Batman: The Animated Series- Heart of Steel, Part II

 "I'm getting too old for this kind of thing."

Part two continues the story in the vein we'd expect, and it's a very topical one in 2025, with the AI apocalypse clearly imminent: today, Chat GPT. Tomorrow, Skynet. And it's all cleverly done, with Mr Rossum revealed to have started all this for the very human reason of mourning his daughter, but the machines taking over... literally. I wish I knew more about R.U.R., the original play: no doubt there are references that go over my head.

It's not just Jim who gets a robot duplicate this time: Mayor Hill, even Bullock. Yet it's not Batman who gets the suspicion something's wrong- it's Barbara Gordon, who knows that that is not her father. She also does some rather effective investigating, and may even save Batman's life at the end. One might almost think, given her evident relish for this sort of thing, that she might be auditioning for the role of another flying rodent themed nocturnal crimefighter...

A satisfying conclusion to a highly effective two-parter, and a great showcasing of Barbara Gordon.

Batman: The Animated Series- Heart of Steel, Part I

 "Sounds as if the human race could be quite expendable."

This episode is really very impressive indeed. Not only is a strong start to what promises to be a gripping two-parter but, for an episode made in 1992, its concerns about AI are surprisingly contemporary... but then, are such concerns really that new? Humans have been worried about being supplanted by intelligent machines ever since Karel Capek wrote the play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), back in 1920, expressing fears of a robot revolution and coining the word "robot" itself into the bargain.

So yeah, I raised an eyebrow when we encountered a character called Rossum...

We begin as a young lady leaves a briefcase in the lobby of Wayne Enterprises, which bizarrely turns into a kind of metal spider, carrying out its pre-planned tasks in a way that immediately made me think of those AI drones that Ukraine is using against the Russians, a truly terrifying technology... yeah, thank you, Putin, for opening Pandora's Box there. I hope the next AI assassin drone gets you.

Anyway, it's all very good. We get Barbara Gordon, android duplicates and a creepy A.I boss computer. We get an obvious femme fatale who Bruce allows to discover the Batcave and his secret identity (oops!) despite being suspicious from the off. Let's see where this goes, but so far I'm liking it.

Deadwood: Season 1, Episode 11: Jewel's Boot Is Made for Walking

"You pay or she pays..."

Al Swearengen is truly the puppetmaster in this penultimate episodes, pulling all sorts of strings. We begin with him bribing Silas Adams to make his judge go away, and it is he who ultimately decides on a dodgy new sheriff- although he later seems to warm to the idea of Seth. He has worrying designs on the increasingly unwell Reverend. His jealousy at Sol when he finds he's been sleeping with Trixie on a non-commercial basis is solved by his asserting his "rights" as pimp.And yet this, along with the judge's warrant over his head, could be the harbinger of the potential threat to his position of the coming of civilisation and annexation. In controlling the process, can he control the threat?

Less clever is Alma's dodgy father, who is after her claim but is seen through by all, although he explicitly gives his blessing to her and Seth, of whom he approves, in full knowledge that Seth's wife and ward are coming. Ominously, too, Tolliver gets the surviving junkie to spread racist rumours about the Chinese, rumours that reflect badly on Swearengen, our antihero.

Yet it's not all theme and simmering plot threads: poor Jewel and the Doc get a lovely scene. As we approach the end it becomes clearer and clearer just how finely crafted this first season has been. This is first class television.

Deadwood: Season 1, Episode 10- Mister Wu

“August commencement to my administration, standing stymied outside a saloon next to a degenerate tit-licker.”


This is a subtle, well-written script, well realised. As ever, there’s a lot going on. The Reverend continues to deteriorate- the Doc thinks it’s a tumour. Business is good for Charlie while Joanie is stuck. Fascinatingly, Bullock honestly talks to Sol of his doubts about a wife and boy he barely knows as “she” is a beautiful woman. But the episode is, as ever, about the town’s slow process towards annexation and order... and systemic racism.

