Wonderfalls
Revisited: The Destiny of the Human Spirit
“I
surrender to destiny,” says the Maid of the Mist before she sails
over Niagara Falls in a sacrificial attempt to appease the god who lives
within its waters.
It’s
from a tourist video (and fictional myth) that’s recited at the
beginning of the pilot episode of Wonderfalls, a short-lived
television series that aired in March 2004 on FOX, but it is also the
underlying theme of this 13-episode gem of a series. And with co-creator
Bryan Fuller’s new show, Pushing Daisies, being the critical
darling of the upcoming television season, it deserves to be re-visited.
Jaye Tyler,
a 24-year-old Brown University graduate, degree in philosophy, is a
retail clerk at a gift shop (called Wonderfalls) in Niagara, who suddenly
begins hearing voices from inanimate objects, always “animal”
in appearance (a wax lion here, bronze monkey there). Not just voices,
however, but directions, commands, orders, that ultimately lead to some
good deed being done at Jaye’s hands.
The catch,
however, is that Jaye is an unlikely heroine. She is rude, self involved,
uncaring, ambitionless and any other adjective one could possibly want
to throw in as well. The third episode, “Karma Chameleon,”
introduces us to the character of Jaye the fullest: what she’s
like, what she strives (or doesn’t strive) for, etc. It starts
off with her mother, a successful travel guide writer, celebrating the
release of her latest book. The inner sleeve “blurb” talks
about the Tyler family, but when it gets to Jaye, she only gets five
words, which acts as a metaphor for how her life lacks significance.
But an undercover journalist (Bianca) enters the scene, with the goal
of writing a 5000 word article on Jaye—the “prototypical
Gen Y-er.”
“You
represent a generation of young people who’ve been blessed with
education and opportunity who don’t just fall through the cracks
but jump through,” she tells Jaye.
Jaye eventually
grants Bianca an “all access pass” to her life. The scene
where Bianca interviews Jaye, which is also interspersed with voice
over commentary from Bianca, best explains the life Jaye has led up
to this point.
Voice over:
“While their lives may appear aimless and desolate, there’s
nothing random about the choices the Gen Y non-winner makes. Everything
they do is for a single purpose: to avoid engaging with the world around
them.”
“What
about friends?” Bianca asks.
“I’d
choose people who aren’t much more motivated than you are,”
Jaye answers. “But don’t surround yourself with total narcissists,
otherwise things start to become about something other than you.”
Bianca
marvels at Jaye’s life. “You have really managed to create
a stressless, expectation-free zone for yourself,” she gushes.
Obviously,
one cannot go through life living this way. We are not inanimate objects,
after all, but living beings. And living beings need interaction. Just
take a look at clichéd older women: why do they have so many
cats? Because although alone in life, they still need some sort of interaction.
Having pets, having that interaction with them, can even help the sick
heal better and faster. Because we ultimately were made and conditioned
to interact. It is an element of our human spirit.
But interaction
with animals, although helpful, is not the ideal. And the same is true
with inanimate objects, shaped like animals, that talk. That is even
less than ideal. It is human interaction that we essentially need and
crave. This “need” is most represented by Jaye. In a sense,
she has repressed her need, which could be a psychological (i.e., non-mystical)
explanation in regards to what is happening to her.
“What
happens when you repress something?” friend Mahandra asks Jaye
early on. “It goes away?” Jaye sheepishly replies, only
to be corrected with, “It comes back, all crazy and pissed off.”
Thus the voices could simply be Jaye’s psyche lashing out.
A psychological
explanation for what happens in Jaye’s life, however, is not as
entertaining for us as an audience than a mystical one. It also parallels
another need in all of us, the desire for purpose and the belief in
some sort of higher power. Even Jaye, hardly religious, understands
this. In the very first episode, for example, she asks the inanimate
animals who have talked to her the simple yet unanswerable question:
“Are you God?”
