Trinity, I think I might love you even though you're probably going to break my heart
For anyone reading this without the joy of ITV2 or having seen the first episode, a recap:
Lord Dorian Gaudain, President of the Dandelion Club, is returning to prestigious Trinity College at Bridgeford University. First year students include Dorian’s cousin, Rosalind Gaudain; Theo MacKenzie, intelligent, black and struggling to fit in; stoners Angus and Raj; Maddy Talbot, ditzy, Welsh and newly engaged, and Charlotte Arc, Christian, innocent and trying to find out what happened to her father when he was at trinity. Several of the staff of Trinity were at the college twenty years ago with Richard Arc, including the new Warden who reacts badly to the revelation of his death. No-one seems to want to discuss his reason for his mysterious disappearance from the college after a decade there, though, and not everyone is upset that he’s dead. The first episode essentially sets up what I assume will be the central mystery of the series - what (or who) is the mysterious project the Dean, Dr Maltravers, is working on, how does the Dandelion Club fit in and how is it linked to events at the college two decades ago.
In the first episode Charlotte finds a mysterious note in her post, welcoming her to Trinity and mentioning her father before seeing an apparition of him, Theo is mocked by the Dandelion club, both Rosalind and Charlotte fall into bed with Dorian, Theo is talked out of leaving Trinity. So far so predictable, you might think and you’d be mostly right. This is not a show free from cliché and broad brush strokes. But there were things about this first episode I absolutely loved.
The first is sex. We know Lord Dorian is irresistible so when Rosalind tumbles into bed with him after about 15 seconds it’s not a surprise. Cue shots of them having sex in a number of different positions. Here’s where it starts to get interesting, it turns out the purpose of this encounter, at least on one side, was Rosalind’s pleasure not Dorian’s and once she’s satisfied she gets up and leaves despite his demands that she stay and finish him off. Not just in a leave you begging for more way either. Later, at a party, she spells it out. She was curious, now she isn’t, the end. By the end of the episode Rosalind has slept with Theo and Dorian has slept with Charlotte. More importantly, sex is something people do for fun. Even Charlotte, whose beliefs are challenged by her encounter with Dorian, has fun.
The second thing I loved was the refusal to sugar-coat things. There is some foreshadowing that Dorian might become a better person but in this first episode we also see that he is an arse. He’s racist, classist and sees the bedders (the college’s domestic servants) as a perk of his position rather than real people. Likewise the Dandelion Club’s tradition of having two ‘fools’ for the year moves out of light-hearted buffoonery, and into a much darker place when the club members dump their fools in a metal bin and urinate on them. Even our ‘good’ characters have their flaws. Charlotte can be priggish, Rosalind can be manipulative and when Theo is about to leave college, it isn’t Charlotte’s emotional speech and appeal to his nobility that gets him to stay but Rosalind’s challenge to his ambition.
The treatment of race was also better than I’d been expecting. Quite early in the episode Dorian and Dr Maltravers both acknowledge that they think the fact that Theo is black makes him less worthy of a place at Trinity. Later, in what is possibly one of my favourite scenes so far, Theo helps Maddy pick up toys she’s mistakenly brought in place of her clothes. The toys were going to be sent to Africa and the boxes have been mixed up. When Theo mentions that the clothes will probably be more welcome Maddy makes some well meaning but cringeworthy comments. The look of “WTF?” on Theo’s face is awesome and a very neat reminder that it’s not only the bad guys who make him feel out of place, even sweet, friendly Maddy can say things that are hurtful and offensive and add to Theo’s sense of being out of place.
While the first episode of Trinity turned out to be much better than I expected, all the things Iove about the first episode could easily turn out to be things I hate, depending on how they are treated in the rest of the series. At the moment though, hooray for Trinity.