Liveblog: A2A 1.07
And we go from my favorite episode of the season into, frankly, my least favorite (1.05 is down there, but it makes up for its deficiencies by being insanely quotable.) Also, full disclosure, I am feeling extra special uncharitable because I’d already recapped half of this episode and then dw’s update box ate it, so, you know.
“I don’t even wear any jewelry!”
Alex’s face of “bwzuh” is a thing of beauty.
What sort of accent is that?
And Hollis’s wife (that is her, we see her later) has some major unfriendly body language going on.
Okay, I think one of my problems with this episode is that it’s way too close to zero hour for Alex to have any freak-out to spare for anything else. (I think I’d like it more if it and 1.06 traded places in the line-up. Because you can feel 1.06 wanting to rush straight into the climax.) I mean, you could try and sell this “who’s going to die?” as a displacement of that anxiety, but I’m not buying.
And the bells are a tiny bit pasted on yay. We’ve never had them before, and we don’t again.
Although the question mark appearing on her calendar is a good touch. Have we ever seen the Clown affect anything in the physical world before?
“Well, come on, show compassion NOW!”
Cranky Alex is cranky.
Ahahaha, Gene is SO BAD at girls. I do wonder if he’s ever actually had to initiate a relationship of this nature before. (Although my brain cannot help comparing this to his casually ordering Sam out to dinner with him in LoM. Because that’s what my brain does.) And the background music would be overegging the shipper pudding if such a thing were possible.
“You want sole? I can give you sole.”
“Psychology.”
“... Yeah.”
Okay, the death-o-visions are good.
I would have something exasperated to say about every superior officer ever being a useless figurehead, if I didn’t know exactly where in Gene’s psyche that was coming from.
“He shames us all, sir.”
“And I wish you were Sid Little.”
Mr Keeley has lovely eyes.
Gene will go along with your psychology, Lexa, but he won’t help with it.
“Well, the mind’s an amazing organ.”
“I’ve got an amazing organ.”
“It’s capable of far more than you can imagine.”
“Right again.”
On rewatch, it’s really pretty obvious that Mr Hollis is being purposefully obfuscating. And Alex bonds with the apparent shooting victim.
I want those white boots of hers so badly. Even though I know they’d look ridiculous on anyone else.
“And after that we’re going to make a study of some sheep entrails, see what we can make of them.”
Eyes in the rearview mirror! Gene’s this time! Drink!
... okay, that juxtaposed with the beginnings of the GENTLY DOES IT poster does make a nice piece of visual foreshadowing.
*aural squint* Is that the Beat playing in the background? I really don’t know from ska, but that song sounds awfully familiar.
Gene is good at pulling people out of spirals. And Alex isn’t, because she’s a spirally personality herself. And you can see the barest glimpse of some sympathy, here, on Gene’s part.
“That’s me all over.”
There actually is a thematic discussion about power and control going on in this episode -- you can read Hollis’s OCD as an extension of Alex’s need to manage everything, certainly -- but it’s not very well developed. I think the script could have used another going-over as well.
“Before any of you ask, the pink wafer represents his bathtub.”
“Do you think she wears heels or comfortable shoes?”
“Now that is a good name for a boy band.”
“Meep meep.” I love it when Marshall gets to do impressions.
“Now. None of you will die. Unless I choose to kill you.”
Hollis looks guilty as hell in this shot.
It is very nice to see Alex being good at her area of expertise. And they do play well off each other, these two.
Okay, Alex just triggered off of finger guns. She’s not well.
I don’t think whoever wrote this episode really gets Shaz. She’s cleverer than that.
First time Alex makes any substantive mention of her father, and it’s him ruining my childhood. Of course.
CLOWN!
“I’ve had custard with more consistency.”
“... Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark?”
*criiiiiinges*
*skips*
I’m sorry, I can’t do this bit. At all. I -- oh gene. I believe it, I just can’t watch.
Gene cracks the case! And has, I must point out, lovely eyes as well.
“Only the guilty need fear me, son.” Well, that’s. Substantively not true.
Oh Gene honey no.
Alex, this is not the time when talking him down will work.
And Hollis is playing straight to Alex here. (Rule of thumb: any time anyone starts playing to Alex or Chris’s weak spots, chances are they’ve done something. Cf. Louise Gardiner.)
“I’ve been shot! Loads of folk get shot. He wasn’t that shot.”
“I’m sure Mr Hollis didn’t think his renal habits would benefit the case.”
Oh, Gene. If I didn’t know exactly what kind of learned behavior this “when feeling powerless, spread said feeling around but good” is --
Oh, babies, if you’d get out of your own damn ways for ten seconds.
Oh, Alex. I -- this is the right thing to do, it is, insofar as anything involving Evan has ever been the right thing to do, but. This is the other other reason I don’t like this episode very much: it makes everyone too goddamn impossible to put up with.
And Caroline brings the metaphor crashing home. Sorry, darling, I AM rather fond of you but the White Witch you are not. And it’s the wrong metaphor on so many levels -- Alex is Susan, not Edmund.
“What are you waiting for? Christmas?” All right, on the heels of the Narnia thing that’s almost clever.
“How do you know I don’t have children?” All right, I’m going to read that as the “so’s your FACE” sort of rejoinder, because it makes me far more comfortable in myself.
Something in Alex’s railing about righteous anger and guilt-tripping is making me seriously dwell a little too much on what things actually might have been like in that household.
Blue, STILL not Alex’s color.
“Just to let you know, ma’am, if you were a bloke, I’d be knocking ten bells out of you.”
Oh, EVAN. *HEADDESKS* Honey. No. A WORLD of no. Just... no.
“You are so Eighties.”
Evan, stop trying to bang the crazy lady. Alex, just... stop.
All right, the sound mixing in Alex’s flashback here is really sort of good.
Because she doesn’t need someone who believes her unconditionally no matter what, is why.
Gene cracks the case yet again!
I can’t decide if steak and chips pizza actually sounds sort of good or if I’m just hungry.
“Oh, bugger Bognor.”
I am not so sure Ray would say “adamant.”
“Glastonbury. 1992.” Okay, it’s nearly worth it for the glimpse of Alex’s misspent youth.
“On your bike, McMillan.”
Oh ew ew ew ew ew ew ew.
“What is this, Scooby-Doo?”
*shiiiiiiiips*
I have no idea how Luigi has any other customers left.
“I am not dying in a trattoria!”
“Why do blokes holding guns always feel the need to tell us their life stories?”
Shazzes have no sense of self-preservation.
“Gently does it.”
Okay, I have no damn idea the geography of this neighborhood.
Mr Keeley does do the unravelling rather well.
Death foreshadowing! Drink!
Oh, this is hard. Oh, Chris. Oh, everyone.
Chris putting the boot in is one of those Things That Should Not Be.
Keeley is so gorgeous in this scene. *SHALLOW*
OH TIM PRICE NO. Oh, EW my childhood. FUCK OFF. Oh, way to make Lewis’s creepy even creepier.
... I really ought to finish that story I’ve been sitting on since 1.08. And, yes, it’s relevant to that previous statement.
Oh, go away, Evan. *cringes some more*
“You do know this is me apologizing.” Oh, I love Viv. It’s a crying shame there wasn’t more Viv.
Next up: the day that was the day, and OH GENE’S POLITICS WTF.
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