two shows that probably shouldn't be discussed together
(although both feature traumatised female lead characters)
Black Earth Rising - episode 5
It opened by coming at things from an oblique angle - I’m still not sure I understood everything rightly, and my brain was grumbling ‘too hard’ at some of the connections. Though, if you accept the heightened, non-naturalistic nature of the drama - and you have to - it’s powerful stuff. But the Congolese church are backing Ganemada (sp?)? It then seemed like they were a proxy for someone (the President’s aide, David, being the likeliest suspect) trying to get Kate to help them. But in a really convoluted way?
Still, the juxtaposition of the parable, the reptilian lawyer’s ostentatious wealth, which he couldn’t afford, trapping him to his death - not to mention his loneliness - was powerful.
We then moved into another animated section, with the reveal that Alice and the Rwandan president were adoptive sisters. So we finally met the president, learned about her seizures, met her daughter (another mother-daughter), saw her weariness and a hint that her relationship with her aide was more intimate. And then we had a montage of her life, with me thinking I should know who the singer was. Because that’s how BER rolls.
As focus returned to Kate - babe, you’re never getting invited back to school to address children again. RIGHTLY SO - you could kind of see why we’d had the diversions, even as their impacts on Kate’s investigation emerged. She got warned she was in danger a lot (as not-really-Samson was a killer, it’s for the best that Kate’s Mystery Wannabe Protector wasn’t him as I’d theorised) and told to trust no-one (koff, Michael and his co-conspirators). It did seem that Ganamade knew of a threat to her life (the meet she’d just arranged? Or something else?)
The scene with him was powerful too, the slowness of the set-up, letting us soak in the lavish wealth and the grotesque black figures, oh, and the ivory. Kate’s outburst, matched by Ganamada, (prepping a plea of diminished capability?) and her intransigence. He brought in a different idea of God.
But things didn’t move forward that much, other than Kate’s alienation from Michael and decision to side with the Rwandan government.
It took me three scenes to recognise the actor who plays Penge in Victoria.
So, I emerged blinking from the episode. I was confused at the outset, then struggling because of tiredness by the end.
I could have done without the repeated middle-aged men vomiting. Is David ill or developing a conscience?
I ended up watching Blindspot 1.2 in a haze of exhaustion. The show seemed to settle into a post-pilot tattoo-of-the-week pattern, with Rob Brown’s character and Jane Doe herself asking pertinent questions about the purpose behind the character. We got to see a little more of the team (although no-one's names have stuck), Jane had her time with the doctor, a memory (by the end of the episode, she’d got an extended edition, which helped, as she remembered assassinating a nun. In a church. Cue an amnesiac’s angsty identity crisis) and her fight scene of the week.
We also learned that Kurt had strong feelings about abducted children, because a friend of his (?), Taylor Shaw, had disappeared when he was about 10, and his father had been under a cloud of suspicion since, with Kurt having a strained relationship with him. Taylor and Jane shared a scar (and she’d trusted him on a deep level). His boss didn’t think, ‘Hmm, he’s too close to this’. I rolled my weary eyes. But I will give the show props for having Jane’s handler from her memories and flashbacks, who’d been lurking around the shadows, turn up at her ‘safe’ house right at the end of the episode, which suggests it’s willing to throw a few curveballs.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/351545.html.
Black Earth Rising - episode 5
It opened by coming at things from an oblique angle - I’m still not sure I understood everything rightly, and my brain was grumbling ‘too hard’ at some of the connections. Though, if you accept the heightened, non-naturalistic nature of the drama - and you have to - it’s powerful stuff. But the Congolese church are backing Ganemada (sp?)? It then seemed like they were a proxy for someone (the President’s aide, David, being the likeliest suspect) trying to get Kate to help them. But in a really convoluted way?
Still, the juxtaposition of the parable, the reptilian lawyer’s ostentatious wealth, which he couldn’t afford, trapping him to his death - not to mention his loneliness - was powerful.
We then moved into another animated section, with the reveal that Alice and the Rwandan president were adoptive sisters. So we finally met the president, learned about her seizures, met her daughter (another mother-daughter), saw her weariness and a hint that her relationship with her aide was more intimate. And then we had a montage of her life, with me thinking I should know who the singer was. Because that’s how BER rolls.
As focus returned to Kate - babe, you’re never getting invited back to school to address children again. RIGHTLY SO - you could kind of see why we’d had the diversions, even as their impacts on Kate’s investigation emerged. She got warned she was in danger a lot (as not-really-Samson was a killer, it’s for the best that Kate’s Mystery Wannabe Protector wasn’t him as I’d theorised) and told to trust no-one (koff, Michael and his co-conspirators). It did seem that Ganamade knew of a threat to her life (the meet she’d just arranged? Or something else?)
The scene with him was powerful too, the slowness of the set-up, letting us soak in the lavish wealth and the grotesque black figures, oh, and the ivory. Kate’s outburst, matched by Ganamada, (prepping a plea of diminished capability?) and her intransigence. He brought in a different idea of God.
But things didn’t move forward that much, other than Kate’s alienation from Michael and decision to side with the Rwandan government.
It took me three scenes to recognise the actor who plays Penge in Victoria.
So, I emerged blinking from the episode. I was confused at the outset, then struggling because of tiredness by the end.
I could have done without the repeated middle-aged men vomiting. Is David ill or developing a conscience?
I ended up watching Blindspot 1.2 in a haze of exhaustion. The show seemed to settle into a post-pilot tattoo-of-the-week pattern, with Rob Brown’s character and Jane Doe herself asking pertinent questions about the purpose behind the character. We got to see a little more of the team (although no-one's names have stuck), Jane had her time with the doctor, a memory (by the end of the episode, she’d got an extended edition, which helped, as she remembered assassinating a nun. In a church. Cue an amnesiac’s angsty identity crisis) and her fight scene of the week.
We also learned that Kurt had strong feelings about abducted children, because a friend of his (?), Taylor Shaw, had disappeared when he was about 10, and his father had been under a cloud of suspicion since, with Kurt having a strained relationship with him. Taylor and Jane shared a scar (and she’d trusted him on a deep level). His boss didn’t think, ‘Hmm, he’s too close to this’. I rolled my weary eyes. But I will give the show props for having Jane’s handler from her memories and flashbacks, who’d been lurking around the shadows, turn up at her ‘safe’ house right at the end of the episode, which suggests it’s willing to throw a few curveballs.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/351545.html.