Trollheart

Please do. It really bugs me when things like this surface. I'd like to know I'm just nitpicking but it seems a bit odd the way it turned out.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Urban Hat€monger ?

I'll do this bit first because this is the simplest.

When Mickey throws it in the bin it carries on rattling for longer than it should implying that it's not totally dead.
When the Doctor shows up at Rose's house the next day the first thing you see him doing is using the sonic screwdriver around the cat-flap on the door implying that he's following it's trace and it got in through the cat-flap.

The next bit is slightly more complex because you need to have seen the 2 Jon Pertwee stories in the 70s that explain all this.
The Nestine insert commands into the plastic like a computer program to activate it at a certain time. Maybe they only activated the dummies first because they're armed (Literally haha) for the reason below....

They took over a plastics factory and made them and supplied them, that's what they did the other two times they tried to take over the world, no reason to suspect they wouldn't do it again.

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Trollheart

Okay, I remember the screws on the catflap being knocked out I think. I can accept that; perhaps I just missed the connection there. I do remember the arm rattling around in the bin all right.
Hmm. But I thought he said "every piece of plastic on the planet coming to life at the same time"? You could be right I guess.


Okay but that's a little tough on people who are coming new to the show. I think that should have been at least mentioned. Eccleston could easily have said "Yeah they got into a factory blah blah met them before" --- you know, just to fill everyone in? I just felt some of it was fill-in-your-own-blanks kind of thing.

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Urban Hat€monger ?

Put it down to him boasting to impress an attractive girl by telling her the most dramatic situation possible. They could theoretically do it, but that's not to say they will do it or that he knows exactly what their plans are.


I think the reason they did it the way they did was because it was the first episode and they wanted Rose to be caught up in the middle of an alien invasion simply to move the story along quicker so they had more time to introduce all the characters. It was more about her story finding out who the Doctor was rather than a story about the Doctor beating an alien invasion. When she first meets him he seems pretty aware of what's going on and how he's going to defeat them suggesting that he's already done a load of work before he met her. I don't think you really need to explain the exact details of the all the backstory in that situation.

If you think of it in a classic series Doctor Who perspective of a 4 episode story we basically join the story following a character that's just joined in the middle of episode 3 rather than from the beginning of the story.

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Trollheart

1.8 "The Horde"

As this final episode in season one opens we get the information that the original dam burst thirty-five years ago, and we see Victor, whose real name we find out now is Louis, walking among the dead in the tents that have been set up as temporary morgues. Vivianne Costa is here too, and she blames the engineers who worked at the dam for the disaster, claiming they told nobody about the weakness in the dam. She swears that one day the dead will have revenge. The timeline switches to one year ago, and we see a man, whom we have just seen be identified as one of the dead, scramble up the bank of the dam and begin a long walk towards the village. He calls to someone who looks to be Camille, or Lena, but she doesn't hear him and keeps walking.

We return to the present day, where Laure and Julie, stopped on the dam, find handprints on the rear window of the car. Louis --- whom we still know for now as Victor, so I'll refer to him as such --- tells the girls that people were here during the night, and they wanted to take him with them. They then notice Toni standing up on the wall of the dam, preparatory to emulating old Mr. Costa's death dive. They manage to coax him down, whereupon Laure pulls her gun on him: he is a wanted felon. Before things can go any further though a host of shuffling people approach, and all four of them pile into the car and scream away.

Adele finds Chloe's drawings, both of Simon and her --- she has made a new one of the vision she saw of her mother --- and the little girl has reasoned that Adele tried to kill herself in order to be reunited with Simon. Adele locks her in her room, fearful for her safety, while Camille's mother, though delighted her daughter has slept for the first time since her return (Simon told her she was asleep when he was staying with them, but we can assume that was a smokescreen to cover the fact that he had sent her to take his message to Adele) is concerned about the lesion on her face. Sandrine is in deep depression after her miscarriage, and blames it on Camille and Vivianne, calling them monsters.

Julie has realised that Toni is the one who saved her from Serge, but Victor blames him for killing his own brother. He's only a kid, can't understand, but he has powers and causes Toni to see a vision of his brother, and end up shooting himself. Lucy visits Simon in the police station, and when Jerome sees that Pierre is stockpiling weapons he realises that the proprietor of the Helping Hand is preparing for what he sees as the end of days, that he believes the arrival of the dead signifies the coming of Judgement Day. He begs Claire to leave with him but she will not. Thomas finds that Simon has broken out of his cell, or been released: the glass is broken and he is gone. He ends up back at Adele's, with Lucy, and they take Chloe, locking Adele in. Before he leaves Simon tells her she is again pregnant, but she stabs him. He goes mad, but Lucy takes him away.

Laure and Julie take Toni to the Helping Hand to try to save his life, but it is too late. Serge comes in as Julie is trying to save his brother, but she believes him to be a figment of her imagination. When she declares there is nothing more she can do for Toni Serge breaks down, and hugs her, but not surprisingly she pushes him away, knowing him to have been the man who tried to kill her seven years previously. Camille finds her lesions are getting worse, and like Simon's, they now peel off in clumps of skin. One of the officers spots a crowd of people moving towards the Helping Hand, and as Thomas has gone there in search of Simon, they decide to set up a perimeter and defend the place. Victor remembers his mother telling him about the fairy, who will look after him if anything happens to her. She shows him a book, on which is a drawing of the fairy. She bears an uncanny resemblance to Julie.

At the Helping Hand, the occupants wait in trepidation and fear for the approach of the horde, basically expecting an attack of some sort. There are many more than the hundred the police officer calculated; there must be thousands when they finally arrive. Lucy comes forward as their spokesperson, their leader, and demands that everyone there who is dead must be allowed to join them. If this is done, they will release Chloe. If not, they will take them by force. With screams of protest Camille is taken from her family, but her mother resolves to go with her into the unknown. Victor, too, is taken and Julie also refuses to leave his side, despite the entreaties of Laure. Lucy keeps her promise and Chloe is returned to her family. But there is yet one person who has not been surrendered: the horde want Adele.

Thomas cannot believe it, but it is not that Adele is dead: the horde want her as yet unborn baby, who must be, well, dead in the womb. Hard to figure that, but yeah, that's what they think. After forcing people to leave their families and loved ones, Thomas draws the line at his fiancee and seals up the Helping Hand, his men taking up positions as a firefight explodes. When the shutters are raised the next morning, the horde are gone but all the police officers --- including, it would appear, Thomas --- are gone.

And the village has completely flooded. Everything other than the Helping Hand, which stands high on a hill overlooking the lake, is underwater.

QUESTIONS?
What happened to the defenders? There are no bodies to be seen. Were they carried off by the dead? If they died, did they rise again and join the horde?

What significance has the sunken village to the plot?

Where did the horde go? Will they be back?

What will happen to Adele's dead baby? Is it dead? How will a dead baby be born? Will the horde come looking for it again?

And finally, the big one, which has as yet (like so many other questions) been unanswered: what was all this about? How did people come back from the dead, why, and what will happen now?

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE
The final chapter, so far, shows why so much has been made of the water level falling. Thirty-five years ago the dam burst and the town was flooded, and people died. The original village was drowned and presumably the new one was built on higher ground, with a better dam. But now the same thing is happening: well, the dam is not broken but the town has now completely flooded. How is that possible if the dam did not break (and so far we must assume it did not)? When Vivianne cursed the town and swore the dead would have revenge, was she then dead or was she dying? Is she somehow responsible for the return of the dead?

FINAL NOTES

I find it interesting that Thomas was prepared to allow everyone's loved ones to be sacrificed in order, essentially, to get his daughter back, but when it came to his making the ultimate sacrifice and giving up his fiancee he decided to fight the horde. It seems there is only so far he could be pushed.

