Trollheart

Season one

Episode One

We open on a normal house in a suburb of Dublin, the camera pans up to the window as we hear a voice with an American accent explain how to disassemble a Glock automatic pistol. We then see Nidge (though we don't see his face) avidly watching a YouTube video as he takes his Glock apart. Meanwhile Darren Treacy arrives in Dublin Airport, just off the flight from Spain and trying not to look nervous as he passes through Customs. At the same time a key scrapes in a lock and we see his brother, Robbie, being released from prison. He gives the guard the finger as he steps out into the afternoon sunlight, looks around, waits a moment then begins walking. Darren is shown still making his way out of the airport.

Cut to two people in bed. We will quickly learn that the man is Tommie, Darren's friend and a member of Nidge's gang, and the woman he is in bed with is Mary, Darren's sister. Darren, having been away --- and Robbie, having also been away, though in a different sense --- knows nothing of the relationship. What will emerge as being important to both Darren and Robbie is that Tommie is supposed to have been collecting the latter from prison as he's released, but instead he's in bed with the ex-con's sister. We next see Nidge, frustrated at not being able to follow the instructions onscreen, hide his Glock as his girlfriend Trish bangs on the door.

Darren calls Robbie and tells him he's waiting for Tommie to collect him, and Darren says he's on the way to meet him (wondering where the hell Tommie is). Tommie realises that he's forgotten about Robbie and gets a call from Darren, says he's on the way. Meanwhile, Robbie goes to a nearby shop to get credit for his mobile phone but as he comes out of the shop he's shot by a masked gunman. Darren arrives to find his brother dead, no sign of Tommie. When he does turn up he can't say why he was late, as Darren doesn't know, and might not approve, that he was screwing his sister. Darren blames him for Robbie's killing, and Tommie can't deny it. If he had been there when he was supposed to be...

The next morning Darren is arrested. He knew this would happen; he had skipped the country on arms charges, but he gets off on a technicality. When he asks the gang's lawyer how he should sort paying him, he's told it's been sorted. However this now trashes his plans for leaving in two days and returning to Spain, as he had originally intended to. Until the paperwork is complete and the charges dropped totally, he can't leave the country.

Enter John Boy, criminal boss and don to the Dublin gangland, and his psycho brother, Hughie. On the way to Robbie's house they're stopped by the Guards but there's nothing to charge them with. Also at the house we meet Stumpy and Rosie. Darren used to date Rosie and had intended to hook back up with her on arriving back in Dublin, and is upset to see she is with someone else now. Following old Irish tradition the family are having a wake for Robbie at the house, and this is where all the family, and the gang members, gather. Rumours abound as to who killed Robbie, and a name is mentioned --- Jimmy Byrne, who apparently Robbie attacked while inside, and who has skipped town.

At the graveside, Mary tries to confess to Darren about Tommie, but it's unclear if he gets the intimation. Of course, they're both heartbroken so the actual impact of what she's trying to tell him may not be too clear. Back in the pub, a scuffle breaks out between Hughie and Stumpy when the latter takes exception to his off-colour jokes and innuendos about Darren catching up with Rosie. It's obvious the two don't like each other and Stumpy storms off. Meanwhile in one of the cars Darren and Rosie discuss the past, and why he left when he did. It's equally clear the attraction between them is still strong. On the way out though Stumpy comes across the two in the car and you can see he's not happy about her hooking up with her old flame again. He drops into the conversation the fact that Rosie is pregnant, which is news to Darren. The tension in the air as she and Stumpy talk shows that they are far from in love.

John Boy tells Darren about the rumour concerning Jimmy Byrne, but also floats the possibility that Tommie could have been involved. Without knowing the details, it does look a little suspicious that he failed to pick Robbie up from jail, and can offer no real excuse. Tommie is therefore worried when Nidge and Darren invite him to take a trip with them, and go to a forest, where Nidge produces his Glock. However, it turns out they're just looking to test it out, and Tommie is not a suspect, as he thought. However Darren tells him that he knows about Mary, but as long as he doesn't hurt his sister, he doesn't care that he's with her. The trip was though set up deliberately to give Tommie the idea that his number was up. A message has been sent, and received.

QUOTES
Trish: "What are ye doin' in here with the door locked?"
Nidge: "I was updatin' me Bebo page!"

Mary: "Darren said it was a mandatory ten years he could get for it!"
Trish: "For what? Possession?"
Mary: "For having a gun in the house."
Nidge: "Mary, it was a 9mm semi automatic, not a bleedin' rocket launcher he had! Jesus! He'll get ... five. Tops!"
Trish: "Shut up you! You're makin' it worse!"

Trish, as she and Nidge are on the way to the pub after the funeral: "How long do we have to go to this thing for?"
Nidge: "We're staying."
Trish: "It's gonna be depressin', is all."
Nidge: "Well what do you expect? It's not the X Factor, is it?"

Darren: "Which is worse, Tommie? Being late for Robbie, or ridin' my sister?"
Tommie: "Bein' late for Robbie."
Darren: "Yeah. So if I'm not gonna shoot you for that, how do you reckon I'm gonna shoot you for being with Mary?"

QUESTIONS?
At this point, the obvious one: who shot Robbie, and why?

We're not told how long Darren has been away, so is it possible that the baby is his and not Stumpy's?

FAMILY
As in most if not all crime shows, relationships play a huge and important role in "Love/Hate", and none moreso than the family, but sometimes it's hard for those on the outside (or even the inside) to separate the "loving family man" from the cold-blooded killer. In this section I'll be looking at how those who aren't in the gang, or those who are on the periphery, relate to the ones they love, how they reconcile the nefarious deeds they know or suspect their other half perpetrate with the man they know and love.

In this opening episode the most striking and immediate example of this "divided loyalty" is Trish, girlfriend to Nidge. She knows, or has an idea, what sort of things her man gets up to, but is prepared most of the time to turn a blind eye. As long as the safety of her son is not in question. Because make no mistake about it, if it comes down to a straight choice --- Warren or Nidge --- she'll take the safety of her son every time. Even in the opening exchanges we see Nidge is something of a harrassed man, which gets him ribbing from his colleagues, even in his absence. Darren talks to Robbie and asks if Nidge is coming out with them that night, and Robbie grins "if he can get Trish to let go of his nutsack!" They know Nidge loves Trish, and that sort of love has real power, even over a gangster.

Trish refers to the night out, moaning and saying that it's been nice and quiet this past year, leading us to the conclusion that none of the gang (Darren's been away, Robbie in jail) have been up to anything special recently. Or if they have, she doesn't know about it. That's all of course due to change very soon. She also frowns, as would any woman, on her boyfriend's penchant for hookers, something that comes with the territory. She does not, however, forbid him from such pursuits; she knows it happens and is even expected by the gang hierarchy. But she's more concerned about the illegal deeds she hopes he's not about to get back into, as she warns him if he "starts that **** again" she'll throw him out. It is clear though that she knows when she's gone too far. Nidge loves her but he can only be pushed so far.

MIRROR, MIRROR
Although at times the characters here are viewed in a generally favourable light, seen as just ordinary guys, Stuart Carolan, creator of the show, is careful to show us that they are far from ordinary, not at all like you and me. The "guy next door" front is just a facade and beneath this lurks an evil, scheming, heartless and coldly brutal killer. In this section I'll be digging below the surface, tearing aside the masks and forcing these characters to peer deeply into the mirror, to see the terrible reflection they cast.

Nidge, who is shown to be a family man, fond of a drink and a support to Darren when Robbie is killed, shows his other side, his true side, when we see him collecting a debt that's owed. It's twenty-two thousand Euro, a lot of money in anyone's language, but the wife has only been able to muster twenty thousand. She hopes Nidge will take it, but he sneers that she owes two grand more. Where will she get it, she pleads despairingly: the credit union would only give her a maximum of twenty. Nidge shrugs: she'll have to borrow it from someone. It's not his problem how or where she gets the money, just that the debt is paid. As he drives off with the twenty grand, the woman asks him in a faltering voice will he be okay, obviously referring to her husband, or son, whoever owes the debt. Nidge grins nastily: "I don't know. Will he?"

This callous disregard for the financial position of a vulnerable woman shows Nidge up for what he is: a cheap, nasty thug who is happy to allow people to get into debt but has no qualms about putting the screws on them when they can't pay up. It's not like going to the bank: when you owe the gangs, you had better be able to pay or you're going to end up losing something. Maybe a limb, maybe an eye, maybe your life. It's particularly harrowing when the criminal, after having this scary confrontation with the woman, calmly drives back to his loving family and continues his "second" life, as if nothing had happened. The ability of these people to rationalise and compartmentalise their gangland life is nothing short of chilling.

HONOUR AMONG THIEVES?
Here I'll be looking at the widely-held belief, which is a myth, that criminals in gangs look after each other. They don't. Scumbags look after number one, and that's it. There's a wolf pack mentality in that they stick together both to look and be more intimidating to their enemies and because each has dirt they can dish on the other, but generally it's a mutual reliance that provides the glue that holds gangs together. It's also this refusal to stand by one another that will, eventually, lead to the downfall of many of the gang members here.

STUMPY: Although not an actual gang member, Stumpy runs with them and is known to them, but there is no love lost, as is evident when Nidge refuses to let him into the house, slamming the door in his face. Darren too has reason to dislike the man, as he now has the woman he wants to get back together with. Like everyone else, Stumpy will be tolerated for his earning power and his muscle, and for fear of what he knows that can damage the gang, until he either becomes no longer useful or a liability, at which point all bets are off and the pack will show its true colours, turning on him and tearing him to pieces.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Season 1: "Three million years from Earth..."

1.5 "Confidence and Paranoia"

Holly's joke: We have been travelling through the galaxy now for three million years and there are many things we've discovered. The highest form of life in the universe is Man and the lowest is a man who works for the Post Office.

After having visited the officers' block on the ship, which he had thought decontaminated but which Rimmer had left on the long finger, Lister develops a mutated form of pneumonia, which results in his fever-induced hallucinations taking physical shape and form. Rimmer accuses him of having gone to the officers' quarters in order to sit in Kochanski's quarters and wallow in self-pity. Lister wakes in the night feeling terrible, and goes down to the medical unit. On the way there however he collapses and is found by the Cat, who is no help to him at all, totally self-centred as ever. Rimmer comes by, having found Lister, and tries to get the Cat to help him, as being a hologram Rimmer can lift nothing. The Cat, however, shallow and self-serving as always, is more interested in his lunch, and so it is left up to Rimmer and the scutters --- the little manual robots that look after menial tasks onboard the huge ship --- to look after Lister.

Lister bemoans the fact that he never had the guts to ask Kochanski out, and Rimmer declares that if she had accepted, then the only things stranger than that occurrence, in his opinion, would be the spontaneous combustion of the Mayor of Warsaw in 1546, and the time in 12th century Burgundy when it rained herring. Lister tells Rimmer of a theory he and Chen had, that everyone has two people inside them: the person that tells us we are great, and gives us our confidence (and so they called this facet of personality Confidence), and the person that puts us down and tells us we are useless, holds us back and is known as Paranoia.

