I have written on many
subjects in the course of the blog. In recent years I have widened my initial subjects
of TV to film and books. Recently I have widened my reach still further to
history and politics. But I have mostly stayed away from the most divisive
subject of all – faith.
It’s not that I don’t have
opinions on it; it’s because I don’t have a dog in the fight. For most of my
entire life I’ve never truly considered the existence of a higher power in any real
way. I’m not religious and while I’ve read some philosophy in my life, most of
it was far over my head. Because I’ve
never truly had cause to think about it more than say, three or four times in
my entire life, and because I’ve tried my hardest to write these columns with
the attitude of not judging people who think differently than I do, I chose not
to examine this question at all.
That doesn’t mean I don’t
have occasion to see it play out on TV. In the era of Peak TV and slightly before
it, the question of faith and how you worship has slowly but gradually become a
part of the cultural discussion. I don’t
know how many books I’ve seen in the last twenty years that try to reflect a hit
television series with some kind of philosophy. I have to tell you at times I find
this ludicrous - there are many
interesting questions raised by a show like Dexter, but the idea of God
being part of the discussion seemed laughable (and that was before the sixth
season) – but I’m willing to indulge any kind of reading that celebrates a)
some of my favorite television shows and b) whether there are greater moral
decisions undergoing beneath the surface. It has helped that in the past decade
some of the best series on TV, such as The Leftovers and The Good
Place, have been willing to look at this subject more directly in a way
that would have been unthinkable even a few years ago.
So what I’m going to do in
this series is discuss how television has addressed the issue of belief. I’m not
necessarily going to discuss God in the traditional sense; however I have another
opinion that might be more interesting.
In recent years I have come to develop the position that, whatever you
might think of a person faith or belief, it is still infinitely superior than
the decision to believe that there is nothing other than the real world. In other words, I think that those who choose
to say that there is no God are often as much zealots on that subject as the
religious fanatics that they frequently disdain.
And I think the best way to
give my initial argument for that comes by comparing two very different
investigators; one of whom was very religious; one who not only doesn’t believe
in God, but probably nothing at all.
When I was growing up and first
starting to watch TV seriously, the most notable figures who believed in God
were two different kinds of Catholics: Dana Scully of The X-Files and
Frank Pembleton of Homicide: Life On The Street. I could – and indeed already
have – written tens of thousands of words on each of them because both
characters were part of two of my favorite TV series of all time. For the purpose of this article I will focus
on Pembleton, partly because I intend to write another article about The X-Files
later this month, but also because there’s an argument that in the case of
Pembleton, his religion came into play more on the series than Scully’s did on The
X-Files.
For those who have yet to read
my (many) entries on Homicide, Pembleton, played magnificently for six
seasons by Andre Braugher, is one of the most memorable characters in the history
of television. Early in the show’s run, Pembleton appeared to be the most cynical
of all of the detectives. He argued that rookie detective Tim Bayliss (Kyle
Secor) would never be a great murder police because ‘he didn’t have a killer’s
mind’. He also scorned Bayliss’ decision
to believe in being upright and argued that it was just as important to recognize
one’s darker, uglier side. That’s why it came as such a shock to learn (in the
same episode he admonished Bayliss on morality, in fact) that Pembleton attended
St. Ignatius High in New York and had been taught by the Jesuits.
The most direct reference
to Pembleton’s Catholicism came in the three episode arc that opened the third season. The Samaritan of the Year, a Catholic woman
named Katherine Goodrich, has been found murdered in a dumpster, naked with a
pair of white cotton gloves on.
Pembleton is the primary on the case, which quickly becomes the investigation
into a serial killer as two more good Catholic women are found dead in the
exact same way. (It is eventually revealed that the killer has murdered five
other women on the West Coast before coming to Baltimore.)
Pembleton quickly realizes due
to the ritual that the killer is targeting Catholics because they are a Catholic
themselves. He spends much of the show
having conversations with Sister Magdalena Weber, a nun who worked with Goodrich
and with whom he clearly has an affinity. After the second murder, he goes to
see her and tells her that growing up in New York, St. Ignatius High was the
first place in his life where he truly felt safe. He has not felt that way since he became a
detective.
Pembleton describes himself
in this arc and well past it as a ‘fallen Catholic’, not lapsed. There’s a part of him that wants to believe in
God, but his job has increasingly made that impossible. He tells Bayliss after the case is over that
he hasn’t gone to church in years (I’ll get to that reference later) but there
is clearly still a part of him that longs for it.
