Mick Amongst the Flowers: Fever Ep 1.04

This is another episode I'm having trouble talking about. When you have something akin to an out of body experience while watching the last two acts, especially the Mick and Beth scene, it makes you stop and go, hmmmm.

So, this story is moving along at a conventional pace, a little different from later Eps where the show comes on like gangbusters from the beginning. I feel as if I'm walking through a meadow, singing tra-la-la-la, and picking daisies. And then in the 3rd and 4th acts, bam, I'm hit by a Mack truck. In a meadow. Among the daisies! Absolutely compelling, to the degree that I must have left my body at some point.

I am also aware that this is the first Ep I remember watching, in glimpses, really, because I was so exhausted; in fact, I fell asleep somewhere in there and clearly never woke up. I was only watching the show because BFF was raving about it, anyway.

And then BFF emails me a week later and says, "I dunno about the voice over, he sounds wooden"; I didn't think so. Then later, "There's something missing with this actor, I can't put my finger on it, but he's not very good". I respond, "He lacks Presence". This, after watching tatters of Fever, all the while barely conscious. Heck, I didn't even notice the hair!

Well this much is true: he lacked Presence because I wasn't really present the first time around. But, maybe, he also lacked the kind of presence we expect in the lead- you know, that Mick vitality that's been growing Ep after Ep? Alex played the "delicate flower" so well he had me fooled. He took an unexpected actorial detour somewhere, and I did not follow. Duh. It was there from the beginning....he was so subdued.

Fading away, I call it. Like when, for whatever reason, you and the rare one you love and trust are not in contact for a while. It took a week for Beth to ring him up- he was worried that he had scared her off with his gruesome marital revelations. Sensitive soul. Then he had to suffer the indignity of Josh's presence in his sanctuary. Beth had not come for him, but for Josh's sake, albeit reluctantly. He was irked. And subdued. Ends up wandering in his own heated and delirious wilderness: "this is where we go our separate ways". Disconnected, yet later, still trying to get a signal.

Meanwhile, he's not exactly delicate when it comes to Leni's feelings, at first. "He has a name. Jack". Nor understands the origins of that second heartbeat. Until he really listens, really empathises. As he told Beth, who stressed that he handle Leni carefully, be reassuring, this was "not my forte". Uh. Yeah. Clearly, Mick has been alone too much. And maybe too much with the guys.

So, where was the hotness that was Mick? More and more heavily veiled, the more heated and feverish he got. Well, I guess it was for the sake of art, and the naked outcome made up for his nomadic attire. Naked emotion, that is. Thank heavens for Leni and her mothering instincts!

Okay, on the surface, The Mick/Beth Scene had it all- eroticism, intimacy, closeness, kindness, fear, sacrifice, a redemptive quality which I reject, because I don't think Mick needs redeeming by Beth. What I'm seeing is Mick going back to the future. And becoming newborn. Unlike his unwilling and traumatic entry into the cold vampire universe where his craving is nurtured by the likes of that mother, Coraline, he gets to enter a world of thrilling warmth where Beth's blood and caring provides the bridge and satisfies his hunger not only for life but for connection. He has been more than regenerated; with Beth's untainted compassion and blood to quicken his lifeless heart, he is becoming someone he has never been before, someone new. And clearly, when he gets out of the water, someone freshly revived and extra hot. And very clean. Or is that, cleansed?

What I love about this Ep is seeing Mick reduced to being a delicate flower. There is a kind of humility about it, especially in Mick's acceptance of it (kudos to Alex!). He is fragile in so many areas- not just about his survival, but in his feelings and in the stunted affects of his aloneness. Oddly enough, I think that it is Mick's triumphant realisation that indeed, he is a delicate flower of a non-vampire sort as well, that even in a fever, his bestial dreams did not come true, he did not bite or feed on Leni, that is his salvation; and he sees that mirrored in Beth's eyes and smile and words. Just like a mother's.

There was great delicacy in the way their scenes were acted; I don't know how these actors can get so inside the characters and pull out such stunning truth. And they do it without any sort of melodrama. There is certainly a spare delicacy in the way it was written. And a delicacy in the way it was photographed and directed- spare, spare, and all rouged and golden light, the patterned window echoing the exotic screens of Mick's seraglio-like home, aka, The Fortress of Style.

So, this was my out of body experience: you know how certain events bring inexplicable tears .... a baby's being born, a couple marrying- they can be strangers...inexplicable because there is no reason though you could mention reasons. In Mick's case, you could be crying because of the sacrifice, or because he's being redeemed, or because he is dying and she saves him, because you identify either with him or her, because it's the most romantic thing you've ever seen....or you simply find tears rolling down your cheeks like you do when you find yourself in the presence of some human life event...out of awe. For me, it just happens that Beth and Mick joined the great stream of life at the moment- water and blood the nexus for eternity, and I joined with them. Tears were sliding down my face because I was witnessing a birth and it was Beth who facilitated that birth. Heck, I may have been the ethereal midwife!

At first I found the words at the end extraneous, jarring. Mick says in voice over: "Maybe it was her blood in my veins that let me feel her, the beating of her very living heart...Or maybe we've always been connected". But perhaps it's not so crazy or just impossibly romantic. Like Leni whose blood nourished her child and its wild beating heart, gave it life, Beth's blood was giving life to Mick. Perhaps it is the connection we all share when we touch eternity- true immortality- where we are more than lovers or friends, but family, too. It's a bond that can never be broken, once you experience it.

So, Mick decides, "Either way, being near me puts her in danger." Why does he feel that way? It's like he said about Leni once he realised there was a second fragile heart that beat alongside hers, yet was part of her as well : "You knew it wasn't just your life you were risking anymore". Mick experiences Beth and himself now, as that close. So, I finally understand that it's not more angst on his part but genuine fear. My, oh my, our Mick is blossoming so finely. And such a gorgeous desert bloom!