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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: 2005-02-09 08:22 am (UTC)*hugs Tormented!Ambiguous!Justin*
*contemplates stabbing Daniel Knauf*
My reaction exactly.*g* I have this image of the storyboard conference after Moore's departure with him saying: "Okay, we really have to get this battle of good versus evil going. Relucted tormented evil versus tormented good won't do it. Justin just isn't a fearsome and disgusting villain right now. How are we supposed to root for Ben to finish him off? So, people, changing that is your first priority..."
It really is a cosmic law that if a villain I love starts out ambiguous and complicated, he'll be turned Eeeevil sooner or later. (Some - Scorpius, for example - go the opposite direction.) This is why I fear for Arvin Sloane, however irrational I know the fear is given J.J. Abrams' track record thus far.
As of episode 5 of season 4, I can reassure you. Abrams might have messed up with his poor heroine in season 3, and with his romantic lead, but he's doing just swell with the older generation, especially Sloane. (Also? To my surprise I actually, gasp, liked not one but two Vaughn-heavy eps of season 4. Both written by the ME scribes. There is definitely a character-saving operation going on for him and Sydney.)
I don't know whether to be happy we got that much, or miffed at him for leaving. Of course, we get BSG out of him leaving.
True, and it is very good and shiny indeed, plus he can be the boss there. Knauf did create Carnivale, so Moore would have been Chris Boucher at the very best there, and I don't blame him for wanting to be Terry Nation at least once.
And my guess is that he did. He didn't seem shocked by his own abilities in that scene.
Now I want to read the story where Norman invites a nice church-going boy for his foster daughter to meet, and Teen!Justin goes all telepathic on him.*veg*
no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 11:53 am (UTC)I'm glad to see on your lj that there's a glimmer of light in 2.05 at least.
I suppose it's too much to hope for that Justin decides being Gleefully Evil means he can now have constant, guilt-free sex with Iris?
(It should bother me that I would consider this some form of consolation ...)
(Also? To my surprise I actually, gasp, liked not one but two Vaughn-heavy eps of season 4. Both written by the ME scribes. There is definitely a character-saving operation going on for him and Sydney.)
Cool. I mean, it's not as if I enjoy finding characters dull, since thinking of new ways they could be eviscerated only provides so much entertainment ...
Knauf did create Carnivale, so Moore would have been Chris Boucher at the very best there, and I don't blame him for wanting to be Terry Nation at least once.
Yes. From the interview, I can see why he wanted that chance. Being a writer rather than a creator, no matter how important you are, means having a limited impact on the universe you're working in.
Now I want to read the story where Norman invites a nice church-going boy for his foster daughter to meet, and Teen!Justin goes all telepathic on him.*veg*
Oh dear. I have a mental image of Norman being extremely puzzled when the nice boy flees in terror. Iris would pretend to be confused too, and secretly be glad because it proved how much Justin loved her ...
no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 12:57 pm (UTC)Yes, thankfully. The writer is one of Moore's old Star Trek pals as it turns out, so perhaps he arranged for her/him (not sure) to be there. Justin and Iris have the best scene they got since the big confession, and it's excellent writing and acting for both of them. Very intense.
I suppose it's too much to hope for that Justin decides being Gleefully Evil means he can now have constant, guilt-free sex with Iris?
Alas, no. In the very first ep of the season, he permits himself a lingering looks at her legs (she's lying on the couch, sleeping, only after he lingered enough, she just looks back and thus proves she hasn't been sleeping at all) and then goes to a prostitute. Which is downright healthy and normal compared to the next thing he does sexually. (Which is where the Gleefully Evil thing comes in.) The question of why, since he's decided he's going be All Evil, All The Way, he still respects that taboo is very interesting, but it's not implausible. The very intense scene I mentioned provides one possible explanation (they're not talking about sex but about something very different, but the dialogue "if you want me to do this, you have to ask" (Iris) and "I can't" (Justin) is spoken, and certainly ridden with subtext.
Another explanation might be the Gleefully Evil thing. Let's just say that having sex with an unrestrained Justin might be very detrimental to your life and sanity. And that's why he won't with Iris.
Oh dear. I have a mental image of Norman being extremely puzzled when the nice boy flees in terror. Iris would pretend to be confused too, and secretly be glad because it proved how much Justin loved her ...
He. Absolutely. Incidentally, you may have noticed that she calls him Alexsei a couple of times in emotional moments, but 2.05 presents the first occasion when he calls her Irina. Evil or not, I went awwwwww.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 10:32 am (UTC)I'll look forward to that, then *g*.
Which is downright healthy and normal compared to the next thing he does sexually. (Which is where the Gleefully Evil thing comes in.)
... I'll start bracing myself now, shall I?
Another explanation might be the Gleefully Evil thing. Let's just say that having sex with an unrestrained Justin might be very detrimental to your life and sanity. And that's why he won't with Iris.
Oh dear. That's not good.
Incidentally, you may have noticed that she calls him Alexsei a couple of times in emotional moments, but 2.05 presents the first occasion when he calls her Irina. Evil or not, I went awwwwww.
I shall second the awwwwwww. You know, they'd really be quite sweet if it wasn't for the Evil and the blood relationship ...