TV REVIEW: Ripper Street - Our Betrayal Part 1

‘Our Betrayal, Part 1’, was by enlarge the Ripper Street episode we’ve been waiting for all series. With a strong character focus and a reasonably simple plot, free from overly flowery language and crowded narrative arcs, it was actually rather enjoyable to watch. And just as I was beginning to doubt I would ever type those words.

The tortured and bereaved Sergeant Drake (Jerome Flynn) having not been seen since the death of his wife six months ago, Inspector Reid (Matthew Macfadyen) and young Flight (Damien Molony) have been left to run H division without him. Despite Bennett never having seemed to play too vital a role in proceedings before, it seems that in his absence this is easier said than done. A jewellery conman is on the run, and it is left to Flight to find him. However, when the search takes him into the territory of Inspector Shine, played by Joseph Mawle with as effective a sly menace as ever, we are presented with a man who, at best, has divided loyalties, and at worst, is a traitor and a mole in the camp of the hand that feeds him.  Meanwhile, life gets even trickier for Jackson (Adam Rothenberg). Still living with Reid, having been kicked out by Lazy Susan – sorry, Long Susan (MyAnna Buring), it is understandably awkward when his trouble-making long lost brother turns up from South Africa sporting a rather large uncut diamond.

This diamond however, at least in Jackson’s eager eyes, could be the very thing to save Long Susan and her brothel from the slimy clutches of Silas Duggan (Frank Harper). Things haven’t improved much in that department since last week’s episode,  with Duggan moving into a room in, as he puts it, ‘his house’. His bargain to Susan remains on the table (thankfully that’s all he puts on the table) – namely that he will lift all debts should she agree to spend just ‘one night of pleasure’ with him. Yum. He has made it clear, too, that he wants no one but her. Susan is understandably concerned about this, as unlike poor former employee Rose (Charlene McKenna), who has been wandering Whitechapel in search of Drake for months, Susan knows ‘what it is like to lie with the man she loves’, and is anxious about selling her body –despite having built a career overseeing dozens of girls doing that very thing.

Despite the obvious hypocrisies of her position, however, the storyline is a moving one. In fact it’s been one of the better storylines of the series, as well as one of the most underused. Her final resolution on the matter is little short of heart-breaking, particularly as she has always been one of a very small number of women in the show with any kind of independence or freedom. To watch that being slowly eroded does not make for easy viewing. Her relationship with her estranged husband underpins it all of course, although again we’re left unsure whether their marriage is indeed broken beyond retribution. Set alongside the relationship between Rose and her beloved Bennet, we’re left wondering if there is any hope in Whitechapel at all for wives, husbands and would be lovers. Never fear though, Inspector Reid is on the case, with amorous feelings of his own… I don’t really want to discuss that any further as I found it more than a little awkward.

Moving on, then, to new boy Flight, who in all honesty as had plot device sewn into his waistcoat since he first stepped on the screen, particularly as he has been perpetually  picked up and dropped like a yo-yo depending on what else has been happening in the episode. To that end, his involvement in the betrayal was one of a few elements to the episode which did not feel wholly believable. There needed to have been at least a couple of signs along the way that he was not to be trusted, and, unless I nodded off for half the series, which admittedly is quite likely, there have been none. Also feeling unbelievable were the series of co-incidences which brought Bennet back to H division. Epic as the moment of his prodigal return felt, it was all just a little, or a lot, too convenient. I also found it rather amusing that it had seemingly  taken Rose six months to notice that Jackson was no longer living at the brothel, but in the grand scheme of all things Ripper Street that’s probably by the by.

Fingers crossed this momentum can be kept up for tomorrow night’s finale- that way I might even depart the series with a couple of positive things to say.

Jen

Follow @AssortedBuffery on Twitter
Or like our Facebook page.

You can read my own blog here or follow me on twitter here

TV REVIEW: Ripper Street - A Stronger Loving World

I would apologise at the lateness of this review of Ripper Street, ‘A Stronger Loving World’, but to be honest it’s taken me this long to get my head around the different broken fragments of the episode.

