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shallowness) wrote2018-12-22 09:14 am
shallowness) wrote2018-12-22 09:14 am
Entry tags:
Who was she? Who is he?
Blindspot 1.12
There’s a point in these episodes where the tat of the week case is wrapped up and there’s a whole section after an ad break to go, and you know it will be juicy. It was particularly juicy this episode.
I was less sympathetic toward Jane than usual. It’s not so much that she was going along with Oscar (and her past self) to find out more and therefore behind The Team’s back, I think. It was after she’d taken apart the replacement pen, and I wanted to see her do the same to Mayfair’s actual pen. Which we didn’t. But if there was nothing about the replacement pen, maybe there was about the original. She wasn’t paranoid enough on screen is my problem.
And then while lying about Charlie’s mother was a judgment call – why not tell him she’d moved and promising they’d get her to him? It might have worked. It might not, granted, given the state he was in, so I accept the judgment but then. BUT afterward, she had shattered any trust Charlie could have had in her and shouldn’t have been interviewing her. The writers were too bent on building her fellow feeling for him, which was understandable as he’d been given a similar drug to her, building on her sense of responsibility for the tats (which didn’t apply to the other names of officers who were now definitely dead).
Jane does not seem to play well in hierarchical structures – confirmed by Oscar suggesting she hasn’t changed in essence from her bossy past self. But we saw her training in combats (and being selected for project Orion, which sometimes sounds like O’Ryan). Anyway, she didn’t like being told off for insubordination by Mayfair (heh, Mayfair hasn’t seen her in the field with Weller) because she thought she was right – and she was, the second the smarmy army guy took Charlie away, the attack by the contractors was deeply unsurprising. I can see why Mayfair had to cede, though.
Jane also didn’t like Weller killing someone who was arguably going to kill her. Which is a bit ridiculous, because even if Charlie was hardly culpable, he was going to kill her, and given the situation, shoot to maim wasn’t all that tenable. But hey, Jane, chasing after someone who you know is in permafightandflight mode, has had their memory wiped again while being experimented upon? Not a bright idea! Of course he was going to fight back.
So, stop scowling at Kurt, madam, when you’d have done the same if the situation was reversed.
He stepped back from demanding they had the post-kiss conversation/why she’d stood him up, out of pride, out of wanting to make things easier, and she gratefully took the out. But their relationship still is what it is – he didn’t blink to shoot Charlie as he choked her, Jane pushed at Kurt to forgive his father, which led to that rather lovely scene (although if Pa Weller was depressed and then put under the massive stress of everyone believing he’d kidnapped and killed a young girl…he held it together well) about the kind of man Kurt Weller has grown up to be. Yes, I’m aware I’ve grown to have a soft spot for him.
All those feelings they have aren’t going to go away, even if they aren’t on the same page right now.
Reid being Sarah’s guy was a shocker (I thought it might be Oscar, but they also dangled the possibility of it being the doc, because he was more involved in the case). In hindsight, we have had hints that he was seeing someone, but I was focused on whether they’d go for Reid/Tasha as a beta couple. What this means for his relationship with Weller is fascinating. He and Sarah seemed pretty tight, and Sarah has a son, which means a certain level of seriousness. They also seemed to forget they were in a restaurant with other people trying to dine through their PDA. Very rude.
Before that reveal, we had that poor man giving Charlie a lift and getting killed for it, Patterson soldiering on despite Mayfair’s good advice, shooting, fighting, a nice bit of collective deduction from the team, all coloured by Jane wondering whether she is truly a part of said team, and whether the loyalty of her team is enough to make her loyal to the organisation and system it’s a part of, or if her past self was right.
Berlin Station 1.8 False Negative
Rhys Ifans’s craggy, shadowed face was to the fore in this episode, with Hector Owen (heh) De Jean’s polygraphed interview interspersing the fallout. So that was compelling.
With Steven on the run, Robert was in charge, promising he’d got this (had he? Sandra didn’t seem to think so and Valerie’s problem wasn’t with his promotion but him) and then finding out the file the Israelis were interested in was about her (and her boyfriend??)
I’ve got a few quibbles about the timeline of what Danny did, but Danny was a much, much better spy than Robert – I’ll just leave messages on the absent Steven’s answerphone? SRSLY. That is no way to find anyone.
Why didn’t Daniel tell Steven about Hector bugging his phone, that was some proof, at least? I think ‘masks’ is a convenient figleaf for writing Esther Krug inconsistently, myself.
I laughed at Frost’s line about not being suitably dressed to turn himself in.
Robert’s bit of posturing around the Israelis was the most interesting posturing he managed, and he chose to protect Valerie, of what, we later learned. Nicely subtle message relaying from Sandra to Valerie, and yet more trauma for V with the truth wrecking her relationship after she’d lost Claire, while the station was clinging on.
Meanwhile, we found out how the interrogation came about. Anna Deveare Smith was good casting.
Sandra was so cool in the run-in with Esther. If she and Valerie team up to run the station, whoo boy. Robert was indeed doing the latter a solid, but as he couldn’t tell her about the Israelis pointing him to the file, he looked dodgy, though maybe his argument about protecting the station landed.
The interrogation got trippier with the drugs, and the part about Morocco was disturbing, until Hector beat the polygraph. Very good ending, especially as we knew Du Voss had Patricia, which is stretching ‘picking up the pieces’. Langley exerted little pressure in this episode, which I’d expect to change soon.
