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Class S1.2 The Coach With the Dragon Tattoo
And we’re onto the season proper!! The thing with short seasons is that there’s no space for filler episodes; and this is very clear in Class. I don’t think it’s spoilery to say that from now on, the episodes are pretty much character-centric, each character getting their own episode (more or less).
In the second episode it’s Ram’s turn. Which makes sense since he’s the one worst affected by the events in the pilot. Having witnessed his girlfriend murdered in front of him and then having his leg cut off, he’s experienced both emotional and physical pain that is deeply scarring. And he does not deal with it well.
There are of course other things happening in the episode too, so I’ll divide them up into sections, named after the relevant symbolism. (Also if you're interested, the BBC has lots of extras such as: Class Cribs: Ram’s room)
The very start is lots of messages left for him from his new friends, but he brushes them off.
Where the pilot - due to its very nature - was very focussed on set-up, the second episode (to my great delight) brought along the meta! Like most shows of this type, it has a Monster-of-the-Week, which also acts as a metaphor for the issues.
In this case, toxic masculinity.
First of all, I’m going to quote an article that talked about the furious backlash against Hillary Clinton’s run for the presidency:
To understand this reaction, start with what social psychologists call “precarious manhood” theory. The theory posits that while womanhood is typically viewed as natural and permanent, manhood must be “earned and maintained.” Because it is won, it can also be lost. Scholars at the University of South Florida and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign reported that when asked how someone might lose his manhood, college students rattled off social failures like “losing a job.” When asked how someone might lose her womanhood, by contrast, they mostly came up with physical examples like “a sex-change operation” or “having a hysterectomy.”
(x)
We see this attitude physically expressed in the Coach. He despises weakness, and will make no allowances for grief or pain.
However, it goes deeper than that. I’m sure everyone noted the title, and how it was a play on ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ - what you may not know is that the original title of that book, in Swedish, is ‘Men Who Hate Women’. It is quite literally a book about misogyny.
(I am also told that the Hannibal character Francis Dolarhyde is serial killer who believes he is possessed by the Great Red Dragon from a William Blake painting painting and has the dragon tattooed on his back. More thoughts on this angle very welcome!)
Going back to the Coach, and our theme, we see it very clearly expressed in the reality of his motivations and actions. The female dragon is trapped on his body, and he uses the threat of violence against her to keep her mate in check. It’s all about dominance. Over others, over self, over emotions. And it’s destructive (and deadly - literally).
We see Ram, initially, trying to follow the same path. After all, he’s clearly something of an ‘alpha male’ - a handsome, gifted football star, at the top of the pecking order, with a gorgeous girlfriend and not above kicking those further down. (Not much - that would require taking notice.) As Miss Quill describes him: ‘The boy who hears silent applause whenever he enters a room’.
He has probably never done much introspection, being an active, immediate kinda guy, and the double loss hits him hard in ways he is not well equipped to handle.
So, he starts the episode by bottling it all up - he refuses to interact with the rest of the gang, and takes his cues from the coach, someone he has always looked up to.
When the supporting coach mentions that Ram’s girlfriend is still missing, the Coach cuts him off, and tells Ram he is not going to make any allowances:
“Face your demons and conquer them.”
This is why ‘Toxic’ masculinity is named just that - it’s toxic. Not just to women, but to men too. Not being given any allowance for grief or pain is incredibly unhealthy.
Ram then goes on to find the assistant coach’s body, freaks out and flashes back to Rachel’s death.(Not surprisingly.)
It’s no coincidence that the following scene shows the Coach telling himself that “I’m in control. Not you.”
Ram tries to keep control of himself, but doesn’t succeed very well. He acts out in class, then walks out, and when he goes to see the Coach he notices that he’s been moved to the 2nd team, the Coach telling him:
“This game wasn’t built on niceness.”
Throughout this, there is a desperate need on Ram’s behalf to keep hold of at least one part of his life - the football, the thing he’s always excelled at. And failing must seem like he’s losing one of the most fundamental aspects of himself. At a time when he needs it most.
