#The moment of 'Isabel. Shoot her' . gunshot. Minkowski's gasp. cut to another scene. is so brutal in the best way

[hephaestuscrew]

Sometimes I think there are certain parts of Wolf 359 that feel so familiar to me that I almost forget what they are like the first time round.

Like, I've just been thinking about how in the finale, after Minkowski gets shot, we don't hear any noise from her all through Cutter's gloating speech. We hear her gasp as the bullet hits and the show immediately cuts away to a different scene. Then when we rejoin the confrontation with Cutter, we don't hear Minkowski make any noise - not even a groan of pain or a laboured breath - for over a minute. And because it's an audio drama, this means that we don't have any direct indication of just how injured she is, of whether she's fully conscious, of whether she's even still alive. Lovelace's reactions can't tell us much while she's struggling against Cutter's control. And I wouldn't put it past Cutter to gloat to someone unconscious.

The first noise we do hear Minkowski make after being shot in the stomach - the first proof we have that she's still with us - is her gathering her strength and declaring "Renée Minkowski... and that is more than enough to kick your ass!", before punching Cutter. Which is always an incredibly powerful moment. But there's a particular power to it when it also serves as the reveal that Minkowski is still conscious and able to put up resistance. The moment when she asserts her ownership of her own identity feels almost like a moment of rising from the potentially-dead.