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selenakMore Carnivale, though I just discovered I'm missing the very last episode of season 1 and that my (very gracious, and very generous) source has just sprung to season 2. Behold the mutters of "but... huh?" a couple of times during the season 2 premiere. But enough about that.
Justin in the asylum was a chilling and effective sequence, reminding me somewhat of the particular horror The Woman in White always held for me - the idea of someone sane imprisoned as insane. It also reminded me of how easy this still is in some parts. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
artaxastra reminded me of it recently.) Just as chilling was the first time we see Justin use his powers deliberately to harm (excluding the neck twist he did as a child, because he was a small kid and frightened for his sister, so it doesn't really count) - when he whispers to the fellow inmate who later knocks himself against the wall in order to drown out Iris' voice on the radio. However, I am most gratified that we don't get a repeat of the Eeeeevil!Dukat scenario, with Justin emerging as the bent-on-nothing-but-EEEEVIL antichrist post-asylum. He might have accepted what he thinks is his role, but he's still desperately trying to be good. Which brings me to Justin and Iris. Now we did get a hint very early on - Justin catching a glimpse of Iris drying her hair - that his feelings aren't all fraternal, but he also clearly wasn't going to act on them and was ashamed of them. Cue self-flaggelation to expiate for them. So the fact that he reacted to her confession about having burned down the church and thereby killed the orphans with both shock and horror and an immediate and passionate kiss makes perfect sense. In that moment, she has become as tainted as he feels himself to be, and so he permits himself that outburst.
Iris' deed, of course, mirrors what she did as a child, when if Justin's projection/memory is anything to go by she nearly killed a helpless man she perceived to be a threat to them. The thing about Iris - whose Russian name, Irina, means peace if you take the Greek origin - is that she seems to be utterly free of doubts and the self-loating plaguing her brother. Or questions about good and evil. The end justifies the means, good is what is good for Justin, and his calling is the right one, full stop. I don't think the kiss surprised her, either. (She did hear the sounds of his self-flaggelation early in the season, after all.) The only other character on the show so secure about her/his aims and allegiances is Lodz. Which shows what a frightening thing this kind of certainty is.
(Also: It's probably very wrong to root for the siblings of doom to get it on, but you know, can't help it.)
Incidentally, when watching Ben's dream showcasing Justin and Iris handing out razor blades for the people to swallow reminded me that Ben's vision of Justin as uniformely malevolent (except for Justin's first appearance in Ben's dreams, when they both sit down in an identical fashion) is far more negative than the reality, whereas Justin's vision of Ben... but that brings me into season 2's opening ep which I'll discuss below, to spare Andraste spoilers. I also wonder whether the dreams both have are controlled by Scudder and/or Management.
Parents in this show, and their children: one tangled web. When Sofie sees the man bearing the tree tattoo raping her mother via her mother's thoughts/memories, I suddenly wondered which mystical figure she's supposed to represent. Because absent fathers with a sinister past clearly signify roles to play. Scudder is who knows where, and has a body count, no matter how fondly Ruthie remembers him. One assumes there is also a reason why Ben's mother went from being a cheerful laughing girl in love with him to the bitter fanatical and horrified-of-her-own-son old woman we saw in the pilot. Justin's and Iris' father is MIA, and if it's the Russian Soldier as Andraste surmises, well, then (see below on season 2 premiere thoughts).
Mothers, on the other hand, are ever present. Ben's mother dies in the pilot, but his guilty suspicion that he could have saved her haunts him throughout the season, and so it's not surprising that Ruthie, his mother figure just as much as his first lover (and she slept with his father, too), goes all Lazarus on him in the end. Sofie's mother is as immobile as Snow White in her coffin (though she once walks for Ben, and could he have saved her?), but she's ever talking to her daughter through her thoughts and in the end bleeds over in memories. And then there's Rita Sue, a walking, talking Earth Mother Sex-and-Fertility symbol, whose daughter resents her but imitates her down to the looks. Over in California, an overt mother figure is suspiciously lacking, though perhaps you could count Mother Church? (And then there is the lost Mother Russia.)
The whole Rita-Stumpy-Jonesy-Sofie storyline reminded me more of Edward Albee than ever. I maintain that Rita Sue = Martha, and Felix = George. Can so see Elizabeth Taylor playing Rita, too. I was afraid for a bit that they would set up a Madonna/Whore thing with Sofie and Rita Sue, but apparently not, thank God. Anyway, though Jonesy is a nice guy, I thought Sofie and Libby made the cuter couple.
Management.... on to the season 2 premiere which alas I saw without having seen episode 12 of season 1 for reasons named above. Andraste, avert your eyes.
