What I have been watching
Apr. 25th, 2017 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scripsiThis week i decided to make peace Versailles, and consequently enjoyed it immensely. And really, most of the things which has irked me, are really only something that (may) annoy you if you know the history, and the real characters of the people. Because let me tell you, the only characters who isn’t wildly out of character at this point are Liselotte and Madame de Montespan. But I buy it, because I love the actors are great, and their acting sell it all to me, even if I know it’s wrong.
I also realise I have expected too much of the show vis a vis the Affair of Poisons. You see, it was HUGE. As in going on for almost a decade and involving hundreds of people. It started out when a woman called Brinvilliers poisoned several members of her family, shocking France because she was both beautiful and upper class. The belief that your outer circumstances like looks and social class, said something about your character, was something widely held back then. And eventually, more and more people were implicated, and as time went, more and more people at court were dragged into it. Louis XIV, who initially was very much for finding all the guilty ones, got a bit of cold feet then. And when the accusations reached Madame de Montespan, he put the lid on it. Parts of the evidence was destroyed, though what was left were enough to executed. And a whole bunch of people who were innocent, but friends and family to the executed, were sent to prison for life, and forbidden to ever speak again. Madame de Montespan was never convicted of anything, but she was sent to a convent. It seems fairly certain there were some burning hot things the king really didn’t want the public to know about. And all this is beyond the scope of Versailles, and I should have realised that- it was just that I would have loved to see the whole, intricate affair being made into TV. But it was so complicated it would need a different kind of show altogether. Versalles focus on Louis XIV, and but necessity the whole thing must be made smaller and more intimate.
Episode 7 was very much George Blagden’s episode, where he both had a secret meeting with Guillaume d’Orange and have an existential crisis. We get to meet Henriette in a dream! I also very much enjoyed Philippe and Liselotte trying to get their marriage to work. I like Liselotte a lot. Like when she points out to Philippe and yes, she understand he can’t just decide to love her, but her situation isn’t that much fun either. And I loved her scene with Chevalier when she tries to mend things, and also to make him feel better. And he was pretty heartbreaking as a man who is terrified his lover will stop loving him, and fall in love with his wife instead.
And Pip Torrens was great too. Cassel realise he is too sick to serve as a minister, and as such he is no use to Spy Boy, whose names is Thomas, anymore. So he goes to Louis to resign, and also confess his involvement with plotting against his king. He says he will go to his rooms and remain there until the king has decided what to do with him. He actually looks both noble and dignified. Before he leaves he warns the King that Thomas is a spy. And then, alne, his smiles this really ugly smile and you realise he hasn’t been noble at all. He is a sadistic bastard who knows he is going down, and he is determined to take as many people he can with him. If he finds out what Sophie is doing to him, he will rat on her too, I’m sure.
Which brings me to Sophie, who remains one of my favourites. She has a good character arc, I think. I don’t particularly care of Cassel abusing her, but it does fit into the narrative. Sophie is a person who is betrayed by everybody around her. Beatrice may have loved her, but she raised her daughter to become the king’s mistress, and she did it to further her own plotting against the king. Using your teenage daughter as a pawn is pretty abusive. Chevalier, who still seems to think they are related, doesn’t actually care about her. Fabien, who actually seems to have grown fond of her, is banished from court, and the king, who should be her ultimate protector, marries her f to Cassel. I’m sure that if he had married her of to a boring old geezer, Sophie would have accepted it with grace, but Cassel is a monster, and there is literally no one around to help her. I don’t count the people who provides her with poison. She is left to fend for herself, and so she does, and she is smart about it too. She chooses a position which will mimic an illness, instead of something that will kill Cassel quickly. She is accepting continued abuse in order to minimize the risk of getting caught. That’s clever. She also have guts- when slimy Gasto tries to blackmail her into having sex with him, she points out that she has things to say about him too, and that she is the one people will be most likely to believe. And she is right. But there was also a nice little scene where it is made clear that even if she sees no other way out than killing Cassel, it is still weighing on her conscience, and she will have to live with knowing she’s a murdered for the rest of her life.
What I don’t much care for is her love affair with Thomas. Mostly because it wasn’t given any build-up to speak of. Considering he is a far more important character than her builder, it seems strange she got more build-up with builder-boy. I wonder what will happen to her. I think cassel will die, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he is killed by someone else. But I am absolutely certain Fabien will find out what she is doing, and then there are two outcomes. He may think it proves she is just like Beatrice, and then things will not go well for Sophie. Or he will see how desperate her situation was, and sympathise. In that case I think he may very well kill Cassel. I’m a bit miffed that Fabien and Sophie hasn’t had a scene together since her tried to console her, so I’ve no idea what their relationship looks like now.
