Manhattan 1.05
Aug. 26th, 2014 07:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which Charlie turns out to be the American Guttenberg, which is a lame joke only Germans understand.
You know, when Frank monologued towards the Navajo women in the pilot, I didn't expect him to actually have sex with her, I thought he simply went for someone who wouldn't understand him so that he could monologue in safety. But no, he cheats on Lisa. Considering coming with him to Los Alamos also ruined her career (for now), this makes Frank even more of a jerk, but the show ensures he's an interesting one by letting his part of the episode not dwell on the adultery revelation but on a) his reaction to finding out Glenn Babbitt is gay, and b) his blackmailing Charlie into silence towards Inquisitor!Richard Schiff by virtue of having read Charlie's thesis and having found a plagiarized paragraph in it.
(This is what my lame joke was about. A couple of years ago one of the up and rising conservative young politicos, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who was feted by the media and quite popular among the electorate was brought down by a scandal which didn't involve sex or money, but plagirarism in his doctoral thesis.)
Seriously though, that is another very clever way this series is really aware its characters are scientists. Both Ackley's advice to Charlie about testifying against Babbitt (re: the later's suspected communism) and Frank's blackmail is based on the fact that once a scientific reputation is ruined, it's done for. But while being suspected of comunism and murky contacts with Russians is dangerous if you're living in a military controlled camp, it won't really destroy your scientific existence - you can always work in another country, for starters. The idea though that Charlie's wonderboy reputation is build on hollow clay - even if, as he insists, it was just one paragraph - that would finish him.
Frank found the perfect weapon with unerring accuracy. (We also get another illustration of Frank keeping useful facts in the back of his mind to be used later when he notices that Abby is the telephonist listening in to his conversation with his father but doesn't use this until he needs it. In this, he resembles the army.) Meanwhile, he's unaware that the camp surveillalnce are on to his adulterous tryst's (I knew that helpful wannabe sameritan really was a spy). And of course they're not saying anything - they're collecting leverage. Which is a bit more subtle than what Richard Schiff's character does, but it's the same principle. And it's both history and present. When Schiff's character plans for "the next war" (i.e. the conflict with the Russians once WWII is over), the audience is aware that there will indeed be a Cold War coming - but he's not presented any more sympathetic or less life-ruining for it.
Especially since he's yet to focus on the right target. Klaus Fuchs, probably the most famous "red spy" among the Los Alamos scientists, hasn't shown up as a character yet, which means the audience didn't know any more than the characters for a while whether fictional character Glenn Babbitt (spelling?) was or wasn't a spy. Turns out he's not, but that his connection to equally fictional deserter Deveraux (spelling?) wasn't political but romantic in nature, since Babbitt is gay. Making one of Frank's team homosexual was a great decision, and Frank's reaction as well as Lisa's were another both historic and present day element. Incidentally, I thought the episode left it ambiguous whether or not Frank took Lisa's point about not judging; he needed Babbitt on his team so much that he may have overcome his first, homophobic reaction for sheer necessity, not for friendship winning over prejudice. Or both. Babbitt reflecting on Russia actually actively persecuting homosexuals had an obvious contemporary parallel, too.
Meanwhile, Lisa's first attempt to get a new paper published fails through army censorship, and while her second attempt may or may not get posted, her bees get exterminated. She thinks it was the Colonel, but I wonder. It may have been one of the other women. And of course Frank doesn't listen a bit to what's going on with her while needing her as a sounding board to his problems with Babbitt.
Also, the lone female member of Frank's team, Helen, at last aquires a personality (also, now that I think of it, Helen being a lesbian makes for two, not one gay members on Frank's team), via first taking pity on her virgin colleage and setting him up with a prostitute and then making sure he actually pays the girl and that the payment includes the broken light bulb he's responsible for. It's the second part which makes for the personality. (I also appreciate that we didn't get the failed virginity loss as a scene but the two aftermaths - the scene with Helen and her colleague and then the scene of the guy bringing the money and the light bulb to the girl and asking her out to see one of the Boris Karloff Mummy films instead. Instead of a cheap "overweight male virgin, hah hah hah" joke, it becomes a moment of actual kindness and connection.)
Speculation: if Ackley is right and Schiff!Inquisitor won't leave before he has SOMEONE he can accuse of being a Communist spy, and that he'll settle for Charlie if he can't get Babbitt, Charlie - who can't bring himself to admit to the plagiarism both for profesional and for personal reasons (Abby) - might end up turning into a spy for real in desperation, which would explain the flash forward at the start of the second episode where we see him on the run. After all, Charlie is the one who keeps getting the scenes with a content that questions the morality of creating weapons, last week Bohr's remarks and this week his repeated watching of the filmed bombardment of German cities. (BTW, thank you, show, for trusting the audience to get that this is bothering Charlie by giving him that slight hesitation before he says "maximum destruction of the - targets" instead of giving him an open monologue about it.)
