Oh look, a familiar car’s profile sighted in episode 2 of Stranger Things - a 1972 Buick Riviera!
Ray Vecchio’s Riv was a ‘72 model, despite his claims of it being a 1971 - the side trim was more distinctive, for one, and the grille was an ‘egg crate’ design rather than the horizontal one. The tail lights remained the same size for 1972, but the chrome trim was changed from horizontal strips to a double ring around the entire lens. All in all the changes between those two years were rather subtle.
1971 Riviera:
1972 Riviera:
The ‘72 model also had the distinctive louvres on the rear deck lid removed.
The ‘73 model’s distinctive fastback boat tail was shortened significantly from the prior two years; it was something of an unpopular and controversial design from the start (I’m given to understand that GM’s styling chief Bill Mitchell and Lee Mays, Buick’s GM, almost came to blows over the whole design mess), and it was dropped for a totally different look in 1974.
It was a real treat to see this car pop up here considering that it’s not really a very common vehicle to see on the street given its low sales at the time.
I acquired this backpack (look familiar, Duesers?) from the same seller I obtained my red serge tunic from a few years back. I don’t get to use it often but I freaking LOVE its capacity, its ruggedness and how surprisingly easy it is to carry. Included (but not pictured) are straps to tie a bedroll to the top.
Due South Transcription Update Project: 1x02 Diefenbaker’s Day Off Complete
I’ve finally had time/motivation to sit down and finish this episode off. It’s funny because the DVD release has Manhunt listed before Diefenbaker’s Day Off, where every other source has it the other way around.
Anyway, this transcript plus the others are all available here:
lookturtles: Would you write a fic about Dief and RayK’s turtle being buddies?
I somehow lost your initial ask, but here’s the fic response. Thanks for the prompt!
~800 words; not the best thing I’ve ever written but it’s done.
Turtle liked Diefenbaker. He was big, loud, and hairy, but other than that not so bad.
“Roof.” Diefenbaker said. Turtle didn’t say anything. Turtles didn’t make noises, as far as Turtle knew.
“Now, you mustn’t take that attitude, Diefenbaker.” Fraser chastised, leaning down so that Dief could read his lips. “You’ll be perfectly fine in Ray’s apartment for the day.”
“Ruff.” Dief said petulantly.
“Well, yes, I’m fine with you accompanying us on this case, but as I said before, the only witness is quite scared of dogs. Yes, I know that you’re half wolf, but that information isn’t exactly comforting to our witness.”
“Rrrr.” Dief acquiesced, settling down on the floor and pointedly looking away from Fraser.
“Very well.” Fraser said in that tone that said he was Disappointed in someone. “I’ll be back shortly. Please try to behave while I’m away.”
Ray entered the room, all energy and motion as usual, his arms swinging and the rest of him practically vibrating. “Ready to go Frase? Told the wolf not to eat my turtle yet?”
“Don’t be silly, Ray.” Fraser said. He straightened up from where he had crouched while he talked to Dief. “Diefenbaker would much prefer a donut to your turtle, I’m afraid.” He looked disapprovingly at Dief, as he often did when he was talking about the half-wolf’s hunting habits. Dief whined and closed his eyes to drive home the point that he wasn’t paying any attention to the Mountie.
“Yeah, okay.” Ray said. “Ready to go?” He led Fraser out the door in front of him, ushering him forwards. Once Fraser was out of sight Ray quickly knelt down, pulling something that was wrapped up in white paper from his inside pocket. Dief looked at the wrapped thing with interest.
“Consider this a bribe.” Ray said seriously, looking Dief in the eyes. “I give you this, you don’t eat the turtle. Deal?”
“Roof!” Dief agreed enthusiastically.
“Greatness.” Ray said, unwrapping the object. “Pleasure doing business with you, Diefenbaker.” He shook Dief’s paw, then set the unwrapped item on the floor. It was a sprinkle donut, and Dief had it scarfed down before Ray had both feet out the door.
The door shut with a click, leaving Dief and Turtle alone in the apartment.
“Boof.” Dief said in the direction of Turtle’s enclosure. Turtle chewed on a bit of lettuce, and Dief panted at Turtle happily. The television set was just across from Turtle’s enclosure, and Dief nosed it on.
Baseball. Turtle didn’t mind watching baseball, but Dief didn’t like it, so they rarely watched it unless there was nothing else on. Dief switched channels until he found one that was showing an old game of curling. He looked back at Turtle for approval. Turtle chewed the piece of lettuce approvingly, and Dief settled down in front of the set to watch the game.