The episode shows us the racism, and doesn’t tell us how to react. Certainly, Wu is not a nice man. He supplies opium to Al and feeds murdered bodies to his pigs- and the other members of the Chinese community are clearly afraid of him. He is, I suppose, a community leader of sorts- but, because of his ehnicity, there's no possibility of his being considered one, and there is uproar when he enters the Gem through the front door. He is, in a sense, respected- certainly by Al- as an individual, but it seems to be accepted by all that there's a "proper" separation of "races". Racial slurs are everywhere, whores find his entering by the front door scandalous, and Cy even comments that a white dope fiend is "still while"- and Al is wary of being seen as too close to the "celestials".

It's interesting that this structural racism is clearly shown, and shocks with how clearly ingrained it is, without a need for a sympathetic character. Interestingly, too, we meet Hostetler, our first black character.

Beyond this, civilisation grows nearer, although not without Al having to pay extra bribes to make a murder charge go away. Already there's tension between using tax for corrupt purposes and for public services. There's a lot of nuance and subtlety here. It is, as ever, superb telly.

Deadwood: Season 1, Episode 9- No Other Sons or Daughters

"Taking people’s money is what makes organizations real, be they formal, informal or temporary."

So annexation is coming- and it terrifies Al, much as he simultaneously longs for it. Like all the other businessmen, he craves respectability but, unlike some, is less keen on the responsibilities that flow from that. He dominates this episode, at once insecure and firmly in charge, with most of the best lines, but it's about so much more than him.

The episode centres around the meeting, on Al's territory, in which they all try to form a kind of proto-government. It may be laughable that E.B. is appointed mayor, but ths is ultimately how such thngs happen, in microcosm. Farnum may be the face of government, but Al is the unseen power behind the throne. And it is the public, of course, the little people, who are to be manipulated into paying the necessary bribes. This is extremely clever telly.

Other things happen, of course- the Reverend is clearly unwell, and it will be interesting to see where this is going. Poor, likeable Jane is drunk again and, for now, leaving town, full of thinly disguised self-loathing. Meanwhile, her friend Charlie is setting up as a postmaster- and has an interesting meeting with Joanie. Cy, meanwhile, is somewhat sensitive to having overstepped the mark last episode. And his henchman, Eddie, seems to be revealed as our first overtly gay character. Then there's the ever-present dance between Bullock and Alma.

This feels like a real community, and is offcially about to become one. This continues to be extraordinary relly.

Deadwood: Season 1, Episode 8- Suffer the Little Children

"You might, Dan, want to learn how to indicate interest in a girl other than murdering another person."

Another dense, complex yet warchable, well-shot and well-acted episode doesn't surprise me at this point. It's 200's HBO, its a literary novel in the medium of television, it's bloody good. You're expecting me to say this.

Even so, I can't help but admire the structuring of the storyteling here. The main plotline here is probably young sublings Flora and Miles, who turn out to be cleverly manipulative thieves, and are both caught and killed, after much roughing up, by Cy. It's a hard word. And that Anna from Frozen has quite the potty mouth.

And yet there's so much more. Al's relationship with Trixie (attempting suicide, much to the gult of Alma after last episode) is shown at full force complexity here, very much mirrored by Joanie and Cy, whose own relationship clearly has many layers. More generally, the smallpox vaccine finally reaches camp, as well as rumours of a possible treaty with the Sioux. Could law and civilisation be coming?

Yet the mot fascnating thread is that of Alma, persuaded by Bullock to stay after he discovers her claim has promise. And above it all is the fascinating Al Swearengen, forever playing a prticularly potty-mouthed type of three dimensional chess, leaving E.B. struggling to keep up. He's an utterly fascinating character.

Deadwood: Season 1, Episode 7- Bullock Returns to the Camp

"We understand each other..."