Then he witnesses the dragon eating the cleaner, and finally he’s so traumatised that he opens up to Tanya. Over several (mostly online) chats, through the rest of the episode, Tanya helps him to find a way forward. Having lost her dad two years previously she understands what he’s going through and how difficult it is to give voice to it. Most crucially, she doesn’t try to get him to talk, she says that it’s up to him. That he should wait until he’s ready. This is probably the most important advice he hears in the whole episode. Not ‘Share it all’, nor ‘Bottle it up’. Just: ‘Wait until you are ready.’
She ‘gathers the troops’, and she, Charlie and April go to see the headmaster, who is - bless him - a genuinely nice man.
Sidebar: I also wanted to mention the conversation these three have earlier on about ‘Forgetty-itis’ (another Buffy nod) - how come everyone seems to just carry on and pretend like nothing’s happened? Everyone knows that Coal Hill has a high body count (just like Sunnydale High did), but people don’t want to acknowledge it. I think the reason is twofold - 1, it’s easier to pretend things are fine, than to try to face the scary truth (and indeed, our little gang aren’t running around shouting at the other students - maybe other students talk amongst themselves too…) and 2) I’m sure ‘The Powers That Be’ (the Governors, presumably) are very good at hushing things up. (ETA: Managed to completely forget that Tanya is attempting to hack UNIT. Above all else she wants facts to help her deal with their new reality.)
Maybe these factors are in our gang’s mind when they decide to tell the truth.
We will never know whether Mr Armitage believed them (or how much he knew about what was going on), as he then gets eaten too (very horribly), and no one doubts Ram’s story any longer.
Then there is the big group chat, where we discover that Charlie is artistically gifted, and Ram recognises the dragon as being like the Coach’s tattoo…
The Coach’s explanation - how he was weak, but the dragon made him strong, is important. It ties back to the ‘precarious manhood’ quote above - the Coach needs the dragon and its strength in order to maintain the manhood he feels he needs. On his own he is not enough. And there is no more telling moment than his tersely worded “But I have it under control!” as the dragon snarls behind him. That kind of violence is only ever destructive.
One interesting point to note is the scenes where the Coach is half or fully naked. Despite Quill checking him out at one point (when clothed) his nudity is not presented as a weakness, or as sexy (although he most certainly is extremely fit) - no, it comes off as aggressive and threatening. Raw physical power that you don’t want to challenge.
The confrontation at the end is vicious, and we see Ram channelling his pain and anger and frustration into the showdown. What’s happened to him was brutal, and he throws it back, now he has a target. The dragon has lost its mate, which is now trapped on the Coach’s body, and Ram understands that grief and frustration. But he also tries to look beyond the present reality:
COACH: He doesn't have any choice. He needs my skin intact or she dies. And if you don't kill these kids right now.
RAM: “You’re gonna do this forever? You’re gonna grieve forever?”
DRAGON: “She is trapped.”
RAM: “You didn’t say it could talk! [beat] So, she is trapped. And maybe you’ll never get her off his body. That’s the new reality, what’re you going to do about it? At least I’ve been fighting this arsehole, what have you done? Let him set the rules for you?”
COACH: “I will harm her. You know I will.”
RAM: [to Coach] “But why does it have to be a stand-off on your terms?” [to dragon] “Don’t you know what we do to skin in this world? Have you never heard of leather? Make a chair out of him or something… Maybe you’ll never have her back the way you want, but I won’t get Rachel back either! But at least you’ll have her. Maybe you can find a way to make the new reality work. I’m done. Kill me! Skin me! I don’t want to keep seeing the things I’ve seen. I don’t want the future to keep seeming impossible. I don’t. I don’t care. It's your life.”
They say confession is good for the soul… And I’m sure it helps Ram to let everything out that he has been bottling up. And it’s not pretty; it’s full of despair and harsh truths.
But it also saves the day and vanquishes the foe. The dragon takes the Coach away, the metaphor coming to its natural conclusion. You cannot control such forces, they end up consuming you.
Yet there is no elation at this ending. The group are unsettled that they in effect just killed someone, and Ram wonders why it didn’t feel better. But vengeance or retaliation is not a solution for grief.
