Lupin (Lupin, Dans L’Ombre D’Arsène)

Due to a dreadful administrative error, it’s taken me until this 190^th post to include any boxsets in the French language within my ramblings here.  Désolé, everybody.  This has not been intentional.  Rest assured we’ve had plenty of Spanish (Money Heist and Elite), some German (Dark) and even some Korean (Kingdom) but I’ve been very remiss by omitting la Francophonie.  Most particularly, my guilt comes from my own possession of a French degree (or half of one, really).  There was a time I could pursue conversation with almost any citoyen, wielding the imperfect subjunctive and having at my disposal vast reams of memorised vocabulary in obscure areas (for some reason, I once knew all the garden birds).  I vowed I would never become one of those adults who lost the language skills of their degree, but here I am.  The truth is, I spent nine months in Germany for my university-mandated year abroad, but only nine days in France.  I haemorrhaged money in Paris during a summer heatwave trying to find a job/set up a whole life before I called it quits and brexited myself.  The oral part of my final French exam was abominable, so let’s acknowledge my trauma with the language before we go any further.

This did not stop me jumping on board the Lupin train in recent weeks.  Yeah it’s got subtitles, and yeah, even after twenty grand of student debt got paid off for that French degree, I still needed them to stand a chance of understanding a word of what was going on.  I’m of the ability where I can read the onscreen transcription really quickly and then compare it to the words the cast utter, using the text as a clue, and then making pointless comments to myself such as: hmm, that was an interesting approach to rendering that expression idiomatically in English.  Worse still, given the UK’s international pointlessness, we’re rendering things into American English.  But this is boring for everyone and doesn’t matter; Lupin is a great watch.  Just don’t destroy it by plumping for the dreadful dubbed versions that Netflix offers.

Our hero is actually Assane Diop, the son of a Senegalese man who came to France with big dreams.  Our star, therefore, is Omar Sy.  Not a household name in the UK, and I had only ever seen him in Jurassic World doing not much besides caressing a velociraptor while Chris Pratt pulled all the expressions.  I have a problem with watching that film over and over and Sy is consistently one of the most compelling parts, alongside my obsession with any storyline that involves things going wrong at a theme park.  Nevertheless, Lupin is the Omar Sy show and people of all linguistic bents should gather around and be drawn in.  You might be wondering where the Lupin bit comes in then.  Well, Arsène Lupin is actually the 1900s literary creation of Maurice Leblanc.  A bit like our Sherlock Holmes only with a different signature hat and a career on the other side of the law, Arsène Lupin’s gentlemanly thefts still inspire imaginations to this day, none more so than Diop’s.

In present-day Paris, Sy’s character enacts a thrilling series of heists under the noses of many a member of the snooty elite.  As a black man, he’s often able to exploit racial prejudice to his advantage, dressing as a cleaner in the opening episode and therefore becoming invisible to anyone with money.  At first, you might just think he’s a bit of a Jacques the lad with sticky fingers.  But no, this all ladders up to a life’s mission to avenge the death of his father.  Cue flashbacks to Diop’s youth.  His pa works for the high-net-worth Pellegrini family but they’re clearly bad news because the patriarch shouts a lot (proving money doesn’t buy happiness).  Finding himself in the care system, Diop’s only comfort becomes the gentleman thief and his stories, and thus a modern-day Lupin is born.

You’ve got Paris at its best and worst, some mixed-ability policemen on his trail (I believe these are what the French call “les incompétents”), the rich being dreadful towards the poor, racial injustice, family scenes where a super cool thief has to work hard to impress his teenage son, and enough French in which to bathe your ears that it’s like a GCSE listening exercise only you don’t have to write down any answers for the teacher to mark.  Sy immediately charms you into rooting for our hero, and the plot in both its episodic and series-long arcs picks up the pace and the jeopardy until you’re keen to race through with considerable vitesse.  Shame, then, that we only get five bits to kick us off with, but Netflix is following up with the next part soon and I, pour un, will be locked down in my flat ready to watch it and be inspired for my own ambitions to become a gentleman thief.  Ok then, maybe just a thief.

Bridgerton

I don’t know how they do it, but Netflix always seem to know just what we need.  It’s Christmas Day 2020.  Everyone is coming to terms with substantial compromises to their celebrations, potentially stranded far from home by following the whiplashing advice from the old boys’ club running our government.  The weather is crap, the year is being wished over, and little do we know, the next one is going to be getting off to the most underwhelming of starts.  And pow, Netflix drops the most optimised dollop of delicious escapism right in front of our eyeballs.  That’s right, this week we’re doing Bridgerton.

