Miss Scarlet and the Duke triple bill
Episode 4
Nice follow-on from the previous episode, as William’s decision to be chauvinistic and suck up to his boss meant that Eliza got no badly needed publicity and was rightly cross. William had to jump through more hoops…for nothing, because he wasn’t from the right background. I liked that the German neighbour Eliza always tries to avoid led to a case, and Eliza quickly redeemed herself for not taking account of the maid and the child (though I justifiably wondered where Violet was the night Eliza stayed at the house, because the script definitely forgot about her.) I watched this ep on Halloween weekend, so the spiritualist happened to be timely, although Eliza mostly remained a rationalist. William came through and gave her the sensationalist press attention she wanted, but the episode ended most intriguingly on Eliza finding a mysterious notebook of her father’s hidden in the wall.
Oh, before then, I got as cross as the show wanted me to be and Eliza was at Mr Parker, pursuing an innocent beard. He was already on notice for playing the ‘only child’ card to justify not listening to Eliza. She’s an only child too.
Episode 5
Lived up to the build-up. Ivy came to William to cry, having returned home after her day off to find that Eliza was missing. William eventually found Eliza in an abandoned prison investigating her father’s last case. They nearly got trapped in there with various dangerous armed men, argued a lot, cracked a forgery case open wide, but the story was clearly far from finished.
I loved how it took us back to the first episode and made us and the characters re-examine Henry Scarlet’s death. The doctor who brought his dead body to Eliza was nothing of the sort - thus meaning the gang knew Eliza’s address, and after seeing their ruthlessness and not really having captured them, William wasn’t wrong to say she was in danger, but the last thing we learned (backed up by the ‘Next On…’ bit) was that Moses was involved in all this.
This episode was big on Eliza/William, (we didn’t see her until the first ad break, the ads being obsessed with selling razors, possibly because the male lead on this show is hirsuite?) William rescuing Eliza was almost ruined by their inability not to fight for long stretches, but soon enough there was a common enemy to fight against, when William wasn’t suffering a bad case of the machismo after being injured. They still argued e.g. over
how much danger Eliza was allowed to be in (more than William wanted, but she did save his life by being there) and a bit of talking about That Kiss In Their Teens, with a bit of William’s limited ideas of what women ought to do (I had more sympathy for her exasperation with him there.)
I also loved that this ep was big on what Henry had meant to William - he got his own visitation too, even if canonically it’s projection, and William being influenced by Eliza mentioning it to him in the previous episode - that Henry was a work!father figure and how that tied into his sense of responsibility for Eliza, which is sweet, if chauvinistic.
I felt cheated of a scene between Ivy and Eliza after Eliza had returned home, given how worried Ivy was, even if it might have ruined the flow.
Episode 6
I had come to realise that Moses might not be as knee deep in all this as suggested in the previous ep.
Anyway, Eliza and William each lied once to the other in their first scene and the beginnings of William’s very bad temper showed. He’d been shot and was working hard on no sleep, but mainly it was caused by Eliza. She didn’t take to house arrest kindly (I think this first aired last year and was probably filmed well before this pandemic business). Nobody seemed to believe she was in as much danger as William did, until that moment the guards disappeared.
As ever, Ivy got forgotten about - they did mention her staying at Rupert’s later, but I don’t think it was arranged at this point
I’ll get to the plot eventually, but there was definite ramping up of the UST, with Wellington’s fellow officers noticing how worried he was about Eliza, and then, of course, instead of getting her to stay at his, he ended up at hers, (saved on a new set) and got to eat in the kitchen for the first time. And to learn Eliza can’t cook (I both snerked and also thought that was terrible) but it emphasised how much Eliza isn’t ideal Victorian wife material and whether William can get over that.
Also, of course, Eliza had other plans: to meet Moses despite being expressly forbidden to do so (honestly, those guards were rubbish). I didn’t automatically have Eliza’s instinctive trust in him, but I liked how the dilemma of the two men being ranged against each other worked out for her. Like she said, William would have no reason to plant the forged money on Moses and derail the case. And so she told William everything the next morning, so he was angry again after a decent sleep
Plotwise, Stirling’s (seeming) involvement raised the stakes, but I overall feel that was a clumsy way to get rid of the character. Oh well, we’ll see what his replacement will be like.
So when it appeared the case was done, it obviously wasn’t, as Henry Scarlet’s killer remained unidentified, and after that very disturbing opening scene, that mattered to us. They played how much this mattered to Eliza (and William to a lesser degree) just right,.
Eliza was clearly, bravely filling for time when she burst in on William and Frank, and ha, Moses was the muscle, although putting herself in danger wasn’t going to help William act calmly, although I was more worried about exactly how drunk he was.
So, the triangle of white male cop, black male criminal and white female detective rumbles on. I liked how they made the most of the actors’/William and Moses’s height difference.
And then we had Eliza getting her father’s blessing - he was all ‘my clever girl’ (who can’t boil eggs). After all that had happened, William was determined to have that dinner and not let Eliza provoke him. But that was an expensive time for William: his posh coat ruined, having to buy a new watch, pay off those guards and now dinner.
The fact that Frank would have known Henry professionally before forcin him tohis death hasonly recently occurred to me, and is an added nasty sting.