Okay, Management as the Russian Soldier. That threw me a bit, but it fits. If the Russian Soldier is indeed the father of the siblings Crowe, it also fits with my WWI as key theory. (And I wonder whether the bearded guy handing over the gospel of Matthias to Justin was in fact Scudder himself in disguise, or an emissary of same.) Apparently neither Scudder nor the Russian Soldier could fulfill their roles, and now they want to use their children to fight it out, which makes them Abrahams in the Wilfrid Owen sense, using their sons and setting them up for the bloody slaughter via dreams and cryptic talk and the occasional catastrophe, teaching them to kill. In hoc signo vincero? Was that Constantine supposedly dreamt, and what caused him to make Christianity the state religion, thereby turning what had been the refuge of the disenfranchised and poor into a state institution. Because it gave him victory in a military battle.
At the end of the episode, we see Justin dreaming of Ben, for a change, and it's the most fascinating dream of all, Ben emerging under his own face. Immediately, I thought of Owen's poem Strange Meeting.
It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
With a thousand pains that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
"Strange friend," I said, "here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said the other, "save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which much die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now . . ."
If Justin and Ben will battle each other, I predict a post-mortem encounter on that note.
Of course, the season 2 premiere also offered two looks into the future, complete with symbols. The atom bomb, and an oil tower. Management says Ben should prevent this (fat chance), and Justin sees his new church entwined with the oil tower (faith corrupted by captitalism, as announced by the W.R. Hearst sponsoring of his radio talk?). Let's see - science sans ethics (or developed without considering the results) and oil/money as the twin evils of the 20th century? Hm. Now Samson informs us in his opening monologue that the old evil from the old world came and corrupted the heart of the new world, but otoh, the atom bomb and oil millions are distinctly American products. (Yes, there were a lot of European scientists involved in project Manhattan, but Robert Oppenheimer himself was homeborn and bread American.) Just how Ben is supposed to stop it, and stop it via fighting Justin, I'm not clear on, unless the creators are going for televengalism (radiovangelism?) as the method of corruption of minds which then results in a world fit for atom bombs and oil barons. Hm. Hm.
Meme fromandrastewhite
If you read this, even if we don't often speak/write, please post the first fanfiction/post of mine you remember reading, and what you thought.
Then post this to your journal. See what people remember about you.
Justin in the asylum was a chilling and effective sequence, reminding me somewhat of the particular horror The Woman in White always held for me - the idea of someone sane imprisoned as insane. It also reminded me of how easy this still is in some parts. (
artaxastra reminded me of it recently.) Just as chilling was the first time we see Justin use his powers deliberately to harm (excluding the neck twist he did as a child, because he was a small kid and frightened for his sister, so it doesn't really count) - when he whispers to the fellow inmate who later knocks himself against the wall in order to drown out Iris' voice on the radio. However, I am most gratified that we don't get a repeat of the Eeeeevil!Dukat scenario, with Justin emerging as the bent-on-nothing-but-EEEEVIL antichrist post-asylum. He might have accepted what he thinks is his role, but he's still desperately trying to be good. Which brings me to Justin and Iris. Now we did get a hint very early on - Justin catching a glimpse of Iris drying her hair - that his feelings aren't all fraternal, but he also clearly wasn't going to act on them and was ashamed of them. Cue self-flaggelation to expiate for them. So the fact that he reacted to her confession about having burned down the church and thereby killed the orphans with both shock and horror and an immediate and passionate kiss makes perfect sense. In that moment, she has become as tainted as he feels himself to be, and so he permits himself that outburst.Iris' deed, of course, mirrors what she did as a child, when if Justin's projection/memory is anything to go by she nearly killed a helpless man she perceived to be a threat to them. The thing about Iris - whose Russian name, Irina, means peace if you take the Greek origin - is that she seems to be utterly free of doubts and the self-loating plaguing her brother. Or questions about good and evil. The end justifies the means, good is what is good for Justin, and his calling is the right one, full stop. I don't think the kiss surprised her, either. (She did hear the sounds of his self-flaggelation early in the season, after all.) The only other character on the show so secure about her/his aims and allegiances is Lodz. Which shows what a frightening thing this kind of certainty is.
(Also: It's probably very wrong to root for the siblings of doom to get it on, but you know, can't help it.)
Incidentally, when watching Ben's dream showcasing Justin and Iris handing out razor blades for the people to swallow reminded me that Ben's vision of Justin as uniformely malevolent (except for Justin's first appearance in Ben's dreams, when they both sit down in an identical fashion) is far more negative than the reality, whereas Justin's vision of Ben... but that brings me into season 2's opening ep which I'll discuss below, to spare Andraste spoilers. I also wonder whether the dreams both have are controlled by Scudder and/or Management.