This episode introduces a teenage brother and sister arriving in camp (interesting that word is used instead of "town", given the settlement's ambiguous and provisional status), both forlornly looking for a missing father and, of course, for work. The girl, courtesy of Cy and under Joanie's tutelage, is starting out as a prostitute. And she's played by the actress who would later go on to voice Anna in Frozen, Little Miss Llamastrangler's favourite Disney film...

Anyway, more splendid character and world building is in evidence here. Bullock and Utter have bonded, and together they take a drunken Jack McCall- to face justice, interestingly, and not revenge. Deadwood may be lawless, but I think this is a harbinger of the inevitable; law and order is coming. Revenge must be tempered by justice, a viewpoint as old as Aeschylus.

There is much drama surrounding Alma's claim- E.B., brave enough to confront Al Swearengen here, is still working for him, and pressing Alma hard. But the honourable Bullock has her interests at heart, and clashes with Al- the struggle between these two will, I expect, form the spine of the series.

Just as interesting is Al's complex relationship with Trixie, veering between mistrust and a curious trust born of a long hstory. Alma suddenly offends Trixie enormously when she clumsily asserts her class background. And the Reverend's seizures continue.Could his religious visions have a medical cause? Jane, too, continues to be compelling.

All this is masterfully woven, with such subtlety of character, such clear themes and with a real historical sense. I can't believe the season is more than halfway through. This is top telly.

Deadwood: Season 1, Episode 6- Plague

"Swearingen's a cue and Farnum merely is a billiard ball."

There's a lot happening in this episode besides the title. Alma continues to pretend to be a junkie still while undergoing cold turkey, fooling E.B., playing for time until seth returns. Seth, meanwhile, is attacked by an opportunistic Sioux, succeeds in killing him with a rock, and is ultimately rescued by Charlie Utter, who now learns of Bill's death. It now seems they are after Bill's killer, but it looks as though this plot thread is to simmer for a bit. Good strategic writing.

Jane is a fascinating character- very much not conforming to the archetype of a lady, acting in many ways like a man, portrayed here (and potentially in reality) as of possible LGBT nature, to use an anachronism; her sexuality and, indeed gender identity, is as ambiguous as one might expect in 1876.
 But she is a fully rounded person- drunk to blot out the memory of her best friend's death, but having cared for what she knows full well was a amallpox sufferer at the end of last episode. She's uneducated, uncouth, unladylike, deeply racist as per her upbringing, but not unkind beneath it all.

Then there's Joanie, who seems a bit down- but could the harsh, cynical Cy Tolliver have a thing for her? This promises to be a subtle little character thread that could run and run. Again, good writing. And the Doc, a decent man, taking centre stage while Merrick, a stereotypical newspaperman, is upstaged by Al in reporting the arrival of smallpox.

The arrival of this pestilence in the settlement dominates the episode, which makes it resonate somewhat now in June of 2020. It leads to stage managed fear and, fascinatingly, a meeting of the great and the good in which both Al and Cy relish the role of community leader and both reconcile somewhat. And we see the Reverend Smith collapse- very publicly- with his second fit. This is superbly written drama. I'm loving Deadwood, and we are nearly halfway through this first season.

Deadwood: Season 1, Episode 5- The Trial of Jack McCall

"Hickock breaks my balls from the afterlife..."

This is another multifaceted, complex gem of an episode as the people of the town walk past Wild Bill's body to pay their respects while a man stands around loudly trying to sell the severed head of a "heathen" Inevitably, this lawless community moves to try the killer, but the issues surrounding this are fascinating and fundamental. Meanwhile, so many characters get meaningful development.

Bullock is grumpy all episode, particularly with the ingratiating evangelism of the Reverend Smith- it seems that, like many quietly irreligious people in societes where outright atheism is frowned upon, this makes him very uncomfortable. Yet Smith himself is behaving strangely, and ends the episode with some kind of seizure. This is a man we know to have been traumatised by war- there are clearly depths to him.

