#Hawk from a Handsaw

[tv-moments]

The Agency

Season 1, “Hawk from a Handsaw”

Director: Philip Martin

DoP: Balazs Bolygo

[stilinski-ortiz-dolan]

[cto10121]

Me: [lying on the therapist couch, gesticulating wildly] I just don’t get why so many productions have Romeo and especially Juliet be so damn hyper/cheerful before, during, and even after the ball (yeah, I’ve seen it live on stage in person. It was cringe as all hell). R&J are many things, but cheerful is not one of them. Romeo is gloomy as all hell, due to 1) Rosaline refusing to open her thighs, but also 2) the fact that he clearly doesn’t fit in with this feud-stricken life of Verona. Juliet isn’t gung-ho for this ball, either. She makes it understood that she doesn’t dream of marriage, so this whole “check out Paris and see if you like him” thing is pure business for her. Sure, she may have fun dancing, but she will still have to wrangle with her mother pushing Paris on her. Instead of trying to make R&J into the glib extroverts they’re not, why not play up their alienation? Have Juliet dance boring stately dances with several men. Have her practiced smiles disappear when she thinks no one is looking. Have Romeo be the only one not dancing. Have Juliet be the one dancing but looking longingly out into the crowd. Have her see Romeo, and Romeo see her. Let them experience true happiness when they are together, let them gush them. Otherwise, you just paint them as silly, stupid teenagers whose romance is just one capricious party hook-up turned deadly.

Therapist: Which is, of course, the intention behind this change.

Me: Bingo.

[proverbialschoolmarm]

[thesarahshay]

Not enough actors have the balls to say that their dream is to play Hamlet...in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

[subjectnamemissing]

Incredibly easy to transform personal annoyances into Problems in our Society (TM).

Work is the killer of the soul, it is a drain on the creative energy and free time of humans, keeping them docile and easier to manage as they slave away for needless hours - benefitting no one. (Got bored at work, doesn't want to go in)

Everyone that I delegate to is a professional red queen racing incompetent - running in place to go nowhere because they never bothered to learn prioritization of tasks. Everyone that delegates to me is a know-nothing meddler who has opinions on how things should work despite having no grasp on the fundamentals of our business. (Annoyed about new procedure test-runs which are different from old ways that things were done.)

Society is unsalvageable, morons have taken control. The supports on the bridge connecting people seeking work and people seeking labor are being sawed away by incompetents who've never done a real job in their lives and could not be trusted to properly distinguish the resumes of an ornithologist and a woodworker. (Got ghosted by a lower-paying job)

[leiascully]

Fic prompt: Scully tells Mulder that he's her best friend. Bonus points if it's Season 5 or earlier.

Good news: it's season 2.

When Mulder wakes up, Scully is sitting beside his bed. She smiles and it’s like the sun has come out in his windowless hospital room. She balances an issue of JAMA on her knee and rests her pen on it.

“Hi,” he rasps.

“Hi,” she says, passing him a plastic cup of water. It’s room temperature and vaguely redolent of chlorine, but he drains it dry. The cup makes a hollow noise as he sets it back on his bedside table, his movements a little clumsy. The simple act of drinking has exhausted him. He sags back into the thin pillows. The mattress is stiff and uncomfortable underneath him. But he’ll be all right. Scully’s here.

For a moment, he just basks in the glow of her smile. He doesn’t know what time it is, but Scully has brought the golden hour with her. He would swear he can feel the warmth of her fond regard on his chilly skin. He turns toward her like a sunflower, his head heavy on his neck.

“You need to rest,” she chides gently, but she hasn’t picked up her pen again. That’s the sign of a serious Scully who’s no longer willing to entertain her convalescent patient. He knows her hospital-based tells rather better than he’d like. A specific crook to her brows means he isn’t out of the woods yet; a particular twist to her lips means she’s sick of his shit. But today he’s getting this smile like sunshine. Radiant.

She turns her head to look at something. Abruptly, he feels the weary cold striking out of his bones. The blanket covering his bed is pilled and worn, and the sheet is a little scratchy. He longs for the thick blanket he keeps on his couch. His toes are so chilled that they ache. He wants a duvet to wrap around himself and a hot water bottle for his feet, like the ones he had at Oxford, and he wants to sit in front of a roaring fire and drink a hot toddy while Scully explains the latest developments in medical whatsits and theraputic thingamabobs. Her voice is as warming as whiskey.

“Remind me where I am?” he says, just to hear her talk.

“At the military hospital at Eisenhower Field,” she tells him. “You were airlifted here after your shenanigans on that submarine.”

“Shenanigans?” He snorts. “That’s a weird way to say ‘crucial mission of international or possibly intergalactic import’.”

“Shenanigans,” she says in a firm dry tone. “I blame it on your antic disposition.”

