Critique: Why Women Kill (Series Two)

It was amazing how similar and how dissimilar Series Two was to Series One. The thing about Series One that hooked me was that the main characters all lived in the same property but at different time periods. It was a really interesting way to present and frame the story. I am glad that Series Two didn’t mimic this (instead the story was set in one time period).

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

The plot was quite intense at times, particularly for a comedy. The plot also had a habit of zigzagging, yet this was disorientating.

Alma is married to Bertie. Alma wants to join Rita’s garden club. Rita is married to Carlo. Rita is sleeping with Scooter who’s also sleeping with Dee, Alma and Bertie’s daughter, and Catherine, Carlo’s daughter. Pretty early on you have an idea of who will kill whom. As the series progresses, this impression is reinforced. But in the end, all this was a shoal of red herrings: nothing goes as planned.

Alma has Bertie kill Carlo and frames Rita for it. So Rita, the woman you thought most likely to go to jail, does but for a murder she didn’t commit. Plus Alma, the woman you thought least likely to kill, is the one behind the death. Then Alma outright kills Isabelle! Yet the action that hurt the most was Alma’s betrayal of Grace, just so Alma could climb the social ladder.

The most touching moment happened when Dee and Vern spent their first night together. Dee kisses Vern’s extensive scars, the same scars that scared his previous fiancé away, and then Dee rested her head against them. That was beautiful. Then Vern cried a little bit. Such a wholesome scene!

 

The humour was sublime.

Quite a lot of the best bits are related to Bertie euthanizing patients. Bertie justifies performing one on someone who misses their dead husband but Alma tells him not to arrange a reunion. Bertie tells a priest that it’s hard not to ‘help’ people and the priest responds, ‘What’s hard? You wake up. You go to work. You don’t kill. You come home.’

Isabelle, Rita’s maid and cousin, tells Rita that people would kill for a life like hers. (It’s funny because later on, that’s pretty much what happened). Rita responds, ‘I’m looking for sympathy not perspective.’ I real life, we all have moments where we wants sympathy rather than perspective but this is the first time I’m heard that emotion being explained so well.

When Rita notes Catherine to be a good mood, Catherine tells Rita not to ruin it by ‘speaking. Or breathing.’ Also when  Isabelle tries to blackmail Catherine with a picture of her sleeping with Scooter, Catherine is put off. Not for the obvious reasons: instead, she wants a ‘better angle’ because her ‘breasts are far more impressive than that.’

Catherine ordered the autopsy for her father as a final gift. So Rita says she knows what she’s getting Catherine for Christmas.

Dee tells Rita she has a message from Alma. Dee slaps Rita and says, ‘Did you get that or do I need to repeat myself?’

 

The show was managed well but a few things fell through the cracks. Unfortunately, most of this happened in the final episode.

When Alma comes out the restaurant, her stole is completely uneven. Then the very next shot, her stole is completely even. There wasn’t enough time, or even the hand movements, for Alma to have straightened her stole.

Catherine wasn’t in the final episode. This really annoyed me. It was almost like her character was in the way so they took the first opportunity to get rid of her. Indeed, the way the final episode was written, there was no room for Catherine. This was such a shame because Catherine wasn’t a minor character!

The final issue wasn’t restricted to the final episode alone. Bertie has an English accent. A flashback to his early childhood reveals an American accent and his teenage years sounded oddly Australian. Whilst accents can and do change over the course of a lifetime, as the programme didn’t go on Bertie’s life journey with him, Bertie having different accents wasn’t appropriate.

 

This show could’ve started a conversation about euthanasia. Indeed, in Bertie’s flashback of killing his mother, she says, ‘When I die I will finally be free of suffering which is something to celebrate.’ So you sympathise.

But no. Instead Bertie didn’t do it on people’s requests so he was being murderous. So this equated euthanasia with homicidal activities. Truly this was a missed opportunity.

All the writers would’ve needed to do was make the ‘patients’ say they want out, Bertie offers then the patient accepts. Yes, the euthanasia would still be illegal but at least it wouldn’t be immoral.

This would have made Bertie’s realisation that Carlo didn’t ask for euthanasia even more shocking. Hence Alma’s personality change and motivations would have appeared even more shocking.

 

So yes, there was a lot this show needed to do to improve. Perhaps I’m being more scathing than usual because I expected so much from series two. Yet the costumes, the settings, the camera shots, the humour… all individually would have warranted the show being labelled ‘good’. So together they made something ‘great’.

Critique: Vigil

A death happens on board the British submarine HMS Vigil in Scottish waters and Amy, a detective, is sent aboard to investigate.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

A lot of good decisions were made during the creative process of this programme. One of the simpler ones was Amy’s cat who was called Kat. A cat called Kat! Admittedly that’s short for Kathryn but it still tickles me.

There were so many twists in the plots, both on land and at sea. Yet it never became muddled or confusing, even though there were few episodes. For the writer to not end up with a Spaghetti Junction situation is really rather amazing. Episode Five in particular handled the plot very well, gripping me so much that I didn’t look away, not even to drink water.

We see flashbacks, including Amy trying to start a relationship with fellow detective Kirsten (the day after Amy walks out after Kirsten kisses her). In this flashback, Kirsten said, ‘”I thought you don’t like women?”’ and Amy replied, ‘”I don’t. I like you.”’ Pulling on my heartstrings!

