The Last Kingdom

If you’ve ever wondered what is England and why does it keep on happening, this show is not going to answer that question.  Fair enough, this might be something you wonder more and more these days as you cope with the news telling you how old English people insist on voting, but, at best, The Last Kingdom will mostly tell you how the ninth century kingdom of Wessex stood up as a Saxon stronghold against those pesky Vikings.  In short, and, inaccurately, Wessex gradually became England and thus the whole mess we find ourselves in.  Politics aside, regular readers of Just One More Episode (hello to both of you) will remember fondly my September 2017 post extolling the pleasures of Vikings (the TV show, not to be confused with the general concept of Scandinavian marauders).  That programme ended fully in recent times, leaving a Norse-shaped hole in my viewing habits.  Yes, I like zombies, yes, I like things set in high schools, yes, I like prisons, yes, I like reality trash, but I’m recognising here another theme to add to the boxes that any boxset needs to tick for me: Viking-Saxon conflict.

This dichotomy lies at the heart of our hero’s story.  Uhtred is the Saxon son of a Northumbrian Elderman, but he ends up kidnapped into slavery, serving a Viking family.  Through his wiles and charm, he is elevated from property to relation and grows up more Viking than Saxon.  But, as per the pilot episode, Uhtred’s about to find out it’s not so easy being a Saxon who identifies as Viking when Vikings come for your Viking family, with the help of Saxons.  In fact, it’s a fairly stop-start beginning to getting Uhtred where he needs to be, which is down south in the Kingdom of Wessex.  But don’t worry if you’re confused, as every episode begins with Uhtred narrating a recap of his adventures so far.  And fans of proper Viking things will appreciate his persistent Scandinavian accent.

You’ve guessed it, then, that Wessex is the last kingdom in The Last Kingdom to hold out against the Viking onslaught.  The Danes are everywhere grabbing land and laughing at priests.  Contrast their ferocity, then, to the enfeebled citizens of Wessex who are more preoccupied with praying than strategising to defend themselves.  In steps Uhtred, overcoming Alfred’s deep scepticism regarding his loyalties, bringing a laddish touch to business.  And let’s be honest, Uhtred is the cool one.  He has better hair than the Saxons, scoffs at their Christianity and gets to strut around in Viking clobber looking an absolute boss while they scurry about in meagre rags.  Men want to be him (or baptise him) and women want to be with him (despite the track record of his women faring well in the relationship).

I’ll confess to only just breaking into season two of four, having recetnly begun the show at a friend’s recommendation, but it’s the boxset I find myself looking forward to most of an evening.  Not being a savage, I do my best to ration episodes to one per night so that I can bask fully in the glory of Wessex.  Indeed, the geek in me loves how the subtitles announcing each location give us the city names at the time, adding to the overall perception of historical accuracy.  There’s no way of assessing this for real, though, but let’s just say it feels bob on.  My linguist boffin could do with some acknowledgement of the fact the Danes and Saxons all seem to speak the same language, but why let that get in the way of a good story?

But yes, it was the most violent of times, and blood is shed all over the muddy streets of Winchester and beyond.  However, we don’t seem to be allowed to swear.  There’s no effing and jeffing from Uhtred and his merry band and this doesn’t impose a problem until we come to anything sexual.  In place of the beloved F word, we have humping.  Somehow, this registers a bit pervier, but gradually becomes part of The Last Kingdom’s own mythology.  And we do see some quite graphic humping, bringing to mind the late-night Channel 5 films of yore, so I’m wondering if we’re claiming that a naughty word is more offensive that the action it describes.

All in all, though, it’s a yes please to The Last Kingdom.  It may have tempted you in your Netflix menu before now, but ended up rejected in favour of newer, more hyped-up fare, but sign yourself up for all four series if you fancy some wild storytelling peppered with religious fervour, ethnic conflict and a bit of a history lesson thrown in.  At least it can distract you from England today.