“I can tell a hawk from a handsaw however the wind blows,” he says.

“Hmm.” She studies him. Heat blooms across his skin where her eyes touch him. “That’s not what your performance reviews say.”

“Those are confidential, Scully.” He pretends to glare at her.

“That’s why they put the ‘I’ in ‘FBI’,” she quips, and he can’t help grinning at her. His dry lips pull, the skin flaking a little. She pours him more water from a pitcher and passes him the cup. When he’s finished drinking, she pulls a tub of Blistex out of her bag and offers it to him. He dips a finger into the hollow her fingertip has made and smears the paste over his mouth. His lips tingle. It’s the medicated formula, with its whiff of camphor. He hands the little pot back over and she caps it and drops it back into her bag.

It strikes him, like a sliver of light has lodged in his heart, how precious she is to him. How glad he is that she’s here in this strange cold hospital room. It’s been so long since he’s known someone well enough to share lip balm with them. It was probably Samantha, a twist-up cherry Chapstick jammed in his pocket for when they were chapped by the sea air. But Scully shares her things, her thoughts, as easy as breathing.

“What did I miss?” he says.

She looks at him with mournful eyes. “I wish I didn’t have to be the one to tell you, but….” For a moment he tenses, uncertain, but the hint of a smile in her eyes tips him off to the joke. “Mulder, you missed the Super Bowl.”

He relaxes back into his insufficient bed. “That’s fine. I’ll just borrow your highlights tape.”

She laughs softly. “Missy was so mad about that. She didn’t understand at all.”

“I don’t think she likes me.”

“She likes you,” Scully objects, but she’s too honest to leave it unqualified. “Mostly.”

“I should have brought bonbons, huh,” he says.

“A nice amethyst crystal would have been more up her alley,” she tells him. “Maybe one of those singing bowls.” She shakes her head ruefully. “She gets protective. You’re not easy to explain.”

He tries to pretend nonchalance. “What did you tell her about me? Least favorite rental car chauffeur? Most dramatic slide show reveal?”

She ducks her head and shakes it from side to side. “I’ve had worse chauffeurs. I tried telling her you were my partner, but I don’t think she understood. It didn’t make sense to her, the things you did while I was in the hospital. The way you sat with me. Colleague didn’t seem to cover it. Not even partner.”

“So what did you say?” His mouth is dry again.

“I told her you were my best friend,” Scully says in a quiet voice. There’s some depth he can’t plumb in the way she says it, but she’s smiling like she’s holding something close.

“Good,” he says. He reaches out and taps the edge of her journal with one fingertip. “When you spring me from the joint, we can go down to the boardwalk and get those puzzle piece necklaces. And some salt water taffy.”

“Now that’s a worthy welcome-back gift,” she teases. “A little out of season, unfortunately. I don’t think it’s boardwalk weather today. Not in this hemisphere, anyway.”

“Remind me in the summer,” he tells her. “I owe you.”

They chat for a while. She makes him sip more water and sees him helped to the bathroom. She checks his temperature with the backs of her fingers and prescribes him another blanket, promising to return in the morning. He senses the potential for contraband rations: an Egg McMuffin concealed inside an innocent handbag, maybe even a hashbrown if she feels sorry enough for him in his refrigerated state.

He catches at her hand as she turns to go. “Scully. You didn’t tell me who won.” It’s a flimsy excuse, but it’s all his muddled brain can manufacture.

“The 49ers beat the Chargers.” She rubs her thumb absently over his knuckles. Probably some kind of diagnostic, like when she pushes her fingers through his hair. He wonders what secrets his body reveals to her. “Good night, Mulder. Get some rest.”

He slides quickly into sleep once she’s gone. His mouth still tingles like the kiss of a salt breeze. The creak of the bed reminds him of gulls calling in the distance, and he follows them down into a dream of summer sun glinting off Scully’s hair and making her eyes crinkle. Her fair skin is the color of the sand; her eyes are the sea and the sky, an endless blue horizon that calls him out of his body and into some blissful eternity. In his dream, her lips taste like taffy, and they are both healed.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Birds have a level of control in flight that would make any engineer jealous. This 2021 Audubon Photography Award winning video by Bill Bryant shows off the skills of a red-tailed hawk. (Video and image credit: B. Bryant; via Audubon) Read the full article

* * * * *

"I am but mad north-northwest. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw."

 - Shakespeare, from Hamlet

[kindaskimpy]

Michael Fassbender in The Agency S01E03 - "Hawk from a Handsaw"

[tv-moments]

The Agency

Season 1, “Hawk from a Handsaw”

Director: Philip Martin

DoP: Balazs Bolygo

[stilinski-ortiz-dolan]

I played music before. What about you?

[comfect]

Hamlet, Act 1, scene 1.

gonna start using this one.

