Every Episode of Prime Suspect

Prime Suspect was a British procedural that aired whenever Helen Mirren felt like it for about sixteen years. She played the only woman detective in the world. I love this show very much, but I find it exhausting because no one will be her FRIEND, and I have a life-threatening condition where I need to imagine fictional characters are my friends, and I can support them by staying at home and feeling things very intensely.

A basement full of male pudding cups, all screaming:

WUT’S ALL THIS ABOUT A WOMAN INSPECTOR

I NEVER HEARD OF A WOMAN EVER IN ME PUFF, GUV

I’LL KILL ONE AS SOON AS LOOK A’IT

I NEVER SAW A WOMAN BUT IF I DID I WOULD SCREAM

Enter Jane Tennison, elegantly chain-smoking.

Yes….right…here’s what I’ll need…hm? No, she didn’t wear a size 7….I want all of these, bagged, sent over to me…pull the prints from the last twelve files and have them sent to me…I’ll need a driver to take me to Manchester….

Here is a man whose face has no shape to it. He is married. Jane Tennison has sex with him, wryly.

JANE [absently tucking hair behind her ear]: Yes, well…

Here is a second woman police officer.

JANE:

A well-meaning cup of juice asks Jane if she doesn’t think she can just learn to…play the game?

JANE:

The pudding cup that has been assigned to drive Jane around has stopped calling her “bitchmarm” and brings her a thing of coffee at the end of a particularly brutal and unhelpful interview.

Me, crying at home: HE’S HER FRIEND NOW

Can you locate the source of this particular transmasculine affect? If so, please write to our judges at: [address missing], and you may be eligible to win a walk-on role in the next season of DCI Bitchmarm: The Only Way Out Is Through.