My Boy Jack (2007)
This ITV drama is set in 1914 and centres on Rudyard Kipling who is famous for his writing, BFFS with George V and warmongering for the looming conflict with Germany. His son Jack (Daniel Radcliffe of ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘The Cripple of Inishmaan’) is eager to join the navy and his wife Caroline (Kim Cattrall of ‘Sex and the City’) is shrill and American.
Jack fails two medical tests due to his severe myopia so his rabidly warmongering father pulls strings to get him into the Irish Guards. Kipling wants all men to go off to fight the hun and says any man who does not enlist should be shunned. Caroline and Jack’s sister Elise (Carrie Mulligan of ‘Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps’) are appalled.
Eager to avoid his dad’s tantrums about gutlessness and spinelessness and desperate to get away from him and not be seen as weak and watery Jack heads off. A clerical job is not good enough for his ghastly father, no not at all. Kipling spouts propaganda ignoring all the talk of insane tactics and massive casualties. Aged just 17 Jack has to command men and heads for the trenches. A friend of his was killed on his first day and his family can hear the guns in France from their palatial estate. The supercilious and patronising Kipling thinks it is all wonderful.
The day after his 18th birthday Jack goes over the top at the Battle of Loos and is declared MIA. His family search desperately for him. They spend months visiting the Red Cross and examining photographs of POWs until they finally learn his sad fate. The toxic Kipling recites a poem and his behaviour continues to leave me mystified. This was okay, better than that other horror of WW1 drama ‘All The King’s Men’.
Best Lines:
"Pants down please.”
“We load our boys up like Christmas trees.”
“My pigeon’s dead Sir.”
“What?”
“My pigeon’s dead. What shall I do?”
“Well, how do you know its dead?”
“It’s lying at the bottom of the basket Sir, it’s not moving.”
“Why did you let him go?”
“He died in the rain.”
~
Killer Within
Someone opens the gate to the prison and a herd of walkers attack. Michonne wants away from Woodbury, Andrea wants to stay, Merle wants to find his brother and the Governor kills walkers with golf balls and reveals his name. How come Rick and co didn’t see or hear the walkers coming? Who opened the gate? Someone gets bitten, Carol is useless, Lori goes into labour, Rick screams, the whore dropped bastard is born, Lori dies at long last and Carl the Katniss generation has to ensure she won’t turn. Rick has a breakdown or something. Lori finally dies yet this ep was still crap.
Best Lines:
“Those two might actually have less blood on their hands than we do.”
“They’re degenerates but they ain’t psychos.”
“Let em take their chances out on the road just like we did.”
“You think biters figured out how to use weapons?”
“I don’t want to be planting crops in walker rotted soil.”
“How come we never hooked up?”
“You called me a whore.”