I also wonder why Chloe was returned before they asked for Adele? If they wanted her, and surely must have known that Thomas would resist or refuse outright, why not hold her back until he had been forced to comply? Seems the horde gave away their ace before the game was over.

There's a telling look on Claire's face, as she opts to stay with her daughter, and looks accusingly at her husband when Jerome does not do the same. In the last possible chance he has to back her up, to stand with her and make up for all the hurt and pain the family have been through, when he has an opportunity to support his wife and try to keep their family together --- even should that mean dying together --- Jerome fails, and you can see the anguish in his face at his weakness, and the disappointment and scorn in that of his wife, who probably never expected him to stand up anyway.

Pierre, too, is aghast. He had expected the horde would accept his welcome, and that they'd all live together happily ever after. Now he sees his view of the world is not necessarily shared by others, as Lucy scornfully turns down his offer: "Thanks, but we don't need welcoming." His standing as a leader must also be badly hit, when people see how the horde react.

Interesting too to see Frederic make a half-step forward when Camille is forced to join the horde, but then his courage deserts him and he does nothing further. Still, at least he had more than Jerome.

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Trollheart

There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.
—Rod Serling, from the opening titles of season one.

There's no question that The Twilight Zone was groundbreaking, innovative, at the forefront of storytelling and drama and changed the way television was viewed forever. Some of the stories told over its run were truly amazing, from “The monsters are due on Maple Street” to “Time enough at last” and “Dead run” to “Wong's Lost and Found Emporium” and the series made a household name and future screen icon out of creator Rod Serling. It also gave way to other anthology series, some good, some not so good. Series like “The outer limits”, “Tales from the darkside” and “Monsters!” all owe their existence to Serling's genre-defining, rules-breaking, mould-busting brainchild.

But the series was far from perfect, and for every good story there are a handful of real turkeys. It's probably inevitable: any series that relies of tales with a shock and a twist is going to find it hard to maintain the level of quality that would be expected through its entire run, and the odd --- or more than the odd --- stinker is bound to find its way in. Some of these episodes are so bad that they almost don't deserve to share television screen space with the better and more well-known ones, but in a weird kind of way, it's possible they offset the balance of the show and made it feel more real. If it wasn't for the bad episodes, you could argue, the good ones might not exist. For every triumph there is a room full of wastepaper baskets overflowing with failures, and a gem is sometimes only found among a pile of paste beads.

It's these below-par episodes I'll be looking at here, in case you couldn't guess from the title. I mean, I love the show generally but it's been done to death and I feel just running it as one of my normal series would not do anything for me. So I'm going to take the entireity of the series, from its beginnings in 1959 through two resets in the eighties and into the twenty-first century, over a ten-year period stretching from 1959 t0 2003, picking out the really bad episodes and concentrating on them.

Disclaimer: As ever, this is my opinion and I have no innate intention of denigrating the show. I'm a fan, same as you, but every so often I feel it's good to poke fun at a classic, just so if nothing else we can say we don't have sacred cows in this journal. This is mainly meant to be taken in fun, though the comments and observations I will make will be mostly entirely serious. I'm asking the hard questions: how did such an episode survive the cut? How did anyone think it was good enough to be screened? Why was it written, and who thought it was a good idea? Like always, my comments reflect only my own opinions, and you are free to disagree with me if you wish to. You are, though, of course, wrong.

Episode title: “One for the angels”
Series: Original or Classic
Year: 1959
Season: One
Episode: Two
Written by: Rod Serling

You can perhaps allow Serling some leeway here, as this was only the second ever episode in his brand new series, but given that a) he was trying to sell it as a viable show to be broadcast and b) that science-fiction in and of itself, though enjoying something of a golden period in the late fifties/early sixties, was still mostly seen as “something for kids” and finally c) the pilot episode had been so good, well that leeway begins to erode rather quickly. For me, this is more like the sort of episode you might find near the end of a series, when the writer was beginning to run out of ideas, or when the series was announced to be under the axe, and nobody cared any more. If “Where is everybody?”, the season, series and franchise opener, was stunning, particularly in its twist at the end, this was, to be polite, dogshit. And if the sponsors had only seen this episode I doubt they would have wanted their name associated with such a thing.

The story concerns Lou Bookman, who is what used to be called a pitchman: a man who sets up his stall of wares and then shouts at passersby, trying to get them to investigate what he is selling and perhaps buy something. Somewhat similar to the market stall traders of today. A dying art, even back in the fifties, when so many people were turning to department stores and shopping malls for their purchases. Bookman is watched by a strange man who is taking notes, and we are told --- or it is very strongly intimated --- that he is Death. Bookman knows nothing of this though and goes home where he talks to the neighbourhood children, all of whom know him, and is most surprised to find the same man waiting for him in his room. This is, of course, as we have been told, Death, but Bookman, though he is taken aback by the appearance of the well-dressed man in the black suit, does not think to ask how he got in. More to the point, when one of the children knocks to ask him to fix a toy for her, and can't see Death, Bookman seems completely unable to grasp the fact that only he can see the Reaper, despite the fact that “Mister Death” has told him so.

Anyhoo, Bookman is told that his time is up. He will die at midnight, however he also seems unable to understand this. Granted, Death couches the announcement in somewhat flowery language, telling him he should “make arrangements for his departure”, but the pitchman can't suss it at all. “My departure where?” he asks, leading us to believe that the world might after all be better off without him! Too stupid (or innocent?) to live? After all the clues he's been given, after he's been led to the truth and virtually been told who the guy sitting in front of him is, he does not get it until Death reaches out towards one of his plants and it instantly withers and dies. Yeah, Bookman: He's Death! Got it now? Je-sus!

That's all bad enough, but now Serling begins bending and rewriting the rules. We all know, from everything we've read and seen, before this episode and since, that Death cannot be bargained with. He can be evaded, but He always catches you. He can be fooled or cheated. But He cannot be bargained with and the Afterlife, or whatever agency He “works for”, does not provide extensions based on extenuating circumstances. When it's your time, you go: no ifs, buts or maybes. You can cry, you can stamp your feet, you can try to talk your way out of it, but nothing works. Nothing. If you're called, you go. But here, Death tells Bookman there are no less than three categories under which he may “appeal his departure date”. Having no wife or family and not being on the verge of any major discovery, Bookman is ineligible for the first two, but the last, the rather broad “unfinished business”, he can grasp at like a drowning man.

When Death turns down his idea of “making a pitch for the angels” --- the most successful pitch he has ever made in his life, his one big shot --- Bookman basically sulks like a child until Death ... gives in! I mean, come on! This is DEATH! He don't care about your tantrums, your hurt feelings. He doesn't give a toss if you think He's not being fair! Death is not fair, and that's just how it is. Good people can die bad deaths early and bad people can live to be a hundred. There is no sense rhyme or reason to it, and certainly no fairness or equanimity. Let's face it: if by being a good person you could be guaranteed --- and I mean guaranteed --- to live longer then we'd all be doing it, wouldn't we?

But Death caves, and Bookman is allowed his “extension”, whereupon he decides to give up the profession so that he never has to make a pitch again. Death doesn't exactly cover His bases here: He grants the extension with the specific condition that Bookman can live until he achieves this “pitch for the angels”. There's no limitation set, and He looks surprised when Bookman joyously tells Him he may not fulfil the terms of the bargain for several years (if ever); surely Death, in His long existence throughout history, has come across devious and manipulative men and women before? Why does He not place some rider on the deal? Why does He give Bookman the very obvious out, and more, why does He seem surprised then when the pitchman turns His rules back against him?

