Good morning, television friends! It’s hard to believe I’ve been doing this for 69 posts!
(Go on, say it. You know you want to.)
This week I have two full short series, and our weekly check-in with those wacky Westerosi. Who are all doing great. Probably.
Let’s watch TV!
Ride or Die, season 1
Debbie and Judith are best friends. They’re in book club together. They go antiquing, although Judith’s job makes it difficult for her to be there in person. Debbie (Octavia Spencer) is the American wife of a British MP, a former lawyer who is basically the brains behind her husband’s career. And Judith (Hannah Waddingham) is an assassin.
We’ve had a lot of streaming dramas about assassins in the last few years. They’re all set in and around Europe (glamorous locations, mostly inhabited by white people), and they’re all interested in questions of identity, double lives, and using the heightened reality of a career murderer as a metaphor. Some series (Day of the Jackal, the television adaptation of Hanna, early seasons of Killing Eve) take the topic at least somewhat seriously. Others (Black Doves, The Assassin, later seasons of Killing Eve) lean into the absurdity.
Ride or Die is a very silly series, but it threads one impressive little needle: it takes the important things seriously. The important things being:
the friendship between Judith and Debbie, which is the entire point of the series
acknowledging that taking orphaned teenagers and manipulating them to become murderers is abusive in the extreme
Debbie’s self-actualisation after a life of putting herself in smaller and smaller boxes
Ride or Die is not going to change the world. If you have ever watched an action movie, you’ll be able to predict most beats. I finished every single episode going, “This show is so dumb. I love it.” But it was a fun romp which took its premise and its main characters seriously, and it was an absolute joy to watch Spencer and Waddingham, women who achieved professional success later in life, share the spotlight.
House of the Dragon, season 3, episode 6
SPEAKING OF ASSASSINS. This week, we have a bunch of inept and stinky assassins sent to take down Lord Ormund. They fail because Gwayne Hightower, possibly the most reasonable member of the entire family, is smart and competent and has a good memory for faces. But they also fail because everyone knows the best assassins are middle-aged women* with a lot going on in their lives.
Which brings us to Alicent. Rhaenyra’s plan of sending Alicent to take out Aemond is … spectacularly bad. Fantastically doomed. Deeply stupid. Because, let’s be real, it should be Rhaenyra and Alicent going on a mission together. Yes, Rhaenyra has some queening to do, but let’s be real, she’s not that good at it. Let her go on a homicidal girls trip with her ex-BFF. Please.
(* I am aware that Rhaenyra and Alicent are only in their 30s, but by the standards of Westeros, they are practically in their dotage. People do not live long lives in this kingdom. In the real world, the average lifespan in the middle ages was “low” because it was skewed by a high rate of infant mortality — but in Westeros, it’s because people keep getting murdered.)
Rhaenyra’s ineptitude as queen is on full display this week: in her regular audience with The Common People, she goes straight from hearing a man complain about not having enough tallow for candles, to promising to light a candle for a murdered septa. I could actually hear Mysaria cringe.
Obviously, the problem is not Rhaenyra, but the whole concept of monarchy. But so far no one in Westeros has been open to my “have you considered transitioning to a parliamentary system and then setting up the educational infrastructure to eventually introduce universal suffrage?” pitch. On account of how Westeros is fictional. But it’s a problem, because I like these characters (mostly), and I do not want them to suffer.
Even Aemond! I like that he is attracted to a woman who is not a close relative! What if he and Alys just hang out at Harrenhal, raise some illegitimate witchy dragon children, and let them hatch the dragon eggs that have apparently been lying around for a century? What could go wrong?
In good news, one of my prayers has been answered: Criston Cole is dead, and he went out hilariously — too busy wrapping Alicent’s handkerchief around his sword to notice the woman aiming her arrows at him. All misogynists should die at the hands (arrows) of a hot lady with a bow. That’s Alysanne Blackwood, who has appeared here and there throughout the season. I love her and I want her to become a proper character. I assume she’s going to die a horrible death.
The Killings at Parrish Station (limited series)
Back when season 4 of True Detective aired, I went on the hunt for more series about Weird Stuff Happening In The Arctic Circle. I watched some very mediocre television with outstanding scenery, but none of it hit the same.
Obviously my mistake was looking for more Arctic shenanigans, because The Killings at Parrish Station, a new Australian series starring Mia Wasikowska, has almost hit the spot — despite being set largely in the Outback, the exact opposite of the Arctic Circle. Curiously, it was inspired by the Dyatlov Pass Incident, which took place in the Soviet Union, also about as far from the Outback as you can get.
(TL;DR: a group of ski hikers were killed in mysterious circumstances — tents were slashed, clothing was removed, physical trauma was … of a type you wouldn’t expect. The mainstream theory is that there was A Weird And Specific Type Of Avalanche. There are no avalanches in The Killings at Parrish Station.)
Here’s the story: just after Christmas 1987, the scientists working at a remote radio telescope are found horribly dead. There is one survivor. The super rich mining magnate who owns the station is being shady. Wasikowska plays one of the cops investigating the matter. Cut to 2024, 37 years later, and some true crime podcasters tell us that the mystery has never been solved, and Wasikowska’s cop, Georgia, has been in a mental hospital since An Incident. But someone is recreating those original deaths, so Georgia’s former assistant, now a top cop herself, busts her out of the facility to FIGHT CRIME.
So we have a bunch of things I love:
radio telescopes
mysterious signals
MURDER
different actors playing characters at different ages
a bunch of cantankerous women who give no shits
the millennial detective trailing along in their wake, begging the boomers to please have some consideration for others, we live in a society, do not light that cigarette in the office
a downright comedic amount of swearing
I actually cannot emphasise enough that this series is quite funny. It’s scary and tense, but also hilarious? Without being too self-aware?
the villain is a mining magnate, that is not a spoiler, there is basically a big flashing sign that says THIS GUY IS NOT GOOD NEWS from his first entrance. Also he’s a mining magnate
It also has some things I did not so much care for:
people chopping their own fingers off
the depiction of mental health is not quite bad enough to be offensive, but “medically insane” is not a diagnosis
I get that one of the reasons to join a cult is the cool robes, but ALSO it’s the Outback, why are you wearing robes, you must be dying of heatstroke in there, we need to get away from the CULTural cringe and be our own thing
Killings was no season 4 of True Detective. It’s not even a season 1 of True Detective. And I spotted the twist about half an episode before it dropped. HOWEVER. I had a great time, I enjoyed the collision between science fiction and occultism and NSW Cops Just Doing Their Best But Honestly Their Best Isn’t Very Good And They Need To Stop Shooting People. Australia makes a lot of genre television, but the genres are usually Cop and/or Hospital. Science fiction and horror is less well-travelled ground for us, and I hope this is a sign that is changing.
