The Alienist episodes 1-4

[sholio]

I've already watched the whole first season (and really liked it!) but rachelmanija and scioscribe are watching it now, so I'll pace these posts to their watching so they can participate in the discussion. No spoilers beyond the discussed episodes, please!

So basically this is a moody, atmospheric psychological thriller set in late 1800s New York. A serial killer is leaving mutilated corpses of young male prostitutes, and between the nature of the victims and institutional corruption in the city, the police are doing nothing. So a group of outsiders set out to conduct their own investigation and find the killer themselves.

The murder plot is probably the part that I'm least interested in; I'm mostly here for fascinating character dynamics (which really reward rewatching, btw), the gorgeous and seedy recreation of Gilded Age New York, and the show's nuanced portrayal of various dysfunctional coping mechanisms for disability and trauma. Despite being dark, bloody, and violent, it's overall an optimistic show (at least I'd consider it so) with a lot of empathy for its flawed and complicated characters.

There is a really great twist in episode 4 that's worth being unspoiled for if you enjoy watching unspoiled, because it was such an "Oh!" moment and beautifully recontextualized all of a particular character's scenes that came earlier, as well as being a masterclass in misdirection and putting something in front of the viewer in a non-obvious way. This twist is discussed beneath the cut, along with various other spoilers from the first four episodes.

And yes, I started watching it because of Daniel Brühl (the actor who played Zemo), whose puppy eyes and prickly/empathic character in this show are worth the price of admission alone. Other enticements: a female character who is basically 1800s Peggy Carter, crimefighter Teddy Roosevelt, and a plausibly diverse 19th-century New York, as well as some very catnippy and painfully twisty character dynamics.

I do have a couple of content warnings if you want to watch: The entire plot deals with the murders of cross-dressing child prostitutes, so there is a ton of content dealing with that - though much more sympathetic to the victims than I was expecting going in - and there is also a (non-graphic) male-on-male gang rape that is passed off as a joke by the show. It was an ugly misstep in a show that is otherwise, on the whole, more conscientious than usual for the genre about having sympathy for its characters. EDIT: Also I was reminded in comments that this show has graphic animal harm, including discussion of killing cats/dogs for fun and animals being killed onscreen.



I should probably start out by introducing the cast. Our main set of investigators are prickly, acerbic proto-child-psychologist Laszlo Kreizler (endlessly gentle and sympathetic with his child clients, a complete asshole to adults); his easygoing college BFF John Moore, an artist and newspaper illustrator; Sara Howard, the first woman on the New York police force, ignored and disrespected by her colleagues; Jewish proto-forensics specialists Marcus and Lucius Isaacson; and a varied cast of their relatives, enemies, servants, and love interests. The main five are assembled by Roosevelt, at this point a police commissioner, to investigate the murders off-books, driven mainly by Laszlo's urge to get justice for the murdered kids and protect the other children of the city.

The characters, especially the main three (John, Sara, and Laszlo) are a wonderful jagged-edged mess of traumatized people with unhealthy coping mechanisms. John's fiancee left him for another man, and he now hires prostitutes to talk about cuckolding him while fucking him. Sara is not merely dealing with childhood trauma but also ongoing trauma from being abused by her male co-workers. Laszlo is obviously dealing with some source of trauma that causes him to hold people at bay with vicious verbal abuse, and the source of this (more or less) is the thing that comes out in the fourth episode: he's disabled. One of his arms doesn't work. This is the thing that the show does a masterful job of hiding, because it's not actually hidden - after the reveal, the show deals with it no differently than before - it's just that Laszlo works around it so gracefully that you usually don't notice, which in my experience is perfectly consistent with how people with that sort of disability deal with it. There are circumstances where I don't think "sudden surprise disability reveal" would work and in fact could be quite offputting, but in this case it's perfectly in keeping with the worldbuilding that the characters either ignore it or don't notice it until Sara has a visible "bzuh?" moment when Roosevelt brings it up. This was also the point when both Rachel and I tumbled to it and then had to go back and rewatch all his scenes. Laszlo is a very well-put-together, cultured, genteel mess, but it's not clear exactly why, until the arm thing comes out and all of a sudden the exact triggers that set off some of his earlier behavior are much more comprehensible.

