Borgen, Season 2
Nov. 5th, 2013 09:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIt's there on dvd in Germany now, and hence I could marathon it. Please don't spoil me in the comments for the rest of the series, which I know has now ended.
This second season was captivating and hugely enjoyable for me as well, and I continue to love what I loved about the first season: it depicts a political system that feels far more familiar than the American one does (coalition negotiations and all), there is a female head of government around whom the show is centered who is sympathetic, but not perfect, and whose pov isn't always shown as the correct one, there are lots of other fascinating characters around, it has a strong ensemble.
Compared with the first season, the format feels slightly different - early s1 was a bit built around an "ethical dilemma of the week" for Birgitte the PM or Katrine the journalist or both, though that began to change towards the end, and s2 doesn't pick it up again, though both Birgitte and Katrine do face their share of ethical dilemmas, just more long term. Also, the relationship between Katrine and older journalist Henne is far, far more important than it was in s1, where while it started as a mentor/protegé relationship they quickly fell out over a misunderstanding. In s2, they are basically the Two Musketeers together, with Henne as a female Athos (minus the wife killing part) and Katrine as a somewhat wiser female D'Artagnan. I appreciate that the show doesn't present quick solutions to what cost Henne her original job in s1, her alcoholism; there is no episode in which she goes dry, only to be on the wagon for the rest of the show - Henne is still an alcoholic by the time s2 wraps up, and the fact she and Katrine have each other's backs emotionally and professionally doesn't change that.
If there is one relationship that doesn't work for me, it's Birgitte and her ex (and future?) husband Philipp, or rather, what the show is trying to tell me at the end of the season, i.e. that Philipp hadn't really moved on from Birgitte and returns to her not "simply" because of and for their children but because he still loves her. Because throughout the season, I saw no sign of love from Philipp for Birgitte. On her part, yes. But not on his. And it's not like the show doesn't know how to sell me on the "exes still carrying a torch for each other" trope: it does so with Katrine and Kasper in both seasons. But all Philipp and Birgitte ever did throughout the season was argue (until the situation with Laura got beyond bad). He couldn't wait to be out of her company. Their every scene together was awkward and uncomfortable. If you want to sell me on a relationship, you don't have to necessarily assure me people are good for each other, but you have to show me they can cause each other something else than endless misery. So when I realised in the last episode that the show would let Philipp break off things with Caecilie and let him reunite with Birgitte, I was dismayed on a Kara/Lee in Unfinished Business level (Kara/Lee from BSG: one of my absolute anti-ships).
(It doesn't help I'm not keen on Philpp, full stop, I admit. At least this season, as opposed to the last one, we didn't get repeated dialogue about he supposedly is sex on legs.)
On to far more enjoyable (for me) relationships. As I said, the show doesn't always present Birgitte as in the right, but it does make her always understandable. Her fallout and reconciliation with her old mentor Bent was a great case for being able to see both their povs, and underscoring you really can't, if you work with someone, avoid the emotional spilllover from political to personal behavior. Similarly, when Birgitte used Machiavellian tactics to reign in Amir it backfired on her, though you still could understand why she'd use them in the first place, and yet Amir's position was presented as valid throughout. One reason why I was glad when he and Birgitte teamed up again, though on a theoritical level I knew that the "Birgitte with the help of her team manages to negotiate peace in a warring fictional African country" was probably the most blatantly wish fulfillment thing Borgen ever did, on a level with Jed Bartlett brokering a sort of deal between Israelis and Palestinians in The West Wing. It still managed to push all my emotional buttons, especially since the two parter also included the fact European business with arms deals contributes hugely to the African problems as an important plot point.
Former politician turned Rupert Murdoch character Michael Laugidson is still the sole one dimensional boo-hiss villain Borgen has, in this season managing to drive one character to suicide and severely endanger another by his tactics, and well, sometimes you need one of those, too, so I can't say I mind, and it did provide Katrine and Henne with a great Musketeer moment to go up against him. I wish the show hadn't made Katrine's more serious moment of temptation - her five minutes of a career as a spin doctor for the former and maybe future conservative PM, who as opposed to Laugidson isn't a one dimensional character but has likeable traits as well as dislikeable ones - so easy on her by letting the man deny in one moment he'd team up with the radical right wing party in order to regain government while literally doing so in the next; it was obvious then that Katrine wouldn't stand for it, and I'd have preferred seeing her reject spin doctorhood simply because that's not the journalism she loves.
