more tma re-listen reactions
Jan. 24th, 2020 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitI've re-listened through episode 36, "Taken Ill," but under the cut and in the comments there are likely to be spoilers for everything through the end of S4.
19 & 20 (Confession/The Desecrated Host): Still one of the most horrific statements for me. Like a lot of these early statements, what happens isn't clearly ascribable to one single entity (which imo is why S1 is the scariest, because it's the most unclassifiable/uncanny). Some of the line-blurring in this particular instance is due to the Hill Top Road effect, of course.
22 (Colony): *hugs Martin a lot* As much of a shit as Jon is in S1, especially towards Martin, he does at least offer to let Martin stay at the archive as soon as he realizes there's genuine danger. Secondary and shippier thought: if Martin is sleeping in Jon's little nap space in the archive, does this mean he's sleeping in Jon's bed?
23 (Schwartzwald): There is a *big* discrepancy between what's described in this episode and what we hear about in the S4 episode about Albrecht von Closen's attempt to return his books. In "Schwartzwald" he only takes one book, plus a coin that goes missing before he leaves. All the other books are ruined and unreadable. So where did the rest of the books he eventually tries to return come from? It's possible this is just a continuity error on Jonny's part (like how many times Gertrude was shot) but it could also be significant.
26 (A Distortion): Poor Sasha. And I note that this episode has the first indications that it's not possible to quit a job in the archives. Both Sasha and Jon find reasons why they don't want to quit; I wonder if that's the Beholding working on their minds or if it's just them rationalizing the compulsion they feel.
27 (A Sturdy Lock): On first listening, I thought the intruder was a ghost (in fact I thought he might have killed his dead wife and it was her ghost). In retrospect, and especially given his son's statement in S4 . . . I don't know what's going on here. Also I think there are timeline continuity problems between this statement and the son's statement (e.g. the son is engaged according to this episode, but per his later statement, I think he had split up with his partner, moved back home, and then moved out again). I'm trying not to nitpick about details, but the problem is it's hard to tell what's a nitpick and what's actually going to be meaningful.
28 (Skintight): Hi Melanie! Hi Georgie! I had forgotten that Georgie (a) gets a mention in this episode, and (b) is herself the host of a ghost-hunting show. Jon doesn't mention that he used to date her, presumably because Jonny hadn't thought of it yet. (Watsonian-ly, it's just not the sort of thing Jon would mention, especially to someone making a statement. It's not difficult to explain in-universe, just kind of amusing.)
32 (Hive): Still amazing, both the writing and Jonny's performance. It's powerful, after so many episodes of Jon being cold and detached and hyper-skeptical, to hear how disturbing this statement is for him, and how weary it makes him. Admittedly we learn later there's more to this exhaustion than an emotional reaction, but still.
33 (Boatswain's Call): Hi Tim! I love that the first time we actually meet him, he's giving Jon crap. And Jon reacts defensively, what a surprise. (I suspect that Tim's first in anthropology from Trinity means he has better academic qualifications than Jon, and oh, how Jon knows it. Also Tim had a proper career before coming to the institute.) This scene is also a clever, fun way of dealing with errata. Grudgingly, I will say hello to Peter Lukas too; I'd forgotten, by the time we meet him in S4, that he had been mentioned here--I remembered it was a Lukas but not which one.
34 (Anatomy Class): OMG THIS EPISODE. SO CREEPY. And besides that, it manages to break my heart a little when Jon refers to Dr. Lionel Elliott as one of his "fellow academics." While in the same breath admitting that the Institute's reputation is such that some his fellow academics have amused themselves by coming in and making hoax statements. Jon wants so badly to be a Real Scholar, and he isn't and the Magnus Institute is not the way to become one, and as an ex-academic myself, I feel for him. Not that I mistake Jon's reasons for noble ones--he wants prestige, he wants people to finally recognize how fucking smart he is, he wants a title to impress people with--but, well, I was also the kid who was bullied for being too smart, and I'm also now in a job where people assume I'm not smart, so, yeah, I get it. *hugs him*
35 (Old Passages): This is a much more important episode than it seemed to be on first listening. The Leitner stuff is ultimately a red herring, as we know, but the room that Silvana and co. find, the one with the fourteen passages leading to it? One of which is really dark, and another of which gives Silvana vertigo just to look at it, and another feels like the walls are closing in, and another feels fleshy and another is full of spiderwebs and another has a scary stranger in it and another makes Silvana feel like he's burning? Yeah. We know (or at least we've been told) that Smirke's efforts to balance the various Fears didn't work and were maybe impossible on principle, but I also feel like all this emphasis on mystical architecture is going to have more payoff than just the Panopticon. I expect we'll revisit these tunnels in S5.
