Colditz 2x13, "Liberation"
The advancing Allied front lines have almost reached Colditz--the only remaining questions are whether the Americans or Russians will get there first, and what the SS might do in a last-ditch defense of the Reich.
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4) Simon, as I said, mostly stands around looking thoughtful. I think this may just have been Moffat not knowing what to do with him, but it has some interesting effects. Simon, once the most determined escaper, seems almost reluctant to leave Colditz, as he eventually acknowledges to Preston. Even leaving head-canon aside, he's got a lot to be anxious about, returning to a two-month marriage interrupted by five years of separation, and to a low-status, unglamorous job after being, however briefly, an RAF pilot. Bringing head-canon back into the equation, Simon's had a profound and profoundly twisted emotional relationship in Colditz and gone through a huge amount of turmoil and confusion, clinging always to the fantasy that he'll go back to Cathy and become the man he ought to be--commanding, certain, bearer of exactly the right kind of masculinity, loving and dominant husband to a devoted woman. Now he's got to go out into the real world and try to really live his fantasy; he must be terrified of failure.
5) The Kommandant and Preston's farewell could have been much better written, but the actors pull it off with the usual brilliance and manage to put some emotional life into it.
I was less impressed with the belaboring of Colonel Harrity's "we won't shoot them or put them in cages" stuff. It's good that the show acknowledged the mistreatment of German POWs by the Allies, and of course it's good to know that characters one likes will be spared that, but it's also a bit of a moral sidestepping (implying that mistreatment only happened to the bad German POWs) and historical inaccuracy. Reinhold Eggers, on whom the character of Ulmann was based, ended up in the Soviet occupied zone after being freed by the Americans. He was tried and convicted for collaborating with fascism and spent almost ten years imprisoned, four of them in a brutal camp where at least 12,000 prisoners died between 1945 and 1950. Admittedly I'm not sure how this could have been worked into the episode, but in contrast with what really happened, the surrender scene feels smug, a bit of undeserved self-congratulation over Allied decency to its POWs.
6) Look back at S2 overall, I have to say it isn't nearly as strong as S1. It starts out well and has some excellent individual episodes, plus I find Mohn an extremely interesting character, so I'm fond of S2 because he's there. But S2 lacks the focus and relatively consistent character development of S1, suffers from too many new or one-off writers, and just goes downhill after the first three episodes.
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My reading of George's zoology comment is that what he *means* is when he says 'I intend to start from scratch' (leave his wife, move in with Harry, possibly quit the regular army if he was in fact in it) and he adds zoology in the same way that, when asked what he bought from the guard in 'Murder?' 'cigarettes, washing machines' or whatever it was he said. It would fit his humour. (OR, possibly, because Harry is now back and around just not on camera because there's no space due to Nugent, it's an in-joke, because they started out 'dating' in a library and they used to say they'd start at 'aadvark' and go through to 'zebra' in order to find an excuse to still be there together, so 'zoology' is their code for heavy petting/sex, basically *g*)
4) Simon's reactions, when he gets a moment to show them, are fascinating. I really think we are supposed to see him as not being at all certain about leaving Colditz and, by extension, his important role (he was in charge of a lot of people there) and what for him has been a cage that has been protective as well as restrictive. When he's reading his letters, he looks troubled - he's got to go back to a woman he's spent considerably less time with than any given 1940 POW, and all the problems that they had anyway, which they used to be able to blame on the war. Since he hasn't died, how is he going to be able to support her in the style to which she's become accustomed? What is he going to tell her? How will she react to his leg? And when he reads the letters, or even thinks about her, he can hear Mohn's voice - outside any headcanon, the Mohn association has to be troubling and inescapable.
His relationship with Mohn is more recent, more lenghty and more *real* than what he's had with Cathy - there was that recognition, between him and Mohn, even if neither of them wanted it. They were able to understand each other, and in a strange, often twisted way, they had the power to make each other happy. Simon's war is over, and he can go home and see his family and his wife, and actually, the one he's wondering about is Mohn. Where is he? What's he doing? Who's he with? Is he thinking of Simon? Is he free of it, of what was between them? Because he shouldn't be, he should never be, Simon can't bear the idea of Mohn forgetting - he tells himself it's because Mohn doesn't deserve it.
