An invitation to use out brains...
The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco ep 2
Um, fell apart a bit, didn’t it?
After thinking she’d lost her son, and then knowing her neighbour had instead (what a scene, where she had to Iris about her knowledge) (although my brow furrowed at that, because even if Jean and Millie tried to call it in anonymously, with their accents, wouldn’t everyone who’d found the body have to talk to the police…oh, never mind) Iris said she wasn’t working the case anymore. I pointed out that she was the Susan last episode. She also said that Hailey wasn’t doing it either, which lasted all of thirty seconds into a visit from Jean.
I do like Hailey, her can-do spirit and enthusiasm, when it’s let loose. Not sure about her jumping on people and doing violence. Well, he was threatening Jean. She also pulls amazing faces (and the actress slightly reminds me of Anna Paquin.)
Short-term dissent in the team aside, the case continued, until they hit a dead end, and then Millie got discouraged. The emotional beats still worked: Iris’s conversation with her daughter about the limitations for what women could do, Millie saying that being able to use their brains was worthwhile anything (but it is a good cause) and all the little slights they had to face.
Mrs Mason turned out to be interesting apart from her husband, quite friendly. Mrs M was a little racist, I noted, while she seemed to be an ally, all for sisterly solidarity. But then she kept calling her grown son ‘Little Bear’…
But oy, the plot. I think I yelled ‘follow the evidence’ three times at them, instead of picking their suspect and sticking to him, despite solid questions about the likelihood of him being the killer. The business between Millie and the detective was fun. She went in, all English battleaxe, which was never going to go down well, and they kept getting in each other’s faces. But he did listen, a little, and made the excellent point that Roy wasn’t a planner or a deep thinker. I put more into the hobo code than the characters who weren’t Hailey also, so I agreed with him.
So, I was interested that it clearly wasn’t Roy, but I thought that jumping to assume it was the father without a chain of evidence was ridiculous. And as it is, I am confused about the code in the newspapers. Because Pete couldn’t have known where the body was going to be moved to, and his mother couldn’t have known where he was going to kill, and if that was how she was sending the message to Roy about where the body removal should be (Roy’s arrest was satisfying), well, there were more straightforward ways seeing as he did the gardening for them weekly.
The drama of Iris’s ill-thought-out visit/fishing expedition to the Masons was good, though, although actually telling a serial killer you’ve recognised his signature of Ursa Minor is quite stupid for a smart lady. That the mother wouldn’t give succour, the way they shot him and that the other ladies came in time to rescue her worked well. Also, Iris later saying that she was proud of being able to fight back.
The other big theme of the episode was ‘home’. Iris and family’s community was being threatened by Mason, and father and son were at loggerheads over how to react. (An inter-generational conflict reflected between father and dead son.) The grieving family’s decision to leave the place where their son was killed was understandable. And then Iris referenced broken families, finding a place of commonality with Mason, her community-wrecker. I slightly felt that the bigger point was that he hadn’t noticed his son was a serial killer and his wife enabling him.
And then there was Millie. I’d been wondering if the Brits would return home having established a new circle, hoping they wouldn’t (not necessarily because of the leaden culture clash jokes). The line from the bartender about knowing where home was was interesting (and hey, that’s a potential triangle to explore, a mellow bartender, who is also a white man in a black community, which is interesting for double outsider Millie; and the detective that she gets wound up around and who she winds up, which is UST-adjacent if not full UST, and he’s not immune to well-reasoned evidence, wherever it comes from.) Grace basically cameoed in this episode, but if Jean is going. (IF.) I think that bringing Grace into the team of will lead to interesting drama.
So while she’s still all too aware this is a foreign land, what England had to offer Millie was unappealing. From what we’ve seen of the other ladies’ lives, I’m not sure what the US will offer her apart from cases, love interests and ‘divided by a commong tongue’. But Jean saying ‘me’ and leaving her cane were heartbreaking, but it made sense emotionally that Millie wanted to stay, and hey, she does have the apartment for the maps and is a link to the original show.
This episode ended on a nice note, with the four of them having a case-closed drink and chat, having claimed their stake (yes, as women) in the vets’ bar.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/340596.html.