But Death, though He may be slow here, knows He must redress the balance, and when He realises that Bookman has in fact tricked Him, and has no intention of making his pitch, He decides that someone else must take the pitchman's place. Of course, this turns out to be Maggie, the child who had wanted her toy fixed earlier. She gets hit by a car --- (“She just jumped out into the road, mister! I swear I didn't have no chance to do nothing!”) --- and now she can see Death, and Bookman knows what a terrible mistake he has made in trying to cheat the Grim Reaper.

Now, if the episode had ended there --- Bookman realises he's an old man, he's lived his life, and agrees to go with Death --- I would not have had too much of a problem with it. It would have been a bit twee, a bit predictable even for this series, which set the benchmark, but I could have taken it. But it does not end there. This, my friends, is where it gets decidedly silly. The child lies close to death, literally. The doctor visiting her says they should know by midnight, and indeed as Bookman stands guard, foolishly thinking he can bar Death's way, the black-suited man turns up. Again exhibiting almost as much stupidity as Bookman, Death lets the pitchman know that he is to take Maggie at midnight, but he must be in the room at that precise moment, otherwise ....

Realising he has a chance to make up for his selfish attitude which has landed the child where she is, literally at Death's door (sorry), Bookman sets up his stall and begins his pitch. Unbelievably, Death gets drawn in to the pitch and forgets His timetable, getting so caught up in the sale that midnight comes and goes and Death is still outside the little girl's room. Bookman has made his “pitch for the angels” and the original deal is in place (despite the fact that Death said it could not be reinstated); Maggie will live and Bookman will go with Death.

Why do I hate this episode?

Hate is often too strong a word to use for some of these episodes; I don't hate them, I just don't believe they're anywhere close to good enough to have been selected for screening. But this is an exception. This one I do hate. Why? Because it makes so many fundamental errors and treats the viewer like an idiot. Death's inability to outthink the human, Bookman's stupidity and then then the final turd in the barrel, Death the leveller being distracted by what seems to me to be a very average pitch --- I certainly wouldn't have bought anything from Bookman, much less gasped “I'll take all you have!” as Death did --- to the point where He misses His appointment. These are all things that are hard to accept, unlikely in the extreme.

Now I know the very premise of the show was built on the unlikely, the odd, the fantastic and the unexplained, but really: this is taking things a little too far. I like to be challenged when watching a show like this; like most people, I like to try to work out what's going to happen, how it will turn out. But I could not have predicted this outcome. Not because it is so clever or unexpected, but because it is so stupid. A terrible episode that should never have been allowed see the light of day.

Saving graces?
Here I'll do my best, if I can, to note anything that may lessen the crappiness of the episode. Was there anything I liked about it at all? Any clever touches? Any unexpected stars? A twist I had not forseen, or some reference I got? Anything at all?

The only real point I can make about this episode is that it was I think the first time Death had been depicted as other than a scary figure. Even in “The Seventh Seal” He was shown as a dark, hooded figure with a ghostly face. This may or may not be the case, but it's certainly the first time I recall seeing Death depicted as an ordinary, almost nondescript human being. This personalisation of Death, the Devil and other religious or mythological figures would go on to be a recurring feature of the series, and bleed of course into the representations of those icons in other series too.


Interesting asides

The opening scene shows Bookman with a tray full of toys, some of which are robots. One is the famous Robby the Robot, from the movie “Forbidden Planet”, which would have been popular at that time, having just been released. Product placement? Coincidence? Or a nod to a movie which would become a classic in time and which no doubt had helped fuel Serling's love of science-fiction? You decide.

A simpler time

Indeed. Mr. Bookman's “regular ice cream and social hour”, which he reminds the children of, would be frowned upon and perhaps grounds for at least suspicion if not arrest in these times. An older man consorting with a group of underage children, unsupervised? Would never be allowed today. But back in this era it's seen as harmless and innocent. I hate the fifties and the sixties, but even I have to admit things were a lot more simple and straightforward then. Sigh.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Episode One, in Which the Earth is Demolished, along with Arthur Dent's House, and Arthur Learns that his Friend is an Alien, not at all from Guildford, shortly Afterwards finding Himself Out Among the Stars, with No Chance of Ever Again Having a Cup of Tea

Arthur Dent, a six-foot-tall ape descendant living on a boring little green-blue planet orbiting an unremarkable G-type star out on the far reaches of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy, wakes to a sound which makes him think the world is ending. This thought will in fact be vindicated very shortly, much to his annoyance (and that of all of humanity), but for now, all that's happening is that someone is trying to knock down his house. Seems Arthur's home stands in the way of development and progress --- in other words, he lives smack bang in the middle of an area which has been designated as part of the new motorway to be built --- and without so much as a by-your-leave, the council have come to demolish his castle, his resting place, his residence.

Arthur runs out and confronts the foreman, but is told with a condescending smile that the plans for the proposed motorway have been on display for all to see, and that he should have lodged a formal protest before now. Unmoved, Arthur lies down in front of one of the bulldozers, intent on blocking its path. It is then that his friend, Ford Prefect, arrives on the scene. After some conversation with Arthur which basically goes nowhere and then a word with the workmen in which he bamboozles them with spurious logic, he takes Arthur to the pub where he gives him the chilling news that the world is in fact about to end. In approximately ten minutes.

While he's digesting this (along with three pints of beer which Ford has insisted he will need for muscle relaxant) he suddenly hears the sound of his house being knocked down. Running back to his home he rants and fumes, but his attention is suddenly diverted (as is all of humanity's) by the appearance of a massive space ship hanging in the air. An equally massive tannoy booms out, advising the people of Earth that their planet is due to be destroyed, as it is in the path of the construction of a hyperspace bypass! With no sympathy for “apathetic races who take no interest in local affairs”, the leader of the Vogon Constructor Fleet begins his work and the planet is vapourised.

Ford and Arthur, though, survive. Well, they'd have to, wouldn't they, otherwise it'd be a damn short series! Ford has “hitched a ride” on one of the Vogon ships, and Arthur, to his amazement and growing annoyance, finds himself onboard an alien spacecraft, still in his dressing gown. It has not been a good day! Ford hands him an electronic book, which he tells him is the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which will help him make sense of the new situation he is now in. The Book speaks in its own voice, also providing text and animation to accompany its many sections. Ford tells Arthur he is a field researcher for the new edition of the book, and was researching Earth when he got trapped there. “Got stuck on the Earth a little longer than I expected”, he muses. “Went for a week, ended up being there for fifteen years.”

Ford shows him around the --- frankly dingy and ugly --- spaceship, and gives him what he calls a Babel Fish. This is an incredibly useful item which allows anyone into whose ear it is pushed to hear and understand any language: a universal translator, as related below in the quotes section. As they make the jump to hyperspace they are discovered and a Vogon soldier comes to throw them off the ship...

QUOTES

The Book: “The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the most successful books ever to come out of the powerful publishing corporations of Ursa Minor. More popular than “The Celestial Homecare Omnibus”, better-selling than “Fifty-three More Things To Do In Zero Gravity” and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters, “Where God Went Wrong”, “Some More Of God's Greatest Mistakes” and “Who Is This God Person Anyway?”

Foreman: “Mister Dent, this bypass has got to be built, and it will be built.”
Arthur: “Why has it got to be built?”
Foreman: “What do you mean, why has it got to be built? It's a bypass! Gotta build bypasses!”