Turtle didn’t completely understand the rules of the game, but as long as Dief liked it, curling was a fine sport to watch. Better than staring at Ray’s walls all day.
“Sweeeeeeep!” An announcer over the TV cheered, and Diefenbaker howled along with them. Ray would probably be getting noise complaints again.
They watched like this for a while, until the shadows started to get long on the walls and the programming switched to a sitcom with an annoying laugh track. Turtle started wondering when the next feeding would be.
Dief cocked his head, ears going straight up, and he suddenly stood and switched the television off again. Turtle saw why a second later when Ray walked in, followed by Fraser. Both were dripping wet and covered in what looked like several different types of glitter.
Dief sniffed Fraser’s hand and sneezed. A cloud of glitter took to the air.
Ray glared at Fraser. “This never would have happened to me if I had never met you.”
Fraser peeled himself out of his red serge, hanging it carefully on the hook by the door that Ray had put up just for him. Glittery water dripped to the ground below the hook. “Well, at least we caught the smugglers. And the kidnappers.”
“At least.” Ray grumbled.
“Ruff.” Dief said.
“Yeah, laugh it up, fuzzball. You didn’t eat my turtle, did you?” Ray peered into Turtle’s enclosure, looking satisfied when he saw Turtle watching him impassively.
“Boof.” Dief sounded offended.
Ray ran a hand through his spiky hair. It came up glittery. He groaned. “I gotta take a shower.”
“Of course, Ray.” Fraser said. There was glitter in his hair, too.
Dief panted. It sounded an awful lot like he was laughing at them.
“What do you know?” Ray asked. “You’re a wolf. What do you even do all day?”
Turtle retreated back into its shell. Neither would ever tell.
Ray Vecchio could wake up in a giraffe exhibit, with a suitcase full of diamonds and teddy bears, wearing a kilt and a princess crown with no memory of the day before and would be sure, positive beyond a shadow of a doubt that this somehow involved Benny. This was somehow all Benny’s fault.
And Benny would have (in his mind) a perfectly reasonable explanation and “really, Ray, there’s no need to get so worked up. This was all in the name of justice, after all, and as an officer of the law-”
“STOP TALKING, BENNY!”
“I’m cold, I’m damp, there’s a draft up my skirt-”
“It’s a kilt, Ray.”
“I have a draft up my kilt, and I just stepped in giraffe poo.” Ray moans. “I just want to go home.”
part 1 of victoria’s secret begins relatively innocently and it’s not until part 2 that shit really starts to go down, but you don’t have to look any further than thirteen minutes into part 1 to get extreme whiplash from hearing fraser describe the one (1) single time he met victoria and spent only four or five days with her, much of which was while they were hovering on the edge of unconsciousness just prior to freezing to death, and then immediately making the leap to “she’s the only woman i ever loved” in the very next scene, with zero breaks at all. the red flags are all over part 1 once you know where things are headed, but this one always comes into my home to slap me in the face in particular. at the point that victoria’s secret happens we’ve seen enough episodes of fraser with his competent mountie façade up to think of him as a very intelligent, rational man who’s an almost supernaturally good judge of character, and then here he just goes and claims that someone he knew for less than a week under ridiculously unusual circumstances is not just someone he fell for, but the only woman he’s ever loved. like yes, this is extremely interesting to me because of how well it fits into a queer reading of fraser, but it also hurts my heart for the total naivity of it all, the one time that fraser actually admits to having genuine and deep feelings. he’s human after all, and it immediately comes back around to almost destroy him.
Oh, I have so many thoughts on this two part episode. It very much is a tragedy in a Shakespearean sense, both in how the plot goes but also how is exposes all of Fraser’s flaws and uses them so brutally against him.
So, here’s the thing. Take a young boy who’s mother suddenly dies without warning. His father appears to reject him shortly after (Bob Fraser has his own shitty reasons for the way he acted that had everything to do with his own pain and guilt but he never explained that to his son). And he grows up with grandparents who are, at the very least, cold and strict (from what admittedly little we see and hear of them). Add to this the fact that Fraser clearly moved around often.