And the end of the episode Ram opens up to his father, finally able to talk to someone. Incidentally his father is amazing and possibly the best TV dad I’ve ever seen. And manages to say exactly the right thing…
VARUN: Hey, hey, son. Look, do you remember when I used to line up the balls for you? You were so small, you used to fall over them sometimes. But you got better.
~~
Symbolically, however, Ram was mirrored with the dragon. (Or more accurately - Ram, the coach and the dragon are all connected.) He even directly compared his own grief to the dragon's (and displayed a slightly worrying moment of seemingly referring to the female dragon as a possession), but overall rejected the dragon's power.
But he wasn't a knight. That symbolism was someone else's...
Running parallel to the main story, Quill has her own story in this episode, mostly interacting with Mr Armitage, who is a delight, and whom I will miss. First of all, I need to pull out a couple of exchanges:
ARMITAGE: The school is being inspected, Miss Quill, and your class is part of the school, though your continuous surprise at that fact is troubling.
QUILL: No. No, I'm not a monkey to be jumping through hoops.
ARMITAGE: All teachers are monkeys, Miss Quill. Haven't you been listening to the education secretary?
And later:
QUILL: No. No, there's a whiff around him. I'm telling you, he is evil.
ARMITAGE: He's from Ofsted. Of course he's evil. At least try not to get us into any special measures. The governors wouldn't like it.
For someone working in education, I cannot begin to tell you how perfect those lines are.
There is also the fact that the two of them are… Well, they oddly get along:
ARMITAGE: You know I'm not supposed to get this report. And amazingly, he hasn't asked for your immediate dismissal. He wants to observe you again. Maybe he likes you.
QUILL: Ah. No, no-one likes me.
ARMITAGE: I like you. You're a pain in my bottom, but at least you're a fresh kind of pain, and for a headteacher, that's almost marriage.
Quill’s blunt dismissal at the idea that anyone should like her belies the pain that lies beneath:
QUILL: Oh, for God's sake, what do you want?
(The Inspector writes in his notebook. 'You'
QUILL: Really?
(She pushes him against the lockers and kisses him passionately.)
QUILL: You have no idea how alone I am. I'm trapped here. I literally. I can't leave. And I quite like the headmaster. Not that anybody asked. So maybe you're perfect for me. Someone who won't ask anything of me at all.
Backtracking a bit, then the Inspector seriously gets under her skin. She goes all Sherlock Holmes trying to uncover the truth about him, down to the stitching on his trousers.
The fact of her throwing herself at more or less the first person who wants her, should also be balanced against her using him to save her own skin, when push comes to shove.
And then he turns out to be a robot...
The fact that she actually tells the others, and then pushes it, revealing more, also shows how desperate she is for some sort of social interaction, any kind of reaction, no matter what it it. (Even as she despises them.) Her self-worth isn’t fabulous:
QUILL: Don't worry, I get it. Quill fights to the death so you can all live.
(Also, ‘making out with a robot’ screams Spike. I’m sorry, if that’s not a deliberate reference I’ll eat my hat. The outsider, the ‘killer’, the one older than the ‘Scooby Gang’ who rolls their eyes at the youthful innocence & naivety & idealism, yet willing to take whatever crumbs… Oh yes.)
Most interestingly - more interesting than the fact that the robot was made by or for the governors - is Quill’s pocketing of the Chess knight (as a potential weapon).
We see it later, in the clearly cleaned room, with a drop of blood on its muzzle. Presumably blood from the dragon’s slaughter of Mr Armitage, but when did Quill put it back? And what did she use it for (if anything)? Although that’s not really what struck me…
The knights were the king’s guard and nobles of the realm. Quill, as Charlie (the prince's) protector, as the fighter of the group, fits this description to a T. Except it’s more complicated of course. She is an unwilling knight, one who fought for her own cause, and for her people, against the royalty.
We can also see the Eastern European cleaning lady as a rather oblique Quill parallel:
RAM: Do you ever feel like you're losing it?
CLEANER: In my country, I was an accountant. I already lost it.