Racial tension began as the order of the day, when a Church is torched, leading to widespread blame of the Jewish community. A subsequent attack on a synagogue as well as some crafty pamphlet font comparison work (as you do) leads H division to investigate the possibility that both attacks were carried out by the same party. Rose (Charlene McKenna), after the discovery that Long Susan (MyAnna Buring) can no longer financially support her, left brothel for slightly less green pastures, which consisted largely of her drinking gin alone in a public house. Befriended by a mysterious cult-like group, Rose finds herself in an oddly luxuriously decorated abandoned building, with food and a roof over her head for as long as she needs it. Only the pages of religious doctrine littered about, as well as all the references to ‘Father’ suggest that anything sinister is afoot – but are the cult too good to be true? Meanwhile, Bella Drake (Gillian Saker), wife of Bennett (Jerome Flynn) mysteriously disappeared, only to return a day later with her strange long lost Uncle, Gabriel Cain, played be a gloriously Captain Hook-like be-bearded Paul Kaye. It’s up to Bennett and Rose to figure out what’s going on, conveniently bringing together the (vague) threads of the storyline in the process because, of course, they are were all connected.

In another vastly confusing episode, Paul Kaye was able to really stand out as the sinister cult leader, creating an artificial family of followers all of whom, naturally, adore him. He looked every inch the part (the inches, of course, being the beard) and was wholly believable as a man capable of manipulating not only poor innocent Bella but an entire group of people into a deluded suicide pact at his behest. Second only to this performance was that of Jerome Flynn, who was heart-breaking as the distraught newlywed who finds his happiness disappearing in front of his eyes almost as quickly as it materialised in the first place. It was just a shame that, having been so, er, shortlived, (bit of a spoiler there, I apologise), the happiness itself, in the form of Bella, didn’t quite pack the emotional punch it could have had she been a more established character. Again with Ripper Street, the detective’s wives are little more than expendable plot devices, doomed to further the action with graceful deaths and emotional breakdowns, but never to add anything to it. In a stunning act of self-awareness, however, Inspector Reid (Matthew Macfadyen) seemed to begin to realise this here, giving Bennett all the time he needed to mend his broken personal life. I couldn’t help but wish that this had been the focus of the storyline instead, but alas no such luck, especially with the homeless Jackson (Adam Rothenberg) drunkenly stumbling about the place like a dodgy Jack Sparrow impersonator.

With such a potentially interesting start, we were once again sent spinning off into a wild vortex of a tangent with this episode. As has so often been the case with Series 2 of this show, the episode we ended up with was completely different from the one we signed up for at the start of the show, to the detriment of any themes established in the first quarter of the episode. Present as ever was The Scene, in which all the confusing madness is explained, although here this served more to frustrate than inform.

I really hope it can get enough of a grip on one single narrative thread to make the final episodes work. With the recent announcement of the cancellation of Series 3, it would be cheering if the show could go out with more of a confident bang than a perplexed whimper.

Jen 

Follow @AssortedBuffery on Twitter
Or like our Facebook page.

You can read my own blog here or follow me on twitter here

TV REVIEW: Ripper Street - Threads of Silk and Gold

I hate to begin a review on a pun (this is a lie) but during Ripper Street Episode 5, ‘Threads of Silk and Gold’ I have to say I found said thread, in terms of the plot at least, rather difficult to get a hold of.

The episode began with a pair of young lovers, specifically a pair of young telegram messenger boys, discussing their plans to run away together- away from a society which does not accept them. Soon, however, we find ourselves in a case of mistaken identity, as another telegram boy is killed in one of the lovers’ places. Upon further, well inspection I suppose, of the victim, Inspector Reid (Matthew Macfadyen) and his team discover, through some potentially grisly post mortem examination from Jackson (Adam Rothenberg) that this boy, and presumably several of the others, were selling themselves to business men for a bit of money on the side. And so the plot thickens, leading our trio to the doors of the men who used the services of the telegram boys, particularly as one likely client, or companion as he seemed to prefer to think of himself, is now also dead. Reid and his men must consider the business affairs surrounding the situation in order to surmise what may be happening, leading them to the characteristically shady world of Whitechapel’s banking system. Presumably not a banking system much more reputable than the UK banking system of today.

There was much potential here. The social context of homosexual relationships in Victorian London, in a time when to love a member of your own sex was a harshly punished crime, was an interesting one to choose, particularly after the equally weighty themed ‘Become Man’. The show’s basis in contextual fact had a human face here, especially as the issue seemingly so troubled Captain Serious himself, our humble leader, Inspector Reid. Sadly, as is so often the case with Ripper Street, and I do tire of banging on about it (believe me) it felt like a wasted opportunity. There was no real spark to the episode (well there was, but it had nothing whatsoever to do with main plot – more on this shortly), nothing to incite the passionate response this issue so sorely deserved. It was left to Jerome Flynn’s thoughtful, respectful silence in the presence of the bereaved boy, towards the end of the episode, to convey all the sympathy and respect the episode just didn’t quite manage by itself. Don’t get me wrong, he did it rather well, we just needed more than one look from him and several moments of sympathetic blustering from his boss to feel that this had been executed efficiently.