That night, sleeping after his treatment in the medical unit, Lister dreams of fish falling from the sky, having listened to what Rimmer had been saying earlier, but the dream becomes real, and it does rain fish in their sleeping quarters! A moment later, the Mayor of Warsaw appears and then spontaneously combusts! To complete the list of hallucinations which have become solid, two figures have materialised in the drive room; these are Lister's Confidence and his Paranoia...

As expected, Confidence builds Lister up from the moment he arrives, and tells him he can do anything. Indeed, with the hallucination's help, Lister divines Rimmer's hiding-place for the rest of the personality disks of the crew, and prepares to retrieve them from outside of the ship so that he can bring back Chrissie Kochanski as a hologram. In opposition to Confidence, Paranoia brings Lister down, telling him he is useless, and that he should listen to Rimmer (which wins him a measure of kinship from the hologram), but Lister goes off, not surprisingly, with Confidence. They can't go outside the ship yet, because there is a magnetic storm in progress, but as soon as it passes, they are ready to make the trip outside.

Meanwhile, Rimmer tries to get rid of Paranoia, but his plan fails. The dust storm passes, and Lister and his Confidence go out in spacesuits to retrieve the disks. Rimmer notices however as they leave that the medicom has been wrecked, and challenges Lister to explain that. He can't, and Rimmer points out that both Lister's Confidence and his Paranoia have a vested interest in ensuring that Lister does not get better, as they are both symptoms of his sickness, and once he recovers they will both disappear. Lister is unconvinced however, and out they go.

Outside Red Dwarf, Confidence admits that he has killed Paranoia, but when Lister makes to go back inside, Confidence says he should take his helmet off; "Oxygen is for losers!" He goes to prove it by removing his own helmet, and the inevitable happens. With both his Confidence and his Paranoia gone, Lister is cured and now has the disk back. He is warned by Rimmer that the disk will only bring him misery, but he ignores his bunkmate, which as it turns out is unfortunate, as Rimmer has swapped the disks, and what Lister brings back is not Kochanski but ... another Rimmer!!

Note: this is the first of what could be called a two-parter in this series. Every other episode up to now has just ended, with little or no reference to what happened in the next one, but "Me2" (me squared) follows on directly from this, carrying through the consequences of Lister's ignoring Rimmer's warning, and indeed brings to a close the first season.

The idea of Confidence and Paranoia is a great one, and just one of many clever and innovative ideas Grant and Naylor will come up with over the course of the coming seasons, with some theories and plots which would not be out of place in a normal sci-fi drama --- minus the laughs, of course!

Best lines/quotes/scenes

Holly is bored. He's read everything that's ever been written anywhere, on any subject, and come to the conclusion that the worst book in the history of man is "Football: it's a funny old game" by Kevin Keegan.

HOLLY: "I'm at a loose end now. I don't know what to do with meself."
LISTER: "Holly, why don't you just read everything all over again."
HOLLY: "I was thinking it might help pass the time if I created a perfectly functioning replica of a woman, capable of independent decision-making and abstract thought and absolutely undetectable from the real thing."
LISTER: (Sitting up eagerly) "Well why don't you, then?"
HOLLY: "Because I don't know how. I wouldn't even know how to make the nose. Heh."
LISTER: "Holly, is there something that you want?"
HOLLY: "Well, only if you're not busy. Would you mind erasing some of my memory banks?"
LISTER: "What for?"
HOLLY: "Well, if you erase all the Agatha Christie novels from my memory bank, I can read 'em again tonight."
LISTER: "How do I do it?"
HOLLY: "Just type, HolMem. Password override. The novels Christie, Agatha. Then press erase."
LISTER jabs two-fingered on a keyboard. "I've done it."
HOLLY: "Done what?"
LISTER: "Erased Agatha Christie."
HOLLY: "Who's she, then?"
LISTER: "Holly, you just asked me to erase all Agatha Christie novels from your memory!"
HOLLY: "Why should I do that? I've never heard of her."
LISTER: "You've never heard of her because I've just erased her from your smegging memory!"
HOLLY: "What'd you do that for?"
LISTER: "You asked me to!"
HOLLY: "When?"
LISTER: "Just now!"
HOLLY: "I don't remember this."
LISTER: "Oh, I'm going to bed. This is gonna go on all night!"

Rimmer's to-do list, sadly not quite properly prioritised...

Rimmer: "Ah! Had a good day, Lister? Scrummed enough choccies? Watched enough drivel, have you? Look at you: you're turning into a sad, middle-aged woman. Next thing you know you'll be varnishing your nails and buying girdles."
LISTER: "Oh yeah? And what've you done that's so great?"
RIMMER: "I've achieved seventeen things today off my daily goal list, whereas you've never achieved anything ever in your entire life."
LISTER: "Don't know, you know. I went to the Officer's Block."
RIMMER: "When?!"
LISTER: "This morning."
RIMMER: "But it hasn't been decontaminated!"
LISTER: "You said it had last week!"
RIMMER: "No, I said it was on last Thursday's daily goal list!"
LISTER: "And you haven't done it yet?!"
RIMMER: "Tomorrow. It's on tomorrow's daily goal list. Item 34, right after "Learn Portugese."

The Cat finds a sick Lister crumpled on the ground:

CAT: "Hey, this is mine. That's mine. All this is mine. I'm claiming all this as mine. Except that bit. I don't want that bit. But all the rest of this is mine. Hey, this has been a good day. I've eaten five times, I've slept six times, and I've made a lot of things mine. Tomorrow, I'm gonna see if I can't have sex with something! (Dancing away) "Oooooooooow, yeaaaaaaah..."

(Coming across Lister's prone body)

CAT: (Singing) "S-E-X, you know I want it! S-E-X, I'm gonna get it! (Seeing Lister) S-E-X, I think I found it!" (Recognizes Lister and crouches down beside him.) "Oh, it's you! Hey, monkey, you're sick. Sick, helpless, and unconscious. If you weren't my friend, I'd steal your shoes! Time for a snack. This way!" (Dances away.)

On discovering Lister is unconscious, Rimmer tries to get the Cat to help, as being a hologram he can't pick him up. The Cat though, is not budging. Hey, he's eatin'!

RIMMER: "Is there something wrong with you? Lister's collapsed!"
CAT: "Yeah?"
RIMMER: "What do you mean "yeah?" He needs help!"
CAT: "And?"
RIMMER: "And if you don't help him he might die."
CAT: "Aw, no. That's too bad. I really liked him, too."
RIMMER: "So, come and help him."
CAT: "What? And interrupt my lunch?!"
RIMMER: "What is more important: a man's life or your smegging lunch?"
CAT: "That doesn't even deserve an answer."

Rimmer tries to cover up the fact that he's been trying to get rid of Paranoia, one half of Lister's delusional hallucination:

RIMMER: (Shouting to the scutter, who is armed with a syringe) "NOW! STAB HIM! STAB HIM! STAB HIM! QUICK! STAB HIM!"

PARANOIA turns to look at the scutter which has hardly moved.

RIMMER: (To PARANOIA) "Uh, you haven't met "Stabem," have you? He's one of the scutters. Stabem, meet Lister's paranoia. Lister's paranoia, this is Stabem."

Lister susses out where Rimmer has hidden the personality discs (with a little help from his Confidence):

CONFIDENCE: "Come on, King, you know Rimmer. Where would he hide 'em?"
LISTER: "I don't know."
CONFIDENCE: "Yes, you do."
PARANOIA: "No, he doesn't."
CONFIDENCE: "Come on! Think : winner!"
LISTER: "Outside. Outside the ship."
RIMMER: "Uh... Wrong, actually!"
CONFIDENCE: "Where outside?"
LISTER: "Well, he'd have to send the scutters... and the disks would have to be safe...."
RIMMER: "Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrong-ability."
LISTER: "And they'd have to be right under me nose he could laugh at me."
RIMMER: "Wrong and getting wronger all the time."
LISTER: "Outside out sleeping quarters. The solar panel outside our sleeping quarters!"
RIMMER: "You followed me, you goit!"
LISTER: "Is that where they are?! That's incredible! I did it!"

Rimmer tries to be cool...

RIMMER: "Holly, put a trace on Paranoia."
HOLLY: "What's a trace?"
RIMMER: "It's space jargon. It means find him."
HOLLY: "No, it doesn't. You just made it up to be cool."

As Dave switches on the hologram generation unit, the awful truth is revealed..

On the other side of the room, another hologram of Rimmer appears.

RIMMER #2: "Well, he did warn you!"
RIMMER: "I certainly did." (To LISTER) "Do you honestly think I'd put Kochanski's disk in Kochanski's box where any Munchkin could find it? You think you had it bad before, Lister? Well now you've got it in stereo, baby!" (To RIMMER #2) "Welcome aboard, Rimmsie!"
RIMMER #2: "Nice to be here, Mr. Rimmer, you son of a gun."

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

1.2 "Looking after our own"

We open on what looks at first like a high-tech, well-funded bunch of burgulars, but turns out in fact to be Danny with an MI5 team who are attempting to bug the house of an unknown target. However it becomes clear the guy has serious tech installed and they have to abandon the mission, resetting everything they changed and leaving without a trace. We soon learn the house was that of Robert Osbourne, a right-wing racist leader who is planning a race war, in conjunction with an independent MP called Bill Watson. Harry's team plan to infiltrate the organisation by having one of them befriend Osbourne's wife, Claire, whom he is beating. This person is called "the runner", in that one would assume, they run the target and try to make them give up information that may help bring the man to justice.

Osbourne and Watson have a meeting in Osbourne's house, where it's quickly obvious that his small child is not safe from the extremist's quick temper; bruises on his wife's face already attest that she is no stranger to being hit. The two men discuss the disaffection in British society, the simmering anger against immigrants and foreigners, minorities and other cultures, and how best they can exploit that to their mutual advantage. Tom meanwhile is incensed when Tessa seconds Zoe to her own team, to shadow a Customs and Excise human trafficking operation, leaving him one person --- one very important person --- short on his team.

Word comes to the Grid that the runner has been involved in a traffic accident, and without her to keep Claire occupied it looks as if Osbourne's wife may leave him, taking with her their best chance of getting to the racist. Left with no other option, Tom has to take over the infiltration himself, and the only way he can do that is to take over the running of the computer classes Clare had been taking. The problem is that the course is run by a husband and wife team, so Tom is going to need "a wife". With Zoe, who would of course have been his first choice, unavailable to him, he is forced to recruit Helen, who is really little more than a clerical officer and not happy with her lot. She has however taken all the required courses and so is qualified, even if she has not been "in the field" before. She is of course delighted to get the chance of some proper action, and determined to show what she can do.

Tom's personal world is beginning to move onto a collision course with his work life, and his girlfriend is getting tired of his constant disappearances and weak excuses, his late-night and early-morning exits, and the amount of "emergencies" he seems to be called in to sort out at "work". Now, as he needs to be out of circulation for a few weeks, he calls her to tell her he has to unexpectedly go to the USA and Japan. She is, not to put too fine a point on it, unimpressed and hangs up on him. At the computer class the liaison with Claire is going well, and cemented more when they stage a robbery and Tom "rescues" her, retrieving her handbag. Having gained her confidence, they are then invited to dinner where they meet the infamous Obsourne. Not surprisingly, he holds forth on his racist views, gets drunk and they leave to the sounds of Claire getting another beating.

