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Being Human 2x02
My thoughts on BH 2x02 are ... mixed.
The good:
Oh, characters. George, Mitchell, Annie, Nina -- I love how they've grown into themselves and their relationships with each other. George comforting Annie (and Mitchell's well-meaning failure, with his big-brotherishness coming on too strong, while George and Annie's more equal and slightly combative friendship is more appropriate to the occasion); George bringing Nina breakfast/lunch in bed; Mitchell trying to stop Nina from leaving. I really love how their conflicts with each other make sense and don't negate the underlying friendship and affection that they feel for each other. Aside from a little bit of melodrama with Nina hiding her "condition" last episode, the conflicts aren't based in contrivance but in the characters' different outlooks and the contrast of their varying situations. It's sprawling and messy and there aren't any easy answers for any of them.
And it doesn't hurt that they're awfully nice to look at. I really love just watching all of them. I like how Annie's clothes change subtly depending on her state of mind -- I really enjoy those world-building touches that are never remarked upon but just are.
Humans covering for vampires, not out of coercion but because they're being paid to do so -- that's really interesting, and I like it, as well as the way that the system is unraveling now that Mitchell is kinda-sorta in charge. The vampires' secret way of life only really works if you have bastards to run it; Mitchell is too much of a nice guy to maintain a fundamentally broken system. I do think that Ivan's analysis of the whole situation is deeply flawed, but he's got a point that Mitchell can't just hope to dismantle it (or let it dismantle itself) and expect everything to fall nicely into place.
The whole idea of death trying to reclaim Annie is awesomely creepy and horrifying. I don't know how she'll get out of this. I don't know if she'll get out of this. And I love both the uncertainty, and the fact that it's been set up very plausibly as part of the metaphysics of the show. I really like the way that BH doesn't approach the afterlife as either a particular religion's specific view (like, say, SPN does), or a happy place where you'll be reunited with loved ones. Death in BH is a terrifying, amoral, implacable power that cares nothing for human comfort or concerns. It's scary as hell, but it also rings much more true for me than the more comforting view of death that tends to get presented on TV.
However, Saul's reference to the tunnel of white light, when he tells Annie that it's not pleasant and peaceful like people say, incidates that some people in the BH 'verse do have a positive experience with their afterlives. This provides a little more support for the fanonical theory that was going around last season (was it someone on my f'list who originated this? or some post I was linked to via the main comm?), that Annie and Mitchell's terrifying view of death is because of their special circumstances -- they cheated death, so their view of the afterlife was frightening and unpleasant. Whatever was on the other side of Annie's door when it came for her in its proper time might have been much less dark.
I love that the show hasn't confirmed or denied any of this outright, that it's leaving the actual mechanics of death and the afterlife a mystery, allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions. I hope they continue to leave us that hint of mystery -- I think that's what makes death feel so real and frightening on this show, because it's not explained; we really know little more about it on the show than we do in RL. And I like that.
The bad:
There are a lot of things that I'm not really on board with this season. This episode picked up from the kinda-slow first episode last week, but I kept alternating between "oh! they're so cute! squee!" and "... oh, show, did you really have to go there? >:[" Overall, I keep trying to feel the love I had for the show last season, and I'm getting flashes of it here and there, but it keeps jarring me out with various issues that are causing me discomfort.
I really, really do not like where they seem to be going with Nina, because if they're planning on killing her to generate angst for George, I am so not cool with that. I want to have faith in the show not to do that -- and if we're being set up for an awesome rescue, or better yet, Nina awesomely rescuing herself, then yay to the power of infinity! But it just looks so much like the leadup to a frightfully typical 'fridging scenario that I'm desperately worried. I don't mind characters dying -- well, okay, that's completely wrong, I do mind characters dying, but as a dramatic trope, I'm cool with it. But THIS particular trope was miserably trite ten years ago, and it hasn't improved with age. Please, show, don't go there!
And I wasn't happy with the "dead gay vampire" storyline -- any of it, really. There's actually a lot that I don't like about the way the show is explicitly drawing parallels this season between the treatment of vampires, werewolves, etc., and the RL treatment of human minority groups. It's discomfort-inducing because in the case of vamps & weres, the normal human population does have very legitimate reason to fear them -- the show is playing the "monster in the shadows" plot, and the "feared and hated minority" plot, but I think it's making a very big mistake by making the two of them one and the same, especially when both are played out so explicitly in the same episode. That's another of those situations where I keep thinking, Are you really sure you want to go there, show? REALLY?
