The Nevers reveals a traitor, a secret connection, and more turns in another jam-packed episode
TV Reviews The Nevers
Who can the Touched trust? The Nevers led with that question in its premiere episode helmed by Joss Whedon, and it’s clearly going to be a recurring query moving forward because second episode “Exposure” (also directed by Whedon) is built around that same idea. Perhaps this was the point of that deluge of villains in the pilot: Wherever the Touched turn (not meant to be a pun, my bad!), there is someone nefarious waiting for them. Lord Massen, and his cohort of government cronies. Maladie, and her hangers-on and sycophants. Hugo Swann, and his promise of female entrepreneurship. The Beggar King, and his desire to hold onto the underworld. And that mysterious doctor from the premiere, who is revealed now to serve a specific master: the very benefactress who is supporting the orphanage and employing Mrs. True and Penance. What the hell are Lavinia Bidlow and Dr. Hague up to?
The Nevers has already provided pieces to this answer. Dr. Hague is conducting experiments on people—trepanning, maybe?—to try and see what is different about the brains of the Touched, and what could be causing their turns. (The “spark,” he calls it.) The result seems to be the creation of worker slaves on one hand, and those kidnapping ghoul-like boogeymen on the other. The former are set to digging up what I think is the crashed vessel from the pilot, while the latter are responsible for kidnapping additional Touched people from around London for Dr. Hague to cut open. And all of this is funded, I suppose, by Lavinia, who in this episode insists that the Touched engage in societal civility—while in that final conversation with Dr. Hague, she says, “This is not fun. This is war.” But is she declaring war on the Touched, or does she think she’s working with them?
I think Jane Espenson’s writing here is purposefully opaque, but I’m going to go ahead and guess that putting up fake fliers for the orphanage and using Mrs. True’s face to lure desperate people just learning of their turns to Dr. Hague, like lambs for the slaughter, is not particularly benevolent on the part of Lavinia. (Poor Ms. Cassini. That chase scene, with her array of floating impediments, felt a little too Fantastic Beasts, but Domenique Fragale’s terror at the reveal of her secret was quite believable.) I would think it’s only a matter of time until Mrs. True, or anyone else from the orphanage, sees one of those posters, but whether they can connect them to Lavinia is up in the air.
“Exposure” begins in the aftermath of Maladie’s opera attack. The city is on edge, and Inspector Mundi sets his sights on the orphanage. His (failed) questioning of Mrs. True had a nice rhythm to it—shout out to Penance’s offended “How are you not wonderful?”—and helped establish that despite being in Hugo Swann’s pocket for whatever reason, Mundi isn’t a complete idiot. “Do you often engage in public violence?” is a sarcastic question, but at its core, a valid one. Mrs. True is a bit of a live wire, and the super-strength, super-speed, and ripplings provided by her turn do seem to make her more powerful than nearly every other member of the Touched.
Except, of course, for Maladie. Yes, she’s very much a villain in Whedon’s deranged Drusilla or lusty-for-pain Vampire Willow mold, and I admit that all her muttering and murmuring about God and crowns of thorns and pain as pleasure made me wish I was just watching True Detective season one for the millionth time. But Maladie seems to be operating totally outside of whatever Lord Massen is trying to do with government control of the Touched, and whatever Lavinia/Dr. Hague are trying to do with finding the source of the Touched’s power. She, as Mrs. True observes, is driven by this zealous desire to please her God—and perhaps to hurt Mrs. True? The conversation between the two of them was difficult to track, but I think they knew each other as children, and Mrs. True (“Molly”) abandoned Maladie (“Sarah”) to the authoritarians that ran their orphanage? Remember that Mrs. True keeps saying that she’s not “from here”—so are she and Maladie from the same place? And when Mrs. True seemingly again abandons Maladie to save the captured Mary and Penance, is she putting the Touched who are aligned with her in more danger? It doesn’t seem like Maladie would take that kind of rejection lightly. (She probably doesn’t like Bonfire Annie turning on her, either.)
