Uncategorized – Page 29 – A Damn Fine Cup of Culture

Murder is in the details

Dec 13, 2014Jul 10, 2019MegeLeave a comment

Serial is the most successful podcast around these days. At its core, it’s about the 1999 death of a Baltimore County high school student called Hae Min Lee, about her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed, who is serving life in prison, and about Jay, the guy who testified in court that it was Adnan who killed Hae.

All this is told in weekly instalments by journalist Sarah Koenig. The material she presents is intriguing, but I think Koenig herself is the key to Serial‘s success: she asks the right questions, provides smart answers, and is unafraid to confront many of the people involved. After twelve months of researching Adnan’s case, she does not claim to know the truth – she still isn’t sure if he is guilty or not. Her point is: the trial was too weak for Adnan to be convicted. I agree. There are too many unanswered questions, too many incongruous details.

And she avoids the greatest of pitfalls: she doesn’t sensationalize. She’s simply curious about what has happened, and we are allowed to come along. She has the right kind of voice for this – at times, she is annoyed, surprised and suspicious just as her audience must be.

I don’t have a particular problem with a real-life murder case being used for entertainment – if it comes along smart and knowledgeable like this series here. Koenig and her team could not have foreseen the success that Serial has now. And if it leads to pressure for a re-trial or to a case review, why not? I only have a problem with those amateur sleuths who gain access to trial documents and then publish the names and details of persons who are connected to this case whose names Koenig withheld intentionally. Adnan’s family also gets pestered by people who want to know if they think that Adnan is a psychopath.

Dramatically, Serial is a risk. This is about real life, and it won’t bow to conventional storytelling. Koenig has gotten so many donations that there will be a second season – maybe about another crime with its open questions and incongruities. Meanwhile, Adnan Syed’s case has been taken on by a group of lawyers connected to the innocence project, so whereas Serial will definitely come to its end next week, the case might go on. So be it – this might well turn into a podcast that has an impact on the US legal system. Imagine that.

Unhappy happy valley

Dec 5, 2014Jul 10, 2019MegeLeave a comment

Poor Catherine Cawood. She is police sergeant of a small Yorkshire village. She sleeps with her ex-husband. She looks after her sister, a recovering heroin addict. She takes care of her grandson because his mother, her daughter, has committed suicide after being raped. The man responsible has returned to the valley, and Catherine is very, very alert, up to the point of breaking a few police rules. Happy Valley might just be the misnomer of the year.

The reason I want to admire this six-part series is the main performance by Sarah Lancashire. She plays her scenes matter-of-factly, but without being hardened or cynical. She is so good that the scenes she is not in feel slightly off. It will be hard to watch her in anything else and not think of this series. On the whole, Happy Valley might not be as even or as suspenseful as Broadchurch, but Sarah Lancashire is more memorable than most of the coppers on TV lately.

Unlike Broadchurch, Happy Valley is not a whodunit. The audience has to wait for the police to latch on to the fact that someone has been abducted. It’s also bleaker and gorier than Broadchurch, but nowhere near The Fall. I like Gillian Anderson as much as Olivia Colman, but it’s Lancashire’s performance that stands out. There is a drunk guy who wants to set fire to himself. Sergeant Cawood arms herself with a fire extinguisher and a pair of sunglasses and goes to talk to the man. Just in case.

Episode 5 is a slight disappointment because there are too many moments of soul-searching and too many family resentments coming to light. Episode 6 is slightly too neat and, at the same time, too undecided about how it wants to end. Never mind – Catherine Cawood is as interesting as was Jane Tennison in her time.

Taking the edge off tomorrow

Nov 4, 2014Jul 10, 2019MegeLeave a comment

Edge of Tomorrow is a dark comedy, at least the first half. It’s a sci-fi action flick, sure, but that is more like a backdrop for the fun it has with its story. We meet William Cage (Tom Cruise), a high-ranking liaisons officer for the U.S. military, who are busy fighting an alien intruder. Within a few minutes, Cage gets blackmailed, demoted and arrested by his general (played by Brendan Gleeson), abducted by his own army and wakes up in an American army base near London being shouted at by a detail leader who looks like Bill Paxton.