There's a ton of plot crammed into the show's 10-episode first season. Without going into a full summary, I'm finding that rewatching is incredibly helpful for catching plot stuff I missed the first time around, as well as a lot of nuances of character interaction that I completely missed or misinterpreted the first time.

Talk about your favorite parts in the comments! Come talk to me about Daniel Brühl's marvelous puppy eyes and Sara's on-point 1890s wardrobe. Or any other thing you want to mention!

But no spoilers beyond ep. 4, please. I'll screen any comment that reveals anything, because I don't want to spoil my co-watchers. I'll have a wrap-up post at the end of the season to talk about the season and character arcs overall.

Comments

[silverflight8]

I would also add animal harm, for the record, regarding warnings.

One thing I really enjoyed with Laszlo is the way that he's really complex and you feel for him, without it being so explicitly made so in the text. Hm, how to phrase - some stories kind of attempt to force this (he's evil...but his dad beat him! etc) Whereas it was always clear from the first few episodes there's clearly this deep well of empathy for his patients who are extremely badly understood by the society they live in, the way he clearly has servants who he's picked up from previous cases and who he cares about and who care about him, that he's still got friends from university and is clearly professionally very successful, with monographs and people coming to him for advice and consulting and all that. And then there's the way he interacts with his peers, his impatience. You can't just say that to people like that! There are multiple scenes of people close to him just leaving him with one boot untied (after he asked for them to help him) because he pissed them off so bad! There's the determination to understand and to find this killer who apparently has no connection to their victims. I think it's also a testament to how Brühl played the character - there's just so much to see, emotionally under the surface and sometimes on top of it, lol.

I really enjoyed the character dynamics. They all have their individual relationships between each other and the show is pretty good about showing a lot of different sides. With a 10 episode tv series, there's lots of time to look at side characters, and see how they affect/inform the main characters.

[sholio]

Whereas it was always clear from the first few episodes there's clearly this deep well of empathy for his patients who are extremely badly understood by the society they live in, the way he clearly has servants who he's picked up from previous cases and who he cares about and who care about him, that he's still got friends from university and is clearly professionally very successful, with monographs and people coming to him for advice and consulting and all that. And then there's the way he interacts with his peers, his impatience.

Yes!! I think without the nuanced writing and Brühl being very good at bringing out Laszlo's softer, more sympathetic side, he could either be an unbearable dick or at the very least a lot more of an asshole-genius type than he actually comes across as. I think it helps a lot that you see so many of his warm, empathetic moments with the kids, and also fairly early on you find out that he's collected this group of strays around him. I'd actually say that in some ways he's sort of the opposite of the asshole-genius type character because he's clearly a very empathetic person who feels deep sympathy for people around him, and from that perspective it's kind of heartbreaking watching him push people away as vehemently as he does because of trauma.

#give-laszlo-kreizler-a-hug-18k96

With a 10 episode tv series, there's lots of time to look at side characters, and see how they affect/inform the main characters.

Yes! I'm honestly really impressed at how much they managed to get in, even with 10 episodes to work with, because there are a lot of characters and even most of the side ones feel like they have full lives apart from the protagonists, and then there's all the necessary 1890s worldbuilding on top of it! I especially like those subtle little moments when they drop in little bits of 1890s ambiance, like John referring to Sara as a "typewriter" (as her job description) or the scene at the cinema.

[silverflight8]

That's a really good point about asshole geniuses. For them, it's that they've never bothered developing people skills (because they're just that good, or it holds them back). But part of Laszlo's skills is understanding how people work! What makes them tick, what makes them boil over, all that. He's so interested in it. It motivates him, alongside the usual ethical impetus for investigating a murder. But then he wants to know how people tick for people who consider themselves off-limits or who have way different relationships to him and nooo you can't do that! And I agree there's a deliberate 'pushing others away' aspect.