Foreman: “Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the planning office for the last nine months.”
Arthur: “Oh yes! Well as soon as I heard I went straight around to see them. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? Like tell anyone about them or anything.”
Foreman: “But the plans were on display.”
Arhtur: “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar!”
Foreman: “That's the display department!”
Arthur: “With a torch!”
Foreman: “The light's probably gone.”
Arthur: “So had the stairs!”
Foreman: “But you did see the notice, didn't you?”
Arthur: “Oh yes. It was on display, in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign hanging outside the door saying “Beware of the leopard”. Ever thought of going into advertising?”

Foreman: “Mr Dent, have you any idea how much damage this bulldozer would suffer if I was to let it run right over you?”
Arthur: “How much?”
Foreman: “None at all.”

Arthur: “Ford, you don't understand: that man wants to knock my house down!”
Ford: “Well he can do that whilst you're away, can't he?”

Ford: “And no sneaky knocking down Mister Dent's house while he's away, all right?”
Foreman: “The slightest thought hadn't even begun to speculate upon the merest possibility of crossing my mind!”

Barman: “Going to the match then sir?”
Ford: “No. No point.”
Barman: “Foregone conclusion eh? Arsenal without a chance?”
Ford: “No, it's just that the world is about to end.”
Barman: “Yes, so you said sir. Lucky escape for Arsenal if it did, eh?”
Ford: “Not really, no.”

Ford: “How would you react if I told you I'm not from Guildford at all, that I'm in fact from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse?”
Arthur: “I don't know. Why, do you think it's something you're likely to say?”
Ford: “Drink up: the world's about to end.”
Arthur: “This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.”

Barman: “Do you really think the world's about to end sir?”
Ford: “Yes. In about three minutes and five seconds.”
Barman: “Isn't there anything we can do?”
Ford: “No. Nothing.”
Barman: “Ain't you supposed to lie down? Put a paper bag over your head or something?”
Ford: “If you like.”
Barman: “Will that help?”
Ford: “No.”

Vogon Captain (on tannoy to Earth): “People of Earth, your attention please! This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council. As you are probably aware, the plans for the development of the outlying reaches of the western spiral arm of the galaxy require the building of a hyperspace express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you very much.”

(To choruses of protest from Earth)

“All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years. So you've had plenty of time to lodge a formal protest, and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now.”

(More protests)

“What do you mean, you've never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh for Heaven's sake, Mankind! It's only four light years away you know! I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that's your own lookout!”

Arthur: “Ford, if I asked you where we are would I regret it?”
Ford: “We're safe.”
Arthur: “Ah. Good.”
Ford: “We're in a cabin onboard one of the ships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.”
Arthur: “Ah. This is obviously some strange new usage of the word safe that I haven't previously been aware of.”

The Book: “Here is what to do if you want to get a lift from a Vogon: forget it.”

Arthur: “What are you doing?”
Ford: “Preparing for hyperspace. It's rather unpleasantly like being drunk.”
Arthur: “What's so wrong about being drunk?”
Ford: “Ask a glass of water.”

The Book: “The Babel fish is small, yellow, leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the universe. It feeds on brainwaves, absorbing all unconscious frequencies and then excreting a telepathically a matrix formed of the conscious frequencies and nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain. The practical upshot of which is if you stick one in your ear you instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech you hear decodes the brainwave matrix. Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-numbingly useful should evolve purely by chance that many thinkers have chosen to see this as final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument runs something like this:

"I refuse to prove I exist", says God, "for proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing."
"Ah, but the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it?" Says Man. "It proves you exist and therefore you don't. QED."
"Oh dear", says God. "I hadn't thought of that." And promptly disappears in a puff of logic.

"Oh that was easy!” says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

Most leading theologians have claimed this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme for his final book “Well, that about wraps it up for God!”

Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between all races and cultures has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of Creation.”

Ford Prefect's logic

Ford talks to the foreman, who is annoyed that Arthur is lying in front of his bulldozer, stopping him from carrying out his duty of knocking Arthur's house down. Ford reflects that, since it's reasonable to assume his friend will be lying there all day, the foreman does not actually need him to be there physically. If it's taken that he is there, then he, Arthur, could slip off to the pub. Unable to refute the logic of this, the foreman ends up lying in Arthur's place, still unsure why he is doing this. Ford has this affect on people. However the foreman is not such an idiot: he realises that if Ford takes Arthur away with him, there is nothing to stop him carrying out his task.

Microcosm/Macrocosm

One thing Douglas Adams did very well was relate little events to larger ones, or to be more accurate, take something that was going on and transfer it to a much larger canvas, to show that essentially, whether they have skin feathers or scales, people are the same all over and the same things that happen to us here on our home planet happen out there in the wider galaxy too, just on a much bigger scale.

The most obvious of these is the correlation between Arthur's house being scheduled for demolition in order to facilitate the building of a bypass, and later this being extended to the whole of planet Earth (you could say, humanity's house) being destroyed to allow the hyperspace bypass to be built. The same protest Arthur raised with the foreman is mirrored here, as the Vogon captain rolls his eyes and says that the plans have been available for anyone who wanted to see them, but just as the council had taken pains to hide away the plans for the demolition of Arthur's house, so too the plans for the hyperspace bypass have been put where Man cannot, yet, reach them, and now never will.

Designing the future

As already mentioned in the Red Dwarf writeups, and a decade before that show even hit the air, Douglas Adams was looking to the future and although much of this series was meant to be taken in jest, there is a lot of truth and even accurate prediction in it. The Book, the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is an “electronic book”, in a time when such things weren't even considered. Back then there was hardly email never mind e-books, and yet now they are as common as anything. The idea, too, of mixing sound with images and animations makes this almost one of the first proper multimedia events in history.

The Babel fish, with its clever explanation of how it works, is the precursor to what would become known in science-fiction circles as the universal translator. And Ford drops such items as “hypno-rays” and “telepsychic helmets” with a sneer, as if they are commonplace but possibly useless, yet such things again would only have been in their infancy, even in literature. The idea of destroying planets to make way for a thoroughfare was explored by John Carpenter in “Dark star”, although his space hippies were clearing a path for colonists who were to come after, but it's not entirely unlikely that Adams may have formulated his initial idea for the Vogon Constructor Fleet from this cult movie, upon which, again, much of Red Dwarf is based.

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Season Two: "The coming of Shadows" (Part Eight)
2.12 “Acts of sacrifice”


Having shown the Babylon 5 command staff footage of atrocities carried out by the Centauri against his people, G’Kar is heartened when Sheridan agrees to speak to his government about intervening in the war. However he gets a frostier reception from Delenn, who reminds him that his people have become just as warlike and hate-filled for their enemies as the Centauri. Although they were attacked first, it seems unlikely that should the Minbari come in on their side the Narns would leave it at that: the bad blood runs too deeply, and each of the two races is dedicated to the goal of eliminating the other. It’s hard to believe that, given the chance, the Narns would not wipe out the Centauri. A new race arrives on the station and Ivanova is detailed to greet them and ensure they sign a trade deal.

Unsurprisingly, tensions are running high on the station, as the Centauri, winning the war easily so far, bait the Narns and surely it can’t be long before everything explodes into outright conflict on the “last, best hope for peace.” Ivanova meets the Lumati, the leader of whom speaks through an intermediary, not because he cannot understand the human language but because he considers them inferior, not worthy of his actual communication. Sounds like a fun people! Londo is finding his new-found fame and influence to be more of a burden than he had expected, and finally the tensions spill over and a Narn is shot by Zack Allan, after refusing to put down his weapon while in the midst of an altercation with the same Centauri who was goading them in the Zocalo. G’Kar is furious but Sheridan reminds him that the Narn ambassador asked for his help, and incidents like this are not in any way helpful. G'Kar talks to his people and gets them to calm down, or so he thinks. In fact, the crowd kill the mocking Centauri who had been responsible for the Narn getting shot by security, and initiate a stationwide attack on the Centauri population. Luckily Na’Toth sees the preparations and she and G'Kar make off to attempt to stop the riot.

