A VIEW FROM JIM'S SIDE

The extent to which some commentators have laid sole responsibility for the events in "Sentinel, Too" at his feet seems to ignore EVERY insight we've been given into Jim Ellison's psyche and physiology for three seasons. And ironically, a lot of this comes (fictitiously speaking) from "Blair's reseach."

Yes, it is Blair lying "dead" at the end of S2, but the punishment this inflicts on Jim for being nothing more than a victim of Mother Nature's cruel genetic whim seems far more devastating.

In the pilot, we were introduced to a Jim Ellison who thought he was losing his mind. He admitted he was scared and that he couldn't function. Nor did he seem to remember the many times we now know he has faced this crisis before . Because before, the only solution for his sanity was to throw away all the painful memories, along with the heightened senses, and start again. A pattern starts to emerge for the viewer of how Jim's psyche has allowed him to cope with the physiological consequences of his genetic "gift".

In times of sensory crisis he cries, "I just can't FUNCTION like this!" We've seen that functionality is Jim's perceived raison d'etre. For him functionality has become the antithesis of emotionalism.

And there's a good reason why. Jim is convinced that the most important thing is being able to do his job, and he measures the relative importance of everything else against that continued functionality. He takes this responsibility he places on himself to extremes, and we have seen Jim leap on board helicopters and airplanes and trains and hovercrafts and stand in front of loaded guns and missiles and never back down in the face of frightening circumstances in order to bring people to justice. Despite the many reinventions of himself Jim seems to have undergone, keeping focused on this goal has been critical to his ability to work through a crisis and to navigate emotional minefields.

We are also told in the pilot episode that Jim "works alone" and likes it that way. Therefore he doesn't have to be responsible for anyone else. Two episodes down the track (Killers) we are introduced to his quiet, barren apartment. Over the course of a couple of seasons, we are shown other aspects of Jim's personality -- he favours neatness and order, he likes rules, he dislikes clutter. Jim is demonstrably an intelligent man with a wide variety of interests, but in general he favours black and white judgements and immediate action and dislikes esoteric discourse and areas of grey (Pennies From Heaven). He believes that you need to "leave your emotions at the door" or you're useless to yourself and those around you. (Cypher).

Eventually we are introduced to the idea that this emphasis on "getting the job done" is part of Jim's genetic destiny, "protecting the tribe", and that his enhanced senses are there to help him do that. Conversely (or maybe accordingly), Jim himself identifies his major fear as "responsibility" (Warriors) and he has a history of responsibility issues where he perceives himself to have let people down or failed to be able to "do the job.".

And then along comes Blair Sandburg. He's smart, he's dedicated, he's comforting and capable and he seems to have the answer to everything in Jim that doesn't work right. He's the only person who has ever seemed to understand what Jim has been going through all these years (Cypher). When Blair talks about "sentinels" everything comes into startling focus.

We are introduced to the idea Jim's emotions and his senses are directly linked. When his emotions are in turmoil, his senses go out of kilter. In "Killers" the death of Danny Choi caused hearing loss and loss of touch, in "Warriors" the perceived failure to "protect and serve" forced him to reject his gift. In "Rememberence" we learn that he was born with these senses, but extreme psychological trauma, both in his father's ridicule and disapproval and subsequently in losing his team in Peru caused Jim not only to lose his sensory abilities but to repress all memory of them. In "Love Kills" a connection between a negative image and a past love causes sensory blackouts.

Rather than the original idea that Blair was there simply to pull Jim out of "zone-outs", it seemed more and more that his function was as an emotional and physical anchor, as Blair encouraged Jim to open up more and more of himself which thus enabled the enhanced use of his senses. This helped Jim to hone his senses to even greater sensitivity. Jim had to relax and let go of a lot of his own defense mechanisms in favour of using Blair as a new support. In many ways he had to allow himself to dissolve and skew out of touch with reality, making himself vulnerable to zone-outs certainly, but more importantly, causing him to lose his ability to relate to the world in the same way that others do, or to even know the difference.