Meanwhile it turns out the third person in Osbourne's entourage is not who he seems. Nick Thomas, who is pretending to be sympathetic to the racist views and agenda the bigot is spouting is in fact a freelance journalist called Kieran Thomas. Osbourne already suspects he is not who he says he is, and now that MI5 have tumbled him they realise his life may be in danger. They signal the team to advise them something is up that could blow the operation up in their faces if not dealt with swiftly.They rather fortuitously run across him when he comes canvassing to their house, and tell him they know who he is and he must hand over all the evidence he has gathered. He tells them that Osbourne has been paying off local thugs and driving them to immigration centres and asylums, thus sparking off riots while Bill Watson then uses the political blowback to further his platform of nationalism.

With no other option now Tom and Helen reveal who they are and try to recruit Claire into helping them. In return they'll pay her, money which will help get her free of her abusive husband. Meanwhile Thomas, the journalist, is rumbled by Osbourne. Under presumably torture, he gives up Tom and Helen, who are taken captive by the right-wingers. When Tom fails to check in as arranged suspicions are aroused back at The Grid. During the Customs human trafficking operation, Zoe notices that Osbourne is pictured at a meeting with some of the top-level smugglers, and passes the information on to Harry, who wonders what a right-wing racist is doing helping to get illegal immigrants into the country? Isn't his whole ethos based on getting those who are here out and not letting any more in?

As Osbourne attempts to find out how much MI5 know about him and his organisation, Zoe is recalled to lead the team to try to rescue them. Osbourne tells Tom that he is facilitating the influx of refugees and asylum seekers in order to choke the system and bring the resentment to fever pitch. However, Helen is tortured when Tom plays dumb, first by having her arm pushed into a searingly hot deep-fat fryer, and then her head. In agonising pain for a few seconds, she is shot in the head by Osbourne's henchman. Claire, shocked at the brutal torture and killing of the young woman, and seeing her husband for what he truly is, a cold, callous psychopath, engineers a diversion just as Tom is being set up for the same fate. Throwing a cigarette she's been smoking into the burner it ignites the fat and Tom is able to escape. He calls in and a rescue team homes in on him.

Tom is all for sending in the SAS and taking the whole organisation out, but "higher-ups" in Government circles believe they can use Osbourne and his agenda to allow them to take a tougher stance on immigration --- which is, coldly ironically, more or less what Osbourne wants, although he's far more militant and literal about the way he goes about it --- and Harry is told he can do nothing. Going ahead anyway, he arranges for Osbourne to be assassinated. Claire and her child are given tickets out of the country, and photographs of the dead refugees, who were being smuggled in as part of Osbourne's plan and who were thrown overboard by the traffickers once they realised Customs were on to them, are sent to Bill Watson, with the intimation that they have also been sent to the newspapers, and his career is about to come to an ignominous end, quite possibly in prison.

Quotes
Sometimes there are quotes that don't easily fit into any of the individual sections here, but are still worthy of repetition. In those cases I'll just put them in here on their own. This first one is particularly ironic, given what happens later.

Helen, on her disillusion with the glamour of her job:
"Join MI5! Multiple opportunities for advancement, they said! Protect national security, they said!"
Tessa, bringing over some photocopies and putting them on her desk: "Double sided, if you don't mind. And it's "Eyes Alpha", so try not to look at the interesting bits."

The mind of a terrorist

Watson, smugly: "Having recently warned the House about rising racial tensions in Bristol, I'm starting to earn the nickname of Nostradamus! I'm coming across like a prophet!"
Later, Osbourne says to him as he leaves "Nobody ever blamed Nostradamus when the bad news arrived. Remember that."

Osbourne talks about people not being ready to stand up for their race:
"You know why there's never been a revolution in this country? John Wesley. He was a Methodist, went around preaching; had everyone sitting on their hands in church while everyone in France was going nuts. Most people don't do anything in this country on principle, and most people don't kick up a stink unless a) they're told to or b) it's in their faces and it hurts them. It's in their faces now. It's hurting. You know, this time last year nobody knew what a muslim was, now everyone's looking at people in the street --- where's he from? What's he doing? They're starting to notice things they never noticed before: asylum seekers clogging up the hospitals. Shop assistants who can't speak English. Black media corrupting our children. We have a window right now, a great big window just opened. People are starting to realise --- they won't do anything until they're told --- they're Britihs. Everyone's crying out for a voice of reason, someone to make them realise that they're not alone, they're not on the extreme; that they are the majority, that it's their country and it's all right to get angry!"

Osbourne embarrrasses his wife in front of his friends:
"That top doesn't do 'em justice. Five grand each they cost me. Man buys a tit job for his wife, least she can do is show them off to his mates. Come on! Undo your top!" (After she hesitantly and very shamefully obeys him) "Lovely! My beautiful wife."

Harry's World
As they make arrangements to replace the runner, Harry asks Tom "The couple who run the computer classes: are they removable?" Seeing Tom's look he clarifies with a slight grin "In a nice way." The obvious inferrence here being that MI5 are not above "removing" or "replacing" people if it suits their purposes, and on occasion this may involve more, shall we say, permanent measures? Harry wants to make it clear to his subordinate that this is not one of those times!

He talks to Tom about why Tom didn't tell him about his love interest so that she could be vetted in the normal way. Tom replies testily: "I just wanted to keep it simple." Harry nods.
"Always a mistake, in my experience."

Harry, as he watches the government man, Derek Morris, leave, having been ordered to stay away from Osbourne until advised, and thumbs his mobile phone: "**** you Derek, with knobs on!"

Big Brother is watching!
In the shopping centre as they shadow Claire, a setup robbery is arranged. The security guard nods to Tom as he walks in --- he's a spook. So is the guy who grabs Claire's handbag.

When Osbourne's agents call to check on the previous address of the Wilkes', the identity under which Helen and Tom are posing, there's an old lady there. She tells the man they couple moved, supporting the story they had given Osbourne. When he's gone, she gets on the phone, revealing herself to be, yes you guessed it, another spook!

The shopkeeper from whom Tom buys "History Today" is yet another operative.

Signs and Signals
Much of the work of MI5 is done without words. Messages are passed in code certainly, but there are other, less obvious or trackable signs that can speak volumes to those who can interpret them. In this section I'll note any that relate to this episode, and later, if they reoccur in other episodes or are referred back to.

"There's a van with a cat in it".
When Helen looks out the window she sees a van which has dangling from the front visor a small Garfield figure. She knows this is a silent signal from Thames House.

"History Today"
In response to the cat signal (no, not the bat signal!) Tom goes to a particular newsagents and asks for the magazine "History Today". Inside the magazine, among the "junk mail" you find in every one of these --- ads for Dell, book clubs, tickets that tell you you've definitely won a prize (though it's probably a pencil and NOT the Caribbean cruise!) --- he finds one which he reverses and rubs a felt-tip pen over, revealing a hidden message that warns him about the undercover journalist. The exchange between he and the shopkeeper --- "History Today?" "Only just come in" --- are probably also failsafe codewords in case the wrong person walks in and happens to ask for the magazine. In the world of MI5, even the smallest things can be keywords or clues.

The "Need to know"
When they confront Kieran Thomas and let him know --- sort of --- who they are, Tom and Helen demand that he turn over all the evidence he has gathered to them, including copies, but he is not having it. He says "I'm done now. I'm off tonight, editing for the next few months." Tom chillingly asks him "What makes you think you'll have anything to edit when you get home, exactly?"
The implication is clear, but vague at the same time. Tom is obviously letting the journalist know that he has the power to shut him down, have him fired, reassigned or even killed if necessary. It's also quite possible that the threat alludes to the destruction or removal of his computer and files from his house, office, or wherever he has them. What is clear though is that, in a situation like this, where national security is threatened and mass riots on the horizon if they don't stop this lunatic, MI5 will do anything, stop at nothing, to ensure nothing compromises their operation. One man and his perhaps misguided quest for fame and notoriety will not stand in their way.

Rivalries
Again, the relationship between MI5 and the main Government is shown here, in the endgame, as Derek Morris, another essentially faceless government man, sets out the scenario as he sees it, with the cold calculating eye of the politician and the dark logic of the bureaucrat:
"Two people have died and Osbourne's on the rampage. I say good, in a manner of speaking."
Tom: "He killed one of our own! We can stop him today!"
Morris: "Whoever said anything about stopping him? Now we know what he's up to, in spite of the cock-up (this with a sidewise glance at Harry) I'm chuffed to say he's tainting the Right with every single action he takes, and pushing the Right further right and the Left towards the central reservation. Meanwhile these reception centres are a living nightmare, and suddenly a government position on immigration is possible that was practically unthinkable two years ago. Despite the fact that most of the cabinet were gagging for it. Now we can enter a new bill, that brings the shutters down on undesirables. And make it look like we're practically Socialists, for God's sake. All thanks to you. Pardon me for being party political."
Tom: "You're not going to let us touch him, are you?"
Morris: "Now, I didn't say that. And only until the bill's been passed, obviously. Then you can get Special Forces to do your dirty work, as per the hymnsheet. We're not total cynics." (Tom walks out in disgust) "Oh dear."
Harry: "You're a little ****e, Derek. Have I ever told you that?"

The Shock Factor
If a show ever delivered twists and shock endings, scenarios and outcomes that would not have been expected or even dreamed of, particularly in a British TV drama, Spooks cornered the market. Nobody was safe, even major characters, and anything that could happen often did, leaving us as viewers feeling a lot more deeply invested in the characters, knowing anyone could die at any time, and it also made the dangerous scenes that much more, well, dangerous. There was never such a thing as "Oh he/she can't die" --- everyone was fair game. But it wasn't just deaths that provided the shock factor in this series, and here I'll be looking into what was basically the "WTF moment" in Spooks, each episode that has one.

Helen's torture and death

Admittedly, we're only into episode two and have not had time to get to know Helen, but her character has been deliberately built up, especially in this episode, to make us get to know and like her. Her innocence and enthusiasm is refreshing, and even up to the point her arm comes out of the fryer we think Tom will do something now. It's been a horrible ordeal but she'll survive. It's therefore a massive shock when he still sticks to his guns and her head is forced under the oil, not even killing her but obviously leaving her in almost unimaginable pain. We've all had deep fat fryers and chip pans spit oil at us from time to time, and we know how sore it is. Now multiply that by a million! When Osbourne's lieutenant shoots her it's almost a mercy.

But this sudden, unexpected and violent death prompted enough complaints to the TV regulator that this episode provoked the most irate phone calls for the year 2002. Of course, that did the ratings no harm.

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Urban Hat€monger ?

Helen was originally only supposed to feature in Episode 2, but then the producer of the show decided to introduce her in the opening episode, get a name actress to play her (Lisa Faulkner) AND include her on all the promotional material for the series leading people to believe she would be in the whole series.

You have to say it was a genius decision because the sudden way she's tortured and disposed of so easily it makes it one of the most shocking moments on British TV of the last 15 years.

There's no way it would have had that much impact had she just appeared in one episode as a guest artist.