But in addition to that, this episode went ahead and hit another unpleasant stereotype with the only openly gay character on the show thus far being a dead guy (well, and also the lover who killed him, which is not an improvement). Like a lot of the things I'm having trouble with on BH this season, it was well played, which makes it difficult to hate it 100% -- I liked Carl, and hurt for him, and liked the dilemma that hiding him brought to the household. But I was having a lot of difficulty forgiving the underlying message of having chosen those characters, in that storyline, to be the only gay characters on the show other than a couple of oblique hints to unseen-and-offscreen background characters back in season one. And the medical staff and the police officer's mocking of the dead guy ... okay, yes, I do understand that it was the characters doing the mocking, and that we are not supposed to sympathize with them, but the cut from that scene to a scene featuring Russell Tovey -- openly gay actor, playing a straight character, with his girlfriend ... it just made me think, what's it like to be Russell, in that situation? And that's not a happy thought.
It also made me think back to this recent post linked from Metafandom on gay subtext and the unpleasant reality that it's still supposed to be so bold and daring, in 2010, to have a main character out as gay or bi -- why are shows still hinting and implying (like with Spike and Angel on Buffy, a relationship confirmed by the creator but merely hinted at in the show itself), but never actually going there? There were several places where I felt like the show could be very lightly hinting at some kind of subtext with Mitchell and Carl, enough that I wondered if it wasn't really all in my head. But it is quite reasonable to see them as friends as well. I have no idea what we're supposed to take away from that, and how interesting it would have been (and how much depth it would've added!) if Mitchell and Carl had been lovers prior to Carl falling for a human. You guys know me, I'm not really a romance person and tend to prefer friendship plots where possible, but I really liked the possibility and it frustrated me that the show either wouldn't come out and say it, or hadn't seriously considered it in the first place ... especially since it would have removed so much of the ickiness from the dead-gay-lover plot to have Mitchell be bi, as well. It would have offered something to nicely balance out the negativity (kind of like how Creepy Religious Fanatic Guy isn't the only character of faith we've seen on the show, so it doesn't feel like they're running the risk of having him stand in for every religious person -- he's just him).
I just felt like the writers could have done a much more thoughtful and nuanced job with that particular aspect of the storyline. Instead I was left with disappointment and frustration.
And then, on yet another axis of "do not want", there's Annie! I wasn't at all happy about Annie being stuck in the role of victim again. I was even less happy that between her two beaus, it was, with depressing predictability, the black guy who was the creepy almost-rapist. I did appreciate that Saul wasn't thuggish in any other way, and that he was a victim himself, but still -- oh, show, must you?
Despite my overall wincing at Annie's storyline, especially combined with the other "do not want!" in this episode, I did really like that she rescued herself both times -- the first time directly, the second time by basically holding out until Saul could have a moment of conscience. And I think her reaction, especially the first time, says a lot about how far she's come as a character -- she was shaken, but not shattered. Going invisible again at the end makes sense, once again, with the metaphysics already established on the show, since we've seen that her solidity is directly related to her confidence.
So I liked the development with Annie, except for my frustration that she's taken a giant step backwards and, damn it, we've already had the whole storyline with Annie being an insecure shut-in and being dependent on the boys; can we move on, now? I also really hope the show doesn't conveniently forget about Annie's poltergeist powers. I am aware that neither of the dangerous situations in this case were ones in which her telekinesis would have helped -- her reaction to Saul's attempted rape was basically reflex, as well as probably being the best thing she could have done under the circumstances, and in the second case, if her teleporting isn't a help with other ghosts, than probably the TK wouldn't help either. But I don't like being left with the concern that the show is going to kill one of its female characters to further her boyfriend's character development, and depower the other one.
So, er, that's my thoughts on this week's Being Human. And you?
The good:
Oh, characters. George, Mitchell, Annie, Nina -- I love how they've grown into themselves and their relationships with each other. George comforting Annie (and Mitchell's well-meaning failure, with his big-brotherishness coming on too strong, while George and Annie's more equal and slightly combative friendship is more appropriate to the occasion); George bringing Nina breakfast/lunch in bed; Mitchell trying to stop Nina from leaving. I really love how their conflicts with each other make sense and don't negate the underlying friendship and affection that they feel for each other. Aside from a little bit of melodrama with Nina hiding her "condition" last episode, the conflicts aren't based in contrivance but in the characters' different outlooks and the contrast of their varying situations. It's sprawling and messy and there aren't any easy answers for any of them.
And it doesn't hurt that they're awfully nice to look at. I really love just watching all of them. I like how Annie's clothes change subtly depending on her state of mind -- I really enjoy those world-building touches that are never remarked upon but just are.
