Manhattan 2.07
Nov. 25th, 2015 10:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which various characters have to face where they draw the line. I continue to love this show when it explores moral dilemmas.
Also, I think it's the first time this season one of the subplots and -themes from last season is brought back, to wit, the Navajo who form a great part of the manual work staff at Los Alamos (and the casual racism with which they're treated). Presumably we won't see Pablo or his mother again, but they were instantly three dimensional, with Mrs. Ortez (spelling?) silently working while the white women in the next room spoke as if she wasn't there, and you could see on her face she was working herself up to say something. Her other big scene, with Meeks-in-disguise later, showcased both her intelligence (seeing through Meek's FBI agent ruse), emotional strength and priorities (these people aren't worth risking her son's life for).
Jim Meeks and new character Nora continue to be what is possibly my favourite plotline this season. They're both confronted with the question of how far they're willing to go to protect themselves in this episode. As it turns out, Nora isn't willing to sacrifice Meeks (this is the first episode which gives us her pov via the scene with her handler), but she is willing to kill either a child or a woman. Meanwhile, Jim Meeks isn't willing to sacrifice a child and goes to considerable lengths to save said child, but he is willing to to let a woman die who is both the wife of his best friend and a friend in her own right. (R.I.P. Jeanie.) (Which adds another layer to the flashforward to the Trinity test at the start of the season - is Meeks going to attempt sabotage because he's done so much already that he needs to go through to the end, or is he going to commit suicide via bomb because he feels so guilty? I guess we'll find out. Meanwhile, more of the angsty spying duo, please.
As opposed to last week's anachronistic feeling Mikado conversation, I thought what they did with race this week was a good comment on the era in this regard without giving the characters 21st century attitudes. Both via the Navajos and via Theo Sinclair. When he's summoned by Darrow, all the other scientist expect it's because he's suspected of being the spy and take it as a given he'll be dismissed (whether or not he is). Meanwhile, Colonel Darrow, showing he's smart as well as scary, thinks the other way around - Theo Sinclair would make a terrible spy for the Russians (let alone the Axis powers) because everyone would suspect him, so whoever the spy is, it can't be him, which together with his expertise gets him a promotion.
Speaking of Darrow: he gets another extraordinary scene with Abby. His reaction when she confesses her guilt re: Jean Tatlock is to basically pitch the post war creation of Israel to her as a meaningful thing for Abby to contribute. It occurs to me that despite Abby's perpetual sense of being at lost ends, she actually has a pretty consistent arc: re her Jewis identity through both seasons. She starts out as completely assimilated, impatient with her parents seeing themselves connected to their European cousins, almost embarrassed by being Jewish. Then the shock revelation of the Holocaust going on happens, and for the first time she becomes emotionally invested in both the war and in being Jewish. This season, she's started to rediscover the religious side of being Jewish, partly because of her sense of guilt re: Jean, but not solely because of it, and now (presumably) Darrow has set her on a path of discovery re: political meaning of being Jewish beyond solidarity with Holocaust victims. I wouldn't be surprised if Abby does end up emigrating to Palestine post war.
Charlie, when she finally talks to him about the Jean matter, isn't nearly as ready to open himself up. Saying "it's not your fault" is all very well, but note he avoids talking about what he must believe to be true just as Abby believes it to be her fault, i.e. that his own words to Darrow re: Jean Tatlock caused her death. And he's an ass to Liza to boot: I do hope the writers don't portray Charlie as unsympathetic as possible in order to make Frank look better? Anyway.
Frank and Liza have a brief argument scene in this one, and we later see Frank atoning for it by having dug up all those plant samples Liza needs for her work, which was sweet, but it turns out the bizarro interlude from two episodes ago makes me still feel disconnected from them as a couple.
New lawyer with a crush on Helen: looks handsome, but while I'm relieved I evidently was wrong with my fear Helen would be landed with a fictional affair with Oppenheimer, I still want her to have a subplot that's not revolving around love interests.
In conclusion: poor Jeanie. Poor Fritz (even poorer if he ever finds out the truth about Jeanie's death). And yet I'm totally invested in Jeanie's murderers, me, and hoping Nora and Jim Meeks make it out of the show alive.
