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Invisible Man watch/rewatch - 1x06 The Devil You Know
...It's becoming fairly obvious that I have absolutely ZERO ability to get these posts up twice a week. I suppose I'll aim for once a week, perhaps with an extra one on weeks when I have more than the usual amount of "can".
Spoiler code for future-episode spoilers:
Invisible Man 1x06 - The Devil You Know
So overall I liked this episode a lot. It was a lot of fun, some neat character stuff, and I'm generally fond of the ends-justify-the-means political scheming on this show. (Uh, not that I suppose that kind of thing in real life, obviously! I just find it interesting, fictionally.)
.... also, the upside-down slide in the briefing at the beginning. XD These are the kinds of little things that I love this show for.
In the beach scene I was ... sort of expecting Darien to go into the van to turn invisible instead of doing it IN FRONT OF EVERYBODY in the middle of the beach. Way to protect your classified asset there, Agency. (Actually, in general this show displays an AMAZING lack of concern for Darien's supposedly classified-at-the-highest-level powers. Yes, it makes a nice visual when he just strolls across a road or park or HEAVILY POPULATED BEACH while turning invisible, but really!)
I love how Darien is actually trying to get the Agency decommissioned in the hearings ... by telling the truth.
Good lord, the feds are skeezy on this show. I mean, yeah, New Director Guy is clearly a socially climbing sleazeball, but it's more or less implied that everyone else is nearly as bad, especially based on what what we've seen in past episodes.
This is the episode that I alluded to back in the comments to 1x01, when we were talking about Arnaud's plans for the gland, and whether he'd essentially intended to make an army of berserkers. I'd remembered the quicksilver-madness thing being more weaponized here, whereas it's actually more that they're hanging it over his head as a threat, but if this situation had continued, I can't think that it wouldn't have been something they'd get around to using eventually.
(DARIEN, YOUR LIFE.)
Anyway, the bad guy in this one is horrifically sleazy and manipulative in a way that's all too plausible. I'm not quiiiiite sure how to feel about the feel-good stuff at the end of this episode, because the Official is still a terrifying Machiavellian bastard (even if he's their Machiavellian bastard) and Darien is still an indentured servant of the government. I kinda feel like this is one of the episodes where the show is trying to have its cake and eat it too (the previous one as well, with Claire staying with the Agency at the end) -- where they want to do the dark stuff, but also the lighter feel-good stuff, and it ends up meeting in the middle in a rather strange tonal blend.
.... that said, I absolutely adore Darien's little giggle and general playfulness in that scene that bit in the hallway right before the final scene. It's so vanishingly rare to see him smile.
Spoiler code for future-episode spoilers:
- rot13 (copy-paste text into the cypher window to code or unencode it)
- LJ spoiler cut: <lj-spoiler>spoiler text</lj-spoiler> -- does not work on DW
- spoiler span text: <span style="color:white;background:white;">spoiler text</span> -- does not work on LJ
Invisible Man 1x06 - The Devil You Know
So overall I liked this episode a lot. It was a lot of fun, some neat character stuff, and I'm generally fond of the ends-justify-the-means political scheming on this show. (Uh, not that I suppose that kind of thing in real life, obviously! I just find it interesting, fictionally.)
.... also, the upside-down slide in the briefing at the beginning. XD These are the kinds of little things that I love this show for.
In the beach scene I was ... sort of expecting Darien to go into the van to turn invisible instead of doing it IN FRONT OF EVERYBODY in the middle of the beach. Way to protect your classified asset there, Agency. (Actually, in general this show displays an AMAZING lack of concern for Darien's supposedly classified-at-the-highest-level powers. Yes, it makes a nice visual when he just strolls across a road or park or HEAVILY POPULATED BEACH while turning invisible, but really!)
I love how Darien is actually trying to get the Agency decommissioned in the hearings ... by telling the truth.
Good lord, the feds are skeezy on this show. I mean, yeah, New Director Guy is clearly a socially climbing sleazeball, but it's more or less implied that everyone else is nearly as bad, especially based on what what we've seen in past episodes.
This is the episode that I alluded to back in the comments to 1x01, when we were talking about Arnaud's plans for the gland, and whether he'd essentially intended to make an army of berserkers. I'd remembered the quicksilver-madness thing being more weaponized here, whereas it's actually more that they're hanging it over his head as a threat, but if this situation had continued, I can't think that it wouldn't have been something they'd get around to using eventually.
(DARIEN, YOUR LIFE.)
