Being Human 5.1
Feb. 5th, 2013 08:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIf I hadn't decided to let my addictional pic package for lj run out because of all the lj screw ups last year, I'd get me an Alex icon. Welcome back, show!
A general note of caution first, not due to this particular episode, but the basic premise of the season: once you've introduced the Devil as your Big Bad, you'll have a problem with the follow-up, antagonist wise. Assuming, that is, that the show wants to do a season 6. So I'm not sure this was a good idea in the long term. Meanwhile, this was a good season premiere. In all the fic written post s4 that I've read, I don't think anyone hit on the idea of Hal's horror of disorder, lying around trash and sloppiness defeating his re-awakened blood lust (for the moment). And yet, it's entirely ic with what was established by the last season. Well played, Whitehouse, well played. I'm all for doing the housework as vampire therapy. :) Mind you, this of course does not prevent distastrous non-blood drinking actions. Hal siring the unfortunate Ian Crumb would have felt unlikely in most other circumstances, but in a state shaken by s4 finale events and his guilt over Alex, not wanting another person dead because of his carelessness - yes, I can buy that. I can also just about by Alex letting a new vampire go, though I was going back and thro there, because she did experience the viciousness of vampires first hand, and by another guy Hal sired, no less, but: this particular guy was really good at projecting harmlessness personified, and of course the wanting-my-life-back thing resonated with her. And thus Alex, too, becomes guilty of something, which puts her on a slightly different basis with her new mates and I can see the narrative necessity.
Speaking of new friends, I continue to approve of the fact Hal, Tom and Alex are their own people and not Mitchell, George and Annie, Take II. And that they're not automatically bffs but are still adjusting to each other, now that it's obvious Alex won't be able to move on any time soon. Tom continues to the a champ, both kind and brave, and I like that Alex while likeable and refreshingly no nonsense isn't perfect - that black sense of humour can be hurtful, too.
Apropos black sense of humor: having the recently introduced Super Secret Men in Grey Organization threatened by budget cuts is hysterical. Of course they are. And having Rook outraged by the idea of getting integrated into MI5 and thus turning villain to retain his own turf is such a very human (and in terms of the supernatural genre, inventively new) motivation. (Also, I want someone to write a Spooks crossover where Harry & Co. get told they have now to do werewolf, vampires and ghost stuff.) However, Rook & Co. only appear to be the little bads this season, with Old Nick being the big one.
Which brings me to the flashbacks. Methinks we got an inventive mythology retcon. I liked Lady Catherine the werewolf leader, so boo, hiss at the devil for killing her, and btw, Lord Hal and Lady Catherine as leaders of a vampire-werewolf conflict IN FRANCE between whom attraction sparks (though they're mainly focused on stopping a conflict in which both sides are just used as tools) is so delightfully meta. I had to reluctantly abandon my Hal = Henry V. theory last season in light of the webisodes I was pointed towards, but still. Anyway, so the way to bind the devil is a trinity. Though it's not spelled out yet, I take that to mean a werewolf-vampire-ghost trinity (and that's why Hal's and Catherine's alliance didn't work, they were missing out the ghosts, though given they were in France in the middle of WWI, they could have recruited easily, one should think - but then, they didn't know), which is also a good explanation why fate keeps throwing up this particular constellation, with Hal, Pearl, Leo, Mitchell, George, Annie, Annie, Hal, Tom, and now Tom, Hal, Alex.
ETA: As has been pointed out to me, they did have a ghost, the alchemist/necromancer, and the binding failed because Hal substituted his Faithful Lieutenant's blood instead of his own.
All in all: a good start, save for that general caveat. Here's to the new season!
A general note of caution first, not due to this particular episode, but the basic premise of the season: once you've introduced the Devil as your Big Bad, you'll have a problem with the follow-up, antagonist wise. Assuming, that is, that the show wants to do a season 6. So I'm not sure this was a good idea in the long term. Meanwhile, this was a good season premiere. In all the fic written post s4 that I've read, I don't think anyone hit on the idea of Hal's horror of disorder, lying around trash and sloppiness defeating his re-awakened blood lust (for the moment). And yet, it's entirely ic with what was established by the last season. Well played, Whitehouse, well played. I'm all for doing the housework as vampire therapy. :) Mind you, this of course does not prevent distastrous non-blood drinking actions. Hal siring the unfortunate Ian Crumb would have felt unlikely in most other circumstances, but in a state shaken by s4 finale events and his guilt over Alex, not wanting another person dead because of his carelessness - yes, I can buy that. I can also just about by Alex letting a new vampire go, though I was going back and thro there, because she did experience the viciousness of vampires first hand, and by another guy Hal sired, no less, but: this particular guy was really good at projecting harmlessness personified, and of course the wanting-my-life-back thing resonated with her. And thus Alex, too, becomes guilty of something, which puts her on a slightly different basis with her new mates and I can see the narrative necessity.
Speaking of new friends, I continue to approve of the fact Hal, Tom and Alex are their own people and not Mitchell, George and Annie, Take II. And that they're not automatically bffs but are still adjusting to each other, now that it's obvious Alex won't be able to move on any time soon. Tom continues to the a champ, both kind and brave, and I like that Alex while likeable and refreshingly no nonsense isn't perfect - that black sense of humour can be hurtful, too.
Apropos black sense of humor: having the recently introduced Super Secret Men in Grey Organization threatened by budget cuts is hysterical. Of course they are. And having Rook outraged by the idea of getting integrated into MI5 and thus turning villain to retain his own turf is such a very human (and in terms of the supernatural genre, inventively new) motivation. (Also, I want someone to write a Spooks crossover where Harry & Co. get told they have now to do werewolf, vampires and ghost stuff.) However, Rook & Co. only appear to be the little bads this season, with Old Nick being the big one.
Which brings me to the flashbacks. Methinks we got an inventive mythology retcon. I liked Lady Catherine the werewolf leader, so boo, hiss at the devil for killing her, and btw, Lord Hal and Lady Catherine as leaders of a vampire-werewolf conflict IN FRANCE between whom attraction sparks (though they're mainly focused on stopping a conflict in which both sides are just used as tools) is so delightfully meta. I had to reluctantly abandon my Hal = Henry V. theory last season in light of the webisodes I was pointed towards, but still. Anyway, so the way to bind the devil is a trinity. Though it's not spelled out yet, I take that to mean a werewolf-vampire-ghost trinity (and that's why Hal's and Catherine's alliance didn't work, they were missing out the ghosts, though given they were in France in the middle of WWI, they could have recruited easily, one should think - but then, they didn't know), which is also a good explanation why fate keeps throwing up this particular constellation, with Hal, Pearl, Leo, Mitchell, George, Annie, Annie, Hal, Tom, and now Tom, Hal, Alex.
ETA: As has been pointed out to me, they did have a ghost, the alchemist/necromancer, and the binding failed because Hal substituted his Faithful Lieutenant's blood instead of his own.
All in all: a good start, save for that general caveat. Here's to the new season!
no subject
Date: 2013-02-05 07:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 07:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-05 12:50 pm (UTC)Similar things turn up in Charles Stross's "Laundry" stories and Kim Newman's "Diogenes Club" ones. Any supernatural version of the post-war UK spy story has to include the traditional element that the *real* enemies are the guys across the road.