ci5hq | Thug Bodie - the man behind the mask, or OOC?

byslantedlight.livejournal.com posting in

Just finished writing a reply to someone who raised a very interesting point regarding the portrayal of Bodie in "Close Quarters" (last night's Big Pros Watch viewing, of course!), and thought it might be really interesting to hear what other people think of it.

I won't repeat it all here, but the post and comments are here, and I'd be dead interested to hear what other people think about various of the points made by people, regarding guns, injuries, and characterisation of both the lads in this and other eps... Either there at my lj, or here, I'm easy... *g*

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From:

crimson-37.livejournal.com

I don't agree with man behind the mask. There is no way Bodie could keep up a facade like that with the people he works with in CI5 for all those years. It's more like OOC to me, as to the reason. To me I think it was more of a case of him trying too hard to impress and remain in control in an extraordinary situation. He made a right balls up of it by trying too hard. He is used to comfortable silences with his partner. He is in a situation where there is so much pressure on him. He seems unable to deal with the silences and ends up with coming out with the weirdest stuff. He's not at his fittest. And we all know he likes to take orders or rely on someone else to lead, so to be the one where all the decisions land, I think it stresses him. Then on top of it all he knows he is buggering things up and having everyone question him when he knows he is doing this all for them and people like them, leaves him maybe feeling out of his depth, and unsure about himself.
Just an idea. :)

From:

byslantedlight.livejournal.com

He is used to comfortable silences with his partner.
Oooh, I like this idea! On top of having over-medicated himself with painkillers so that he could continue with the date, and row them around on the river to impress Julia (my current theory *g*) it all went haywire and he has to cope with the fact that Doyle's not there to back him up - Doyle of the comfortable silences, where they're both able to think clearly. Instead he's surrounded by women, who he's not comfortable with at the best of times - except as pure sex objects, as expected by society - and a bunch of terrorists! And yes, they are questioning him, aren't they, whereas Doyle would know... *g*

From:

billiephillips.livejournal.com

I've to admit I didn't read the whole post; I got the point that Bodie was too stupid to live about halfway through.;-)

I've got a different take on the situation. I've always thought that it was pretty clear from that setup (well, I think ;-)) that Bodie's willing to do almost anything to get back to work. Stupid starts right there, but at least I understand why he tried to do it himself: if he comes strolling in with the big, bad terrorist, it would be pretty hard to say he wasn't ready to go back on the job.

I must admit that I'm relying on dim memory to take me through (I haven't seen this for a while), but I don't remember that there was much Bodie could do with the guy after that but drag him along or kill him.

To show you how far off the norm I am, I've always thought that if anyone was truely stupid, it was the vicar. And it was so odd; he looked to be of an age to have been part of the war, and if not, to have at least been alive for it. ... But I digress ...;-)

From:

byslantedlight.livejournal.com

Lol - I think that was my worry about CQ as an ep, that I definitely don't see Bodie as too stupid to live (!) but he did seem to be working via some very strange motivations/decisions throughout...

Hmmn - the connection between being desperate to get back to work, and being willing to do anything makes sense - I can see that as motivation for taking on Thingie by himself, definitely, but it was sort of after that when I had most problems. There seemed to be any number of public places where he could have stopped, perhaps hidden in plain sight, sort of, while waiting for CI5 to come and collect Thingie from him - it was the way he ran with Thingie and the girl (why take Julia with him once he didn't need to? It just put her in danger... Why hide in a large remote house that's hard to secure rather than somewhere where the villains aren't able to attack without attracting more attention? Why not explain more clearly to the vicar what was going on? Why...?!) And then Bodie was so extra-violent to people, that seemed very out of character to me - yes he's a violent man by definition of his job, but I can't think of any other episode where he acts so callously towards his girlfriend, or bystanders who've been pulled into the action... It just all seemed a bit odd, and I wanted a reason for it! I mean, you can't pull Pros plots too far apart without them tinkling gently to the ground in a thousand pieces, but at least the characters tend to stick to a generally understood characterisation!

I do agree with you about the Vicar acting very stupidly, and rather naively, but I'm not quite with you about his age? Why that's an odd thing?! Funnily enough, I thought he looked the archetypal vicar! *g*

From: (Anonymous)

Let's see --
Why take Julia? (You realize I'm skipping over all the requirements of TV plots ;-))Because he was afraid the other terrorists would catch her without his protection?
Remote house: involve as few innocents as possible.
Violence: Or rather out of character -- very. I'm going to have to think about this one some more. I think I tend to put some of it into the same bucket as Klansman: who is that guy!?

Oh, he definitely looked; but, people who have actually lived through war usually understand more about fighting for the right, and definitely understand more about man's inhumanity to man.

From: (Anonymous)

Let's see --
Why take Julia? (I'm going skip over all the idiotic requirements of TV plots ;-))Because he was afraid the other terrorists would catch her without his protection?
Remote house: involve as few innocents as possible.
Violence: Or rather out of character -- very. I'm going to have to think about this one some more. I think I tend to put some of it into the same bucket as Klansman: who is that guy!?

Oh, he definitely looked; but, people who have actually lived through war usually understand more about fighting for the right, and definitely understand more about man's inhumanity to man.

From:

byslantedlight.livejournal.com

I'm going skip over all the idiotic requirements of TV plots ;-)
Lol - to be honest I tend to skip over anything strange in the plot-department altogether, except in this case where there's so much that just meant the ep didn't feel right to me!

I do see that your suggestions might be the way Bodie's thinking (well, sort of) but I just don't think it's very sensible thinking! So that along with the violence, it does make me think "Who is this guy?"!

Actually, I can go with it a little bit more in Klansman, because we do see hints of Bodie thinking that way, and using that language in other eps - there's a couple where he uses "spade" and is glared at by Cowley and corrects himself. I do think it's very exaggerated in Klansman, but my little head can go away and come up with a story to explain that - he's just had a bad experience with someone, so it's bringing out his worse tendencies, for example... Which I know can be applied to CQ as well, and I do apply it - hence my whole too-much-medication theory! *g*

people who have actually lived through war usually understand more
I didn't get the idea that the vicar didn't understand, to be honest, just that he didn't agree with it, and thought that talking was a valid way of resolving the situation - one that Bodie wasn't letting him try, hence his escape attempt. Actually I know alot of people who've lived through war of one kind or another, and they think very similarly to the Vicar - that any means should be tried first to avoid the violence, so to be honest that rang fairly true too. If anything it was more that Bodie wasn't aware enough of him and his attitude to pre-empt his attempt that seemed a bit wrong to me - or that he acted harshly enough that the Vicar thought he had no choice...