Wait, it gets worse. And the worse it gets, the more I like that first hour. Cage is strapped in a high-tech weapons suit, put on a military aircraft together with his detail and dropped off over the coast of Normandy, where everything goes fubar. It’s like D-Day orchestrated by Windows 8. There’s a nice running gag about nobody telling Cage how to switch off the safety. Almost everybody dies because the aliens have somehow figured out when and where the U.S. will strike. Cage wakes up again with Paxton staring at him. Reincarnation on repeat is just too much of a hassle – just ask Bill Murray. After he dies a few times more, Cage meets famous war heroine Rita Vrataski who has singlehandedly saved mankind at Verdun.

That Rita is pragmatic. She knows about Cage’s loop because she has been in one herself. That loop, if you survive for long enough, gives you insight on how to vanquish the aliens, so whenever Rita feels that Cage is not doing too well, she reboots him. By shooting him. In the head. Repeatedly. I think Emily Blunt has just the right amount of gruff zeal with that role.

The second half of the movie has much less of that grim fun, and the movie is the worse for it. The sci-fi mission takes over, and I won’t spoil anything when I tell you that Cage destroys the alien headquarters. It’s all well made, but it’s by the book. Shame. The first bit has so much going for it. Imagine Tom Cruise running into the baracks, yelling at his platoon: “You’re doomed! Now listen to me! Your lives depend on it!” Cruise, like Cage, understands that this is a funny line, and has fun with it because he is the only one who will survive, no matter what.

Those aliens. Some of them look like really aggressive mops that come out of the ground whenever they sense that humans are near. More evolved ones look like Treebeard has gone digital. That’s not too bad, but they’re not as inventive as they could have been. The screenplay is by Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects), based on a Japanese novel, and the movie is directed by Doug Lyman, who did three of the Bourne films, so he knows how to do a good action flick. My guess is that Lyman knows that, when he’s at his best, his movies are more than just entertainment. That is true for only the first half of this one.

Who framed Tony Zhou?

Oct 28, 2014Jul 28, 2014MattLeave a comment

If you were already thinking, “Huh, two blog posts within a week – this is like Christmas! Just without the presents, turkey and Ibsenesque family drama!”, you’re only half right – no turkey, I’m afraid. Also, this isn’t a regular post so much as a suggestion that if you’re into cinema, especially cinematography, and haven’t already checked out Tony Zhou’s Vimeo page, you’re missing something. Zhou is fantastic at analysing and discussing how certain filmmakers use framing and editing to achieve very specific effects – and he’s the kind of critic who always puts what he looks at first rather than his critical ego. I find it almost impossible to come away from watching one of his videos and not to run to my DVD shelves, pick out one of the films he’s just talked about and rewatch it, savouring each single frame.

Here are just two of his video essays, namely one on Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) and his brand of visual comedy…

… and here’s one on the late Satoshi Kon (Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika).

You’ll find Zhou here on Vimeo, and he’s also got a YouTube channel, for those who find Vimeo hit-and-miss in terms of download speeds.

The Leftovers, S1E10 – The Prodigal Son Returns

Oct 25, 2014MegeLeave a comment

You know you are in the country of ending seasons when the soundtrack starts to be inventive. This is why we hear Nina Simone’s Ne me quitte pas when Kevin, with Matt Jamison’s help, ties up loose ends in Cairo. There is something very spooky in the cleric’s practicality: “I have shovels in my trunk.” Another quitter is Christine, who leaves Tommy to find the baby in a public lavatory. Jill quits her former life by joining her mother and the smoky ranks of the GR.

These are powerful scenes, but they are all upstaged by the Guilty Remnants’ final project. Nora Durst gets up, brushes her teeth and goes down for breakfast, only to find her family united at the breakfast table again. But wait – no. These are the departeds’ hollow imitations with dead masks modelled after the stolen photos and dressed in their own clothes stolen by the GR. These are puppets that spark a tiny glimmer of hope that your beloved ones have returned, and then you realize how grotesque these fucking puppets look.