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It was definitely a clever and courageous idea. It shocked the hell out of me the first time I saw it, and even now, watching it again for this piece, I still got a bit of a shiver. Spooks ended up doing stuff like that, as I said in the notes: nobody was safe. I mean they and the character/cast list really seemed to change for each season. Talk about "24"? Had nothing on Spooks.

I only got into watching it pretty late. I had always seen the programme title on my EPG and laughed because one of my (now sadly passed away) cats was named Spook. But I never bothered to watch it until years later. Once I got season one finished I couldn't wait to get through the next five or six, then I kind of dropped it at season seven I think and only recently watched eight and nine. I've still to see the final one, expecting some big shocks in that.

I thought the way they handled Helen's character was great. She was shown as being very dissatisfied with her role in MI5 (basically a glorified typist) and looking for adventure. When you see what she ended up going through before she died, you'd have to feel she would have been better where she was. The way the others handled her death too is I think indicative of the human nature of Spooks: people die, but they're not just forgotten about. You see the funerals, the aftermaths, the effect it has on their colleagues. I always think it's sad that, when for instance

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1.1 "Happiness is a warm gun"

Alan B'Stard wins a landslide victory at the local election due to his ensuring the other two candidates are unable to campaign, putting them both in hospital when he arranges to have the brake lines of their cars cut and the two crash into each other. However the Chief Constable, Sir Malachy Jericho, knows what he has done and tells him that unless he works for him within Parliament he will expose him. He tells B'Stard he wants a bill passed in the House to allow police to carry firearms, and the young Tory is going to help him get it through. B'Stard's bill passes, despite opposition from Labour, in particular his nemesis, Bob Crippen, and the chief constable is delighted. Not only that, but being successful in getting such a major bill passed when only a few months in his seat raises B'Stard's profile, and he is now a rising star of the Right.

Meanwhile Sarah, his wife, is having a lesbian affair with his PR agent, Beatrice Protheroe. Alan doesn't know about it but probably wouldn't care as he hates his wife anyway, and he soon has other things to worry about, as the local bishop, who also sits in the House of Lords, preaches against his bill, saying he will vote against it and will try to convince his fellow Lords to do likewise. Despite this, Alan's bill does pass and his accountant, Norman Bormann, shows him some cheap revolvers he has secured a contract for, at a tenner a go! When B'Stard remarks that they feel a little light (not to mention that they're cheap!) Norman admits they're actually made from recycled frying pans, and will most likely blow up in the face of anyone who tries to use them. B'Stard says that's ok: they're for deterring, not firing!

Norman then demands money from B'Stard before he will reveal the name of the supplier; he wants to assume a new identity by having a sex-change, and intends B'Stard to finance it. B'Stard goes to visit his old friend Sidney Bliss, an ex-hangman who constantly moans that the world is a worse place since they abolished "the rope". It's his pub, "The Hangman's Knot Inn", that Sir Malachy frequents, and here B'Stard meets with the Chief Constable .... and his friend. It seems Sir Malachy believes that God is sitting beside him, and has indeed ordered him a pint of bitter. When the chief refuses to hand over the dossier he is holding over B'Stard, proving his complicity in the hospitalisation of his two rivals, saying that B'Stard can still be useful to him in Parliament, the Tory convinces him that the Bishop of Haltemprice is in fact the Antichrist, and Sir Malachy hands over the file to B'Stard, then sets off to confront the bishop. Meanwhile, Alan makes a call to the station...

When the chief constable pulls his gun on the bishop he is quickly arrested thanks to B'Stard's "tip off", and now he has the previously deputy chief constable in his pocket. On his recommendation, the police force places their order for pistols with him, so that when he is pursued by a squad car for speeding, the gun blows up in the cop's hand and B'Stard escapes, grinning all the way to the bank.

Quotes
In a show as sharply satirical and comedic as this, there are bound to be some choice quotes. Though of course I won't be noting them all, here are some of the better ones in this episode.
SDP Candidate: "Vote SDP. Vote for me because ---" (To aide) "why should they vote for me?"
Aide: "Because you're decisive!"
SDP Candidate: "Oh right! Vote for me because I'm more decisive!" (To aide) "Should I turn left or right at the bottom of the hill?"

Meanwhile, the candidate for Labour, coming up the hill and around the corner from the SDP campaign car has a simpler message: "Vote Labour. Vote Labour. Oh please!"

As B'Stard awaits the expected announcement of his victory, the returning officer reads the ballots:
"Aslon, William Richard" (voiceover) Labour, Intensive Care --- 3,237
"Roper, Martin Cyril" (voiceover) SDP, Critical --- 1,265
"Sutch, Screaming Lord" (Voiceover) Monster Raving Loony --- 5,019
"B'Stard, Alan Beresford" (Voiceover) Conservative --- 31,756. And I therefore declare that Alan Beresford B'Stard is returned as Member of Parliament for the constituency of Haltemprice."

B'Stard goes to take up his new position in the House but is stopped by a security guard.
Guard: "I'm sorry Sir, members only."
B'Stard: "I am a member! I've got the largest majority in the House!"
Guard: "Name?"
B'Stard: "B'Stard!"
Guard (shaking head and walking away): "Only doing my job, Sir..."

Sir Malachy takes out a Smith and Wesson from his bag, says "What do you think of this?"
B'Stard says "Very pretty" but the chief constable frowns. "Wasn't talking to you!" and turns to the empty seat to his left, where he believes God is sitting....

B'Stard tells Sir Malachy that the Bishop is the Antichrist: "Don't you remember his sermon? I respect atheists, and idolators, and, um, cannibals, he said. And he opposed the Gun Law, which we all know was God's will. And, last Christmas, while you were away on ... pilgrimage duty ... he preached that not only was Mary not a virgin, but technically, a surrogate mother."
Sir Malachy: "He never did!"
B'Stard: "Cross my heart. In fact, not only is the Bishop of Haltemprice almost certainly an unbeliever, I suspect he is the secret leader of all who oppose the will of God."
Sir Malachy: "You don't mean..."
B'Stard: "The Antichrist!"

Deputy Chief Constable Ginsberg: "He (Sir Malachy) should never have passed his probationary period. He was hearing voices ten years before the introduction of personal radios!"

Cop 1: "Blimey! What's it say on the radar?"
Cop 2: "Made in Taiwan."

MACHINATIONS
Of course there will be many of these down through the four seasons, some small, some much larger, many impacting not only on the country but on Europe, possibly the world. B'Stard is never averse to using people, and many of his plans come from this very practice. Here I'll be looking at some of his dastardly --- and some not so dastardly, but still cunning and sharp --- plots.

Sir Stephen's Speech
Unable to get the creative juices flowing while he's trying to write his own speech, B'Stard listens in boredom to Sir Stephen's notes, which run thus: "For a century and a half, the British bobby has patrolled his beat on his trusty bicycle, armed only with his truncheon, his whistle, and his considerable courage." When Alan snaps "Old hat!" at him, he considers, says "Oh, do you really think so? Very well then: his truncheon, his whistle, and his old hat."
Though B'Stard jeers the speech he decides in the end to steal it, and uses it in the House (inclusive of the old hat line) so that when Sir Stephen --- who is not present when B'Stard makes his speech, having been looking for his notes, and only comes in later --- reads his out, he is booed and laughed at, everyone thinking he has stolen the younger MP's speech.

SIDEKICK

If B'Stard is the harsh, cruel, greedy and uncaring face of Thatcherism, Piers Fletcher Dervish is the opposite. Kind, courteous and gentle, he's the perfect foil for Alan and is constantly bossed about, used and abused by the man. In this section I'll be examining the relationship between the two, and how it develops over the course of the series.

The first indication we have of how little B'Stard thinks of Piers is when we first meet him, and Alan is reading him his speech which will preface his attempt to pass a law through the House of Commons authorising the police to carry weapons. When Piers tells him the speech is "Awfully good", he smiles, "You like it? Must be rubbish then!" and promptly trashes it. Then when he's spoken to his wife on the phone, making lovey cooey noises at her, he slams it down and claps his hands together. "Right! I'm off to Stringfellows to commit adultery!" he announces. Piers, excited, asks "Can I come Alan?" to which Alan with a withering look at him sneers "I have no idea, Piers!"

WHAT IS LOVE?
In this section I'll be taking a look at not only B'Stard's relationship with his wife, but any others he has with other women (not one-night stands or flings, but the odd one that might actually mean something to him) as well as how other characters in the series see and deal with love and relationships.

SARAH

Obviously front and centre in B'Stard's life is his wife Sarah. It becomes clear from the first episode that the only reason he married her is that she has a lineage traceable back to royalty, and that her father controls the local Conservative party, and has the power to oust Alan from his seat if he should so desire. Her affair with Beatrice Protheroe, and her many other dalliances and sexual adventures as the series unfolds, show the level of trust and admiration and respect she has for her husband, less than a dried-up river. However she does realise that at times she needs to be seen "by her husband's side", as when he wins election, and she knows how to play the dutiful wife in public, when it suits her or their shared ambition.

THE USER AND THE USED
Apart from Piers, there are a myriad other people Alan uses to achieve his ends, including as above his wife, but in this section I'll be mostly concentrating on people other than those two. Whether it's an agent, typist, driver, political colleague or even a cabinet minister, B'Stard will manipulate, blackmail, threaten, blacken the name of and terrorise anyone to get what he wants.

NORMAN/NORMA BORMANN
B'Stard's accountant and financial adviser for the first season, Bormann is another facet of Alan, prepared to lie, cheat and steal to make himself rich. The authorities have caught up with him though and when B'Stard goes to meet him he is using an old disused railway carriage in the middle of nowhere as his office. Alan's contempt for the man is evident when Norman starts telling him his problems and Alan responds with "Does it affect me? No? Then it's not important, is it?" When he hands over two grand to him and asks what it's for, Norman tells him he's decided to kill himself. Reaching to take his money back, B'Stard smiles "You don't need two grand for that! Jump off something!"

SIR MALACHY
Although only in this episode, B'Stard turns the tables on the chief constable. At first, Sir Malachy has him bang to rights, and with his intelligence on how B'Stard orchestrated the crash of the cars of his two rivals before the election, he is able to blackmail B'Stard into getting his gun law passed. When he refuses to hand over the dossier, however, and Alan sees he is going to end up being used by the man to further his insane neo-Christian agenda --- "What about a bill to criminalise atheism?" --- he takes steps, using the copper's own fanaticism and borderline lunacy to trick him into attacking the Bishop of Haltemprice, thus getting him arrested and removed, no longer a threat.

As a side-result of that, although it's not confirmed it is possible that the bishop may have been so shaken by the events that he might retire and so remove any further impediment to future bills Alan wants to pass through. At the very least, it's a cruel and sadistic way to punish the man who was on the verge of thwarting the passing of his gun law. You don't mess with B'Stard...

DEPUTY (soon to be CHIEF) CONSTABLE GINSBERG
As the one who alerted the police to Sir Malachy's intentions, as well as pointing out to him that as Deputy to Sir Malachy he now stands to take over the senior position, B'Stard is asked by Ginsberg if there is anything he can do for him, and uses him to arrange the order of the defective guns. He couldn't care less that they'll most likely kill someone if fired: he's all about the profits.

