Without trust, who do you believe in?
Apr. 4th, 2007 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
llywelaLife on Mars - Nearly All Over
Only one episode left. I find myself feeling a little glum about that, and also excited, because by this time next week we will know What It Was All About. I'm eagerly looking forward to being able to re-watch both seasons in a marathon (sometime - when? I need another long weekend for it!) with the full benefit of hindsight, so I can pick out all the clues and ooh and aah over how clever the writers were.
Hopefully.
Episode 2.07 started a little slowly, but quickly picked up pace and became awesome. By the time Sam'n'Gene were off on their own investigating more or less illicitly...well, it was just fabulous. I'm going to miss those two as a double act so very, very much. They had me in fits of laughter, even when things were deadly serious. That moment when Sam akes up yelling from a nightmare, sleeping on the floor, and wakes Gene, in his bed, who yells, and then they both see each other and yell again... MWAHAHAHAH. And the whole chase scene with Ray and Chris after them - works so well because they know each other so well. On the run from their own colleagues - Gene by necessity, and Sam out of choice, because he's opted to support Gene and help him try to prove his innocence.
The coppering story is, as usual, relatively simple really, because what actually matters is the fallout and impact on Sam. Gene appears to have committed a murder - the evidence is stacked up against him, his team are stunned and disbelieving, and Sam just has the stuffing knocked out of him by it all. He doesn't know what to think or believe any more. He trusted Gene, and now feels betrayed.
And that in itself speaks volumes, when you look back to the early stages of Sam and Gene's relationship, filled as it was with mutual mistrust back then. They've come a long way. Sam has come to trust Gene, to rely on him in all kinds of ways. Gene has become his point of reference in this 'alien' world he finds himself living in, so where in the early episodes he was actively working against Gene at times, deploring of his methods and hypothesizing that if he could bring Gene down he might be able to get home, here he has the ideal opportunity to be rid of Gene, but is crushed by the notion and does everything in his power to support his boss. Successfully.
Gene's innocence is proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, and Sam is happy - about as happy and relaxed and contented as we've ever seen him in his 1973 life. And then comes the bombshell to set up the finale - bombshell coming by way of Gene's temporary replacement DCI, Frank Morgan.
Another Wizard of Oz reference, let us note.
Morgan comes from Hyde - the same place Sam is supposed to have come from. Despite the fact that Sam doesn't know him, his methods mark him out as the same style of copper as Sam, as opposed to the slap-dash methods of Gene's team. The investigation he sets out to undertake is exactly the kind of thing Sam has been striving to achieve during his time here...and only by coming up against that, the very thing he's been working toward, does Sam realise how much he has absorbed of Gene's rough-and-ready approach and that what he wanted isn't going to be much help here. He wants to and tries to do the right thing, but when Gene comes to him for help, his sense of loyalty to the man he's come to regard as a friend proves greater than his sense of duty, and so he - without so much as a word about the legality of what he's doing - crosses the line into aiding and abetting a suspected murderer in order to help Gene prove his innocence.
Gene does, ultimately, turn out to be completely innocent - of the murders, at any rate. He's never been squeaky clean, and never will be, and Sam has come to accept that about him because he has cleaned up his act considerably under Sam's influence, and for all his faults he does try hard, and has a strong sense of justice.
But did Sam do the right thing, helping him? This is the question Sam must now ask himself, as Morgan's parting words make it clear that he is far more than a mere temporary stand-in for Gene - his Hyde origin has already totally implied that much. Hyde is a place...but it is also code for the modern, 2006/7 world that Sam believes, knows himself to come from and belong in, however he comes to be living in 1973 - time travel, insanity or coma. Those parting words from Morgan suggest that this was an opportunity for Sam to get out of this crazy life he's got himself stuck in, an opportunity to get home - that Gene 'wriggling out of it' was what blew the opportunity. Sam helped Gene to do that, which was the right thing to do in terms of their friendship. The right thing for Gene - but not the right thing for Sam, Morgan seemed to imply. Which raises all kinds of intriguing possibilities about what's going on and what will happen next week.
All three possibilities for what's going on can be argued in circles till the cows come home. The coma angle always plays the hardest, and if Sam is in a coma and his entire 1973 life is just an incredibly vivid and detailed fantasy, then the aberrant behaviour occasionally exhibited by the characters around him can be explained away as the fantasy starting to break down as he begins to move toward consciousness once more. There has always been a surreal air to his entire 1973 life, but aberrant behaviour from other characters is becoming more and more of a feature - Gene's highly bizarre solicitor in this episode, for example.
Is Sam in a coma and dreaming it all? Is he completely insane in 2006/7 and hallucinating his 1973 life? Is he insane in 1973 but still functional despite his belief that he comes from 30 years in the future? Has he actually travelled in time somehow? Or is there something else going on that we have yet to pick up on?