E.B. shows signs of deep resentment towards Swearengen, and signs of an independent agenda. He's a man needing security for his declining years. Meanwhile Al is getting Trixie to manipulate the newly widowed Alma by replacing her addiction to laudanum with another substance as part of Al's getting her caim back. But she's leaving her agency in the literal hands of a man (not much feminism in 1876)- and, if the first meeting between her and Seth is anything to go by, a man she rather likes the look of. Future lovers, I wonder?

Meanwhile the relationship between Tolliver and mistress Joanie is shown to be complex- how loose is her leash? And she clearly has desires of a Sapphic nature. Tolliver, callously, has his sick old friend Andy dumped in the wilderness where he finds himself looked after by a drunk but nevertheless crudely kindly Calamity Jane, upset at the loss of her "best friend" who never judged her. This is all masterful character development.

But the trial is fascinating- and so is Al's word with the judge. Does this lawless community, wishing for eventual annexation by the United States, really want to look like a society with pretensions of its own legal system, a part of the infrastructure of a functioning state? Would this not be a provocation? And yet, what else can they do?

The killer is ultimately acquitted, and genly reminded to leave town pretty sharpish. But it seems, from coughng at Bill's funeral, that getting rid of Andy (not quite dead) may have brought a plague. How very topical.

This is superlative television.

Deadwood: Season 1, Episode 4- Here Was a Man

“Can you let me go to Hell the way I want to?"

Wow. That was sudden, shocking and out of nowhere- but then so are most shots in the back. I know the real life Wild Bill Hickock was shot in this way soon after moving to Deadwood, but the season has consistently kept up the anticipation- wringing lots of pathos from Bill knowing this would happen but passively awiting his fate- while keeping us guessing as to when exactly the moment would arrive. Death, as ever, is unprdedictable. None of us know when our time will come, which are resonant words to be writing in the midst of a plague.

Obviously, Keith Carradine really shines here, but there's so much pathos in how sympathetic Bill is. He's kind to the (thankfully recovered) little girl, who clearly feels comfortable in his presence, always a sign of a nice character. He continues to develop a human connection with Seth, and behaves with integrity (I think) when Alma asks him to help, yet to almost everyone he's a gunslinging celebrity, not a human being- and his death has parallels to that of John Lennon. Most poignantly, as the whole town rounds on the killer, only Jane and Seth run to the body, genuinely sorrowful.

Other plot threads develop, too, as Al continues to show us what a superbly menacing yet nuanced character he is, a villain but a three dimensional one. There's a newcomer, an old friend of Cy Torrance, who is not at all well. Alma confesses to Jane that her marriage to Brom was an ordeal, with hints of aristocratic arranged marriages. Things continue to unfold. But the episode is about Wild Bill, and the fatalistic end to the melancholic life of a seemingly decent man. Superb telly.

Deadwood: Season 1, Episode 3- Reconnoitering the Rims

"I don't think he took your point, quite."

"I think he quite missed it."

Only the third episode, and it's already very clear indeed that a single viewing is hardly adequate to do justice the density of the script, visuals and performances. I shall plead that there's some value in a first impression, and do my best.

On the surface this episode is about a few prominent plotlines- the opening of the rival saloon over the road and Al's preparation for war; the sort-of agreement between Swearengen and the Seth and Sol duo; and of course the tragic end of swanky New York dude Brom.who seeks "satisfaction" for being swindled by Al and ends up lured to his death in spite of many, many warnings, not only from Charlie but his junkie wife Alma. This is nicely paralleled with Al's decision to spare the slightly treasonous E.B.- after all, he has the poor hotel owner by the balls.

Elsewhere there's casual racism directed towards the "heathens", and equally casual bile (sexism and possible homophobia?) directed at Jane, whose disinclination to perform the rituals of femininity do not go unnoticed. But the most tragic character is the tactiurn Bill, whose reputation precedes him so that he's constantly being abused and challenged by wankers. No one ever treats him as a person, just as the legendary gunslinger he has become, and his life is shorn of any human interaction- no wonder he's drawn to the decent Seth, and that he spends his days drinking and gambling until the day he is inevitably shot by some twat. And yet beneath the gunslinger is a gentleman who will sleep in a corridor so a traumatised little girl can remain undisturbed.