PCRs
Oh yeah, they're here too. Well, what would you expect in a political satire? In case for some reason you haven't been reading my "Supernatural" writeups, PCR stands for Pop Culture References, and where they're used here I'll explain them.

"An Archer" --- When asked how much money he wants from Alan to pay for his sex-change operation, Norman replies "An Archer!" B'Stard, shocked, retorts with "A whole Jeffrey! But that's two thousand pounds!" This refers to politician and writer Jeffrey Archer paying a call girl two grand to leave the country, leading to his resignation from the Tory Party in 1986.

"Dennis Waterman" --- As the speed cops watch B'Stard fly by in his Bentley, one asks the other "Who's that? Dennis Waterman?" Famous as a hardcase actor in cop show "The Sweeney" and in the show "Minder".

"Hill Street Blues" --- B'stard quotes the second Duty Sergeant's not-so-immortal-as-the-original line, "Let's do it to them before they do it to us" From the popular 80s cop show of the same name of course.

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Season One: "Signs and portents" (Part six)
1.11 "TKO"
Why? Where is the unwritten rule that says that no matter the genre, no matter the show, no matter how implausible such a scenario may be, every drama series ever has to have an episode about boxing? Or baseball. But mostly boxing? I mean, I've seen in in cop shows. I've seen it in comedy shows. I've seen it in horror shows. Fantasy shows. Spy shows. And here it is, cropping up once again, this time in a sci-fi show, if not the sci-fi show. And yes, it's as bad as you would expect. Completely banal, trite, preachy and pointless. "Rocky" in space. God damn it.

The only thing that saves "TKO" is that there is a very deep and well-written subplot concerning Ivanova, but the main plot, Christ, a two-year old could have written it and it could have been transplanted from any martial arts, cop or action series or movie. And of course you know how it's going to end. Quite unlike JMS's usual view --- that the good guys don't always win --- here they do, and everybody Lives Happily Ever After. It's just pathetic really.

But anyway. A friend of Garibaldi's arrives on the station looking to take part in the Mutai, a brutal alien sport which is kind of a mixture of boxing, judo, kick-boxing and ultimate fighting. Garibaldi is shocked, saying no human has ever entered --- never mind survived --- the contest, and calls it "a meat grinder". His pal, Walker Smith, is desperate to redeem himself back on Earth. He was a boxer of note, set for the big time but refused to throw an important fight and so was set up. Drugs were found in his locker and he was banned from the sport, his name dragged through the mud. The Mutai is his big chance to vindicate himself and restart his career.

Yawn! Sorry, it's just so pedestrian and predictable.

So to the subplot. As we saw in "Born to the purple", Ivanova's father died and her rabbi comes aboard Babylon 5 with her legacy from him, and asks her to sit shiva for her father, the traditional wake conducted by those of the Jewish faith. Ivanova demurs, saying it's been too long, she has duties etc., and it becomes clear to the rabbi that she is avoiding facing the reality of her father's death. So the rabbi goes to see Sinclair, to request leave for Ivanova to allow her honour her father. The commander, surprised that he was not even told about the tragedy, tells him she can have as much time as she needs. But when the rabbi tells Susan what he has done she is aghast, saying it was not his place to talk to the commander on her behalf. Seeing he has only made things worse, the rabbi leaves, troubled.

Meanwhile Walker Smith is unsuccessful in his attempts to take part in the Mutai, but an old fighter named Caliban (yawn ... sorry) agrees to help him. Although the aliens have expressed their opposition to a human fighting in the Mutai, there is a way in. If Smith accepts the challenge of the Sho-Rin, the master fighter, at the event then his application cannot be refused. Smith takes up the challenge at one of the fights, much to Garibaldi's dismay, as he had thought the matter closed and his friend had confirmed that suspicion, but only to get him to accompany him to the fight. Though annoyed at having been lied to, Garibaldi sees he must help Smith if he is to survive.

He helps as Caliban trains Smith for the fight (Cue "Rocky" inspirational music) and they enter the ring three days later and yadda yadda yadda you know how it goes. Each man fights well but in the end they are so well matched that the contest is a draw, Smith gains the respect of the alien fighters and humans can now fight in the Mutai. Pee-yook!

If it wasn't for the subplot I think this could even beat out "Infection" as the worst, not only season one episode, but overall episode. But the tenderness and pathos in Ivanova's attempts to come to terms with her father's death rescues the story somewhat, and after some soul-searching she decides to sit shiva after all, remembering the man her father was and trying to measure up to his expectations. Sinclair is also present at the ceremony, and it's a touching little affair. But even with this I have to reiterate it's hard to see this episode as anything other than throwaway, and you'd wonder if the network executives passed a note to JMS along the lines of needs more action! Fight scenes! Christ.

Important Plot Arc Points
Not a one. Completely self-contained. And completely bloody awful.

Quotes
Again, not much. If anything, decent lines come from the subplot. Even then, there's very little quoteworthy in this episode. As for the whole main plot, the Mutai thing? The dialogue is so cliched and trite that it's almost painful. All that's missing is for Walker Smith to wrap himself in the flag of the Earth Alliance at the end! Here are the few (very few) quotes that stand out:

Rabbi Koslev: "This is my first time in space. Such vastness seen so close makes one feel very small."

Again, the rabbi, to Sinclair this time: "This Babylon 5 of yours. Mescado! (sp?) A great miracle!"

There's one quote that's worth repeating, not because it's good but because it foreshadows an event that will transpire at the end of this season. Having saved him from getting a knife in the back, Smith tells Garibaldi "One of these days, Garibaldi, you're gonna learn to watch your back!" This line will come back to haunt the security chief as the season closes. It will also be alluded to before that.

Notes:
We do at least get something from this episode. Though he's now dead, we learn more of Susan Ivanova's troubled relationship with her father. Seems she holds, or held, him responsible for the death of her mother, and in turn he frowned upon her decision to join Earthforce, particularly after her brother Ganya was killed in the Earth/Minbari war. She is torn by her emotions following her father's passing: unable to reconcile her feelings of anger and blame towards the man with the loss of her father. Later in the episode we hear that despite everything, Andrei Ivanova was very proud of his daughter, and indeed in the episode that saw his death, he did apologise to Susan for not being a better father. When she eventually allows the pent-up emotion out and cries for the loss of her father it's a cathartic experience, and no doubt there's a measure of closure. It also softens her character somewhat for the future.

QUESTIONS?
None, other than how a writer like JMS could write this piece of crap!

1.14 "Grail"

There also seems to be an unwritten rule that following a really good episode you have to have at least one poor, ordinary or disappointing one. Sort of like an anti-climax I guess. Well "TKO" was certainly the antithesis of "Signs and portents" --- they could have come from different shows almost! And although few if any episodes will ever be that way again, its followup is not really that much better. It's a decent story, but means little in the overall arc and is kind of just another opportunity for JMS to shoehorn in some Arthurian references, which he seems to like to do. That's all very fine, but the episode really goes nowhere and leaves you feeling a little empty. The only saving grace is the appearance of the superlative David Warner in the role of Aldous Gajic, the seeker. Basically, Warner could appear in a show and do nothing but stand there and it would improve it tenfold. Here he puts in his usual stellar performance, and completely steals every scene he's in. Which is most of them.

Aldous Gajic arrives at Babylon 5. He is a seeker, and what he seeks is the Holy Grail. When Delenn, who was originally irritated that a man of such importance was not greeted on his arrival, asks why Sinclair and Garibaldi are so dismissive of his quest, Sinclair explains that on Earth the Grail is a legend, and no-one believes it truly exists. Delenn however says that does not matter: Gajic is a true seeker, and he should be afforded the respect due such a personage.

Meanwhile, a two-bit hood called Deuce is putting the squeeze on another smalltime crook called Jinxo, who helped build the station. He wants plans of secret passages he says he knows were built into the space station, and when Jinxo tells him he can't do this he demands money instead. To reinforce his threat, he shows Jinxo another inhabitant of the station who was going to testify against him. He calls and something very similar to a Vorlon encounter suit slips out of the shadows and approaches the woman. An alien tentacle whips out from the suit and attaches to her forehead, sucking the life out of her. Deuce warns Jinxo to get his money, before "Ambassador Kosh" has to feed again!

Franklin calls Sinclair and Garibaldi to medlab and shows them the woman whose brain, it appears, has been wiped. She's not the first victim of such an attack and Garibaldi knows Deuce is involved. He's furious that his only witness against the gangster is now a vegetable: Miriam Runningdeer, as the woman is known, will have to learn everything she knew all over again, basically a child starting to understand her world. She will never be in any condition to testify, even should she somehow remember what she knows about Deuce, which is very unlikely. Meanwhile Garibaldi has arrested Jinxo, who was trying to pick Gajic's pocket, and says that he needs the seeker to appear as a witness to the crime.

The judge sentences Jinxo to exile from the station, but the criminal shouts that he cannot leave Babylon 5 or it will be the end for everyone. Intrigued by his passion, Aldous Gajic asks the judge to remand Jinxo into his custody, which he gratefully does. When they are alone Gajic asks Jinxo why he is so adamant to remain onboard, and Jinxo tells him that he worked on all five of the Babylon stations, and every time he took leave something happened. Babylon 1 was sabotaged, Babylon 2 the same. Babylon 3 also exploded while he was away. Having stayed right up to the moment Babylon 4 went online, Jinxo was leaving when he looked back and saw the station vanish. He knows that if he leaves Babylon 5 something similar will happen. Gajic admires the man's courage.

Ivanova has formulated a theory that there is a creature onboard performing --- or being used to perform --- the brain wipes. It's called a Na'ka'leen feeder, and it comes from Centauri space. When Sinclair questions Londo about the creature the ambassador nearly has a heart attack, and when he hears one may be on the station he locks himself in his quarters, telling the commander he should do the same. Gajic and Jinxo visit Delenn and Lennier, who tell them the Minbari have not heard of the Grail, but will send word of the seeker's quest and should anything turn up they will inform him. Jinxo is impressed that the Minbari are willing to help Earthers, considering they were recently at war, but Delenn explains about the different castes. She says the warrior caste would not understand her helping a human.

Deuce decides Jinxo's time is up, and sends for him and the judge, intending to feed them both to the, er, feeder. When Gajic consults Kosh in his search for the Grail, Jinxo, recognising the encounter suit, is terrified and tells the seeker they must leave before the Vorlon eats their brains. As they leave they are attacked by Deuce's men, and Gajic fights well but is captured. Jinxo escapes and goes to seek Commander Sinclair's help, telling him Deuce is going to feed Gajic to Kosh. Sinclair mobilises a team.

In the ensuing firefight the feeder is destroyed but not before Gajic dies, taking a shot intended for Jinxo. Realising he must continue the seeker's work, Jinxo takes up the quest. After all this time being afraid to leave Babylon 5 he does so, and the station remains. For now.

Important Plot Arc Points:
Commander Sinclair
Arc Level: Orange
Although they certainly don't seem obvious here, there are little pointers to Sinclair's destiny, mostly alluded to by Delenn. She calls him a seeker, likening him to Aldous Gajic, and definitely seems to intimate that she knows more about him than he does about himself.