Humans covering for vampires, not out of coercion but because they're being paid to do so -- that's really interesting, and I like it, as well as the way that the system is unraveling now that Mitchell is kinda-sorta in charge. The vampires' secret way of life only really works if you have bastards to run it; Mitchell is too much of a nice guy to maintain a fundamentally broken system. I do think that Ivan's analysis of the whole situation is deeply flawed, but he's got a point that Mitchell can't just hope to dismantle it (or let it dismantle itself) and expect everything to fall nicely into place.
The whole idea of death trying to reclaim Annie is awesomely creepy and horrifying. I don't know how she'll get out of this. I don't know if she'll get out of this. And I love both the uncertainty, and the fact that it's been set up very plausibly as part of the metaphysics of the show. I really like the way that BH doesn't approach the afterlife as either a particular religion's specific view (like, say, SPN does), or a happy place where you'll be reunited with loved ones. Death in BH is a terrifying, amoral, implacable power that cares nothing for human comfort or concerns. It's scary as hell, but it also rings much more true for me than the more comforting view of death that tends to get presented on TV.
However, Saul's reference to the tunnel of white light, when he tells Annie that it's not pleasant and peaceful like people say, incidates that some people in the BH 'verse do have a positive experience with their afterlives. This provides a little more support for the fanonical theory that was going around last season (was it someone on my f'list who originated this? or some post I was linked to via the main comm?), that Annie and Mitchell's terrifying view of death is because of their special circumstances -- they cheated death, so their view of the afterlife was frightening and unpleasant. Whatever was on the other side of Annie's door when it came for her in its proper time might have been much less dark.
I love that the show hasn't confirmed or denied any of this outright, that it's leaving the actual mechanics of death and the afterlife a mystery, allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions. I hope they continue to leave us that hint of mystery -- I think that's what makes death feel so real and frightening on this show, because it's not explained; we really know little more about it on the show than we do in RL. And I like that.
The bad:
There are a lot of things that I'm not really on board with this season. This episode picked up from the kinda-slow first episode last week, but I kept alternating between "oh! they're so cute! squee!" and "... oh, show, did you really have to go there? >:[" Overall, I keep trying to feel the love I had for the show last season, and I'm getting flashes of it here and there, but it keeps jarring me out with various issues that are causing me discomfort.
I really, really do not like where they seem to be going with Nina, because if they're planning on killing her to generate angst for George, I am so not cool with that. I want to have faith in the show not to do that -- and if we're being set up for an awesome rescue, or better yet, Nina awesomely rescuing herself, then yay to the power of infinity! But it just looks so much like the leadup to a frightfully typical 'fridging scenario that I'm desperately worried. I don't mind characters dying -- well, okay, that's completely wrong, I do mind characters dying, but as a dramatic trope, I'm cool with it. But THIS particular trope was miserably trite ten years ago, and it hasn't improved with age. Please, show, don't go there!
And I wasn't happy with the "dead gay vampire" storyline -- any of it, really. There's actually a lot that I don't like about the way the show is explicitly drawing parallels this season between the treatment of vampires, werewolves, etc., and the RL treatment of human minority groups. It's discomfort-inducing because in the case of vamps & weres, the normal human population does have very legitimate reason to fear them -- the show is playing the "monster in the shadows" plot, and the "feared and hated minority" plot, but I think it's making a very big mistake by making the two of them one and the same, especially when both are played out so explicitly in the same episode. That's another of those situations where I keep thinking, Are you really sure you want to go there, show? REALLY?
But in addition to that, this episode went ahead and hit another unpleasant stereotype with the only openly gay character on the show thus far being a dead guy (well, and also the lover who killed him, which is not an improvement). Like a lot of the things I'm having trouble with on BH this season, it was well played, which makes it difficult to hate it 100% -- I liked Carl, and hurt for him, and liked the dilemma that hiding him brought to the household. But I was having a lot of difficulty forgiving the underlying message of having chosen those characters, in that storyline, to be the only gay characters on the show other than a couple of oblique hints to unseen-and-offscreen background characters back in season one. And the medical staff and the police officer's mocking of the dead guy ... okay, yes, I do understand that it was the characters doing the mocking, and that we are not supposed to sympathize with them, but the cut from that scene to a scene featuring Russell Tovey -- openly gay actor, playing a straight character, with his girlfriend ... it just made me think, what's it like to be Russell, in that situation? And that's not a happy thought.