There’s a point in these episodes where the tat of the week case is wrapped up and there’s a whole section after an ad break to go, and you know it will be juicy. It was particularly juicy this episode.
I was less sympathetic toward Jane than usual. It’s not so much that she was going along with Oscar (and her past self) to find out more and therefore behind The Team’s back, I think. It was after she’d taken apart the replacement pen, and I wanted to see her do the same to Mayfair’s actual pen. Which we didn’t. But if there was nothing about the replacement pen, maybe there was about the original. She wasn’t paranoid enough on screen is my problem.
And then while lying about Charlie’s mother was a judgment call – why not tell him she’d moved and promising they’d get her to him? It might have worked. It might not, granted, given the state he was in, so I accept the judgment but then. BUT afterward, she had shattered any trust Charlie could have had in her and shouldn’t have been interviewing her. The writers were too bent on building her fellow feeling for him, which was understandable as he’d been given a similar drug to her, building on her sense of responsibility for the tats (which didn’t apply to the other names of officers who were now definitely dead).
Jane does not seem to play well in hierarchical structures – confirmed by Oscar suggesting she hasn’t changed in essence from her bossy past self. But we saw her training in combats (and being selected for project Orion, which sometimes sounds like O’Ryan). Anyway, she didn’t like being told off for insubordination by Mayfair (heh, Mayfair hasn’t seen her in the field with Weller) because she thought she was right – and she was, the second the smarmy army guy took Charlie away, the attack by the contractors was deeply unsurprising. I can see why Mayfair had to cede, though.
Jane also didn’t like Weller killing someone who was arguably going to kill her. Which is a bit ridiculous, because even if Charlie was hardly culpable, he was going to kill her, and given the situation, shoot to maim wasn’t all that tenable. But hey, Jane, chasing after someone who you know is in permafightandflight mode, has had their memory wiped again while being experimented upon? Not a bright idea! Of course he was going to fight back.
So, stop scowling at Kurt, madam, when you’d have done the same if the situation was reversed.
He stepped back from demanding they had the post-kiss conversation/why she’d stood him up, out of pride, out of wanting to make things easier, and she gratefully took the out. But their relationship still is what it is – he didn’t blink to shoot Charlie as he choked her, Jane pushed at Kurt to forgive his father, which led to that rather lovely scene (although if Pa Weller was depressed and then put under the massive stress of everyone believing he’d kidnapped and killed a young girl…he held it together well) about the kind of man Kurt Weller has grown up to be. Yes, I’m aware I’ve grown to have a soft spot for him.
All those feelings they have aren’t going to go away, even if they aren’t on the same page right now.
Reid being Sarah’s guy was a shocker (I thought it might be Oscar, but they also dangled the possibility of it being the doc, because he was more involved in the case). In hindsight, we have had hints that he was seeing someone, but I was focused on whether they’d go for Reid/Tasha as a beta couple. What this means for his relationship with Weller is fascinating. He and Sarah seemed pretty tight, and Sarah has a son, which means a certain level of seriousness. They also seemed to forget they were in a restaurant with other people trying to dine through their PDA. Very rude.
Before that reveal, we had that poor man giving Charlie a lift and getting killed for it, Patterson soldiering on despite Mayfair’s good advice, shooting, fighting, a nice bit of collective deduction from the team, all coloured by Jane wondering whether she is truly a part of said team, and whether the loyalty of her team is enough to make her loyal to the organisation and system it’s a part of, or if her past self was right.
Berlin Station 1.8 False Negative
Rhys Ifans’s craggy, shadowed face was to the fore in this episode, with Hector Owen (heh) De Jean’s polygraphed interview interspersing the fallout. So that was compelling.
With Steven on the run, Robert was in charge, promising he’d got this (had he? Sandra didn’t seem to think so and Valerie’s problem wasn’t with his promotion but him) and then finding out the file the Israelis were interested in was about her (and her boyfriend??)
I’ve got a few quibbles about the timeline of what Danny did, but Danny was a much, much better spy than Robert – I’ll just leave messages on the absent Steven’s answerphone? SRSLY. That is no way to find anyone.
Why didn’t Daniel tell Steven about Hector bugging his phone, that was some proof, at least? I think ‘masks’ is a convenient figleaf for writing Esther Krug inconsistently, myself.
I laughed at Frost’s line about not being suitably dressed to turn himself in.
Robert’s bit of posturing around the Israelis was the most interesting posturing he managed, and he chose to protect Valerie, of what, we later learned. Nicely subtle message relaying from Sandra to Valerie, and yet more trauma for V with the truth wrecking her relationship after she’d lost Claire, while the station was clinging on.
Meanwhile, we found out how the interrogation came about. Anna Deveare Smith was good casting.
Sandra was so cool in the run-in with Esther. If she and Valerie team up to run the station, whoo boy. Robert was indeed doing the latter a solid, but as he couldn’t tell her about the Israelis pointing him to the file, he looked dodgy, though maybe his argument about protecting the station landed.
The interrogation got trippier with the drugs, and the part about Morocco was disturbing, until Hector beat the polygraph. Very good ending, especially as we knew Du Voss had Patricia, which is stretching ‘picking up the pieces’. Langley exerted little pressure in this episode, which I’d expect to change soon.