Parents in this show, and their children: one tangled web. When Sofie sees the man bearing the tree tattoo raping her mother via her mother's thoughts/memories, I suddenly wondered which mystical figure she's supposed to represent. Because absent fathers with a sinister past clearly signify roles to play. Scudder is who knows where, and has a body count, no matter how fondly Ruthie remembers him. One assumes there is also a reason why Ben's mother went from being a cheerful laughing girl in love with him to the bitter fanatical and horrified-of-her-own-son old woman we saw in the pilot. Justin's and Iris' father is MIA, and if it's the Russian Soldier as Andraste surmises, well, then (see below on season 2 premiere thoughts).
Mothers, on the other hand, are ever present. Ben's mother dies in the pilot, but his guilty suspicion that he could have saved her haunts him throughout the season, and so it's not surprising that Ruthie, his mother figure just as much as his first lover (and she slept with his father, too), goes all Lazarus on him in the end. Sofie's mother is as immobile as Snow White in her coffin (though she once walks for Ben, and could he have saved her?), but she's ever talking to her daughter through her thoughts and in the end bleeds over in memories. And then there's Rita Sue, a walking, talking Earth Mother Sex-and-Fertility symbol, whose daughter resents her but imitates her down to the looks. Over in California, an overt mother figure is suspiciously lacking, though perhaps you could count Mother Church? (And then there is the lost Mother Russia.)
The whole Rita-Stumpy-Jonesy-Sofie storyline reminded me more of Edward Albee than ever. I maintain that Rita Sue = Martha, and Felix = George. Can so see Elizabeth Taylor playing Rita, too. I was afraid for a bit that they would set up a Madonna/Whore thing with Sofie and Rita Sue, but apparently not, thank God. Anyway, though Jonesy is a nice guy, I thought Sofie and Libby made the cuter couple.
Management.... on to the season 2 premiere which alas I saw without having seen episode 12 of season 1 for reasons named above. Andraste, avert your eyes.
Okay, Management as the Russian Soldier. That threw me a bit, but it fits. If the Russian Soldier is indeed the father of the siblings Crowe, it also fits with my WWI as key theory. (And I wonder whether the bearded guy handing over the gospel of Matthias to Justin was in fact Scudder himself in disguise, or an emissary of same.) Apparently neither Scudder nor the Russian Soldier could fulfill their roles, and now they want to use their children to fight it out, which makes them Abrahams in the Wilfrid Owen sense, using their sons and setting them up for the bloody slaughter via dreams and cryptic talk and the occasional catastrophe, teaching them to kill. In hoc signo vincero? Was that Constantine supposedly dreamt, and what caused him to make Christianity the state religion, thereby turning what had been the refuge of the disenfranchised and poor into a state institution. Because it gave him victory in a military battle.
At the end of the episode, we see Justin dreaming of Ben, for a change, and it's the most fascinating dream of all, Ben emerging under his own face. Immediately, I thought of Owen's poem Strange Meeting.
It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
With a thousand pains that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
"Strange friend," I said, "here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said the other, "save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which much die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now . . ."
If Justin and Ben will battle each other, I predict a post-mortem encounter on that note.
Of course, the season 2 premiere also offered two looks into the future, complete with symbols. The atom bomb, and an oil tower. Management says Ben should prevent this (fat chance), and Justin sees his new church entwined with the oil tower (faith corrupted by captitalism, as announced by the W.R. Hearst sponsoring of his radio talk?). Let's see - science sans ethics (or developed without considering the results) and oil/money as the twin evils of the 20th century? Hm. Now Samson informs us in his opening monologue that the old evil from the old world came and corrupted the heart of the new world, but otoh, the atom bomb and oil millions are distinctly American products. (Yes, there were a lot of European scientists involved in project Manhattan, but Robert Oppenheimer himself was homeborn and bread American.) Just how Ben is supposed to stop it, and stop it via fighting Justin, I'm not clear on, unless the creators are going for televengalism (radiovangelism?) as the method of corruption of minds which then results in a world fit for atom bombs and oil barons. Hm. Hm.
Meme from
andrastewhiteIf you read this, even if we don't often speak/write, please post the first fanfiction/post of mine you remember reading, and what you thought.
Then post this to your journal. See what people remember about you.
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no subject
Date: 2005-02-08 06:09 pm (UTC)Justin has inner conflict coming. I'm not sure what will happen to the conflict after 2.05 (the last episode to air) but it is certainly there in 2.04 & 2.05.
