Fictional spies/assassins
Apr. 12th, 2022 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessThe Ipcress File - episode 5
The best thing about this was watching Jean prove her claim that she was good at her job, although it felt as though we were taking the scenic route to get at something the audience had already gathered about what had been done to the Abducted Physicist, who got released somewhat abruptly. Another one getting the abrupt treatment was Harry, who got tortured some, then got sent to China (or ’China’ as it turned out) for similar brainwashing. The Chinese (‘Chinese’) officer spoke in a posh voice that suggesting public school and an Oxbridge education. It would have been braver to make him the victim throughout, but he managed to keep resisting, and well, let’s just assume that adrenaline was running through his blood vessels as he did what a hero does (clambering over a wired fence, evading guard-dogs…finding himself in a very English village. Which presumably is English and not like a Soviet training thing.)
I was reminded I know very, very little about the Korean War, while lots of American military men didn’t like JFK for wanting to take away their nukes, while a British audience who’s lived in a nuclear age for decades and recently been reminded of that quite forcefully judged them.
After the abrupt bits, the ep began slowly, though, with a meeting too many to establish Maddox’s motivations, while Alice’s mystique crumbled as she didn’t know Jean’s engagement was broken. And although the text was emphasising that Jean was worried about Harry for personal reasons, I thought Dalby and Alice might consider the fact that having to suck up another operative being cut off was hard, as it could have been her. Alice and Double Barrel Operative redeemed themselves by their accurate assessment of Dalby’s Love Interest (I’m not going to call her Lady Physicist because she wasn’t even asked to answer simple questions about physics.)
I suppose there was eventually a point where what betrayals people will commit for love reached equivalence with where the brainwashing of Harry was leading, and Dalby realised Stock had caught him in a trap.
While it was nice to see Harry’s actual ex care enough for his welfare to come looking for him and pump Jean, Jean’s admission she was a spy to her was a bit much. It rather dampened Dalby’s admission to his wife, in a very framed scene. We were left hanging as to how she felt about this, although I suspect it was separation on the way to divorce given that Dalby was going to stay with his Polina. Rather hard to sympathise with them, her for her naivete about her brother (it’s not like they’ve built her up as an absent-minded professor).
Ooh, and the way they dressed Jean put me in mind of Lady Penelope rather. So, for all the hard work trying to make us feel the atmosphere of the era – from the memory of past British traitors, the pressure Dalby’s agency was under, or where some of the conspiracy theories about JFK’s death came from – my mind, at Harry’s escaping to an English village just made me think of the Avengers (Steed et al). Thunderbirds and The Avengers were probably not the cultural reference points that were meant to be coming to my mind.
Killing Eve 4.4
Some interesting encounters and interactions, but what did it all add up to, really? Helene made sure Villanelle’s incarceration was brief and rehired her. She then met Eve on a stage, which seemed a bit much as a location, although I chuckled at the transition to Margate, where we had Konstantin‘s teaching methods meeting a resistant Pam, saw a bit of Pam wandering around and then a pay-off Konstantin really should have seen coming, because I did. He kept barking with laughter when he wasn’t grousing.
Helene had a bigger role than he did, really.
Eve did an English accent that I suppose was about convincing enough for a Parisienne and maybe about Sandra Oh getting sick of Jodie Comer getting plaudits for doing all the accents (not that she’s done much this series). Eve found some old pictures of Lars Mysteryman, then had a reunion with Helene, and while the scene in the bath was deliciously awks, trying to work out how she felt about the news of Villanelle’s release, Helene and whether all the intercutting with Villanelle was about Villanelle’s appropriation of the therapist’s comment that she loved her control over Eve was too much bother for me.
If not in actual Cuba, they did film the Havana scenes somewhere properly sunny, right? Carolyn got to interview the indeed horrible sexist man and we learned about the MO of some tall lady killer – who, er, failed to kill her target and I don’t think it was because he was someone like Carolyn, who Villanelle was never going to kill off. Cue Carolyn-Villanelle interaction, which was occasionally fun, with the Truth or Dare, the air guitar (I might have respected the show more if Villanelle had killed her then,) but Villanelle seemed to be looking for purpose and returning to killing in more baroque ways. She was really poor at chasing the Not Dead Guy Member of the 12.
Eve’s dark (am afraid of claiming whether it was navy or black) blouse and grey trousers combo worked well.
