two tales on love

I’ve been watching two shows on tales of love: Endeavor and Alice & Jack. 

Alice & Jack is explicitly about love, about its persistence, its ability to hope when there’s no reason to hope, about its ability to catch you off-guard and yet it’s what you’ve been looking for all along. 

And then there’s Endeavor. Which is not about love. But love is this background thing, it’s the faded light and the mist in the eyes. Love is the silence that says everything. Endeavor is about a detective and his morose tendencies, and what makes it so heartbreaking to watch is that you already know the ending. Endeavor is the prequel to the popular Inspector Morse, in which Morse is a loner and a drinker, sharp but not when it comes to people. 

There’s something about that sort of ending, when you watch the little moments of gentleness and admiration turn into love, knowing the love won’t last (at least not in the way you thought), it makes it a very poignant show to watch. 

Related Post: the stories we tell about love

In most narratives on love, there’s one that takes supremacy—the lasts forever kind. But these shows trace different narratives on love. Yes, Jack readily admits that Alice is the love of his life. But Alice shows up in his life every few years, not this consistent, death-do-us-part love. It’s a love he can’t quite shake. A love that’s indelible but not at all domestic. In fact, his friends tell him over and over and over again how this love is dysfunctional and disruptive. Not at all the traditional story we love to tell. 

Endeavor often reminds me of The Crown (I never put it to words before). I adore the framing! Seriously, cinematographers need to get more credit. There’s some incredible framing with mirrors that’s a theme throughout the show, and it’s clever. And if I can stomach it, I might just watch the whole thing again to look for that theme. 

Endeavor’s love for Joan is soft. It catches him by surprise. He’s not at all the traditional male love interest–he’s morose, quick to step on toes, heavy on justice but looser on morals. He’s not traditionally masculine, but there’s this brilliance to him. There’s definitely going to be a will-they-won’t-they vibe to these two for a while longer. Joan will end up being the one who got away. 

These narratives are not the ones that come top of mind when you’re sitting at dinner with friends. These narratives are not the ones for Valentine’s Day, when you want to shout your love out on Instagram, to show the world. 

Loves like these are for late nights, when the world is too quiet and your mind is too loud. Love that lingers, love that haunts. The kind of love that is always in the bottom of your stomach or the back of your mind just waiting to make its appearance.

Related Post: Modern Love, V-Day & waiting for my turn

Today is a day in which love is celebrated, but what do you do about the love that comes into your dreams unbidden? Even when you thought the feelings were gone, the memories persist in the unconscious, rising and falling so that even this love, this love that did not enter your life and makes it home here, this love is the kind of love your mind will drift to on your deathbed?

There are paths we don’t take. Maybe the option was never presented to us, maybe the timing was wrong, maybe the fear was stronger than any of the buds of warmth that filled our bodies. These two tales of love: Endeavor and Alice & Jack–they permeate, for better or worse. You walk away but you can’t help but glance back. It’s late at night and what if washes you like cold water.

I’m not sure I know what to do with the things that aren’t quite happy endings. But even a love that doesn’t work out is worth a moment to ponder.

Signing off, 

Gigi