 

Meanwhile, the loyal and trustworthy Reid was having problems of his own. Since it was revealed to the audience that his wife, Emily, has now been institutionalised due to her prolonged and ultimately delayed grief over the death of their daughter, not to mention the ‘false hope’ and betrayal from her husband, Reid has, in a staggering event of chronological convenience, been, well, flirting, frankly, with ‘Become Man’ MP Jane Cobden (Leanne Best). Much as the analytical nerd in my enjoyed the fact that the character featured in two episodes which make sense as a pair, particularly in terms of sexuality and character development, appearing the second to bring this theme to fruition, the whole thing just didn’t feel very Reid-like. Whilst he did have an affair in Series One, he was at least a tiny bit traumatised by guilt over that one, whereas now by contrast it seems that 30 seconds worth of dialogue about his poor (forgotten!) wife is the only license he needs to play tonsil tennis with another dark haired beauty. Given that the man struggles to make any decision with pondering it later over whisky with Bennett, seemingly wracked by something akin to guilt (although that may just be the earnestness again), this rapid emotional rebound just didn’t sit right with me.

On though, to the spark of the episode I mentioned earlier. Out of nowhere, almost at the end of the episode, after The Scene where all is revealed very quickly in hushed voices against an overly loud musical backdrop, came a scene the like of which I dare say we have not seen in Ripper Street before. Packing a huge, not to mention unexpected, emotional punch, came the seeming demise of the marriage between Long Susan (MyAnna Buring) and Jackson. Having discovered that he has gambled away what was left of her money in a misguided attempt to help her, Susan doesn’t rant, doesn’t rail, doesn’t throw a heavy household object at his head as we’ve seen her do before and like he expects, even asks her to, but simply, quietly, tells him to ‘get out’. Following on from her new found opinions and strength of character from Become Man, an episode I now definitely consider to definitely be the episode’s pair (if such decisions are indeed made at Ripper Street towers), this was a fascinating development.

In fact, ladies and gentlemen, I think that moment is a likely contender for the accolade I’ve just made up – moment of the series so far. It’s just a shame the rest of it was such a tangled mess of telegram uniforms, actors with confusingly similar haircuts and a devastating lack of thread – silk and gold or otherwise.

Ripper Street is next on Monday night, 9pm BBC One.

Jen

Follow @AssortedBuffery on Twitter
Or like our Facebook page.

You can read my own blog here or follow me on twitter here

TV REVIEW: Ripper Street - Dynamite and a Woman

Like many, if not all, Ripper Street episodes, ‘Dynamite and a Woman’ finished up as a very different episode to the one we all started watching. Good job it’s so clear and easy to follow then. Ahem.

When an Irish convict and bomber escapes from a police van seemingly by chance, with his police guard quite literally dropping dead on the spot, Reid (Matthew Macfadyen) have lots to investigate. Said convict, Aiden Galvin played with suitable fierceness by Stanley Townsend, subsequently murders a bigoted anti-Irish MP. Despite being put onto the trail of the Irish Republican Brotherhood by the ever-shouty Detective Abberline (Clive Russell), Reid (Matthew Macfadyen) sends conveniently Irish young newbie Flight (Damien Molony) off to gain the trust of Galvin’s daughter, beautiful redhead barmaid Evelyn (Charlie Murphy). Meanwhile, with the help of surgeon Homer Jackson (Adam Rothenberg) Reid and Bennett (Jerome Flynn) discover that Galvin’s guard was killed not by a sudden, unprompted heart failure, but by, and here’s the twist, electrocution. This catapults the team into a world of ferocious competition between the camps of AC and DC currents, live animal demonstrations and shady deals. Things only get more complicated when it turns out Evelyn has been receiving letters from America, from another man also claiming to be her father.

Got all that? Not to worry if not, there’ll be a moment about 45-48 minutes into the episode, a moment 

I have now come to recognise and refer to as The Scene, during which all will be revealed very quickly during a furtive conversation, typically between Reid and Bennett. Still spoken at a whisper, mind you.

