Thursday, July 12, 2018

Glitch, Season 2, Episode 2: Two Truths





James returns to the Risen because gods forbid he spend 5 minutes with his wife and child. I’m choosing to think this is a terrible director decision to try and cram everything into this improbably short season and not because James is just an arsehole.

He takes Elisha to the other Risen while explaining about the whole Boundaries changing and their old hide out being ransacked and all - she claims ignorance but James is super suspicious of her now he knows she’s also one of the Risen, possibly caused the others to Rise and hasn’t told any of them.

All Elisha is interested in is finding John Doe - or William as we now know - she’s terrified that Norgard has him and insists that Norgard will kill him. Norgard is also the utter worst and she insists she was just a contractor there. She doesn’t know how she came back from the dead, she died of a seizure and Norgard was experimenting on her. Which seems… dubious to experiment on your own researcher. She insists she cares about the others and she came to Yoorana and the head of Norgard to try and find some answers - and protect them from Nicola the ultra big bad

James is similarly doubtful and intends to check with Norgard for himself. And because he doesn’t trust Elisha he’s going to handcuff her to the stove and leave her guarded by Kirstie

But first we have awkwardness with James and Kate - starting with him walking in on her having sex with super sexy neighbour Owen having sex (thank you for the far far too brief visual). So she’s pissed. Unfortunately she decides she’s also coming with him to Norgard. And when James objects (I mean she’s has no credentials or reasons to do so while he is a police officer) she stomps and growls that he can’t tell her what to do

She also decides to assume the identity of a detective. Despite having no qualifications. No badge. No credentials. No ID. She puts on a baseball cap which totally is a detective disguise. Oh and she’s also dressed as… as… honestly I can’t think of a job which would consider her clothes remotely professional.

And this is why I’m increasingly disliking Kate. Because her asserting her independence and resisting James’s control would be good. Her being a little annoyed and put out by the whole ex-husband is now married with a kid is understandable. But her asserting her agency feels like, well, Spunky Agency. She isn’t making a lot of sense, is generally unpleasant and not making a whole lot of sense. She is expressing her agency but her agency isn’t making a lot of sense and is generally annoying

Just in case we had any questions as to who is actually evil, Nicola takes William to Norgard to reveal his history (including being flogged and executed as a murderer) - and that Elisha knew who he was. She also has ominous evidence that Elisha has been feeding her information - she has samples from all the Risen. It looks dubious but Elisha did mention she was trading information in the hope for answers

But if there was any evil doubt, Nicola decides the best way to experiment on the Risen is to tie John down and cut off his fingers to see if they can make them regrow

Yeah, definitely evil there.

Luckily for John he’s guarded by both a highly gullible scientist and this while highly secure facility is guarded by one person (when James and Kate visit they wonder what top secret research facility has a guard. I wonder what top secret research facility only has one guard).


So John escapes pretty easily - which is what distracts Nancy from her terrible interview with James and Kate. They do get to speak to her using John’s police credentials but other than getting her to admit that Elisha worked with them, Nancy isn’t impressed and gives little away. She’s clear that they didn’t experiment on Elisha and scoffs at the very idea of the dead coming back to life

That last gem was contributed by not-detective Kate who is just bad at… everything.

They leave still with no idea of who to trust but Kate does read Elisha’s notes. She doesn’t understand them but does give us a brief idiot’s guide to stem cells.

John/William avoids them - but does go to see Elisha, confronting her about her knowing who he was. Especially now a number of flashbacks have brought his memories back. He was wrongly accused and he was in the navy. Elisha knew this - and more, she says she deliberately brought all the Risen back so she could resurrect him. Yes, things just got a lot more complicated

Charlie, meanwhile, is being used by Paddy to trap his house because Charlie is a complete doormat. Until he has flashbacks about when the house was a hospital and he was a patient during the first world war - when he was “treated” with electroshock for his severe shellshock.

He runs and ends up with Kirstie because they’re good friends (and she’s avoiding Elisha and wondering about finding her murderer). As they talk, he kisses her, to which she makes a comment about him not knowing who he was

This points to us having two bisexual characters, both of whom have referenced past same-sex relationships and both of whom have completely discarded or forgotten them with little thought or emotion to focus on opposite sex relationships. I wonder if this season will even remember Charlie is bisexual - and Elisha seems utterly indifferent about the woman she was living with but is overwhelmingly obsessed with William.


And time for another storyline in this already very very very very very full show. So i was all wrong about Beau’s family - Phil isn’t his brother, he’s his mother’s partner. And he and Phil have a bit of a rocky relationship (I don’t think granny’s overly impressed either). Oh and Beau’s mother works for Norgard for extra complexity

Phil may claim he wasn’t hurt in the oil fire but he has some severe scars on his back. And he tries to bond with Beau, making up for past issues so he can talk very very creepily about death and how it’s important. He’s also creepy with fire. And generally creepy. When Beau talks about seeing the dead come back to life after all this creepy death talk, Phil wants to know all about it until Beau takes him to where he found Paddy

Phil searches the area thinking he’s alone, not realising Beau is watching him, until he finds Vic’s dead body. Which Phil promptly performs a form of mouth to mouth on and sucks the knowledge out of him, getting Elisha’s name and reducing that inconvenient police corpse to dust.

No really. Yes this full show just got even more complicated. He also takes Vic’s phone.

Over to Sarah - she has a visit from the Health Visitor who is super awesome and kind and understanding and really good at explaining post natal depression and why Sarah feels so desperate and helpless as a mother. Not helped when she has a terrible scare in a park and is judged for not looking after her baby properly. She admits to James she thinks she has some issues still with Post Partum depression but is really honest and open and trusting. And James tells her all about what he’s been up to with the Risen. Which is useful because she does a far better job of calming down Chris, the cop who wants to contact the feds about the missing Vic

And Sarah sends Phill a message about Elisha and where she is… I assume she’s actually texting Vic? Honestly this whole show is getting very very very very confusing.

And I say, again, 6 episodes are not nearly enough. Not close to enough. Now we have Phil the corpse eater and Elisha now remembers William from when he was alive a hundred years ago? Throw in Nancy and the lab and Kirstie and Paddy (including some really horrible flashbacks that reveal Kalinda, the woman he “fell in love with” was actually a slave he beat on suspicion of theft who then saved him from a snake bite rather than let his awful carcass die. This can only be gross and revolting as we present this as his one true family he cared so much about while conveniently ignoring the whole abused slave thing).

None of this is going to be covered in anything resembling detail or focus. It simply can’t be.