...except when a third party was involved, that's when it all went to shit. They didn't know enough to trust.

But really, Schillinger is the backbone of Beecher/Keller. Without him, I don't think there would've been a Beecher/Keller (which I'm sure he'd just love to hear, heh).

Anyway, the reason for this ramble is that I...typed a little something up. Because I was bored. And I guess I'm just trying to justify my saying that Beecher/Keller would possibly never have happened without O'Reily. Um...

Tobias Beecher wants things that are bad for him. Always has, maybe always will.

Booze. Smack. The love of a bad man.

He knows Ryan O'Reily, knows him better than most people, better than Ryan probably realizes, better than Ryan will ever admit. He can see Chris in Ryan, can hear him. If he closes his eyes, he can almost sense him. I did what I did out of love, Chris says, just like it was yesterday, ghosting ephemeral fingers over the back of Beecher's neck, and Beecher remembers the way Ryan watched Dr. Nathan. He can see Chris in Ryan, how alike they are, and it's one of the things that scares him, one of the things that makes him wonder what drew him to Chris in the first place.

Whatever else there was between them, Beecher knows Chris loved him. And he loved Chris. He knows it, he knows it, something primal, no way to stand against it, no way to avoid that pulse in blood and bone and heartbeat, no way to avoid being swept up in it, at least a little bit. That was the difference from what he had with Genevieve--with her it was something slow, something elemental, a bedrock, something they both grew into, day by day, something wholly different from the feeling of being swept off his feet, the feeling he always gets from booze, from smack, from the love of a bad man.

The feeling he gets from Ryan.

Yeah, I don't know either. And yeah, I romanticized it a little, so sue me. (And how I have this urge to rewatch the laundry scene--not the Beecher/Keller kiss, much as I adore it--where Keller and O'Reily are folding shirts or whatever and Beecher turns to them and Keller is like, "What?" because dude, Beecher has not been very nice to him, and O'Reily is just watching Beecher, and oh, I get Toby on one side facing my two favorite sociopaths and now I want to write like a huge OT3 fic. Damn you, Fontana!)

Another thing hit me over the head the other day as I was rewatching season 6 (yes, I am a masochist): ...what the hell? The main Troika consists of one homosexual relationship that is ultimately destructive, one homosexual relationship that is symbolic of despair, and one heterosexual relationship that leads its participants to greater understanding, love and redemption. The heterosexual relationship, might I reiterate, is shown as an ultimately good influence despite the fact that you have to fuck over good characterization and decent plot development to do so.

The hell?

Do I think Fontana did this on purpose or is trying to make some sort of statement? I...don't think so. What I think I believe is that he made the same damn dumb mistake that Joss made when he suddenly, midstream, switched the magic=lesbianism metaphor to magic=(evil)addiction metaphor, without seeming to think through the fact that if A=B and A=C, it's quite possible that the idea that B=C could subtley influence the way people see his message, even if he didn't intend to be homophobic.

Ugh, I dunno. This just popped into my head and I felt like I needed to write it down to thrash it out.

 (<--- I ship O'Reily/Adebisi. Guilty. They are such flirting teenagers, I swear to God. And Adebisi kissed him in 1.08! He did. When O'Reily turned Alvarez down. I miss Adebisi. Which, again, wtf self?)