I continue to admire the way the show handles Kasper, because while he really has the darkest backstory of any of the characters (it's hard to beat being sexually abused by your father as a child, and then pimped out to other men), this is never used as an excuse if he behaves badly in the present (say, towards his girlfriend Lotte). And his relationship with Katrine is believable to me in a way the Birgitte/Philipp thing just isn't; it's that "do we see these characters cause each other something else than unrelenting misery?" thing I mentioned earlier. I also love the Hero/Sideckick type of relationship he has with Birgitte; there is no UST and she's not his replacement mother figure, either, but he has become the one she confides in most by now, whereas he's her Faithfull Lieutenant. (Who can be relied upon to show up after she's had a one night stand with the chauffeur without judging her.) His sympathy for her daughter Laura when Laura went through her illness was played at just the right level, something he would feel, having been a teenager in a locked institution, but wouldn't necessarily express other than in an understated way and few words because he's not the "let me tell you all about my past" type, and it took him one and a half seasons to tell even Katrine the truth about what happened to him.
(Sidenote: not sure about how the show handles the whole "children as a possibility?" thing, though. I mean, yes, as Katrine says that just as Kasper has the right not to want children she has the right to want them, but I really don't think anyone who was abused as a child, male or female, should be emotionally coerced into becoming a parent if he is for obvious reasons horrified by the very idea. We'll see what season 3 does next before I make a final judgment there, though.)
Speaking of Laura, I thought the way this storyline was handled was well done, too, making the point about how mental illness is as real and dangerous as the physical variety, and also how a combination of medicine and therapy is needed to deal with it. It's interesting to compare and contrast how Bartlett temporarily removing himself from power in The West Wing when his daughter Zoey was kidnapped to Birgitte temporarily removing herself when the media attention on Laura made things unbearable for Laura and Laura's fellow patients were handled; in both 'verses, the opposition tries to make the most of it, but the sexism as a weapon (i.e. Birgitte is critisized first because Laura became ill at all - is she a bad mother? - and then for prioritizing her - being a good mother means she can't be a good head of government!) can only happen with a female PM. Though there is also the Doylist dimension. Writing a storyline in which a male head of government steps away because he can't function when his daughter is under direct threat does not carry the burden of "are we making a statement about all men here?" which writing a storyline about a female head of government carries, so I'm not surprised that the writers chose to end the season on a meta note with Birgitte, in her speech to parliament, addressing the question head on.
In conclusion: stll an excellent show, I'm looking forward to the rest of it.
This second season was captivating and hugely enjoyable for me as well, and I continue to love what I loved about the first season: it depicts a political system that feels far more familiar than the American one does (coalition negotiations and all), there is a female head of government around whom the show is centered who is sympathetic, but not perfect, and whose pov isn't always shown as the correct one, there are lots of other fascinating characters around, it has a strong ensemble.
Compared with the first season, the format feels slightly different - early s1 was a bit built around an "ethical dilemma of the week" for Birgitte the PM or Katrine the journalist or both, though that began to change towards the end, and s2 doesn't pick it up again, though both Birgitte and Katrine do face their share of ethical dilemmas, just more long term. Also, the relationship between Katrine and older journalist Henne is far, far more important than it was in s1, where while it started as a mentor/protegé relationship they quickly fell out over a misunderstanding. In s2, they are basically the Two Musketeers together, with Henne as a female Athos (minus the wife killing part) and Katrine as a somewhat wiser female D'Artagnan. I appreciate that the show doesn't present quick solutions to what cost Henne her original job in s1, her alcoholism; there is no episode in which she goes dry, only to be on the wagon for the rest of the show - Henne is still an alcoholic by the time s2 wraps up, and the fact she and Katrine have each other's backs emotionally and professionally doesn't change that.
If there is one relationship that doesn't work for me, it's Birgitte and her ex (and future?) husband Philipp, or rather, what the show is trying to tell me at the end of the season, i.e. that Philipp hadn't really moved on from Birgitte and returns to her not "simply" because of and for their children but because he still loves her. Because throughout the season, I saw no sign of love from Philipp for Birgitte. On her part, yes. But not on his. And it's not like the show doesn't know how to sell me on the "exes still carrying a torch for each other" trope: it does so with Katrine and Kasper in both seasons. But all Philipp and Birgitte ever did throughout the season was argue (until the situation with Laura got beyond bad). He couldn't wait to be out of her company. Their every scene together was awkward and uncomfortable. If you want to sell me on a relationship, you don't have to necessarily assure me people are good for each other, but you have to show me they can cause each other something else than endless misery. So when I realised in the last episode that the show would let Philipp break off things with Caecilie and let him reunite with Birgitte, I was dismayed on a Kara/Lee in Unfinished Business level (Kara/Lee from BSG: one of my absolute anti-ships).
(It doesn't help I'm not keen on Philpp, full stop, I admit. At least this season, as opposed to the last one, we didn't get repeated dialogue about he supposedly is sex on legs.)