5) The actors do indeed deserve tremendous kudos for managing to bring one piece of emotional closure together, keeping within their tightly restrained personas and yet actually vocalising their opinions of each other at last, and acknowledging the fact that they have one of the more important relationships in the place. They don't go so far as to say (thank goodness) 'Who knows, in another time...' but the message is there - they are two good men caught on opposite sides, which is in some ways seemingly the message about the guards that 'Colditz' was aiming to deliver
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'zoology' is their code for heavy petting/sex, basically
I am intrigued by your theories and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
4) he shouldn't be, he should never be, Simon can't bear the idea of Mohn forgetting
Ohhh. Yes. That would be the worst thing for Simon, the thought of Mohn truly escaping, being free of whatever it is that won't seem to let go of Simon.
simon imagines all kinds of futures for Mohn. In one of them Mohn is captured and tried and Simon testifies against him, and after Mohn's sentenced to death they talk in Mohn's cell and . . . that's as far Simon can think before he gets too disturbed to continue. In another Mohn gets away to Switzerland and sets up as a businessman under a new identity, but Simon finds him, exposes him, shames him for the sick bastard he is and Mohn knows he's beaten at last. In another Mohn's shot dead by the Americans or worse by the Russians and Simon is driven past him on his way to freedom, sees his corpse lying there and . . . and . . . and nothing Simon imagines gives him any happiness or satisfaction. Absolutely nothing.
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*meebles* Ack, painful, but entirely convincing. And this is part of what triggers his leaving the 'support group' because models of happiness that he encounters there involve men being together (no one is walking around going 'and the day I really felt good was when I found the chap I was obsessed with and got him arrested') and it's... not sufficiently unappealing, actually. If it left him totally cold, he'd feel fine about the queerness (well, not fine, but he'd cope) but it provokes emotions in him that he's afraid of delving into. He had a dream, once, that he lived in Colditz again, only that it was a kind of hotel, and all the rooms were doubles, and all the men were couples, and he was waiting for room assignments and Mohn was reading them out, and he just *knew*, the way you do in dreams, that Mohn was going to come and share with him (again, dream logic) and between dreaming and waking up he felt a kind of anticipation, a good kind, that absolutely freaked him out and threw off his sleeping pattern completely as he started to be afraid of dreaming.
I wonder if perhaps - through old government connections, or research or just happenstance (or Preston, who's in contact with the Kommandant) - Pat knows pretty much exactly where Mohn is. And he feels very bad, sometimes, about not telling Simon since it's all Simon seems to want. But he's really not going to - he doesn't see good things coming from that information.
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That's got to have been what they meant to do. The first episode is all about Mohn's arrival, after all, recapitulating the pattern of the first several episodes of S1, and a lot of attention goes into developing Simon and Mohn's relationship before it's dropped. I wonder if there were complaints about Mohn being portrayed as in any way sympathetic/not a cardboard monster. Or if the BBC panicked over the possibility of complaints, or someone noticed the strong pervasive perverse UST between Mohn and Simon, or what.
what is I think unarguable about S1 is that Pat and Dick have a very strong, consistent connection
It's there from the first moment the Colditz ensemble is (nearly) all together. I started rewatching some choice bits of S1 last night, and the scene where Dick first walks into the barracks is interesting. George goes over to him immediately but doesn't speak, while Pat goes over a second later, passing Muir and Tim to do so, and is the first POW to speak to Dick in Colditz. George doesn't manage to speak until the end of the introductions (and then the camera's not on him when he does!) Some of that's just Pat being unofficially in charge, but I feel ike it encapsulates something about Dick's relationships with Pat and George, too. I picture George seeing Dick for the first time and being overpowered by emotions that seem to come out of nowhere--here's this bright shining young man (George perceives him that way from the beginning, even when he's in a motley collection of khaki uniform pieces, is exhausted and emotionally traumatized and pretty much running on autopilot) who is suddenly, inexpicably the most important person in the room, the most important and fascinating person George has ever met. George in his confusion can hardly remember his own name, and then Pat's there and though George doesn't know it yet, it's already too late. It always, as George understands years afterwards, was too late.
(Also, I've noticed Dick's hair is not nearly as blond in "Name, Rank, and Number" as it will become later. Colditz water is magic! Or magically full of peroxide that only affects Dick.)
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Randomly, I was watching 'Raffles' last night and saw for the first time 'The Gold Cup' the episode with John Quentin in! Him and Anthony Valentine facing off over a dinner table made me ridiculously excited *g*
After S2, it is so nice to go back to S1 and see the best bits!
though George doesn't know it yet, it's already too late. It always, as George understands years afterwards, was too late.
It's so incredibly subtextual, the character in 'Colditz' but it really is there, and I think that's partly what makes it such an especially rewarding show to rewatch - you have to pay attention, the first time, to the storylines, and then the second time, having seen where the characters go, you interpret differently, and then the next time you can try and interpret the main emotions and the next you can look at the background acting - because it will be there - and, yes, I am the kind of person who rewatches certain things anyway, but I know I'll be going back and back and back to Colditz and still finding more!
I'm glad we do have the 'first meeting' scene (knowing this show, they might have thought it was irrelevant). The epic quality of the emotions and relationships that I now cannot *not* see in these men make these moments so exciting.
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I found it thrilling even to go back to "Odd Man In" and see Dick again. His leaving does (partly coincidentally) mark the point where the show starts to lose focus.
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