The Way: The Wait

 "It affects everyone in a family, doesn't it? When one person is suffering."

Well then. Where do I even start with this materpiece?

Obviously, on the surface at least, this is all about the small boats, the obsession of those of a certain ilk who, you know, don't want to do the obvious solution of just bloody processing refugees properly. And, of course, it's a simple role reversal, that obvious satire trope that we know so well, with Owen wryly asking Anna what the Poles will make of all these Welsh people going over there, taking all their jobs.

And, of course, the episode really runs with this, with a refugee camp on the Kent coast, trying to get to the Continent. It's very well done. And yet... there's far more subtext than this.

Slowly, over the course of the episode, the character arcs resolve. Dee and Geoff reach a mutual understanding and closeness, Geoff finally realises that he has ironically done to his son what his own father did to him. Owen is no longer emotionally numb, and he and Anna are in love. He forgives Thea.

And Geoff, of course, redeems himself in the inevitable way.

Yet even this is part of a deeper subtext. Oh, there's the irony of the Welsh Catcher being himself Welsh- plilosophical, no fool, but disdaining the luxury of principles. There's the worrying idea of AI being used for "predictive policining". But, deeper than this, there's the need for new stories, not the same old tired ones that have the glitching Internet revealing that the human imagination is stuck on nostalgia, stuck in the past. Huimanity cannot keep reliving old stories. It must throw away the weight of history, of old tropes, and live in the present. 

This is inspired... and very, very Adam Curtis. And so the various Arthurian and mythical references are pointedly thrown back in the sea.Wow.

I understand this wasn't a hit. I don't care. It's genius.

The Way: The Walk

 "Am I going mad? Or is it the world?"

After a first episode, highly impressive in itself, setting up this new dystopia, now we get to explore it. The Driscolls (and Anna) are refugees in their own land after Thea, putting family before Fascism, organises an escape for her brother, and the Driscolls are on the run in what is suddenly a bleak exercise in the picaresque, complete with surrealoism and family drama.

And it's brilliant. The Driscolls have been framed by an establishment which uses its client ,media, and deepfakes, to scapegost not just Owen but all of them. And yet, with the conceit of Qwen's withdrawal from drugs, we have surreal moments like the talking teddy bear, tempting him not to go to tomorrow but to come to the safety of yesterday. Again we have Simon, the homeless, riddling savant, getting drunk in a bleakly disused holiday camp- andthe brief footage of the cheery advert is a stroke of real genius.

Equally fairytale is the Welsh Catcher, a villain from the Brothers Grimm. Fitting that the escape into England should be via Hay-On-Wye, town of bookshops. Then there's the motif of the underwater bell, a nod, like last episode with the sword in the stone, to Welsh folklore, the many lands said to have fallen beneath the water.

Yet the realism is superb too. We think, in our first world comfortds, that we will never be refugees, on the run, with nothing. Yet, as Anna says, "It happens. All the time. All over the world". There's the GCHQ helper who helps because "First they came for...".

And there will always be those who not only conform but do so with enthusiasm. The English volunteer border guards are truly chilling. The deep irony of one of them cheerfully and casually uttering racist slurs against the Welsh to a Black man he sees as English is nicely done. But sois the whole thing, the directing and cinematography remaining utterly sublime. This is superb telly..

The Way: The War

 "What is it that rises up the moment it falls?"

I was made aware of this series the other day at work, I looked it up... and not only is it scripted by James Graham, he of This House and Brexit: The Uncivil War, but it's co-directed by Michael Sheen and the one and only Adam Curtis, whose uniquely philosophica; and visually extraordinary documentaries have made a huge impression on me and my world view. Watching it immediately became imperative, and I care not that I'm juggling so much other stuff on this blog.

The first thing to note is that it's shot beautifully, cinematically, artistically, exquisitely. The acting, from a fairly unknown cast aside from Sheen, is extraordinary. The cinematography is perfect too, reflecting the dull, hopoeless world of those dependent on the ever-moribund steelworks in Port Talbot. In today's world, globalised yet beset by populist nationalism, the industrial working class lives in ignored despair.

We have two viewpoint figures. One is Own, emotionally numbed, mentally ill and seeking human connection in the most literal way possible, sex, yet without meaningful communication with the lady concerned. Connection, and yet not connection. And then we have Geoff, alienated from the militancy of his family and community because he recalls how a strike destroyed his father, the ghost of whom is played by Sheen himself.

The pllot unwinds masterfully, introducing so many characters and allowing things to get out of control as the strike unfolds and draws support from across Wales. I'm not sure the conceit quite works of the national strike ending at Offa's Dyke, and Wales being cut off from the rest of the UK and put under martial law, but at the same time this is a scenario pregnant with so many allegories in our scary modern world, from the nature of power to the right to protest to borders and migration.

Throughout there's this very Adam Curtis sense of hopelessness, that politics has long since lost its power to change things and that fight is mere expression of despair, yet perhaps worthwhile just for that.

We have,of course, some nice little moments that ouncture realism. The red monk, Geoff at the end with the sword from the Port Talbot stone... Arthurian allusion? 

This is spellbinding telly. Superb.

It's a Sin: Part 3

 "Don't lose your head..."