Regular readers won’t be surprised to know that I was very late to this party.  Spirited away to my parents’ just before London was turned into an inescapable fortress, their loyalty to live TV had driven me away into my Louis Theroux documentaries.  Returning to my home and work (which have now been the same place for nearly a year – I can’t confirm if I will ever wear underpants again), everyone was talking about one thing: Bridgerton.  I resisted its call.  I didn’t need to follow the herd.  I was deep in other series (wondering if The Sopranos would ever end).  Its mania would pass.  But then, instead, it snowballed.  Every other Guardian article (I ignore all other news – no surprises there) was about its music or its fashion.  It was revealed as the most watched Netflix production.  My interest was piqued.  Then everyone chuckled at the explicit sexual content and, lo and behold, I was sold.

The eight episodes are based on the first in a series of novels that follow the fictional Bridgerton family.  Named alphabetically, they’re an A to Z (well, an Anthony to Hyacinth) of upper-class London society in 1813.  We’re with them for a social season, from the young ladies’ debuts through weeks and weeks of balls balls balls until a final climax that sees all the lords and such retire back to their country piles.  Here’s the first reason Bridgerton’s timing are spot on: all these well-attended events are spectacles we can only dream of.  Right now, a good day out is a mask-clad whiz round the supermarket.  A lavish night of dancing and drinking, dressed up to the nines, is as alien to us as most of the social conventions of nineteenth-century Britain, but it is so richly and colourfully brought to life on screen that it has the power to fill that part of our lives that is so sorely lacking.  There’s even a nod to our present day, with the string quartets treating us to classical interpretations of modern pop songs.

While we’re at it, the costumes are a second well-tuned route for vicarious living.  Most of us are now set in our leisurewear (please see earlier comment about underpants), but the lords and ladies of Bridgerton are never out of excuses to push the sartorial boat out.  Even the discomfort of very tight breeches or having your cleavage shoved up beyond your clavicle offers a welcome break to shuffling about our homes in slippers and hoodies, with the exception of the Featheringtons’ sickly colour palette.

Thirdly, the show is on the pulse of our enthusiasm for diversity, putting black Georgians front and centre.  No need to explain, no indulgence of anyone feeling threatened; it’s just a great time.  Any protest with reference to historical accuracy is farcical, and probably from the same people who wanted The Crown accompanied by trigger warnings.  Some people simply don’t deserve content this entertaining.

But lastly, it is just the story for the moment.  In a foreign world of ladies’ reputations, archaic courtship and primogeniture, there is a welcome frivolity to the various love stories.  Bosoms heave, sideburns protrude, and eyes are made across the ballroom, and we’re unable to resist caring about girls making a good match and marrying for love.  Some jeopardy is clunkily contrived, with Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey – a key player from W1A and Crashing) going from key barrier to his sister’s happiness to someone without quite enough to do, and the endless speculation regarding the real identity of Lady Whistledown (Gossip Girl gone Georgian) lacking compelling consequence.  But once the love making starts, we’re miles away from the grit and realism of something like Normal People and drinking in every romantic thrust of some good old-fashioned shagging.  You don’t get that in Downton Abbey.  Yet the shenanigans don’t feel gratuitous – they’re just another layer of fun in all the stories.  More remarkable is the sheer size of the cast, with every peripheral player committing wholeheartedly from the start, gradually coming forward as fully formed characters as the episodes progress.

Sure, the script could have done with one more proof-read to tighten the lines beyond the point of simply aping how people probably spoke in the olden days, and maybe some of the cast are guilty of doing theatre acting with their shouting and enunciating, but there’s little to fault with Bridgerton if you’re looking for a hearty romp.  I would even go as far to prescribe this as self-care at a time when reasons to be cheerful may appear to be lacking.  Switch off the 5pm briefing when we get put into surprise tier 22 and take yourself off to the world created by Julia Quinn and realised by Shonda Rhimes (How To Get Away With Murder, among many other things).  It’s a treat we all deserve, and it’s come at just the right time.

Master Of None

We’re all going through tough times.  Some of us are still dealing with symptoms of Parks & Recreation withdrawal, even though we finished this delicious sitcom over two years ago.  How I still envy my friend who made her first watch last (after following my recommendation to take on this particular boxset in the first place) by rationing the episodes over time and taking care to watch each several times before moving onto the next one.  What we both had in common, though, was only discovering Leslie Knope and her Pawnee pals many years after the show had finished broadcasting.  Such is the power of late boxset discovery.  If we really make an effort, there’s every chance we can get through all the TV shows ever made.  Surely that’s something to cherish on the deathbed.  But, in keeping with my penchant for coming to things late, I recently spotted the two seasons of Master Of None on Netflix.  For a reason that at this point was unknown to me, this show was all the rage back when it appeared between 2015 and 2017.  Aziz Ansari was striking out on his own, leaving behind Tom Haverford whose teachings about Treat Yoself Day (nothing beats his and Donna’s mantra: fine leather goods) and hilarious expressions live on in memories I recall on a regular basis.  I recall awards buzz and maybe even awards wins that I am too lazy to look up.  Let’s be honest, you’re dying to hear what I thought, so let’s proceed.

