Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum
This was not good. Offred has been banished to her room for 13 days, thanks to Serna Joy’s unrepentant malice. Offred has flashbacks to the Red Centre. Writing was banned but that wasn’t the worst thing for them. Fred browses his laptop. There is a UN embargo on Gilead. An Aunt escaped to Canada and gave an interview. Fred ignores Serena Joy’s suggestions. This was mundane gothic. Fred is cold-eyed. Offred is all brooding intensity and joyless personality.
This has a washed-out colourless look. Serena Joy has questionable ethics. Offred has exhaustion of the soul. The flashbacks show how the Handmaids learnt about the Ceremony, it did not go down well. This was a moment of particular grimness. The Aunts are sinister baddies. Fred is a filthy weasel. The Commanders aren’t morally energetic. This is guilty of over-plotting.
This is not scarily prophetic. Serena Joy’s vindictive retaliations have manic avidity. Offred encounters a morally comfortable doctor. He says the Commanders are sterile. Unending lists of things are forbidden in Gilead. The flashbacks show how Moira escaped the Red Centre. Sadly this ep leaves one lamentably uninterested. Where did they recruit Aunts? Did even the Aunts buy into the myth-making of Gilead?
How did things change so quickly after the Gilead takeover? Offred learns of the fate of her predecessor. Offred and the Commander do risky things.
Best Lines:
“Where no-one would ever see it.”
“Posted could be worse.”
“Pop out a baby for the fatherland. Sounds awesome.”
“My monthly woe.”
“Waiting to be seeded.”
“It’s Ceremony Night.”
“You’re ripe.”
“Sterile. That’s a forbidden word.”
“How did you survive her?”
“Just look meek.”
“He has to knock.”
“Where are the street signs?”
“Did she displease him? The divine emperor of this house.”
~
Merciless (2014) 1x01
Eduardo is the Brazilian Ted Bundy. Vera is looking for the local serial killer. Her boss Dias snots. Police ignore and shrug off a kidnapping. The opening credits are daft. A pervy politician cheats on his wife and berates her for being upset. He also ignores his son. Eduardo is a lawyer and a psych student and he is working on the pervy politician’s re-election campaign. This is basically ‘The Fall’ set in Rio.
Eduardo advises the politician to run on an anti-rape platform. Eduardo stalks and kills woman, save for one woman he doesn’t kill. Characters are connected, this was tiresome. The pervy politician’s wife whines about how she used to be a militant yet changed everything about herself for the sake of his career. Their boho son shrugs. There are complications and idiot police. The pervy politician does a runner, people lie and the police yell. Eduardo has ambition and is entirely unapologetic.
Best Lines:
“Trade me for her.”
“Practically lives on the streets.”