So the season’s finale is a very good one for a long time. Kevin Garvey dreams one last dream, maybe the most disquieting one, involving a certain National Geographic, Patti, and his dad. There is a conversation between Kevin and Matt where Matt’s questions are as revealing as Kevin’s answers. It’s clear that just because you don’t believe, you can still feel entirely guilty. Or you can believe and still go wrong.

And then, of course, there is the meeting between Kevin and Wayne in the men’s lavatory of a roadside diner. With his guts hanging out and only minutes left to live, Wayne fears he might have been a fraud, and wants Kevin to wish for something. If Kevin gets his wish, Wayne has been a real healer, like a twisted djinn. We can only guess what Kevin wishes for, but Wayne seems convinced he can grant him that wish. Then Wayne crosses the bridge.

Kevin and Matt return to a Mapleton in turmoil. People want to hurt the GR and to burn those grotesque puppets. Megan is badly beaten up and tied to a lamppost; people with guns run through the streets, mad with anger and grief. The GR headquarters are aflame, and the fire brigade and the police are not in a hurry to help them. Kevin looks on as a couple throw their son’s eerie avatar into the fire. Just imagine: you are angry enough to throw that puppet in the flames, but you still watch your beloved one’s likeness melt.

Then Laurie appears, her voice hoarse from disuse, and yells her daughter’s name because she is in the burning house. That scene and her rescue are over the top, and they didn’t involve me the way they could or should have. Nora’s goodbye letter is touching, but then the ending comes around and twists the plot in a weird direction. Nora is on her way out of Mapleton when she finds Wayne’s and Christine’s baby on the Garveys’ front porch. Kevin and Jill look on with their soot-covered faces. Is this what Kevin wished for?

The longer I think about it, the less I like it. Give a despairing woman a baby and she finds new meaning in her life? Really? I cannot believe that this is Kevin’s wish. This is an abysmal ending to an otherwise pretty decent final episode.

There were plotlines I could never warm up to. Christine and Tommy are uninteresting and could be cut. Jill should be better written. All three roles need better acting. There is only one episode that really stinks, the one with the baby Jesus, mainly because the weak plot and the bad editing screw up things. There are scenes from the pilot that remain unexplained, for instance Tommy’s vision of someone jumping from a rooftop. I also would like to know why Garvey Sr. went loopy. But I guess it’s better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.

Oh, but the good things. I like the cast. Ann Dowd. Carrie Coon. Amy Brenneman. This series has a lot of strong women. Justin Theroux. Scott Glenn. Christopher Eccleston. The quiet, threatening presence of Dean (Michael Gaston), who thinks he is one of the good people. Aimee’s forward comments on the Garveys’ family life, played by Emily Meade. The GR are annoying and creepy and cruel on a good day, and they need to be kept in check, but apart from those whistles, they have always been interesting to watch. A special mention goes to Max Richter, who composed the score. If you’ve seen Waltz with Bashir, you know what he is capable of.

I am glad I watched the series, but it didn’t leave me gasping from one week to the next. I am not big on symbolism – when Kevin Garvey pours a gallon of water over himself, I don’t think of baptism -, but the series works without it, too.

I’ve heard that the Departure will never be explained. That’s just as well, but it’s also a risk. The series cannot rely on a denouément of the main event, so it must invent and re-invent things for those people who are still around – and it is, after all, a series about the ones left behind. The lack of a return to the main event is a freedom only sure-handed screenwriters can handle, and I don’t know how much they can rely on Perrotta’s book. For instance, what is in store for season two? More sadness and sense of loss? I doubt that this will work, so they have to think of something. Will the GR still exist? If not, is there another collective way of dealing with the Departure?

Well, why not? If the departure has taught me one thing, it’s that there is no closure. Fuck closure. There are ways of dealing with stuff, and ways of not dealing with stuff, and it’s no matter if it’s October 14 or March 9 or any other day. You change either way. Apparently, the latter way prevails, because parts of Mapleton are aflame. In a way, everybody is worse off than during the departure. I wanna know where they go from there.

