The confrontations

The first face to face between Ross and Bob takes place in a parking lot beside a terrace where Ross is sitting with members of the Matadores, his new clan. Bob bursts in in a car, accompanied by several of his men. He is coming to take the measure of the wolf. Ross saw him arrive. Bob gets out of the car. Ross gets up, nimbly hurdles the parapet of the terrace, and heads for Bob, who comes to meet him. Bob is all in black and wears a leather vest. He smiles, presumptuously. Ross moves towards him, shoulders back, arrogant, an unperturbed expression on his face, in dominant mode. Durelle, hands in his pockets, doesn't move. Ross walks all the way around him without breaking eye contact. We can read nothing from Ross' features. He gives no hint of anything. Having made a 360 degree tour around Bob, he takes up a position facing him and stands stock still in an attentive posture. He has become his gaze. Everyone is silent. Time stretches out, and Ross doesn't blink. This test of dueling gazes overcomes Bob's resistance, and he surrenders, letting his dark gaze drop towards the ground. Ross hasn't turned a hair. Bob has failed the test, and goes back, grumbling, to his car. Ross watches him leave, a smile of contentment on his lips. He gently hunches his shoulders back in a gesture of satisfaction. The wolf is happy: he has won the first round.

Second confrontation. A vocal one. Bob is in prison. Ross takes the opportunity to visit Karen, whom he hasn't seen since Wendy's death. In the course of their discussion, the phone rings. It's Bob. Learning from his wife that the wolf is in his territory, he demands that Karen pass the phone to Ross. Their exchange is curt; it's Ross who leads the dance. Powerless, Bob rages at hearing Ross run down the list of his recent setbacks, pushing the affront to the point of pretending that Karen has confided in him that she wants to name the baby she's carrying, Wendy. Outraged, Karen intervenes: "Ross, stop it!" Bob rages at the other end of the phone:"If you're looking for me, then come pay me a visit. We'll take a walk in the courtyard, otherwise, keep away from my wife, stay away from Karen!" !" Jubilant, Ross ups the ante: "Me and Karen. Let's see! I knew her before you. I've got great memories. I still remember how it was the time.." Ross' voice is beautiful as he says these words, the total opposite of the way it is through the rest of the series. Bob groans. Ross lays it on thick. Bob threatens him: "I'm going to kill you! You got that?" Pretending to be impressed, Ross gives an ironic "Stop, I'm scared" as Karen reaches to pull the receiver out of his hands. But he's achieved his goal. Bob pulls the phone off the wall in a fit of rage that he can't control any longer, while Karen takes it out on Ross: "Why are you doing this? Huh?" . They are both standing, facing each other. She is furious but Ross hasn't the slightest desire to justify himself, as if his behavior were completely normal. He leaves the house, smiling, as she chases after him. The second round belongs to him.

The third encounter. At a restaurant. In front of a third party. In front of the Italians. Ross and Bob haven't seen each other in a long time. They are sitting at the same table, a short while after the murder of Bob's son. The Mafiosi set up this meeting to allow Ross to establish the facts about the murders of an agent of the suppliers and of Jonathan. Bob is tense and ready to go for Ross' throat at any moment. Ross is visibly ill at ease. He responds to the Italians' questions frankly and directly. He swears that Bob wasn't present while the accounts were settled up without, however, exonerating him. When the Italian coldly asks him whether he or anyone in his organization killed Jonathan, Ross avoids Bob's gaze, sliding out a rapid no, to which Bob replies ""My son is dead, all the same"… The opportunity is too beautiful for Ross not to seize it. Without looking at him, he says "It hurts, huh?" Then he slowly raises his eyes to a floored Bob. Had the Italians not been there, Bob would have killed him on the spot for having uttered such a phrase in such a tone. Ross gets out of this unharmed, but he has lost ground. A victory by decision in the third round.

The final duel takes place on the wolf's turf. I'll come back to that.

Before tackling that scene, a few words on the relationships Ross maintains with others in the second series: on his indestructible friendship for David, on the rare and difficult exchanges that he has with women, on his hatred for incompetence and the gratuitous gestures as well as the deference that he shows certain of his enemies.

All that remains of beauty in Ross shows through the affection he has for his friend David. He alone shares his everyday life, and he is the sole witness to his states of mind. Ross often holds him by the shoulder. They walk in step together. The same light runs through their eyes. When Ross questions himself aloud about Bob, David is there to watch. When he gives himself over to his Machiavellian reveries, stroking his beard, eyes filled with a disturbing softness, David tries to understand. They are both caught in the same trap, seeking shelter in the same den: the wolf's lair, the car graveyard that resembles Ross. In this place, everything belongs to the past, everything is built on useless remains, everything is condemned to disappear. In this purgatory, Ross, with his Christ-like appearance, rages or mopes, according to his humor. He worries, he grows impatient or he despairs. But all during this calvary, David, the faithful disciple, is always there. Whether in moments of tragedy, as when Ross learns that it is one of his men who has killed Bob's son, or in moments of confidence, like the very beautiful scene where the two men sit side by side sharing several moments of reflection before the inescapable denouement takes place. In the face of Ross' sadness and worries, David decides to stand by him. "I think I'm going to stay with you.". Ross, for his part, responds by accusing Bob: "It's his fault, it's all his fault. Wendy, Jonathan…He ruined our lives." Upon this observation, he stands up, and lets his gaze trail over the auto carcasses that surround him, as if to contemplate the extent of the disaster that his own life has become. "Fuck, but I miss her" Like a deep sign fully expressed, that confession contains all of Ross' suffering. Words of love heavy with so much meaning since it's the only way he has from now on of telling Wendy that he loves her always, beyond death.. Of measuring in the deepest part of him how much he misses her.

That brings me to speak about his relationships with women. Only two exchanges in the second series. One with Karen, the other with his mother.

The first takes place at Karen's house during Bob's absence. Ross comes to bring her flowers and to see how she's doing. What is interesting about this scene is strange to tell. What belongs to The Last Chapter is that the friendship and affection which unite these two characters isn't sufficient to resist Bob's conspiring. Nearly everything drives them apart. What is precious to us, beyond the relationship between Karen and Ross, is the rare opportunity that this scene offers us, to see again two actors who have left us undying memories. A beautiful occasion to see them hold each other again, face to face ten years later, and to be moved by this reunion. To see Marina take Roy in her arms comes to us like gentleness to the heart. The same gesture, the same shoulders circled by the same arms, years after Les Filles de Caleb, and their bodies positioned as before, at the same angle, as if time had changed nothing. Karen has a look of sadness, one which Marina often lent Emilie. The seamed soul of Ross has nothing of that of Ovila, but at this precise instant, there is the same finality in his gaze. There is between these two actors a communion which remains intact. There is something between them which will outlast them, no matter whether the future permits them to work together.

Ross' other feminine encounter is the tete a tete that he has with his mother, with, as a witness, a TV set showing images of mountain climbing. In the two or three minutes that this exchange lasts, we evaluate the quality of their mother-son relationship. Ross' mother is a woman worn out by life and the anguish of having a criminal son. They show no tenderness for each other. Clumsily, each expresses in their own way their fears and their needs. She by admitting that she sees him "die twenty times a day" and that she is no longer "able to live like this" . He, through the defeated and impotent look he casts on this old woman for whom he is simultaneously a perpetual worry and the only support.