Master Of None at first appears to be gentle viewing.  It’s amusing but doesn’t bend over backwards to provide lols.  There’s narrative tension, but it doesn’t necessarily sensationalise itself to produce drama.  Yet, you care.  And that’s because Ansari as Dev Shah is a rather likeable everyman.  A New York-based millennial reaching the point in adult life when you’ve got to ask yourself some questions about your career, your relationships and your dreams if you’re not already on the conveyor belt of generic lifestyle steps that starts with engagement and ends in babies, Dev dabbles in acting.  His real passion is saved for eating food that needs to be as delicious as possible.

The first season settles, with some wobbling, into a meandering pace, dealing in turn with such issues as parenthood, having foreign parents, ageing, dating morals (would you pursue a married lover?) and representations of Indians in the media.  There’s a universality to some of this, but the frank examination of America’s relationship with certain ethnic heritages delivers refreshing and challenge thought provocation, all while keeping within the show’s friendly style.  It’s part social comment, part whimsy.  A storyline casually emerges as Dev’s relationship with the charming Rachel (Noël Wells) progresses thanks mostly to her inability to be offended by his jokes, creating a new layer of jeopardy as we will these lovers to make it together.

Series two has a more experimental feel.  The action shifts to Italy (for pasta making), while episodes freewheel boldly with their own style.  There’s black and white, flashbacks, montages and an assembly of loosely interconnected stories that shines a light on the experience of newer New York immigrants, contrasting it against Dev’s own attitudes as someone born in the USA.  He’s as self-entitled as the child of any developed country, but this constantly has him at odds with his more pious Indian parents (played by his real-life mum and dad).  A new love story emerges, and you’ll track its star-crossing with the same anxiety you might have found elicited by Normal People.  Master Of None dares itself not to give you what you think you want.

I took to taking in my episodes in the bath, something which ramped up when I solved my heatwave woes by filling the bath with cold water and immersing myself at various points during the day when my own sweat was causing me to slip off my laptop keyboard.  Dev and his pals quickly feel like old friends, even though some of their lines can be slightly mumbled.  Every so often, we’re treated to a bit of Orange Is The New Black’s Danielle Brooks stealing scenes as Dev’s agent while Eric Wareheim’s Arnold grew on me over time despite my initial resistance.  Lena Waithe comes into her own in the Thanksgiving episode (which she wrote), offering a sensitive telling of a story we see represented all too rarely.

Master Of None doesn’t necessarily make you feel strong feelings.  It’s subtler than that.  It champions what you might otherwise miss and doesn’t care about what you’re used to seeing.  It’s playful throughout and therefore an undeniably nice watch.  It made me think and it made me feel and, if any more comes along, I’ll definitely be pressing play.

Money Heist (La Casa De Papel)

“O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao.”

These lyrics have been going around my head ever since I finished the latest available episode of Money Heist on Netflix last night (and immediately started the making of documentary).  Dear readers, abandon the sourdough yeast you’ve been nurturing and for god’s sake stop sharing your top 10 albums on Facebook, for I’m about to school you in the world of the planet’s most popular Netflix boxset.

It’s a damning yet fair indictment of English-speaking people’s intelligence (please see evidence: Trump and Johnson as leaders of nations) that the name of this programme in our mother tongue is the most basic example of labelling ever known to mankind.  Yes, this programme is about a heist, and yes, money is stolen in that heist.  It is a money heist.  For some reason, whoever translated the Spanish title only had thirty seconds spare to think of the new name.  It would be like taking a beloved comedy such as Friends and entitling it Relationship Sitcom or renaming Tiger King as Outrageous Large Cat Documentary.  As you would expect, the original Spanish moniker has more poetry and art to it: La Casa De Papel.  I spent most of the first series thinking this meant the house of the pope.  However, no crusty old white man telling millions how to live their lives appeared and I remembered that papel actually means paper, so we have the house of paper – a synonym for the Royal Mint where the first two seasons play out.

That’s the title covered, and a bit of its content, but what I’m sure you’re all dying to know is why did I start watching it?  I have a vague memory of, at some juncture before we got locked down, Netflix sharing data on their most watched programming.  Of course, as expected, Stranger Things and Sex Education appeared as worthy leaders of the pack.  But, top of the pops was Money Heist.  Something about Dalí masks and red boiler suits.  “Don’t worry,” everyone said, “that’s just a show that’s big in South America.”  For some reason, the accolade of being number one had to be dismissed.  But then I got far too into Elite and, on the advice of pals with more open-minded approaches to finding good TV, selected Money Heist as my next boxset.