It also made me think back to this recent post linked from Metafandom on gay subtext and the unpleasant reality that it's still supposed to be so bold and daring, in 2010, to have a main character out as gay or bi -- why are shows still hinting and implying (like with Spike and Angel on Buffy, a relationship confirmed by the creator but merely hinted at in the show itself), but never actually going there? There were several places where I felt like the show could be very lightly hinting at some kind of subtext with Mitchell and Carl, enough that I wondered if it wasn't really all in my head. But it is quite reasonable to see them as friends as well. I have no idea what we're supposed to take away from that, and how interesting it would have been (and how much depth it would've added!) if Mitchell and Carl had been lovers prior to Carl falling for a human. You guys know me, I'm not really a romance person and tend to prefer friendship plots where possible, but I really liked the possibility and it frustrated me that the show either wouldn't come out and say it, or hadn't seriously considered it in the first place ... especially since it would have removed so much of the ickiness from the dead-gay-lover plot to have Mitchell be bi, as well. It would have offered something to nicely balance out the negativity (kind of like how Creepy Religious Fanatic Guy isn't the only character of faith we've seen on the show, so it doesn't feel like they're running the risk of having him stand in for every religious person -- he's just him).
I just felt like the writers could have done a much more thoughtful and nuanced job with that particular aspect of the storyline. Instead I was left with disappointment and frustration.
And then, on yet another axis of "do not want", there's Annie! I wasn't at all happy about Annie being stuck in the role of victim again. I was even less happy that between her two beaus, it was, with depressing predictability, the black guy who was the creepy almost-rapist. I did appreciate that Saul wasn't thuggish in any other way, and that he was a victim himself, but still -- oh, show, must you?
Despite my overall wincing at Annie's storyline, especially combined with the other "do not want!" in this episode, I did really like that she rescued herself both times -- the first time directly, the second time by basically holding out until Saul could have a moment of conscience. And I think her reaction, especially the first time, says a lot about how far she's come as a character -- she was shaken, but not shattered. Going invisible again at the end makes sense, once again, with the metaphysics already established on the show, since we've seen that her solidity is directly related to her confidence.
So I liked the development with Annie, except for my frustration that she's taken a giant step backwards and, damn it, we've already had the whole storyline with Annie being an insecure shut-in and being dependent on the boys; can we move on, now? I also really hope the show doesn't conveniently forget about Annie's poltergeist powers. I am aware that neither of the dangerous situations in this case were ones in which her telekinesis would have helped -- her reaction to Saul's attempted rape was basically reflex, as well as probably being the best thing she could have done under the circumstances, and in the second case, if her teleporting isn't a help with other ghosts, than probably the TK wouldn't help either. But I don't like being left with the concern that the show is going to kill one of its female characters to further her boyfriend's character development, and depower the other one.
So, er, that's my thoughts on this week's Being Human. And you?
no subject
I mean, I liked Carl qua Carl, for the "he would not have been ... kind" and for all the implications his story has for the show's worldbuilding and for Mitchell (that Mitchell is not the first vampire to go on the wagon or to have a human lover, and that even vampires who've been "clean" for ages can fall disastrously).
But dammit, when you have one canonically queer character on the show, you do not make them Tragic and Murderous.
Ditto with Saul. Especially with the "rival for Annie's attention" being white.
And they badly need some Annie storylines that do not involve her being assaulted.
I'd be less disappointed with a different show, but with BH, I expect better from them, because in general I've been fairly impressed with them on the non-fail front. Not that there are any 100% fail-free shows out there, but still. DO BETTER, SHOW.
And the medical staff and the police officer's mocking of the dead guy ... okay, yes, I do understand that it was the characters doing the mocking, and that we are not supposed to sympathize with them
Yeah. I sort of liked the mocking as a writing detail, because it hit the sort of casual homophobia and disregard you hear in those situations, and it felt properly jarring against our knowledge of Carl as a person and Mitchell's friend. But given the willingness to depict that, the show should have done better and had other LGBT characters before now. I mean, you don't get to win points for showing homophobia as bad when at the same time you're perpetuating the stereotyping yourself.
(However, I'm fairly hopeful that they won't be fridging Nina; there's been too much promo blogging stuff showing her as an integral part of the cast. Fingers crossed.)
no subject
*nods* I did too; Carl was a fascinating character with fascinating implications for the show's overall mythology and for Mitchell specifically. And there was a lot I liked about Annie's storyline, too. In a way it almost made it worse, because it's a well-written show and they thought through some aspects of this so carefully, and then other aspects ... aargh. And yeah, like you said, I generally trust the show to do better on this stuff.
(However, I'm fairly hopeful that they won't be fridging Nina; there's been too much promo blogging stuff showing her as an integral part of the cast. Fingers crossed.)
*crosses fingers too* I hope you're right. Generally speaking, I do still have a lot of trust in the show to take the characters to places that I'll want to see, but the more this storyline develops, the more I'm starting to worry.