In her own country - on her own world - Quill had a purpose and a role. Now, she has lost it… Fighting other people's dragons, instead of following her own path. And she, like all of them, is searching for meaning in a world where there seems to be nothing but loss.
In the second episode it’s Ram’s turn. Which makes sense since he’s the one worst affected by the events in the pilot. Having witnessed his girlfriend murdered in front of him and then having his leg cut off, he’s experienced both emotional and physical pain that is deeply scarring. And he does not deal with it well.
There are of course other things happening in the episode too, so I’ll divide them up into sections, named after the relevant symbolism. (Also if you're interested, the BBC has lots of extras such as: Class Cribs: Ram’s room)
The very start is lots of messages left for him from his new friends, but he brushes them off.
Where the pilot - due to its very nature - was very focussed on set-up, the second episode (to my great delight) brought along the meta! Like most shows of this type, it has a Monster-of-the-Week, which also acts as a metaphor for the issues.
In this case, toxic masculinity.
First of all, I’m going to quote an article that talked about the furious backlash against Hillary Clinton’s run for the presidency:
To understand this reaction, start with what social psychologists call “precarious manhood” theory. The theory posits that while womanhood is typically viewed as natural and permanent, manhood must be “earned and maintained.” Because it is won, it can also be lost. Scholars at the University of South Florida and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign reported that when asked how someone might lose his manhood, college students rattled off social failures like “losing a job.” When asked how someone might lose her womanhood, by contrast, they mostly came up with physical examples like “a sex-change operation” or “having a hysterectomy.”
(x)
We see this attitude physically expressed in the Coach. He despises weakness, and will make no allowances for grief or pain.
However, it goes deeper than that. I’m sure everyone noted the title, and how it was a play on ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ - what you may not know is that the original title of that book, in Swedish, is ‘Men Who Hate Women’. It is quite literally a book about misogyny.
(I am also told that the Hannibal character Francis Dolarhyde is serial killer who believes he is possessed by the Great Red Dragon from a William Blake painting painting and has the dragon tattooed on his back. More thoughts on this angle very welcome!)
Going back to the Coach, and our theme, we see it very clearly expressed in the reality of his motivations and actions. The female dragon is trapped on his body, and he uses the threat of violence against her to keep her mate in check. It’s all about dominance. Over others, over self, over emotions. And it’s destructive (and deadly - literally).
We see Ram, initially, trying to follow the same path. After all, he’s clearly something of an ‘alpha male’ - a handsome, gifted football star, at the top of the pecking order, with a gorgeous girlfriend and not above kicking those further down. (Not much - that would require taking notice.) As Miss Quill describes him: ‘The boy who hears silent applause whenever he enters a room’.
He has probably never done much introspection, being an active, immediate kinda guy, and the double loss hits him hard in ways he is not well equipped to handle.
So, he starts the episode by bottling it all up - he refuses to interact with the rest of the gang, and takes his cues from the coach, someone he has always looked up to.
When the supporting coach mentions that Ram’s girlfriend is still missing, the Coach cuts him off, and tells Ram he is not going to make any allowances:
“Face your demons and conquer them.”
This is why ‘Toxic’ masculinity is named just that - it’s toxic. Not just to women, but to men too. Not being given any allowance for grief or pain is incredibly unhealthy.
Ram then goes on to find the assistant coach’s body, freaks out and flashes back to Rachel’s death.(Not surprisingly.)
It’s no coincidence that the following scene shows the Coach telling himself that “I’m in control. Not you.”
Ram tries to keep control of himself, but doesn’t succeed very well. He acts out in class, then walks out, and when he goes to see the Coach he notices that he’s been moved to the 2nd team, the Coach telling him:
“This game wasn’t built on niceness.”
Throughout this, there is a desperate need on Ram’s behalf to keep hold of at least one part of his life - the football, the thing he’s always excelled at. And failing must seem like he’s losing one of the most fundamental aspects of himself. At a time when he needs it most.