At the core of this is a superb cast of actors- Ian McShane is a revelation; Lovejoy this ain't- but also, again, a peerless script. I'm loving this.

True Blood: Cold Ground

"You is a stupid bitch, Jason Stackhouse."

This extraordinary episode is, at its core, an examination of how a murder is so deeply wounding both to a family and to an entire community. All sorts of things are horribly uprooted and Sookie, being telepathic, is overwhelmingly bombarded with people's horrible, casually bigoted, indecently nosy thoughts. The fact that such a determined non-sweater drops the f-bomb at a funeral speech is a dramatic example of this, doubly effective coming from her. Bereavement is both deeply alienating- how can other people understand, and how can we tolerate the sheer absurdity of trying to express our complex feelings via platitudes? The performance of how we're "supposed" to feel is deeply, appallingly, overwhelmingly onerous, and only with Bill- her relationship with whom has caused so many harsh judgements) does she find solace.

Jason finds out in the worst possible way, and an awful rift develops between the siblings. Tara is a true friend but, as other people always do, has problems of her own, not least her awful, abusive mother trying to blame her alcoholism on a "demon" and get Tara to pay for an expensive exorcism.

On a more prosaic note, is Bill right to suggest the murderer is going after the lovers of vampires? Was Sookie the intended victim? Jason dives deeper into addiction to V-Juice in spite of his experiences. It seems fitting, though, that as Jason blahs his way through reverse cowgirl with some randomer, Sookie is gently and meaningfully deflowered by Bill, her true soulmate. And he bites her...

This is the most extraordinary episode yet. Wow.

True Blood: Mine

"If we can't kill people, what's the point of being a vampire?"

We begin to meet more vampires, and it's definitely seeming as though Bill is the exception in not being evil and highly menacing: is this what we're intended to think? So far it's far from clear cut that vampires should indeed be treated as a minority deserving of rights, but we'll see how things progress. Bill explains that vampires become evil from living in nests, but that hardly lets them off the hook.

We're told of Hepatitis D, a vampire disease which weakens them and which, by the law of Raymond Chandler's revolver, will eventually threaten Bill's life, I strongly suspect. Sam and Tara (I love her) chat about their respective unattainables, Sookie and Jason and, in a refreshingly honest and unpuritanical scene, end up having some no-strings sex to deal with their mutual drought. Good.

Sookie is still yet to be deflowered, much as her libido is clearly getting intense by now, but she shags Bill only in her dreams. We learn more of Tara's mother issues- she now has to stay with Lafayette which, given the wine and ganja there, seems not to be a bad choice. The episode ends on a pop cultural note as Sam wishes for "Buffy or Blade" to come to Bon Temps. The gripping plot and characters continue to unwind in this already-excellent series.

We finish, again, on a cliffhanger: Sookie's found another body...

True Blood: The First Taste

"Do doctors know that V-Juice can do this?"

"No. We wanna keep it that way."

This series is addictive: I may only be blogging the second episode but I'm up to the fifth, much as I will spend the rest of this blog post behaving as though I hadn't. Suffice to say that it continues to be awesome. I appreciate the way that this is one continuing story; there may be themes for individual episodes but there are no stories of the week.

After the expected rescue, much of this episode consists of Sookie and Bill chatting and getting to know each other; he's just saved her life (so they're even) and given her some mildly superhuman abilities (including increased libido for this virgin!) in the process. We also get to realise just how, er, unintelligent Jazon is as it turns out he couldn't possibly have committed the mirder of which he's accused: it was that bald, tattooed vampire, right?

Bill later chats with Sookie, her Gran, Tara and Jason about how he fought, in the 1861-5 war of secession, for the rights of wealthy white people to "own" other people and, indeed, that his own parents owned slaves. Tara is, unsurprisingly, unimpressed. It's quite shocking to see, as a foreigner, how rural Louisiana can seem so racially integrated and yet so many seem invested in deeply unsavoury causes and symbols. And I can't understand why other Americans don't see this sort of thing as treason. Oh well.