[variousqueerthings]

fraser and ray and hospitals

pilot (ray gets caught in an explosion by pushing fraser to safety)

ray: "i, uh... i think this was a big mistake." fraser: "yeah." ray: "i screwed up, i'm sorry." fraser: "don't." ray (tears in his eyes): "yeah."

manhunt (s1ep3) (fraser gets stabbed in the thigh while fighting a mass-murderer)

(in the hallway, ray speaks to buck frobisher) ray : "you- you know i can't believe it, i mean it's like... fraser he was invisible i mean..." frobisher: "yeah. happens to the best of us." ray: "... yeah." (ray then enters fraser's hospital room) ray (chipper): "how's it going?" fraser: they tried to cut off my boots." ray: "no!"

letting go (s1ep22) (ray accidentally shoots fraser in the back while aiming for fraser's sort-of-not-girlfriend/big time criminal and fraser has to go through a long recuperation)

ray: (handing him a present): "it's a power saw." fraser: "so it is." ray: "top of the line, guaranteed not to rust, with a lifetime warranty." fraser: "hm. What's it for?" ray: "your dad's cabin. I thought we'd go up there together and I'd help you rebuild it." fraser: "oh, Ray, you hated that cabin." ray: "ah, no, I didn't, I just hated leaving it to go to the can. Which brings me to this. (hands Fraser a binder) Pick one. My treat." (The binder is open to "bathroom fixtures.") fraser (smiling): "you know, you really don't have to do this."

ray: "okay, wait, wait. Wait, wait. (He gets the gift box and the binder out of the way and lifts Fraser's legs into the bed. Fraser exhales roughly.) You want me to go?" fraser: "no." ray: (smiles, sits in the wheelchair): "hey, this is pretty cool. You know, I think it'll be good. That, uh, we go up there for a while." [...]

ray: "hey. where do you buy lumber up there?" fraser: "you cut it." ray (laughing): "what like from the forest?" fraser (smiling): "ye-ap." ray (still laughing): "you're kidding me right?" fraser (still smiling): "nope." ray: "wow. you know how to do that? fraser: [makes knocking noises as if with an axe] "tok - tok." ray: "well... i don't have an axe." fraser: "I have an axe." ray: i'll have to go buy an axe. you got an axe for me?" fraser: "yeah. ive got two axes... two."

letting go pt2 (s1ep22) (ray gets shot while pushing fraser out of the way of a bullet)

ray: "all right, be caref— stop jerking it. Be careful. Okay, okay, okay. (Fraser wheels himself around to sit next to him.) fraser: "does it hurt?" ray: "of course it hurts." fraser: "thanks." ray: "for what, getting shot?" fraser: "yeah. ray: "yeah, I figured you'd like that." fraser: "well, I'm not proud about that, but I'll admit I did get a certain perverse pleasure out of it."

juliet is bleeding (s2ep7) (ray's first serious girlfriend is shot and killed in his arms)

(ray is about to head into a hallway with press everywhere) fraser: "I don't think you want to go in there." (He steers ray back into the waiting area and sits down next to him). ray (tears in his eyes): "you know . . . the first time I ever asked her to dance was in PE class. She kept trying to lead. Finally had to ask her to- to relax. That it would be okay. "Just put your head on my shoulder and close your eyes. Everything's going to be okay.""

flashback s2ep18 (fraser gets a concussion and loses his memory)

fraser: "and then we, um..." ray: "bonded." fraser: "bonded. We bonded?" ray (tears in his eyes): "yeah, you could say that."

call of the wild pt1 (s4ep12) (ray gets shot saving fraser from a bullet again, mimicking both the pilot and the s1 finale)

ray: "it's just a flesh wound. You know, I've been waiting all my life to say that. It's not as much fun as I thought it would be. Just like old times, huh?" fraser: "unhappily, yes." ray: "do you Mounties still always get your man?" fraser: "we try to."

[...]

hon. mentions a little to the left: hawk and a handsaw: fraser goes undercover as a patient at a mental health hospital that's testing an illegal drug on its inmates and ray goes to visit him for information north: fraser gets a concussion and goes blind/eventually loses the ability to walk, so ray has to carry him through the wilderness witness: ray is put in prison for contempt of a judge and fraser goes undercover as a prisoner to save his life after he sees he's been beaten up during a prison visit

[gael-garcia]

Station Eleven ep 2: A Hawk from a Handsaw

directed by Jeremy Podeswa cinematography by Steve Cosens

[coquelicoq]

hamlet is just full of bangers...o god, i could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that i have bad dreams. you and me both brother. and yet to me what IS this quintessence of dust? good question bestie. i am but mad north-northwest. when the wind is southerly, i know a hawk from a handsaw. been there!

[willwriteforruns]

Edward Holcroft as Dr. Charlie Remy

The Agency (2024-) Episode 3: Hawk from a Handsaw