As a touch of expectedly brutal honesty, I don’t mind admitting that I didn’t feel grabbed by the show straightaway.  Sure, the set up was sexy, the stylisation was classy and the Spanish language with subtitles a great way of keeping my focus (do not watch this with English-language dubbing – if eyesight problems preclude you from tolerating subtitles, we all know there’s a Durham castle you can drive to if you wish to assess your ophthalmological abilities), but for some reason I didn’t really care about the characters.  I felt another The Boys coming on.  But, by the seventh installment I had connected.  Since then, it has been a whirlwind of affection between me and the atracadores.

I’m struggling to put my finger on the exact reasons, but I’m not alone in my appreciation.  A modest feature in Spanish TV schedules, La Casa De Papel slipped into Netflix’s international back catalogue and nobody thought any more of it.  That is, until the actors’ social media accounts started to swell with thousands of new followers.  Word of mouth generated buzz that compounded itself over and over until Netflix greenlit further installments which themselves were hampered by huge numbers of fans crashing the shoots.

At its heart, we have la banda – the select group of diversely skilled ne’er-do-wells assembled by the enigmatic Profesor.  They do the dirty work that brings to life his masterminded plans, taking on a robbery of such far-fetched ambitions that your only option is to go with it: taking over the Spanish Royal Mint and printing their own stash of billions of euros.  The action plays out in multiple timebands, with scenes from the Profesor’s robbery boot camp foreshadowing events that transpire explosively in the mint itself.  You root for the robbers, but also for the hostages inside and the police outside trying to regain control of the situation.  Some things go to plan, while others require a fair bit of thinking on the spot.  But the tension almost never lets up.  Someone once asked if it’s like Prison Break, with a new hurdle to overcome in each episode, but it feels more sophisticated than that (and the subsequent series don’t get exponentially worse).

Let’s call it Stockholm Syndrome.  Suddenly, Denver’s staccato laugh goes from being annoying to something that fills you with joy each time you hear it.  Nairobi’s constant shouting stops irritating you and you come to love everything about her.  Even Helsinki goes from being a background bit of hired muscle to a key player.  Nevertheless, Arturito is a prick the whole time.  These beloved characters’ development is deftly woven through a plot that thinks of pretty much everything, resulting in a compelling piece of drama that, even with it’s gun gratuity, shootout porn and slap-you-in-the-face silliness, is everything people are looking for in a TV show.  The fact that this achievement is replicated across multiple heists is staggering.

And now it’s a social movement.  Like the Handmaid’s Tale outfit, Money Heist jumpsuits have characterised protests for equality and better prospects throughout the world.  The gang, even the morally dubious ones like Berlin and Palermo, are fighting the system, and the show plays on their exploitation of PR to bring the Spanish population on side.  Money Heist resonates, and without it, I am now bereft.  I’ll miss the soundtrack, I’ll miss the cast (even though a load of them are in Elite anyway), I’ll miss the sentiment.  I’ll gladly be held hostage by the wait for another series, but till then, those same lyrics (bizarrely in Italian, rather than Spanish) will be going around my head.

“O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao.”

Unorthodox

Netflix has fast become my most cherished companion during these weeks of lockdown.  While discouraged from leaving the house (I think) by various unclear Tory waffles (not sure why I would take any form of instruction from people who have actively pursued something as stupid as Brexit), my TV has seen unprecedented (pandemic bingo!) levels of use.  It gets switched on while I make breakfast, a weekend brunch affair that has become a daily routine of slowly scrambling eggs and brewing coffee.  If I manage to grab a lunch break between video calls, I’ll treat myself to a quick episode then.  And finally, after work, rather than a rushed Tube commute with angry Londoners, I simply have to stumble from my laptop to the living room, leaving the never-ending avalanche of emails for another day, for a few hours of inert diversion (some of which time is spent wondering what I can do about my growing belly as it protrudes over the elasticated waistband of my tracksuit bottoms).  In all of the quotidian monotony, I’ve had a very good run of Netflix not only entertaining me, but gripping me to my seat: Tiger King, Last Chance U, Cheer and Elite awakened a compulsion in me not to stop until every episode had been devoured.

As the TV powers on, I can’t switch from linear broadcast to Netflix quickly enough.  The news that always seems to be on is, quite simply, the worst.  Blurry contributors garble on from their home studies while showing off their AirPods.  Some sort of Scottish minister holds forth about how corona is affecting Scotland (specifically and endlessly) while a nice deaf lady does sign language in the corner, her face betraying a preference to be doing any else but this.  Everybody speculates about what will happen next while invoking an unhelpful comparison with World War II.  That culminated in the Holocaust, so perhaps we can do a little better in 2020.  I’ve taken to re-watching Friends for comfort (even finding an episode of series one I had never seen – I know!) just to get away from the lazy journalism.  So, I clicked on Unorthodox.