Four episodes
later that question is more fully explored. The story revolves around
a nun (Katrina) who has lost her faith in God, and Jaye interprets the
message “bring her back to him” to mean she should restore
the nun’s faith. So she confides in the nun. “I believe
in something—sort of. And it talks to me and may actually be God
but has never said so specifically.”
The nun
believes her, but not that it’s God. To her, it sounds more like
the Devil, and she suggests an exorcism. Jaye, eager to rid herself
of the voices, consents. In the end, however, there is no exorcism,
but Katrina’s faith is restored when the true meaning of “bring
her back to him” is revealed: the priest sent to retrieve Sister
Katrina is united with a young daughter, conceived before he took his
vows, that he previously didn’t know existed.
As demonstrated
above, the inanimate objects are often vague in their directions, and
what Jaye initially thinks they are telling her to do is never what
they ultimately want her to do. Although this makes every episode an
entertaining one-hour screwball comedy, it also prevents her from taking
the easy way out. Jaye has to work to accomplish every mission she is
sent on. “I feel like a pinball,” she says in the first
episode. “I’ve been bouncing off bumpers and flippers, trying
to get something to happen but I had no idea what it was—I was
just trying to do what I thought I was supposed to do, but they didn’t
tell me what it was. They just kept making me guess.”
Being vague
does more than make Jaye work for it, though. By bouncing around and
trying to figure out what she is supposed to do, it also gets her more
involved in the lives of the people she is helping. She starts to make
real connections and actually care about their lives. Thus when “mission
accomplished” can finally be declared, the outcome is more rewarding
than had her directions been easy and specific.
Although
the voices force Jaye to interact with people, and the vague directions
they give likewise force her to get even more involved in their lives
(worse yet, force her to get to know them and care about them), no real
connection is established between Jaye and these people. They are briefly
in her life (for one episode), then out again. And while the interaction
and knowing and caring are important to Jaye’s development as
a human being, what Jaye needs most is a connection. A bond. Genuine
feelings.
Thus it
is Eric, a bartender who recently caught his wife cheating during their
honeymoon and stayed in Niagara to forge a new life, who becomes the
true catalyst for the changes Jaye’s life experiences. At first
just a boy, at first just another pretty boy, Jaye’s feelings
for him grow stronger because of the obstacles preventing them from
initially coupling. He is, after all, married (although now separated).
More importantly, he has the baggage that comes with the betrayal of
his newlywed, high-school-sweetheart of a wife, a betrayal so deep that
he not only separates from her but from his old life altogether, abandoning
New Jersey for Niagara.
They also
first meet at the same time the voices start talking to Jaye. And when
inanimate objects start talking to you, one inevitably acquires baggage
of their own. Where Jaye’s life was once one-dimensional, it is
suddenly a lot more complicated. The voices thus prevent Jaye from pursuing
Eric as she would have under normal circumstances, as well as (obviously)
doubt her own sanity. Over time, however, Eric’s attraction to
Jaye only grows, and he continues to persist despite her reluctance.
Ironically
enough, it’s not until Jaye offers advice to a female zookeeper,
whose entire life is centered around a bird sanctuary, that she finally
understands what is going on.
“Don’t
you think you’ve been using these birds to avoid interacting with
your own species long enough?” Jaye asks. “I mean, human
interaction is scary. And it’s unpredictable and you have to interact
with other, well, humans. And that’s always messy. You’re
probably scared and that’s why you’re using your animals
as an excuse to avoid risk.”
And at
that point she stops. The reality of her life finally hits her. But
life, in the end, isn’t necessarily easy. There are no quick fixes,
nor snap-of-the-fingers, no waking up the next morning a changed human
being. Change is hard: “no pain, no gain,” as the saying
goes. We need growth as well as understanding for change to firmly take
hold.