Anyway, the bad guy in this one is horrifically sleazy and manipulative in a way that's all too plausible. I'm not quiiiiite sure how to feel about the feel-good stuff at the end of this episode, because the Official is still a terrifying Machiavellian bastard (even if he's their Machiavellian bastard) and Darien is still an indentured servant of the government. I kinda feel like this is one of the episodes where the show is trying to have its cake and eat it too (the previous one as well, with Claire staying with the Agency at the end) -- where they want to do the dark stuff, but also the lighter feel-good stuff, and it ends up meeting in the middle in a rather strange tonal blend.
.... that said, I absolutely adore Darien's little giggle and general playfulness in that scene that bit in the hallway right before the final scene. It's so vanishingly rare to see him smile.
no subject
That said, it was genuinely decent of the Official to take the heat, though I suppose I can also think of colder, more ruthless reasons. I still do feel that Darien and the Official have the most honest relationship in the show, even if it isn't nice.
The Claire and Darien stuff actually was nice, very much so. "To hell with the gland, how are you?" I'm glad someone said it.
Hobbes still doesn't seem to get why Darien feels differently about his job than he does. I mean, it was a little touching how earnestly Hobbes said "You're an agent", but Darien laid it out cold for him ("You chose this job, I didn't") and he still didn't get it.
Evil new director guy was highly and effectively creepy.
I really loved the courtroom scene. I did feel a little sorry for the bad guy, even with how atrociously awful he was, but all the regulars were having so much fun.
no subject
Yeah, I can't argue with this. I don't think it'd be a problem if it was JUST the bad guy being a smarmy, manipulative bastard, but it was very specifically set up to make the Official seem all right, and I think at the end we were supposed to be thinking the Official was all right, and .... no. He's not as bad as he could be, but that doesn't make any of the stuff he does okay! And I'm not at all sure that the show recognizes that.
Regarding Hobbes -- considering that I came into the show having watched the whole thing once, and already having preconceived ideas about the characters ... I've spent a surprising amount of time on the rewatch trying to figure out what makes him tick.
I mean, the obvious thing is just that he's a dick and/or has no empathy, and there is a little of that, but it's not most of it. At least I don't think it is.
I think there are two main factors at work. One is a sort of ... extreme pragmatism, I guess -- a "this is life, it sucks, move on and deal with it" attitude. Which is good in small doses, but he takes it to the extreme that he doesn't seem to be able to see why Darien's not willing to do it. I think it's complicated by the fact that he sees Darien's life pre-Agency as a total waste, and now Darien has a shot at doing something better (from Bobby's perspective) and Bobby can't really see why Darien wouldn't do it.
The other factor is self-delusion. I can't remember if I've talked about this in past comments, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of Hobbes's outspoken patriotic sentiments are, basically, something he's convinced himself because otherwise his life has been completely wasted. He's got himself thoroughly indoctrinated to believe that he's useful, he's doing useful work, and everything the Agency tells him to do is, by definition, useful work, because admitting otherwise would be owning up to a lot of mistakes he can't bring himself to face.
And the ultimate result of both of these things is a sort of fundamental failure to recognize why it makes such a big difference to Darien that he didn't get a choice, and is still a de facto prisoner.
People complain about this stuff with Peter and Neal on White Collar, but I don't actually see it with Peter (most of the time), whereas I do see it with Hobbes. He's not abusive to Darien, he doesn't endanger him, he just sort of fundamentally doesn't seem to recognize that Darien is basically a prisoner.
no subject
So, my current take is that he is lacking in empathy, not because he's a jerk, but because his self-delusions require he shut off his understanding of other people's feelings, because he doesn't want to admit that those other feelings are valid. If that makes sense. (And okay, he might be a bit of a jerk.)
And, yeah, the situation with Neal and Peter is so wildly different. Starting with the fact that the whole anklet was Neal's idea. And if Neal wants to quit, he can. His options are prison or being a fugitive, so they're not awesome options, but he's not going to go violently insane.
And while Peter does consider the work he does important, and, yeah, he considers it a major improvement over Neal's old life, the work itself isn't the end all be all. Neal would have been solving crime with Kramer in DC, but that wasn't acceptable to Peter. And he's perfectly capable of getting outraged on Neal's behalf if he feels the FBI isn't treating Neal fairly.
no subject
One of the things that I really like about this show is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. I don't know if that's written into the show by the writers or if a bit of ad-libbing happened w/ the actors. They talk about how their Agency is seriously hampered by budget restraints - since most of their budget goes into the gland and research around that. It's why they drive the crappiest van in the history of transport. It's why they get settled under other departments of the government - b/c there isn't funding to make them their own true piece of it. It's not quite breaking the fourth wall, but it comes really damned close sometimes.
As for The Official - I like him. Sure, he's kind of a dick, but he's also kind of a dick who doesn't want other people fucking with his toys. I can't say that he'd necessarily go out of his way to save Darien if he was on fire, but he probably wouldn't strike the match himself in most instances.