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annavereBrilliant episode at every possible level, but I'm hitting a level of burnout in my writing up every episode project, so this will be undeservedly truncated to just the highest highlights of amazing awesomeness.
A whole episode devoted to some spectacular rearranging of deck chairs. It should be frustrating, but it's riveting. As always, from the very beginning of the show, I really can't choose a side to be on, as every motivation is so fully formed.
A lot of mirror images, the same events reoccurring but with people taking new roles, in this case the coup, which has traveled from Foster through Katarina to Ramse. Only Ramse can't bring himself to a wholesale slaughter like his predecessors.
And in the process, oh joy, Whitley finally does something! He sides with Ramse! It devastates Katarina, understandably. It 's a punch in the gut to her and I feel it when it happens, but it's also marvelous payoff for that whole season one dynamic of antagonistic respect between him and Ramse. Pity it's not a fully developed plotline. I still want a friendship story for these two.
Cole and Ramse facing off in the hallway, at gunpoint and yet instantly ready to talk. All the love and pain in the world, and that "I thought I was your family" line, and Ramse walking away in full confidence that this too shall pass. He's got nothing to fear. Cole took him back after Tokyo.
Cole going to Deacon for help, and just like with Jennifer he appeals to Deacon's better nature and believes in him and gets positive results, and when Deacon compares Cole to his dead brother, it carries ridiculous emotional weight considering that brother has been mentioned exactly once. Guess it's all in the way he says it. Before that, Deacon's inebriated pity party patter is hilarious. "Why don't we have a drink and talk about killing Ramse, just like the old days?" Again with the repeated imagery, but the players are in vastly different positions.
Very sad and logical result of the power play and short fuses between Ramse and Deacon (Cassie being ever so much smarter than I am, she prefers Cole to either of them for watertight reasons here emphasized and which I do not remotely fault her for) as the fallout from the waterboarding scene leads to elderly Jennifer getting mortally wounded. Deacon gets his face slashed open and that's the last sighting of him here. I look forward to his return.
Complete and utter brilliant plotting, with Jennifer's resurrection. As soon as it happens, it makes such perfect sense and is carried off with such aplomb. One by one they all become time travelers and the moment is always intensely earned and dramatic in different ways. Ramse went because he had nothing left to live for otherwise (it's always Sam), Cassie was sent forward in a last ditch attempt to save her life and now Jennifer is sent for as a promised leader.
Jennifer's most adorable moment ever immediately follows: Her reaction to time travel. Everyone else comes out of that machine uncomfortable and she's bouncing around and predicting it's going to be the carnival ride of choice next year like she's five years old (and actually, she was probably never that happy when she was actually five, so she a thousand times over deserves it). Love.
Actually, make that love everything about Jennifer in this episode.
Cassie of course chooses Cole and hope over Ramse and revenge, and Ramse so completely gets it she doesn't have to say anything, a look suffices to let her go. Dammit, these two. <3
And then Cassie doesn't need to explain her change of heart to Katarina, either, and then the look on Cole's face when she arrives, when he's been trying to reach her for so long and she's finally there for him. Oh, lovely, and I haven't even been shipping them.
Cinematic imagery goes into overdrive as the storm descends. Katarina goes out perfectly in keeping, hugging Cole and thanking him for believing in her to the last (it's the most beautiful way to sum the relationship up) and then once she's driven Hannah away she returns to her machine, not to cringe or hide, but to stand defiant and unbent as the storm consumes her. EPIC.
A whole episode devoted to some spectacular rearranging of deck chairs. It should be frustrating, but it's riveting. As always, from the very beginning of the show, I really can't choose a side to be on, as every motivation is so fully formed.
A lot of mirror images, the same events reoccurring but with people taking new roles, in this case the coup, which has traveled from Foster through Katarina to Ramse. Only Ramse can't bring himself to a wholesale slaughter like his predecessors.
And in the process, oh joy, Whitley finally does something! He sides with Ramse! It devastates Katarina, understandably. It 's a punch in the gut to her and I feel it when it happens, but it's also marvelous payoff for that whole season one dynamic of antagonistic respect between him and Ramse. Pity it's not a fully developed plotline. I still want a friendship story for these two.
Cole and Ramse facing off in the hallway, at gunpoint and yet instantly ready to talk. All the love and pain in the world, and that "I thought I was your family" line, and Ramse walking away in full confidence that this too shall pass. He's got nothing to fear. Cole took him back after Tokyo.
Cole going to Deacon for help, and just like with Jennifer he appeals to Deacon's better nature and believes in him and gets positive results, and when Deacon compares Cole to his dead brother, it carries ridiculous emotional weight considering that brother has been mentioned exactly once. Guess it's all in the way he says it. Before that, Deacon's inebriated pity party patter is hilarious. "Why don't we have a drink and talk about killing Ramse, just like the old days?" Again with the repeated imagery, but the players are in vastly different positions.
Very sad and logical result of the power play and short fuses between Ramse and Deacon (Cassie being ever so much smarter than I am, she prefers Cole to either of them for watertight reasons here emphasized and which I do not remotely fault her for) as the fallout from the waterboarding scene leads to elderly Jennifer getting mortally wounded. Deacon gets his face slashed open and that's the last sighting of him here. I look forward to his return.
Complete and utter brilliant plotting, with Jennifer's resurrection. As soon as it happens, it makes such perfect sense and is carried off with such aplomb. One by one they all become time travelers and the moment is always intensely earned and dramatic in different ways. Ramse went because he had nothing left to live for otherwise (it's always Sam), Cassie was sent forward in a last ditch attempt to save her life and now Jennifer is sent for as a promised leader.
Jennifer's most adorable moment ever immediately follows: Her reaction to time travel. Everyone else comes out of that machine uncomfortable and she's bouncing around and predicting it's going to be the carnival ride of choice next year like she's five years old (and actually, she was probably never that happy when she was actually five, so she a thousand times over deserves it). Love.
Actually, make that love everything about Jennifer in this episode.
Cassie of course chooses Cole and hope over Ramse and revenge, and Ramse so completely gets it she doesn't have to say anything, a look suffices to let her go. Dammit, these two. <3
And then Cassie doesn't need to explain her change of heart to Katarina, either, and then the look on Cole's face when she arrives, when he's been trying to reach her for so long and she's finally there for him. Oh, lovely, and I haven't even been shipping them.
Cinematic imagery goes into overdrive as the storm descends. Katarina goes out perfectly in keeping, hugging Cole and thanking him for believing in her to the last (it's the most beautiful way to sum the relationship up) and then once she's driven Hannah away she returns to her machine, not to cringe or hide, but to stand defiant and unbent as the storm consumes her. EPIC.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-06 11:08 pm (UTC)Deacon: "You want to swordfight?" XD
no subject
Date: 2023-01-07 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-09 05:37 pm (UTC)All the stories I've read by you are well-written and so emotionally resonant (I go through your archive at a snail's pace because I consider you a friend and it won't do to not leave proper feedback on your work) and I'm sorry to hear that writing has been so difficult for you in recent years. I can only wish it gets better.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-10 12:18 am (UTC)