Complications aside, this wasn’t too shabby an episode. The current Ripper Street trope of basing its storylines, at least vaguely, on fact, was carried off well here, with references to Eddison’s experiments with Topsy the elephant when working to promote electricity in the States. There was also a genuine, real life opportunity for new boy Flight to ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING. Which I’m sure was rather nice for him, especially as it meant he got to hang around a raucous pub and snog the barmaid, which must have been infinitely more fun for a young lad than an afternoon in a dingy police station with Reid and Bennett. Their short lived relationship was actually rather touching, particularly in light of her eventual departure for New York, and his reaction to both this and her instinct that he wasn’t who he said he was. Jackson and Long Susan (MyAnna Buring) were noticeably rather absent from this episode, presumably due to their heavy storyline in the previous one. This was a shame really, as their story arc was progressing rather interestingly, given her new found views and questioned loyalties. Here’s hoping she doesn’t go the way of the show’s Joseph Merrick, just another swiftly dropped bit part.

This was an interesting hour of drama, playing on some intriguing and innovative themes, and showing some genuine character development. As usual, however, it got bogged down in the detail and complexities. A marked improvement, still it would do well to learn that the simplest way of telling a story is often the best.

Jen

Follow @AssortedBuffery on Twitter
Or like our Facebook page.

You can read my own blog here or follow me on twitter here

TV REVIEW: Ripper Street - Become Man

This week’s episode of Ripper Street took a departure from the norm somewhat. The norm being the side-lining of the show’s female characters in favour of some dubious plotlines and questionable (at best) dialogue.

Become Man, however, saw Long (Tall) Susan (MyAnna Buring) take centre stage. The episode kicked off with her and her husband/partner/housemate/hanger on (nobody’s quite sure) Homer Hackson (Adam Rothenberg) taking a trip to  a local music hall where Series One regular and former prostitute Rose (Charlene McKenna) has taken a job  as a waitress in an attempt to make it as an actress. They’re scarcely there ten minutes when a powerful councillor is abducted by what Detective Inspector Reid (Matthew Macfadyen) remarkably quickly deduces to be a gang of women. It isn’t long until one of Susan’s customers is also abducted, with Susan herself being taken too. Jackson shows concern for her for a change, and the team tear across London trying to identify the women’s vengeful and in so doing locate their hide out.

Walter de Souza, the first to be abducted, turns out to have made a stand against the potential election of Jane Cobden, a real life Liberal politician, played here with aplomb by Leanne Best.  This forms the team’s first lead, and with it they identify a running theme as to the chosen abductees. Largely carried out by women angry at their treatment by men, specifically due to their mistreatment and lack of compensation from matchbox factory owners uncaring about their phosphorous poisoning, the episode allows some interesting questions to be raised about revenge, justice and the means by which to gain it. The subsequent return of Susan to Reid and the gang (a less breezy version of Kool and the Gang) also allows her to be used as bait by the men, adding to this idea of female worth in a male world. To that end, it is no surprise that she begins to sympathise with the women, developing an understanding with and empathy for Raine (Neve McIntosh) an actress usually found dressed as a reptile in Doctor Who.

It is this understanding which causes Susan’s loyalties to be questioned for good, and we can’t help but feel as an audience that if the Three Musketeers hadn’t swooped in (well, stumbled in behind  hefty and inaccurate battering ram) and rescued her at the last minute, she might just have stayed. This subplot gave a fascinating new dynamic to what at times can be a spectacularly dull show, as Jackson stepped up to the plate and behaved like he cared about someone other than himself, Myanna Buring had more than three lines, and was allowed not only to do more than pout, but to raise some real life serious points! Radical, I know. Rose’s return didn’t serve much of a purpose, I suspect perhaps the female focus of the episode meant that they simply had to get as many actors with breasts into shot at once as was humanly possible. Even her scenes with Bella (Gillian Saker), a woman who technically is her love rival, didn’t lead to anything at all, and the storyline was quickly dropped. Although to be fair, that’s pretty standard behaviour from a Ripper Street episode. (Don’t even get me started on the Joseph Merrick cameo).

This was a surprisingly enjoyable hour of viewing. It wasn’t perfect, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, but it was certainly making strides in the right direction. If they can keep this up, they might just, just be on to something with this series.

Time, and you don’t have much of it left to wait, will tell.

Ripper Street is next on tomorrow night, BBC 1, 9pm.

Jen

Follow @AssortedBuffery on Twitter
Or like our Facebook page.

You can read my own blog here or follow me on twitter here