Questions, questions! Although the introduction of the truth-forcing Désireé means we get some honesty from various characters this episode (Mundi and Mary were engaged, but she left him at the altar; Mary doesn’t know the meaning of the song she sings that only the Touched can hear; Mrs. True is overwhelmed by the responsibility of running the orphanage), we also, of course, get more uncertainty moving forward. Who gave Mrs. True the “mission” that simultaneously compels and frightens her? Is she referring to the “mission” in a figurative way, comparing her turn with a kind of responsibility to the rest of the Touched, or is she speaking literally? Could Augie, who reveals his bird-inhabiting turn to Penance, come to realize his sister’s nefarious intent? Or will he take her (bigoted) decree to stay away from Penance seriously?
Finally: What is Mary’s song saying? “Hope” is a big concept, and a vague one. Hope for societal acceptance, respect, solidarity, unity, what? The Touched don’t operate as one entity, but Mary’s song seems to bring them together. That might scare people: Recall that Dr. Hague says to Ms. Cassini before lobotomizing her, “Maybe your darkness is part of her plan. I mean, his, but she’s in on it.” Lavinia seems to be the “her” here, but who is the “his”? And did Mary’s song put a target on her back from yet another villain in The Nevers universe?
Stray observations
- Laura Donnelly’s smirk while discussing “bendy Wendy” should be a gif immediately.
- Do we get an explanation for what “The Nevers” means in this episode? No, we do not.
- We already knew that Lord Massen was a hard man, but essentially blaming the Swann family’s tragedies on Hugo? Even if Lord Massen didn’t know about Hugo’s queerness (which I’m not sure he does), that’s still an impressively cruel proclamation.
- However: Does Hugo Swann seem like a conman jerkoff? Also yes. Two things can be true at once.
- Interesting that Lord Massen and Mrs. True both have that immediate dislike of Hugo; remember that she sarcastically describes him to Inspector Mundi as “the man with his cock out” during the opera performance. And also interesting that Lord Massen seems to have some kind of begrudging respect for Mrs. True, even as he targets her and the rest of the Touched.
- Augie hastily investing in Hugo’s sex club doesn’t seem like the best idea, I’ll be honest. Might not impress Penance much!
- Do we hear “It’s only a prototype” again this episode? We do! But admittedly, those Matrix-styled sunglasses that block explosive light were pretty good, and I’m sure we’ll see that goopy fire extinguisher come up again.
- Désireé is my new favorite character, and “I’m a whore, a bit renowned” was delivered perfectly by Ella Smith.
- Have we really determined all of Mrs. True’s powers yet? She boasted to the Beggar King about this not being her face; Maladie keeps calling her the woman who can “shed her skin”—which Mrs. True doesn’t exactly deny.
- “How many nephews did they have to hire?” I love that nepotism even exists in this supernatural steampunk version of our reality!
87 Comments
“Original” superhero fiction annoys me when it creates characters with powers identical to comics characters with much longer histories. That said, the invention of the prostitute who involuntarily makes men talk about personal details was clever.(I’m sure someone will appear to tell me what comic was ripped off.)
Good luck finding any “new” powers that haven’t been influenced by new technology.
Heck, by the ‘70s (if not sooner), a third of Marvel and DC’s characters were rip-offs of each other.
Comic book powers and power sets are mostly ripped off from mythology. They get reused because they’re useful to the characters, plot, and theme of the show. Making the main characters Crustacean Lady and Guy Who Turns Trees to Silk would make this a much different show.
See that’s how I see horror movies like ‘Scanners’ and ‘Firestarter.’ Both movies have characters with superhero powers but just turned on its head and used in evil horrific ways.
Right, that’s an inversion and it’s good. This show is more like a background palette-swap.