And Fabien is back at court- of course. I’m still mad Claudine was killed off, and in large part that is because her death was nothing more than a plot point to further someone else’s character arc. Sophie's suffering has everything to do with her own character arc, but Claudine’s is there so Fabien can grieve and motivate him to find out who the murdered. I Women suffering to enable Main Pain is truly something I hate! And lazy writing! For example; Claudine could have realised what the secret poison was, and be attacked for it, but getting away. That would be enough for Fabien to be motivated to find out who her attacker was, and Claudine could be sent off somewhere for her own safety, while fabien remained at Versailles to do some sleuthing. But no, we have to have the darlingest character in the show die horribly so Fabien can SUFFER. Like he needs to suffer more- he has already had a pretty rough ride emotion-wise
Costume-wise I noted with approval that when Louis goes to war, replacing his brother, he is wearing red, Philippe's colour.
I very much enjoyed the two last episodes of Blacklist. I loved finding out what Kate’s backstory is, and why she cares so much for Liz. I’m also relieved Dember was innocent of poisoning Red. I always thought it was so OOC for him. I didn’t realise it must be Kate, though- I should have seen that coming. But the show kept her invisible for so long I had time to forget about her. Clever show!
I also watched the remake of Rocky Horror picture Show. I’ve seen the original several times, and love it, but that was a long time ago. I liked the re-make well-enough, but I kept feeling a dissonance I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It annoyed me so much I had to watched the original again too. I think what bothered me is that the remake is pretty much a carbon-copy of the original. They felt too samey, and that only served to make the re-make feel inferior. I think it would have been better if the had started from the musical instead, and perhaps had picked up things which never made it to the original movie. Like giving Rocky some dialogue, for example. And though I think Laverne Cox did a very decent job as Frank-N-Further, it must be a bit nightmarish to try to compete with Tim Curry. She wasn’t bad by any means, but she laced the glee and the darkness Tim Curry manages to give the character. What I liked best with the re-make was the intro which was completely different than the original. It was also heartbreaking to see Tim Curry as the Criminologist. I’m sure he would have competed with the brilliant Charles Grey if he hadn’t had his stroke, but now he is clearly only a shadow of his former self, and it was hard to watch.
As the kid is with his father, we can’t watch Doctor Who<7i> until next Wednesday. We also can’t start with American Gods, which starts on Sunday, until then. I’m very excited over that show!
I also realise I have expected too much of the show vis a vis the Affair of Poisons. You see, it was HUGE. As in going on for almost a decade and involving hundreds of people. It started out when a woman called Brinvilliers poisoned several members of her family, shocking France because she was both beautiful and upper class. The belief that your outer circumstances like looks and social class, said something about your character, was something widely held back then. And eventually, more and more people were implicated, and as time went, more and more people at court were dragged into it. Louis XIV, who initially was very much for finding all the guilty ones, got a bit of cold feet then. And when the accusations reached Madame de Montespan, he put the lid on it. Parts of the evidence was destroyed, though what was left were enough to executed. And a whole bunch of people who were innocent, but friends and family to the executed, were sent to prison for life, and forbidden to ever speak again. Madame de Montespan was never convicted of anything, but she was sent to a convent. It seems fairly certain there were some burning hot things the king really didn’t want the public to know about. And all this is beyond the scope of Versailles, and I should have realised that- it was just that I would have loved to see the whole, intricate affair being made into TV. But it was so complicated it would need a different kind of show altogether. Versalles focus on Louis XIV, and but necessity the whole thing must be made smaller and more intimate.
Episode 7 was very much George Blagden’s episode, where he both had a secret meeting with Guillaume d’Orange and have an existential crisis. We get to meet Henriette in a dream! I also very much enjoyed Philippe and Liselotte trying to get their marriage to work. I like Liselotte a lot. Like when she points out to Philippe and yes, she understand he can’t just decide to love her, but her situation isn’t that much fun either. And I loved her scene with Chevalier when she tries to mend things, and also to make him feel better. And he was pretty heartbreaking as a man who is terrified his lover will stop loving him, and fall in love with his wife instead.
And Pip Torrens was great too. Cassel realise he is too sick to serve as a minister, and as such he is no use to Spy Boy, whose names is Thomas, anymore. So he goes to Louis to resign, and also confess his involvement with plotting against his king. He says he will go to his rooms and remain there until the king has decided what to do with him. He actually looks both noble and dignified. Before he leaves he warns the King that Thomas is a spy. And then, alne, his smiles this really ugly smile and you realise he hasn’t been noble at all. He is a sadistic bastard who knows he is going down, and he is determined to take as many people he can with him. If he finds out what Sophie is doing to him, he will rat on her too, I’m sure.