Babylon's burning
Arc Level: Red
The fate of the previous four Babylon stations is mentioned here, as indeed it was in the pilot, and as I said there, the fate of Babylon 4 is tied irrevocably and directly in to the secret behind Commander Jeffrey Sinclair. The point Jinxo makes, that as he left Babylon 4 it seemed to vanish, will come up again soon, but only resolve itself in season three.

QUOTES
One of the many Delenn quotes that hint at a deeper meaning to Sinclair's life. As he gently mocks Aldous Gajic's search for the Holy Grail, Delenn says "He is a true seeker" and Sinclair admits
"I wish him well. He's probably the only true seeker we have." To this Delenn smiles knowingly.
"Then perhaps you do not know yourself as well as you think", she offers.

Sinclair sympathises with the denizens of Downbelow, the rougher, wrong-side-of-the-tracks part of Babylon 5, many of whom turn to crime. He says to Garibaldi, who wants to send in a security sweep, "Most of them are just people with nowhere else to go. They come here looking for a new life, a new job and when they don't find it they can't afford transport back. What do you want me to do, Mr. Garibaldi? Shove them out an airlock?"
(Interestingly enough, though this is often used as a sort of joke around the station --- "Do that again and I'll shove you out an airlock!" etc --- we will find later that Dr. Franklin, who is listening to this exchange, has very frank views on this practice, as he has seen the effects of this actually happening. He doesn't think it's at all funny.)

Garibaldi and Sinclair discuss the possibility of getting another witness to testify against Deuce. Garibaldi moans "When the word gets out about Miriam, I've got about as much chance of that as seeing a Vorlon do a striptease!" This is a funny image, but file that thought away until the end of season two... that's all I'm sayin'.

Sinclair quizzes Londo about the Na'ka'leen feeder:
Sinclair: "I'm looking for some information on a lifeform in Cenatauri jurisdiction. A Na'ka'leen feeder."
Londo: "Aaaahhh! A hideous creature! Hideous! We came across them in our colonising days. Lost an entire colony before we got a quarantine. The only good Na'ka'leen is a dead Na'ka'leen!" He pauses, a thought occuring to him. "This is of course a purely theoretical question? A whim of yours, that you might ask, yes?"
Sinclair: "Well, not really".
Londo: (his whole bearing changes and he is suddenly very scared) "Not ... there couldn't be ... here? I'll have the files sent to you immediately Commander. If you want me I'll be in my quarters, under top security! And I suggest you do the same!"

Gajic asks Delenn if the two castes, warrior and religious, ever agree on anything. Her answer is chilling: "Yes, and when they do it is a terrible thing. A terrible force, as recent events have shown us. Let us hope it never again happens in our lifetimes." This obviously refers to the decision to go to war against Earth, of which we will learn more as the series progresses.

Londo tries to squeeze money out of Aldous Gajic, but is thwarted by his well-meaning but naive attache:
Londo (in reference to offering his aid to track down the Holy Grail): "Ah yes. We will have to do a complete search of our trade history files. Very complicated and time-consuming. However if you can afford the fees..."
Vir: "Ambassador? I've already done it. I thought it would help move things along."
Londo (barely containing his anger): "Vir! Vir! What are you doing?"
Vir: "Being efficient, Sir!"
Londo: "A few more like you, Vir, and the entire Centauri Republic will efficient itself to extinction!"
(to himself) "Fools to the left of me, feeders to the right! I need to find a real job!"

Gajic explains to Jinxo how he became a seeker:
"I kept the accounts for one of the major Earth corporations. I lived in a world of numbers --- clean, smooth, logical, precise. We took a vacation to visit the Mars colony; the first time I'd been. We were in a crawler, halfway across the Amazonus Planetia when suddenly the ground gave way beneath us. I woke up in hospital, a few bumps and bruises. But Sarah, the children, were gone. I grieved for a long time, a very long time. But eventually I went back to work, but the numbers didn't add up any more. Nothing made sense any more. So finally one day I just left, believing there had to be something, some reason why I had been spared. And then I met a man, said he was the last of his kind. He told me that I was a man of infinite promise and goodness. And when he was dying, he gave me this staff. And now I'm the last. But the numbers add up again, Thomas. The numbers do add up."

Sinclair advises Kosh he was being impersonated. Kosh asks "Why?"
Sinclair: "Deuce wanted people to think he had the Vorlons working for him. He figured it would add to his image and intimidate people."
Kosh: "Why?"
Sinclair: "Well after all, no-one knows exactly what you look like. That makes some people a little nervous."
Kosh: "Good."

Sinclair: "It's a hard thing, living your life searching for something and never finding it."
Delenn: "Are you spreaking about Aldous, or someone else?"
Sinclair (after a pause): "Aldous, of course."

Delenn (to Jinxo, as Aldous Gajic's body is taken to its burial): "Put this on the ground where he rests." (She presses a jewel into his hand) "Crush it. It will glow every night for a hundred years. It is our way with all true seekers." Here, she glances pointedly and mysteriously at Sinclair, though he may not notice.

As usual, it's left up to Londo to add the comic relief, when right at the end he talks to Garibaldi though his locked door.
Londo: "Are you sure it's dead?"
Garibaldi: "I'm positive. It's dead as a rock. I saw it with my own eyes."
Londo (opening the door and peeking out suspiciously, but not coming out fully): "How do you know it's not just resting? Feeders are sneaky, you know."
Garibaldi: "Londo. Trust me."
Londo (coming out into the corridor, suddenly brave): "Ah. Well. There you are Vir. I told you there was nothing to worry about!" He turns to Garibaldi as Vir peeks out. "He's young. Sometimes he panics. You know how it is. Where is it?"
Garibaldi: "The doc's dissecting it. Wants to find out how it can move so fast. He's learning all kinds of things about it."
Vir (now in the corridor beside Londo): "Such as?"
Garibaldi: "Well, when they're about to attack they get quiet. So the key is, as long as you can hear them, as long as there's noise about, you're safe. But if you ever hear nothing: worry."
Vir (Garibaldi walks off and Vir does not notice Londo has gone back in and locked the door): "Interesting. Very interesting." (pause) "It's awfully quiet out here, isn't it Ambassador?" Suddenly realises he is alone in the corridor. "Ambassador? Londo! Open the door Londo ! Ambassador, it's not funny! Open the door, Londo!"

And the final word goes to Ivanova. As the shuttle carrying Jinxo leaves Babylon 5 and they worry if the Babylon curse might have had some basis in truth, they watch as the ship goes through the jumpgate, and Sinclair says "No boom." Ivanova, ever practical, typically Russian grins
"No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow!"

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Trollheart

All right, when I opened this new journal I did make a point of saying I would in additionto mostly TV programmes be reviewing the odd movie; after all, the title does have "cinematic" in it. I'm choosing the ones I review very carefully though. They have to be perhaps not unique but not generic in the main, and they have to have impressed me enough to have left a lasting impression. Some of them you may not even have heard of, and it's a safe bet that few if any will be blockbusters.

Unlike my TV series writeups, I'll be giving readers a chance to get a feel for the movie without ruining it. However I'm not going to be wrapping the ending in spoiler tags. What I'll do is that at the point where the film starts to resolve itself I'll place a warning and if you read any further that's your lookout. Why am I doing this, instead of ending the review there? Well, there will undoubtedly be people reading who may not be that interested in actually seeing the film, but may want to know how it ends, and of course there could also be those who have already seen it. So I'm trying to satisfy everybody here.

You're not of course prevented in any way from reading beyond the warning, but if you do so you acknowledge that you could be spoiling the movie for yourself. It's your decision.

So, with that understood, this is the first one I want to look at.

(And yet again I am defeated by Max Character Count! So I have to split this up into two parts, sorry)




Title: Dust Devil
Year: 1993
Genre: Horror
Starring: Robert John Burke as The Dust Devil
Zakes Mokae as Sergeant Ben Mukurob
Chelsea Field as Wendy Robinson
John Matshikisa as Joe Niemand/Narrator

Director: Richard Stanley
Writer: Richard Stanley

For me, this was a strange film to decide to watch. Many of you here I know love horror, the gorier and more frightening the better. Me, I don't. I mean, I'll watch "Criminal Minds" or any show like that, and I'm enraptured by "The Following" (watch for a new "Series Link" soon) but generally speaking I don't enjoy gory or scary movies. I do however like myths, legends, folklore and fantasy, and this film blends all these elements together into what is really a quite excellent movie which should be better known than it is.

Shot entirely on location in Namibia, South Africa, it tells the story of a serial killer who is believed to have mystical powers, and who is referred to in the opening sequence, narrated by one of the characters, Joe Niemand, a healer and kind of witch doctor: "Back in the first times, in the time of the red light, Desert Wind was a man like us. Until by mischance, he grew wings and flew like a bird. He became a hunter, and like a hawk, he flew to seek his prey, taking refuge in those far corners of the world where magic still lingers. But having once been a man, so does he still suffer the passions of a man, flying in the rages sometimes, and throwing himself down like a child, to vent his wrath upon the earth. The people of the great Namib have another name for those violent winds that blow from nowhere. They call them Dust Devils"

The movie opens, and indeed is mostly set in, the great Namib Desert, where a man walks along a long dusty barren empty road. At first glance he looks like a hitch-hiker, a vagrant. But it is soon apparent he knows exactly what he is doing, and he takes out a strange-looking pocket watch whose hands move around the face much faster than they should. Closing it with a nod, he then lies down on the road as if sleeping, but as the camera angles changes we see that he has in fact his ear to the ground, as if listening to, or waiting for something. Soon a battered old car comes along the road, and the man stands up, hailing it.

His eyes beneath the brim of his weather-worn hat are dark and mysterious, and somehow unsettling, but the car stops and its driver, a young woman, gives him a lift. Meanwhile we see the old mystic who narrates the movie make or trace strange patterns on the wall of a cave, and watch the circling motion of a bird of prey in the sky high above him. The woman invites the stranger into her house, isolated and in the middle of nowhere, and later that night they make love, but in the midst of the act he kills her, snapping her neck.

The scene switches to the town of Bethany, where the police Sergeant Mukurob picks up a ringing phone and hears strange, disembodied voices. The same thing happens to Wendy Robinson, in Johannesburg, but she is in bed and puts it down to a crossed line. Back at the murdered woman's house the hitch-hiking stranger looks at his watch again. He notes the time and writes it on a photograph he has taken of the dead woman. He holds up a bowl (whether the photographs are in it or not I don't know, but you can bet the girl's blood is) and utters strange words, and then paints strange symbols on the wall of the bedroom. As he leaves we see that he has removed the girl's hand, minus the fingers and nailed it to the wall. The fingers he then carefully places in a small box.

Before leaving he torches the house, while listening on the radio to news of the great drought that is afflicting Namibia, killing the cattle and drying up the crops. He then takes his victim's car and drives away. In Johannesburg Wendy leaves her husband after an argument in which he accuses her of cheating on him. Sergeant Mukurob is called by the station to the site of the arson attack, where they have found the dismembered body parts of the woman. On further investigation they also find the abandoned car. The stranger has by now hopped a train, and is on his way to Bethany, which the radio reports tell us is the centre of the drought, and is said to be "doomed".

