Hamish Macbeth episode reviews - episode 2
Episode 2: A Pillar of the Community
We’re still building up a picture of the community; having met the two Macraes, the Major and Alex last week, we see more this week of two couples, Rory (shopkeeper) and Esme (schoolteacher) and Agnes and Barney, who run the pub. But the couple at the centre are incomers, a writer and his wife who have settled in Lochdubh. The man is all for a quiet life, but the woman breaks the first rule for incomers to a rural community; she tries to organise and change things and thereby causes resentment.
Possible spoilers follow:
One of the main themes of the series surfaces this week: the inability of people to say what they really mean to each other. Here; communication problems between a husband and wife lead to a truly bizarre and unintentionally cruel attempt by the man to get through. At one stage Hamish asks the man "Why didn’t you just talk to her?" This is deeply ironic; Hamish is as bad at expressing his feelings as it gets and will later cause huge suffering to himself and others through it.
A certain potential hostility to people who aren't from round 'ere also becomes evident. At one stage there's a debate among the locals as to whether the offending woman originally came from Morningside or Kelvinside. Lachlan explodes "Morningside, Kelvinside, Backside, it's all the same" and Agnes points out that she and Barney are also incomers. Lachlan at once backtracks and says they're different, which is true; they have assimilated instead of trying to change things. But the tendency to regard outsiders as either comical or a threat is there, and persists in the series.
Isobel, the reporter who fancies Hamish, also surfaces in this episode; he is stunningly impervious to her interest but then he still thinks he loves Alex. But it's the non-communication theme that dominates, and is rather cleverly expressed in the final scene, where a man is shouting across music which suddenly stops, so that we hear words only intended for his wife. The ending is redemptive, and quite moving.
We’re still building up a picture of the community; having met the two Macraes, the Major and Alex last week, we see more this week of two couples, Rory (shopkeeper) and Esme (schoolteacher) and Agnes and Barney, who run the pub. But the couple at the centre are incomers, a writer and his wife who have settled in Lochdubh. The man is all for a quiet life, but the woman breaks the first rule for incomers to a rural community; she tries to organise and change things and thereby causes resentment.
Possible spoilers follow:
One of the main themes of the series surfaces this week: the inability of people to say what they really mean to each other. Here; communication problems between a husband and wife lead to a truly bizarre and unintentionally cruel attempt by the man to get through. At one stage Hamish asks the man "Why didn’t you just talk to her?" This is deeply ironic; Hamish is as bad at expressing his feelings as it gets and will later cause huge suffering to himself and others through it.
A certain potential hostility to people who aren't from round 'ere also becomes evident. At one stage there's a debate among the locals as to whether the offending woman originally came from Morningside or Kelvinside. Lachlan explodes "Morningside, Kelvinside, Backside, it's all the same" and Agnes points out that she and Barney are also incomers. Lachlan at once backtracks and says they're different, which is true; they have assimilated instead of trying to change things. But the tendency to regard outsiders as either comical or a threat is there, and persists in the series.
Isobel, the reporter who fancies Hamish, also surfaces in this episode; he is stunningly impervious to her interest but then he still thinks he loves Alex. But it's the non-communication theme that dominates, and is rather cleverly expressed in the final scene, where a man is shouting across music which suddenly stops, so that we hear words only intended for his wife. The ending is redemptive, and quite moving.