I get annoyed at criticisms like that. The reason we’ve seen these superpowers before is because they are the ones that are the best at providing compelling stories, and some powers will be more useful than others. We see people who have power over elements: air, water, earth, ice, fire, electricity, magnetism, weather, etc. They grow big, or they shrink. They can read minds or manipulate objects or peoples thoughts with their own. They can make themselves invisible or pass through solid matter. They can communicate with/control animals. They can heal. They can fly. Etc., etc., etc. It’s the big list of things that humans can’t do that we think would be useful.Sure, we could have a group of superheroes with a bunch of super oddball powers that are comparatively original, but I doubt those would make for the same kind of story. I’m sure it would be fun to see a story about the people with super niche powers, but would those powers necessarily be very useful? Like imagine a person who basically becomes Bluetooth enabled. Sure, it’s a skill people don’t have, and an original one at that. But it wouldn’t be super useful in a day to day basis, except so that you can stream audio from your phone directly to your head without needing headphones. At best, you might get a misfit comedy. (Some versions of this superhero narrative exist, by the way. One is Mystery Men, and the whole point was that their powers were fairly useless most of the time. Another is Misfits, where the powers do tend to run more standard, but with a mix-in of some niche stuff for comical effect.)
Come for the powers, stay for the story. It’s no good without good writing…ahem.
I think that it is far fairer to criticize the show for not really doing anything very interesting and/or original with those standard powers. But I’m seeing people here bitching about how the show isn’t coming up with original superpowers, and I would argue that’s definitely one of the lesser reasons to criticize this show.
It is practically impossible to come up with powers different from existing superheroes.
Yeah? I can think of a couple that are sufficiently different from anyone above C-list, and I’m not even a professional writer.
Please identify.
I’ve always had cold hands, so when I was a kid I imagined an X-Man named “Sink”. His thing would be that he could absorb heat and energy by physical contact, like a heat sink.
Killer Frost in the comics. She absorbs heat. To imprison her, you would put her in a near absolute zero environment. That was off the top of my head with no research or contemplation.I mean technically, any hero with cold powers effectively has heat absorption powers, but unlike your example, they may not be able to effectively use that power to warm themselves.
Not bad! Yeah I was imagining someone who absorbs without being able to re-direct, because there’s no shortage of characters who do the latter.
The AV club reveals a Spoiler in yet another headline.
In other news, Shit that smells, and days that end in Y.
This is a great show, with a cast and crew doing first rate work, and I hope it doesn’t get screwed because its creator is a garbage human being. It deserves an audience and the chance to grow.
I’m really enjoying this show, but it’s strange how off-balance the mystery elements feel. Buffy was always great at pacing and parceling out its season-long arcs so I’d be interested in knowing the inside baseball on what’s going on here, especially with Jane Espenson on board. She was always great at crafting a slow burn followed by a devastating revelation.James Norton is running into some of the same issues that Reeve Carney had when playing Dorian Gray on Penny Dreadful. It should be a slam-dunk to cast a gorgeous guy as a sinister libertine, but I guess it’s a trickier archetype than one would expect. The charisma just isn’t there.
This seems like the guilty secret of a surprisingly large amount of conventionally gorgeous people (though certainly not all of them, of course); personality-wise, they’re just not really that interesting or charismatic, usually because they’ve never had to or bothered to develop the skills required to get people to notice or care about them beyond just being pretty to look at.
Which is why it’s so bizarre in a Whedon show. He has a million issues but he usually nails casting. James Norton is no Boreanaz, Marsters, or Fillion, that’s for sure.
The cast is very strong. Norton would probably seem perfectly passable if you did not just watch Laura Donnelly and Ann Skelly light the screen on fire.
But Norton *can* genuinely be charismatic, albeit maybe only when playing more earnest roles (ie Grantchester or even in War and Peace). Because, I agree that it doesn’t really work here (nor does his whole sexual libertine thing—I complained last week about the cliche of showing him waking up with both a naked woman and man being lazy signaling that will amount to nothing, and for an HBO show the Pheromone Club or whatever it’s called was really pretty unexciting).
I sense that he’s focusing more on the zip of the dialogue than on generating any rakishness. A character like that has to “prove” that he really can attract all of those sexual partners (looks might cut it in real life, but not in a narrative). I think this is bothering me do much because the nerdy guy is a blank slate as well.