Doing the autopsy of the dead woman, the doctor discovers that the symbols on the wall of her house were made with the victim's blood and other bodily fluids, and she suspects witchcraft. Mukurob is incredelous: witchcraft, such superstition in this enlightened age? But this is Africa, where the old gods do not die easily, and the devils less so. She suggests the policeman consult a Sangoma, a holy man, who would be able to tell him what parts the killer was looking for, and what he would be likely to use them for in a ritual. Mukurob is reluctant but he does know of a Sangoma who lives locally, and goes to talk to him.

Wendy arrives at a bar near Bethany just as the stranger is leaving with some people who are driving a camper van ; he looks in the window at her but she does not see him, her back being turned to the window. That night, as she drives on and dozes a little behind the wheel, straying off the road, she almost runs over him as he walks out into the road. In the glare of her headlights his face appears momentarily inhuman, bestial, demonic. She swerves desperately to avoid him and goes off the road. Realising she has narrowly avoided crashing, and unwilling to go any further in her exhausted state, she sleeps in her car overnight.

The next morning, seeing her car has become buried in the hard sand of the desert, she gets out and goes to seek help. She notices a van up on the rise ahead of her, but when she climbs to it and knocks on the door there is no answer. A man with a shovel taps her on the shoulder and asks if she is the driver of the van, whihc is in fact a camper van; she says no but could he dig out her car, down the hill? As she leaves we see the inside of the van is smeared with fresh blood, and it's obvious everyone inside is dead. Further up the road she comes across the stranger hitch-hiking, and picks him up. She realises this is the same man she almost ran over last night. While in the car he takes a Polaroid of her and asks her some questions about herself, though she is reticent with answers. She tells him she is going "straight through, all the way to the sea."

Police meanwhile have discovered the camper van, and indeed everyone inside has been butchered, with body parts all over the place. Sergeant Mukurob meets with Joe Niemand, the Sangoma, who tells him he believes the world is about to end, and the drought is a sign of that. Joe appears to be building some sort of magic circle around his home, protection presumably, and it corresponds in design to the symbols the murderer drew in blood on the walls of the burned-down house. The enlightened Mukurob however cannot believe what the Sangoma tells him, and he can really get no sense out of Niedman so he leaves.

When Wendy admits she believes in neither god nor devil, and has no expectation of a life after death, the interest seems to go from the stranger and suddenly they appear to pass him hitch-hiking on the road. Doing a double-take Wendy looks over at her passenger and --- he's gone! She slams on the brakes, confused and if she's honest with herself, more than a little afraid. Mukurob is told by his boss that he has to take him off the case, as the UN are taking over in the wake of political unrest in the country. He himself is being forced into retirement, but Mukurob believes he is close to catching the man who has so far killed twice, and just needs more time. Information has come to light about a white woman whose car was seen near the camper van with the mutilated corpses, and he sets about tracking Wendy down.

She, meanwhile, desperately unhappy and perhaps thinking she has lost her mind, tries to commit suicide in the bath but cannot make herself use the razor blade and drops it into the water. Outside, her erstwhile hitch-hiker lurks, but when she detects a presence and gets out of the bath to check, she finds nobody there. However the next morning she finds him in her car, and he convinces her to again take him with her. Mukurob's boss meets him and turns over all the files on unexplained and unsolved murders in the area that he has been able to find; Mukurob is amazed to see that one, which mentions a pocketwatch like the one found inside the first victim, goes all the way back almost to the turn of the century!


All right, that'll do. Nothing to see here. Turn back unless you want the ending of the film ruined. Yeah, I'm talkin' to you...
But you proceed now at your own risk...

Wendy and her passenger finally reach the end of the desert, and on the high sandstone cliffs overlooking the sea, they embrace, while her husband is now on her trail, heading for Bethany. Mukurob awakes from troubled dreams of his wife and son to find Joe Niedman sitting at the foot of his bed; he tells him he has come to help him. While Wendy's husband is getting beaten up at the bar she passed through, she is making love to the stranger, and Niedman is leading Mukurob into his caves. There he shows him the symbols carved on the wall, which correspond to the ones scrawled on the walls of the first victim's house. He tells the sergeant that what they seek is called a naghtloeper, a Dust Devil, a shapeshifting demon who preys on the weak and uses them to make himself stronger, even invincible. Mukurob of course thinks he's mad and does not believe it.

Joe tells him that the only way to destroy the demon is to trick him to step across a holy stick called a kerrie. If he does this he can be stripped of his power, but there is danger; in so doing he may transfer his essence to that of the policeman, taking him over. Still not believing, Mukurob takes the stick. While the Dust Devil showers Wendy goes through his things and finds the box of fingers. He tries to kill her but she escapes, driving off into the night. The demon though makes a gesture and a truck swerves into her path, knocking her off the road. In the pileup that follows she barely gets free of her car before it, and the rest of the crashed vehicles explodes, and she runs off into the desert.

Mukorob and Mark have joined up to try and find Wendy, or at least the Dust Devil, while the demon is using his unnatural powers to try to comb the desert to find her. He whips up a sandstorm and she is blinded, stopped, can go no further. He then attacks the oncoming Mukurob and Mark, overturning their police vehicle, and the sergeant shackles Mark to the car, telling him that he should be safe as Dust Devil only takes those who have nothing. Then he walks off into the storm.

As the storm abates Wendy begins walking again, but when she eventually comes across a village it is completely deserted, its habitants having long ago abandoned it in the face of the harsh desert. Here she meets Mukurob and they both unaccountably hear a phone ringing. Mukurob gives her a gun and they head towards the sound of the phone. Picking it up Mukurob hears the voice of his dead wife, calling him to her. Confused, he staggers into an old abandoned cinema, and as he exits it he runs into Dust Devil, who stabs him. Wendy goes looking for him in the building and not finding him comes back out to encounter Dust Devil. He looks at his watch: it is running backwards. He is not happy.

She threatens him with the gun but it jams and the demon advances upon her. Mukurob though, who is lying nearby, throws down the kerrie stick with his dying breaths as the monster advances, and as he crosses it, an instant too late realising what has happened, Wendy grabs the policeman's shotgun and blows Dust Devil's head clean off his shoulders.

As Wendy wanders out into the desert she comes across her husband, still handcuffed to Mukurob's poilce car. For a moment she levels the shotgun at him, a dark, dead look in her eyes, then she turns and walks off into the desert, the shotgun over her shoulder. She walks out along the desert road, lies down and presses her ear to the ground, and presently a convoy of UN trucks arrives. She stands out in the middle of the road, hailing them.

It's fairly apparent from the ending of the film that, just as Joe Niedman warned Mukurob, the Dust Devil has transferred his essence into Wendy, just before dying, and she is now his. Indeed, the final scene shows a figure garbed in a long shabby greatcoat and hat, the dress originally worn by the stranger in the opening scene, pass in front of a fiery setting sun. The end monologue seems to confirm this: ""The desert knows her name now, he has stolen both her eyes. When she looks into a mirror, she will see his spirit like a shore blowing tatters around her shoulders in a haze. And beyond the dim horizon, a tapestry unfolding of the avenues of evil, and all of history set ablaze".

Quotes
(Moatly from the narration of Joe Niedman)
"He sifts the human storm for souls. He can smell a town waiting to die and and the manhood festering in a boy from a thousand miles away. Their smell is sweet to him."

The doctor examines the corpse of the first victim:
"We've got envisceration, partial cremation, sexual mutilation, possibly even cannibalism. We found the remains of a clock wedged inside her, for god's sake!"

Dust Devil is offered a ride by Wendy:

Wendy: "Where you headed for?"
Dust Devil: "Nowhere."
Wendy: "Just came from there. Any other place I'm good for."

Joe Niedman, in response to Mukurob's query as to why the killer is taking fingers from his victims:
"There's a whole lot of power in fingers. Lots of knuckles and such. If you want to win a war, you need a whole fistful of knuckles!"

Joe (in narration)
"This is the work of the naghtloeper, black magician, a shapeshifter. He seeks power over the material world through the ritual of murder. The power of vision, of ecstasy. The power to shield himself from detection, and death. To travel, and to transform, he feeds off our life, he preys upon the damned; the weak and the faithless, he draws them to him and he sucks them dry."

Joe to Mukurob:
"You've got to stop thinking like a white man; start thinking like a man instead."

Joe to Mukurob, in the cave:
"We are nothing to him. We are dust in the wind. He smelled Bethany dying, and he has come here for souls, to build his power and return to the realm of the spirit. Until the ritual is complete he is trapped ike us in the material world, bound by the flesh. He must work through human form while he is in this world, and so is vulnerable to human failings. Only through ritual, through any power over the flesh can a spirit awake to fuller consciousness. To work the ritual he must keep moving, but if he can be tricked to cross this kerrie he can be rooted to the spot and stripped of his power."

Joe, again to Mukurb:
"Death hunts you, just as you hunt the Dust Devil."

Joe (in narration)
"The serpent lures its pray entranced, eyes wide open, through the mirror, to the land of the dead. To the house of the dust, where the air is thick and hard to breathe."

A nice touch!

Just before Dust Devil disappears from the car, Wendy takes a bite from a shiny green apple. Eve biting into the apple of temptation while the devil urges her on?

There is also a reference, intended or not, to Kansas's big hit "Dust in the wind", though the director wisely refrains from taking the easy route and using it in the soundtrack.

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Why do I love this film?

For many reasons. One is the fact that it is, on the face of it, a movie I would normally not have bothered with nor been interested in checking out. Serial killers, ritual murder, usually not my scene. But this film blends in those elements with legend and myth, superstition and folklore and really neither proves nor disproves either. There's a sceptic, as you would expect, in Ben Mukurob, but at the last he gambles that the Sangoma was not rambling and it is his throwing down of the kerrie stick that enables Wendy to get the drop on Dust Devil. Admittedly, she's not fast enough in despatching him and gets taken over, but in essence the ploy works, and Niedman did after all warn Mukurob that this could happen.

It's also a very small cast: three really. There are other people, the likes of Mark and the police captain, but they play relatively minor roles. The movie is really carried on the quite understated performances of the main trio. And understatement is the name of the game. Even Robert John Burke, in the role of Dust Devil, the supernatural killer said to be a demon from the desert, is quiet and menacing rather than maniacal. Chelsea Fields as Wendy portrays a desperate woman rapidly running out of things to live for, while Mukurob is a man with a dark past who is trying to atone for past mistakes, though we are never let in on what those mistakes were. They do seem to have led to the deaths of both his wife and son though.

I like the fact that, though the murders are savage and ritualisitic, and feature dismemberment you don't see Dust Devil kill his victims, other than the first, and even there it's just a basic snap of the neck. You don't see him cut her up later. The most graphic thing in the movie really is the autopsy on the burned and dismembered corpse later. Even when we see the camper van and it's obvious everyone inside is dead (we more or less know this when we see Dust Devil take a ride with them at the bar) there are few gory details. We see a window streaked with blood and a fly walking across it, and when the door is eventually opened later and the corpse or corpses discovered, the only thing we really see in close up is a severed hand. It's not in-your-face gore; this movie trades more on the horror of what might have happened rather than shoving it front and centre in a "Saw" manner, which I much prefer. It's left up to your imagination rather than forced down your throat.