Jim, who acts primarily on instinct, has lost the ability to distinguish between what is obvious to him and what is obvious to everyone else, leaving him in a position of having to constantly ask... "can't you SMELL that?" (Switchman) "Can't you HEAR that?" (Hear No Evil) "Can't you FEEL that?" (Deep Water). It makes it difficult for him to understand that others don't interpret things as clearly and unquestionably as he does. Jim in charge of his senses is in a whole different perceptional reality and he comes to rely on Blair more and more for all sorts of things beyond zone-outs -- as a benchmark for what is real and what isn't and reinforcement and support for a whole new way of living.

Is it any wonder the level of exclusive commitment he needs in return? Suddenly Jim is vulnerable to another's actions and opinions in a way that he had made a habit of protecting himself against, and from time to time we see him struggle with this realisation and attempt to pull himself back from that level of need, especially at times when he fears that Blair's commitment level is not the same as his own.

We have seen Jim chafe against the myriad things that absorb Blair's attention, and primarily against the fear that it is the dissertation that is Blair's primary interest -- a finite goal that will lure him away permanently within a matter of months. The more the series progressed, the more the timer ticked down to zero, the closer the reckoning day became, the more Jim needed to reassess his vulnerability, and start rebuilding the walls that would allow him to remain sane and whole when Blair surely moves on.

And for Jim, the cycle goes on. The fate of Jim's genetic destiny makes him emotionally and physically at the mercy of his senses, to the point of loss of functionality, memory repression and a whole host of other frightening psychoses. The fact that he has continued to live, work and make an outstanding contribution to society is testament to his superior ability and control, and to the success of Jim's imperfect but effective self-defense mechanism - emotional distancing. This is not to say that Jim does not feel, or doesn't have emotions, rather the opposite, that he feels things so deeply that they can directly affect his ability to function. Without being able to pull himself back and protect himself from emotional trauma, who knows where he would have ended up.

So time and time again the series tells us that the extent to which Jim Ellison practices emotional distancing is extreme, yet it fits consistently within the character framework we're given. Jim's devotion and loyalty is absolute and rarely given but conversely, Jim's solution to dealing with pain or perceived betrayal is to cut off the offending limb immediately and completely to avoid debilitating trauma.

We are told that because of a teenage disagreement and the betrayal of his younger brother, Jim removed himself from that situation for 17 years (His Brother's Keeper). After betraying his partner (Deep Water) Jim never saw Emily Harrison again. Jim's ex-wife describes this behaviour as "lights off, nobody home" (Switchman) and a "fear of intimacy" (Night Shift). The extent to which Jim protects himself is absolute, and this is apparently the only way he has enabled himself to remain sane.

Once Jim accepts and begins to use his senses again, his subconscious (or the dicates of his "animal spirit") obviously stymied by the inability to get Jim to acknowledge his feelings openly, sends him signals and warnings about possible dangers to his functionality that he either can't or won't interpret. That kind of esoteric analysis is Blair's domain. Jim is so focused on getting the job done that he has no time to stop for detours into "the Sandburg Zone" (Killers). This is the way he has always done things. In a lot of ways, Blair continues to study Jim despite Jim's reluctance for the whole process.

Blair's studies eventually hypothesise that of all Jim's emotions "fear" is his primary motivator (Night Shift), both physiologically and psychologically. This is a very interesting theory. And remember, saying that someone is motivated by "fear" is a psychological categorization and is not the same as saying they are a 'coward'. Jim is obviously anything but.

Psychologically speaking, the fear response in most animals includes behavior modification. So we have seen that when he experiences fear Jim becomes closed off, self-protective, angry, frightened, hurt and ultimately distant. He is merely enacting a self-preservation mechanism because to give in to the emotions, by experience, renders him unable to function.

Blair has often identified Jim's behaviour as consistent with reacting in accordance with a "territorial imperative" (Dead Certain) and has also indicated that Jim places superior stress on himself to get the job done, to the detriment of his ability to use his senses properly (Flight, Warriors).