Meanwhile Sheridan is aghast that his request for even humanitarian aid for Narn is flatly refused by Earth Central, while Ivanova is more successful, a misunderstanding leading to the Lumati being so impressed with the humans that they will ally with them. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way but, well, anyway you put the ball in the net, it’s still a goal! G’Kar re-establishes his authority by taking out the Narn leader who wants to attack the Centauri. Sheridan hatches a plan with Delenn to use Franklin’s contacts in the underground railroad that helped telepaths in “A race through dark places” to try to get Narn civilians out of the war zone, and bring in medical supplies. She is impressed, as he is going against his government’s orders, and agrees to help. G’Kar, however, is less impressed when he is told: he had been expecting military intervention, but Sheridan can’t go that far. Surprisingly, Londo agrees to play the trial of the Narn who killed the Centauri low-key, make no fuss, have him deported. Sheridan had been expecting a big show trial, and is delighted that Londo makes it easier for them. It will probably however be the last time he does so, as battle lines are drawn and each takes his side.

QUOTES:
Delenn: “I must confess, I find this report deeply distressing, Ambassador G’Kar. There is no excuse, political or military, for the deliberate killing of civilians.”
G’Kar: “Then your people will come into the war on our side? It would mean a great deal to my people, Delenn. The war is young, the Centauri are still in the process of committing their forces. Some in their government are unsure about the entire affair. They only need a reason not to fight. If the Minbari intervene you could provide that reason. You could save hundreds of thousands of lives!”
Delenn: “Narn lives.”
G’Kar: “And Centauri.”
Delenn: “But you have said many times that you will not rest until every Centauri has been utterly destroyed. Do we help you now, knowing that in a few years, when your forces are back up to full strength, the Centauri would come to us, asking for help against you? You must know, your actions in the recent past, the things you’ve said, make it difficult for anyone to come to your aid now”
G’Kar: “I know. But what else could I do? When you have been crushed beneath the wheel for as long as we have, revenge occupies your every waking thought. When everything else had been taken from us, our hatred kept us alive.”
Delenn: “And now it may destroy you.”
G’Kar: “Do you want me to beg, Delenn? Is that it?”
Delenn: “No.”
G’Kar: “What is it?”
Delenn: “I was there, when our war against Earth began, when our ship encountered an Earth vessel for the first time. Afraid of us, the unknown, they fired. I saw our leader die, I heard the cries for revenge, for blood. For death. In return, we nearly exterminated an entire species. My people are tired of war, G’Kar. You cannot ask them to go through that again.”
(The last paragraph here will become very telling, and make much more sense when we get into season three and learn a shocking truth about Delenn and her part in the war. However at the moment we can read between the lines: she does not wish to allow Neroon any chance to tighten his grip on power within the Grey Council, and joining a war would certainly raise the profile and importance of the Warrior Caste. Assuming it was sanctioned, which, given her fall from grace and how little the new leader thinks of her, and other races, seems unlikely.)

Ivanova: “Are you incapable of speech?”
Lumati leader (through translator): “No of course not. But it would represent a loss of face for me to communicate with a member of an inferior race. Before I can speak with you directly, I must determine if your species is worthy. If so, we may even allow others of my kind to honour you with their presence.”

Londo: “Six months ago they were hardly aware of me, now suddenly everyone is my friend. Everyone wants something. I wanted respect; instead, I have turned into a wishing well with legs!”

Lumati leader: “I do not understand. Why go through all of this to save the lives of potentially inferior species? Evolution is driven by blood: the weak die and the strong survive. By preserving the sick and wounded of other races you pollute the genetic pool. It does not serve evolution.”
Franklin: “Well, my job isn’t serving evolution. It’s serving humanity, even when the patient isn’t human.”
Lumati: “But what happens when the inferior, saved from the process of natural selection, begin to outnumber the superior?”
Franklin: “I don’t believe that any form of sentient life is inferior to any other.”
Lumati: “Yes, we often hear that argument from inferior species, and their sympathisers.”
Franklin: “Just one second. You’re saying that if you saw a child from one of these ‘inferior races’ bleeding to death and all you had to do was move one finger to save it, you wouldn’t do it?”
Lumati: “We would neither help nor harm it; it’s not our place to interfere. The way for one race to help another is to allow evolution to run its course. It’s for their own good. Well, thank you for the stimulating conversation, Doctor. You have some strange notions but I’m sure they will pass with time.”
Franklin (after they have left): “Strange notions. Yeah. I got your strange notions right here!”

Garibaldi, after Londo has repaid him all the money he loaned him over the years: “I’ll get you a receipt, cos I want to make sure everything is on the up and up.”
Londo: “I don’t want a receipt!”
Garibaldi: “Then what do you want?”
Londo: “I want you to stay! Have a littel drink with me! I want you to be happy. I want me to be happy. I want you to be happy for me and me to be happy for you. Is that so much to ask around here? Why is everyone here walking around as if they’re afraid of me?”
Garibaldi: “Maybe because they are.”
Londo: “What are you talking about! I wouldn’t never threaten you or any of the others!”
Garibaldi: “Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know you any more Londo. None of us do.”
Londo: “Wait! Mister Garibaldi, in my time on this station very few people have listened to me or taken me seriously, until recently. Now I have friends I never knew were there. But you: you always listened to me. You were always kind to me, even when you had nothing to gain. And now that things are changing, and I look around for someone to share my good fortune with, there is no-one. Except you. My good, close friend, Garibaldi.”
(This little scene shows us a microcosm of Londo’s world, the way everything has spiralled out of control for him. Events are moving faster than he can keep up with them. From being the man who hung out at the casino and was a general laughing-stock on the station, he has become a powerful and feared figure, and as he says himself, friends he did not even know he had have crawled out of the woodwork. But who can he trust? Everyone wants something, everyone wants to use him to further their own agenda. But not Garibaldi. He’s never looked for or asked for anything from the ambassador. He is probably, along with Vir, the only true friend Londo has.

And eventually, he will lose even that friendship as he proceeds further down the dark road along which he is travelling.)

Narn: “If we do nothing we look like weak children.”
G’Kar: “If you’re interested in showing how strong you are I suggest you return home and join the military! It’s easy to talk about being strong here, when there isn’t a Centauri ion cannon pointed at your head!”

Lumati: “Most impressive. We have isolated ourselves from the inferior but you have shown the will and the strength to isolate yourselves from the genetically inferior part of your own species, as an evolutionary protection.”
Ivanova: “I don’t think you understand. This was not planned…”
Lumati: “Oh you’re too modest. It’s a brilliant move, Commander. You see, you isolate the genetic pool, you limit the chances for procreation, you create a workforce without a powerbase to challenge you. This is not something we thought of but it is something we will instigate upon our world at the first opportunity!”

Sheridan: “Ambassador, I’ve learned the hard way that governments deal in matters of convenience, not conscience. If they fall behind it is up to the rest of us to make up the difference. If we don’t, who will?”
Delenn: “Who indeed?”
(This small kindness, this gesture, this tiny but heartfelt speech tells Delenn everything she needs to know about John Sheridan, and if she ever had any doubts that he was the man she would want at her side in the coming war, they surely disappear as she listens to him speak.)

Londo: “It is good to have friends, is it not, Mister Garibaldi? Even if, maybe only for a little while.”
Garibaldi: “Even if only for a little while.”