The last shot was of Amy embracing her stepdaughter Poppy. Any other show would have shown Amy hugging her reconciled-lover Kirsten: lovers always take precedence over children on screen. But in not following this norm, this solidified ‘Vigil’ as a drama, not a backdoor romance.

 

 

I do wonder why Amy’s chosen to investigate the death.

I would have thought the Military Police would have investigated, considering it happened on MoD property. Or maybe that only applies to the ownership of territory (e.g. an MoD base) rather than ownership of property (i.e. the submarine)?

From her boss’ point of view, Amy is the best detective so of course she’s sent. This is realistic, whatever the personal circumstances. But in one of Amy’s flashbacks, we see her car sinking with her partner and Poppy. Amy could only save one and she chose Poppy. Unsurprisingly, Amy has PTSD over this and yet her boss thinks she should be the one to investigate on a submarine. An enclosed space surrounded by water. Surely that decision breaks ethics and basic humanity?

 

I do have two issues with the programme, however.

            If the naval base sends messages to Vigil, it risks others knowing Vigil’s location. Yet Vigil can send as many messages to base as they like without risking their location. Why would receiving be risky but sending not?

Due to a poisonous substance, an area of the ship is sealed off. Amy and the coxswain go in whilst wearing dive suits. This is all fine but what happens afterwards is problematic. The coxswain’s suit tears really easily: surely the material would be stronger, considering a tear results in drowning? Also, the lights aren’t on. Why? Working with torches makes their jobs more difficult and more dangerous.

 

Poppy isn’t allowed to live with Amy. (If only Amy married Poppy’s father, like he and Poppy wanted, this wouldn’t have been an issue!) Instead Poppy lives with her grandparents and they hardly let Amy see her. It seems harsh, considering Poppy calls Amy ‘Mummy’.

Later we learn Amy wants joint custody but the grandmother thinks Poppy travelling between the two houses wouldn’t provide stability. Not being allowed to see her Mummy is much more destabilising that a few extra car journeys.

I imagine the grandmother blames Amy for her son’s death. Sure, she can understand that rescuing her granddaughter, a child, is good, but her son still died because of Amy’s choice. But surely this decision shows how much Amy cares for Poppy, thus shows how much Amy and Poppy should be together?

 

In the end, the navy blamed the sinking of a British fishing boat on a Russian submarine, even though it was an American one. Considering everything that Russia caused on Vigil and its consequences (both the successful and the intended), Russia gets off pretty lightly.

If something like this happened in real life between allies, I hope there would be an apology and compensation, even if it had to be done secretly.

Then this brings questions because the compensation should go to the families but as soon as they know, everyone’s bound to find out and that brings political embarrassment. Plus it’s not like the government can give the families money without explanation and not expect questions and suspicion. So nothing would happen for those that needed it most.

 

This programme was far removed from my usual genre. Sometimes this means I lose interest but not so with ‘Vigil’. The intrigue kept me fully occupied and kept me itching, waiting for the next episode to air. I almost wish I’d binge-watched it but then I wouldn’t have been able to savour it as much as I did.

Critique: Domina

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

This made for an interesting watch. Simply, it was fascinating.

 

The plots and intrigue carried out by Livinia and Antigini were so, so clever.

It does get them in a tangle a few times but then they unknot themselves with another plot. Outcomes in the distant future are often as thought through as those in the short-term.

She married her enemy, the reason why the republic her father favoured fell and became an empire. Everyone thinks she’s betrayed her father. But it was all a plot to be close to power and then revive the republic.

Livinia’s dad freed Antigini to please Lavinia. Plus he had her educated, something that made a lot of men uncomfortable around her. Indeed, as one of Caesar’s friends said, “Your wife is cleverest man in Rome.” So her ability to manipulate the men of Rome is fully believable.

 

Honestly, the first episode should have been its own series.

The amount of time that went by, the amount of events that happened and the amount of characters that had to be remembered were simply too much. It was almost like the first episode was an hour-long catch-up of the programme so far. It was disorientating.

Also I preferred Livinia’s younger actor to the actor we get in the rest of the series so it was a shame to only get her in two episodes. Plus the older actor had a completely different accent to the younger one which seems a massive oversight concerning continuity.

 

Tiberius is creepy in a sexual way towards his mother.

He watches her have sex and goes to touch her breasts whilst she sleeps. He even asks a prostitute to be his mother! I wanted to vomit so much.

When we next see that prostitute, her throat had been slit, showing that Tiberius wants his mother dead. This doesn’t come as a big surprise, considering how his mother talks to him/treats him, and how angry he was with her that episode. This seemed to get it out of his system, however, because he then agrees to help her.

 

There were too many scenes of people using the toilet than I would have liked. It could be presenting the completely different attitude Romans had to privacy and bodily functions. The fact that doors and walls had series of small patterned holes so perhaps privacy wasn’t a real, major concern for them? This is all conjecture on my part and I don’t care enough to do research. Still, personally I’d not have so many toilet scenes.

 

The older a piece of history is, the more intriguing I find it. Yet the history within the Italian peninsular has never grabbed me (in regards to Europe, I’ve stuck with British and Greek, mostly). So trying out the history of Rome itself was new for me. Whilst Domina is fiction, it’s nonetheless been a good introduction for me.