Entry tags:
Being Human 4.07
In which your faithfull reviewer should have seen something coming but didn't and is positively impressed.
Most trivial thing first.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
paratti told me there were webisodes saying otherwise re: Hal's origin, but going by on screen only canon, I say my Henry V. theory just got new fodder. I mean, of course Henry V. was House of Lancaster, not House of York, but picking "York" as a surname would just be the type of perverse in-joke to appeal to a vampirized Henry.
Now on to my one complaint: I so wish genre shows would quit with the Third Reich lookalikes. If you want to do Nazis-by-any-other-name, do it the way DS9 did it with the Cardassians/Bajor set up. They didn't have to copy the Auschwitz gate or use the Nazi colouring and less than imaginative twist on the swastika to get the point across in such episodes like Duet, and the Cardassians were their own culture as well as being a parallel. By contrast, using the whole imagery for Eve's post vampocalypse future makes me grind my teeth about pop culture appropriation of a very real history, and damn it, I know people whose family died in those camps, I've visited two of the camps and it made me sick despite all the theoretical history knowledge, sick with the reality of it, so this kind of thing so beloved by Anglo-American comics, tv and movies just irritates me to no end.
End of beating deceased equine.
Other than that, I was, as mentioned, very impressed. Hal as Cutler's sire, making Cutler a male Drusilla, basically, only with lawyerly expertise instead of precognition was excellent. Cutler's new media/werewolf scare plan of world domination made sense, was suitably evil (and as opposed to the vampocalyptic future of Eve's timeline, was refreshingly free of Nazi imagery), and yet the flashbacks as well as the panic breathing ensured we didn't see Cutler as the cackling one dimensional villain. Best of all, though: just when I was about to complain Alex got fridged for Hal motivation the show did what in retrospect I should have seen coming, and didn't. Why I should have seen it coming: because the episode with Emrys the cranky old ghost dropped a sledgehammer that Annie a) would have to do something dark and b) would do this before going to the beyond for good. This makes sense in a Doctor Who kind of way, by which I mean that Old Who rarely let Doctor and Companion(s) leave at the same time; usually either the Companion remained to help with the transition for a season or so, or the Companion(s) left but the Doctor remained the same. So Annie staying for one more season to help with the transition of the cast seems like the British tv thing to do, but of course, that means we need a new ghost.
I had been wondering where the whole Hal reluctant to date Alex because of the vampire blood/sex crosswiring could go that several Mitchell storylines hadn't gone already, and here I have my answer. And that's a great set-up, because Alex-as-a-ghost now has a completely different type of relationship with the resident vampire, as well as no romantic delusions. The scene where she and Hal bickered was wonderfully refreshing. (And still the show didn't downplay the horror of Alex' death by giving her the moment later when the reality of her situation really sinks in, and Hal responds to that.) Moreover, since Hal didn't kill her but bears some moral responsibility for her death (courtesy of having given Cutler the idea in more than one way), it will make sense for her to stick around.
Sidenote: it occurs to me that this season has been really good in not killing off its female guest stars. Well, in Alex' case "not killing off in a permanent manner". Yvonne and Allison both exit their episodes on a happy, optimistic note, and while Alex is now physically dead, she's set up to become (provided the show gets another season, and provided I'm not wrong about this, of course) a permanent ensemble member. In any case, her physical death allows her to gain, not lose agenda and power.
Aside from my disgruntlement with the imagery, the vampocalypse is still the weakest plot line, in that the logic of Eve concluding her death as a baby will somehow avert it is really thin. I mean, on a Watsonian level I can see it because she grew up in a horrible world and it was a desperate last resort - all type of insane ideas can creep up in such situations - but the show really will have to do more to sell me on the idea that either the death or the life of one baby will make such a difference. Incidentally, I'm cautiously optimistic in that regard, because Annie-has-to-kill-Eve has been set up so straightforwardly that there just has to be a twist. Given the Whedonverse's influence on this show, I expect Annie to come up with a third option that will avert the timeline Eve comes from without killing Eve but will also mean Annie will pass to the other side for good.
What I did like about the trip to the future scenes was that the writers and the two actresses in Eve's and Annie's last but one scene together sold me on the mother-daughter element, and that Eve was raised by Annie.
More speculation for the finale: my guess is Cutler, who is too entertaining and layered to be killed off, not to mention that as Hal's Drusilla (or would Callisto to Hal's Xena be a better comparison? Only, you know, in a non-crazy way), will either change sides (since he didn't manage a feat to impress the Old Ones and isn't keen on minion status), or will manage to benefit from whatever the fallout of the Old Ones versus Our Heroes showdown will be. The Old Ones will be dealt with for good and the vampocalypse averted, which means next season will have a non-vampire Big Bad, always provided we get a next season. And we will get one more hint Hal is really Henry V. just to really torment me.