Which brings me to Sophie, who remains one of my favourites. She has a good character arc, I think. I don’t particularly care of Cassel abusing her, but it does fit into the narrative. Sophie is a person who is betrayed by everybody around her. Beatrice may have loved her, but she raised her daughter to become the king’s mistress, and she did it to further her own plotting against the king. Using your teenage daughter as a pawn is pretty abusive. Chevalier, who still seems to think they are related, doesn’t actually care about her. Fabien, who actually seems to have grown fond of her, is banished from court, and the king, who should be her ultimate protector, marries her f to Cassel. I’m sure that if he had married her of to a boring old geezer, Sophie would have accepted it with grace, but Cassel is a monster, and there is literally no one around to help her. I don’t count the people who provides her with poison. She is left to fend for herself, and so she does, and she is smart about it too. She chooses a position which will mimic an illness, instead of something that will kill Cassel quickly. She is accepting continued abuse in order to minimize the risk of getting caught. That’s clever. She also have guts- when slimy Gasto tries to blackmail her into having sex with him, she points out that she has things to say about him too, and that she is the one people will be most likely to believe. And she is right. But there was also a nice little scene where it is made clear that even if she sees no other way out than killing Cassel, it is still weighing on her conscience, and she will have to live with knowing she’s a murdered for the rest of her life.
What I don’t much care for is her love affair with Thomas. Mostly because it wasn’t given any build-up to speak of. Considering he is a far more important character than her builder, it seems strange she got more build-up with builder-boy. I wonder what will happen to her. I think cassel will die, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he is killed by someone else. But I am absolutely certain Fabien will find out what she is doing, and then there are two outcomes. He may think it proves she is just like Beatrice, and then things will not go well for Sophie. Or he will see how desperate her situation was, and sympathise. In that case I think he may very well kill Cassel. I’m a bit miffed that Fabien and Sophie hasn’t had a scene together since her tried to console her, so I’ve no idea what their relationship looks like now.
And Fabien is back at court- of course. I’m still mad Claudine was killed off, and in large part that is because her death was nothing more than a plot point to further someone else’s character arc. Sophie's suffering has everything to do with her own character arc, but Claudine’s is there so Fabien can grieve and motivate him to find out who the murdered. I Women suffering to enable Main Pain is truly something I hate! And lazy writing! For example; Claudine could have realised what the secret poison was, and be attacked for it, but getting away. That would be enough for Fabien to be motivated to find out who her attacker was, and Claudine could be sent off somewhere for her own safety, while fabien remained at Versailles to do some sleuthing. But no, we have to have the darlingest character in the show die horribly so Fabien can SUFFER. Like he needs to suffer more- he has already had a pretty rough ride emotion-wise
Costume-wise I noted with approval that when Louis goes to war, replacing his brother, he is wearing red, Philippe's colour.
I very much enjoyed the two last episodes of Blacklist. I loved finding out what Kate’s backstory is, and why she cares so much for Liz. I’m also relieved Dember was innocent of poisoning Red. I always thought it was so OOC for him. I didn’t realise it must be Kate, though- I should have seen that coming. But the show kept her invisible for so long I had time to forget about her. Clever show!
I also watched the remake of Rocky Horror picture Show. I’ve seen the original several times, and love it, but that was a long time ago. I liked the re-make well-enough, but I kept feeling a dissonance I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It annoyed me so much I had to watched the original again too. I think what bothered me is that the remake is pretty much a carbon-copy of the original. They felt too samey, and that only served to make the re-make feel inferior. I think it would have been better if the had started from the musical instead, and perhaps had picked up things which never made it to the original movie. Like giving Rocky some dialogue, for example. And though I think Laverne Cox did a very decent job as Frank-N-Further, it must be a bit nightmarish to try to compete with Tim Curry. She wasn’t bad by any means, but she laced the glee and the darkness Tim Curry manages to give the character. What I liked best with the re-make was the intro which was completely different than the original. It was also heartbreaking to see Tim Curry as the Criminologist. I’m sure he would have competed with the brilliant Charles Grey if he hadn’t had his stroke, but now he is clearly only a shadow of his former self, and it was hard to watch.
As the kid is with his father, we can’t watch Doctor Who<7i> until next Wednesday. We also can’t start with American Gods, which starts on Sunday, until then. I’m very excited over that show!
no subject
Date: 2017-04-26 07:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-04-26 03:20 pm (UTC)I feel sorry for the Queen too. She probably didn't have a very fun Life in reality either.