>/cut>
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/478480.html.
Nice follow-on from the previous episode, as William’s decision to be chauvinistic and suck up to his boss meant that Eliza got no badly needed publicity and was rightly cross. William had to jump through more hoops…for nothing, because he wasn’t from the right background. I liked that the German neighbour Eliza always tries to avoid led to a case, and Eliza quickly redeemed herself for not taking account of the maid and the child (though I justifiably wondered where Violet was the night Eliza stayed at the house, because the script definitely forgot about her.) I watched this ep on Halloween weekend, so the spiritualist happened to be timely, although Eliza mostly remained a rationalist. William came through and gave her the sensationalist press attention she wanted, but the episode ended most intriguingly on Eliza finding a mysterious notebook of her father’s hidden in the wall.
Oh, before then, I got as cross as the show wanted me to be and Eliza was at Mr Parker, pursuing an innocent beard. He was already on notice for playing the ‘only child’ card to justify not listening to Eliza. She’s an only child too.
Episode 5
Lived up to the build-up. Ivy came to William to cry, having returned home after her day off to find that Eliza was missing. William eventually found Eliza in an abandoned prison investigating her father’s last case. They nearly got trapped in there with various dangerous armed men, argued a lot, cracked a forgery case open wide, but the story was clearly far from finished.
I loved how it took us back to the first episode and made us and the characters re-examine Henry Scarlet’s death. The doctor who brought his dead body to Eliza was nothing of the sort - thus meaning the gang knew Eliza’s address, and after seeing their ruthlessness and not really having captured them, William wasn’t wrong to say she was in danger, but the last thing we learned (backed up by the ‘Next On…’ bit) was that Moses was involved in all this.
This episode was big on Eliza/William, (we didn’t see her until the first ad break, the ads being obsessed with selling razors, possibly because the male lead on this show is hirsuite?) William rescuing Eliza was almost ruined by their inability not to fight for long stretches, but soon enough there was a common enemy to fight against, when William wasn’t suffering a bad case of the machismo after being injured. They still argued e.g. over
how much danger Eliza was allowed to be in (more than William wanted, but she did save his life by being there) and a bit of talking about That Kiss In Their Teens, with a bit of William’s limited ideas of what women ought to do (I had more sympathy for her exasperation with him there.)
I also loved that this ep was big on what Henry had meant to William - he got his own visitation too, even if canonically it’s projection, and William being influenced by Eliza mentioning it to him in the previous episode - that Henry was a work!father figure and how that tied into his sense of responsibility for Eliza, which is sweet, if chauvinistic.
I felt cheated of a scene between Ivy and Eliza after Eliza had returned home, given how worried Ivy was, even if it might have ruined the flow.
Episode 6
I had come to realise that Moses might not be as knee deep in all this as suggested in the previous ep.
Anyway, Eliza and William each lied once to the other in their first scene and the beginnings of William’s very bad temper showed. He’d been shot and was working hard on no sleep, but mainly it was caused by Eliza. She didn’t take to house arrest kindly (I think this first aired last year and was probably filmed well before this pandemic business). Nobody seemed to believe she was in as much danger as William did, until that moment the guards disappeared.
As ever, Ivy got forgotten about - they did mention her staying at Rupert’s later, but I don’t think it was arranged at this point
I’ll get to the plot eventually, but there was definite ramping up of the UST, with Wellington’s fellow officers noticing how worried he was about Eliza, and then, of course, instead of getting her to stay at his, he ended up at hers, (saved on a new set) and got to eat in the kitchen for the first time. And to learn Eliza can’t cook (I both snerked and also thought that was terrible) but it emphasised how much Eliza isn’t ideal Victorian wife material and whether William can get over that.
Also, of course, Eliza had other plans: to meet Moses despite being expressly forbidden to do so (honestly, those guards were rubbish). I didn’t automatically have Eliza’s instinctive trust in him, but I liked how the dilemma of the two men being ranged against each other worked out for her. Like she said, William would have no reason to plant the forged money on Moses and derail the case. And so she told William everything the next morning, so he was angry again after a decent sleep
Plotwise, Stirling’s (seeming) involvement raised the stakes, but I overall feel that was a clumsy way to get rid of the character. Oh well, we’ll see what his replacement will be like.
So when it appeared the case was done, it obviously wasn’t, as Henry Scarlet’s killer remained unidentified, and after that very disturbing opening scene, that mattered to us. They played how much this mattered to Eliza (and William to a lesser degree) just right,.
Eliza was clearly, bravely filling for time when she burst in on William and Frank, and ha, Moses was the muscle, although putting herself in danger wasn’t going to help William act calmly, although I was more worried about exactly how drunk he was.
So, the triangle of white male cop, black male criminal and white female detective rumbles on. I liked how they made the most of the actors’/William and Moses’s height difference.
And then we had Eliza getting her father’s blessing - he was all ‘my clever girl’ (who can’t boil eggs). After all that had happened, William was determined to have that dinner and not let Eliza provoke him. But that was an expensive time for William: his posh coat ruined, having to buy a new watch, pay off those guards and now dinner.
The fact that Frank would have known Henry professionally before forcin him tohis death hasonly recently occurred to me, and is an added nasty sting.
>/cut>
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/478480.html.