Parade's End - ep 3 thoughts and caps
I realize most of my flist doesn't care, but I can't stop.
I just like this shot.
The whole sequence at the hospital was nightmarish, but the worst was when he couldn't remember his name, because for someone who is as brilliant as he is, it's probably the worst feeling and such a waste.
With Sylvia, talking about the horrors of war, as if he can't stop, until she pretty much forcibly makes him lie down and go to sleep. I feel rather sorry for Sylvia in this episode - it's clear she might love him (or at least think she does) but she can't help but lash out because she has an inferiority complex, almost - she knows she's wronged him badly and repeatedly but he's never said a cross word to her and being comfortable living with a saint would take a very very very good person. That is why she almost yearns for him to have an affair, so they can be equal (I don't think she realizes that he'd never just have an affair - if he went with Valentine, it'd be because he loved her with all his soul).
Apparently his reputation is all ruined for a variety of depressing but plausible reasons and even his own father believes things. What, this is getting to kdrama levels of cheeriness, people!
Awwww, he can't have his tea because his hands shake so badly. WW1 was the war that invented the term shell-shock for a reason.
OMFG, he and Valetine see each other again and it's brief but emotionally overwhelming and seriously, I was sniffling.
I have to say, they are striking-looking together.
This! I love that he talks to her about his memory/brain issues (he still forgets names but is better with math) and that she really wants to know about the problem he solved (and his incredulous 'you really want to know?' says volumes about his life) and I just want to take them away and wrap them in cotton wool and protect them.
His confrontation with Sylvia and yeah, he's pretty close to snapping at this point. Everyone believes he has no honor in every possible way and Sylvia throwing his 'sainthood' in his face etc etc.
Oh, this scene. My heart my heart my heart! When she asks him if Edith Duchemain is his mistress (because Sylvia told her so, to warn her off) and he asks her how can she think that, doesn't she know him. And I love that his word is enough for her. And then his asking her 'will you be my mistress tonight?' - and this is probably the only story where I find that heart-stoppingly romantic - all the love and need that can't be repressed any more, and desperation (he's shipping out in the morning and obviously who knows if he'll stay alive) and the fact that he's reached breaking point (as he's said, he's dragged through the mud any way, and cannot live by an outmoded code of honor) and the way she shines and touches his face and he closes his eyes and leans into that touch as if he is starved and just - this is the most romantic thing ever. (Oh, and bonus points for Mark, who doesn't get but loves his weird little brother and thus approves of Valentine).
Only, since if it wasn't for bad luck, they'd have no luck at all, her brother and his shipmates arrive at the house and so they can't. And the way he is so quietly accepting and the way she tells him that they can when he comes back, as if to anchor him to life and give him something to come back for because, let's face it, in his quiet gentlemanly way he is incredibly self-destructive right now. And his telling her he can't take her to Groby because people would understand some servant girl mistress but not her, and her telling him she doesn't care and will be ready for anything he asks and my heaaaaaaart....
The scene with Sylvia. You know, I don't like her, but I pity her - she herself wrecked the marriage beyond any hope of fixing but she can't let it go. When she taunts him that he couldn't even 'seal the deal' (to use modern slang) with his servant girl - oh God. I wanted to hit her at the same time as I understood her, and her bizarre notion that if he fell off his pedestal and cheated as she did, they'd be equals and there'd be hope for them (she is wrong - his heart is now another's for good, but she doesn't realize that because for her affairs were meaningless).
Anyway, hope someone read this mess of a post, but even if not, I am too obsessed to mind.