Ashes to Ashes 3.01
Apr. 3rd, 2010 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAn okay opener. I had missed the team, though not so much the boss of same, and it was good to see them back.
To start with the shallow, when I saw photos of Keeley Hawes in Alex' s3 hair cut, I was appalled, but in movement she actually makes that style work for her. (Thought the s2 one is still my favourite.) Also, never mind Gene, Ray, you look good in suits. Shaz looks terrific in whatever you want to call the get-up she wears in Alex' hospital vision.
On to serious business. Given the hallucinatory effects for the opening Alex-in-the-present sequences and her being up and about immediately after she wakes in the past, I think it's safe to say that a) she never actually was back in the present and b) if she is in the past, said past can't be reality, either, because no way someone directly out of a coma would be able to pull this off (unless they're a Slayer, but BTVS played by fantasy rules anyway), or be allowed to. But then, the 80s being not the real 80s but some complicated kind of cop afterlife, like the 70s before them, isn't a new theory; it just got more fodder. The mirroring - Alex gets pulled back to a case involving a little girl (Dorothy - as in, Oz, paralleling Molly for her, and of course also what Gene Hunt used to call Sam Tyler), and the line Alex says to Gene early on is repeated by our female guest character of the week, about her abusive lover - also works with the idea of the past being formed to some degree by Alex' subconscious.
On that note: this episode has the deliberate darkest Gene characterisation for a while. (I'm qualifying with "deliberate" because I suspect the writers don't have that much of a problem with Gene thinking that beating up suspects is okay and not to be compared with "true" corruption, i.e. money. Although... but more about that in a second.) He's really at his worst in this episode, even aside from being narratively paralleled by a kidnapping abusive gangster. I felt for Ray during each of their scenes, and Alex had a point as well about Gene's summoning contacts being more about him reintroducing himself and marking his territory than about helping the case. Now I'm all for a more critical approach to Gene Hunt by the narrative, but unfortunately the fact that new character Jim has his big speech at the end rather makes me suspect said speech is set up to be refuted by the show, with the Everyone Loves Gene approach proven as the right one.
And yet: parallels again. Last season Martin Summers was, like Alex and Sam, a cop from the present back in the past. And we've already done the outsider interferer in LoM's second season. Methinks chances are that what this season's new character really is is exactly the same type of being Gene is (using again an old theory here), a psychopomp/ guardian angel (use your term of choice) around to help the dying with their transition into the afterlife, though not always conscious of this (as Gene sometimes seems to know and sometimes doesn't know). They clearly have a history, and my only other guess is "father and son", but that's mostly the Connor fan in me. Anyway, maaaaaybe Jim the new boy isn't around just to be taken down and discredited for the climax of the season.
Other things clearly set up: Shaz' dissatisfaction - btw, the fact she and Chris didn't get together again as lovers reconciles me a bit with the sudden forgiveness in the last season finale, because what Chris did, no matter his intentions, wasn't just being a naughty boy, and there should be long term consequences - which is about her status at the station as much as it's about anything else, so I'm hoping for more there - not just Shaz being given a promotion but fighting for it. Also approve of her and Alex standing next to each other in the end scene; these two need more interactions.
The late Sam Tyler: possibly identical with the defaced man Alex keeps seeing, possibly not. They never did find his body in past-world, after all. (The woman Alex is talking to at the beginning says Sam is dead in the present as well, but then again as I said I highly doubt Alex has genuinely made it back to the present; methinks she's being dying all this time.) I suspect we'll get a lot of red herrings about Gene possibly being responsible for his demise, and just when the Sam/Gene shippers are crying bloody murder loud enough to outshout even the Ianto fans, it will be revealed that of course Gene was not, but the whole thing could lead to a clarification on Gene's psychopomp/ guardian angel side job.
Most touching "come back" plea when Alex is in a coma: by Ray. But then I'm biased in that direction. Still, am very glad Alex made Gene at last say thank you to him by the end.
To start with the shallow, when I saw photos of Keeley Hawes in Alex' s3 hair cut, I was appalled, but in movement she actually makes that style work for her. (Thought the s2 one is still my favourite.) Also, never mind Gene, Ray, you look good in suits. Shaz looks terrific in whatever you want to call the get-up she wears in Alex' hospital vision.
On to serious business. Given the hallucinatory effects for the opening Alex-in-the-present sequences and her being up and about immediately after she wakes in the past, I think it's safe to say that a) she never actually was back in the present and b) if she is in the past, said past can't be reality, either, because no way someone directly out of a coma would be able to pull this off (unless they're a Slayer, but BTVS played by fantasy rules anyway), or be allowed to. But then, the 80s being not the real 80s but some complicated kind of cop afterlife, like the 70s before them, isn't a new theory; it just got more fodder. The mirroring - Alex gets pulled back to a case involving a little girl (Dorothy - as in, Oz, paralleling Molly for her, and of course also what Gene Hunt used to call Sam Tyler), and the line Alex says to Gene early on is repeated by our female guest character of the week, about her abusive lover - also works with the idea of the past being formed to some degree by Alex' subconscious.
On that note: this episode has the deliberate darkest Gene characterisation for a while. (I'm qualifying with "deliberate" because I suspect the writers don't have that much of a problem with Gene thinking that beating up suspects is okay and not to be compared with "true" corruption, i.e. money. Although... but more about that in a second.) He's really at his worst in this episode, even aside from being narratively paralleled by a kidnapping abusive gangster. I felt for Ray during each of their scenes, and Alex had a point as well about Gene's summoning contacts being more about him reintroducing himself and marking his territory than about helping the case. Now I'm all for a more critical approach to Gene Hunt by the narrative, but unfortunately the fact that new character Jim has his big speech at the end rather makes me suspect said speech is set up to be refuted by the show, with the Everyone Loves Gene approach proven as the right one.
And yet: parallels again. Last season Martin Summers was, like Alex and Sam, a cop from the present back in the past. And we've already done the outsider interferer in LoM's second season. Methinks chances are that what this season's new character really is is exactly the same type of being Gene is (using again an old theory here), a psychopomp/ guardian angel (use your term of choice) around to help the dying with their transition into the afterlife, though not always conscious of this (as Gene sometimes seems to know and sometimes doesn't know). They clearly have a history, and my only other guess is "father and son", but that's mostly the Connor fan in me. Anyway, maaaaaybe Jim the new boy isn't around just to be taken down and discredited for the climax of the season.
Other things clearly set up: Shaz' dissatisfaction - btw, the fact she and Chris didn't get together again as lovers reconciles me a bit with the sudden forgiveness in the last season finale, because what Chris did, no matter his intentions, wasn't just being a naughty boy, and there should be long term consequences - which is about her status at the station as much as it's about anything else, so I'm hoping for more there - not just Shaz being given a promotion but fighting for it. Also approve of her and Alex standing next to each other in the end scene; these two need more interactions.
The late Sam Tyler: possibly identical with the defaced man Alex keeps seeing, possibly not. They never did find his body in past-world, after all. (The woman Alex is talking to at the beginning says Sam is dead in the present as well, but then again as I said I highly doubt Alex has genuinely made it back to the present; methinks she's being dying all this time.) I suspect we'll get a lot of red herrings about Gene possibly being responsible for his demise, and just when the Sam/Gene shippers are crying bloody murder loud enough to outshout even the Ianto fans, it will be revealed that of course Gene was not, but the whole thing could lead to a clarification on Gene's psychopomp/ guardian angel side job.
Most touching "come back" plea when Alex is in a coma: by Ray. But then I'm biased in that direction. Still, am very glad Alex made Gene at last say thank you to him by the end.