I volunteer to give Laszlo a hug. Many hugs.

Yes - so many horses and carriages :D Some of the bigger shots of 19th century New York, the kind that modern movies use helicopter footage to scene-set with, were like "okay that's a matte painting". But the day-to-day street level stuff was so detailed. I really wish I could have a wander through Laszlo's apartment; it's absolutely beautiful.

[sholio]

btw, I'm greatly enjoying watching your parade of Zemo icons come out for this discussion. Here, have one of mine. :D

But part of Laszlo's skills is understanding how people work! What makes them tick, what makes them boil over, all that. He's so interested in it. It motivates him, alongside the usual ethical impetus for investigating a murder. But then he wants to know how people tick for people who consider themselves off-limits or who have way different relationships to him and nooo you can't do that!

Yes, exactly!! Actually I think this is one of the things that makes Laszlo feel so real as a character, because his entire "thing" is trying to understand people and studying what makes them work, but instead of being absolutely perfect at human relationships, he messes it up all the time! You can see how having the theory and being a smart person isn't enough for him to be able to put it into practice, and in fact trying to get the information keeps leading to him alienating the very people he needs to work with (and wants to be close to). It's fascinating, and I think it makes him feel so much more believable as a person than if he was always good at everything involving other people all the time.

[silverflight8]

Hee. I need to screencap a couple of Alex Kerner from Goodbye Lenin! I think. But for TFATWS many someones have made icons already :D I love that there are so many Zemo icons on this entry.

Right, exactly! It's quite a realistic strength+flaw, honestly - I love characters where their greatest strength is also kind of their greatest flaw. Diplomacy is hard! Leadership is hard! Delicately asking question while not bombing your relationship with them is also really hard!

Actually speaking of relationships I also really enjoyed John and Joseph's. Especially when John was like "I could be the murderer!" and Joseph literally scoffs and goes, "No offense Mr Moore, but pigs could fly" lolll

[sholio]

Actually speaking of relationships I also really enjoyed John and Joseph's.

Yes!! In fact one thing I've been talking about with Rachel and scioscribe as we're watching is how much of a total soft touch John is, whether it's befriending child prostitutes or letting that one kid shine his shoes. (He probably gets his shoes shined 20 times a day because he can't say no to a street kid looking to make a little money.)

It is solid headcanon for me that he made friends with Laszlo in college because he noticed the weird nerd who was always sitting alone, felt sorry for him, and one day just sat down across from him and was going to be his friend, dammit, no matter what Laszlo had in mind about it. xD

[silverflight8]

John's definitely a softie and I would buy that headcanon, absolutely. Here's Bruhl as a baby 20something, this is what Theodore and John would have met at university:

[sholio]

OH MY GOODNESS

So then I looked up what we would be dealing with for young Luke Evans and:



There you go, college AU headcanons set.

[silverflight8]

Awwwwwwwwww they're both such babies 😭

[sholio]

OMG, he's the guy who played Bard in "The Hobbit"!

I didn't even recognize him until I looked up more photos. I am really terrible with faces.

Another interesting thing I have learned is that he's been openly gay for his entire career. Apparently people warned him early on that it might hurt his chance of getting roles, but that definitely doesn't seem to be happening.

[silverflight8]

I am also very bad at faces, you are not alone, lol. It's why books are so good. Never have to guess which dark-haired, blue-eyed conventionally attractive moderately-tall same-haircut be-suited man is which. At least women often get cast as the redhead, the blonde, the brunette, but so many men are just indeterminately brown haired with the same haircut and same clothes!

I knew he was out but I didn't know he'd been out his whole career. I'm glad it doesn't seem to have held him back much! That's awesome.

[silverflight8]

RELEVANT TUMBLR GIF https://weirdhippot.tumblr.com/post/654491503301902336

[sholio]

LITERALLY LOL'ing, omg it's like his entire personality in one sentence. 😂

(Also I just put up a new post for the next four episodes!)

[sholio]

Oh, that's a good point about animal harm; I'll add that too!