The Leftovers, S1E9 – The Garveys at their Best

Oct 19, 2014Jul 10, 2019MegeLeave a comment

Don’t be fooled by the modern interior of the Garvey home: what looks like an alternate version of the pilot is really the few hours before the Departure. It’s October 13, the day before. Laurie Garvey speaks and Jill is a happy teenager. Tommy, however, confronts his biological father and is arrested. That’s news – Kevin and Tommy aren’t father and son. This episode goes some way towards understanding the Garveys and others. It also answers the question of Where were you when…?

In a nice twist, we learn that Laurie is a psychiatrist and has Patti as her first client this morning. Patti is afraid that something terrible is about to happen. Laurie is convinced it’s all about Patti’s abusive husband Neal, and she suggests that Patti dump her troubles in a paper bag with Neal’s name on it and put it on his front porch. Both things will happen.

But, to use Patti’s words, a bag of doo-doo won’t stop the world from ending. Something’s wrong. Kevin Garvey is after a deer that has wreaked havoc in a school room. (Note that the teacher is the woman with whom Nora Durst’s husband has an affair.) Chief of Police Garvey Sr wants to put the animal down, but his son convinces him that, for the moment, tranquilizer darts are the better solution.

Nora Durst applies for the job of campaign manager for Councilwoman Warburton, who wants to become Mayor of Mapleton. Judging from that episode alone, you would think it’s normal American TV fare, if it wasn’t for the sense of foreboding that gets heightened by Patti’s confession. There is also some suspense in the expectation about when and how some of the minor characters will turn up. Gladys is breeding dogs and will maybe sell one to Laurie. Matt’s wife is still alive and well. Other than that, an hour-long episode for a Mapleton that has its standard problems and hails the Chief of Police for Man of the Year is barely enough.

There is the moment when Kevin Sr tells Junior that he should stop worrying – this is it, and it does not get any better or different. That’s exactly the opposite what Dad will tell Junior when he hands him the National Geographic.

Some of the scenes feel rushed in. Matt, for instance, comes out of the doctor’s examination room, tells his wife he does not have cancer and that he wants to get drunk, and maybe she should drive. Kevin Jr goes on his runs, but indulges a smoke and then a breath mint. He is dissatisfied with his marriage, but we never cleary understand why.

It’s the last few minutes that blow this mediocre episode out of the water. It’s October 14, and we get to see the major characters in the very moment when the departure takes place. Tommy and Jill’s moment is weak and badly handled. Nora Durst has her back turned on her family and swears and curses because her son has spilt juice over her cellphone, and then the room is far too quiet. Kevin Jr has a fling with the woman who runs over the wayward deer, and while they roll around in the motel bed, she disappears from right under him. No wonder Kevin is confused and damaged.

Laurie Garvey’s moment is the strongest by far. She has guessed, maybe even feared, for some time that she is pregnant, but has kept it a secret. She is at her obstetrician’s when she sees the outlines of her kid on the ultrasound screen. It’s enough that we only see Laurie’s face. We hear the heartbeat. Then nothing.

Episode nine is something of a near miss. Those characters that were able to thrive on strong writing kept on being interesting, but two of the weaker ones, Tommy and Jill, had such a weak scene that it feels like a missed opportunity to add something interesting to their storylines. The ending takes a risk: it could have been the season’s beginning or its ending, but it takes guts to place it at the end of the penultimate episode. There is one more episode to go, and I wonder what’s in store there. I expect we get to see the GR’s big event, and maybe Wayne will meet his fate. Let’s see.

The Leftovers, S1E8 – Cairo

Oct 9, 2014MegeLeave a comment

This episode is all about Patti. The screen lights up when Ann Dowd is in the frame, and everything else in Cairo takes a backseat. It starts with intercutting scenes of Kevin setting the table for a nice dinner, and Patti placing clothes on the floor of the otherwise empty church floor. We’re not told what her ritual means, but nothing good or simple can come from it. I thought that these were clothes from the raid, but let’s see.