Good points, that I agree with. Neither character feels particularly deep as of yet, despite (especially with Auggie) signposts to paint them that way (let’s be honest though, *immediately* deciding to go to an orgy because your sister chastised you, doesn’t do much for complex characterization).
Yes Norton is great, but I think Whedon tossing some makeup on him and calling him a libertine seems a bit lazy lol.
Exactly. Oh how my eyes rolled when I saw that half asses makeup 😛
You are right, Norton is nothing like the actors you mention, he is way, way better! His character is a bit more understated though; that’s the difference.
Boreanez was barely Boreanez when he was cast – his performance in Season 1 of Buffy was dire.
It’s like being a 7 foot basketball player. Sometimes they develop incredible skills, but usually they don’t because there’s no urgency.
“especially with Jane Espenson on board. She was always great at crafting a slow burn followed by a devastating revelation.”
Well except for the season of Torchwood she was showrunner for 😛 I’m a fan of hers too, which is why it seems odd to me that she didn’t take over as show runner for the second half of this season when Joss “left” and instead an outside writer was brought in. How that will affect the long term story–who knows. I do think that this suffers the same way follow up works by creators famous for a big success do (which is odd here since Joss Whedon has proven himself post Buffy–though I guess not on TV for a while?)–overstuffing the new show from the get go instead of the slower burn start that their breakout hit was.
Do we think that they’re over-correcting in reaction to the universal hatred the “potentials” received on Buffy? I can understand why they would want to jump straight into character moments and hints of backstory but this is clunky as hell.
Laura Donnelly and Ann Skelly are pretty charismatic in emotionally contrasting ways. I’m dazzled by Skelly’s effervescence and cuteness, personality-wise. She reminds me a bit of Saiorse Ronan. Donnelly is compelling with her sardonic personality masking depth and intelligence.Speaking of your Stray Observations, wild, untrue theory time: maybe Truth is an alien from the ship, or one who came earlier and took over the sucidal woman’s body, a la The Hidden. And her mission is to prepare the Touched for a war with bad aliens who are coming.The show so far feels odd on HBO. It’s more a network series. They could completely excise the spare, gratuitous nudity.Game of Thrones ended not long ago. I’m suprised Whedon gave one of his characters the same power one of the former show’s characters had.
The “warging” definitely struck me as an odd choice. Game of Thrones didn’t invent it but it would have been wise to go with something else.
Sir Terry Pratchett in Discworld with Granny Weatherwax training Eskarina was my first experience with this “warging”.
Given how common an ability it is throughout fantasy and comic books, why would they stay away from it. I hardly associate it with Game of Thrones.
this definitely has a HBO MAX, not HBO premium content vibe.
for some reason I love identifying the difference between HBO and HBO Max shows…Mare of Easttown? Friggin guess!
Watched the first episode of that last night. The difference between that and Nevers, as well as many other shows premiering recently, was so obvious. Good to see premium television still has a home on HBO.
I’m fine with HBO being the home of prestige miserabilism and HBO Max being the home of fun trash like The Flight Attendant…this show needs to pick a side because right now it’s like if one of those CW shows suddenly wanted Golden Globes consideration
What’s funny to me is Mare of Easttown is slow and morose, but incredibly intriguing. The Nevers is action packed and fast paced…and incredibly boring.
However, and I have reasonably high hopes for Mare, they are both very formulaic…the HBO prestige shows often overcome this by dint of the performances and the twists great actors give to staid characterizations, here a lot of it might just be how they are nailing Delco. I am just hoping that Guy Pearce isn’t the killer because (snore). Also, that criticism is obviously not limited to HBO (ahemBroadchurch) but we expect more from HBO. They have made a real cottage industry out of these bizarro-world Law and Order one-offs (true detective, night of, sharp objects), often skating by on varied settings (or supernatural intimations)
Disagree strongly.
I’m suprised Whedon gave one of his characters the same power one of the former show’s characters had.See, I thought of it more in relation to Borrowing as established by Terry Pratchett in his Discworld novels. Granted, Borrowing can be done with most animals, not just specific types. Point being, though, that it’s not like GRRM and GoT invented the concept.
