some other thoughts

[kindkit]

Besides the thing I talked about ad nauseam in my last post, here are a few other things about The Magnus Archives through episode 110, "Creature Feature."

I'm not entirely loving Jon's Big Road Trip, because what I really am loving about S3 has been the expanded ensemble and the exploration of the Archives as a dysfunctional workplace, and it's frustrating that Jon's off on his own while all this character development is happening. Also, he's going to be returning to a team whose dynamics have formed, to some extent, around not trusting him, and that's not going to be good. (Martin's on his side, of course, and tries to trust him, but the others aren't going to listen to Martin.)

As for Team Archives (which is really Team Basira and Melanie and to some extent Martin): I'm not sure killing Elias is actually a good idea, guys. I get why you want to. I'm finding Elias a good deal less of a fun monster and more of a monstrous one, after the cruelty of what he did to Melanie (though I can also understand that dealing with constant murder attempts must try one's patience). Nor is my opinion of him improved by what his associate Peter Lucas did, without any provocation, to the poor spider-plagued guy in "I Guess You Had To Be There." (An excellent comic episode, by the way, right up until that reminder of the unmotivated malevolence of this universe's monsters. And it's interesting that all those statements were probably true, no matter how pointless or useless or boring.) Anyway, Elias and the Eye do seem to want to keep the world habitable by human beings, whereas the Stranger does not.

The Michael stuff was cool, and it's a bit hopeful that Michael has been replaced by the less antagonistic Helen, who liked Jon and may want to help.

It does seem to be necessary to pick one's monsters, doesn't it? The Spiral and the Eye are less bad than the Stranger or the Lightless Flame, at least as far as we currently know, so we're on their side, sort of? But they're still really, really bad. And even the largely-human monster hunters Julia Montauk and Trevor Herbert aren't exactly nice people. No one gets to stay nice, no one gets to be unscathed morally, or in any other way.

I continue to be worried about Tim, who is probably about to do something even dumber than what everybody else is doing. (I think I got partially spoiled by some comments I incautiously read elsewhere . . . I have no idea what he's about to do, but my impression is that fandom considers it to have been an extremely bad idea.) I have sympathy for Tim's loss and grief, but I'm also frustrated with him, because supernatural events have deeply injured literally almost everyone on the team at some point, but he acts like he's the only one. Jon has gone through a hell of a lot personally (and I find the deaths of his parents deeply suspicious--falling off a ladder is an Ex Altiora kind of thing, and sudden illness sounds like the Filth), Melanie lost her father and her career and got shot by a ghost, Basira lost her career and is now a hostage, and we know what happened to Sasha.

Martin is still, mysteriously, comparatively undamaged. I expect revelations at some point about why that is. I thought for a while he might have been lying to Jon about what he meant in his letter to his mother about lying (and therefore was hiding something about his background), but it doesn't seem possible for people to lie to Jon in response to direct questions. Unless that ability to compel the truth is recent, like Jon's new ability to read statements in all languages, and also to sometimes know things people haven't actually told him. (Relatedly: Martin was writing a letter to his mother? Who does that anymore?)

Speaking of statements . . . the current situation seems to be that initially, reading statements left Jon physically and emotionally exhausted, as it still does to some extent to Martin and Melanie. But now, by contrast, it energizes him, while not reading statements for too long does him harm. And even Martin and Melanie seem to be coping with statements better. So something about reading statements is transformative, which could fit with my idea that the Institute is literally the Eye. (Or perhaps that's just the Archives, since people working in other areas of the Institute can quit?) I wonder if Martin and Melanie are going to start getting powers too, or if that's just Jon as the Archivist.

Okay, I'm off to listen to "Family Business." I've been desperately curious about Gerard Keay for ages.

Comments

[mllesatine]

I went back to the episode where Elias offered Melanie a job after the bit with her father and realized that he started to talk to her when she revealed that she had nobody left. It's like Elias picks people for the Institute who won't be missed. I don't have any data to hand but I felt like most of the main cast don't have any kind of close family. Which puts Elias in a very sinister light.

I wish I remembered where I got the impression that the Keays were good guys.

[kindkit]

Mary is definitely not a good guy, but Gerard is, from what I've heard so far. For me that impression of Gerard started with the first episode about the Keays, when Gerard turns up, buys back the Leitner and then burns it.

I think you're right about most of the Archive folks having no close family attachments. They're all single, and Jon has no family, Melanie has none, Tim has none. Martin was writing to his mother in an early episode. But I still think that's weird because who writes letters anymore? And also, we know less about Martin now than anybody else. He seems very artless because he can't hide his feelings for Jon, but I suspect he's hiding something else, very successfully.