You know, when Frank monologued towards the Navajo women in the pilot, I didn't expect him to actually have sex with her, I thought he simply went for someone who wouldn't understand him so that he could monologue in safety. But no, he cheats on Lisa. Considering coming with him to Los Alamos also ruined her career (for now), this makes Frank even more of a jerk, but the show ensures he's an interesting one by letting his part of the episode not dwell on the adultery revelation but on a) his reaction to finding out Glenn Babbitt is gay, and b) his blackmailing Charlie into silence towards Inquisitor!Richard Schiff by virtue of having read Charlie's thesis and having found a plagiarized paragraph in it.
(This is what my lame joke was about. A couple of years ago one of the up and rising conservative young politicos, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who was feted by the media and quite popular among the electorate was brought down by a scandal which didn't involve sex or money, but plagirarism in his doctoral thesis.)
Seriously though, that is another very clever way this series is really aware its characters are scientists. Both Ackley's advice to Charlie about testifying against Babbitt (re: the later's suspected communism) and Frank's blackmail is based on the fact that once a scientific reputation is ruined, it's done for. But while being suspected of comunism and murky contacts with Russians is dangerous if you're living in a military controlled camp, it won't really destroy your scientific existence - you can always work in another country, for starters. The idea though that Charlie's wonderboy reputation is build on hollow clay - even if, as he insists, it was just one paragraph - that would finish him.
Frank found the perfect weapon with unerring accuracy. (We also get another illustration of Frank keeping useful facts in the back of his mind to be used later when he notices that Abby is the telephonist listening in to his conversation with his father but doesn't use this until he needs it. In this, he resembles the army.) Meanwhile, he's unaware that the camp surveillalnce are on to his adulterous tryst's (I knew that helpful wannabe sameritan really was a spy). And of course they're not saying anything - they're collecting leverage. Which is a bit more subtle than what Richard Schiff's character does, but it's the same principle. And it's both history and present. When Schiff's character plans for "the next war" (i.e. the conflict with the Russians once WWII is over), the audience is aware that there will indeed be a Cold War coming - but he's not presented any more sympathetic or less life-ruining for it.
Especially since he's yet to focus on the right target. Klaus Fuchs, probably the most famous "red spy" among the Los Alamos scientists, hasn't shown up as a character yet, which means the audience didn't know any more than the characters for a while whether fictional character Glenn Babbitt (spelling?) was or wasn't a spy. Turns out he's not, but that his connection to equally fictional deserter Deveraux (spelling?) wasn't political but romantic in nature, since Babbitt is gay. Making one of Frank's team homosexual was a great decision, and Frank's reaction as well as Lisa's were another both historic and present day element. Incidentally, I thought the episode left it ambiguous whether or not Frank took Lisa's point about not judging; he needed Babbitt on his team so much that he may have overcome his first, homophobic reaction for sheer necessity, not for friendship winning over prejudice. Or both. Babbitt reflecting on Russia actually actively persecuting homosexuals had an obvious contemporary parallel, too.
Meanwhile, Lisa's first attempt to get a new paper published fails through army censorship, and while her second attempt may or may not get posted, her bees get exterminated. She thinks it was the Colonel, but I wonder. It may have been one of the other women. And of course Frank doesn't listen a bit to what's going on with her while needing her as a sounding board to his problems with Babbitt.
Also, the lone female member of Frank's team, Helen, at last aquires a personality (also, now that I think of it, Helen being a lesbian makes for two, not one gay members on Frank's team), via first taking pity on her virgin colleage and setting him up with a prostitute and then making sure he actually pays the girl and that the payment includes the broken light bulb he's responsible for. It's the second part which makes for the personality. (I also appreciate that we didn't get the failed virginity loss as a scene but the two aftermaths - the scene with Helen and her colleague and then the scene of the guy bringing the money and the light bulb to the girl and asking her out to see one of the Boris Karloff Mummy films instead. Instead of a cheap "overweight male virgin, hah hah hah" joke, it becomes a moment of actual kindness and connection.)
Speculation: if Ackley is right and Schiff!Inquisitor won't leave before he has SOMEONE he can accuse of being a Communist spy, and that he'll settle for Charlie if he can't get Babbitt, Charlie - who can't bring himself to admit to the plagiarism both for profesional and for personal reasons (Abby) - might end up turning into a spy for real in desperation, which would explain the flash forward at the start of the second episode where we see him on the run. After all, Charlie is the one who keeps getting the scenes with a content that questions the morality of creating weapons, last week Bohr's remarks and this week his repeated watching of the filmed bombardment of German cities. (BTW, thank you, show, for trusting the audience to get that this is bothering Charlie by giving him that slight hesitation before he says "maximum destruction of the - targets" instead of giving him an open monologue about it.)