Then he witnesses the dragon eating the cleaner, and finally he’s so traumatised that he opens up to Tanya. Over several (mostly online) chats, through the rest of the episode, Tanya helps him to find a way forward. Having lost her dad two years previously she understands what he’s going through and how difficult it is to give voice to it. Most crucially, she doesn’t try to get him to talk, she says that it’s up to him. That he should wait until he’s ready. This is probably the most important advice he hears in the whole episode. Not ‘Share it all’, nor ‘Bottle it up’. Just: ‘Wait until you are ready.’
She ‘gathers the troops’, and she, Charlie and April go to see the headmaster, who is - bless him - a genuinely nice man.
Sidebar: I also wanted to mention the conversation these three have earlier on about ‘Forgetty-itis’ (another Buffy nod) - how come everyone seems to just carry on and pretend like nothing’s happened? Everyone knows that Coal Hill has a high body count (just like Sunnydale High did), but people don’t want to acknowledge it. I think the reason is twofold - 1, it’s easier to pretend things are fine, than to try to face the scary truth (and indeed, our little gang aren’t running around shouting at the other students - maybe other students talk amongst themselves too…) and 2) I’m sure ‘The Powers That Be’ (the Governors, presumably) are very good at hushing things up. (ETA: Managed to completely forget that Tanya is attempting to hack UNIT. Above all else she wants facts to help her deal with their new reality.)
Maybe these factors are in our gang’s mind when they decide to tell the truth.
We will never know whether Mr Armitage believed them (or how much he knew about what was going on), as he then gets eaten too (very horribly), and no one doubts Ram’s story any longer.
Then there is the big group chat, where we discover that Charlie is artistically gifted, and Ram recognises the dragon as being like the Coach’s tattoo…
The Coach’s explanation - how he was weak, but the dragon made him strong, is important. It ties back to the ‘precarious manhood’ quote above - the Coach needs the dragon and its strength in order to maintain the manhood he feels he needs. On his own he is not enough. And there is no more telling moment than his tersely worded “But I have it under control!” as the dragon snarls behind him. That kind of violence is only ever destructive.
One interesting point to note is the scenes where the Coach is half or fully naked. Despite Quill checking him out at one point (when clothed) his nudity is not presented as a weakness, or as sexy (although he most certainly is extremely fit) - no, it comes off as aggressive and threatening. Raw physical power that you don’t want to challenge.
The confrontation at the end is vicious, and we see Ram channelling his pain and anger and frustration into the showdown. What’s happened to him was brutal, and he throws it back, now he has a target. The dragon has lost its mate, which is now trapped on the Coach’s body, and Ram understands that grief and frustration. But he also tries to look beyond the present reality:
COACH: He doesn't have any choice. He needs my skin intact or she dies. And if you don't kill these kids right now.
RAM: “You’re gonna do this forever? You’re gonna grieve forever?”
DRAGON: “She is trapped.”
RAM: “You didn’t say it could talk! [beat] So, she is trapped. And maybe you’ll never get her off his body. That’s the new reality, what’re you going to do about it? At least I’ve been fighting this arsehole, what have you done? Let him set the rules for you?”
COACH: “I will harm her. You know I will.”
RAM: [to Coach] “But why does it have to be a stand-off on your terms?” [to dragon] “Don’t you know what we do to skin in this world? Have you never heard of leather? Make a chair out of him or something… Maybe you’ll never have her back the way you want, but I won’t get Rachel back either! But at least you’ll have her. Maybe you can find a way to make the new reality work. I’m done. Kill me! Skin me! I don’t want to keep seeing the things I’ve seen. I don’t want the future to keep seeming impossible. I don’t. I don’t care. It's your life.”
They say confession is good for the soul… And I’m sure it helps Ram to let everything out that he has been bottling up. And it’s not pretty; it’s full of despair and harsh truths.
But it also saves the day and vanquishes the foe. The dragon takes the Coach away, the metaphor coming to its natural conclusion. You cannot control such forces, they end up consuming you.
Yet there is no elation at this ending. The group are unsettled that they in effect just killed someone, and Ram wonders why it didn’t feel better. But vengeance or retaliation is not a solution for grief.