I was immediately sucked in and raced through the four episodes while practically holding my breath.  I’ll be honest that my choice was partly informed by linguistic policy.  After so much Spanish, I was hopeful for something in German to help tune me back in for FaceTimes with friends in Hamburg.  Unorthodox came up in a search for German-language content, but it’s actually half in English and half in Yiddish, with a few other languages scattered across it.  Based on a 2012 book by Deborah Feldman about her real-life departure from an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in New York, Unorthodox’s setting in a minority religious community was catnip to me as a compelling theme, so I shrugged that Yiddish was similar enough to German and cracked on.

Raised a heathen, the world of any sort of faith eludes me.  You can justify anything with faith.  I can punch you in the face and say it was faith and you can’t get mad.  I can make lifestyle choices based on spurious translations of millennia-old texts and then apply them to other people at will and they can’t get mad.  Unpacking what makes people cling to this sort of thing is fascinating.  I’ve always devoured documentaries about the Amish, while Wild Wild Country offered another view on how these things start and how communities respond.  I’d also seen the Netflix documentary One Of Us which had given me fair warning about how hard it is to leave not only your ultra-Orthodox community, but your friends, your family and your whole way of life.

Unorthodox is told in two concurrent narratives.  The first, sticking most faithfully to the book, follows our heroine, Esty Shapiro, as she prepares to leave her husband and flee the Williamsburg neighbourhood where she has lived her whole life.  The tension crackles as she secretively breaks free and you can’t help but will her to run away.  The second, which is more loosely only inspired by the book, follows her progress on arrival in Berlin – making new friends, wearing new clothes, eating ham.  Shira Haas blows my mind with her lead performance.  I’m still thinking about it now.  I am so convinced by her journey that I occasionally find myself wondering how Esty is getting on in Berlin.

As such, resisting just one more episode is impossible, as you’ll need to know if she makes it, how she makes it, why she escapes and what happens next, all at once.  This is multiplied by the privileged glimpse into a deeply religious world that is hidden from most of us; the wedding scene in particular is documentary-like in its setting out of customs for us to witness.  While voyeuristic, there isn’t a sense of condemning what we see.  We are simply able to view it, and the characters’ responses to it, in the frame of Unorthodox’s sociological storytelling.  Marriage is crucial in Esty’s community, as procreation is seen as its primary purpose, their drive to repopulate a historical hangover from the Holocaust (which I inadvertently foreshadowed in my self-pitying introduction).  Affection and sexual enjoyment are therefore fairly low down the marital agenda, far behind taking the bins out and weeing with the door open.

Meanwhile, in Berlin, Esty is confronted by the fact that the aftermath of genocide, rather than leading to a life-defining duty, is more practically incorporated into daily life as a part of history and geography.  The Berlin scenes rely slightly too much on happenstance to take Esty’s journey forward, her leeching on to a multinational group of idealistic young musicians being met with enthusiastic adoption when surely most people would ask a hanger on to get lost – maybe that’s just the London in me.

In conclusion, Unorthodox offers compelling drama and an eye-opening insight into a community and their practices that you might not know much about.  I now want all my dramas to be set in devout sects, for the hats alone.  But I warn you, set aside sufficient time to get through the whole thing, as you won’t be able to stop after just one episode.  This should be fine, though, as it’s not like we can go anywhere.  Maybe lockdown is our own orthodox lifestyle that we can’t escape from.

Mindhunter

Everyone was telling me to watch Mindhunter.  So I watched it and now we’re going to hear all about what I thought of it.  Only it wasn’t as simple as that.  The people in the office that were going on about it were easily ignored.  I’m well known for not really being a listener, so this was within character.  It was, in fact, a chance encounter with the Netflix trailer for season two that really sold me into the show.  I’ve talked before about how navigating the overwhelming choice on Netflix can be daunting, leading to a paralysed state where no real commitment can be made, and you end up spending your whole evening browsing.  Before you know it, you’ve got to get in the bed and set the alarm so you don’t forget to go back to your office for typing emails into a computer the next morning.

But if you hover a show for too long on Netflix, the trailer autoplays.  The alarming eruption of voices has often led me to suspect I am undergoing a home invasion, but I am now used to this and have finally agreed with London Metropolitan Police that we will leave each other alone.  In the case of the Mindhunter trailer, suspenseful music immediately filled my sparsely decorated new build living room.  The screen of my massive telly conveyed a past decade of American life.  All of this was soaked through with a quickly gripping sense of mystery: the story was clearly of a serial killer in late seventies, early eighties Atlanta targeting African-American children while the institutionally racist law enforcement, er, institutions ignored calls for them to investigate.  I’m not normally one for grisly crime investigations, but the added tension of strained race relations promised more intense drama (see post on Dear White People) so this, coupled with some clearly very high production values, saw me dive in.