P.S.: did the WWII era women employed by the military really have an insignia showing Athena? That's fabulous.
Also, I think it's the first time this season one of the subplots and -themes from last season is brought back, to wit, the Navajo who form a great part of the manual work staff at Los Alamos (and the casual racism with which they're treated). Presumably we won't see Pablo or his mother again, but they were instantly three dimensional, with Mrs. Ortez (spelling?) silently working while the white women in the next room spoke as if she wasn't there, and you could see on her face she was working herself up to say something. Her other big scene, with Meeks-in-disguise later, showcased both her intelligence (seeing through Meek's FBI agent ruse), emotional strength and priorities (these people aren't worth risking her son's life for).
Jim Meeks and new character Nora continue to be what is possibly my favourite plotline this season. They're both confronted with the question of how far they're willing to go to protect themselves in this episode. As it turns out, Nora isn't willing to sacrifice Meeks (this is the first episode which gives us her pov via the scene with her handler), but she is willing to kill either a child or a woman. Meanwhile, Jim Meeks isn't willing to sacrifice a child and goes to considerable lengths to save said child, but he is willing to to let a woman die who is both the wife of his best friend and a friend in her own right. (R.I.P. Jeanie.) (Which adds another layer to the flashforward to the Trinity test at the start of the season - is Meeks going to attempt sabotage because he's done so much already that he needs to go through to the end, or is he going to commit suicide via bomb because he feels so guilty? I guess we'll find out. Meanwhile, more of the angsty spying duo, please.
As opposed to last week's anachronistic feeling Mikado conversation, I thought what they did with race this week was a good comment on the era in this regard without giving the characters 21st century attitudes. Both via the Navajos and via Theo Sinclair. When he's summoned by Darrow, all the other scientist expect it's because he's suspected of being the spy and take it as a given he'll be dismissed (whether or not he is). Meanwhile, Colonel Darrow, showing he's smart as well as scary, thinks the other way around - Theo Sinclair would make a terrible spy for the Russians (let alone the Axis powers) because everyone would suspect him, so whoever the spy is, it can't be him, which together with his expertise gets him a promotion.
Speaking of Darrow: he gets another extraordinary scene with Abby. His reaction when she confesses her guilt re: Jean Tatlock is to basically pitch the post war creation of Israel to her as a meaningful thing for Abby to contribute. It occurs to me that despite Abby's perpetual sense of being at lost ends, she actually has a pretty consistent arc: re her Jewis identity through both seasons. She starts out as completely assimilated, impatient with her parents seeing themselves connected to their European cousins, almost embarrassed by being Jewish. Then the shock revelation of the Holocaust going on happens, and for the first time she becomes emotionally invested in both the war and in being Jewish. This season, she's started to rediscover the religious side of being Jewish, partly because of her sense of guilt re: Jean, but not solely because of it, and now (presumably) Darrow has set her on a path of discovery re: political meaning of being Jewish beyond solidarity with Holocaust victims. I wouldn't be surprised if Abby does end up emigrating to Palestine post war.
Charlie, when she finally talks to him about the Jean matter, isn't nearly as ready to open himself up. Saying "it's not your fault" is all very well, but note he avoids talking about what he must believe to be true just as Abby believes it to be her fault, i.e. that his own words to Darrow re: Jean Tatlock caused her death. And he's an ass to Liza to boot: I do hope the writers don't portray Charlie as unsympathetic as possible in order to make Frank look better? Anyway.
Frank and Liza have a brief argument scene in this one, and we later see Frank atoning for it by having dug up all those plant samples Liza needs for her work, which was sweet, but it turns out the bizarro interlude from two episodes ago makes me still feel disconnected from them as a couple.
New lawyer with a crush on Helen: looks handsome, but while I'm relieved I evidently was wrong with my fear Helen would be landed with a fictional affair with Oppenheimer, I still want her to have a subplot that's not revolving around love interests.
In conclusion: poor Jeanie. Poor Fritz (even poorer if he ever finds out the truth about Jeanie's death). And yet I'm totally invested in Jeanie's murderers, me, and hoping Nora and Jim Meeks make it out of the show alive.
P.S.: did the WWII era women employed by the military really have an insignia showing Athena? That's fabulous.