[st_aurafina]

Welp, you've passed me now. I need to catch up, but I listened to #106, A Matter of Perspective, and what Elias did to Melanie was so horrible that I bolted for a break. (And it didn't help that the actors are so good. Melanie's little whimpers as Elias did his thing, ugh.)

[rydra_wong]

And I think it's even more effective dramatically because it's Melanie, who until that point has seemed so well-armoured emotionally.

[rydra_wong]

An excellent comic episode, by the way

This was all semi-improv, apparently -- the one time they've done that.

The guest actors got descriptions of the incident they'd witnessed and suggestions as to how they might be tricky interviewees, and then they recorded chunks of improv (with Alex and Jonny hauling it back on track if anything conflicted with canon) until they had enough to stitch the ep together.

(A lot of them have done improv together before, so they've got the skills.)

The bit with Martin offering the woman his pocket change to buy a coffee was pure spur-of-the-moment from Alex; in one of the Q&As he describes watching the guest actor DYING trying not to crack up and ruin the take.

[mllesatine]

I think you listened to the episode where Elias reavels that Martin's dad left him and his mother doesn't like him very much. I also thought that the letter writing part was a bit far-fetched. And I'm not 100% convinced that Elias didn't just try to make Martin believed what he has suspected (that his mother doesn't love him). I had a bit of a problem with the way this was explained since her wanting to live in a care home seems a sensible decision to me and not the abandonment Elias made it look like. As if an old woman having agency and deciding not the be cared for by her son is so terrible.

Was Elias lying about that? And if so, was Elias lying about the death of Melanie's father as well? Yes, he did in a house fire but that might mean the relatively painless death by carbon monoxide poisoning and not being burned alive.

I had the impression in the earlier Keays episodes that both mother and son were trying to destroy Leitners and therefore trying to do good. Boy was I wrong about Mary Keay. What a monster she is. But I also think it was a bit wishful thinking on my part. I didn't want the Institute workers to be the only ones I can sort of trust.

[rydra_wong]

(Relatedly: Martin was writing a letter to his mother? Who does that anymore?)

Given the context we get later: people writing to someone who won't take their phone calls, or with whom phone conversations are always horrendous, I suspect.

Also, given that it's an unfinished letter which he's left behind in the Archives -- people who want to write something which they'll maybe never send.

Unrelatedly (except for involving Martin): I love Jon's attempt at conversation with Martin in 102. It's so awkward and so sincere.

[jain]

And if so, was Elias lying about the death of Melanie's father as well? Yes, he died in a house fire but that might mean the relatively painless death by carbon monoxide poisoning and not being burned alive.

Melanie's father was a resident at the Ivy Meadows Care Home that featured in MAG 36: Taken Ill. It's possible that the fire caused him to suffer when he died, but the really horrifying thing about the end of his life is that he'd undoubtedly contracted the disease described in that episode. He would have been suffering before the fire even started.

[mllesatine]

But that wasn't what Elias focused on when scaring Melanie. That's desolation and not corruption.

Ok, I listened to the episode again and it wasn't at all clear what exactly he was showing her. While listening to the episode for the first time I even remembered Ivy Meadows and I still thought he was showing her how her father burned alive. Still the "smoke inhalation" makes no sense in that context since the care home was closed in July and burned down in September according to the wiki.

[mllesatine]

Maybe even something Jon compelled out of Martin?

But really I think it was a plot-contrivance.

[kindkit]

Um, this is getting more intensely critical about small plot holes than I really care to be about a show I think is fantastic. It's not a discussion I want to be having on my journal right now, when I am mostly full of squee. I'm happy to have critical discussion about themes and issues, but for small details like this, would you mind posting it on your own journal instead?

Thanks.

[kindkit]

Yeah, it started making sense once I knew what their relationship had been like.

(This makes me suspect that as of my current point in S4--episode 131--Martin has an enormous letter to Jon that exists only in his head, as he doesn't dare write it down. He knows he shouldn't even think about Jon, but the letter grows every day.)

[kindkit]

It is horrible. I was appalled by it.

And yet, in retrospect now . . . I admit freely that I am too much of a fan of Elias to be the best judge, but still, by contrast with Peter Lukas he looks a lot less appalling.

[rydra_wong]

(This makes me suspect that as of my current point in S4--episode 131--Martin has an enormous letter to Jon that exists only in his head, as he doesn't dare write it down. He knows he shouldn't even think about Jon, but the letter grows every day.)

Oh god. I think you're completely right. Owwww.

[mllesatine]

Got it. I was way over-thinking the whole thing anyway.

[kindkit]

No worries.