And the end of the episode Ram opens up to his father, finally able to talk to someone. Incidentally his father is amazing and possibly the best TV dad I’ve ever seen. And manages to say exactly the right thing…
VARUN: Hey, hey, son. Look, do you remember when I used to line up the balls for you? You were so small, you used to fall over them sometimes. But you got better.
Symbolically, however, Ram was mirrored with the dragon. (Or more accurately - Ram, the coach and the dragon are all connected.) He even directly compared his own grief to the dragon's (and displayed a slightly worrying moment of seemingly referring to the female dragon as a possession), but overall rejected the dragon's power.
But he wasn't a knight. That symbolism was someone else's...
Running parallel to the main story, Quill has her own story in this episode, mostly interacting with Mr Armitage, who is a delight, and whom I will miss. First of all, I need to pull out a couple of exchanges:
ARMITAGE: The school is being inspected, Miss Quill, and your class is part of the school, though your continuous surprise at that fact is troubling.
QUILL: No. No, I'm not a monkey to be jumping through hoops.
ARMITAGE: All teachers are monkeys, Miss Quill. Haven't you been listening to the education secretary?
And later:
QUILL: No. No, there's a whiff around him. I'm telling you, he is evil.
ARMITAGE: He's from Ofsted. Of course he's evil. At least try not to get us into any special measures. The governors wouldn't like it.
For someone working in education, I cannot begin to tell you how perfect those lines are.
There is also the fact that the two of them are… Well, they oddly get along:
ARMITAGE: You know I'm not supposed to get this report. And amazingly, he hasn't asked for your immediate dismissal. He wants to observe you again. Maybe he likes you.
QUILL: Ah. No, no-one likes me.
ARMITAGE: I like you. You're a pain in my bottom, but at least you're a fresh kind of pain, and for a headteacher, that's almost marriage.
Quill’s blunt dismissal at the idea that anyone should like her belies the pain that lies beneath:
QUILL: Oh, for God's sake, what do you want?
(The Inspector writes in his notebook. 'You'
QUILL: Really?
(She pushes him against the lockers and kisses him passionately.)
QUILL: You have no idea how alone I am. I'm trapped here. I literally. I can't leave. And I quite like the headmaster. Not that anybody asked. So maybe you're perfect for me. Someone who won't ask anything of me at all.
Backtracking a bit, then the Inspector seriously gets under her skin. She goes all Sherlock Holmes trying to uncover the truth about him, down to the stitching on his trousers.
The fact of her throwing herself at more or less the first person who wants her, should also be balanced against her using him to save her own skin, when push comes to shove.
And then he turns out to be a robot...
The fact that she actually tells the others, and then pushes it, revealing more, also shows how desperate she is for some sort of social interaction, any kind of reaction, no matter what it it. (Even as she despises them.) Her self-worth isn’t fabulous:
QUILL: Don't worry, I get it. Quill fights to the death so you can all live.
(Also, ‘making out with a robot’ screams Spike. I’m sorry, if that’s not a deliberate reference I’ll eat my hat. The outsider, the ‘killer’, the one older than the ‘Scooby Gang’ who rolls their eyes at the youthful innocence & naivety & idealism, yet willing to take whatever crumbs… Oh yes.)
Most interestingly - more interesting than the fact that the robot was made by or for the governors - is Quill’s pocketing of the Chess knight (as a potential weapon).
We see it later, in the clearly cleaned room, with a drop of blood on its muzzle. Presumably blood from the dragon’s slaughter of Mr Armitage, but when did Quill put it back? And what did she use it for (if anything)? Although that’s not really what struck me…
The knights were the king’s guard and nobles of the realm. Quill, as Charlie (the prince's) protector, as the fighter of the group, fits this description to a T. Except it’s more complicated of course. She is an unwilling knight, one who fought for her own cause, and for her people, against the royalty.
We can also see the Eastern European cleaning lady as a rather oblique Quill parallel:
RAM: Do you ever feel like you're losing it?
CLEANER: In my country, I was an accountant. I already lost it.
In her own country - on her own world - Quill had a purpose and a role. Now, she has lost it… Fighting other people's dragons, instead of following her own path. And she, like all of them, is searching for meaning in a world where there seems to be nothing but loss.
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