(no subject)

[proximoception]

I don't think Saul 2.9 was







a better episode than many of the others, in terms of writing, visuals, acting etc. It's superb, but so were they.

I think what it did is plug the device in. Or rather show that it was. Following the lines with our eyes suddenly paid off because we were now assured there had been power in them all along. What power?

I'm not a member of the death school but death. Moral questions are thought problems till you believe one might get someone killed, after which they're ALL personal (c.f. Hamlet). The show has killed before, though I think just Jimmy's old friend - but that was more or less in line with Donnie's heart attack in The Big Lebowski. With this, the show outed itself as a non-comedy. The Samaritan who is never seen (also a great choice) makes what happens to Chuck real. No one will ever have to die again and it won't matter, because all will occur in a world where they can. Really excellent spending of a card useable only once. I know everyone's hating on The Walking Dead about its recent audience slap, but really the strongest weapon TV has is contract-breaking. Not actual contracts, of course; here we just all assumed killing wouldn't be happening on the show because of that initial Tuco sequence. So both protagonists' horror at finding rule-breaking wouldn't always just be fun and games actually registered for us because riding in on the same wave as our own.

The show's origin (and much else about it) made it entirely obvious to everyone that it would eventually not be a comedy, thus technically couldn't be one at first, but it doesn't matter - we have like four episodes' worth of guardedness in us. And know that, and would have applauded the show politely if it had done this in the fifth. But the nineteenth! People talk about slow burning shows, but in practice there are just patterns of alternation of burn and no-burn times. If we're successfully convinced that everything about a no-burn led up to burn (every aspect was needed to get that particular burn going in that way, not one was not), then we think of it as having always secretly been burn. So really what a slow-burn show has to do is justify every single second of no-burn. In fast-burn ones no-burn can just exist to hold separate burns apart or provide rests for the audience or whatever other reason - all will be forgiven, no one cares.

But in "drama" there's no safety net. Non-genre is the most demanding genre.

Comments

[grashupfer.livejournal.com]

Yes. Exactly this. The appearance of the twin angels of death a while back reminded us, too, that it's never far away and made me wonder when they'd throw the switch.