An Ode to Madolyn: The Departed and The Cheater’s Remorse

“Death is hard, life is much easier.” 

In true Martin Scorsese fashion, The Departed ends with a murder. After avoiding capture for the entire film as a cop feeding information to the mob, Colin (Matt Damon) arrives home, broken and alone, only to be surprised by a familiar face greeting him. It’s Staff Sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg), one of the few cops still standing, wearing medical gloves and booties over his shoes, and he’s pointing a gun at Colin’s head. “Okay,” Colin says, a second before his brains are sprayed all over his very expensive apartment’s front door. Then we see The Rat out on the balcony, the Boston capitol building in the background, as the music plays and the credits roll. It’s perfect. Silly, yes, too many complaints are hurled at that rat but it’s perfect. A playful jab by Scorsese, putting the cherry on top of the film’s main thesis, said out loud by one of the characters in the film, “It’s a nation of fucking rats.” 

Every major character in The Departed is a rat, in one way or another, and in this rat-eat-rat world, it would seem that Dignam got the last word. To Colin’s credit, he’s been smart enough to kill the right people to not get caught, outwitting the heads of the police force and, by the end, Costello (Jack Nicholson) and the mob. But who really does Colin in? Dignam pulls the trigger, but was he acting alone? He’d have plenty of reason outside of hard evidence to kill Colin—since their first meeting he’s had an itchy trigger finger—they hate each other’s guts. But we were shown just enough leading up to the final scene to know another pivotal character had a hand in his death… Let’s talk about Madolyn.

The women in Scorsese films are sometimes as dangerous as the men. Karen Hill (Lorraine Bracco) in Goodfellas gets slowly pulled into her husband Henry’s criminal world, ultimately becoming part of his drug deals in the anxiety-driven final act. Before that, we see just how far she’s willing to go to break bad when she pulls a gun on Henry while he’s asleep. He has his mistresses yet he’s ultimately with her through the “egg noodles and ketchup” ending because he loves her, or she’s just dependable enough and the mother to their children, either reason is good enough for him. Ginger (Sharon Stone) in Casino is a born hustler. She’s looking to get hers from the start, stealing casino chips at a table, which catches the eye of Sam Rothstein (Robert De Niro). They get married but it’s never smooth sailing—she endangers their daughter, steals from Sam, and even plans to kill him, but her allure is why Sam always takes her back. There comes a point when her dishonesty hits a breaking point, and he learns she’s been having an affair with Sam’s friend, and Sam lets her go. Loyalty, it seems, is the only thing the men in Scorsese films ask of their partners.   

Vera Farmiga’s performance as Madolyn in The Departed may be easy to overlook in the sea of testosterone and sweaty Boston accents coming from the rest of the (male) cast. Watching it for the umpteenth time recently, I focused on her, the police psychiatrist who ends up emotionally connected to the film’s leads, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Billy and Matt Damon’s Colin. She doesn’t have as many scenes or breakout moments like Bracco or Stone, but just relegating her as the “love interest” would be a disservice. Boston accent and all, it’s one of Farmiga’s best performances—hers is a complex character, almost deceivingly so. Unlike other Scorsese female protagonists, Farmiga’s Madolyn never directly involves herself in the crime world the other characters find themselves in—she’s always in the periphery. Then she hits.  

She’s displayed as angelic the first time we see her, catching the attention of Colin at police headquarters. Their first conversation turns into a meet-cute of romantic-comedy sized proportions. Her eyes and smile are captivating, and Scorsese is eager to keep the frame on her as we see them together later on their first date. While at the fancy restaurant Colin jokes about arresting innocent people and Madolyn smiles, saying, “Wait, you are trouble,” seemingly won over by his charm. But with every smooth line comes a red flag; Colin jokes about not wanting to see her again before laughing it off. For as many smiles and doe eyes Madolyn gives there’s still reservation; notice her arm out-stretched over the back of her seat, like she’s bracing herself and not totally comfortable. Colin, up to this point, has fooled pretty much everyone on the police force; everyone is convinced he’s an honest cop and an honest person and most definitely not a rat for Costello. Madolyn falls for it too, but perhaps what’s drawing her in isn’t the false honesty; it’s the “trouble.”     

