Monsters of Television

Danger! This woman believes she always knows "what is right." Proceed with caution.

There are two ways to evaluate this episode, the follow up episode to the brutal depiction of Charlotte King’s rape.

First, you can consider the representation of a social issue–rape and its impact upon a survivor and everyone around her.

Second, you can consider the program as a fictional narrative from the perspective of plot, character, theme, etc.

For me to evaluate this episode, I have to do both because I’m rather torn about this episode.

On the first scale, that of the social issue, the episode is problematic, even disturbing.

On the second scale, that of the fictional series, I will focus on character.  In this, the episode excels.

Quite the conundrum for the review, but here I go…

Quick plot recap: Charlotte King, the program’s most caustic and emotionally-closed character, struggles to return to her normal life after being beaten and raped by a stranger.  You can see my review of the episode depicting the attack here.

Only one character knows Charlotte has been raped–Addison Montgomery.  Addison is a fascinating and frustrating character.  She finds all kinds of ways to screw up her life, but because she is a dedicated and passionate surgeon and advocate, you admire her nevertheless.  Trouble with Addison is her knack to make everything about herself. Whether or not she is the central person in any particular mini-drama, she views all of life’s occurrences through the lens of her own experience, making herself the most impacted and most important.  This is no less true with Charlotte’s rape.

Addison wants to help Charlotte, who will have none of it.  She tells Addison to just keep her trap shut–that is all Charlotte needs.  Of course, Addison doesn’t do this.  To some extent, I could parallel Charlotte’s decision to call Addison after the rape to Izzy’s decision to tell Cristina about her cancer on Grey’s Anatomy.  Izzy kind of knew Cristina would tell someone, so in confiding in her, she was asking for help letting out the secret of her illness.  One could say that Charlotte knew enough about Addison to know she would never be able to keep the secret.  Nevertheless, I am having a hard time accepting all of Addison’s actions this week.

Addison continues to want to help, so she asks Sheldon’s advice during one of their elevator chats.  Sheldon, not knowing the full context of the conversation, tells Addison that the person who doesn’t want her help may need assistance in a less direct manner.  So Addison tells her lover, Sam, that she performed a rape kit after a victim explicitly asked her not to, then stashed the kit under “Jane Doe” in the freezer.  Now Addison is worried she will lose her license for failing to report a crime.  Sam quickly puts two and two together.  He asks Violet for help but is himself vague about the details–he just tells Violet to “talk to Charlotte.”

Here is where Addison’s self-righteous confidence in her own knowledge of what is best becomes troubling to me.  Charlotte said, “no rape kit.”  A victim of a violent act, who had her right to say “yes” or “no” stolen by a man who attacked her, has made a request of Addison.  Addison, too, ignores Charlotte’s right and ability to say “yes” or “no.”  I am not saying Addison raped Charlotte, but I do think giving agency to a rape survivor, even when seemingly misguided, may be more important than doing “what is right.”

Addison and Sam determine at the end of the episode to report the rape and submit the rape kit to the authorities.  Without Charlotte’s knowledge.  Well, Addison, I am glad you have saved your license from potentially being revoked, but need I remind you that YOU made the decision to complete the rape kit without Charlotte’s agreement.  And now you have made another decision for her.   You may feel that reporting the crime in her, or your own, best interest–but who are you to decide how Charlotte should respond to her attack?  Who are you to determine “what is right”? What if you had determined to wait for Charlotte to process the attack and then revealed to her that you completed the kit.  You would likely suffer more there–having to admit your action to an angry Charlotte–but then Charlotte could make the determination about how to proceed.

I suspect “what is right” will become a big theme as this rape story continues.  Previews for next week feature a number of characters worrying that if Charlotte doesn’t speak up, another woman will be raped.  Guess what, kids…another woman will be raped.  According to RAINN, someone is raped every two seconds.  Yet only 6% of rapists ever spend a day in jail.

I would like to propose that the weight of all future rapes should not be placed upon Charlotte King’s shoulders.  Rather, let’s discuss a culture that allows rape to occur–a culture that prefers to blame the victim than the alleged rapist.  Let’s discuss a police and trial process that puts the burden on the woman to prove her case in a situation where the evidence rarely “proves” anything.  I could discuss why rape is underreported and why rapists go unprosecuted all day–and it is an important issue that must be discussed.  But I think I see Private Practice moving in a dangerous direction.

Charlotte must speak, the program seems to be saying, to put Buffy’s Xander behind bars–her act of heroic sacrifice here will save women from his future attacks.  But how does this process help Charlotte?