On to far more enjoyable (for me) relationships. As I said, the show doesn't always present Birgitte as in the right, but it does make her always understandable. Her fallout and reconciliation with her old mentor Bent was a great case for being able to see both their povs, and underscoring you really can't, if you work with someone, avoid the emotional spilllover from political to personal behavior. Similarly, when Birgitte used Machiavellian tactics to reign in Amir it backfired on her, though you still could understand why she'd use them in the first place, and yet Amir's position was presented as valid throughout. One reason why I was glad when he and Birgitte teamed up again, though on a theoritical level I knew that the "Birgitte with the help of her team manages to negotiate peace in a warring fictional African country" was probably the most blatantly wish fulfillment thing Borgen ever did, on a level with Jed Bartlett brokering a sort of deal between Israelis and Palestinians in The West Wing. It still managed to push all my emotional buttons, especially since the two parter also included the fact European business with arms deals contributes hugely to the African problems as an important plot point.
Former politician turned Rupert Murdoch character Michael Laugidson is still the sole one dimensional boo-hiss villain Borgen has, in this season managing to drive one character to suicide and severely endanger another by his tactics, and well, sometimes you need one of those, too, so I can't say I mind, and it did provide Katrine and Henne with a great Musketeer moment to go up against him. I wish the show hadn't made Katrine's more serious moment of temptation - her five minutes of a career as a spin doctor for the former and maybe future conservative PM, who as opposed to Laugidson isn't a one dimensional character but has likeable traits as well as dislikeable ones - so easy on her by letting the man deny in one moment he'd team up with the radical right wing party in order to regain government while literally doing so in the next; it was obvious then that Katrine wouldn't stand for it, and I'd have preferred seeing her reject spin doctorhood simply because that's not the journalism she loves.
I continue to admire the way the show handles Kasper, because while he really has the darkest backstory of any of the characters (it's hard to beat being sexually abused by your father as a child, and then pimped out to other men), this is never used as an excuse if he behaves badly in the present (say, towards his girlfriend Lotte). And his relationship with Katrine is believable to me in a way the Birgitte/Philipp thing just isn't; it's that "do we see these characters cause each other something else than unrelenting misery?" thing I mentioned earlier. I also love the Hero/Sideckick type of relationship he has with Birgitte; there is no UST and she's not his replacement mother figure, either, but he has become the one she confides in most by now, whereas he's her Faithfull Lieutenant. (Who can be relied upon to show up after she's had a one night stand with the chauffeur without judging her.) His sympathy for her daughter Laura when Laura went through her illness was played at just the right level, something he would feel, having been a teenager in a locked institution, but wouldn't necessarily express other than in an understated way and few words because he's not the "let me tell you all about my past" type, and it took him one and a half seasons to tell even Katrine the truth about what happened to him.
(Sidenote: not sure about how the show handles the whole "children as a possibility?" thing, though. I mean, yes, as Katrine says that just as Kasper has the right not to want children she has the right to want them, but I really don't think anyone who was abused as a child, male or female, should be emotionally coerced into becoming a parent if he is for obvious reasons horrified by the very idea. We'll see what season 3 does next before I make a final judgment there, though.)
Speaking of Laura, I thought the way this storyline was handled was well done, too, making the point about how mental illness is as real and dangerous as the physical variety, and also how a combination of medicine and therapy is needed to deal with it. It's interesting to compare and contrast how Bartlett temporarily removing himself from power in The West Wing when his daughter Zoey was kidnapped to Birgitte temporarily removing herself when the media attention on Laura made things unbearable for Laura and Laura's fellow patients were handled; in both 'verses, the opposition tries to make the most of it, but the sexism as a weapon (i.e. Birgitte is critisized first because Laura became ill at all - is she a bad mother? - and then for prioritizing her - being a good mother means she can't be a good head of government!) can only happen with a female PM. Though there is also the Doylist dimension. Writing a storyline in which a male head of government steps away because he can't function when his daughter is under direct threat does not carry the burden of "are we making a statement about all men here?" which writing a storyline about a female head of government carries, so I'm not surprised that the writers chose to end the season on a meta note with Birgitte, in her speech to parliament, addressing the question head on.
In conclusion: stll an excellent show, I'm looking forward to the rest of it.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-05 09:25 am (UTC)(If you're lucky enough not to know, Littlejohn is a notoriously evil hard-right-wing newspaper columnist over here whose entire act is based on vicious abuse of anybody vulnerable and discriminated against: his most notorious column ever was on the serial murders in Ipswich a few years ago and could be summed up without distortion as "Why are people mourning a bunch of scabby whores getting what they deserved?")
no subject
Date: 2013-11-05 10:01 am (UTC)