Aaaand
we might as well round off the set.
There’s a definite possibility of other Nikita-related posts in the future, but this is, I think, the last
immediate entry in my must-write-about list.
Oh, Nikita, how much do you rock?
Let me count the ways. (Usual Nikita spoilers warning applies.)
Like
other characters I’ve loved and reviewed from this show, Nikita is a superb mix
of fine assets and honest flaws. She’s
an action heroine, a smart cookie, a BAMF surrogate mother, a hard-decision
maker, and a lost soul who’s scraped together some restitution for her past
sins. She’s one of those lucky people
who need people, although she doesn’t always realize that and sometimes
actively fights against it. Where
redemption is concerned, she puts her money where her mouth is, but at the same
time, she often dances on the knife edge between light and darkness. Most of all, she’s a woman who gets things
done; she drives the story forward, and any time the plot tries to dictate her
movements, she makes it clear she knows how to push back.
Nikita
and Alex are both unique in that they’re female protagonists with pretty morally-murky
origins. Nikita came to Division as a
drug addict and a cop-killer (committed under the influence, but still,) and
before leaving it, she rose to become one of its top assets. She killed for them spectacularly and without
complaint. When she does break from Division, her chief aim vacillates between justice
and revenge. She no longer turns a blind
eye to Division’s crimes, and she seeks to put a stop to it, while
simultaneously trying to atone for the unconscionable acts she did at its
biddings, but she’s more than just a crusader.
She’s also a devastatingly wronged party looking to twist the knife –
Division killed her fiancé, largely to display their power over her, and this
lends a disquieting aspect to her mission.
She wants them to feel every particle of her rage and pain over Daniel’s
death, and she wants them to pay for it, pound for pound, in flesh.
This
dichotomy informs much of Nikita’s story.
She wants to thwart Division’s nefarious plans and save innocents,
whether they’re directly in Division’s crosshairs or mere collateral
damage. However, her desire to see
Division break and suffer as it falls sometimes gets in the way of her nobler
intentions, and these two drives within her wrestle for pride of place among
her motivations. As such, she is never
all good or all bad. In her efforts to
disrupt Division’s villainy, she kills agents who were abducted, blackmailed,
and conditioned by Division just as she was.
When she has the means to end the life of one of her enemies, her hand is
sometimes stayed by mercy, hope for the better angels of their nature, or a
simple desire to end the violence. It’s
strong, thoughtful, character-driven storytelling that women get too rarely on
television.
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