they were good days.
So the last Poirot aired Wednesday.
My quick takes on the final season:
Elephants Can Remember: Really quite good. Worth rewatching. Much, much better than the original novel. Actually BECAUSE it was so good, I don't have much to say about it, except that Zoe Wanamaker is amazing.
The Big Four: A mess, but sort of an A for Effort mess. The original thriller novel would be hard to adapt in any case but especially for this particular series with what they have established and what they are constrained to by budget etc. The biggest problem is the criminal negligence of Miss Lemon and Captain Hastings. It's sort of like, "hey, look who we have here," ~70 minutes~ "oh hey here they are again goodbye."
Japp was great though.
Dead Man's Folly: I really liked this one as well. Mostly this was excellent because they filmed this in Agatha Christie's actual house, so there's all kinds of scenery to gawk at. Just a very pretty movie and very classic feeling.
Labours of Hercules: Pretty much hated this one. As far as I am concerned, unfortunately, they can't really say they've "adapted all the stories" because many of the short stories in this book were not even remotely included in this film. It's hard to think how they could have been without stretching out the series to more episodes, but that's really not an excuse. The worst part was something that we'll see again in the next episode, unfortunately.
The issue is what I can say, spoiler free, is the concept of invincible evil, which is a very popular motif in contemporary media: the serial killer/terrorist/etc against whom you cannot really win in a satisfying manner because they go grinning even to the gallows, saying "Well, you can kill me, but you can't undo what I've done," essentially. Even without arguing about whether this is realistic (or if the reactions of those around are realistic) it isn't cathartic in the way that viewers and readers of Christie want. In fact I would say that Christie proposes the exact opposite emotion in many of her books, the big one being Five Little Pigs. (Spoiler does not reveal name of killer but does reveal another plot twist.) [Spoiler (click to open)]In that book, the killer, who escapes all legal punishment for the crime and lives in luxury, nonetheless expresses a feeling a total defeat, because the woman framed for the murder felt the execution redeemed her for a past sin. The money quote is, "it was like I died and they lived". To Christie, even those who most seem to have "gotten away with it" are all the more surely defeated.
Curtain: How amazing was Hugh Fraser in this? SO AMAZING. To the point where I wanted less Poirot screentime and more Hastings, which is a bit problematic for the final episode of a show called Poirot.
There was quite a bit of what Tv Tropes calls Values Dissonance in, as one news article puts it, the way that Hastings is super concerned about his daughter's romantic life yet completely oblivious to the fact that she's basically a Nazi, at least as far as her views on eugenics go. I don't recall that the book was this extreme about it. She's basically an Ayn Rand heroine, so of course I couldn't stand her. And it's really a shame that [Spoiler (click to open)]the romance between Hastings and Cole wasn't more than slightly hinted at. If you didn't know it was supposed to be there I don't even know if the hints would come across.
But again, the end has that frustrating and completely contrived "invincible evil" motif. [Spoiler (click to open)]Come on now. Norton's drugged to unconsciousness yet somehow magically wakes up and smiles just in time to be shot through the forehead? Really? I get that you want to shove it in our face that Norton views his corruption of Poirot as a final triumph but that was just ridiculously over the top.
On the other hand, I was actually quite pleasantly surprised by the final moral resolution of the story. They didn't go for "ends justify the means", which I was afraid they would do. Instead, Poirot doesn't try to excuse himself at all. He doesn't know if he did the right thing, in fact he suspects he did not. He doesn't presume on God's mercy, he doesn't despair of God's mercy, but he begs for God's mercy. Exactly right.
I don't know if I will actually rewatch the film though. There was a lot that was kind of muddled ([Spoiler (click to open)]Who does the nurse end up with at the end anyway? She's supposedly hooking up with Allerton but then she's hooking up with the baronet? Was everyone swinging in 1949?) If I do it'll probably be to skip around and view some of the best Hastings moments.
My quick takes on the final season:
Elephants Can Remember: Really quite good. Worth rewatching. Much, much better than the original novel. Actually BECAUSE it was so good, I don't have much to say about it, except that Zoe Wanamaker is amazing.
The Big Four: A mess, but sort of an A for Effort mess. The original thriller novel would be hard to adapt in any case but especially for this particular series with what they have established and what they are constrained to by budget etc. The biggest problem is the criminal negligence of Miss Lemon and Captain Hastings. It's sort of like, "hey, look who we have here," ~70 minutes~ "oh hey here they are again goodbye."
Japp was great though.
Dead Man's Folly: I really liked this one as well. Mostly this was excellent because they filmed this in Agatha Christie's actual house, so there's all kinds of scenery to gawk at. Just a very pretty movie and very classic feeling.
Labours of Hercules: Pretty much hated this one. As far as I am concerned, unfortunately, they can't really say they've "adapted all the stories" because many of the short stories in this book were not even remotely included in this film. It's hard to think how they could have been without stretching out the series to more episodes, but that's really not an excuse. The worst part was something that we'll see again in the next episode, unfortunately.
The issue is what I can say, spoiler free, is the concept of invincible evil, which is a very popular motif in contemporary media: the serial killer/terrorist/etc against whom you cannot really win in a satisfying manner because they go grinning even to the gallows, saying "Well, you can kill me, but you can't undo what I've done," essentially. Even without arguing about whether this is realistic (or if the reactions of those around are realistic) it isn't cathartic in the way that viewers and readers of Christie want. In fact I would say that Christie proposes the exact opposite emotion in many of her books, the big one being Five Little Pigs. (Spoiler does not reveal name of killer but does reveal another plot twist.) [Spoiler (click to open)]In that book, the killer, who escapes all legal punishment for the crime and lives in luxury, nonetheless expresses a feeling a total defeat, because the woman framed for the murder felt the execution redeemed her for a past sin. The money quote is, "it was like I died and they lived". To Christie, even those who most seem to have "gotten away with it" are all the more surely defeated.
Curtain: How amazing was Hugh Fraser in this? SO AMAZING. To the point where I wanted less Poirot screentime and more Hastings, which is a bit problematic for the final episode of a show called Poirot.
There was quite a bit of what Tv Tropes calls Values Dissonance in, as one news article puts it, the way that Hastings is super concerned about his daughter's romantic life yet completely oblivious to the fact that she's basically a Nazi, at least as far as her views on eugenics go. I don't recall that the book was this extreme about it. She's basically an Ayn Rand heroine, so of course I couldn't stand her. And it's really a shame that [Spoiler (click to open)]the romance between Hastings and Cole wasn't more than slightly hinted at. If you didn't know it was supposed to be there I don't even know if the hints would come across.
But again, the end has that frustrating and completely contrived "invincible evil" motif. [Spoiler (click to open)]Come on now. Norton's drugged to unconsciousness yet somehow magically wakes up and smiles just in time to be shot through the forehead? Really? I get that you want to shove it in our face that Norton views his corruption of Poirot as a final triumph but that was just ridiculously over the top.
On the other hand, I was actually quite pleasantly surprised by the final moral resolution of the story. They didn't go for "ends justify the means", which I was afraid they would do. Instead, Poirot doesn't try to excuse himself at all. He doesn't know if he did the right thing, in fact he suspects he did not. He doesn't presume on God's mercy, he doesn't despair of God's mercy, but he begs for God's mercy. Exactly right.
I don't know if I will actually rewatch the film though. There was a lot that was kind of muddled ([Spoiler (click to open)]Who does the nurse end up with at the end anyway? She's supposedly hooking up with Allerton but then she's hooking up with the baronet? Was everyone swinging in 1949?) If I do it'll probably be to skip around and view some of the best Hastings moments.