Being Human 4.08 The War Child
Mar. 26th, 2012 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which your faithful reviewer does a bad job of fighting the sweetest of temptations.
Which is of course to say: I told you so. Well, fine, the one thing I didn't call was that the show actually would go through with letting Annie kill baby Eve (along with the Old Ones, but still, she really had to do it, the show didn't give her an out on that). But other than that, I'm good. Cutler changing sides, or at least attempting to? (And what an attempt that was. More later.) Check. Annie passing over for good? Check. Reunion with George, Nina and possibly Mitchell, even if it happens off screen because the BBC is thrifty and doesn't want to pay actors for cameos? Check. Human opponents being set up instead of supernatural ones for next season? Check. Alex replacing Annie as the regular ghost? CHECK. Well, if there is a next season she does, but anyway.
Now of course the death of Eve happened twice. Adult Eve contributed her bit for saving humanity because her suicide enabled her to go back in time, warn Annie and, crucially, send Hal, Pearl and Leo to Annie and Tom. She did it for the wrong reasons (i.e. she thought Hal would kill her), but the result was that Hal instead of regressing after losing his family bonded with Tom and thus was stable enough to fight off temptation until the proverbial last moment. This in turn meant he and Alex could save Tom from killing humans, which must have happened in Eve's original timeline (she revered to it as the event that changed Tom forever), and it put Annie in a position where, faced with the ultimate consequences of child versus humanity, she picked the later and thus exited the show saving the world.
Would all of this had happened if the vampires hadn't actually believed in the prophecy? No. Which makes the whole prophecy business an acceptable dramatic device. Basically, Mr. Snow makes the same mistake Mitchell did last season: by believing a prophecy, he makes it come true. (That, and the quintessential villain fault of evil monologueing, to which vampires are especially prone.) Moreover, he gives Toby Whitehouse an opportunity to critique the whole savior/chosen one construct in the genre.
Mind you: the show also uses Mr. Snow to lampshade its own problem with the resident regular vampires. One reason why Mitchell really had to go was that his endless cycles of wagon falling eroded any trust he could manage one day, and begged the question why humans should suffer so he could brood some more. (Or, as Mr. Snow asks Hal: if you love humans so much, why do you make them pay for you?) Now Hal has the benefit of being a new character who this season managed to earn the audience's trust by not harming any living being despite temptation. (Not literally in vampire fashion, and not emotionally, see also, Nina's remark to Mitchell about him having a poison inside that had nothing to do with being a vampire.) But the Cutler related flashbacks really spell out that Hal off the wagon is a spectacularly nasty piece of work, and so Mr. Snow's question remains, as does the obvious one - can another "vampire struggles against temptation" storyline feel worth it?
I am very cautiously optimistic, because the way this season leaves us re: Alex, Tom and Hal. Alex and Tom aren't likely to look the other way as George because of his love for Mitchell did. And Hal this season hasn't overtaken the story the way Mitchell did in much of BH s1-3; Tom was treated equally, story wise. Blowing up the Old Ones and new human opponents mean we're finally rid of the master vampire-tries-world-domination-scheme plot line that's been dodging the show since Herrick tried it in s1. Killing off Cutler means we won't get a "Hal faces what he created" tale a la Mitchell and Lauren, either. (Since Cutler was a good character, I do feel a bit sorry about that.) And Alex feels like a breath of fresh air and relates so differently to Hal and Tom that I think we could get some genuinenly new ghost stories, too.
But let's say this was the final episode for now. In which case the show that started with the pilot would have concluded in a bittersweet manner: being human and in between the supernatural and the human world is hard, and it may get you killed (or leave you death as a better alternative than you harming everyone else), but that's not true for everyone; it's also possible to help each other survive/continue and keep it together. As we've seen both with guest stars Yvonne and Adam, with the fifty years Hal, Pearl and Leo managed together, and, so far, with Tom and Hal, and also Alex, who in her few episodes was able to establish a presence and save Tom from Cutler's set up and Hal from getting blown up with the other Old Ones, which was also Annie's last gift to her last family. Mr. Snow was a suitably chilling and dastardly opponent (confirming my Mark Gatiss bias, which is that he's a better actor than writer and should do the former more than the later), and, as Anne Rice found out, once you've introduced one of the original first vampires, anything later comes as an anticlimax so you better quit the vampire opponent game right there.
Cutler's death: was a gruesome and impressive sequence, and I think both the incredible willpower it took for him to enter the house uninvited and go through the horrible consequences in order to reach Eve and the fact he didn't suceed, committing the quintessential mistake of monologing again (Cutler, as a follower of the media you really should have known better) made the scene. Incidentally, the reaction to the Old Ones to his scheme explains why the world takeover in Eve's original timeline was entirely free of Cutler's plan.
Milo: okay, that was a good twist. A werewolf who teams up with the vampires not, as George and Tom did, out of personal friendship but to be on the winning side had to happen, and I like that he wasn't ideological about it but entirely clear on why he did it. (And why he'd change sides again if circumstances changed.) Unless I misremember, he was still outside the warehouse with Tom when it exploded, wasn't he? Which means if there is a fifth season, he'd still be around. It would make for some interesting scenes with him and Tom, and with him and Allison, if she comes back as well. Not least because Tom made the reverse of Annie's final choice - the child above the fate of humanity - and while that's ic given he hasn't seen what Annie has seen, it also could have had dreadful consequences, and I wonder whether he'll think about this next season.