As a police psychiatrist, Madolyn sees Billy professionally as part of his probation for violent charges, a cover story for his undercover work which Madolyn doesn’t know about. She sees him as he is, an ex-cop emotionally blistering around the edges, it’s hard to hide that. Their first and last session ends in a shouting match; Billy, now in with Costello’s gang, speaks in half-truths but there’s no denying he needs help—the editing here, along with DiCaprio’s performance, provides a look into a mind that’s isolated in a violent world, and Madolyn turns out to be his one lifeline. He asks for painkillers but Madolyn isn’t having it. She transfers him to another psychiatrist, after which Billy makes his move and asks her out for coffee. Not your typical meet-cute schmaltz, but she does see him again. Billy only connects emotionally with a slim few characters in The Departed, he doesn’t fall for Costello’s father figure advice, instead he puts his trust in Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and ultimately Madolyn. And, there’s a sweet-natured Billy we only seen with Madolyn and that’s what fascinates her. 

She becomes romantically involved with both Colin and Billy, one a successful, stable professional (in her eyes), the other a possibly dangerous, yet emotionally vulnerable ex-con (again, in her eyes). As much as they are different, Madolyn is intrigued by each in similar ways. In her session with Billy, she sits to the left of the frame like her date with Colin and instead of a restaurant table she and Billy talk across her desk in her office. The camera is farther back, at medium shots instead of close-ups. We can see Madolyn’s exasperation, one arm stretched over the back of her seat (the same position we saw during her date with Colin), her other hand on her chin, bracing herself for Billy’s responses. Is he just someone she hopes to “fix”? Like Colin, there’s a sense of trouble there, but there’s more to her relationship with Billy. 

She’s more relaxed when she meets Billy later in a dimly-lit coffee place. She’s not “on” here, neither is Billy; this isn’t a date. There’s honesty here—she frankly talks about her relationship with her new boyfriend, more open now with Billy than before. Interestingly enough she never mentions Colin’s name to Billy; it’s a necessity of the script that the two men don’t know of each other, but it’s also a very real deflection on Madolyn’s part. Her connection is with Billy at this point, in this scene, and she says she’d lie if Colin saw her and Billy together to keep things on an “even keel”. Already the cheater’s remorse is running through her mind, and she hasn’t slept with him yet. 

A scene early in their relationship implies Colin’s impotence—more of Scorsese’s playful imagery, Madolyn holds a banana one morning as she says, “It’s actually quite common...” It could be Billy’s masculinity that draws her to him. His and Colin’s double lives have their effects on each man and Colin’s performance issues may be part of his own identity crisis. Meanwhile, Madolyn lives her own double life. She moves in with Colin in his new apartment, the Boston sun coming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, it rings “happy.” But on the first day of her move Colin practically tosses aside an old photo of hers, a young Madolyn on a bike. Then Colin gets a phone call from Costello and takes it out on the balcony away from her—it’s a one-two punch that sends Madolyn into doubt as she bites her nails while watching Colin take the call. Once that distrust starts, it’s hard to come back from it.   

Later, there’s a rain-soaked meet-up at Madolyn’s home between her and Billy. It doesn’t start off steamy—Billy doesn’t want to intrude as Madolyn is in the process of packing. We’ve already seen Colin try to hide her old picture, and, of course, Billy sees it and hangs it up—he has a clear connection to his past, namely his mother, while Colin’s only “family” is Costello. And so begins more intellectual foreplay—they talk about hedging bets and her moving in with her boyfriend. Cutting him off at the pass, Madolyn tries to get past the angry exterior of Billy’s, “I have to say your vulnerability is really freaking me out right now… Is it real?” And one of the most honest moments between two characters in The Departed, Billy and Madolyn make love to “Comfortably Numb”, the drug-fueled Pink Floyd song that’s fitting for their relationship. There are lies between them—his undercover work and her cheating—but their attraction to one another is undeniable and at this moment it feels right. 