Where do you see the inner conflict in 2.04? Perhaps a flash when he angrily says to Iris "the door has already been opened", but that's it. Because the conversation with Tommy Dolan and "I need more proof" struck me as a calculated move, pointing towards wanting to get rid of Iris via Dolan. Otherwise, he, too, is much more of a cliché than last season. Not just because of missing signs of inner conflict and struggle, but did we need the Rosemary's Baby thing? (I.e. he doesn't just have sex with Celeste, he rapes her and abuses her and we hear demonic animal noises, and then moves on to the next servant?) Again, when the first season wanted to show Justin do something evil and/or display his power, we got the man in the mental asylum almost dashing his brains out after a little conversation, or him correcting the doctor's spelling, or the child abuser shooting himself. Far, far more effective, and not resorting to horror movie clichés.
I suspect it's the missing R. Moore that makes the difference now. Don't get me wrong, it's still an interesting show, but... it lost something. At least the first four episodes gave me that impression.
On the bright side, there are elements like Ruthie being able to see dead people, but more about that later.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-08 07:22 pm (UTC)I saw the inner conflict in the line you mentioned and also in "He means to kill me." It is the first vision of Justin's that paints Ben in such a bad light (that I remember) and I saw in all settling in at that moment, a realization of his fate. I think that moment is the last bit of inner conflict about his destiny (not to say there won't be inner conflict about other things). In that moment there was conflict and finally resolve. There is no reason for conflict, he is sure of Ben's motives now and therefore his own.
The animal noises were important because they were bear noises. (which is why I asked earlier about who the bear was in Ben's dreams).
You are right about the loss of subtlety but that almost had to happen for the battle to escalate.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-08 08:18 pm (UTC)Oh, good, if you do this rant, I can just link and complain about the other major anvilly thing. Because we all know where Justin's preachings about the rich industrialists and bankers who first fattened themselves on Europe and then on the Us are going, don't we? I mean, it's historically valid. Antisemitism is a big part of the 30s for obvious reasons. But if they actually do a Hitler-as-influenced by Justin thing, or a Hitler as the next activated antichrist once Ben defeats/kills Justin thing, I'll throw stuff on the tv. Demonization of the Nazis just drives me crazy. (I mean demonization in the sense of "the devil made them do it", not in the sense of "they were bad", which of course is putting mildly.)
I saw the inner conflict in the line you mentioned and also in "He means to kill me." It is the first vision of Justin's that paints Ben in such a bad light (that I remember) and I saw in all settling in at that moment, a realization of his fate. I think that moment is the last bit of inner conflict about his destiny (not to say there won't be inner conflict about other things). In that moment there was conflict and finally resolve. There is no reason for conflict, he is sure of Ben's motives now and therefore his own.
Oh. Well, that is a plausible interpretation which makes me feel better - thanks! Though, re: earlier negative visions of Ben by Justin - I suppose that depends on how you interpret the mirror vision where he rips off his own skin and Ben emerges. Which I found really intriguing.
The animal noises were important because they were bear noises. (which is why I asked earlier about who the bear was in Ben's dreams).
Ah. Incidentally, I forgot to answer that question, but now that you bring it up, I honestly can't recall - I had a tough time following Ben's dreams because the first six eps I got from snurch_tv were in a far worse visual quality then your sendings.
Anyway, if there is a connection, then of course there is a reason beyond the horror thing.
Oh, btw - I looked for communities and message boards and older messages I can safely read and found there is some disagreement about whether or not Justin and Iris had sex after the kiss in 1.11. and before the extremely uncomfortable breakfeast in 1.12. Somehow, I don't think so - this show otherwise isn't coy and ambiguous about just when two people have sex. But it's certainly open to interpretation. Your take?
You are right about the loss of subtlety but that almost had to happen for the battle to escalate.
Yes, which is why I don't accuse the show of cheating. They did say in the first opening monologue that we were in for said battle. Still... I suppose Babylon 5 which managed to keep the ambiguity of its characters throughout the great battles spoiled me for all future shows in this regard.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 01:10 am (UTC)You should wait until you see 2.05 (on its way now) before you start ranting on antisemitism but yes I see where it is going.
Demonization of the Nazis just drives me crazy.
I know completely what you mean and agree.
I suppose that depends on how you interpret the mirror vision where he rips off his own skin and Ben emerges. Which I found really intriguing.
I had forgotten about that one. It isn't malevolent really but it certainly is interesting.
I asked someone else about the bear, he should remember, I'll let you know what I find.
I don't think Iris & Justin had sex after 1.11. I wasn't guit sure until the S2 ep where Justin looks at her legs. There is too much temptation in that shot. I don't think the temptation would still be there for Justin if he had already had Iris.
Justin & Ben aren't ambiguious anymore but everyone else sure is. Sofie gets curiouser and more interesting and Managment's motives are still fascinating.
The Justin/Ben fight isn't the question. Who else will be on which side and why is the question.