We end with yet another cliffhanger and several huge incentives to keep watching this splendid series.

Blade Runner (1982)

“Aren’t you the ‘good’ man?”

I should probably say at the start that I watched the Director’s Cut, on one of those old DVD’s with the anti-piracy trailers that you’re forced to sit through. Grr. Also, I’m afraid I haven’t read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Anyway, this is well good.

We get a quick blurb with the backstory; there are replicants, the Tyrell Corporation have an apparent monopoly on manufacturing them. They’re stronger, and at least as intelligent as humans. They’re used as slaves on off-world colonies, but have revolted. They’re banned on Earth, and “blade runner” units exist to track them down. All this by 2019. That’s this decade!

The film has a distinctive look (and sound, all by Vangelis; it works very well). It’s always night, it’s always raining. The architecture in large scale looks like something Sauron might have designed. There’s loads of neon. It’s all stylised, not realistic; while looking impressive, there’s no real attempt to not make the street scenes look like sets, and this works, adding to the claustrophobic and alienating feel. It’s always dark indoors, too, and the lighting is never natural.

This doesn’t at all resemble the pre-existing sci-fi clichés of what the futuristic is supposed to look like. The fashions, and the interior design, reflect the 1930s and 1940s and this, alongside the presence of a hero who basically is Philip Marlowe, gives this a strong noir feel.

We begin with a rather Orwellian test to see if a nervous man is a replicant. His life depends on getting the questions right; the air-conditioning in the ceiling reminds us very much of guillotine blades. Hanging in the air is the question of whether a true human could fail this test.

The interrogator is wearing a 1930s suit and smoking a cigar. It’s the cigar that unfortunately dates this. Off-world colonies and humanoid robots by 2019 I can believe, but smoking in the workplace? Never!

Suddenly, the chap being tested shoots his inquisitor, and we switch to Deckard, played superbly by Harrison Ford, he who yields to no one in his repertoire of angst-ridden facial expressions. He’s reading a newspaper, another activity which seems likely to be archaic by 2019.

Deckard is “arrested”, but it’s soon clear that this is just his old boss’ way of getting his attention. As the hoary old cliché goes, he’s retired from the force but is being forced back because no one else is as good as him, dammit.

The following exposition scene is necessary but a bit awkward; if Deckard is an experienced blade runner then he wouldn’t need telling about the replicants’ four year lifespan. Still, we learn that there are five replicants. Roy is their leader, and we also have Zhora, Leon (whom we’ve already met) and Pris, a “pleasure model” (apparently “standard issue”).

We see a blatant coca cola ad as Deckard is flown away, with the bloke chauffeuring him maintaining the retro look by dressing like a World War Two air pilot.

We’ve established that everyone is dressed like the 1930s, and that Decker is basically Philip Marlowe, so we shouldn’t be surprised to see a femme fatale at this point. Deckard pays a visit to the Tyrell Corporation, where he’s met firstly by an artificial owl and secondly by Rachel, with her ‘40s hairstyle, played icily by Sean Young. Interestingly and, as we shall soon discover, pertinently, she asks whether Deckard has ever accidentally “retired” a human by mistake.

Tyrell, her boss, insists that Deckard start by subjecting Rachel to the test. Deckard insists they more elsewhere because “it’s too bright in here”(!), and we discover, inevitably, that Rachel is a replicant, albeit a chain-smoking one. She’s an experiment of Tyrell’s, given a set of memories and unaware of what she is. Now she knows. Cue lots and lots of existential angst.

After a scene in which Roy shows us how badass he is by torturing a bloke for information (Rutger Hauer is infinitely better here than he will be in Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Rachel pays Deckard a visit, insisting that she’s not a replicant. But Deckard insists that she is; those vivid childhood memories are not hers, but those of Tyrell’s niece. But then, as soon as he sees tears in his eyes, he takes it all back, insisting it’s a “bad joke”. This is very Marlowe.