Kevin’s dinner is for Jill and Aimee, and with Nora as their guest. What should be a nice evening quickly turns into Jill’s inquisition about why Nora would carry a gun, but, oh surprise, Nora’s handbag is devoid of all firearms. There is also the plotline about Megan beating up Father Matt, then apologizing to him. He knows that Megan’s Mom died the day before the departure, so “her grief was hijacked.” Jill falls out with Aimee and breaks into Nora’s home and finds the gun, realizing that life probably won’t get any better, and Kevin finds his missing shirts hanging from the trees near a hut in the woods, but the real center this time is Patti.

The evening ends with Garvey’s dream that turns out to be real. It’s morning, he is in the woods near Cairo, NY, with Dean awaiting his Kevin’s orders. Turns out that the dog in Kevin’s backyard is from a bet he made with Dean: if Kevin can civilize the dog, Dean gets a dollar, if not, Dean gets to shoot the animal. If you think this is bad, think about this: Patti is in a nearby hut, tied to a chair. This is real. This has happened, and it’s still happening. Kevin, as his evil alter ego, has beaten and abducted her, much to Dean’s delight, and to his own horror. The chief of police hides the leader of the Guilty Remnant in a cabin, against her will, and against his own will, too, if you can believe it.

It’s spellbinding how Patti seems to have a few tricks up her sleeve. Somehow, she’s still in charge because if he sets her free, she will report him to the real authorities: “You will have to finish what you started here, my friend.” She drives a wedge between Kevin and Dean and is so successful that Dean tries to suffocate her, but paradoxically, Kevin saves her life. Which makes Dean leave, disappointed in Kevin’s lack of decisive leadership.

So now it’s only the abductor, Mapleton Chief of Police and undiagnosed schizophrenic Kevin Garvey Jr, and the abductee, Patti, leader of the Guilty Remnant, who is holding the upper hand, in a cabin in the woods. What a set-up. Patti has the right words for it: “It’s a pickle. Can’t let me go, won’t let me die.” Then she explains the philosophy of the GR: shed everything that’s unnecessary and focus on the vanishing, pure and simple. It’s beautiful and sickening at the same time, not least because it makes Garvey realize that the GR have killed Gladys. Which means that Laurie might have been part of the lynch mob as well. When Patti starts quoting from a W. B. Yeats poem, you know that things won’t end well. Kevin’s decision to cut Patti loose is somehow inevitable – there isn’t anything else he could have done.

But it’s Patti’s suicide that got to me. I never liked her – who would? But there was something to her that made me look and listen. Ann Down has a commanding presence. While watching, I was surprised, even somewhat overwhelmed by her death. Afterwards, I found it confusing: what does her death prove? How does it help the GR and their cause? Is everything prepared to an extent that even Patti doesn’t have to be there? What the frack have the GR planned?

Megan and Laurie receive a trailer-load of something wrapped in plastic that the GR place in the church among the empty clothes. Those packets look too light to be bodies, but what the hell are they, and what are they for?

This episode had me glued to the screen as long as Patti was there. The rest was unspectacular, and Tommy and Christine were not greatly missed. Jill joining the GR did not have a great impact because Jill is simply underwritten and badly cast. I am eager to learn what Kevin will do in his large, empty house now that Jill and Aimee have gone and even the dog has been cut loose and vanished in the night. Maybe his episodes will increase. But most of all, the series will have to make up for losing Ann Down. We’ll see.

The Leftovers, S1E7 – Solace for tired Feet

Sep 19, 2014MegeLeave a comment

The US has shown the last episode of S1 a few days ago, while the UK has just aired the pilot. While it’s not the hottest thing on TV, this series gets decent ratings. That is as it should be. To dislike it because Lost had its serious flaws is just moronic – Leftovers is its own thing. With only one true stinker (episode 4), things seem to look up now.

This is a complex and mostly worthwhile ensemble episode. It’s heavy on plot, but doesn’t fall apart. The editing is a maze, but the people in the cutting room knew what they were doing. It took me a second to understand the beginning: Someone is plastering the walls of Mapleton with Gladys posters featuring the slogan “Save Them.” Which seems to mean “kill them”. Disgusting. Are those the same guys who killed Gladys?