The three of them, Billy, Colin, and Madolyn, are each having their own crises of identity, and it’s Madolyn who breaks free from her self-deception first. The most real conversation she has with Colin takes place where all couples have their most serious talks: in bed in the middle of the night. Out of cowardice, he wants to leave the police work, and his rat life with Costello, and go to law school full time, and he wants to leave the city, basically giving Madolyn an ultimatum. She says, “Yeah, that would be a clean slate.” Farmiga delivers that line like she’s making her own difficult choice right there and then. She might know deep down it might not work with Colin, but she’s willing to make it work, for her sake. He can’t take the double life, and neither can she. The most honest line from Colin is, “If we're not going to make it, it's gotta be you that gets out. ‘Cause I'm not capable.” No truer words were spoken, as he maintains his duplicitous nature through the very end.

Madolyn cuts off ties with Billy; we’re not entirely sure how long her affair with Billy lasts, but there’s an unquestionable intimacy there. She carcasses his head during one of their last moments together. “I can’t be a friend to you,” she says, and Billy agrees—the wording and the mutual agreement to end things suggests an understanding and connection that’s important on both their counts. She’s made her decision, though. She’s sticking with Colin, the “safer” choice of the two. This is as things get more complex—she and Colen get engaged, revealed during a talk with Colin’s superior, less a romantic gesture and more a power move. And she gets pregnant. It’s in this idealized version of a heteronormative relationship, the same morning she shows him a picture of a sonogram, where shit hits the fan.  

Before she reveals to Colin that she’s pregnant, Billy goes to Madolyn one last time. At this point his attempts of getting out from being an undercover cop has failed, and he goes to the one person he can trust. He hands her a sealed envelope and says that if something happens to him that she should open it. Madolyn is surprised to see Billy, of course, and Farmiga plays the bewilderment well, wanting to say so much in so little time. Then Billy says something equally tragic and romantic, “Whatever you have to say, think about it real hard, all right? If you still want to tell me, tell me in two weeks, okay?”

Liars always get caught, they rarely confess. Madolyn intercepts a package meant for Colin, sent by Billy, with tapes of Costello and Colin together, laying out the rat work Colin’s been doing behind everyone’s back. Madolyn catches him in the lie, and this is the turn. A close-up on Farmiga’s face tells you everything. Her currency is honesty and Colin made the fatal mistake of keeping his dishonesty from her; morally she has the upper hand. She’s always had her doubts about him, like the curious phone call on the balcony, but now it’s all laid out for her to see. Forget her cheating, this goes beyond that. “I thought I was the liar,” are the last words we hear her say in the film. 

She’s not perfect. Morally, that’s one thing—we all cheat one way or another, but the magnitude of which we do ultimately matters. Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker make Madolyn into a saintly figure in the post-production process. Her foul language, as read in the script, is nearly all scrubbed away in the film—we see her mouth the word “fuck” in one scene but an audible exhale covers it up, and looking at the script you can see how a “goddamn” is covered up with ADR. She’s placed on a pedestal. Her cheating is the only “sin” we witness, but hey, what was in that envelope Billy gave her before he died?   

Bodies pile up in the last act of The Departed. Billy meets his end, thanks to one of Costello’s moles. Colin, of course, makes it out alive. He attends Billy’s funeral, bagpipes and all. Madolyn is there, tears in her eyes. Colin sees her and try as I might, I don’t think I read anything in Damon’s face in his performance here other than confusion. Me he thinks she knew him as a friend or patient, or just knew him as another victim of Colin’s deception. Moments later, Colin’s final words are too pathetic to be considered an olive branch—he asks about the baby, and in a clear nod to Hitchcock and film noir in general, the camera remains focused on Colin as Madoyln walks ahead of him and out of frame, not a word said from her mouth. Silence is a weapon for Scorsese—look at The Irishman and how Frank Sheeran’s (Robert De Niro) daughter (Anna Paquin) refuses to talk to him in the final act, and how that’s more painful for Sheenan than anything the mob could do to him. 

What happens to Madolyn’s pregnancy is left up in the air, we don’t know for sure whose baby it actually is, Billy or Colin’s. At this point it’s up to the audience to decide. And, connecting the pieces leading to Dingem killing Colin, we know that Billy's envelope had to be a motivating factor. Billy’s trust in Madolyn, and hers for him, lead to Colin’s death—assuredly Billy left instructions for Madolyn to get in touch with Dingem, which makes her an accomplice in serving righteous justice. She ultimately leaves the film as a saint, but like Scorsese's female protagonists before, she proves to be as dangerous as the men.