oceana

In which Oceana talks about The Magnificent Seven (TV show), in
particular about the episode "Wagon Train", and

even more particular about that moment between Chris and Mary at the river.

The one where Mary tells Chris that she has decided to marry Gerard.

I'm not involved in M7 fandom at all. I have written one,
spur-of-the-moment fic, which now that I am watching the show again
I'm not so sure of any more characterwise but, hey, it happens. I
haven't read much M7 fic, and most of what I read was either ooc
Chris/Vin or ooc Ezra/anyone.

Even without being involved I can tell that Mary is to Chris what Sam
is to Jack, a safe bet of sorts, and so I assume that slash fandom
will largely hate Mary. (because there were days when SG-1 J/D fandom
hated Sam. There were even days when I hated Sam, and I love
Sam.)

My feelings for Mary are somewhat less ambigous than my feelings for
Sam. Half of the time I think she is a hysteric little woman (remember
the ep where her son comes into town and she spends a lot of time
hysterically yelling in the streets, even though this clearly does not
help at all?). The other half she is the woman I want her to be,
pretty, strong, independent for the time. Truth is, I don't care much
about Mary one way or the other, but if I had to decide, I'd like her
rather than dislike her.

I do love Chris, however. (but he's gotta do something about his hair!)

And so I love that scene at the river. I love Chris' reaction. Mary
does what's right for her son, what she thinks should be right for
her. You can tell she isn't sure. There is a reason she tells Chris.
At this point in the show, I think there has never been anything
between them, but as he says "he ain't blind", and Mary ain't blind
either when it comes to how much Billy adores Chris. (Also, he is
tall(ish), dark and dangerous, and what woman could resist that? *g*)

So Mary tells him that she is going to marry another man, and Chris
congratulates her, wishes her the best, completely sincere...and makes
me believe it.

At that moment, you can tell that Chris is completely sure that he
isn't able to settle down again. I don't know when he came to that
decision, but it probably took Mary telling him that she has decided
to marry another. So he is sure that he does not want to marry her,
but at the same time he is sorry that he does not want to marry her.
He is the type to settle down, as far as we know the only one of the
seven who has built himself a house in the town, he was married, had a
kid. I think he wants that again. But he isn't ready yet. I can't
really explain it, but just the fact that he is sitting there with a
woman he could love, that he is able to ask her if she loves that man
she is going to marry, willing to deal with whatever her answer is
going to be, is something that makes me love him so much. There is
that cliché about the lonely hero, and at that moment, he is the
complete fulfillment of that cliché, only better, because he is at the
same time lonely by choice and not by choice. By asking her if she
loves Gerard, he acknowledges, openly, that he isn't ready to love her
(yet) but that he wants to, so much that he'd rather have her love
another man than be unhappy.

And what I love most is the way he moves his head when he asks her.
It's such an untypical movement for him and it emphasizes how far into
the "dangerous" emotion territory he is leaning here, despite the few
words that are being exchanged.



And for my birthday, I wish that someone could put this feeling I'm
trying to describe into fewer words. English, it's the language of
Shakespeare, isn't it? I'm sure there is one word describing exactly
what I'm trying to describe. I just don't know which one.

Sadly, I can't say much more about Chris and Mary in this ep, because
I fell asleep about halfway through. I've watched it before, but I
can't remember how it ends. Please don't tell me, I'm rather looking
forward to watching the rest of it tonight.