Um, fell apart a bit, didn’t it?
After thinking she’d lost her son, and then knowing her neighbour had instead (what a scene, where she had to Iris about her knowledge) (although my brow furrowed at that, because even if Jean and Millie tried to call it in anonymously, with their accents, wouldn’t everyone who’d found the body have to talk to the police…oh, never mind) Iris said she wasn’t working the case anymore. I pointed out that she was the Susan last episode. She also said that Hailey wasn’t doing it either, which lasted all of thirty seconds into a visit from Jean.
I do like Hailey, her can-do spirit and enthusiasm, when it’s let loose. Not sure about her jumping on people and doing violence. Well, he was threatening Jean. She also pulls amazing faces (and the actress slightly reminds me of Anna Paquin.)
Short-term dissent in the team aside, the case continued, until they hit a dead end, and then Millie got discouraged. The emotional beats still worked: Iris’s conversation with her daughter about the limitations for what women could do, Millie saying that being able to use their brains was worthwhile anything (but it is a good cause) and all the little slights they had to face.
Mrs Mason turned out to be interesting apart from her husband, quite friendly. Mrs M was a little racist, I noted, while she seemed to be an ally, all for sisterly solidarity. But then she kept calling her grown son ‘Little Bear’…
But oy, the plot. I think I yelled ‘follow the evidence’ three times at them, instead of picking their suspect and sticking to him, despite solid questions about the likelihood of him being the killer. The business between Millie and the detective was fun. She went in, all English battleaxe, which was never going to go down well, and they kept getting in each other’s faces. But he did listen, a little, and made the excellent point that Roy wasn’t a planner or a deep thinker. I put more into the hobo code than the characters who weren’t Hailey also, so I agreed with him.
So, I was interested that it clearly wasn’t Roy, but I thought that jumping to assume it was the father without a chain of evidence was ridiculous. And as it is, I am confused about the code in the newspapers. Because Pete couldn’t have known where the body was going to be moved to, and his mother couldn’t have known where he was going to kill, and if that was how she was sending the message to Roy about where the body removal should be (Roy’s arrest was satisfying), well, there were more straightforward ways seeing as he did the gardening for them weekly.
The drama of Iris’s ill-thought-out visit/fishing expedition to the Masons was good, though, although actually telling a serial killer you’ve recognised his signature of Ursa Minor is quite stupid for a smart lady. That the mother wouldn’t give succour, the way they shot him and that the other ladies came in time to rescue her worked well. Also, Iris later saying that she was proud of being able to fight back.
The other big theme of the episode was ‘home’. Iris and family’s community was being threatened by Mason, and father and son were at loggerheads over how to react. (An inter-generational conflict reflected between father and dead son.) The grieving family’s decision to leave the place where their son was killed was understandable. And then Iris referenced broken families, finding a place of commonality with Mason, her community-wrecker. I slightly felt that the bigger point was that he hadn’t noticed his son was a serial killer and his wife enabling him.
And then there was Millie. I’d been wondering if the Brits would return home having established a new circle, hoping they wouldn’t (not necessarily because of the leaden culture clash jokes). The line from the bartender about knowing where home was was interesting (and hey, that’s a potential triangle to explore, a mellow bartender, who is also a white man in a black community, which is interesting for double outsider Millie; and the detective that she gets wound up around and who she winds up, which is UST-adjacent if not full UST, and he’s not immune to well-reasoned evidence, wherever it comes from.) Grace basically cameoed in this episode, but if Jean is going. (IF.) I think that bringing Grace into the team of will lead to interesting drama.
So while she’s still all too aware this is a foreign land, what England had to offer Millie was unappealing. From what we’ve seen of the other ladies’ lives, I’m not sure what the US will offer her apart from cases, love interests and ‘divided by a commong tongue’. But Jean saying ‘me’ and leaving her cane were heartbreaking, but it made sense emotionally that Millie wanted to stay, and hey, she does have the apartment for the maps and is a link to the original show.
This episode ended on a nice note, with the four of them having a case-closed drink and chat, having claimed their stake (yes, as women) in the vets’ bar.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/340596.html.