Saturday, August 18, 2018

Glitch, Season 2, Episode 6: The Letter




It’s the last episode and I want answers….

Which isn’t going to happen

Instead we have Phil in prison being questioned by James and he’s dancing around all kinds of answers: Phil makes a big slightly epic speech about there being rules to the universe and one of those big ones is that living things are born, live and die in that order. This is how things are, this is how things should be. And it is Phil’s job to enforce those laws

He doesn’t answer when James asks if he’s enforcing them for god but I am doubling down on my belief they’re angels. It’s all very ominous

He does say he is like Phil - he has Phil’s body and memories - but also admits to possession pretty much.

James then gets a call from Beau telling him that Paddy has been shot - James realises there’s another like Phil and Vic out there and he goes to Beau to help him

Beau is actually kind of sad about Paddy which I still think doesn’t have enough reinforcement - there’s still little reason for Beau to value this man. But it does give James and Beau chance to talk - revealing that Beau was there when the dead crawled from their graves (he visits the graveyard to think about his father - who isn’t buried there. But Paddy, a male ancestor, was). I think they cross the boundary though - because Paddy’s body turns to dust which all spookily blows away: Beau remembers Vic’s body doing the same thing after Phil messed with it. James is more distracted by a bullet left behind in the dust - a bullet like the ones the police use

Without a body to dispose of James can leave Beau and go check in with the others telling them Paddy’s dead and someone else is out to kill them - and they need a place of safety (Kate takes a brief time out to check in with Owen and say that she can’t be with him for reasons). The only place they can think of is Norgard - using Nichola Hysen’s security. Especially since the ever shrinking boundary is centred there.

There’s not a lot of trust but Kate is convinced enough for her and the others to join William while James goes off. Inside Nichola explains Elishia’s research: chemicals + sounds + stem cells = magic, basically. With a heavy emphasis on memories being what makes them people rather than copies, clones etc etc. And they think they can fix the Boundary - but it will also kind of involve bringing Elishia back again - or so they hope.

While everyone’s out and about, Sarah frees Phill and they have their own in depth discussion - he is doubting her resolve. He also doesn’t understand why she’s looking after Nia since the baby gives her nothing and it’s an entirely one way relationship. Sarah can’t exactly explain it, just saying it’s love and what you do because love is pretty hard to understand. She’s also torn up about killing Paddy - and killing him in front of Beau, likely traumatising him. I think we see Phill isn’t entirely a stranger to parental responsibility since he actually says that Beau has him now. There’s a definite sense of a connection there.

We get more ominous talk about how they’re basically stuck in these bodies until they die as well - as is right and proper - and some conflict over whether that’s punishment or reward. Phill is growing to like his humanity

Following research they realise the dead have fled to Norgard and Sarah leaves her baby with the awesome midwife. While James has put 2 and 2 together and realised that Sarah is his other killer

It’s less 2 and 2 to make 4 and more 2 and 2 to make 766567 but run with it, it’s a short show. He calls her and is full of rage and grief and horror that this monster has possessed his dead wife and now has their baby...while Sarah tearfully tries to convince him she’s still Sarah (and a killing angel person).

James naturally checks on his baby first before running to the rescue

At Norgard, Hysen’s security is non existent. We’ve seen this before when William first left. So Phil and Sarah have no problem breaking in (especially since Phil is in a relationship with Ellen, Beau’s mother, who works there) and Kate, Kirstie and Charlie all run to the cemetery where Nichola and William are already practicing some science woo-woo - in the process Charlie is shot but not killed.


Time for the grand confrontation in the cemetery at night with lots of fighting and James and Chris arrive and we have the ultimate show down. Sarah has her best friend Kate cornered and points a gun at her. James stands in the way and won’t move… Sarah can’t bring herself to kill James… but then Phill appears and grabs James, they wrestle and are pulled out the way

Sarah’s shot at Kate is clear… but she shoots Phill instead. Who then shoots her.

Which is… awfully neat and convenient? And means we won’t get answers and just leaves us with the epilogue

Firstly: Elishia (and no-one else) came back from the dead despite Nichola’s woo-woo

So James and Kate kind of are still into each other but decide not to go there because there’s just SO MUCH between them. He admits he was at the cemetery that night and it was probably his thoughts that brought her back. This is their working theory now, in addition to woo-woo you need someone present thinking intensely about you as well. So we had Beau and Paddy as well

Kirstie had Chris… he’s reopening the file into her murder out of his own guilt. When she died he planted evidence that got the wrong man convicted - he was 10 years old and his big brother paid him to do it. He’s felt massive guilt since then and thought about her every day proving it by basically reciting her gravestone. His thoughts brought her back. Kirstie starts with a “this doesn’t make up for this” but in the end there’s definite understanding and some peace there

As for Charlie… who knows. He’s never really had that much of a story that was that involved.

Sarah has left a letter for James assuring him that she truly did love him and Nia and yes she was an evil murdering possessing angel (I’m paraphrasing) but she was also Sarah - with her memories and feelings). James covers her death by telling awesome midwife that Sarah ran off with Phill - and I feel for said Midwife because she was so supportive and now feels she totally failed them. Raise a glass for awesome midwife, true star of the show!

The letter is super sappy

Plot hooks for next season, if there is one (I don’t know what the timing is between seasons in Australia. I assume it’s whenever they beat the snakes and spiders away from the cameras): Paddy is alive! And claimed by Nichola Hysen who has rolled her Random-Moral-Compass-Generator and come up with Evil today.

The Fitzgerald’s have given Beau’s family a boat load of money because of the old will.

Kate decides to tell Owen everything… and he ominous calls someone

And we close with William lurking in the cemetery and then ominous music

I actually really liked this season of Glitch, certainly more than the first season because it had a lot more structure and goals to it. But it had a fundamental flaw: it’s really really short. Six episodes. There’s no time here so much got undeveloped

Charlie was a completely pointless, superfluous character who barely fit with anyone else. Beau was an aside and they never really took the time to link him with the others or develop a real relationship with Beau. I have no idea what the point of Owen was. Phil could definitely have been developed more. Chris could have been developed more. Elishia, William and Norgard needed more. Kirstie and her attacker needed more. More of Phil and Sarah adapting their human and supernatural selves. There wasn’t enough room for a tenth of what they tried to pack in

There was also a whole lot of narrative convenience, not because the writers are lazy but because there wasn’t the space. Like the Fitzgerald’s just decide to pay Beau’s family - that’s it? That easy? Racism, prejudices and historical injustices don’t wrap up that easy. Or James making some pretty huge logical leaps at times… which turn out to be right (like identifying Phil and Sarah as the big bads). Phil and Sarah conveniently killing each other. Nichola Hysen going from hostile to co-operative in the space of a blink. No time for development leads to a lot of unexplained, overly convenient and under-developed stories

It doesn’t help the marginalised characters either. We have Beau and his family - but I don’t even know Beau’s mother and grandmother’s names (and I’m only inferring that relationship) and while Sarah showed plenty of humanity, Phil basically appeared as evil and alien and didn’t really go much beyond that. Beau himself served little purpose except to be Paddy’s guide to the modern world despite his frequent racist language and risk of getting into a feud with the Fitzgerald’s. There was never adequate explanation for why Beau tolerated Paddy and while the show explored some of the abuse Aboriginal Australian’s suffered and suffer it also had a very hand wavy ending

Elishia was apparently bisexual or a lesbian when alive but she’s a) dead again and b) seems to be have resurrected not giving a damn about her female partner to focus entirely on William. Charlie in addition to be under-deverloped, shows no indication of being attracted to men at all this season - but he did kiss Kirstie completely randomly. Really, neither are great