The Night Of

You might be wondering what I’m doing talking this week about something from 2016, but over the previous 197 posts I think we’ve established well enough there is no method to my madness.  The Night Of was one of the first boxsets recommended to me at the very beginning of this project, and it’s been lodged in my brain ever since.  It even got downloaded (by me, on purpose) to my Sky box at the start of the year when I finally decided that I must get down to following up on its recommendation.  But there it stayed, cruelly ignored while I worked through Fargo and a variety of other Netflix trappings (Call My Agent!, Last Chance U: Basketball).  But then, with Oscars season upon us, its star, Riz Ahmed, was everywhere.  I needed to see what all the fuss was about and conveniently had a slot in my viewing schedule.

I’m ruing the day I didn’t dive in as soon as this show was recommended to me.  Episode one immediately got its claws into me and I tingled with smugness at the thought of finding something to watch that was not going to disappoint.  There was intrigue from the first minute, all against a backdrop of the much-missed city of New York (what with foreign travel being an impossible offence while the sniffles keeps on going round the world).  Knowing something terrible is going to happen: there’s nothing more compelling than that.  From the moment Nasir (played by Ahmed with wide-eyed conviction) gets invited to a Manhattan party from his Pakistani enclave of Queens, the show’s very title makes it clear this isn’t just a pleasant evening in the city.

I’m not going to get into too many details, as these would all be spoilers, and I know for a fact you’ll be following my pleas to see for yourself this exquisite boxset.  Needless to say, there’s a certain amount of being led astray, of trying things for the first time and of cutting loose from a conservative upbringing while potentially ill-equipped to deal with its consequences that makes this fateful night all the more significant.  The tension then takes hold, with us as the viewer violently willing Nas to slip out of the precinct while awaiting processing for his initial misdemeanour.  Cleverly, we are left in doubt regarding his innocence as far as the evidence shows, but we are desperate for him to be cleared of all charges at almost any cost.

Along the way, every character that enters the universe of The Night Of comes with such depth and richness that we almost don’t notice Nas’s long absences while they work their way into our lives.  John Turturro’s John Stone oozes New Yorker, hardened and brash, and with no shits left to give about what anyone thinks of him or any of his skin conditions (at least, so his outer shell would have us believe).  I did wonder at the size of his out-of-home advertising budget as his Subway posters are everywhere, especially if he only charges $250 a case.  Nas’s parents do a huge amount with very little, dignity burning behind their eyes, while Detective Dennis Box earns our sympathy as he retires and Helen Weiss, the district attorney, even as she works against us, carries a certain charm.  The Wire’s Michael K. Williams haunts as Freddy, showing us everything that’s wrong with the American justice system.

That said, it was the cat that I got most excited about.  It just goes to show that great writing and great character development are lost on me when there’s a purring feline rolling about on the floor.  I felt I could have cured John Stone’s allergies simply by wishing them away.  So, from New York night life, the episodes progress to a taut court case.  At points, all seems lost.  At others, the characters’ behaviour aggravates both you as the viewer and their own sorry situations.  But we’re kept guessing till the end, fed some red herrings to keep us going and distracted by artful production design and cinematography from the fact this is (apparently) a rehash of a 2008 British show.  I don’t care where it came from, this gem was a great find, and maybe the story is more universal than as specifically New York as I had thought, but it’s elevated by so much else that it’s definitely one for the boxset list.

Shtisel

It’s been about 50 posts since I went on about how impactful I found Unorthodox.  As a result, I bought and read the book, and then looked about for any similar sort of drama that might have a Haredi setting or element.  Turns out that that show’s star, Shira Haas, is already known for just the thing I was after: Shtisel.  But where would I find a boxset about an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family living in Jerusalem?  Netflix of course.  Praise be that we live in an age of instant international distribution.  About a year ago, then, I started making my way through the first series.  Now, you’ll have seen me post here about all sorts of shiny and glamorous productions (Bridgerton, The Mandalorian), so let’s manage our expectations that this was a bit of a departure.  Hailing back to 2013, we’re not awash in expensive special effects or high drama.  Instead, this is a simple, sometimes delicate, sometimes clanging piece of kitchen sink banality (with a huge dollop of strict religious doctrine) that potters along with charm and pain, just like any family’s life (give or take the religion part).

