Comments | nx_rewatch: 3.06: "The Body in Question"

icepixie in nx_rewatch

3.06: "The Body in Question"

Feb 12, 2012 13:46

Summary: A frozen body discovered in the local river could cause a world-wide historical revolution: was Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo or was he ice fishing near Cicely and fathering a tribe of French-speaking Native Americans?

Moosechick's episode guide page.

season three

Comments 18

icepixie February 12 2012, 19:50:21 UTC

This is my very favorite episode. All the different variations on "what is the past, why does it matter, how is it communicated?" intertwine so beautifully, and everyone has an important role to play in the story. I'm always amazed by how much they managed to pack into this episode, between Joel's "mutation" (not to mention his Elijah dream) to Shelly's fretting about infertility to Ed starting to work for Ruth-Anne to the town hall debate over truth and facts to...well, you get the idea. The Proust quote is really an amazingly apt one, because so much of the episode is about little things that carry the weight of a "vast structure of recollection": Pierre of French and world history, genes of humanity's entire evolution from slime mold, and Ed's script of his entire life. (Each is also in some way rejected: Pierre will not change history because the Tellakutans take him, Holling refuses to be the bearer of bad genes both in actions and because he won't have children, and the movie producer rejects Ed's script ( ... )

rowdycamels February 15 2012, 03:05:25 UTC

"As far as I'm concerned, after a hundred years, carrion becomes memorabilia!"

Bleechhhhh. Is Maurice having visions of Pierre mounted on the wall of his cabin?

But more importantly, you're a New Yorker. You were born with an innate skepticism, a natural sense of superiority

That gives him the power to date a corpsicle accurately with only a microscope and some test tubes!

"I won't use the peas [for dinner]; they're for appreciating." Double awww.

ED I LOVE YOU.

icepixie February 15 2012, 05:32:17 UTC

Bleechhhhh. Is Maurice having visions of Pierre mounted on the wall of his cabin?

I think he said something about Pierre being the main attraction at some kind of museum/shopping mall?

That gives him the power to date a corpsicle accurately with only a microscope and some test tubes!

Being a New Yorker confers superpowers!

ED I LOVE YOU.

SO MUCH.

rowdycamels February 18 2012, 23:47:16 UTC

I think he said something about Pierre being the main attraction at some kind of museum/shopping mall?

But on weekdays? MAURICE'S MANTEL.

icepixie February 12 2012, 19:52:21 UTC

Awww, Ruth-Anne sells all the food in town, so she knows exactly what flavor of coffee Ed has ( ... )

rowdycamels February 15 2012, 03:13:14 UTC

Awww, Ruth-Anne sells all the food in town, so she knows exactly what flavor of coffee Ed has.

Heh, and she's still excited about it!

I'm mutating in some horribly grotesque way

Oh no! Building character is so repugnant, Joel!

"when the truth is finally known, the facts will be made to accommodate it."

At first I thought he meant facts would be manufactured to accommodate it, but no, I think he means that facts will be reinterpreted to point at the new truth so it looks like that's where they were pointing "all along." Which... yeah, that's what Chris is arguing.

icepixie February 15 2012, 05:37:38 UTC

Heh, and she's still excited about it!

I guess you have to cultivate that kind of attitude in a town like this...

Oh no! Building character is so repugnant, Joel!

Heh. You know, it reminded me a tiny bit of your post-Exeter essay for Jesse... (I seem to recall you had a section on how building character is painful and annoying?)

At first I thought he meant facts would be manufactured to accommodate it, but no, I think he means that facts will be reinterpreted to point at the new truth so it looks like that's where they were pointing "all along." Which... yeah, that's what Chris is arguing.

Mmmmm, tasty semantics.

rowdycamels February 18 2012, 23:49:34 UTC

I guess you have to cultivate that kind of attitude in a town like this...

And I suppose she takes care to stock her favorites...

(I seem to recall you had a section on how building character is painful and annoying?)

I didn't say Joel's assessment was wrong, I was just making fun of him for it!

icepixie February 12 2012, 19:53:38 UTC

Hee, I love Joel's hypothermia-induced dream. In the same way he didn't expect a two-hundred-year-old Frenchman to write "Elba not bad," he didn't expect Elijah to wear a suit. Nor, for that matter, to show up at all, because while he does seem to have some kind of belief or faith, he doesn't expect his religious figures to actually speak back to him.

"The soul is the sacred payload of us all," and the body doesn't matter. Maurice and Holling should probably never talk about metaphysics. It would end badly.

Holling: [Great-Uncle Whoever's] death is still celebrated in some parts of France.
Shelly: You mean like Lincoln's birthday?
Holling: I mean like the death of Satan1.) Why is Lincoln's birthday the first thing Shelly, a Canadian, thinks of in this situation? 2.) Hee ( ... )

rowdycamels February 15 2012, 03:16:01 UTC

1.) Why is Lincoln's birthday the first thing Shelly, a Canadian, thinks of in this situation?

Add to the list of things Shelly is bad at: being from Canada.

(Alternately, Ed just isn't a very good writer. But I refuse to believe that!)

It sounds like he... is finding his feet. The boy's got potential!

icepixie February 15 2012, 05:39:12 UTC

Add to the list of things Shelly is bad at: being from Canada.

Awwww. Perhaps she should take lessons from Fraser. (Can you IMAGINE them interacting?)

rowdycamels February 18 2012, 23:51:19 UTC

She'd love him! No one else takes her so seriously and politely! Poor Fraser, on the other hand...

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