marcella s3

So I started watching Marcella season 3 last night - as my treat for, um, writing a list of 8 things I had to do and nearly doing half of one of them. 

I was impressed by its audacity. Whereas S2 was a melange of paedophile/crazy madwoman tropes set against a backdrop inspired by someone who never really grew out of their student films inspired by Metallica videos (by the way: I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that - I devoured the whole in a day, trying saying that in a norwegian grindcore voice) S3 is sort of like a whole new story with I think about two of the same characters including Marcella except she's not called that anymore. It's a little like someone wrote a story - a very, very different story with a very different tone to S1 & 2 of Marcella and a different setting entirely (Northern Ireland, not London) and someone else said 'let's turn that into S3 of Marcella then, all we have to do is change everything about Marcella to fit it' (continuing to be sort of fair/ hedge my bets, I've only watched the first episode of S3).

So I critiqued S2 as a bit obvious and scary-clown, well, S3 obviously heard me because it is completely impossible to follow. I love the idea that the makers of Marcella were like 'we have the audience now, so let's go full obtuse'. Now, she's undercover in N Ireland (this was set up at the end of S2 in a very random, abstract, entirely unbelievable way which nevertheless included a skerrick of expositional detail which only those who had taken notice of a couple of little scenes in S1 where she buys some DNA from a homeless woman, would understand but - fine). She's been living almost a year (exactly ten months) with some guy who gives her what could be an engagement ring if she wants it to be (she doesn't). Then (spoiler coming up) he is shot at close range in the garden of someone's house while admiring some parasitic mistletoe while she's standing next to him and she seems entirely indifferent to the whole incident, which is sort of... OK. Suddenly she's a part of the family who killed her boyfriend. I am not sure why but she is. Is she sure why? We have no idea. 

So I'm at a crossroads. I really don't know what to make of S3 and whether I should persist, though in truth it's all the things I was criticising S2 for not being. 

One thing about Marcella the person I just want to note: a lot is made of her intense instability, her blackout rages, her suicidal impulses and general despair that I guess some people would deal with through drugs or alcohol (or exercise or blogging) but which she deals with through being intensely devoted to crime solving. But in S1 and 2 her house was so beautifully neat and her fridge always stocked and problem-free. Did she have a maid or some other kind of servant? In S3, the house with the boyfriend is even better: so incredibly fastidiously tasteful. In some ways it's the scariest thing about the whole show. 

> Update 20/7: The whole backstory of the move to N Ireland is at the beginning of episode 6, for some strange reason. It doesn't seem thematically connected to anything that late in the story, but I guess I still haven't seen the whole thing yet. 

> Update 27/7: I finished watching it and completely forgot about it. The end is a farce. But I would like to see a season 4 although I imagine it will be all about (SPOILER ALERT) will she kill her accidentally appropriated baby like she killed the one she gave birth to? 

drinking

I know this is the kind of thing that alcoholics say but I genuinely don't drink much, and those close to me know I can take it or leave it. The last time I remember needing a drink was in the late 90s, after I addressed the Royal Historical Society of Victoria (!!!) about one of the key figures of my thesis, and saw his daughter sitting in the front row. Not that I was doing anything but hagiography, but still... you have to read three sentences ahead when you know you might inadvertently upset a nice old lady. 

Last night however I celebrated the end of a difficult week by drinking the remainder of my Vana Tallinn, a spiced rum spirit that I have had on or  around the coffee table for about two weeks now, untouched. There was a third of the bottle left, maybe less, not sure and the first tipple I had went down well, so I emptied the bottle into the glass and there was actually a lot more than I expected but it was quite expensive and I'd already put ice in the glass so it would have been a waste to not drink it all and feel seedy as the next day. 

Could be worse, I haven't thrown up and the cats are being nice to me (Nancy is always nice; I went back to bed for a little while an hour or so ago and Helmi, who you will remember spends every day under the bedclothes, put her head on my leg). 

I've found another fucking Netflix chewing gum murder series, this time Marcella. God it's a hot gothic mess with the flawed but gorgeous (season two: always wear a shirt too big for your jumper) titular character and the flawedly flawedacious men in her orbit. Season one I have to say I consumed bittily, particularly as I got pretty drunk towards the end and lost a lot of understanding but who cares, it's like folk music, you just tap your foot and follow the tropes. Season two is full of the noir version of cheap laughs, in which Marcella et al have encountered a sophisticated, wealthy paedophile (unclear where he gets his money from, particularly to me who only half pays attention) who Marcella et al really don't like. They really don't like the paedophile, and they really don't like him one bit. If I did not know anything about paedophilia before this, I would have come away at very least knowing that it is very socially acceptable to not like paedophilia and paedophiles, even (or particularly?) the ones with, apparently, a very sophisticated knowledge of their condition.* Anyway, the murders are beyond bizarre and grotesque, and the mystery is deep, and there are still those ridiculous elements such as people talking on the phone who, once they get the information they seek, don't say anything like 'Right, well thank you very much for talking to me Mrs --, and if there's anything else that occurs to you please don't hesitate to get in touch. Alright, cheers then, thanks a lot and have a great day.' (Much less 'please hold for a survey about your customer experience'). Instead, they just hang up as soon as they get the key information (anyone on the other end of a call like that would assume they were cut off and call back) and look into the middle distance, as you would if you were a mere receptive synthesiser of diverse informations. 

I'm going to keep going though because I feel seedy and this, Roti and Eno are keeping my head above water. 

* To be clear, I don't like paedophilia either (does that even need to be said) and I don't knowingly know any paedophiles, it just seems to me to be too easy a shot, even in a show like this which is really just your standard nicely acted, tasteful(-ish), gory, somewhat rock-videoesque crime drama.