shallowness (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shallowness) wrote2024-11-15 08:17 am
shallowness) wrote2024-11-15 08:17 am
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Hello, sunshine!
Hotel Portofino returned to our screens, although I think this second season skipped ITVX (having appeared on Britbox) and has gone straight to U (UKTV Play as was.) That’s Hotel Portofino AKA Downton Abbey in a Hotel in Italy It Wishes AKA Everyone Loves Lucian and the Target Audience Empathise with Bella. So, they had to catch us up on what everyone was up to before bringing them back together, which meant that for a show with a location for a title, we were spending a lot of time elsewhere, with grey London 1927 a dank contrast to "Portofino" in a way that Turin and the South of France weren’t. Being so sun-kissed it really is welcome right now, as November Novembers on.
It was fun for me to be able to see people’s faces properly, although I didn’t remember Oliver Dench’s attempt at an early 20th century English being quite so clipped. Anyway, it is mainly returning faces, with a focus on the Ainsworth family and staff. Count Albinesi aside, the guests were mainly extras, or had a couple of lines, tops.
The only ones I really care about are Bella, Constance, Carla (who is given next to no dialogue) and Claudine. The villains remain Danioni, Cecil and Julia, but Alice is getting close to joining them, stomping about being Miss Downer Snob. I suppose her worst transgression, bringing her father back, was made out of ignorance, Lucian didn’t know how bad things were between their parents either, or why (the wife-beating). I always wondered why Count Albinesi couldn’t be Bella’s love interest, but no, he still looooooves Alice, blind to all the viewers see, and why for? Because she’s more or less young enough to be his daughter. Eww.
Bella was making eyes at a hot Italian architect, the only new character of note, who was making eyes right back at her. They’d reached an impasse because she couldn’t afford his prices, he begged her not to pause the work because it was his only work, the implication being because he’s anti-fascist, (although you could also interpret it as him being useless with money. But Bella is far too good-natured to think of that.)
But really, the centre of the show’s romantic geometry is Lucian, leaving dreary London, where he was forced to work on guttering (so infra dig) and Rose had continual migraines. (Oh, just get an annulment, then, kids. She told you you’d be miserable, Lucian!) Rose insisted on staying with her beautiful wallpaper, and her mother tried to get to why she was scared of sex (but also feeling so confined.)
Lucian returned to Portofino to make cow’s eyes at Constance – you leave her alone with your careless entitlement! She is of course far more compatible with him than his wife despite the class difference, although he also had the potential to mess with Carla having slept with her last summer. He'd invited Nish to come be his confidante, but despite being a little bit in love with him, Nish decided to stay in Turin with his firebrand lover, although he was getting queasy at the dangerous action the anti-fascists were planning, and he was expected to help out with (as a brown-skinned foreigner.) What are they living on? Why isn’t he doctoring?
Charlotte, Alice’s daughter, was conveniently away, so Constance was now deputy manager. There was a ‘comic’ subplot about a rumoured visit from an inspector for a renowned travel guide, so the staff were nosing about in people’s diaries. Betty the cook kept infantilising everyone. Claudine called Bella from the south of France, asking for help because the press were far too interested in her relationship with a co-star in a plotline featuring a British actor doing the worst American accent I’ve heard in recent memory.
It's worse than I remember, lots of the scenes were very bitty, but then they cut to the beautiful Croatian coast pretending to be Italian, and I stop carping like Alice.
It was fun for me to be able to see people’s faces properly, although I didn’t remember Oliver Dench’s attempt at an early 20th century English being quite so clipped. Anyway, it is mainly returning faces, with a focus on the Ainsworth family and staff. Count Albinesi aside, the guests were mainly extras, or had a couple of lines, tops.
The only ones I really care about are Bella, Constance, Carla (who is given next to no dialogue) and Claudine. The villains remain Danioni, Cecil and Julia, but Alice is getting close to joining them, stomping about being Miss Downer Snob. I suppose her worst transgression, bringing her father back, was made out of ignorance, Lucian didn’t know how bad things were between their parents either, or why (the wife-beating). I always wondered why Count Albinesi couldn’t be Bella’s love interest, but no, he still looooooves Alice, blind to all the viewers see, and why for? Because she’s more or less young enough to be his daughter. Eww.
Bella was making eyes at a hot Italian architect, the only new character of note, who was making eyes right back at her. They’d reached an impasse because she couldn’t afford his prices, he begged her not to pause the work because it was his only work, the implication being because he’s anti-fascist, (although you could also interpret it as him being useless with money. But Bella is far too good-natured to think of that.)
But really, the centre of the show’s romantic geometry is Lucian, leaving dreary London, where he was forced to work on guttering (so infra dig) and Rose had continual migraines. (Oh, just get an annulment, then, kids. She told you you’d be miserable, Lucian!) Rose insisted on staying with her beautiful wallpaper, and her mother tried to get to why she was scared of sex (but also feeling so confined.)
Lucian returned to Portofino to make cow’s eyes at Constance – you leave her alone with your careless entitlement! She is of course far more compatible with him than his wife despite the class difference, although he also had the potential to mess with Carla having slept with her last summer. He'd invited Nish to come be his confidante, but despite being a little bit in love with him, Nish decided to stay in Turin with his firebrand lover, although he was getting queasy at the dangerous action the anti-fascists were planning, and he was expected to help out with (as a brown-skinned foreigner.) What are they living on? Why isn’t he doctoring?
Charlotte, Alice’s daughter, was conveniently away, so Constance was now deputy manager. There was a ‘comic’ subplot about a rumoured visit from an inspector for a renowned travel guide, so the staff were nosing about in people’s diaries. Betty the cook kept infantilising everyone. Claudine called Bella from the south of France, asking for help because the press were far too interested in her relationship with a co-star in a plotline featuring a British actor doing the worst American accent I’ve heard in recent memory.
It's worse than I remember, lots of the scenes were very bitty, but then they cut to the beautiful Croatian coast pretending to be Italian, and I stop carping like Alice.