Thus begins
the next trial Jaye is forced to undertake, for now that she realizes
she does indeed have genuine feelings for Eric, Jaye experiences hopelessness
and confusion when the voices tell her to reunite Eric with his cheating
wife, Heidi. And during a scene between Jaye and Heidi, we finally understand
that it is indeed Eric, more than the voices, that are truly changing
Jaye and turning her into a different, better person.
“I
look in his eyes and the way they see,” Heidi confides. “The
way they see me…”
“It’s
like you’re reflected there,” Jaye finishes.
“Right,”
Heidi continues. “Only you’re not sure if that’s you,
or if you’re the woman he sees you as.”
“But
you want to be,” Jaye confesses.
In a sense,
Jaye is becoming the person Eric sees her as, the person Jaye herself
now wants to be, precisely because she is listening to the voices that
are telling her to let go of Eric, despite her own pain. And Jaye is
in pain. Pain from her first real broken heart. Pain from being the
cause of that broken heart, because she didn’t do anything, didn’t
tell the man she loves how she feels. Pain from being the one to bring
Eric back together with his cheating wife. And pain from knowing that
it was the voices that caused it all.
So why
does Jaye then listen to the voices? Part of it probably has to do with
her degree in philosophy from Brown University. Although we never hear
Jaye spouting words of wisdom or waxing philosophically—in fact,
with the exception of it playing to her high school goal of being “overeducated
and unemployable,” we are given no indication as to why she pursued
such a major—the degree (as well as the college) does say something
about Jaye. Specifically, that although a slacker by choice, she is
no intellectual slouch.
By the
same token, it is easier to believe the voices are real than not. After
all, if they are not real, that would lead to the conclusion there was
something mentally wrong with her. Thus, believing the voices are real
is more comforting. Or so she believes. Maybe.
“It’s
crazy that a person would think inanimate objects are talking to them,
telling them to do things. And crazier that a person would feel compelled
to do the things the inanimate objects are telling them to do,”
she confesses to her brother at one point, before pleading, “Please
tell me it’s crazy.”
Jaye has,
of course, witnessed the outcomes from listening to the voices and the
good they do in the lives of those she meets. This only reaffirms that
the voices are real—after all, could the screwball nature of the
events that lead to the positive outcomes simply be fabricated by a
mentally unstable mind?
Jaye is
ultimately rewarded for her efforts, despite her often reluctance, because
in the finale Eric leaves his wife for real, for good, and officially
moves to Niagara. Was it fate then that these two star-crossed lovers
found each other? Is it destiny that they should end up together? After
all, they both served a purpose in each others lives: Jaye helping Eric
survive his short-lived failed marriage, and Eric helping Jaye understand
the need for true connection with others. The answer ultimately depends
on how romantic one is at heart.
The only
true destiny, however, is the destiny of human spirit. The destiny that
people are meant to interact with others, meant to care and be a part
of each others lives. And even do there part in helping, in playing
a positive role in this thing we call life.
Despite
all of Jaye’s short-comings, it’s a message she understands
from the very beginning of Wonderfalls. In the first episode, while
it is obvious Jaye is experiencing something new in regards to doing
good deeds, it is likewise obvious that it’s an enjoyable experience
for her. She seems genuinely touched when a little boy tells her “thanks
for finding my mom’s purse,” and when she tells her older
sister “I love you” for the first time (in her life), she
is surprised it actually felt good. “I don’t feel dirty,”
she says afterwards. “I thought I’d feel dirty.”
The same
can be said for the true nature of the human spirit. It can seem awkward
at times, but never dirty. And embracing that spirit is akin to surrendering
to destiny.
Although
she does inevitably “surrender to destiny,” Jaye does so
while always remaining true to herself. When Eric, upon hearing the
story of the Maid of the Mist for the first time, comments, “I
think there’s something to be said for surrendering to destiny.
I mean, if it’s destiny, there’s probably a reason for it.
So why struggle with fate. Life can be sort of peaceful when you stop
struggling.”
Jaye’s
response? “It’s a lot like drowning that way.”
September
3, 2007