But what started as a dive turned into a slow, uncomfortable, duty-bound crawl as Mindhunter shifted awkwardly under my expectations of what it would actually be.  Let’s get this out of the way first: the Atlanta murders are only really about 40% of the second series, and to get to that I had to get through the first series, where they are 0% of the content.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying I can now only enjoy things that are to do with the Atlanta child murders, but I want to acknowledge that Netflix’s trailer mis-sold the show.  Nevertheless, I put my thumb-distracting smartphone in a different room and committed to the first few episodes.  But I couldn’t work out where things were going.  We had some FBI people forming an unlikely partnership, going around training local police, but then kind of starting to interview serial killers (before the term had been coined) in prisons and then sort of, you know, getting into running a whole study to understand more about the behaviour of violent criminals.  Mindhunter gets into a great stride, but it takes its time getting there.  This was competing in my TV-viewing time with masterpieces like Seven Worlds, One Planet and I’m A Celebrity (also obviously a masterpiece), so I found it harder and harder to prioritise such heavy-going fare.

After a bit of a gap, though, I found myself on lengthy plane and train journeys during my America trip and, with nothing else to do, was able to focus on subsequent episodes downloaded to my phone, finally hooking myself in to get totally mindhunted.  And that’s the first thing about Mindhunter: its terrible name.  The cast don’t actually go out hunting for minds.  A more apt title would be Crimesolver or Violentoffenderinterviewer, but both of those sound much naffer than Mindhunter.  But where there was a lack of effort in thinking up a title, there is an excess of doing a good job when it comes to most other elements of the production.  The period setting is executed masterfully – parts of it are slightly akin to a latter-day suburban Mad Men, and, like that show, the attitudes of the time are held true, rather than filtering history’s bigotry through a more palatable lens to make modern audiences feel good (I’m looking at you, Downton Abbey).  People smoke constantly, there is little to no airport security, and seatbelts look distinctly optional – ah, the good old days.

Let’s meet, then, the chap who I think is the actual Mindhunter: Holden Ford.  He’s played by Jonathan Groff and he speaks with the same pitch of voice at all times, which makes his lines hypnotic, but brings to life Ford’s untapped genius as he begins to realise the scope of what his work can achieve: if they learn to profile killers, they can solve murders before further victims fall.  The grumpy cop to his wide-eyed cop is Bill Tench and what unites them is they both have really bad shirts.  Our pair are joined by Dr Wendy Carr who seems to perform the role of some sort of line manager stroke unenthusiastic office-bound cheerleader, sending her chaps out to record interviews she can listen to.  All three are drawing on their experiences at a certain school of acting in their performances: the “I just smelled a fart” approach.  Indeed, each actor’s talent shines through as they create their characters, but the distasteful and serious nature of their conversations and relationships make it look like someone has just keffed in their airspace the whole time.  This extends to almost all the supporting cast, with the exception of the serial killers they meet in various jails.  There are some real household names that I won’t spoil, but you can tell each performer is having a smashing time in the role.

As we progress into series two, a lot starts to go on.  Story strands spread outwards like planets in an ever-expanding universe.  While everything that unfolds about the Atlanta child murders is compelling, we’re also getting deep into Tench’s own problems with his adopted son and very curly-haired wife (with in-marriage dialogue that perfectly captures how things can get so much worse when you only say the wrong thing to each other).  In addition, Carr’s relationship goes under the microscope in order to allow us a better understanding of her mode of operation (which is refreshingly unusual).  Mindhunter treats its viewers intelligently, allowing real focus on each area rather than jumping about like a dance video.  The whole pace can tend to luxuriate in its own quality, as if demanding we drink in the awesome settings, the American nostalgia and the faces of cast members who look like they’re trying to work out who just did that terrible fart.

Season two has left me wanting more and a new TV-viewing approach has evolved to keep up with historical references.  It’s called the Google-along and it’s something you might already have found yourself doing with The Crown.  Each time something comes up that you’ve never heard of, call upon your search engine of choice to cover the gaps in your historical context.  But don’t forget to look at the TV screen too, otherwise you’ll miss this unusual show as it defies your categorisations and expectations.  Focus on the mindhunting.

Black Summer

I’m not sure why I’m doing this now, as Black Summer dropped on Netflix back in April and, as with all zombie content, I had to watch it there and then.  However, something about the title seems appropriate as we reach the back end of August.  No, it’s not a spin-off of Dear White People, whose third season has just launched, the viewing of which I am saving for when I’ve bought a big telly for my new flat.  My choice is more to do with the tempestuous weather that everyone has been moaning about.  Brits have evolved to be waterproof as it’s almost always raining here, so I’m not sure why one globally warmed day of 38 degrees would lead us to expect constant sunshine until the schools go back.