There’s a second series from 2015, and then, come 2020, Netflix step in to revive things for a third.  Needless to say, as much as I was hooked by the Shtisels’ stories, the show was never quite first choice for evening viewing when things like Watchmen or Atlanta were on offer.  Thus, Shtisel evolved into the show I watch in the bath.  This is typically a weekend moment where I need an Epsom salts soak after too much gym, but don’t have the attention span to sit still for 45 minutes, yet know with certainty that any book I take in there will be dropped (the smartphone isn’t even allowed in the bathroom as I am guaranteed to submerge it).  My trusty laptop perched on some storage boxes at a safe distance, I’m able to use my physio-prescribed dips as a viewing occasion.  But, occurring only once weekly, this has meant it’s taken the best part of a year to get through everything.  That said, I’ve been able throughout to respond to well-wishers’ enquiries about my current viewing with a very smug answer: “Oh just this Israeli drama that’s most in Hebrew, you wouldn’t know it…”

And here we have one of my other joys with the show: the languages.  I don’t know any Hebrew, but the older characters occasionally switch to Yiddish, which is much easier to decipher.  Hebrew remains, however, a great language for shouting at relatives in, whereas the Yiddish lines really suit moments when the elder generation want to lament the lack of religious observance of others.  Plot-wise, we have father-and-son combo Shulem and Akiva at the heart of Shtisel.  Akiva is, by his community’s standards, late to be wed, and it’s his hunt for the right bride that propels his narrative, mostly because he is wont to pursue inappropriate matches.  Maybe it’s the artist in him, but Akiva’s status as a dreamer is a source of much bafflement to his chain-smoking father, Shulem.  A widower himself, Shulem too dabbles in the marriage market, sometimes via the matchmaker, sometimes with his actual wife, but mostly with a view to dropping by for some homemade food under the auspices of any available excuse.  Dvora, the late matriarch of the Shtisel family, looms large over all our characters, and, in fact, Shtisel has a preoccupation with death.  From Malka, the grandmother rattling about in an old people’s home, to the untimely passing of some other characters that I won’t spoil here, our transience on this Earth is never far from the matters in hand.

For heathens like me, every moment of religious pageantry adds richness and depth to the stories, and whole plots will revolve around a taboo or ruling that simply won’t exist in the lives of others.  All our menfolk are dedicated to studying the Torah (and carrying around plastic bags), whereas marriage and motherhood dominate the Shtisel ladies.  We do need to contrive plot, so characters will occasionally use dishonesty to pursue a holier route or admit to being cruel to be kind so their relative stays on the right moral path.  Giti, Shulem’s daughter, is often caught in a conundrum where she must tread a narrow tightrope, bringing her into conflict with her eldest child, Ruchami (played with incredible maturity by Shira Haas from our first paragraph).

Storylines wander in and out of focus, some almost going nowhere, some veering in for what appears to be no reason, but I was throughout compelled to find out what would happen next.  The languid pace is soothing.  The intricacies of observing a long-held faith are interesting.  And there’s entertainment in wanting the best for the whole family.  Don’t get involved if you’re expecting to laugh out loud, as the show often feels quite heavy with seriousness, but join in if you can look through cultural, religious and linguistic differences to enjoy the nuances of how other people live their lives.  I was even moved to tears a couple of times, with one such moment occurring on a busy Tube while I cheated on my bath viewing policy and watched an episode on my phone simply because I had to find out what poor old Akiva would do next.  My mask luckily hid anything embarrassing but, if anyone had asked, I would have been desperate to show off my eclectic taste in boxsets.  Fortunately, I can do that here, and you can read it.