In humans, the autonomic nervous system is responsible for enacting a stress/fear/pain response. This response is thought to function in preparing the body for immediate protective action. Characteristic physiological changes comprising the stress/fear/pain response in humans include (1) an increased heart rate, (2) an increase in blood supply to the muscles and to the brain, (3) release of glucose and neurochemicals and like dopamine, serotonin and adrenaline which can dull pain and cloud higher-level mental function, (4) dilation of the pupils, and (5) increased breathing rate, all of which help to enhance the body's ability to collect and process sensory input but to suppress higher cerebral function. Given an enhanced genetic advantage, the added mechanism of stress/fear response could go some way to further accounting for Jim's superior sensory abilities, or for the times when the input becomes confused. The turbulence between emotional and physiological triggers and their effect on Jim's senses and sanity must surely be extreme.

So we turn all this information on the events of the series, culminating in the "Night Shift/Sentinel, Too" arc, where all the above comes into play.

After an attempt to escape and rebuild his emotional defenses against his growing vulnerability (Crossroads), the dissertation rears its ugly head again, and yes, in Jim's eyes, the Dissertation is a rival for Blair's attention, time and commitment. It always has been. Again and again Jim seeks assurances that being a "subject" is not Blair's chief interest in him. Blair has a tendency to turn even the most intense emotional scenes into a "term paper" (Attraction, The Trance) leaving the impression that this is always Blair's primary focus. In his heart, he feels that their friendship overrides Blair's academic interests, but he needs to be sure. The potential to hurt him is too extreme.

Certainly Jim trusts Blair, but the dissertation remains as a huge question mark over his future, and suddenly Jim is presented with the perfect opportunity to find out where he stands with Blair. Blair's opinions of Jim are very important to him and Jim needs to understand what they really are. And it's all written down in an enticingly available hard copy lying on his desk. Its about him, he has permission to read it eventually, he reads Blair's mail anyway. Blair is almost taunting him with it, leaving it there to be found -- the temptation is too strong. Jim's a cop. This is the evidence he needs to see.

And the evidence is damning. In cold, hard, clinical terminology the paper dissects Jim like the test subject he has always feared himself to be, exposing his vulnerabilities, motivations and fears for anyone who cares to read it. Blair has not balked at analysing the most personal, intimate details of Jim's life as part of an academic document.

Conditioned to believe this was the ultimate proof, Jim starts to erect walls against that fear. He tells Blair he doesn't need him or anyone else to tell him who he is. Labelling it as "betrayal" gives him leave to erect those walls against someone he loves. Gabe, the "angel" indicates to the audience that in Jim's heart, he believes none of this, but Blair is starting to close down and retreat as well, and as he has always been the "communicator", the one who pushes relentlessly at all Jim's defenses, they lose that dimension to their interactions.

Despite this, they make a tentative effort to patch the misunderstanding and Jim forces a belief in Blair to override his instinctive need for self-preservation. A truce is forged and the repair work begins. But before the wounds can heal, another factor emerges to throw everything out of kilter. There is another Sentinel in Jim's "territory" and this has never happened before.

He experiences confusing "visions" that he is unable to analyze. He is wounded in a robbery and looks for his usual anchor to reality. Understanding the danger, he tries to speak to Blair about it. Blair wants to listen, knowing that Jim's visions often reflect a deeper meaning, but Simon is concerned for Jim's health and cuts them off, effectively setting a series of missed opportunities in motion and robbing them of their ability communicate and work through it together. Jim goes home to a week's recuperation and inactivity. With no job to distract him from the sensory turmoil, his territorial paranoia goes into overdrive.

After everything else, Jim's sanity finally starts to unravel. He is experiencing heightened sensory awareness, conflicting input, frightening "dreams" and a sense that he his being "threatened" by something or someone he doesn't understand. Oxygen, glucose and adrenalin and other psychoagents flood his system and cloud his judgment . His behaviour becomes modified as his Sentinel's body responds to the threat and resorts to other tried and true methods of self-preservation. He closes off his emotions, refuses to talk about them - becoming self-protective, angry, frightened and distant. He becomes almost impervious to cold and pain. He is unable to think rationally. Every gut instinct he has as a "sentinel" goes hyperactive and he wants to cut through all the confusion and find the catalyst. Physiologically and psychologically he immediately reacts in accordance with what we have seen of "sentinel" behaviour.

A week down the track Blair has made himself scarce and Jim is alone with his disorientation. Jim thinks it's because Blair is distracted by some big project at the university. He returns to work and takes on a case, becoming focused on the strange and familiar reactions of the suspect on tape.

