Hornby's Progression

The motif, or progression, in How I Learned to Drive is actually stated in the title: driving. In this play, we see the transition of Li'l Bit learning to drive (though not in chronological order) and how she slowly learns to take control of herself in an atmosphere that is not healthy. Her uncle molests her while the adults in her family look the other way, and her peers see her only as a sexual object as opposed to the intelligent young woman she is.  Through out the play, we see certain points in her life that foreshadow what happens in the second to last scene of the play, such as the first scene when the audience realizes that the man Li'l Bit is with in the car is actually her uncle, and we realize this can't be the first time this has happened. Progressively, more and more details emerge about the incestuous relationship until we get to the final foreshadow of Li'l Bit's mother verbally warning her daughter away from Uncle Peck but does nothing physically to stop what is about to happen, which is Peck molesting Li'l Bit for the first time when she was eleven during their first driving lesson.

In the TV crime drama, NCIS, at the very end of the first season showed a very particular motif that ended up foreshadowing the season finale of their second season. In the last episode of season one, the main character, Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, in a dream, walks into the Navy Yard's morgue and opens a body bag with one of his agents, Special Agent Kate Todd, dead with a bullet hole in the middle of her forehead. At the end of that episode, it's a different person, an enemy woman, who is discovered with the same bullet whole. But the premonition of death continues on subtly through out the second season until the last two episodes. In the second to last episode, one of the agents, Tony DiNozzo, comes in contact with the plague (via postal biological warfare) and nearly dies. In the last episode shows the still ill but recovering Agent DiNozzo, Agent Todd, and Agent Tim McGee almost get blown up by an Hamas agent the team has been trying to track since season one. Abby Sciuto, their forensic specialist, worries about the safety of her friends and tells Agent Todd to watch out for Tony because she had had a dream about his face covered in blood. Finally, at the conclusion of the episode, after stopping a missile hitting a dock filled with families awaiting their soldier's return, Agent Todd is hit by a sniper in the middle of her forehead and is killed. Agent DiNozzo, who was standing behind her, is then shown with Kate's blood on his face. I do believe the motif in a fully realized production is different than one that is written in a script because there is the factor of did the audience catch that reference? It may be not that different in a short thirty minute or hour long TV show compared to a script because if the motif happens only in that one episode, then it's easier to remember the details of the motif as opposed to having the progression last several episodes or, in NCIS's case, a whole season.