“The Nevers” refers to something Maladie was ranting about on stage in the premiere. Those that never rise above poverty – never get the good seats at the theater etc. I can’t quote it exactly but I remember saying “Ope! They name-checked the show’s title. Box checked.”
Yeah when Whedon explained the title he said that it’s never actually explained on the show itself but… as you point out, it pretty much is.
Good catch. Well done!
I’m surprised this reviewer failed to catch that when they seemingly caught a whole bunch of other stuff I either missed or that wasn’t even established in the first episode. It’s totally there. You don’t even have to be paying CLOSE attention to catch it.
For me, one of the big issues with the show is that it relies a lot on twists and turns, I’d argue far more than actual building up characters, but as a combination of those two every revelation just kind of happens.I mean, Bonfire Annie turns on Maladie for completely unfathomable as we have had a scene and a half with that character. Lavinia, who we are shown to be cool towards everyone and not even show affection to the Touched she is protecting, is actually behind the mad doctor. Hugo, the socially awkward dude, is already in a brothel because after his first dicussion with Penance he was pressured to cut ties with her. Like stuff just happens on this show.
As I’m writing this, it’s kind of crazy as this is already episode two and it feels like they’ve burned through such amount of character stuff.
another episode that manages to somehow be boring while so much is going on.
Bonfire turns on Maladie because, as she said previously, she respects and follows intelligence. She immediately identifies the intelligence, resouces and courage Amalia has, and decides it is way better and more sensible to follow this one, instead of the crazy one. I bet Annie is a survivor.
Exactly. This is set up pretty obviously when Annie says “I can work with crazy, boss, but I can’t work with stupid” (or close to that). At that point you knew she was going to betray her, just not how quickly.
I felt like the criticisms of “overstuffed” that people applied to the first episode applied far more to this one. I had no problem with the pace and content of the premiere, but this one felt crammed with too much and like it maybe should have been two episodes. (Focus on the exploitative fundraiser party in the first and on most of the rest of the shit in the second.)
Just a couple of notes on a few characters:-True might big one of the most boring main characters I’ve seen on an action show in a while. Yeah, I get that there are mysteries around her, but even those feel kind of eh because her defining trait is being stoic. Meanwhile her actual powers being so generic and all-around combined with how bad Whedon is directing action results in none of her fight scenes feeling impressive or badass. Add to that that she has an understanding and insight in to the behviour of others and she just kind of is.-At the moment I’m guessing Massey is going to end up being an ally to the Nevers and their patron instead of Lavinia. They seem to be setting him up to be a more complicated character and, correct me if I’m remembering wrong, but in the flashback at the end of the last episode, didn’t he see his daughter fall down when touched. So there is going to be some connection from there, unless I am confusing characters.-Because this show hates subtlety, I’m going to guess Mary left Mundi on the altar because she’s gay. Just because she refused to answer the question and referenced that she tried to ignore like other things of herself. Also, the age difference between those two actors is 23 years, which shows on screen. I get the period they are going for, but it was genuinely distracting to me.
-Bonus point, but perhaps the only non-subtle thing I’m looking forward to is the revelation how physically strong Primrose is.
If younger women and older men as couples distract you, you must find yourself often distracted.
I thought I’d give this a pass until I heard it’s a Joss Whedon venture. So, I ‘tuned in’ and – no surprise – the first thing I see is an ordinary (but pretty) woman walking into a dark alley. Probably everyone familiar with “Buffy” knows of Whedon’s mission to invert the Hollywood formula of “the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed in every horror movie” (because she’s had sex). Fewer than 10 minutes into the first episode of The Nevers a couple of women are already kicking ass – big, burly men’s asses. who was it that once said the “great Masters” of narrative actually just tell the same story over and over again?I don’t know if I’m the only person who’s sick (very) of on-screen violence. It looks like Whedon is counting on the exact same dynamic that won him favor with “Buffy”. I wonder who will be The Watcher this time around; or maybe we all are if watching gals physically menace other people continues to give us a little (or big?) thrill.
