MovieChat Forums > Northern Exposure (1990) Discussion > Maggie Punching Joel

Maggie Punching Joel

posted 10 years ago by SeamusWiles
4 replies | jump to latest

I think in general Maggie was kind of a bitch (and yes Joel was kind of a douche bag), but that episode honestly made me really hate her. In that first scene where he walked out just because she was apparently playing dirty with a game of Risk was obviously childish of him, but responding with physical assault was in no way whatsoever justified.

Then the bitch not only offers no apology, but as Joel himself says, has the audacity to comment on the results later, as if it's funny or something.

And then to make it worse, when Joel says he's suing her for physical assault, her response is telling him to hit her back. And when he doesn't sink to her level that apparently makes him the bad guy. I don't give a piece of rotting shat what the particular circumstances were: if she physically assaulted him for reasons other than self-defense or in defense of someone he was assaulting (which was obviously not the case here), he had every right to come back at her with a lawsuit. In fact, she was lucky he didn't have her arrested for it. There were witnesses everywhere in the bar and there was absolutely nothing he did that would have rightfully provoked that. Suing her was well within his rights and an appropriate response.

Then it gets even worse yet when the bitch thinks she then has the right to evict him from his home. In no way did she have the right to do that. Tenants can't just be evicted from a place they are residing in under a legal contract without cause, and she had absolutely none whatsoever.

And still it continues to get worse (which is really hard to believe), when after Joel points out how wrong this is, she actually has the audacity to punch him again. Now sure some may say he goaded her on this second time, but are you honestly telling me you wouldn't be absolutely furious under those circumstances as well? Not only did she physically assault him, but then believed she had the right to evict him without cause. No, she had no right to do either. Joel was standing up to the raging bitch, and she physically assaults him for a second time. The law is no non-existent in Alaska. Even there she would have been put in jail for what she did if this were even slightly realistic.

And as repetitive as this may seem, it STILL gets worse. After realizing it would take a long time to even get a judge to the town, Joel actually offers to drop the lawsuit if Maggie will drop the eviction. That bitch should have been beyond grateful she wasn't locked up behind bars, but instead she not only refuses to drop the eviction, but she actually threatens to assault Joel AGAIN! Then we know the absolutely ridiculous events that transpire moments after that, but of course that part was just so stupid it's hard to even take it serious at all. Apparently sex cures all, and Joel doesn't even seem to care about what she did to him anymore.

This all especially infuriates me because it all ended with Maggie completely getting away with everything she did. She didn't face any charges, lawsuits, or even get a slap on the wrist for it. She basically got to treat Joel like crap the entire time, and even got rewarded with sex.

Nobody seemed to care whatsoever, but I absolutely 100% guarantee, that if this had been the other way around and Joel had done those things to Maggie with no consequence, everyone would be going ballistic. It would have been a controversial topic that would have ignited the media for weeks and would have resulted in so much protest that the show probably would have been forced into cancellation. I even understand why physical assault is considered worse when a man attacks a woman because of the fact that men are generally stronger and can cause more damage, but it's complete bull crap that some act as though that gives women a free pass to assault men with no consequence. No it's wrong either way (unless it is a situation of defense like I said earlier), and women should have to face similar consequences if they assault men.

I apologize for the exhaustively long post, but there was a lot to go over about how much this episode really pissed me off, and how such a double standard disgusts me. Like I said, as much as Joel can be a douche bag, Maggie had no right whatsoever to do the things she did, and Joel was completely within his rights to bring suit against her for assaulting him. People can say what they want about that, but the ability to bring charges/lawsuits against those who physically assault others was put in place to protect victims so that not only can they be compensated for the things done to them, but it can serve as a warning to others. Joel may be a douche, but in this case Maggie was completely wrong.

If you don't want to be spoiled, you shouldn't be here in the first place.

[–] darryl-tahirali 10 years ago

I think in general Maggie was kind of a bitch (and yes Joel was kind of a douche bag), but that episode honestly made me really hate her. In that first scene where he walked out just because she was apparently playing dirty with a game of Risk was obviously childish of him, but responding with physical assault was in no way whatsoever justified. . . . - SeamusWiles

Well . . . one of the enduring qualities of NX is its ability to touch viewers' emotions, and to tell from your feelings about "Ill Wind" it did its job.

For me, another of the enduring qualities is that the characters are very much human, which means that they are imperfect and fallible, and thus they will at various times be unlikeable. Such is the case with "Ill Wind."