We'll find out next week.
Only one episode left. I find myself feeling a little glum about that, and also excited, because by this time next week we will know What It Was All About. I'm eagerly looking forward to being able to re-watch both seasons in a marathon (sometime - when? I need another long weekend for it!) with the full benefit of hindsight, so I can pick out all the clues and ooh and aah over how clever the writers were.
Hopefully.
Episode 2.07 started a little slowly, but quickly picked up pace and became awesome. By the time Sam'n'Gene were off on their own investigating more or less illicitly...well, it was just fabulous. I'm going to miss those two as a double act so very, very much. They had me in fits of laughter, even when things were deadly serious. That moment when Sam akes up yelling from a nightmare, sleeping on the floor, and wakes Gene, in his bed, who yells, and then they both see each other and yell again... MWAHAHAHAH. And the whole chase scene with Ray and Chris after them - works so well because they know each other so well. On the run from their own colleagues - Gene by necessity, and Sam out of choice, because he's opted to support Gene and help him try to prove his innocence.
The coppering story is, as usual, relatively simple really, because what actually matters is the fallout and impact on Sam. Gene appears to have committed a murder - the evidence is stacked up against him, his team are stunned and disbelieving, and Sam just has the stuffing knocked out of him by it all. He doesn't know what to think or believe any more. He trusted Gene, and now feels betrayed.
And that in itself speaks volumes, when you look back to the early stages of Sam and Gene's relationship, filled as it was with mutual mistrust back then. They've come a long way. Sam has come to trust Gene, to rely on him in all kinds of ways. Gene has become his point of reference in this 'alien' world he finds himself living in, so where in the early episodes he was actively working against Gene at times, deploring of his methods and hypothesizing that if he could bring Gene down he might be able to get home, here he has the ideal opportunity to be rid of Gene, but is crushed by the notion and does everything in his power to support his boss. Successfully.
Gene's innocence is proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, and Sam is happy - about as happy and relaxed and contented as we've ever seen him in his 1973 life. And then comes the bombshell to set up the finale - bombshell coming by way of Gene's temporary replacement DCI, Frank Morgan.
Another Wizard of Oz reference, let us note.
Morgan comes from Hyde - the same place Sam is supposed to have come from. Despite the fact that Sam doesn't know him, his methods mark him out as the same style of copper as Sam, as opposed to the slap-dash methods of Gene's team. The investigation he sets out to undertake is exactly the kind of thing Sam has been striving to achieve during his time here...and only by coming up against that, the very thing he's been working toward, does Sam realise how much he has absorbed of Gene's rough-and-ready approach and that what he wanted isn't going to be much help here. He wants to and tries to do the right thing, but when Gene comes to him for help, his sense of loyalty to the man he's come to regard as a friend proves greater than his sense of duty, and so he - without so much as a word about the legality of what he's doing - crosses the line into aiding and abetting a suspected murderer in order to help Gene prove his innocence.
Gene does, ultimately, turn out to be completely innocent - of the murders, at any rate. He's never been squeaky clean, and never will be, and Sam has come to accept that about him because he has cleaned up his act considerably under Sam's influence, and for all his faults he does try hard, and has a strong sense of justice.
But did Sam do the right thing, helping him? This is the question Sam must now ask himself, as Morgan's parting words make it clear that he is far more than a mere temporary stand-in for Gene - his Hyde origin has already totally implied that much. Hyde is a place...but it is also code for the modern, 2006/7 world that Sam believes, knows himself to come from and belong in, however he comes to be living in 1973 - time travel, insanity or coma. Those parting words from Morgan suggest that this was an opportunity for Sam to get out of this crazy life he's got himself stuck in, an opportunity to get home - that Gene 'wriggling out of it' was what blew the opportunity. Sam helped Gene to do that, which was the right thing to do in terms of their friendship. The right thing for Gene - but not the right thing for Sam, Morgan seemed to imply. Which raises all kinds of intriguing possibilities about what's going on and what will happen next week.
All three possibilities for what's going on can be argued in circles till the cows come home. The coma angle always plays the hardest, and if Sam is in a coma and his entire 1973 life is just an incredibly vivid and detailed fantasy, then the aberrant behaviour occasionally exhibited by the characters around him can be explained away as the fantasy starting to break down as he begins to move toward consciousness once more. There has always been a surreal air to his entire 1973 life, but aberrant behaviour from other characters is becoming more and more of a feature - Gene's highly bizarre solicitor in this episode, for example.
Is Sam in a coma and dreaming it all? Is he completely insane in 2006/7 and hallucinating his 1973 life? Is he insane in 1973 but still functional despite his belief that he comes from 30 years in the future? Has he actually travelled in time somehow? Or is there something else going on that we have yet to pick up on?
We'll find out next week.
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Date: 2007-04-05 06:53 pm (UTC)