Fallen Snow

I’ve been watching comments about the finale of Snowfall and observed a couple of things. A lot of people were saddened by the fate of Franklin Saint. I have a few thoughts on that reaction and the show in general. Their reactions are both perfectly understandable and completely insane, a duality befitting the primary character whose name juxtaposes money with morality. First, let's discuss what makes their sadness over his fate understandable. Damson Idris is a very good actor. He made the character he portrayed relatable. As I said in an earlier post, what makes for a great villain is his or her ability to make an outsider empathize or sympathize with him or her. Franklin was likeable early on. He was very intelligent. This speaks to Idris' ability to act. Good actors are able to connect with audiences through their craft. This is why I said Walter White was such a good villain. You could empathize with his situation and understand his motivation to provide for his family after a terminal diagnosis.

In Saint’s case, you can also understand his motivation to operate within and ultimately use institutions that were and are predicated on the subservience and failure of people who look like him. His father, a Black Panther, was crushed by the very same machine that was crushing Franklin from the time he was in primary school and required to pledge allegiance to a county that betrayed Black people in every way imaginable. You see the machine at work again when he's in college and met with the same anti-Black hostility. It's hard not to root for him. This country took his father away from him, broke his uncle psychologically, and had his mother working for a racist and presumably Jewish slum lord in Arnold Tulfowitz.

That man treated you (Cissy) like a slave for 15 years. Took advantage of good honest people. ---Franklin Saint

It’s easy to sympathize with Franklin early on given his background and even understand some of his reactions that were born out of his frustration with those whose only goal was to frustrate and torment him (ex: Him going Spreewell on the Financial Aid officer). But here’s where I transition to my second thought about the sympathy I see expressed for Franklin; it exposes some very unsettling things about many people. They're unable to take the long view or see the overall arc of his character. Walter White was not a good person even though you could understand some or even many of his motivations/actions. Neither was Franklin Saint. They both received only a fraction of the pain and misery they dispensed to others. Walter White started off just wanting to make sure his family was provided for. By the end, he was masterminding mass executions and poisoning children. He was not a good person. In the beginning, Franklin Saint struggled pulling the trigger against someone who brazenly stole from him. By the end, he was murdering people in cold blood without a second thought. You feel sorry him? I think your moral compass isn’t working. Damson Idris, Bryan Cranston, Denzel Washington, etc. are all great actors and probably nice people. The contrast between who they are and the evil people they've played probably helps to humanize these characters. But these characters (Saint, White, Harris) are villains of the worst sort. You're not supposed to have sympathy for them when they meet a violent or fitting end. Perhaps, in a sense, you are mourning the death of who they initially were i.e. the loss of potential but, for who they are, they got what they f#cking deserved. If you found out that a mass murderer was living alone and in squalor, would you feel sorry for that person?

"Yeah, he did some real f#cked up things, but he went through some hardships in his youth and nobody deserves to live like this, right?

Wrong.

He actually deserves much worse. The only main male character to make it out was Leon. I suppose his evolving political awareness and "consciousness" made him immune from consequences or prosecution for murder and drug dealing. Well, there's a heartwarming message for the Pro-Blacks out there. Plus you get a crackhead for a wife. ¿Yay? Again, I don't think your moral compass is working properly.

Now let's address the women in the show. I want you to notice how women were used in this show. Their primary function was to thwart the goals of the men. Because the men were terrible people, you might think that makes them good by default. You would be wrong. They were just as bad as the men if not worse. They made everything worse and it was always rooted in self-interest. If things were violent, they got more violent because of the intrusion of women. They were essentially catalysts designed to make any situation worse. The nurse kept Teddy alive and became his partner to allow him to keep killing and pumping drugs into the community. If Jerome was with practically any woman other than Louie, think about how his life might have been different. Think about how his relationship with his nephew might have been different. Her ambition caused her to sew seeds of dissent between Franklin and Jerome. If Louie wasn’t there, they may both have been real-estate moguls (like Tulfowitz) removed from the Street level. Still terrible people, but alive and living in comfort. Cissy Saint prevented Franklin from retrieving his ill-gotten gains from Teddy. Ostensibly, it was to stop him from becoming even more of a sociopath (if that’s possible). But note she only did this after Teddy told her Alton’s fate. Stopping Franklin was secondary at best. Franklin knocked up a scammer in (V)eronique who eventually scammed him and made it impossible for him to get out of the predicament he was in. Franklin tells us that she said she's trying to break the curse by keeping his son away from him, but how is this supposed to happen? Let's look at the facts: V is a career criminal. Franklin’s mother wasn’t a criminal in the beginning; she was part of the working poor and the oppressed. Franklin lost touch with his father at least in part because of his (Alton's) struggle with addiction. Sissy also did not want Franklin's father around because of who he is/was and the choices he made. What's the difference between what Sissy did and what V is doing? If Franklin's son ever reached out to his father, he would find a figure much like the one Franklin initially found in Alton. The only way V could break the curse was by not getting with Franklin in the first place. That's too much like right for a woman though.

The only difference I see between Franklin’s upbringing and his son’s will be the material condition of his life….which is exactly what Franklin was trying to do at the expense of everyone else. She is doing what Franklin was trying to do. It's just at his expense instead of the expense of the surrounding community. Understand this doesn't make her a better person; it just puts her at the top of the food chain. She isn’t breaking the curse; she’s perpetuating it. She's also helping to usher in the next scourge to the black community after crack: single motherhood.

Finally, it should be noted that both Teddy and Franklin got off easy. I suppose it’s up to you to decide which fate is worse: a long, sh!tty life or a quick death after a night of torture. In any case, understand that Teddy deserved to die and he represented the United States govt. What does that say about the government and those it purports to represent? What does that say about those who affirm its legitimacy? What do they deserve? That’s a conversation many of you aren’t ready for. It’s easy to say they got what they deserved when dealing with some Jheri curled gangsta or a crack whore. It's a little more difficult for many of you to condemn a nation to death that purposely produced these individuals.