Dammit. All these bloody feelings. RTD, you are one magnificent bastard.

Right. Obviously, Colin, but let's touch on the other stuff. AIDS has already touched the Pink Palace and taken Gloria, but at this point evryone is under siege. Lovely Jill is volunteering on the phones to help. Richie has a new boyfriend, a fellow thespian with similarly big dreams- there's an interesting cht about how being "out" means career death ("I Clavdiv's gay!")- but we get the horribly realistic scene of struggling with a condom and then deciding to go without- only for Richie to see the tell-tale carcinomas on his lover's back the following morning. We have a hint that, while Ash and Roscoe are both negative (a miracle for Roscoe), Richie may not be so lucky.

Plus, there's other stuff, like Roscoe making the acquantance of a Tory MP who will presumably be important later as he's played by Stephen Fry. But Colin...

It's clever how it's eventually revealed how Colin got infected- at least he had a few good shags after all. But to die like that, at twenty-four, going senile, is just horrible. Equally vile is the prejudice- from the local copper who locks him in a hospital ward by court order (until a kick-ass solicitor busts his balls in a highly enjoyable scene) to the local firm refusing to do a funeral. But Colin's mum is a truly lovely person, and the bond she builds with the whole gang is a wonderful thing. I'm glad we got a character like that.

But oooh, Colin. This is brilliant telly. But ouch.

It's a Sin: Part 2

 "There's nothing wrong with boys from London."

Wow. That was another masterclass in television drama from RTD, again managing to meld the deeply tragic with the humorously human in a way that feels like life, with his extraordinary flair for dialogue and characterisation. The spectre of AIDS gets closer and closer to our three stars, and again claims the life of someone whom we care about.

Richie and Jill, bookending the episode with a pair of duets, five is a stark contrast. Richie’s oh-so-clever conspiracy theory scepticism gets a gloriously choreographed monologue to camera, quite rightly breaking the fourth wall in ways that remind me of RTD’s Casanova, which I haven’t seen since before this blog existed. And yet, one of those theories he mocks about where AIDS could have come from is, probably, correct.

Jill, meanwhile, is keen to learn the truth, sending Colin on a fact finding mission in New York and being Gloria’s only confidant, with him in a devastating scene as he tries to deny what is happening, and looking after him while vigorously sponging herself and washing up with rigour. It was 1984, and people really did know nothing.

There is much else happening- the sadness of how Roscoe being himself is affecting his family, and the uncomfortable scenes of Colin’s lecherous boss trying to have his way with the young man in a very MeTok sort of way until he spots the AIDS literature Colin’s being collecting- leading shortly thereafter to the most cheerful sacking ever.

What haunts us most, though, is the sight of Gloria’s family, at his wake, throwing all his loved possessions on the fire and rejecting who he is. Horrible.

I’m dreading what awaits us next week. And yet this is extraordinary telly, still on track to be RTD’s masterpiece.

It's a Sin: Part 1

 "You haven't got a parrot, have you?"

Russell T. Davies, after a few quiet years since leaving Doctor Who (alas, said quietness for tragic personal reasons) has not only been very much back over the last few years but is arguable at the very peak of his career right now. Cucumber was perhaps underappreciated, as was Years and Years, but few deny that A Very English Scandal was sublime. If this first episode is any guide (and I'm told reviews are raving from those who've binged the whole thing on All4; I'm soing it week by week), this could be the best thing he's ever done.

RTD has always said he wanted to return to gay themes in recent years, and this series confronts the elephant in the room: AIDS, which destroyed and traumatised a generation of gay men through the cruel double whammy of a horrifying disease and the added cruelty of society. I'm sure we will see much overt homophobia in later episodes (RTD has already shown with truthfully subtle dialogue the casual racism), but just as cruel is the fact that same sex relationships must be covert, informal, unrecognised, existing only at the margins of society. 

We see this, horrifyingly, in the person of Henry, played superbly by Neil Patrick Harris. He's lived with his partner (that unsatisfactory word) Juan Pablo for thirty years, a blissfully married couple in all but name. And yet, when they both become sick with this mysterious new gay plague (and yes, this all has resonance in early 2021, with our plague being less easy to ignore for most than the plague of forty years earlier), Juan Pablo's mother takes him "home" to Portugal and they must both die without seeing each other again. Equally horrifying is the sight of Henry, alone in a ward to himself, food left at the door, with no one approaching unless wearing what we have over the past year come to refer to as full PPE.

This episode is about introducing the characters, however, although not without a little foreboding. RTD is making us like these very human, flawed, likeable individuals before putting them through the wringer. We focus on three young gay men- Richie, student turned actor; Roscoe, who has fled the worst kind of religious fundamenalism with his Nigerian family set on "curing" him; and Colin, a shy young tailor from RTD's part of the world. There's also the very lovely Jill, the heart of the Pink Palace, but this episode shos lots of joyous, hedonistic sex, silliness and young people behaving as young people should, ignorant (and in denial) of what's coming.

Worryingly, we end with our three principals expanding on their dreams for the future. Let's hope at least some of them have one.

This is utterly sublime television. RTD makes it look effortless. I already feel I know and care about these people, and am worried.