IMPORTANT PLOT ARC POINTS
Back home
Arc Level: Red
When Sheridan is turned down by Earthgov on his request for help for the Narns, he’s probably not that surprised. Clarke has made no secret of his dislike, even contempt for aliens, so why would he want to help them? But if he has to take side, were the Centauri not the first alien race humanity encountered, and so if there are any ties with any aliens it should be them. Not to mention that they’re clearly going to win this war, and Earth would naturally want to back the winning side, if it backs any.

This stance will become clearer quite soon, and will start to uncover a very disturbing and worrying trend back home, as Earth becomes increasingly isolationist to the point of xenophobia and … but that would be giving too much away.

“Our two sides must unite”
Arc Level :Red
This line from Minbari prophecy could not be clearer to Delenn, if to none other of her people. The Minbari must ally with the humans in order to defeat the darkness which is coming. The first tentative steps of this are shown here, as they both decide to engage in a covert operation which will help the civilian Narns, in one case without the knowledge or support of and in the other directly in contravention of the wishes of their respective governments. It will be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

SKETCHES
Ambassador G’Kar
Although this episode does not lend itself too well to anyone’s character development, in many ways it’s G’Kar who carries much of it. His frantic attempts to secure aid for his people, who are losing the war against the Centauri, while not quite falling on deaf ears are hardly welcomed with open arms, and he must do all he can to keep his people under control while violence threatens to spin out of control and undo all the work he has done. Far from the G’Kar we saw in the pilot and the first few episodes, he has begun to mature into an altogether different individual, a man who realises that sometimes his own lust for revenge has to be put to one side in deference to the needs of his people.

Though he hates the Centauri with all his might, he knows that if a riot breaks out across the station that it will reflect badly on him. If his people charge about killing Centauri his chances of anyone coming to the aid of the Narn Regime are slight at best. He sees his authority evaporate in the face of the restless resident Narns, and must challenge the leader to reassert it. Once he has done so, he believes the other races, especially Earth, will intervene, and when he is called to a special meeting with Delenn and Sheridan his hopes have to be high, but they are dashed when he hears of the minimal aid he is being offered.

Nevertheless, from a man who only a few episodes ago was ready to assassinate the Centauri emperor, G’Kar is beginning a transformation that will see him question everything he has believed in, change the way he does things and understand that there is more in the universe than revenge. In a very real way, his own personal journey of discovery begins here.

WAR IS HELL
Each of the main races has their own ideas about the Narn/Centauri war, and in much the same way as the aliens in “Believers” got different answers from each ambassador when they asked them to intervene in the controversy over their son, here too each side has something to say, and not all see it the same way.

Earth (represented by Babylon 5): Sheridan believes that, having seen the footage of a Narn cruiser having to protect fleeing civilians from marauding Centauri ships, and paying the ultimate price for such heroism, it is time for Earth to make a stand and he tells G’Kar he will speak to his government. He is sure the Senate will ratify some sort of sanction, if not military action against the Centauri who did, after all, make a pre-emptive strike without warning or reason against the Narns. He does not bear any great love for either race, nor would he usually take sides, but the idea of civilians being targeted sets something off in him, and he believes that a line has been crossed, and it is time to do something other than just watch and shake his head.

Minbar: Delenn knows all too well the history between the two races. In the very first episode she was approached by G’Kar, with an offer of alliance. She turned that down, knowing the Narn were only interested in destroying the Centauri. Now G’Kar asks for her help again, and though she is troubled by the slaughter of innocents, she is canny enough to know that were Minbar to throw its hand in with Narn, the Centauri Republic would definitely be beaten --- for who are better fighters than her people? --- but that once the dust had settled, Londo would come looking for her help against G’Kar, and she would be in the same position. To say nothing of dragging her people into a war that does not at the moment concern them, and give Neroon a chance to solidify his grip on power within the Grey Council, give him a reason to unleash the likes of the Star-riders and the Wind Swords. Also, though he does not know it, she likely has not the influence she had within the Grey Council, and Neroon would be likely to veto such a suggestion of aid or alliance, if not laugh at it outright.

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Season Two, Episode Two

In an attempt to put his finances, ill – gotten gains and assets out of the reach of the CAB, John Boy is advised by his lawyer to set up holding companies in separate territories. As the CAB will not be authorised to fly out to investigate who owns these companies, John boy should be able to access any money that he lodges there without interference from the guards. The only problem is that he will need to be able to lodge the money first before he can use any of it, and it has to be in cash, in order that there is no paper trail. He realises he will need a "lilywhite": someone without a criminal record. Considering the sort of people he hangs around with, this would not seem to be as easy a task as it would appear. But he settles on Tommy's girlfriend, Siobhan, who is very apprehensive, never having done such a thing before, but she knows, as does everyone, you don't say no to John Boy!

While packaging up some drugs, prior to distribution, Nidge goes off to see Fran's wife, leaving Tommy in charge of the operation. John boy has the incredible effrontery and gall to go to see Pat, the lawyer whose child was injured when a fire bomb the gangster ordered deployed against him was thrown at the door, to ask him to send over all relevant files to his new lawyer. Although hatred for the man brims in the eyes of the ex-lawyer, there is fear there too, and though he'd probably like to pull out a gun and shoot the man dead, he will of course do no such thing, and stands staring at the card that has been handed to him as John boy walks away, completely confident that Pat will do what he's been told to do. Darren and Luke ram raid a shop, and steal an ATM machine. From what we can see, this does not seem to be anything to do with John Boy or the gang, but simply an independent enterprise masterminded by Darren, a way to gather some money together so that he can pay John Boy back what he owes him.

Without Nidge there to keep an eye on them, the boys all partake of the drugs, getting hammered and stoned, all apart from Stumpy, who leaves without explanation. (Well, when Tommy asked where he is going, he tells him to fuck off.) Awaking from his drug induced stupor, Tommy staggers outside to be sick. The guys are asleep. It's then that he sees the Guards coming up the stairs, and makes his escape. He doesn't get far though, and is taken into custody along with the other gang members.

John boy is less than pleased: a multi-million euro drug shipment and now the Guards have it. Of course, the boys will say nothing as they are held awaiting the arrival of their brief, but that doesn't really help John boy's bottom line. He will want to know when Nidge was, and why he left Tommy in charge. Nidge, of course, will either have to come up with an alibi, or admit he's been shagging Fran's wife, which is very unlikely.

There's also the issue to be sorted out of who ratted on the guys. Stumpy was the only one to leave, and he did not give any reason why. We did see him DJing at some rave or something, but John Boy is still unimpressed. This was definitely an inside job; someone working in the gang, someone who was involved in the breaking up and packaging of the drugs betrayed them to the guards, and John Boy will not be happy until he knows who, and, more importantly, until that person has been dealt with. He naturally suspects Stumpy, who also naturally pleads his innocence.

As he is now out of pocket thanks to Stumpy's negligence, John Boy orders him to pay him what he can of the money he should have got selling the drugs: it will not come anywhere close to what John Boy has lost, but he will make sure that Stumpy gives him every penny he has saved from his ill-gotten gains. John boy meets his Garda mole, Martin, but can learn nothing as to who might have turned him in. Martin says that security at the hotel saw the gang on CCTV acting suspiciously, and alerted the Guards. John Boy is not convinced: he still believes he has a rat in his pack. Debbie plays with fire, getting intimate with Tommy at John Boy's apartment: as if he's not in enough trouble already. John Boy, for his part, is visiting Fran, to reassure him that a) none of his money was tied up in the drug operation that went wrong and B) he is taking steps to make sure that such a thing does not happen again.

