*
Welcome, Kari!
I was sorting out the photos of Cleveland that Je posted on BatBland and I noticed the pic of yourself in front of your car packed with the con stuff! Thank you for what you are doing for the Minnesota convention!
About Remember Love.
First, I confess I never understood what the heck the title means. Help?
Second, I’m copying here – sorry if you have already read elsewhere – what I usually write about this episode. I say “usually” because I think I have written it half a dozen times in these ten years, in several boards. And normally, it happens that the reply is – “hey, it makes sense! Maybe you are right”. Which is promptly forgotten and a few months after we are back to wondering about the broken window.
It was only when I joined the discussion with other fans that I discovered that this episode was problematic. I had watched it all alone here in Italy and I never had a doubt that the "real" episode only begins when C wakes V up with a kiss, and until then we only see Vincent’s dream. Everything we have seen before makes sense at that point, multiple whining and "out of character" stuff included, which are hard to gulp otherwise.
As a dream, it is a beautiful, telling journey into V's psyche, in that delicate moment of their love story (first episode filmed after AHL), when he has to learn how to balance his responsibilities, to his tunnel family and to his woman. We have a glimpse of what V thinks deep inside himself, without letting it out, fighting against it. By the way, have you noticed that the "dream" theme returns several times, in V/Father and in V/C dialogues?
The whining people are not the only out of character scenes. C insists a lot, even too much, until the magic words "it would mean so much for me" cancel every opposition from him. She does not speak of something beautiful for him to enjoy, which would be the right thing to say, considering the longing he has just expressed: she talks of sharing something beautiful for her so that *she* could enjoy it better. Selfish, from her... but if it's V's dream, he's focused on her, always.
On the contrary, in the scene "it was just an impossible dream", she too quickly just accepts his decision and apologizes, cries a little, V says that silly thing "one day... " and she withdraws herself and her project in the kingdom of dreams: "until them, we can keep on dreaming". And V's self loathing begins: the rage is against himself, not against the others, as it should be.
V has a real, heated argument with Father, and I can't remember anything of the like before or since. Father is harsh, selfish, whining, coward, pompous, as if in that scene his worst characteristics are concentrated and exaggerated. Vincent retorts everything until that wonderful question: «Tell me, Father: are we forever bond to a poem, for a sunset?». F's reply is just «you-must-not-do-it!». And V just turns and leaves to disobey him {and those angry lines delivered with fangs... Poor RP: how many times do you think he tried before being able to say "fulfill her slightest wish" in a comprehensible way?... }
The tunnel folks don't have a thought for V's wish. As if they are just a burden of selfish people, incapable to pay attention to him and his needs. Is it really so, or a symbolic perception of how suffocating his previous role (the protector, the heart of the tunnels) may become now for him, whom Catherine calls to be more?
Just a fleeting thought about the "dreamy" part of the dream, from the apparition of the angel: if the dream tells what he thinks of himself, we can stop moaning over V's weak self esteem... V is portrayed as extremely important for A LOT of people. And it makes fully sense, if it's the deepest, less controlled part of himself that appears. He cannot be unaware of his value. He is modest, not stupid.
There are a lot of other interesting hints all over the episode. Did you notice that it's only in this nightmare that V is found "in the garbage", behind St Vincent's hospital, while all the other times it's mentioned in the other episodes, they just found him "near" the hospital? It’s his fear to having been rejected that is speaking there.
In general, I think that the meaning of this dream is that at this point of their story, V has to face the fact that Catherine is becoming a concrete possibility for him. Now, he has to consider his identity and his belonging: is he the Tunnels protector and symbol/heart... prisoner?, or is he allowed to hope to be (also?) C's man? Being the Tunnel's Vincent is a heavy but reassuring burden, and the leap of faith to be C's Vincent is frightening.
Why did Catherine kill him, in the end? A plot device? Not only, I think: it's the reply to his soul searching: there is no life for him, if C is not the other part of his soul. BUT also the tunnel dwellers in Paracelsus version killed him, as if there were no life for him beyond the tunnels in the version he knows. So?
So, Catherine, the true Catherine, kisses him awake, and the dream remains just a dream, which points out the choices he has to make, but he has to make them awake. And the two of them. With love.
Oh, of course I love this episode also because it's kind of a rehearsal for the Big Nightmare, except that in this case they could film the awakening.
Ciao,
S