ATDTDA: Lake (moderate spoiler at very end of post)

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

Bekah, I'm really glad you bruoght together all the Lake references.

She's a complex character, and I think believable.  
On a personal level, like Frenesi, she on one hand wants to tame the
bad boy with her love, while on the other hand, she has a taste for
the vida loca that he offers.  

Yet there's more: On...let's see, out of hands, so...
on one knee, she represents the unorganized working classes 
trying to conform to Pauline notions (acceding to the violence 
of the ruling classes, as if believing their authority was truly 
from God, which is a pretty radical example of turning the other 
cheek) - accepting temporal authority under some duress 
but trying to make it a virtue; 
like the person who works hard at a job that doesn't quite
pay the bills, making somebody else rich...like all the non-union
labor wiring up the cable network in Vineland...her contribution is
wrested from her and her compensation doesn't cover her needs.... 

on the other knee, finding the ability to cleave to a more 
and more loveless relationship not by realizing the high hopes 
embodied in the promise she made in the beautiful church 
but through phases of surrender-to-the-moment, dreams of escape, 
stubbornness and even hopes of revenge - with this aspect of her 
representing, maybe, those lasting girl-promises featured earlier in 
Merle's reverie...and how men, while profiting from them, 
and depending on them, are sometimes completely unworthy of them...

Lake is poignant and worth the ink.  a-and, I was totally rooting
for her to brain Deuce...and just as glad when
she restrained herself - little victory in a long war of attrition...