** SPOILERS AHEAD **

And it is those "ill winds," specifically the Cohoes, that are the instigating factor in this episode. That is made clear from the very beginning, when Chris reads the description from Raymond Carver about the Santa Ana winds of Southern California--they make meek little wives study the edge of the carving knife while they examine their husband's neck (and I live in the area and can vouch for the itchy, irritable quality of those hot, howling desert winds)--and it is later reinforced by Marilyn's refusing to go to work during the winds because, as she says, the winds are bad.

Be that as it may, I don't agree with your interpretation of the initial contretemps between Maggie and Joel. First, I don't think that Maggie was "playing dirty" in Risk, and Joel did not walk out of the game. Joel protested about Maggie's attacking his territory, feeling that she was singling him out, but from the verbal description given in the dialog (recall that we never get a good look at the board) she seemed indeed well within her rights to attack anywhere she wanted. Now, I suspect that there was indeed a bit of vindictiveness in Maggie's approach, but that is all part of the love-hate tension between the two of them that became exacerbated by the Cohoes. Yet Joel also has a bit of a persecution complex, and how much of that is justified--or not--is unclear; when he complains about Maggie's intentions, both Marilyn and Ruth-Anne look exasperated, with Ruth-Anne saying, "not again, Joel," and it is again unclear whether she is referring to earlier in the game or to a previous game.

And Joel is hardly an innocent victim here--and he did not actually "walk out" of the game. As the argument escalates, Joel is the one who accuses Maggie of having penis envy, and when they both get to their feet, and Maggie says that she ought to punch him right in the nose, Joel invites her to just that--he says, "go ahead--right here" as he points to his nose. And she does just that.

We could go tit-for-tat through the narrative and your perspective on it, and I do want to point out that when Maggie slugs Joel again, Joel wasn't merely, as you state, pointing out how wrong she was--he called her frigid, and that I think was the sudden, impulsive trigger that caused Maggie to haul off and punch him in the nose again.

So, let's step back and look at where all of this leads to: the wackiest seduction I've ever seen on television. This is something that had been percolating between them for quite a while, to the point that Maggie thought that they'd already had sex when they really didn't (Season Three's "It Happened in Juneau") while back in Season Two freak natural conditions again influence their behavior into irrationality--waiting for the ice to melt in "Spring Break" makes their libidos go haywire. You may think that Maggie "gets rewarded with sex" here in "Ill Wind," but I would argue that the reward is mutual.

And the capper to this is my favorite part of this episode, the post-coital scene in the Brick, when Joel and Maggie feel impelled to announce to the entire bar that they've just had sex. "We're available to answer questions," indeed! The fact that everyone in the bar is patently unimpressed by this announcement reinforces the point that Maggie and Joel share a folie a deux: Because both of them are rather self-absorbed (which is ultimately why they do not wind up together), they both have the delusion that everyone else is keenly interested in what they do, which is not the case. But it is those human failings that fuel their behavior in "Ill Wind."

Your perspective throughout your post seems to treat Joel as the victim who's trying to be reasonable and Maggie as the irrational, truculent bully. You also say that Joel was well within his rights to sue Maggie. That may be so, but even if his case had gone to court, how far would he have got when there is a bar full of witnesses who will testify that Joel goaded her into punching him in the nose--"go ahead--right here!"?

We have different perspectives on this. I've seen "Ill Wind" a number of times, and I've never thought that Maggie was completely wrong. I also suspect that when they were having sex in the barn, for both of them it was a lot like the old Wilson Pickett song "Lay Me Like You Hate Me."

Ultimately, though, "Ill Wind" is a milestone episode for their admittedly stormy relationship and for the series in general. And like any quality episode, it elicits an emotional reaction to it such as yours, which means that there is substance in it.
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"We hear very little, and we understand even less." - Refugee in Casablanca

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Davole45 10 years ago

Well OP, you may have a Y chromosome, but you are certainly not a man. Joel acted like a five year old, arguments ensued, the he goaded Maggie to punch him. She did. No big *beep* deal. One punch from a small woman.

AND JOEL RESPONDS WITH THE JEWIEST THING IMAGINABLE

Grow a pair OP. My advice is to not taunt people if you are just one big vagina.

[–] ciocio-2 10 years ago

Honestly, must you sully this rather delightful discussion, and your own valid point, with such a rude and disrespectful expression? And as for being "just one big vagina," you say that as if it's a bad thing. Sometimes it's not, even for a man (since we're inherently talking in terms of metaphors here).

Multiplex: 100+ shows a day, NONE worth watching. John Sayles' latest: NO distribution. SAD.