Summer 2019 is black due to the gathering storm clouds that seem to signal an afternoon shower each day as some part of new European rainy season.  From my office window I can spectate as workers clad optimistically in summer dresses and t-shirts alike sprint across pavements while a good old bucketing-down catches people unawares.  I know I shouldn’t delight in others’ suffering but getting caught in the rain (along with piña coladas) is something that truly affirms your humanity: the planet has literally wetted you.  Plus, I must get it from my father – he used to arrive early to pick me up from my Sixth Form job at Waitrose before I could drive, simply because my shift ended half an hour after closing time and he would derive endless entertainment from watching affluent potential shoppers stride towards the automatic doors, only to respond with outraged incredulity when they were denied entry to their favourite providore and therefore forced to forego a top-up shop consisting mostly of artisan cheese and fine wines.

Let’s make no bones about it: I don’t like summer.  In fact, a zombie apocalypse would probably improve my ability to withstand the aestival months.  I would like to blame London for this.  It’s the worst place in the world when hot, mostly as it was built in Victorian times for the damp climate mentioned above (though, over a hundred years later, they’re still building most of it).  The morning Tube, as unpleasant as it already is, takes on a new level of odorous odiousness: once you’ve spotted one sweat patch, you suddenly realise that everyone’s every crevice is proffering its own wet spot to any casually observing eye.  I may scoff into my novel, but I secretly know that the tickling in the small of my back is from my own sweat beads dashing down my spine to pool and fester in the dark dankness of my crack.  And there it stays for the whole working day and whatever else I am doing with my evening (watching boxsets).

Londoners do two things in the sun.  The first is to find a patch of grass, regardless of its proximity to the heavy traffic of a thoroughfare.  The second is to drink on it.  I don’t enjoy exhaust fumes, nor is it fun to look for somewhere to wee after your third cider, all while wishing you’d put more effort in at the gym as your body stretches before you like some squidgily marshmallow-like dough.  So, once the longest day has gone past, the chill in the air returns and the leaves start to fall, a certain joy fills me as I know we are approaching my favourite time of year.  For some reason, autumn carries with it the most nostalgia.  A breeze can suddenly evoke the exact moment in Year 10 when I realised that other people were stupid.  Factor in the bonus that each autumn brought another year of school: older, wiser, no cooler, but with a new pencil case.  The geek in me loved going back because I enjoyed all the writing and the learning and such.

Which is why some writing is happening now, as a hobby.  I started this blog about TV shows.  I should probably therefore spend a couple of passages actually tackling this week’s programme instead of sharing half-baked yet whimsically charming reflections on the passing of time.  Regular readers will know of my love for the zombie genre.  Fear The Walking Dead remains one of my most-read posts, while The Walking Dead and Korean treasure, Kingdom (킹덤), have of course been covered.  One show I’ve seen some of but not included here is Z Nation, another serial tackling the undead apocalypse.  Its crime?  Too many LOLs  I exist in perpetual fear of a zombie takeover, so I really struggle to see the funny side.  I don’t mind dark humour in the face of annihilation, but the viewer in me wants the genuine threat treated seriously.  The point is, Z Nation misses the mark slightly, but my scant research has revealed the Black Summer is its origin story.  Let’s not hold this against the show though.

Our action opens in an unnamed suburb, some weeks after breakout.  Enough confusion still exists about what is going on, and things are never really explained.  We only glimpse the unfolding of disorientating events through seemingly unrelated characters, all desperately trying to survive (with varying levels of success).  The characterisation has been accused of shallowness, but I’m going to describe it as subtle – you’re deliberately left conflicted about who is good and who is bad, bringing to life the fact that trusting others while the undead chase you can lead either to salvation or betrayal, but you’ll only find out when it’s too late.

The suburban streets in the sunshine take on a claustrophobic air, with peril around every repetitive corner, separated individuals hopelessly searching for loved ones.  Tension builds around rumours of sanctuary, yearning for reunion and the constant risk of zombies and bad people.  The eight episodes stumble forward, arrhythmically switching perspectives and pace, though we culminate in a series of gun battles which are equal parts thrilling climax and video game fodder.

For devotees of the genre, this is a worthwhile watch.  Its fresh-enough approach avoids the pitfalls of what we have seen before, but there’s a sense a bigger vision is lacking behind all the death and destruction.  I’d happily sit through a second series, but the internet is not forthcoming with details of any recommissioning.  I promise you genuine chills from Black Summer’s flesh-eating walkers, especially in the mix of the show’s concerning plausibility.  But I realise the most alarming image you may have from this week’s post is that of my sweaty crack.