What I wish for, but will probably not get: a Nina (and George, but mainly Nina) cameo when Annie crosses over.
Most trivial thing first.
paratti told me there were webisodes saying otherwise re: Hal's origin, but going by on screen only canon, I say my Henry V. theory just got new fodder. I mean, of course Henry V. was House of Lancaster, not House of York, but picking "York" as a surname would just be the type of perverse in-joke to appeal to a vampirized Henry. Now on to my one complaint: I so wish genre shows would quit with the Third Reich lookalikes. If you want to do Nazis-by-any-other-name, do it the way DS9 did it with the Cardassians/Bajor set up. They didn't have to copy the Auschwitz gate or use the Nazi colouring and less than imaginative twist on the swastika to get the point across in such episodes like Duet, and the Cardassians were their own culture as well as being a parallel. By contrast, using the whole imagery for Eve's post vampocalypse future makes me grind my teeth about pop culture appropriation of a very real history, and damn it, I know people whose family died in those camps, I've visited two of the camps and it made me sick despite all the theoretical history knowledge, sick with the reality of it, so this kind of thing so beloved by Anglo-American comics, tv and movies just irritates me to no end.
End of beating deceased equine.
Other than that, I was, as mentioned, very impressed. Hal as Cutler's sire, making Cutler a male Drusilla, basically, only with lawyerly expertise instead of precognition was excellent. Cutler's new media/werewolf scare plan of world domination made sense, was suitably evil (and as opposed to the vampocalyptic future of Eve's timeline, was refreshingly free of Nazi imagery), and yet the flashbacks as well as the panic breathing ensured we didn't see Cutler as the cackling one dimensional villain. Best of all, though: just when I was about to complain Alex got fridged for Hal motivation the show did what in retrospect I should have seen coming, and didn't. Why I should have seen it coming: because the episode with Emrys the cranky old ghost dropped a sledgehammer that Annie a) would have to do something dark and b) would do this before going to the beyond for good. This makes sense in a Doctor Who kind of way, by which I mean that Old Who rarely let Doctor and Companion(s) leave at the same time; usually either the Companion remained to help with the transition for a season or so, or the Companion(s) left but the Doctor remained the same. So Annie staying for one more season to help with the transition of the cast seems like the British tv thing to do, but of course, that means we need a new ghost.
I had been wondering where the whole Hal reluctant to date Alex because of the vampire blood/sex crosswiring could go that several Mitchell storylines hadn't gone already, and here I have my answer. And that's a great set-up, because Alex-as-a-ghost now has a completely different type of relationship with the resident vampire, as well as no romantic delusions. The scene where she and Hal bickered was wonderfully refreshing. (And still the show didn't downplay the horror of Alex' death by giving her the moment later when the reality of her situation really sinks in, and Hal responds to that.) Moreover, since Hal didn't kill her but bears some moral responsibility for her death (courtesy of having given Cutler the idea in more than one way), it will make sense for her to stick around.
Sidenote: it occurs to me that this season has been really good in not killing off its female guest stars. Well, in Alex' case "not killing off in a permanent manner". Yvonne and Allison both exit their episodes on a happy, optimistic note, and while Alex is now physically dead, she's set up to become (provided the show gets another season, and provided I'm not wrong about this, of course) a permanent ensemble member. In any case, her physical death allows her to gain, not lose agenda and power.
Aside from my disgruntlement with the imagery, the vampocalypse is still the weakest plot line, in that the logic of Eve concluding her death as a baby will somehow avert it is really thin. I mean, on a Watsonian level I can see it because she grew up in a horrible world and it was a desperate last resort - all type of insane ideas can creep up in such situations - but the show really will have to do more to sell me on the idea that either the death or the life of one baby will make such a difference. Incidentally, I'm cautiously optimistic in that regard, because Annie-has-to-kill-Eve has been set up so straightforwardly that there just has to be a twist. Given the Whedonverse's influence on this show, I expect Annie to come up with a third option that will avert the timeline Eve comes from without killing Eve but will also mean Annie will pass to the other side for good.
What I did like about the trip to the future scenes was that the writers and the two actresses in Eve's and Annie's last but one scene together sold me on the mother-daughter element, and that Eve was raised by Annie.
More speculation for the finale: my guess is Cutler, who is too entertaining and layered to be killed off, not to mention that as Hal's Drusilla (or would Callisto to Hal's Xena be a better comparison? Only, you know, in a non-crazy way), will either change sides (since he didn't manage a feat to impress the Old Ones and isn't keen on minion status), or will manage to benefit from whatever the fallout of the Old Ones versus Our Heroes showdown will be. The Old Ones will be dealt with for good and the vampocalypse averted, which means next season will have a non-vampire Big Bad, always provided we get a next season. And we will get one more hint Hal is really Henry V. just to really torment me.
What I wish for, but will probably not get: a Nina (and George, but mainly Nina) cameo when Annie crosses over.