There is a fridge in the woods in which a certain Paul Glouski departed during a prank. Now Jill and Aimee and their gang use it as a dare: whoever can stay in there the longest wins. Jill breaks the record and almost faints, but is saved from suffocation by her grandfather, Kevin Garvey Sr, who must have escaped the psych ward. Turns out he checked in there after burning down the town library. Now he seems to be harder to find than the B.J.

Aah, Scott Glenn. Remember him as Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs? Or as the priest in The Virgin Suicides? He makes even crap like Vertical Limit shine.

Tommy has to take care of a feverish, pregnant Christine. She mutters something about a bridge, which is either too ominous or not ominous enough, I don’t know which. That scene is greatly improved by Wayne’s phone call, but the great cult leader has no great plan, no revelation. Wayne just needs money. And he is still convinced that great things are afoot. Maybe they will involve a bridge.

Nora and Garvey are on their fourth date and are finally ready to fornicate, but find Megan and another GR in front of Nora’s house. Garvey threatens them verbally, but Nora has a better idea. I like the rapport they have with each other: “I don’t know how to talk to you yet.” Amidst all this crazyness of lost ones and wild dogs and cults, they approach each other carefully, timidly.

Back home, Garvey answers Jill’s questions about Grandpa and lets slip that she has seen him, and now his son has to catch him. First port of call is the Mayor, who has dumped the crazy old geezer. Then we see Garvey segue into a dream, and again, Dean wants Garvey to kill a dog – this time, the animal is trapped in a mailbox, and there is a dead Laurie in the back of Dean’s truck. Garvey just cannot shoot the dog this time. He wakes with a bite wound on his hand and a ferocious dog in the backyard. Aimee seems to know what has happened during the night even if Garvey doesn’t. Spooky stuff.

Garvey has to investigate the library his dad broke into – again. He beat up a deputy, used the library computer and wanted to borrow 200 dollars to get something for his son. Pop quiz: who do you think is more sane at this point – Garvey Sr or Garvey Jr?

Tommy delivers the money to a designated mailbox, but waits to see who will pick it up. Meanwhile, Grandpa turns up at the Garveys’, but only Jill is home. Ske asks why he knew that she was trapped in a fridge in the woods. He says he didn’t know. He wants to borrow 200 dollars and asks for tranquilizers for the dog, but Garvey, alerted by Jill, comes home. The scene where he handcuffs himself with that old routine is strangely touching because it’s right and wrong at the same time.

In the police car, the Garveys run into a silent GR protest against the killing of Gladys, and Grandpa gets out of the car and escapes. Garvey knocks down some protesters during his pursuit, Patti among them, and is stared down by her and Meg and, of course, Laurie.

Meanwhile, Tommy sees a stranger take the 3’000 dollars and follows him, and he discovers another very young, very pregnant woman of Asian background called Liane and her protector. How many unique special pregnant girls does an abusive cult leader need? What is his plan?

Back at the Garveys’, Aimee wants to talk about what Kevin remembers about the night they got the dog. He refuses to discuss this and goes to the backyard to feed the dog only to find out that someone has dug up the jar with the money. Remember that jar? Father Jamison dug it up, and now we get to see that it is empty except for a leaflet about a corrupt judge and a note from Grandpa that Jamison deserves that money. Which prompts Garvey to see the holy man.

There are people at Matt’s, printing posters of Gladys. So it’s them, and their plea to save the GR has a spiritual background, not a cynical one. Matt isn’t there, but Garvey finds out that he is out there somewhere with Garvey Sr.

Liane’s minder tries to bond with Tommy over a coupla lines of coke and reminiscing about the night of the raid, when Liane charges into the room with a gun, trying to make Tommy lead her to Christine, then she breaks down and tells Tommy that Wayne is some kind of bridge.

Then there is a meeting in a diner of father and son. Senior brings him a National Gegraphic mag from May 1972 which is supposed to be crucial, some kind of message. This, Dad says, is Kevin’s invitation, his purpose, his mission. Junior dismisses it all as humbug because of his daddy issues. Well – if your dad hears voices, how would you react? And thus ends Grandpa’s day out.