As the case proceeds the
murderer turns themselves in. Her name is Annabella Wilgus and she eventually
claims to have what was known as multiple personality disorder. Neither Frank nor the other detectives
believe this (the show never says one way or the other) and in the midst of the
interrogation, an attorney arrives and not long afterwards she confesses to her
murders on television, claiming that she is not responsible because of her
experiences being abused as a child. Again, we never know for certain that this
is true or yet another con but we later learn Wilgus ends up institutionalized
rather than going to prison.
When Pembleton sees Wilgus
in lock up he asks her about the white cotton gloves. Wilgus tells her that she
was raised by her mother to wear those gloves when they went to church. You get
the feeling (again, if she’s telling the truth which is never clear) that she had
a fundamentalist upbringing and that she killed all of these women because “if
they were truly good Christian women, they would have stayed at home” rather
than do good works.
We don’t see Pembleton in a
church again for another two seasons (I won’t describe the circumstances) but
what is clear then is that even if he is no openly religious, he has a strong
moral code. Part of the reason I think Pembleton is one of the great characters
in the history of television is that he operates with no moral quandaries when
it comes to investigating a person’s murder. As Bayliss memorably says at the
end of Season Four Frank’s approach to being a cop is to treat all victims as
if they were equal. “Even if they are not equal in life, they are equal in
death.”
It is that same approach
that may lead to Frank being detested by some of his colleagues. I remember vividly an argument he had with
Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin) a detective he disliked for being fundamentally
lazy. They are investigating a murder of
an old woman who had her tongue cut out and Felton says he hasn’t investigating
‘a murder’ in a while. Pembleton reminds
him that he closed the Griswold case just last week. Felton, who has a certain
racist quality, dismissing Griswold as a smoke-hound “whose death, like his
life, was meaningless.” He compares the current victim as a “sweet old woman
who was murdered in what should have been the safest place for her. That’s a
waste of life, Frank.” With a contempt he reserved almost exclusively for
Felton, he discusses the recent murders and says: “I (also) mourn the life of that
smokehound Kenny Griswold because, to me unlike you, every life has meaning.
Even yours.”
And though Frank never compromised his position
on church, he still always showed integrity. One of the great moments in
television history occurs at the end of ‘Crosetti’. It has been learned that Steve Crosetti has committed
suicide. The brass has made it very clear that if that is the case, they will
not okay an honor guard. Giardello
spends the entire episode trying to get one for him to no avail. Pembleton
helps plans the memorial for Crosetti but refuses to go to the church.
Throughout the episode, he seems to be a selfish jerk.
Then in the final minutes,
as the memorial passed the Baltimore police department, there stands Pembleton
in his dress blues. As the coffin passes by, he salutes: a one man honor guard.
Many years ago it was this moment (along with this whole episode) that caused
me to rank ‘Crosetti’ as the greatest episode in TV during the period from 1990
to 2010. It still sends chills down my spine.
Frank Pembleton was one of
the greatest characters in history as much because of his skills as a detective
as well as his strict moral code. Even if he didn’t go to church, there was
clearly a part of him that firmly believed in God. Now let’s contrast him to a
character who debuted more than a decade after Homicide premiered, was
the center of a show that was far more popular than Homicide ever was and
featured a lead more cynical than Pembleton ever was, and I’d actually
argue, far last satisfying a personality. I speak of Dr. Gregory House played
by Hugh Laurie.
Let me make a particularly
controversial thesis: In the first decade of the twenty-first century TV, House was the most morally bankrupt male lead
on TV. Hear me out.
Tony Soprano, for all his
flaws, tried to be a good son and a good father. Al Swearengen was a cutthroat killer, but he
was capable of taking care of the whores in his care, was a good friend and
instructor, and was a capable of being a good leader. Walter White got into the meth business
(initially) because he wanted to provide for his family after he died and until
say, the death of Jane, there was a period that he was not openly a monster.
Even Dexter Morgan knew that there was something irrevocably broken in him and committed
his murders as much to fill a basic need as to serve society. All of these
difficult men at least try to engage in human contact, even if it’s a fraud.
Now consider Dr. House.
House practices medicine, where human contact and helping people are considered
requirements and being amicable is the bare minimum for being a good
doctor. House almost never interacts with
his patients, having a staff talk to them and perform tests so they can get
answers, isolating himself from them. He
is more involved with the puzzle rather than the person viewing these
life-threatening issues with cold detachment.