The music, too, is great. A mixture of kind of Gregorian Chant with Spaghetti Western film themes, which works really well, and some African rhythms and melodies layered over it too. It all creates a very otherworldly atmosphere, a striking, desolate air that sends shivers down your spine.

And the setting is perfect for a film of this nature. Against the vast expanse of the unforgiving Namib Desert humans do indeed seem small and insignificant, and the idea that some all-powerful and evil entity is out there controlling everything is no doubt a notion that has come to the minds of anyone who has crossed such a desolate wilderness. It's clever location too, because it obviously cut back on costs and provides a bleak, barren backdrop to a story of humans battling evil and eventually succumbing to it.

"Dust Devil" is also a classic case of a movie that succeeds without any big names, any flash settings or any --- really, none --- special effects. In fact, apart from the desert this movie could have been made on a shoestring budget, though it certainly does not show in the final product. But it avoids diverting attention away from the storyline and the characters; it doesn't pad out the plot with too many unnecessary personnel, and the narration device is a good way to keep people apprised of how the story is coming along. It's also a clever touch to have the narrator take part in the story.

Although loosely based on a real-life story of a serial killer in South Africa, the film really only borrows elements from that and mixes them in with local folklore and legend, stirring the whole thing up into a devil's brew of a powerful story that comes across as both chilling and almost believable.

Finally, there's a great sense of there being no happy ending about the movie. Sure, in the end the "bad guy" is defeated, but he's almost then seen as just an aspect of evil, which reaches out and claims the one who vanquished him and makes her its new emissary. A message about the timeless and shifting nature of evil, and how humans invite the darkness in, sometimes inadvertently, sometimes all too willingly. In the vast desert, both of actuality and of imagery, the tiny soul of man, or woman, is swallowed up and lost.

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Trollheart

Season one

Episode Two
As it's the rumour going around, Darren is waiting outside Jimmy Byrne's house waiting for him to come back so he can take revenge for the killing of his brother. Meanwhile, John Boy and his crew are getting ready to colelct a shipment of drugs coming in the next morning, and Mary intends to see a psychic, worried about where her late brother's activities may have landed him in any afterlife that may exist. Trish phones Nidge, angry that he appears to have forgotten his own son's birthday, which is tomorrow. As Darren leaves Mary's house she fumes that someone keeps putting their rubbish in her wheelie bin. This may seem a small thing but will be seen to evoke a violent overreaction at the end of the episode.

Darren goes to see the so-called psychic and warns him that he had better tell his sister what she wants to hear, or ... he places a pistol on the desk meaningfully, and says he'll be back if Mary gets told anything that will upset her. The gang collect the drugs at the docks, but as they arrive in the van to the lockup Darren realises the police are staking out the place and they have to fall back on plan B, which involves finding another place on the fly. Tommie knows a guy, JP, and they're able to use his garage to store the gear.

The drugs are distributed to various dealers in John Boy's network, and Mary rings Darren to tell him that she has received a call from Peter, the psychic, to tell her that Robbie is in Heaven. Nidge proposes to Trish, who is delighted and accepts. JP turns up at the party Tommie invited him to in gratitude for getting them out of a scrape, but he's high and soon gets on Huey's nerves. The night does not go well. Rosie visits Darren and they reminisce, but Darren says he realises she is with Stumpy now. Anything he can do for her he will. She seems disappointed. Later Darren gets a call from Jimmy Byrne, who tells him he didn't kill his brother, but he had better stay away from his wife or he'll kill him. He says he's coming back to Ireland, and Darren will be waiting.

As a final coda to the show, Darren then hears someone putting their rubbish in Mary's bin. With displaced rage bubbling up inside him and needing to let it out, he runs out, catches the guy and pounds the crap out of him.


QUOTES
Trish (on phone): "Ah where the hell is that clown?"
Nidge (annoyed): "Ah what are ye givin' out about now?"
Trish: "The clown? The clown for Warren's birthday?"

Peter (the psychic): "What I was saying to your sister, to Mary, is that in cases of violent death, the spirit of the loved one is sometimes unable to move on."
Darren: "Stuck?"
Peter: "In a sense."
Darren: "That's the thing that upsets Mary the most. So his spirit is stuck someplace?"
Peter: "It's not a place as a state of being."
Darren: "But his spirit is still stuck?"
Peter: "Stuck wouldn't be right in the sense that the soul itself of its own volition decides to stay."
Darren: "So this place that he's in..."
Peter: "Well it's not a place..."
Darren: "I understand. But this place he's in, it would be somewhere sad?"
Peter: "Well, that would be my sense of it."
Darren: "But all this **** is making my sister very upset, yeah? So I want you to call her, and I want you to tell her that Robbie is gone to a good place. Will you remember that? And that he's happy, and he's going to Heaven, and he loves her, and all the rest of the other bull****. Or else I'm going to have to come back."

Rosie to Darren: "I wish, I wish I could just click me heels and go back, and all this was different."

John Boy to Darren, on his arrival at the party: "Here he is! Man of the Match!"

John Boy to Darren: "Ireland is ****ed for the next ten years, you know that don't ye? This is the only game you can make any money. Make your money and get out. People are going to be selling up all sorts of stuff, houses, land, all you need is the money. Banks won't give it to you. Here, I was thinkin' , maybe I could set up me own bank. What do ye think? Couldn't be worse than the bastards that are there now."

QUESTIONS?
It's obvious Stumpy suspects Rosie is meeting Darren, but how much does he actually suspect, and how far is he willing to take it?

MIRROR, MIRROR
We've already seen how Nidge balances family life with being a career criminal, how he dotes on his son while extorting money out of people. Now we see Darren, the "hero" of the whole thing, lose his rag with someone who is doing an annoying thing but not deserving of the beating they get at the end. Of course, he's just tranposing his anger at Jimmy Byrne towards the neighbour, but it's still a brutal act, which shows us that, pretty boy though he may be and with a good heart, Darren is still in his blood a violent criminal.

Nidge, too, takes out his anger at nearly being caught with a van full of drugs and releases the pressure he feels by threatening the clown Trish has booked for their son's birthday party. When he tries to pay him less than the clown is asking, the entertainer gets stroppy but Nidge turns on him. He is used to dealing with people in a violent and aggressive manner, and he won't change that behaviour, whether the object of his anger is a gun-toting criminal or a Garda or a man dressed as a clown. He knows no other way to respond, and more to the point, he knows it gets results.

LETTER OF THE LAW
We've recently had a case of a gangland boss, already inside for a long stretch, getting an addition seventeen years on his sentence for orchestrating a drug empire from behind bars. So the fact that here, John Boy, who is in court on some unexplained charge --- probably drunk driving or speeding, as he mentions the judge has decreed he must resit his driving test --- is able to arrange the pickup of a huge shipment of drugs while in court, is quite true to life. Sometimes nothing stands in the way of the criminal ensuring he carries out his nefarious business, on occasion right under the noses of the guardians of law and order!

FAMILY
Although she knows, or suspects, what Nidge gets up to, Trish is far more concerned with maintaining a normal family life --- or as normal as possible --- for their son. So when Nidge, driving the van loaded with drugs and worried the cops are following him, and waiting for a new destination gets a call from her to see where he is, that the party is in full swing and he promised to be there for the cutting of the cake, he really can't believe it. Nidge loves his son too, but he has to devote all his immediate attention to the job he's on, and has no time for family matters. When however Trish realises how serious this is, she backs off, trusting her boyfriend and worrying that he'll be all right.

HONOUR AMONG THIEVES?
Both Darren and Tommie distinguish themselves well in this episode. Darren is the one who susses that the lockup is under surveillance, while it's Tommie who arranges the alternative location at short notice. Both have now proven themselves valuable to the gang. Not that this will count for anything as soon as they step out of line, or once they've served their purpose.

ONE CUEBALL SHORT OF A FRAME
All right, all right: I'm not that well up on snooker terminology. But John Boy's psychotic brother (half-brother, I think: it's mentioned at one point in the first episode though I don't believe ever made that clear the actual state of the relationship between the two) is a typical example of the unhinged criminal at his worst. It's this unpredictability that scares people, even on occasion puts John Boy on edge (more for the worry that a loose cannon can screw everything up than actual fear of what he might do) and will eventually come back to haunt him. In this section I'm going to be looking at the crazy wild world of Huey, known "affectionately" as "Cue Ball".

As the guys unpack the heroin (or cocaine, whatever the drug is: never clarified) in JP's garage, Heuy sees a cool old car and wants to take it out for a ride. JP though is reluctant. This is the conversation between the two:
Huey: "Cool car JP man!"
JP: "Thanks."
Huey: "Don't mind us havin' a look?"
JP: "Nah it's fine."
Huey: "Can I take a spin in it?"
JP: "It's me da's."
Huey: "He'd mind, would he? (Pause) What's the story with the car?"
JP: "It's me da's."
Huey: "I'd bring it back!"
JP: "You're good thanks Huey."
Huey: "What do ya mean?"
JP: "Thanks but you're all right."
Huey: "What are you thanking me for?"

This conversation serves to illustrate certain things about the little gangster. One, he truly and honestly believes anyone will give him anything he wants, and he can do anything he likes. When you're a little psycho and everyone's afraid of you, this is in fact usually the case. Secondly, a darker part of him loves making people squirm. He knows, probably, that he has no chance of getting a "spin" in the car, but he pushes JP just to see how far he can intimidate him, and then when he's bored of that he mocks the desperate efforts of Tommie's friend not to seem like he's being awkward, all based on the fact that he doesn't want to get on Huey --- or John Boy's --- wrong side. Huey enjoys exerting control over people, and he loves it when the fear of him leads to either him getting his way, or if not, him being able to push people around.

He has now latched onto JP as a target, and despite the fact that the guy did the gang a favour, he will force the issue later on in the episode. There is, really, no percentage in helping the gang, and one would also suppose none in refusing to help. In the latter case, you make an enemy of some very powerful people who will make sure you regret it, and in the former, they will not see themselves as owing you anything, and you will certainly not become their friend, or part of their circle, unless for some reason they want this to happen.

Later, at the party, with JP high and this time not caring, or seeming not to, Huey broaches the subject again, but this time JP just relaxes and smiles when he asks:

Huey: "Maybe if you asked him (his da) he wouldn't mind?" JP smiles. This annoys Huey. "What are you smilin' for? You think I'd rob it?" JP makes a motion with his hand like an aeroplane taking off. "What's that mean?" asks Huey. "You think you're Superman do ya?" Turning to John Boy "If he keeps that up I don't care, he's goin' out the window! See if he can ****in' fly then!"

Here I think Huey is even more annoyed at JP that he can't intimidate him, scare him because the guy is out of his head, and even his threat to throw him out the window doesn't faze him. He quite possibly sets up Elmo, one of the other criminals, to punch JP out when he thinks he's making fun of him. His laughter is maniacal. He has managed to get the man he has taken an instant dislike to beaten up without having to lift a finger. Now that's power!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018