A disillusioned Garvey goes and does what any man would do in order to anchor his life in the here and now: he goes and has wonderful sex with Nora. That doesn’t seem to faze Laurie too much, and for once, chief Garvey is cheerful in the morning – until he sees the National Geographic on his kitchen counter.

Meanwhile and somewhere else, Tommy gets another phone call from Wayne the Bridge, but decides to smash the phone. That is very sane and very dangerous. Back at their hideout, Christine has given birth on her own. It’s a girl. But of course.

The Leftovers, S1E6 – Guest

Sep 11, 2014MegeLeave a comment

Rejoice, my dearly beloveds, for this is a Nora Durst episode. And it is a good one, a very good one indeed. Ok, I confess: it’s my favourite episode so far.

She conducts an interview, then parks across the road from a schoolyard. She goes shopping for kids’ food and replaces the old, still full boxes past their sell-by date with the new ones. Then she sits in the kitchen, hoping against hope for her family to return.

We only learn later that the teacher we see in the schoolyard is the woman her husband had an affair with. It gets worse: Nora calls a hooker, puts on a bulletproof vest, places a mattress on the floor and then hands the hooker her gun, telling her to shoot her in the chest. That’s slightly scarier to me than assisted suicide. It means that not feeling too much is the problem, but feeling too little.

She meets Garvey at the courthouse, and you know what’s coming, don’t you? They’re both there for the same reason: divorce. That scene is weird, crude and sweet all at once.

Then Nora has to go to New York for a DROP conference (stands for Departure Related Occupations and Practices). There seem to be no GRs, but a lot of protesters who demand answers. There is that chilling scene where one guy hands her a hand grenade. Can you believe her reaction?

Her nametag is gone, and she has to make do with one that says “guest”. She wants to find out the thief and follows a woman into the ladies’ room only to find out something about herself. Still missing the tag and cajoled into a party by a young cocky bastard and other DROP people, she drinks and takes a pill and starts dancing on the sofa. That might lead her into trouble, but it’s way better than getting shot into her Kevlar-protected sternum. Turns out that the young cocky bastard is in the profitable business of building life-size imitations of the departed for 40’000 $ apiece. Business is good. He asks Nora for a kiss. She says yes, then kisses the guy’s imitation. I didn’t see that one coming. It looks very tender, but is veeeery creepy. I like that about this episode: most scenes mean two or three things at the same time.

Bad news next morning. She gets thrown out of the hotel because “Nora Durst” has smashed the big mirror behind the bar. She insists it wasn’t her. Security won’t listen to her: “No offence, but who would want to be you?” (I was reminded of the Kevin Finnerty scenes from the Sopranos) Finally, they find the fake Nora Durst on a panel, raving about how the DROP is a smoke-screen to insinuate progress while the questionnaires are sent to incinerators. The benefit payments are supposed to shut people up. That woman is one of the more determined protesters, and maybe she has a point. It depends on what you, the viewer, think, but the doubt she spreads is hard to shake off.

Later, the real Nora Durst finds herself in the bar the fake Nora trashed and is pissed off at the author of a book that is everywhere at the conference. A tall creep called Casper, excellently played by Tom Noonan, asks her if she wants to go on forever feeling such rage and despair. She answers yes, but is intrigued. Casper leads her into a room where there is a curtained doorway which it costs 1’000 $ to go through in order to know what happened when the author was walking through it. Nora pays.

Hello, Wayne. Are you the real deal, going to take Nora’s pain away from her? Yes, you are. You already seem to guess that the gunshots bring Nora a similar kind of pain as when her family departed. And what is new is that you seem to guess that your own death is upon you soon.

Either Nora has helped herself by visiting Wayne, or Wayne really has helped Nora. She goes about her life, and there is a change about her, in her face. I’m not a rom-com guy, but her asking Garvey out really put a decent end to a great episode. It will probably get messy soon enough, but for now, Nora Durst’s life is looking up.

