sholio | Invisible Man watch/rewatch

Outside of spoiler-cut, I feel compelled to mention that the series doesn't stay this dark, which may be either an enticement or a warning. Actually, by the point I've reached in my own rewatching (late season one) it verges on pure comedy at times. Which is a bizarre mood shift considering how incredibly dark this episode is ...

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Invisible Man 1x02 - The Catevari

And here is the cast change I mentioned in an earlier post: Casey, Darien's ex-girlfriend, vanishes without explanation, and we get the Keeper instead. I'm not sure if there was some problem with retaining the actress, or if they decided to go in a different direction. Who knows.

Strictly from a dramatic standpoint, aside from What the hell happened to Casey (which I guess can be explained as simply as "she came to her senses and realized she did not actually want to be involved with this"), I really like the choice they went with. Besides just loving the Keeper as a character, I love the conflicted and ambiguous relationship that she has with Darien. It's not just that he doubts if he can trust her -- he absolutely knows he can't (attempts to Stockholm Syndrome him into trusting her notwithstanding ...).

It also removes the last lynchpin of his previous life and support system. He literally has NO ONE in his life right now who isn't working for the government ... and they're all more loyal to the government and the Agency than to him. The Keeper is using counteragent to manipulate and control him. Hobbes is working with him only because he's been ordered to. (Speaking of Hobbes: "Look, I understand that you may have ... feelings about working with me. Most people do." Ouch.)

In fact, there's very little about this episode that isn't dark. Darien can't trust the people around him, and gets proof (of a sort) that they consider him disposable, as well as evidence of how far they're willing to go to achieve their goals. The Catavari dies in what basically amounts to suicide by cop. The Agency is terrifyingly amoral in terms of what they're willing to sanction.

(On a more amusing side note, I am unreasonably amused by Darien's "I can't be bothered to shave today" little beard of depression.)

This episode also has a particularly obnoxious bit of racism in the form of the stereotyped Indian doctor at the asylum. Do not want, show.

I don't think I have too many other thoughts on this one at the moment. Your thoughts?

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People who did not make me angry this episode: Darien.

People who did make me angry: Pretty much everyone else.

I definitely agree with how removing Casey works as a narrative choice, but it makes me incredibly sad for Darien.

Seeing Darien locked up and in the straightjacket was... rough.

The whole episode certainly made me love Darien. Watching him save the baby, the way he empathized with the Catavari, saving the Official's life.

It's really, really sad, and says a lot about what I think the agency is capable of, that I was genuinely surprised they didn't use babies for the catavari experiments.

But, yeah. This was dark and depressing as hell.

Yeah. I got the impression in the discussion last week that this is a lot of people's least favorite episode, and that's probably why. In terms of narrative and plot logic, I think there are a number of episodes that are weaker, but this is one HELL of a depressing episode.

Darien is a total sweetheart, but he's in a terrible, terrible situation.

Yeah, I don't think this is weak in terms of plot or theme. It's no more ludicrous than any sort of story based on this premise would be. I thought it had the right kind of tension. And the theme, the connection between the Catavari and Darien, was powerful and important. It's just that I finished the episode thinking that the villain was totally right, and the protagonist could learn from him, so.*

*I mean, no doubt this says more than I'd like about me and my morality, but anyway.

Yeah, what they did to him was seriously awful, and he's not on an indiscriminate murder spree; it's pretty clearly targeted at the specific individuals who hurt him.

At the same time, I think it's a good point that the Official (of all people) made in this episode that the difference between Darien and the Catevari is that the Catevari tried to kill him, and Darien saved him. Not to say that "murder spree!" is an unjustifiable reaction to what he went through, but it's not the only possibility.

Oh yeah, it's important that Darien has that core of goodness. It's what makes him engaging as a protagonist, and, more than that, what makes him him. It just that the way it plays out in this episode makes me worried, because Darien has that selflessness, and will save people who aren't acting in his best interest, but everyone else is playing and using him. He doesn't have anyone watching his back. Now, I'm not making any grand sweeping judgements about the characters, since you note this is unusually dark. It's just how I feel in the wake of this episode.

Oh, no, I didn't feel like you were -- I think your feelings are entirely justified!

I think for me ... one of the reasons why I really like this show is because it starts on that low point and then builds up. But I also think that it is 100% valid if the low point is too low to ever successfully build up from -- if the moral horizon has already been crossed and there's no coming back from it. That's a valid reaction too! And there are times when I kinda feel like the show tries to have its cake and eat it too ... that it wants to have cute stuff, and it wants to have dark stuff, and there's a really uncomfortable style mismatch. But all of this is too spoilery to talk about in detail only two episodes along.

(On a side note, you certainly don't need to feel like you have to keep watching it on my account, if you get to a point where you gotta bail!)

I feel like I'm probably trying to judge way too widely based on only having seen two episodes. At this point, I'm just going to keep watching, and see what I think.

The comedy might be a problem. I can really like dark, unfair premises, but I can get frustrated if I feel the implications aren't being acknowledged. In that sense, super dark episodes like this might almost be better, if they didn't feel so hopeless.

Orphan Black is pretty much the perfect example of a dark premise working for me. The characters aren't just stuck accepting their unfair fates, and the humor works because its so dark. Um, not that I think lighter humor can't work. I think most of the humor in the previous episode of this show actually worked quite well. But how can I resist an opportunity to talk about how much I love Orphan Black?

Yeah, one problem with discussing the episodes one at a time is that it's really hard to have opinions on a show early on -- at least, for me, it usually takes a few episodes, if not half a season or so, to figure out how I'm going to feel about a show.

There's also the problem that in some of the later episodes, the writing is just cringe-inducingly bad. I did remember that, but at times it's painful to wade through. As much fun as the show is (well, as much fun as I find it, anyway) I'm kind of seeing why it got cancelled after two seasons. I think we'll have to see how much patience I end up having for discussing the episodes one at a time -- it's definitely fun to find new people to talk to the show about it, and I'm certainly enjoying my rewatch, but there are certain episodes that I'm going to have some amount of trouble actually talking about. XD

But how can I resist an opportunity to talk about how much I love Orphan Black?

Oh god, Orphan Black is SUCH a high TV bar. :) It's absolutely one of the best shows I've watched in the last few years. I confess to being nervous about the next season; I'm afraid that some of the changes at the end of season two are going to affect some of the things I like most about the show. It's such a weird show, with such a unique style (the VERY dark humor combined with genuine darkness and some slapstick) that I have a feeling if it ever jumps the shark, it's going to jump it hard. But I sincerely hope it won't!

I should make it clear that I really am enjoying this show, in that as soon as I finish an episode, I'm tempted to forge on ahead. (Though so far I'm sticking with two episodes a week, spaced apart, to keep pace with the posts.) It's really easy for me to lose momentum on a show, so it means something that I'm so eager to keep going.

Yay! Which means that I really should get the next discussion post up; I know I'm quite late. :P The limiting factor on these is not going to be speed of watching for me, but rather my somewhat limited social-interaction capabilities. I will try to have it up this evening, though!

I confess to grading while watching this so I think I missed a lot of the important details. What stuck with me the most was the saving of the baby and how everyone else reacted to it. As you said, very dark.

I am curious how this show manages humor after this. I suspect a lot of this episode is the show trying to find itself and trying to find what the audience will want to see.

Yeah, I agree with you that the early episodes feel as if the show is reaching around and trying to figure out what kind of show it wants to be. It seems like they tried a darker mode at first and then moved in a lighter direction.

Invisible Man watch/rewatch - 1x02 Catevari

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