The steps he's taking are of course to have Stumpy killed, but he wants Darren to do it. He's annoyed that Darren is trying to pay back some of the money that he owes him, in order to be free of his hold. However, Darren has history as we know with Stumpy: he nearly put him in hospital at one stage, over what he did to Rosie. That was not sanctioned by John Boy: this is. Darren will have a hard time turning this job down, even if it does mean that he could be free of John Boy's influence if he agrees. Of course, if he doesn't agree, then it could be the end of him.

He doesn't agree though; he knows that Rosie wants him to get out of this line of work, he knows she wouldn't want him killing again. But Nidge finds it hard to believe ––– this is, after all, the guy who could have killed Rosie, who certainly was instrumental in her losing her baby ––– Darren should be delighted to kill him. Darren would be delighted if Stumpy was dead, there's no doubt about that: he just doesn't want to be the one to have to do it. He doesn't want to kill anybody. Nidge, However, makes it clear to him that he has no choice. When John Boy tells you to do something, you do it. There's no middle ground, no grey area: he says jump, you ask how high?

Seeing how the land lies, Darren agrees to be the hitman. He also decides to take Luke along with him, as indeed he does when he drops by the house as Mary is having a mass said for their dead brother. This will prove to be a bad idea: something that will come back to haunt both Mary and Darren in the future. John Boy speaks to Ado, telling him that he knows that he is responsible for the bust; he doesn't believe Ado is the rat ––– he doesn't think he's intelligent enough to actually betray John Boy, much less have the guts to do such a thing ––– but he knows he screwed up. Ado is a junkie, so is Pottsy, his brother. Between the two of them, nobody has to draw John Boy a picture. He tells Ado to do what he's told, say what he's told, if he knows what's good for him.

While Mary was not initially happy that Darren brought home his friend Luke, when her brother explains that the young lad lost his brother himself ––– just disappeared overnight and has been missing now for about a year ––– she softens towards him. Again, this is not a good idea. Having had nobody be kind to him, possibly throughout his life, other than, recently, Darren, Luke reads far too much into Mary's single act of kindness when she smiles and offers to give him an old kettle she has, as he has none to brew his tea. In Luke's mind, this simple act of charity is magnified a million times, and he ascribes all kind of motives towards it. In short, he falls in love ––– or lust ––– with Mary, and believes that she has the same feelings for him, even though there is absolutely no indication of this from Darren's sister. It's the beginning of a one-sided, almost pathological, obsessive relationship that will make Darren sorry he ever saved Luke from Fran's dogs. Luke however goes with him when the hit on Stumpy goes down: it's pretty much a clean hit, and as far as John Boy is concerned, whether Stumpy was a rat or not, a message has been sent. You don't sell out John Boy and live.

QUOTES

John Boy: "How do you know all these things?"
Lawyer: "Because I did me Leaving Cert, and you didn't."
(The Leaving Certificate: the final examination upon leaving school here in Ireland. Supposedly, the exam that gets you your job, or that secures you a place in higher education, if you wish to go that way. Basically, A-levels in England, graduation from high school in US I guess. The lawyer is having a dig at John Boy here: never a great idea when you're dealing with a psycho like John Boy. What he's saying in effect is that he's smarter than John Boy ––– or at least, better educated than him. This probably can't be disputed by the gangster, but he certainly doesn't like being made to look small, or less intelligent. But he needs the pen pusher, seeing as what happened to his previous lawyer so for the moment lets the slur pass; however you can be certain he is filing it away for future reference: John Boy does not forget, nor does he forgive, especially insults, especially personal insults against him.)

Luke: "This is bullshit! What's the point in having a hole-in-the-wall if there's fuck-all money in it?"
Darren: "I suppose in case they get robbed?"
(This is an example of the black humour Carolan uses throughout the series. There's another just before this, as the two of them ram raid the shop from which they rob the ATM machine, there's a sign on the wall saying "Buy one get one free!" To gangsters like Darren, John Boy, Nidge and their ilk, everything is free…)

Vicky (as Nidge adnires her new false breasts): “Don’t be messin’ at me nipples: they don’t twist off ya know!”

John Boy (after hitting Stumpy over the head with a bottle): “You’re bleedin’ on me floor.”

John Boy:: "You know what they do to rats down in Mexico? This one rat, last week, they cut off his head, then they cut the face off the head, then they sewed the face ––– all of it, the skin and everything ––– onto a football, and left it in the garden for his kids to play with."
(The disturbing, if not at this point surprising thing about this story ––– which we will assume is made up ––– although it may be true, or based on truth ––– is that while telling it, rather than seeming repulsed by it, John Boy gives the impression that this is a very clever thing to do, that he wishes he had thought of it, and that it is certainly one way to deal with a betrayer or traitor. He even has a little grin on his face, a little smirk when he thinks about the kids finding the face of their father on the football in the garden. Of course, we know the guy's a total psycho, but this shows us the depths John Boy is prepared ––– in theory ––– to sink to. In the last series, he told Darren he was not an animal: if he finds the sort of thing funny, even commendable, that surely is not the case.)

John Boy: "And don't run, like a rat: cos if you do run, whose gonna look after your ma?"
(Again, contrary to what he told Darren last series, it seems John Boy has no problem in going after defenceless family members in pursuit either of the money he's owed or just purely revenge. He makes this clear to Stumpy: if he has to, he will take his fury out on Stumpy's mother. The fact that he probably knows his mother, has probably spoken to her, may have offered her a lift, and that she probably thinks he's a very nice man, will not stop them from hurting her, possibly having her killed, if it serves his purposes.)


Mary: "You're not cut out for this kind of life".
(How Right she is. Darren is something of an anomaly in the gangster world: a man with a heart. Sure, Nidge has a family he would do almost anything to protect, John Boy, in his own way, loved Huey when he was alive. And each of the gangsters has their own connection to various people ––– Stumpy to his mother, Tommy to his girlfriend, ––– but in the final analysis, if it comes down to it, each of them will put their freedom and their own personal wealth before the people they love. Darren is different. As Mary says, he really is not cut out for the life of a gangster, illustrated in his reluctance to shoot Stumpy, even though he has wished the man dead.

For Darren it's more he's there because he has to be but he doesn't want this life. In fact, in the very beginning of the series he only came back from Spain because his brother was getting out of jail, and the heat had died down. He didn't really intend to work for John Boy again, that just happened. Now, because he owes money to John Boy, he is forced to work with him again, another deal with the devil. If he could get out of this life he would. He wants a life with Rosie, life without crime, like a real job and real family. But this is real life (well it's not, it's a series ––– but that reflects real-life) and we all know there will be no happy ending for people like Darren.)


Darren: "I hate that Huey is buried here, in the same ground as him."
Mary: "Well he's dead now, so fuck him."
(It must indeed be galling; the man who killed his brother sharing the same consecrated ground as Robbie. Darren must wonder, at times, why the very ground doesn't split, fire reaching up from Huey's grave, dark hands grasping him and pulling him down into hell. Not that Robbie was any saint: but there is a terrible symmetry about the murder and murdered lying in the same cemetery.)

Nidge: "I'll be straight up with you: I don't give a shit about anyone. I don't give a shit Except for Warren. The rest, I don't care. Not even Trish. I mean, I love her but I don't give a shit. I'll do whatever the fuck it is have to do. I don't care; whatever it is I'll get on with it and do it. There is no way out for you in this, Darren; straight up, there's no way out. I wouldn't bullshit you. You have to do this."
(Darren's situation encapsulated in a nutshell. He might fool himself into thinking that he has a choice, but really he doesn't. When John Boy wants something done, it's expected to be done, no questions asked. The people he asks ––– orders in fact ––– carry out his dirty work are not supposed to question, and they're certainly not supposed to refuse orders. Nidge knows that John Boy is doing this to Darren because he doesn't like him, because he disobeyed him previously, and because he knows that Darren is trying to get out from under his shadow, only being held there at the moment by exigency of the money he owes back. To some degree, there's a parallel here with the Godfather movie: the line "I keep trying to get out, they keep dragging me back in" has special significance for Darren here.