In conclusion: I liked the finale, love the new team, and am on board for season 5!
Which is of course to say: I told you so. Well, fine, the one thing I didn't call was that the show actually would go through with letting Annie kill baby Eve (along with the Old Ones, but still, she really had to do it, the show didn't give her an out on that). But other than that, I'm good. Cutler changing sides, or at least attempting to? (And what an attempt that was. More later.) Check. Annie passing over for good? Check. Reunion with George, Nina and possibly Mitchell, even if it happens off screen because the BBC is thrifty and doesn't want to pay actors for cameos? Check. Human opponents being set up instead of supernatural ones for next season? Check. Alex replacing Annie as the regular ghost? CHECK. Well, if there is a next season she does, but anyway.
Now of course the death of Eve happened twice. Adult Eve contributed her bit for saving humanity because her suicide enabled her to go back in time, warn Annie and, crucially, send Hal, Pearl and Leo to Annie and Tom. She did it for the wrong reasons (i.e. she thought Hal would kill her), but the result was that Hal instead of regressing after losing his family bonded with Tom and thus was stable enough to fight off temptation until the proverbial last moment. This in turn meant he and Alex could save Tom from killing humans, which must have happened in Eve's original timeline (she revered to it as the event that changed Tom forever), and it put Annie in a position where, faced with the ultimate consequences of child versus humanity, she picked the later and thus exited the show saving the world.
Would all of this had happened if the vampires hadn't actually believed in the prophecy? No. Which makes the whole prophecy business an acceptable dramatic device. Basically, Mr. Snow makes the same mistake Mitchell did last season: by believing a prophecy, he makes it come true. (That, and the quintessential villain fault of evil monologueing, to which vampires are especially prone.) Moreover, he gives Toby Whitehouse an opportunity to critique the whole savior/chosen one construct in the genre.
Mind you: the show also uses Mr. Snow to lampshade its own problem with the resident regular vampires. One reason why Mitchell really had to go was that his endless cycles of wagon falling eroded any trust he could manage one day, and begged the question why humans should suffer so he could brood some more. (Or, as Mr. Snow asks Hal: if you love humans so much, why do you make them pay for you?) Now Hal has the benefit of being a new character who this season managed to earn the audience's trust by not harming any living being despite temptation. (Not literally in vampire fashion, and not emotionally, see also, Nina's remark to Mitchell about him having a poison inside that had nothing to do with being a vampire.) But the Cutler related flashbacks really spell out that Hal off the wagon is a spectacularly nasty piece of work, and so Mr. Snow's question remains, as does the obvious one - can another "vampire struggles against temptation" storyline feel worth it?
I am very cautiously optimistic, because the way this season leaves us re: Alex, Tom and Hal. Alex and Tom aren't likely to look the other way as George because of his love for Mitchell did. And Hal this season hasn't overtaken the story the way Mitchell did in much of BH s1-3; Tom was treated equally, story wise. Blowing up the Old Ones and new human opponents mean we're finally rid of the master vampire-tries-world-domination-scheme plot line that's been dodging the show since Herrick tried it in s1. Killing off Cutler means we won't get a "Hal faces what he created" tale a la Mitchell and Lauren, either. (Since Cutler was a good character, I do feel a bit sorry about that.) And Alex feels like a breath of fresh air and relates so differently to Hal and Tom that I think we could get some genuinenly new ghost stories, too.
But let's say this was the final episode for now. In which case the show that started with the pilot would have concluded in a bittersweet manner: being human and in between the supernatural and the human world is hard, and it may get you killed (or leave you death as a better alternative than you harming everyone else), but that's not true for everyone; it's also possible to help each other survive/continue and keep it together. As we've seen both with guest stars Yvonne and Adam, with the fifty years Hal, Pearl and Leo managed together, and, so far, with Tom and Hal, and also Alex, who in her few episodes was able to establish a presence and save Tom from Cutler's set up and Hal from getting blown up with the other Old Ones, which was also Annie's last gift to her last family. Mr. Snow was a suitably chilling and dastardly opponent (confirming my Mark Gatiss bias, which is that he's a better actor than writer and should do the former more than the later), and, as Anne Rice found out, once you've introduced one of the original first vampires, anything later comes as an anticlimax so you better quit the vampire opponent game right there.
Cutler's death: was a gruesome and impressive sequence, and I think both the incredible willpower it took for him to enter the house uninvited and go through the horrible consequences in order to reach Eve and the fact he didn't suceed, committing the quintessential mistake of monologing again (Cutler, as a follower of the media you really should have known better) made the scene. Incidentally, the reaction to the Old Ones to his scheme explains why the world takeover in Eve's original timeline was entirely free of Cutler's plan.
Milo: okay, that was a good twist. A werewolf who teams up with the vampires not, as George and Tom did, out of personal friendship but to be on the winning side had to happen, and I like that he wasn't ideological about it but entirely clear on why he did it. (And why he'd change sides again if circumstances changed.) Unless I misremember, he was still outside the warehouse with Tom when it exploded, wasn't he? Which means if there is a fifth season, he'd still be around. It would make for some interesting scenes with him and Tom, and with him and Allison, if she comes back as well. Not least because Tom made the reverse of Annie's final choice - the child above the fate of humanity - and while that's ic given he hasn't seen what Annie has seen, it also could have had dreadful consequences, and I wonder whether he'll think about this next season.
In conclusion: I liked the finale, love the new team, and am on board for season 5!
