"You can't die alone, Ronnie..."
"Why not? We all do, you know."
The final episode, at last. As with previous episodes, it very much feels as though a single viewing is not enough to glean what lurks within these fifty crafted minutes. Most interestingly, though, is that this final episode barely goes through the motions of being a thriller, again introducing a variation f James Lovelock's Gaia theory- will we, as Grogan (coded as a villain) transcend our Earth and move to colonise the Solar System (perhaps less likely now than it may have seemed in 1985), or will our continued pillaging of our planet see our Earth mother strangle us in our cradle with the black flowers we see in the final shot? The answer is as uncertain as Craven's fate, but he is ultimately doomed. Are we? Emma's ghost seems to imply that humanity had a sapient predecessor, swallowed by thsoe black flowers.
We get to explore the personal complexities of Jedburgh here, but again we are not spoon fed. He's a man with a death drive, yes, but he is at once sensitive and intelligent while cynical and worldly wise. Is he an environmental idealist, deep down? It's left, I think, deliberately ambiguous. Just like the future, and just like the historical currents in this chaotic world of ours, where the twin false gods of Marxism and market fundamentalism have in turn tried to impose a determinism and teleology which does not exist.
It's a downbeat ending, one that refuses to be neat and makes clear, to Harcourt's shock, that the activities at Northmoor were always sanctioned by the powers that be. Nuclear power exists. We live in a plutonium world. How long we can last is up to us. This isn't as easy, pleasant or enjoyable to watch as previous episodes, but art doesn't have to be any of those things. Sublime.
No comments:
Post a Comment