[Edited for typos 29/12/24.]
The best thing about this was watching Jean prove her claim that she was good at her job, although it felt as though we were taking the scenic route to get at something the audience had already gathered about what had been done to the Abducted Physicist, who got released somewhat abruptly. Another one getting the abrupt treatment was Harry, who got tortured some, then got sent to China (or ’China’ as it turned out) for similar brainwashing. The Chinese (‘Chinese’) officer spoke in a posh voice that suggesting public school and an Oxbridge education. It would have been braver to make him the victim throughout, but he managed to keep resisting, and well, let’s just assume that adrenaline was running through his blood vessels as he did what a hero does (clambering over a wired fence, evading guard-dogs…finding himself in a very English village. Which presumably is English and not like a Soviet training thing.)
I was reminded I know very, very little about the Korean War, while lots of American military men didn’t like JFK for wanting to take away their nukes, while a British audience who’s lived in a nuclear age for decades and recently been reminded of that quite forcefully judged them.
After the abrupt bits, the ep began slowly, though, with a meeting too many to establish Maddox’s motivations, while Alice’s mystique crumbled as she didn’t know Jean’s engagement was broken. And although the text was emphasising that Jean was worried about Harry for personal reasons, I thought Dalby and Alice might consider the fact that having to suck up another operative being cut off was hard, as it could have been her. Alice and Double Barrel Operative redeemed themselves by their accurate assessment of Dalby’s Love Interest (I’m not going to call her Lady Physicist because she wasn’t even asked to answer simple questions about physics.)
I suppose there was eventually a point where what betrayals people will commit for love reached equivalence with where the brainwashing of Harry was leading, and Dalby realised Stock had caught him in a trap.
While it was nice to see Harry’s actual ex care enough for his welfare to come looking for him and pump Jean, Jean’s admission she was a spy to her was a bit much. It rather dampened Dalby’s admission to his wife, in a very framed scene. We were left hanging as to how she felt about this, although I suspect it was separation on the way to divorce given that Dalby was going to stay with his Polina. Rather hard to sympathise with them, her for her naivete about her brother (it’s not like they’ve built her up as an absent-minded professor).
Ooh, and the way they dressed Jean put me in mind of Lady Penelope rather. So, for all the hard work trying to make us feel the atmosphere of the era – from the memory of past British traitors, the pressure Dalby’s agency was under, or where some of the conspiracy theories about JFK’s death came from – my mind, at Harry’s escaping to an English village just made me think of the Avengers (Steed et al). Thunderbirds and The Avengers were probably not the cultural reference points that were meant to be coming to my mind.
Killing Eve 4.4
Some interesting encounters and interactions, but what did it all add up to, really? Helene made sure Villanelle’s incarceration was brief and rehired her. She then met Eve on a stage, which seemed a bit much as a location, although I chuckled at the transition to Margate, where we had Konstantin‘s teaching methods meeting a resistant Pam, saw a bit of Pam wandering around and then a pay-off Konstantin really should have seen coming, because I did. He kept barking with laughter when he wasn’t grousing.
Helene had a bigger role than he did, really.
Eve did an English accent that I suppose was about convincing enough for a Parisienne and maybe about Sandra Oh getting sick of Jodie Comer getting plaudits for doing all the accents (not that she’s done much this series). Eve found some old pictures of Lars Mysteryman, then had a reunion with Helene, and while the scene in the bath was deliciously awks, trying to work out how she felt about the news of Villanelle’s release, Helene and whether all the intercutting with Villanelle was about Villanelle’s appropriation of the therapist’s comment that she loved her control over Eve was too much bother for me.
If not in actual Cuba, they did film the Havana scenes somewhere properly sunny, right? Carolyn got to interview the indeed horrible sexist man and we learned about the MO of some tall lady killer – who, er, failed to kill her target and I don’t think it was because he was someone like Carolyn, who Villanelle was never going to kill off. Cue Carolyn-Villanelle interaction, which was occasionally fun, with the Truth or Dare, the air guitar (I might have respected the show more if Villanelle had killed her then,) but Villanelle seemed to be looking for purpose and returning to killing in more baroque ways. She was really poor at chasing the Not Dead Guy Member of the 12.
Eve’s dark (am afraid of claiming whether it was navy or black) blouse and grey trousers combo worked well.
[Edited for typos 29/12/24.]