But that’s not the main
reason I think he’s morally bankrupt. From the moment we meet him House is
convinced that every single member of the human race is a fraud. (The title of
the Pilot is Everybody Lies.) I watched
nearly every episode of the series. He
never seemed to care what was bothering the patient from more than a clinical
standpoint and he certainly didn’t care if they lived or died. What really seemed
to give him pleasure was proving that they were frauds and liars, often about
every single thing they told the people closest to them. He seemed just as
happy when his staff learned the truth about their frauds and had no problem
mocking them when they were wrong about their theories, even if it ended up
killing the patient. He once said that he cared less about their souls but saving
their lives but that’s not true: what he cared about was the mystery. It was
never made clear but I think the reason he wanted them to live so badly was
because he was afraid if they were autopsied, he'd either be proven wrong or make
things too easy for him to figure out.
And he took this approach
to every single person he interacted with.
No one ever did anything for the real reason. Even people who practiced
medicine were liars about why they did, the drugs they made or why they went
into practice. There were no boundaries for him, certainly with his team. Their
personal lives did not exist and he did everything in his power to learn every
possible secret about them, not because he cared about their traumas but
because it was proof that they were lying to him. Part of me wonders if the team we met in
Season 1 was his first or even second one.
You were frankly amazed that his first team lasted three seasons (there
was a shift in membership twice in the eight years the show was on the air);
being on House’s team has to have had a high burnout factor.
Now House wasn’t just an atheist,
although he took a special pleasure in tormenting any patient at all who was a
person of faith. In the first season, he interacted with a nun who claimed to
be having visions. In the second, he dealt with a child minister who claimed to
talk to God and in a later season, he had a long debate with a priest who
seemed to be an agnostic.
No House was worse because
he believed in nothing. Not societal
constructs, not friendship, not family, not privacy, not anything. I honestly think, a few wrong steps along the
way that House could have ended up as a mob boss or a serial killer. The only reason he was a legend in his field
was because he was good at one particular thing and that was enough for
Plainsboro Hospital to tolerate everything he did. Even then Cuddy had to have the patience of a
saint; every episode he was doing something that would have gotten a lesser man
fired.
There’s a part of me that thinks
House didn’t even care about the mystery. I think that House’s philosophy
towards life (as I stated in a different article) was that of Thomas Hobbes,
the Enlightenment philosopher who wrote Leviathan. I’ve never read his work outside of other
sources (I will actually get to them in a later article) but I know enough to
know that he believed man was inherently evil. House wouldn’t go that far but
only because he doesn’t believe in a concept such as ‘evil’ or ‘good’. He just
thinks no one can be trusted.
It's not like House is such
a figure of virtue: we see him tell lies at a more prolific rate than almost
anybody. But in his way of thinking, lying is the only true approach to life.
In a famous statement in Leviathan Hobbes wrote the life of man is “solitary,
poor, nasty, brutish and short.” That’s essentially House’s life in a nutshell.
He has only one friend: Wilson who has become resigned to House’s pettiness and
utter contemptibility. He is addicted to Vicodin at the start of the series,
and while he goes off it for a two year period, is back on it by the end of the
series. He has a few romantic relationships
but he spends just as much time with prostitutes. His apartment is well-furnished but there’s
little sense he enjoys the creature comforts of his home, considering we far
more often see him at work.
House spends the entire run
of the show believing that nothing matters, not even in a real sense what he’s
doing. Even science – what most atheists
lean on as the ultimate truth – is
something that is more a job than anything else and just as often, to be used
to disprove someone else’s beliefs. In a
sense Gregory House is the clearest example on television of someone who lives
at the church of science and it has brought him nothing but misery.
Now I don’t say that
Pembleton is a better character because he believes in God and House doesn’t. And it’s not like Pembleton could be much
nicer than Greg House; at his worst Frank Pembleton could be unpleasant and
didn’t have a lot of friends. What I am saying is I spent as much time watching
Homicide as I did House and that Pembleton’s character was more
fascinating to watch in action than House. Both men could be incredibly
caustic, but at least watching Braugher you got the sense he cared about what
he was doing. House never seemed to. Is
it just because one character believed in something and the other didn’t? I don’t
know. But it’s worth thinking about. It is part of an argument I will return to
in this series: you have to be able to believe in something in order to
be whole.
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