You might wanna go back to the comments on the first episode where there’s a *lot* of discussion about exactly this (and a fair argument that some of the things being seen as Whedon tropes have actually just become tropes for these genre shows in general).
Lol.Not here for the comments, dude.
Then why comment? Just thought that you’d get more of a reaction on that thread than here since basically the same people posting here already discussed all that in… the thread for the first episode. But if you’re not here for the comments, then carry on I suppose 😉
With some exceptions, the writing is good here at the AV Club. I comment for my own amusement.I will add that I don’t typically ‘go after’ other commenters.
thanks for blessing us
Then why comment?Certain people love the smell of their own farts.
There’s… something going on with Amalia but we can’t quite pinpoint it yet. The “this is not my face” thing and the whole “skin shedding” and almost revealing something to Desiree about Mary that “she’s the voice of the Galan…”. It’s all very peculiar and leading up to something. I’m hoping that “something” is not some kind of switcheroo at the end of the season where she’s revealed as a baddy. Laura Donelly is kicking ass and taking names and I’m not ready for her to be a villian. I’m enjoying it so far, it’s still very fun but Amalia True — a baker she definitely fucking isn’t.
Ann Skelly on the other hand is also still wonderful, she’s like a Jodie Comer in Killing Eve kind of type except for all the psychopathic murdering tendecies.
Ann Skelly is the inventor.
I find the character of Maladie so overdone, the crazed sympathetic woman from the asylum. And some of it is very cheesy but I think that’s intentional, but some things like electricity girl speeding away on that slow little gokart made me lol when it was supposed to be emotional.Sort of wish they cast Désireé as her main sidekick instead of the electricity girl, it would have been a lot more fun.
I am enjoying it but I do miss the days when tv shows were given the time to build and grow. way too much action and way to many introduced villains for the first 2 shows. What happened to letting wine breathe or meat rest a bit. This is like guzzling hard seltzer.
I’m still enjoying the show, albeit with a lot of reservations (and I’m not sure I’d have graded this episode higher than the pilot), but, while I usually like Jane Espenson’s script work, a lot of this episode was muddled for me. Or maybe it had more to do with watching it with the volumes low in the middle of the night. But–as even the reviewer mentioned–I had to rewind the scene between Maladie and True to catch everything they said (which was of course still purposefully unclear). That whole sequence may get explained later but was odd–Bonfire (who was actually always gonna turn on Maladie?) leading through her fires True to Maladie, etc, etc. And I said elsewhere that the whole Pheromone Club stuff was as disappointing as I assumed it would be when it was mentioned last week–while I guess I’m getting a bit tired of orgies on HBO (no, really) THIS was the best they could do? Put some makeup on James Norton, show some breasts, and have two old male aristocrats kiss in the corner of the frame? OK…
It’s “Ferryman” Club. A play on Charon ferrying souls into the Underworld and the coin placed under their tongues for payment/admission (The coin logo looks like a ferryman) . The term “pheromone” wasn’t coined until the 1950s.
I just decided that’s a deliberate pun. Prove me wrong!
Grading on a CW (or WB/UPN) level, this show is pretty good. Grading on an HBO level, this show is awful.
Counterpoint: Game of Thrones final season.Weirdly, I feel like if this were a Starz or Showtime show, it would also not be held to QUITE as high of expectations, even though they’re all premium networks. I’d say it really feels like a high budget SyFy or BBCAmerica show.
This wholly original series involves:
1. A fire-controlling villain
2. A mind-controlling villain
3. A mentor-like figure in a wheelchair with clear access to money and running at least one “home for gifted people”
4. A brilliant inventor whose machines are ahead of their time
5. A government that doesn’t quite understand/is suspicious if not openly hostile
I’m still gonna watch this because I’m a basic bitch but at some point someone had to have seen what Joss was pitching and just, like, quietly sighed to themselves.
6. A black male character that is initially presented as equal to the main female characters, but only appears sporadically, to heal main protagonist, and is brushed aside otherwise.
lol yes with weird sexual tension whenever his patient comes in gashed up, because that’s the only scene he’s allowed to be in. He heals and fucks!