Dark (Dunkel)

Yes, everybody, here we are: the hundredth post of Just One More Episode.  When I started this blogging business about two years ago, I had high hopes for the unprecedented and life-changing success it would bring me.  My content would be syndicated on national news sites, I’d be an in-demand podcast guest, maybe even a talking head on some sort of Channel 5 schedule-filling tat about the top 50 moments on TV when someone fell over.  Needless to say, none of that has happened.  I’m still a professional email-typer and open-plan office-dweller.  People do shout at me now across the vestibule occasionally though, proclaiming to like my blog while walking off in the other direction.  More often than not, they talk of having seen my promotion of the blog and take pains to tell me they haven’t read it.  So that’s good.  At least the half-hearted Instagram account has eight followers.  And there was the lady in New Zealand who really like my tweets about Bromans.  Even my life hasn’t changed that much – still an eternal renter while I await a completion date on my (a lot of) Help To Buy newbuild flat.  My solicitors are busy being ineffective.  But this isn’t about the banal details of my actual life (it mostly is), but about good telly.  So, what show merits the accolade of taking this blog into triple digits?  Dark.

Dark has probably haunted your Netflix menu persistently over the years.  Its lead image, a yellow-cagouled figure disappearing into a verdant cave, promises mystery and intrigue, but its position among so much else competing for your attention makes it a hard choice to pursue.  I chose to watch it because it’s in German and, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned, but my education culminated in me achieving near-native fluency in that language (as well as a passable ability to understand the odd word in French rap songs).  That reason is also significant enough in my life that I’ve picked this programme to occupy the position of blogpost number 100.  I don’t suppose this has been an appealing factor for a lot of you, especially as Dark seems, at first glance, to be a synthesis of many other shows.  The motif of a brightly coloured item of clothing brings to mind Jean’s anorak in fellow European fare, The Rain.  Making a wet and rainy climate look cinematic places it broadly in a league with The End Of The F***ing World.  The setting of a single town gripped by strangeness reminded me of The Returned (Les Revenants).  And finally, that strangeness of course draws comparison with Stranger Things.

Question: is Dark just a German Stranger Things?  Answer: a little bit, but it’s more than that.  I’ve recently been taking pains to point out to my intermittent readers that Just One More Episode doesn’t reveal any spoilers.  I’m careful not to let slip anything more than can be seen in a show’s trailer or basic synopsis in a TV guide.  There’s always enough inanity that you can share in the pure joy of my self-indulgent prose, even if you’ve had better things to do with your time than watch, for example, Riverdale or Jack Whitehall: Travels With My Father.  What becomes clear very early on is that Winden has a problem with missing children (a bit like Hawkins in Stranger Things). Episode one is a triumph in weaving together a cast of characters big enough to populate a whole town (because it’s basically the whole town), giving you enough about their past and present relationships to hook you in, and then setting up the jeopardy that starts us off from one riddle to the next.

Accompanying the furrowed brows of all these actors is a soundtrack that chimes in specifically to heighten the tension.  It has the rhythm of stomach rumbles, reminding you to concentrate on what’s unfolding before you: something important is about to be unearthed.  You can tell what type of thriller this is by whether people say thanks and goodbye at the end of phone calls.  They don’t.  A real-life chat typically concludes with a series of byes and see yous but, in Dark, the receiver simply drops from the actor’s face, while their expression conveys contemplation and mystery as they stare into the middle distance.  You might find yourself looking similarly vacant when a whole new cast appears in episode three.  A crucial element of Dark’s ambition (without giving away anything about its story) is that the action unfolds on three temporal planes, with the third instalment taking us to 1986 for the first time (cue nostalgia satisfaction for Stranger Things fans then…)

But let’s move on from that, before I inadvertently reveal more than I ought.  Each time the world of Winden expands, the quality of the drama prevents any dilution of your commitment.  Any ultimate resolution to Dark’s mysteries only ever seems further away, with each step towards it unlocking further nuggets to solve, yet there is no frustration, just intrigue.  You might, however, wonder why it rains so often and so heavily.  The cast are almost always soaked.  Maybe it’s to do with the imposing presence of the town’s nuclear power plant.  For fans of GCSE German among you, enjoy yourselves listening out for mentions of the Atomkraftwerk, essential vocabulary from the environment chapter of any language textbook memorised by people in their early thirties now, as part of a curriculum-bending effort to stop pollution by knowing how to talk about it in a foreign language.  Not sure that’s worked then, as the sea is full of your crisp packets (Blue Planet II) and the climate crisis rages (Our Planet).  Either way, pray the planet lasts until June 21^st when series two of Dark is promised to us by our Netflix overlords.  Don’t worry about the rising oceans giving you damp socks though; catch up on series one now and the whole thing will feel like an interactive experience as you view each rain-drenched scene with your own wet ankles.