Knowing When To Stop

I don’t always quit watching a TV show, unless it gets really bad. I almost stopped watching Game of Thrones after season 5 concluded because I hated how Shireen was burned alive and Sansa was raped but seeing Dany mount Drogon for the first time persuaded me to stay.

If I knew they were going to butcher her arc in the final season, I would have stopped watching long ago. But I stayed, and the consequences were I subjected myself to rage, which did come in the end.

However, there are other shows that also do something horrible in my eyes, and even if something great happens right after or later, I don’t feel as tempted to stick around, so I stop.

I do have my limits, and there’s a show called Frontier on Netflix that had one moment that was enough for me to say that’s enough and leave.

I originally was drawn to it for its Canadian setting, era of the fur trade, and, of course, Jason Momoa.

However, the hardest part about watching these historical shows is dealing with how women are treated. It’s exasperating to see women on TV or in movies be manhandled by men for whatever reason and most of them don’t seem to know any self-defense, except for Sokanon who was one of my favourite characters.

Grace Emberly was strong in terms of wits and I somehow knew already there was something between her and Declan Harp.

I didn’t like Clenna. She reminded me too much of Sansa, weak for the most part, but it’s been years since I watched this show, so there may have been things I missed.

Now, to the root of this article is focused on a character named Elizabeth Carruthers, who started her own fur trade company. While she wasn’t my number one favorite, I liked how she was trying to bring her business to the front during a time when women didn’t hold positions of power. In a way, she was just like Grace.

Until that scene where her rivalry with Samuel Grant reaches a point of violence where he bludgeons her to death after she taunts him. The scene was horrifying, and although I have seen women die before in other TV shows, that kind of violence just crossed the line for me on what I can tolerate.

It felt unnecessary, and I always saw Grant as an asshole who I wanted to die instead. Karma does come for him eventually, but I still couldn’t keep watching after that. I mean, if you have watched the show, you can argue with me that he had every right to respond violently because she attacked him first but did she really deserve to be bludgeoned to death like that? Grant definitely overreacted. Thus, I say to the writers, was this really necessary? No.

As a woman, feminist, and a person who is normally really good at separating fiction from reality and creation from creator, I still have my limits, and this was definitely beyond my limit.

Instead of being one of those people who commented endlessly on social media pages about it, I just chose to walk away.

A few nights ago, I had a dream that she escaped Grant, and I helped her reach a safe house in the wilderness. Someone on Ao3 wrote an alternate scenario where she kills Grant instead!

Have you ever felt this way about a show you watched? It’s not easy. Sometimes, we just need to know how much we can handle before we stop.

👽Emily