So from child Fraser’s point of view he’s abandoned or rejected by all the adults that matter, and moves around enough to prevent the formation and deep and lasting friendship. Fraser grows up being exactly what he thinks he has to be to earn the love of his father attention and love - that is he follows in his footsteps to be not just a mountie but some sort of rugged idealized one. While also doing what he thinks he needs to do to get the attention and affection of his librarian grandparents (all that book knowledge). But the truth is, in Fraser’s mind that was probably never enough, because he never seemed to succeed to make those connections with the adult caregivers in his life.
Which is to say, despite the whole mountie front, I don’t think Fraser thinks very highly of himself. At all. The Mountie after all, is a front; an idealized version of himself that he knows, at his core, isn’t who he really is. When he’s alone/with Deif/talking to Bob we see that snark and that bitterness bleed through.
And, to protect himself from further rejection/abandonment, he uses The Mountie thing to keep people at a distance while at the same time being unfailingly polite.
Then we have Victoria. The one person to, due to circumstances, sees him at his most raw, most vulnerable self.
And she hates him, which he thinks any else would.
And she loves him, which he’s so desperate for.
And, I think, the part of that relationship where she hates him makes him feel seen for the first time. I think, quite frankly, if Victoria only loved him, he’s be able to let her go but because he believes she sees his own “darkness” and his own “badness” and hates him for it but still loves him she becomes something he just cannot let go of.
***
But moving on, I have a different take. Vecchio, by the end of S2, I think really has Fraser figured out pretty well. He’s seen Fraser’s “darkness” through the Victoria incident and bits more after. Vecchio’s knows Fraser well enough near the end of S2 to call Fraser out on his lack of emotional honesty in “Red, White, or Blue.” Moreover, Vecchio leaves but makes it clear that his leaving will not change their friendship. Vecchio’s about as loyal as they come and whether they are partners or living in the same city or the same country doesn’t matter. This is a lesson I think Fraser very much needs to learn.
Then we have Kowalski. Kowalski, it’s often joked in fandom, has a complementary issue: his codependency fits oddly well with Fraser’s fear of abandonment and rejection. It’s made clear at the series end that Kowalski doesn’t leave Fraser, probably never can.
I agree that Fraser still has a lot of needed healing, but I do think that not only does he make some progress, he’s got at least two solid friendships in his two Rays that will probably only deepen over the years.
You’re absolutely right about how Fraser’s background contributed to his obsession with Victoria! He’s got this history of abandonment and that makes him desperate for affection but also leaves him without the tools to attain it. I also agree about Fraser and Victoria’s dynamic. It reminds me of Fraser’s speech to his father about loving someone at their worst; technically, he’s talking about his own feelings for Victoria, but more than that he’s projecting how he wants Victoria to feel about him. And in the end, he does get that. Despite everything, Victoria wants Fraser to come with her. He gets that acceptance, just in the most tragic way possible.
And I think that the resolution with RayV is a major part of what makes the Victoria arc so powerful. Because, like you said, Fraser wanted someone who could see him at his worse and love him anyway, and he got that with RayV. Before this, I don’t think Fraser had really known unconditional love, and the fact that Fraser and RayV’s relationship was stronger after all this mess is major.
Now, to clarify,I was talking about them not really following up on Fraser’s love life. While you’ve got Thatcher in season two, that storyline’s pretty much over in season three and totally gone by season four, except for their goodbye in the finale. We get a bit about his own desire for romance in Bounty Hunter, but again, that doesn’t work out. This makes sense since due South is a buddy cop show and those tend to put romance in the background in order to focus on the dynamic between the two leads. Still it makes me sad that Fraser’s only experience with romantic love ended so terribly.
But you’re right, I wasn’t giving Fraser’s platonic relationships enough credit. Like you said, RayV’s acceptance of Fraser went a long way to healing the wounds caused by Victoria, as well as helping to resolve the issues that led to his obsession with her in the first place. And of course the ending with RayK is huge as well, since it means that Fraser gets to go home, just like he’s always wanted, but not alone. He doesn’t have to choose between having his life in the far north (where he had no friends and his coworkers thought he was nuts) and having a connection with someone (which he didn’t find until he arrived in Chicago). Now he’s got everything, and he’s got it with someone who’s not going to leave. Who, in some ways, can’t leave.
I also love your point that neither of these relationships are over. In fact, I think the fact that the show ended on a new beginning for Fraser and RayK is a big part of why it resonated with so many people. For whatever reason, Fraser and RayV weren’t given a lot of focus in the finale, but it’s clear from the epilogue that they’re still in touch and I’m sure that their relationship continued to evolve as well.