Jim experiences sensory and psychological confusion, culminating in a series of dreams where he is focused on the another jaguar yet kills Blair instead. Jim's reasoning prevails, and he tries one more time to go and see Blair at the university and tell him about his problem, but the catalyst for his fear, the 'enemy', is in Blair's office! He feels "claustrophobic - like the walls are closing in" and packs up all Blair's possessions and tells him to leave. He doesn't want to talk about it or analyse it. He's just acting on instinct.

In the scene in the bullpen we are shown that Jim is no longer reacting or functioning rationally, and the perceived threat to his territory is extreme.

He clears everything out of his life in a final attempt to cut through the confusion and get his bearings back. He stands cold and alone in an empty loft focusing the last of his senses and his sanity on the "thing" out there that is "very wrong". Jim is in survival mode, an ability that has helped him countless times before. Jim can't understand why everyone else, especially Blair, can't sense the danger that is SO obvious to him. He says he's never felt anything like it before.

Jim realises that there is another Sentinel, and then the only thing he hears is that Blair has known this all along. Jim can't hear any of the reasons why or how this apparently incredible betrayal came about, all he hears is that Blair has been spending time with the other Sentinel, a beautiful, female Sentinel -- a rival, a criminal, a murderer, a woman -- someone who is so obviously the "enemy" in every respect -- and Jim can fathom no more complete betrayal. "What have you done? What have you done?"

Jim resorts to the only thing that keeps him functioning -- tracking the prey, staying focused on the goal. He can't allow himself to be sidetracked into emotional revelations, he needs to act. He is perhaps genetically predisposed to do so.

When Blair forces them to talk Jim finally lays it all on the line as best he can. And it's true -- Jim phrases things in the most direct, even hurtful terminology because he is highly practiced at the language of emotional distancing. It's the most reliable way he has to protect himself.

The bottom line is he "needs a partner he can trust" and Jim simply cannot function without that assurance. But Jim isn't spouting cliches here. For him this is 'life-or-death' time. In his heart he still can't reconcile his trust in Blair with the apparently insurmountable facts of this betrayal. Blair can't possibly be responsible for the things he's accusing him of, but the evidence seems clear. Reaching for a mitigating angle, it isn't Blair, it's the "dissertation".

The dissertation clouds Blair's judgement. The dissertation divides Blair's loyalties. The dissertation will take Blair away. Jim needs an "all or nothing commitment" and the dissertation has to go. But Blair doesn't see that, and Blair leaves. That is the last time Jim sees him. Alex lures Jim to a showdown and by the time Alex escapes and his thoughts turn to interpreting his 'dreams', his psychological "guide", it's way too late.

THIS is Jim's punishment for being a Sentinel, and for failing to protect his friend.

What exactly could Jim have done differently? At several junctures he tried to assert intellect over instinct, to subdue his own fears and offer an apology, but ultimately the sensory and physiological confusion was too extreme.

The only thing Jim has ever done, to the best of his ability, is discharge his responsibilities. Despite the turmoil of his genetic advantage, and without a guidebook, he has lived on the periphery of his village and tried to protect the tribe as best he can. This has required certain mechanisms to allow him to continue to function, the most significant of which has been to protect himself from the sensory consequences of emotional turmoil by maintaining his distance from things that can hurt him. This also created a necessary verbal and physical barrier between him and close relationships.

Then along came Blair Sandburg, onto whom he latched like a drowning man.

Without any real knowledge of "sentinels" everything Blair said made gut-level sense of the nightmare Jim had been living. Blair encouraged Jim to break the cycle of repression and distancing, to relax and open up physically and emotionally to explore and use his senses to help not hinder him in his responsibilities.

And Jim was doing that, but it was by necessity a life choice for Jim. How does he know Blair has the same investment? What assurances does he have to offset the tremendous risk?

When Jim returned from the most recent period of sentinel-induced dementia, Blair was lying dead at his feet. Yet another person for whom he accepted responsibility dead through a series of events culminating in Jim's inability to protect them.

Jim could be forgiven for thinking the inescapable cycle of his life is cranking up for one more relentless revolution. Is it any wonder he clings to the reliable mechanisms of repression and emotional distancing to avoid insanity?