This small callous speech also gives us an insight into what Nidge, the family man on the outside, is really like, and how much he cares about his soon-to-be wife. If someone was shooting at him, and Nidge had Trish with him he would have no qualms about using her as a human shield.)

Tommy: "I don't know what else I could have done."
Siobhan: "You could have said no."
(A course of action that would never have occurred to Tommy, or indeed any of the gang members. John Boy is just a man you do not say no to. He wants something, he gets it. He asks you to do something, you do it. There are no questions asked, there are no excuses, and there is never, ever any backing out. Siobhan may not realise this, but she does know Tommy is in a tight spot, and so she will help him out, as she's been asked to. But something of the regard she has for her boyfriend is gone from her eyes now: had he stood up to John Boy, she would have thought a lot more of him. Of course, that would have resulted in Tommy getting very badly hurt, and possibly worse. Would that have been better than toeing the line as a good little footsoldier?)


The rise and fall of a gang boss

No matter how big you are, no matter how powerful, respected, feared a leader you are, everybody falls eventually. From Hitler to Pol Pot, from bin Laden to Bush, or, to bring it down closer to our level, from Eamon Dunne to the General, tyrants all have one thing in common: eventually, someone takes them down. More often than not, it's someone from within their inner circle, betrayal of the worst kind. Occasionally, though, it's their own hubris which is their undoing. Here, as John Boy's criminal enterprise begins to unravel slowly, I'll be charting his descent into paranoia, borderline madness and eventual defeat.

There seems to be nobody he can trust now. With his brother gone, John Boy feels that everyone is a potential traitor, a rat, a betrayer. Like many despots, like many a gang boss, like many a Mafia godfather, he begins to see conspiracy in the shadows, knives in the dark, people whispering about him, people plotting against him. The first to fall under suspicion is of course Stumpy: no matter what the guy says, John Boy suspects that he is the one who sold them out to the cops. Though he has a plausible alibi --- surely he was seen at the rave --- there's nothing to say he couldn't have made a phone call before he went to the DJ job.

And then there's Darren. John Boy knows that the younger lad is only working for him to pay him off: what better way to erase that debt than to arrange to have the gang boss locked up? Perhaps he was the one? But then, did he know about the operation? He even starts to suspect his right hand: when Nidge reports back to him with all the information he wanted he sneers that the foot soldier is coming up in the world: getting reports, making phone calls, arranging lawyers. It's clear he sees a competitor for his crown, and he will certainly not yield that easily.

The only problem with suspecting everybody around you is that you end up having nobody you can trust, and eventually, in the end, one of your suspicions will be true; perhaps then the one or ones that you falsely suspected could have been the ones to help you if you had trusted them.

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FAMILY

There are several disparate and divergent meanings of the concept in this episode. We have seen already that the gang all have family of course: mothers, brothers, sisters, etc, and that in some ways, even the criminal gang themselves are a kind of family, albeit probably the most dysfunctional one you could come across. There's no loyalty, there's no support, there's no common ground except when it serves the ends of the gang, or the individual. There is no love lost. (I've always found that be an odd phrase. Surely if there is no love lost, there is plenty of love? In fact, surely in a relationship that is not working love is lost, and if everything is fine there is no love lost, so that the phrase seems to make no real sense to me. But I digress.)

Here however we see the different ways in which each of the criminal gang members regards their family. Darren of course protects Mary, and she tries to protect him. Nidge admits ––– quite happily ––– that he cares for nobody (other than himself of course) apart from his son, Warren. Not even his girlfriend, later to be his wife. He tells Darren that he loves her, but he doesn't care about her. How he manages to separate the two is unclear to me, but there it is. John Boy ––– the one you would perhaps assume to be completely cut off from family ––– keeps an odd connection with his dead brother, Huey, even believing that he is seeing his ghost at night, and also thinks the world of his own living daughter, Kayleigh, who as he waits for her arrival is unaware that he is at that moment receiving a phone call to tell him that Stumpy has been killed on his orders.

Before he dies, we see Stumpy at home with his mother. He is paying an installer for a state-of-the-art security system. It is perhaps odd that, given the fact that John Boy has told him to bring all his money to him, Stumpy seems to have no problem in paying the man what must amount to certainly a few grand. Of course, she is his mother, and we'd all do everything we could to protect and make our mothers safe, wouldn't we? Not to mention that Stumpy takes the money to pay the installer from the box he has been hiding in the attic, the money he is supposed to bring to John Boy. Should the boss discover that he has been skimming from what he now considers to be his money, then Stumpy will have a lot more to answer for. Mind you, in a very short time he will be beyond such worries anyway.

Darren has possibly tried to start his own sort of family unit by hooking up with Luke (a poor substitute for Robbie perhaps?) but what will happen if and when Rosie comes back? She doesn't know Luke, wouldn't want to know him, and Darren is likely to abandon the young lad as he seems to have been abandoned all his life.

HONOUR AMONG THIEVES

Once again we see how false this premise is. Truth to tell, nobody really liked Stumpy in the first place. That said, no matter who is the target the other gang members will fall into line behind the boss. If he thinks someone has betrayed them ––– or more specifically, him ––– then he is right. This is no democracy. There are no votes. there can be no dissenting opinion. When a hit is ordered ––– doesn't matter against who ––– it will be carried out. The person on the end of the contract can expect no help from his erstwhile comrades. Nobody is going to stick out their neck for a man who is ––– figuratively and literally ––– dead to the gang. However, there is a certain amount of mean-spiritedness and almost sadism inherent in how Nidge tells Stumpy everything is okay, that John Boy is annoyed but that is all, when he knows full well that John Boy has ordered the man's assassination.

Of course, it's more than Nidge's life ––– never mind his job ––– is worth to warn Stumpy, or to give him any grounds for suspicion that he might be targeted, but there is a certain sense of satisfaction and cruel delight in how Nidge fools him into thinking that this will just blow over. Everybody wants to please the boss; step out of line, and you could be next, so do as you're told, keep your head down and squeeze the trigger if you're told, even if your best friend is in your sights. Better him than you.

And if you can enjoy yourself while doing so, sure why the hell not?

LETTER OF THE LAW

John Boy's lawyer outlines how easy it is for criminals and criminal gangs to circumvent Irish law, sequestering stolen funds in offshore companies; companies set up in foreign territories over which the Irish government and the Irish police have no jurisdiction. Of course, the police forces of these various countries will render any assistance they can to Ireland, once the appropriate paperwork has been completed. But that's the problem: applications for searches, data information, even permission to visit and investigate these countries all take time and more importantly money, which Ireland is not particularly flush with. And without concrete evidence and proof, all they have are suspicions, hints and possibilities, and these by themselves would not be enough to convince a court to furnish a search warrant, or any other legal documents allowing them to investigate these companies, which may after all turn out to be legitimate.

Once again, the letter of the law defeats the spirit of the law and the odds are stacked in favour of the bad guy.

MIRROR, MIRROR

The double life these criminals lead, often without the knowledge ––– or at least acceptance, and in some cases total denial ––– of their loved ones is again shown when John Boy sits in a restaurant, awaiting the arrival of his daughter for dinner. He takes a phone call before she arrives; seems an innocent enough action, and with most people, it would be. But this call is telling John Boy that, on his orders, Stumpy has been killed by Darren. He smiles, hangs up, and turns to greet his daughter, the perfect, ordinary father on the outside, and she has no idea ––– at the moment ––– what sort of person he really is.

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