I am particularly concerned because Shonda Rhimes and Co. did an excellent job of depicting Charlotte’s quite capable response to trauma throughout this episode.  Charlotte tries to enter her office, the scene of the attack, but feels unready.  So she goes to a different office.  Hours later, she feel more steady, enters her office slowly, sits in her chair, and begins to work.  Charlotte listens to her instincts, follows them, and helps herself heal.

In another scene, as she lays in bed with her fiance, Cooper, he asks her how he can help.  She asks him to be near her but not to touch her.  He complies.  Charlotte tells Cooper exactly what she needs–she is articulate and confident–she is making choices on her terms but she is not completely shutting down.

At the end of the episode, a colleague, Violet, tells Charlotte her own story of rape.  Having seen how Charlotte reacted in an earlier scene to Violet’s attempt to discuss the beating, Violet senses that Charlotte has been raped.  A fellow survivor and an experience therapist, Violet just knows [disclaimer: I am disappointed Violet, too, was attacked by a stranger.  Stranger rape is a strawman bogeyman, and by putting its focus on stranger rape, repeatedly, Private Practice is missing an opportunity to discuss the much more common (and much more complicated to prove) acquaintance rape].

So Violet tells Charlotte that she was raped during college.  Amy Brenneman’s performance in this scene is remarkable–but also strange.  She and Charlotte are not exactly friends, since Charlotte is jealous of Violet’s intimate friendship with Cooper.  So Violet trying to establish this connection with Charlotte is awkward for both of them, and Brenneman plays that awkwardness really well.  At times, during the speech, she almost seems to laugh, but it is a laughter of pain, emotion, and understanding.  Charlotte, meanwhile, sits in her chair, angled away from Violet like she wants to block the words.  She does not want to hear Violet’s story.  She does not want to acknowledge the rape.  And she sure as hell does not want to realize that others are seeing through her facade of everything being okay.  After Violet finishes with her story, she does not ask Charlotte for confirmation or for anything.  She just tells her that she does “get it” and leaves the room.  Charlotte, confronted with the truth from this unexpected person, throws all the objects on her desk onto the floor in a fit of anguished rage.

But what happens next?  Recovered addict Charlotte goes to another doctor who is also a recovering addict, and asks her to go to a meeting with her.  Charlotte is crying, breathing heavily, clearly in crisis–but she asks for help from the person she thinks can best help her.  She goes to a meeting to be surrounded by others who will let her talk or not as she deems best.  She gets the help she needs in the way she needs.

Charlotte does not need Addison Montgomery and others to come to her rescue.  She does not need their righteous anger about the rape or their insistence that she must report it.  What is it about our culture that we want to believe the process of reporting a crime can be a healing process–or at least satisfying on some level?   If Xander goes to jail, will Charlotte be less a victim of rape?  Will the memories leave her mind? Will her sensitivity to touch be magically healed?  Of course not.  Again, to be clear, I am not saying Charlotte or any survivor of a violent attack should not report a crime. But the reasons to report that crime must come from the victim.  And we should be discussing how we can make this process an easier one for survivors (i.e. having a SANE nurse on staff at all ERs at all times would be a start).  I am worried that Private Practice is overlooking crucial issues in order to find a magical cure in the legal process–a process that may cause more harm than help in many instances.

Those are some of my concerns about this episode and the narrative structure that it seems to be setting up.  I may be surprised by the direction the program takes, and I welcome it.  But since this hour is all I have to go on right now, I am evaluating it accordingly.

Now, on the second level of evaluation, Private Practice as a fictional series based on melodramatic character-driven plots?  This episode was quite good.  All these characters acted true to form.  Addison being a busy body, deciding for everyone what is right, is completely characteristic of her character.  Pete suspecting that Charlotte was raped but never mentioning it to a soul?  Exactly what I expect Pete to do.  Violet wanting to share her story and help Charlotte admit her own trauma, but never once asking Charlotte to do anything or be more than she is?  Violet wanting to help Charlotte emotionally but not caring about the rest of the legal details?  Yep, that is Violet, the emotional caretaker.  Even Sheldon, who did an excellent job of completely ignoring the elephant in the room by treating Charlotte as if nothing had happened, eventually went to the police to report the rape himself.  As a therapist, Sheldon is a committed advocate but also super conscious of his legal obligations.

I may not like all the actions committed by these character this week, but I sure was not surprised by any of them.  Rhimes and her writers know these people, and they rarely ask their audience to suspend their disbelief on a character level.

I have a love/hate relationship with Private Practice. My reaction to this week’s episode therefore may be as consistent as the characters tend to be.  Yet  because I know Rhimes understands that she has a responsibility in telling this story, I hope she can deliver without resorting to easy fixes or a blind faith that justice can solve a cancer in our society–the lie that some women “want it,” “deserve it,” “asked for it,” or otherwise do not deserve our trust, our faith, and our support.