The Leftovers, S1E5 – Gladys

Sep 6, 2014MegeLeave a comment

Last episode’s end with those unlawful entries into people’s homes have shown us a more aggressive Guilty Remnant. This episode seems to continue that new note as Gladys, the pudgy older woman with blonde hair and glasses, and another woman step over an old man lying helplessly on the pavement and refuse to help him. They paint all the newspaper dispensers white, not making any new friends that way, of course, but it comes as a shock that the Gladys of the title gets abducted by a small, anonymous group, taped to a tree and stoned to death. She begs for her life with the first and last words we ever hear from her. That scene is outrageously violent and almost unbearable to watch.

I am not entirely sure it’s a good idea to try and pick up a bad episode with such a violent teaser, but let’s see further. Kevin Garvey, poor guy, has quite different problems: the burglar alarm is off, and some of his white shirts are missing. Was it that deer again? His working day starts of course with Patti’s plea to help with Gladys’ murder. I didn’t expect Megan to tell Laurie that this, well, was to be expected. Laurie seems to have an anxiety attack and flashbacks about Gladys’ death. That’s odd – she wasn’t there, was she? I don’t like what that short scene implies. Sooner rather than later, the series will have to come clean about some of its unexplained snippets.

Against Garvey’s wishes, the FBI gets involved in the murder inquiry. He stakes out the GR headquarters to make sure Laurie is safe, but Laurie and Patti are not there – they’re in a motel, in a non-smoking room. Patti treats them to a day off: normal clothes, breakfast and conversation. Laurie seems on the verge of talking. This is one powerful scene, people: Amy Brenneman and Ann Dowd are a pleasure to watch here. Just wait for the “doubt is fire” speech. (I have a soft spot for Amy Brenneman ever since Heat, and I really, really liked Ann Dowd in Compliance.) Their storyline suffers somewhat because Patti seems to dump her own feces in a doggy bag on the front porch of a certain Neil.

And then my third favourite character stumbles into Kevin Garvey at the drycleaners. Garvey wants to pick up his white shirts without a ticket, and who does he meet there but Nora Durst: “They turn up once you stop looking for them.” Is there another flirt in the air?

Garvey cross-examines Father Jamison. That doesn’t make much sense at first, but remember that during his odyssey, he got a stone to his head while trying to help a GR, who then bought his church from under him. Still, he cannot have done it, can he? We’ve seen him bash a man’s head in, but he would have acted alone if it had been him, don’t you agree? He says he was with his study group and then makes an astonishing request: he would like to see Gladys’ body and pray for her. Garvey says no, then he gets yanked out of the room into another room where he has to explain the 8pm curfew to the community. People don’t accept that they should be locked up because of the GR, first of all Dean. The council is unanimously against the curfew, so Garvey gathers the GR and gives them whistles. Bad idea, Kev.

Then he brings Father Jamison to Gladys’ mortal coil because this is the closest thing to a funeral she is going to get. On the way, Jamison quotes from the Bible and remarks that “killing these people is pointless. They don’t care because they’re already dead.” He wants to bring them back to life. And if that scene didn’t feature angelic choirs on its soundtrack, it would have been one of the strongest moments so far.

Back at the morgue, the body has already been shipped to the FBI in Virginia to Agent Kilaney. The body is sort of lost in the system, and Agent Kilaney offers to eliminate the infestation. Come again? Yes, he means the GR – all of them. Is that guy for real? Did he take part in Gladys’ murder? He cannot be FBI. Is he ATFEC? If so – who are they?

And Father Jamison steals the next scene, informing us about his swearing habits. Well done, Matt, but I am not sure you should stand in the GR front yard and talk about Gladys and try to recruit members for your church. Laurie comes out and whistles as loudly as she can. Father, you’re in trouble.

An inebriated Kevin Garvey wants to get back his white shirts and harasses the Indian proprietor of the drycleaner’s. That man is clearly afraid of him, and now Garvey is sort of sorry. Back home, he tells Jill that he and Mum are getting a divorce. This is the only moment where Jill seems to be herself.

The episode ends at the ATFEC processing center, and it is exactly what you think it means: an assembly line crematorium, where we see Gladys go up in flames, so maybe what Tommy and Christine have come across last time we saw them was a container of dead people. It has nothing to do with the disappeared. I feel slightly disappointed, which means that some hints at the mistery of where they are or what happened to them wouldn’t come amiss.