We see a lady dressed in a way which, this being Hollywood, leads us to expect her to be a prostitute. She settles down to sleep rough, but runs into J.P. Sebastian, the very man Roy is looking for. J.P., rather than dressing in 1930s clothes like everyone else, is dressed like a civilian from Judge Dredd. He’s something of an innocent geek. He lives alone in a block of flats which seems otherwise deserted, and his only friends are eighteenth-century style automatons which he made himself. Pris is grateful for his hospitality, while she waits for her “friends”…

Deckard has a well weird dream about a white unicorn, I have no idea what this means. There follows a rather cool scene in which Deckard interrogates a piece of footage by zooming in and out, and finds a mysterious woman in a mirror. Pausing only to phone Rachel and ask her to go for a meal, he’s rebuffed, and follows the lead. The mysterious woman turns out to be Salome, and she’s a replicant.  Frankly, I could have done without her donning those pvc “angel wings” as he chases her across town and shoots her in beautifully realised slow motion. Ridley Scott may shoot this film beautifully, but this sort of symbolism is just pretentious.

Having killed the first of the replicants, Deckard is congratulated by Bryant again. He’s clearly been keeping an eye on Deckard, and makes it clear that he knows about Rachel and expects her to be “retired”. A couple of seconds later Leon turns up and starts to beat the crap out of Deckard. Just before he’s about to be killed, though, Rachel saves his life. How very convenient it is that replicants are vulnerable to bullets.

Rachel has clearly been having a long night of the soul. She knows she’s going to be hunted, and needs reassurance from Deckard that he won’t hurt her. She wants to know her incept date; suddenly she knows her life expectancy is very, very limited. And (the killer question!), she wonders whether Deckard has himself taken the Voight-Kampf test. She’s very sad, and very quiet; a long scene follows in which, while together, they are both shown to be very, very alone. Then Deckard rapes her. There’s no way round this; it’s quite blatant.

Sebastian, it seems, is only twenty-five years old, in spite of looking much older. He apparently suffers from Methuselah syndrome; he’s aging very quickly. There’s an obvious parallel here with the limited lifespan of the replicants.  It’s also heavily hinted that the reason he has no neighbours is that most other young people have gone to the off-world colonies. Surely this would have economic consequences?

Roy and Pris are now the only replicants left. Interestingly, though, they get what they want from J.P. through the use of charm rather than force, although admittedly there’s an implied physical threat.  J.P. assists Roy in getting in to meet his creator, Tyrell. The old man, surely knowing that Roy will kill him, meets his fate with calm dignity, expressing surprise that it took Roy so long. It is not possible, it seems, to extend the lifetime of a replicant, something which Roy finds impossible to accept (“It is difficult to meet your maker”). He has burned bright, but must die soon. Roy kills his “father”, horribly. It could hardly have been otherwise. Sebastian’s murder, at least, happens discreetly off-screen.

After a bizarre interlude in which his car is attacked by homeless dwarves, Deckard goes into the spider’s parlour. After shooting dead a screaming Pris, he encounters Roy, and there follows an extended sequence of cat-and-mouse. We get some extremely vertiginous scenes of Deckard climbing unaided and hanging on to the edges of cliffs for a long, long time. There’s absolutely no way a human would be capable of doing this; yes, I saw that episode of Mythbusters. These scenes convince me that he’s a replicant. Not that it matters, of course; the point is that the human / replicant division is arbitrary and meaningless, with even the test being of doubtful validity.

The end is surprising. Roy pulls Deckard up and delivers some poetic last words, before expiring gracefully at his appointed hour. He dies, and everything he has experienced is lost. But it eventually happens to all of us.

It seems the film ends with our rapist hero eloping with his victim. The pilot’s shout of “Too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?” seems to make a certain implication about Deckard, the man with no apparent hinterland. I wonder which replicant will die first?