Parade's End - ep 3 thoughts and caps
Oct. 19th, 2012 01:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousie
I realize most of my flist doesn't care, but I can't stop.
I just like this shot.
The whole sequence at the hospital was nightmarish, but the worst was when he couldn't remember his name, because for someone who is as brilliant as he is, it's probably the worst feeling and such a waste.
With Sylvia, talking about the horrors of war, as if he can't stop, until she pretty much forcibly makes him lie down and go to sleep. I feel rather sorry for Sylvia in this episode - it's clear she might love him (or at least think she does) but she can't help but lash out because she has an inferiority complex, almost - she knows she's wronged him badly and repeatedly but he's never said a cross word to her and being comfortable living with a saint would take a very very very good person. That is why she almost yearns for him to have an affair, so they can be equal (I don't think she realizes that he'd never just have an affair - if he went with Valentine, it'd be because he loved her with all his soul).
Apparently his reputation is all ruined for a variety of depressing but plausible reasons and even his own father believes things. What, this is getting to kdrama levels of cheeriness, people!
Awwww, he can't have his tea because his hands shake so badly. WW1 was the war that invented the term shell-shock for a reason.
OMFG, he and Valetine see each other again and it's brief but emotionally overwhelming and seriously, I was sniffling.
I have to say, they are striking-looking together.
This! I love that he talks to her about his memory/brain issues (he still forgets names but is better with math) and that she really wants to know about the problem he solved (and his incredulous 'you really want to know?' says volumes about his life) and I just want to take them away and wrap them in cotton wool and protect them.
His confrontation with Sylvia and yeah, he's pretty close to snapping at this point. Everyone believes he has no honor in every possible way and Sylvia throwing his 'sainthood' in his face etc etc.
Oh, this scene. My heart my heart my heart! When she asks him if Edith Duchemain is his mistress (because Sylvia told her so, to warn her off) and he asks her how can she think that, doesn't she know him. And I love that his word is enough for her. And then his asking her 'will you be my mistress tonight?' - and this is probably the only story where I find that heart-stoppingly romantic - all the love and need that can't be repressed any more, and desperation (he's shipping out in the morning and obviously who knows if he'll stay alive) and the fact that he's reached breaking point (as he's said, he's dragged through the mud any way, and cannot live by an outmoded code of honor) and the way she shines and touches his face and he closes his eyes and leans into that touch as if he is starved and just - this is the most romantic thing ever. (Oh, and bonus points for Mark, who doesn't get but loves his weird little brother and thus approves of Valentine).
Only, since if it wasn't for bad luck, they'd have no luck at all, her brother and his shipmates arrive at the house and so they can't. And the way he is so quietly accepting and the way she tells him that they can when he comes back, as if to anchor him to life and give him something to come back for because, let's face it, in his quiet gentlemanly way he is incredibly self-destructive right now. And his telling her he can't take her to Groby because people would understand some servant girl mistress but not her, and her telling him she doesn't care and will be ready for anything he asks and my heaaaaaaart....
The scene with Sylvia. You know, I don't like her, but I pity her - she herself wrecked the marriage beyond any hope of fixing but she can't let it go. When she taunts him that he couldn't even 'seal the deal' (to use modern slang) with his servant girl - oh God. I wanted to hit her at the same time as I understood her, and her bizarre notion that if he fell off his pedestal and cheated as she did, they'd be equals and there'd be hope for them (she is wrong - his heart is now another's for good, but she doesn't realize that because for her affairs were meaningless).
Anyway, hope someone read this mess of a post, but even if not, I am too obsessed to mind.
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Date: 2012-10-19 06:38 am (UTC)Benedict Cumberbatch is amazing, by the way. Just by looking at the screecaps, I can feel his every emotion and it made me tear up a bit. </3
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Date: 2012-10-19 11:46 am (UTC)I am so so so impressed with BC - the character is so reserved and introverted yet you always know what he is feeling just by the look on his face. It's amazing.
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Date: 2012-10-19 08:09 am (UTC)I have read the omnibus edition of the four novels by Ford Madox Ford and in them the change of Edwardian class system, of society and life itself is portrayed in a very real way. Previously, I had thought it would be almost impossible to adapt these four novels as a series or movie. While the first three feature Tietjen's life, his dealings and memories of WW1, the last one is more of a intimate play of the secondary characters of the first three novels with Tietjen the main center of their thoughts and pov but not very much with a voice/pov of his own.
It seems the BBC did again with this book adaption. So keep the picspam/reviews coming.
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Date: 2012-10-19 11:44 am (UTC)I am currently reading PE (am somewhere in the middle of the first book) but I peeked at the last ep and it would seem that they must not have done much with the fourth book (other than intersperse pieces of it throughout the drama) because the adaptation ends with the end of WW1 and Tiejens coming home (well, sort of home, since he leaves Sylvia).
ETA: I enjoyed Sherlock but the style/lighting choices made BC look like an alien. I remember thinking that he was a good actor but so odd looking, I could never see him in a normal role. It was a shock to see him here, looking normal and even attractive, in an overbred British aristocrat way.
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Date: 2012-10-19 12:40 pm (UTC)Enjoy the novels, they are sometimes a wee bit strong (esp. for Edwardian/post WW1 standards) but all in all a very interesting read.
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Date: 2012-10-19 12:43 pm (UTC)I love the writing style of PE!!!
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Date: 2012-10-19 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-20 10:33 am (UTC)I can almost concentrate on his acting without being distracted by his face !
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Date: 2012-10-20 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-21 01:05 am (UTC)P.S. BTW, thanks for picspamming this drama, mousie, otherwise I would never have given it a try and tasted the gloriousness that is Benedict Cumberbatch's tears of angst (MOAR MOAR MOAR).
xoxo
N
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Date: 2012-10-21 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-19 04:15 pm (UTC)--> Absolutely.
I think I'm going to watch episodes 3-5 this weekend. I found the 720p version of the files. Prettiness, here I come!
I'm all about western shows this fall: Downton Abbey, Parade's End, Haven, Beauty & the Beast, Arrow and Elementary. And I might watch The Paradise as well.
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Date: 2012-10-19 04:23 pm (UTC)I find PE swoonily romantic, which is kinda funny seing how reserved the characters are - but they do have such deep emotions.
Your list of shows is freakishly similar to mine - the only different one is Elementary because I haven't gotten to it yet.
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Date: 2012-10-19 04:57 pm (UTC)I don't know if I'll continue with Elementary. I'm a great fan of Sherlock and Elementary doesn't really compare favorably, IMO. It's entertaining enough but the pacing feels kind of off (a bit like Beauty and the Beast). We'll see. At least, the dynamic between the two leads is interesting so far.
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Date: 2012-10-20 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-20 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-20 02:05 am (UTC)It's excellent too.
mskololia
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Date: 2012-10-20 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-20 05:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-20 03:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-20 07:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-20 03:21 pm (UTC)http://dangermousie.livejournal.com/2605166.html
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Date: 2012-10-20 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-21 01:07 am (UTC)And a rec for you - Karan Johar's Student of the Year is SUPER FUN!
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Date: 2012-10-21 05:42 pm (UTC)PE is totally delicious...
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Date: 2012-10-23 07:18 pm (UTC)I had a love/hate attitude towards Sylvia. She prolongued Christopher's suffering when she should have given him the divorce so he could be happy.
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Date: 2012-10-23 07:22 pm (UTC)