1. Yeah, because Fire is common.2. There is an illusionist nobody with mind control.3. Definitely not a mentor. While she is running the Orphanage as a charity she isn’t a mentor to anyone and her motives are definitely sinister.
4. Once again common trope.5. You have people with mysterious powers who can kill large numbers of people so yeap Government is definitely going to be suspicious if not hostile. Suprised they aren’t kidnapping their own for military purposes/experimentation.
Thank you for agreeing with me that this show is basic.
Only in the your pretty much wrong in every way, but other then that nice try.
Lol, hooker, you literally confirmed 4/5 of my points. Also saying “but it’s a trope” really isn’t a ringing endorsement of this bland oatmeal we’re shoving into our eye-mouths.Loooove you.
Another great episode. My only problem is the crazy girl is way too similar to Drusilla.
The issue i have is the show thinks its holding its cards close to the chest for mystery and intrigue, but really its coming across and muddled and confusing.Case in point is that exchange between Amalia and Maladie.
I agree that it was unclear whether I was supposed to understand their relationship or if this was supposed to be a doled-out nugget to help fill in mystery backstories.
About Dr. Hague’s commentary: “Maybe your darkness is part of her plan. I mean, his, but she’s in on it.”: Miss Cassini was praying to Virgin Mary, so Dr. Hague is referring to God and to Virgin Mary.
The CC made this a bit clearer by capitalizing His (He/Him/His, you know).
I can barely make out what they say when they are speaking. Very odd.
“Maybe your darkness is part of her plan. I mean, his, but she’s in on
it.” Lavinia seems to be the “her” here, but who is the “his”? Ms. Cassini was referring to Mother Mary, but also, God, and so was Dr. Hague. I didn’t and don’t think it was more complicated than that.“remember that she sarcastically describes him to Inspector Mundi as “the man with his cock out” during the opera performance.” She said that BECAUSE Hugo had his cock out. Seconds later his still hard erection was mentioned just after Mrs. True had continued after Maladie down the stairwell.I am really, really disliking the reuse of the Drusilla character in the form of Maladie. I didn’t like her the first time, the mental illness is evil trope is tiresome, and it reads as incomprehensible crazed homeless person. I much prefer clever evil person with a unknown agenda. Same for Dr. Hague. He is just another psychopathic scientist/doctor who cuts people up without a thought. We have seen this character too many times. Including the character the same actor, Denis O’Hare, played on True Blood, Russell Edgington (not a doctor). There is one on Invincible now too, and I am sure I could name more…
I like the concept of the show, I enjoy most of the characters (even liking to dislike them), but I find those two bothersome and frustrating.
the mental illness is evil trope is tiresome, and it reads as incomprehensible crazed homeless person.I get what you are saying, but as True’s nemesis, you could go with Holmes/Moriarty or Batman/Joker. In Maladie they seem to have gone the Joker route. Then again, with Lavinia they may also have gone the Moriarty route as well. Time will tell.
Can someone explain to me how True shooting herself was any kind of solution? Okay, Maladie was maybe trying to get her attention and get a rise out of her and force her to choose Mary Jane instead of the tram full of children. And I guess she had some sort of psychological knowledge applicable to either the situation, Maladie, or both, but they didn’t do anything to explain it to the viewer.
It was a weird way for that particular dilemma to end.
I thought Olivia Williams said it’s war because she considers the aliens to be committing an act of war by turning purebred humans into X-Women (and the occasional X-Man). She is willing to juice the x-people because she’s a normie-supremacist? And then when she finds out her nephew is a crow she could learn to see them as people…but she’ll probably kill him. Swann needs to be less boring, maybe more Captain Jack energy.Saying True can shed her skin and “not from around here” seems to indicate she could be an alien, and so Maladie could also…but unlikely. I also think her big plan is maybe just visions of the future…hard to know then how she could see them if she is not there but (shrug). This show is really fastforwarding through character development to get the chess pieces into position, an unfortunate HBO trait. I’ll keep watching because whatever, but it’s not rly looking to be one for the ages.