Empress Theresa: Chapter Twenty-Two Analysis · 5:46pm May 17th, 2023
After so very long, Theresa is finally going home to America, but not before tipping the butler ten million dollars (Scarecrow, I think I’ll miss you most of all). She and Steve hustle their way through the airport, Theresa keeping up her Karen act as she ignores all of the people who are praising her as she passes by them. She says that if they don’t like it, that’s too bad.
This is sounding very much like a way of trying to create a character flaw within Theresa. It is well-known that Boutin did not respond well to criticisms about his main character being a perfect, goody two shoes all the time, and it seems as though he’s trying to overcorrect the problem. However, this just makes Theresa come off as even more unlikeable. This is not a bad thing, since writing a character who comes off as someone who you can’t wholly like can create a character who is very interesting and memorable. A few examples of this would be Michael Scott from ‘The Office,’ George Costanza from ‘Seinfeld,’ and Harry Callahan from ‘Dirty Harry.’ What makes these other characters different from Theresa is that you see different sides of them that humanize them. Michael is shown to care deeply about his workers on several occasions. George is shown to be motivated by insecurity and anxiety, which always hilariously comes back to bite him in the end. And Harry? While he doesn’t agree with the system he serves, he is sworn to serve it, and doesn’t tolerate anyone hurting the people in the city he protects. Especially the people he’s closest to. Unfortunately, Boutin doesn’t understand character depth, leaving Theresa as shallow as a puddle of dog piss on concrete.
Theresa and Steve get on the plane, and we are once again harangued by meaningless numbers that have nothing to do with the plot. I probably shouldn’t complain so much, because these numbers are probably as close to any clarity that the narration will offer. Once they’re flying over the Atlantic, everyone but Theresa falls unconscious. This is actually a pretty interesting plot twist, which could make for a very exciting scene. Except that it comes out of nowhere, and will very likely go nowhere once it’s resolved.
With nobody around to blame but HAL, Theresa stumbles through some overly long narration to get to the cockpit, remove the pilot from his seat and assume his responsibilities. Holy crap! This had better be a joke. Leslie Nielsen had better pop up behind her and say, “I am serious! And don’t call me Shirley!” Sadly, no. It seems that all the plane’s electronics are dead, which means that Theresa won’t be able to use the radio to get any help from the ground. Now she’s blaming God for her misfortune. How about HAL? HAL’s the one who did this. Or herself? She’s supposed to be the god-like parallel.
With no radio for help, Theresa decides to use a cellphone to call somebody. I never tried it, but I don’t know if she’d get very good reception calling someone from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. But she doesn’t use her own phone. No, sir. She begins rifling through strangers’ belongings to use their phones. Fortunately for the other passengers, their phones are dead as well. Because of this setback, she curses God again. (‘Damn you, God! Don’t I have the right to invade other peoples’ privacy instead of using my own property!?’)
After her little outburst, Theresa shows a remarkable recovery of her spirits by going back to the cockpit and looking for the flight manual. I’m not sure if any real pilots do this, but that’s how it’s done in the movies that Boutin’s seen, so just bear with it. As Theresa wallows in her misery for not being able to understand the flight manuals, she notices that there is a fighter jet flying alongside her.
It seems that word had somehow gotten out that her plane had gone off course, and Blair sent his guys out to keep her safe. However, they do nothing to facilitate Theresa’s safety as Theresa goes back to reading the manual and begins to understand what those numbers on the control panel mean (despite how the electronics had all been turned off earlier. How’s that for a plot hole)? It goes on for a whole page about what Theresa learns about flying a plane. What does what. What those words mean. The whole shebang.
Another point I should make about authoring is knowing when to be succinct and when to be elaborate. In order to convey a scene like this that’s supposed to be suspenseful and exciting, the description of each of those things that Theresa learns would be best limited to one paragraph at the very most. A short paragraph. Not an entire page. This conveys urgency and a sense of hastiness. Drawing it out like this implies that Theresa took her sweet time without a care in the world. It bores us to death too.
The point of the previous paragraph is driven home as we get a horribly boring drone of a narration that tells us about Theresa’s voyage to New York. Despite how the narration explicitly and unambiguously states that there are millions of boats in the water awaiting Theresa’s arrival, they want her to make a water landing. Another thing that makes this inexpressibly baffling is that water landings are much trickier and more treacherous than runway landings. Something far beyond the skills of a first time flier. Theresa decides that she doesn’t want to land on water, just so she can tell them to go to Hell. I wish I were just being glib or pithy, but that’s what it says on the actual page. Theresa’s motivation is just to show everyone what a great pilot she’s become after reading a professional reference guide just the one time. This is not how you write a hero.
Theresa flies way too damn low over developed areas, causing enough destruction that is normally done by natural disasters. People get knocked over, and possibly injured or deafened. Windows splinter. Everything loose that weighs less than a car gets blown away. And what’s this? She’s flying straight toward the Empire State Building! Why? How!? When did this happen!? What is she doing flying directly toward it!? The whole idea was that it was supposed to be her reference point for finding the airport, and now she’s about to crash into it, causing her own personal 9/11 disaster!! And then she doesn’t hit it and veers over New Jersey. She then cries as she flies because of the unfairness of the situation. Except she was the one who didn’t do what the more experienced pilots suggested. She chose to fly way too low over developed land. She chose to do everything wrong, even when the manual told her how to do everything right. She’s the one at fault, but she probably won’t be taken to task for it.
Finally, after looking out the window and seeing all of the people who have turned out to watch her land, Theresa thinks about how famous she’ll be and collects herself enough so that she is able to land the plane at the airport. Which she does successfully. Once she’s on the ground, everyone else on the plane regains consciousness and collectively praises Theresa for her greatness once more, and Theresa reconciles with God, because she now knows that she’s good enough, she’s smart enough, and doggone it, people like her.
Wouldn’t you know it? Theresa isn’t held accountable for all of the destruction she caused, the lives she endangered, the flight laws she violated, or anything else on the laundry list of reasons why she should be in jail. Instead, it is decided that simpler instruction manuals be put into every plane’s cockpit, just because Theresa suggested it. You know, just in case anyone dumber than Theresa has to fly a plane during an emergency.
This entire event was pointless. Nothing in this chapter had any affect on the plot. Nothing about it tied into anything that happened before, except for HAL doing something weird in the same place it did its first weird thing. The only point that this chapter may have had was to make Theresa look heroic, which it fails miserably at by having her act like a teenager who’s gotten the keys to the car for the very first time, cause millions of dollars of damage, injure countless people, then complains about how the world is systematically against her when she gets off with a slap on the wrist. This is an attempt at trying to make her seem like she’s supposed to be a better character than she actually is without any of the effort of crafting a good story.
A chapter like this one should have been exciting. Instead, it was a boring chore to read. Possibly even more than the other chapters so far, just because of all the excess descriptions. But since that’s it for now, go have some fun before we go over the next chapter on Friday.
I can't help but wonder if this chapter was intended as a reference to the Miracle on the Hudson. Of course, it goes without saying I'd rather have Cpt. Sullenberger at the controls than Theresa.
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I never would have known about the reference, because the writing that may have referred to it is so badly done.
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It's Boutin. No surprises there!