If you haven't paid attention to the episode's title and Christmas setting, perhaps the screencap above, from one of the first shots of this episode, will tell you a bit about this story. To begin with, Due South was a cop dramedy about mismatched partners: one polite, earnest Mountie and his rule-bending Chicago buddy. Due South also addresses many other topics, but a frequent motif is relationships between fathers and sons; this episode may be the epitome of that motif.
Warning -- the rest of this review is intensely spoileriffic!
The story of the week (featuring future Haggis-collaborator Ryan Phillippe) recasts O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi" into a parental framework, and weaves in a crime tale from an old folk song, "Henry Martin," about a man who turns to crime to support his family. The father plans to sacrifice his own life to provide for his son's material needs, while the son has no interest in any presents but his father's, ahem, presence.
The father in our story is named William Sydney Porter, just to make sure you're paying attention, and he is an aspiring writer. He's come up with a clever plan, quite possibly borrowed from one of his stories (we see a manuscript titled "Killer Blow" lying around) to burn up his vicious bosses, the Donnellys. (It should be noted that Paul Haggis is from London, Ontario, and knows a thing or two about criminal Donnellys who would be terrified of fire, even just fire alarms.) In the blaze, he plans to hide his own embezzlement of the proceeds of the opening bankjob, which he could then pass on to his son, who only wants his father to stick around and keep writing. William is finally convinced by our Mountie hero, Constable Benton Fraser, that while it may be good to GIVE one's life for another, it's far better to LIVE one's life for the sake of another.
Let's back up a bit: Paul Haggis, the writer of Million Dollar Baby and Crash, was raised in the Catholic church, but considered himself an atheist for much of his young life. (Please don't think I'm ignoring Haggis's then-belief in Scientology -- it just doesn't have a lot to do with this specific episode.) He created this series, and wrote this episode, so we can credit most of the creative choices made here to his leadership. I read this episode as a humanist commentary on Christ's self-sacrifice. As Fraser points out in this show, a father has many duties to his children. One of the most important to just to be with them, to provide examples of ethical living and humane treatment. When Christ gave His life on the cross, He decided to abdicate that part of His fatherly responsibilities to humanity. Don't get me wrong; I love Jesus. He's humble and sweet, smart and loveable. But wouldn't it have been better for humanity if Jesus HADN'T left? Just imagine us, the same people 2000 years on, but the world's sweetest dude is hanging out with us through the generations, washing our feet and gently reminding us of our moral duties? William Porter, the father in our story, is a writer. He's chosen an intricate, highly dramatic plan to provide for his son. While his son respects his writerly ambitions, he'd much rather have Dad around all the time.
And let's leave those heady thoughts for a moment, to deal with the heroes of our story. Benton Fraser is trying to solve a bank robbery, in the company of Chicago Detective Ray Vecchio. The robbers dressed as Santas for their December 24th crime, and a dragnet of the city's Santas is throwing both the city and the squadroom into an uproar. Elves and reindeer have also been collected, but that melting-pot of holiday madness is nothing compared to what's going on in Fraser's head: his own father is back.
Fraser, Sr, was dead: to begin with. There was no doubt whatsoever about that. Old Fraser was dead as a doornail. Benton has been reading his father's journals (his father was emotionally distant, and often physically distant while chasing down his own cases for the RCMP -- Benton's feeling a lot closer to his father thanks to the journals) and this night, Fraser, Sr, manifests himself as a ghostly presence for the first time, to guide and teach his son. (There's a possibility in this episode that Fraser, Sr, is just a hallucination, but later episodes pretty much confirm his reality.)
Fraser's desperate need for closeness with his father, of course, spurs his need to help the Porter family in this episode, but it also deepens his own character. The rather obvious framework of this series as a whole (Mismatched buddy cops! The polite one's Canadian! And he's a fish out of water!) is belied by the consistent depth of characterization and use of allegory and reference.
The story of how Benton come to Chicago on the trail of his father's killers, and how he deals with the specter of his father (in all senses of that word) is the overarching structure of this series. I don't think it's overstating the case to say that, especially near religious holidays, how humans deal with their spiritual beliefs and lack thereof can be the overarching structure of our emotional lives. Christmas TV deals with religious themes all the time, and I love a lot of it even when I don't agree with the conclusions therein.
It seems to me that, in the historical narrative of Paul Haggis, Due South frequently gets short shrift, maybe because it's so obviously genre-based. If this review has descended into high praise of the series, so be it. I loved Crash, but I think about Due South so much more; it takes up much more headspace for me and a lot of my friends. Oh, and it's funnier -- did I mention the Elvises who were collected instead of elves?
As an episode of Due South, I rate this 10/10.
As a Christmas story, I rate this 10/10.
I can understand why these ratings might seem overstated, but later reviews will vary wildly; I just wanted to start this series of viewing (and reviews) with something truly excellent. I'm planning to spend the next twenty-something days watching Christmas TV. I've got another Christmas Due South up next. Stay tuned.
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