36 (Taken Ill): Ewwwwwwwwwwwww. Also, hello Trevor and Julia, you monster-hunting maniacs. And also also, I note that Uncle George seems to know more than he's telling about the Corruption. Perhaps we'll hear more from him.
19 & 20 (Confession/The Desecrated Host): Still one of the most horrific statements for me. Like a lot of these early statements, what happens isn't clearly ascribable to one single entity (which imo is why S1 is the scariest, because it's the most unclassifiable/uncanny). Some of the line-blurring in this particular instance is due to the Hill Top Road effect, of course.
22 (Colony): *hugs Martin a lot* As much of a shit as Jon is in S1, especially towards Martin, he does at least offer to let Martin stay at the archive as soon as he realizes there's genuine danger. Secondary and shippier thought: if Martin is sleeping in Jon's little nap space in the archive, does this mean he's sleeping in Jon's bed?
23 (Schwartzwald): There is a *big* discrepancy between what's described in this episode and what we hear about in the S4 episode about Albrecht von Closen's attempt to return his books. In "Schwartzwald" he only takes one book, plus a coin that goes missing before he leaves. All the other books are ruined and unreadable. So where did the rest of the books he eventually tries to return come from? It's possible this is just a continuity error on Jonny's part (like how many times Gertrude was shot) but it could also be significant.
26 (A Distortion): Poor Sasha. And I note that this episode has the first indications that it's not possible to quit a job in the archives. Both Sasha and Jon find reasons why they don't want to quit; I wonder if that's the Beholding working on their minds or if it's just them rationalizing the compulsion they feel.
27 (A Sturdy Lock): On first listening, I thought the intruder was a ghost (in fact I thought he might have killed his dead wife and it was her ghost). In retrospect, and especially given his son's statement in S4 . . . I don't know what's going on here. Also I think there are timeline continuity problems between this statement and the son's statement (e.g. the son is engaged according to this episode, but per his later statement, I think he had split up with his partner, moved back home, and then moved out again). I'm trying not to nitpick about details, but the problem is it's hard to tell what's a nitpick and what's actually going to be meaningful.
28 (Skintight): Hi Melanie! Hi Georgie! I had forgotten that Georgie (a) gets a mention in this episode, and (b) is herself the host of a ghost-hunting show. Jon doesn't mention that he used to date her, presumably because Jonny hadn't thought of it yet. (Watsonian-ly, it's just not the sort of thing Jon would mention, especially to someone making a statement. It's not difficult to explain in-universe, just kind of amusing.)
32 (Hive): Still amazing, both the writing and Jonny's performance. It's powerful, after so many episodes of Jon being cold and detached and hyper-skeptical, to hear how disturbing this statement is for him, and how weary it makes him. Admittedly we learn later there's more to this exhaustion than an emotional reaction, but still.
33 (Boatswain's Call): Hi Tim! I love that the first time we actually meet him, he's giving Jon crap. And Jon reacts defensively, what a surprise. (I suspect that Tim's first in anthropology from Trinity means he has better academic qualifications than Jon, and oh, how Jon knows it. Also Tim had a proper career before coming to the institute.) This scene is also a clever, fun way of dealing with errata. Grudgingly, I will say hello to Peter Lukas too; I'd forgotten, by the time we meet him in S4, that he had been mentioned here--I remembered it was a Lukas but not which one.
34 (Anatomy Class): OMG THIS EPISODE. SO CREEPY. And besides that, it manages to break my heart a little when Jon refers to Dr. Lionel Elliott as one of his "fellow academics." While in the same breath admitting that the Institute's reputation is such that some his fellow academics have amused themselves by coming in and making hoax statements. Jon wants so badly to be a Real Scholar, and he isn't and the Magnus Institute is not the way to become one, and as an ex-academic myself, I feel for him. Not that I mistake Jon's reasons for noble ones--he wants prestige, he wants people to finally recognize how fucking smart he is, he wants a title to impress people with--but, well, I was also the kid who was bullied for being too smart, and I'm also now in a job where people assume I'm not smart, so, yeah, I get it. *hugs him*
35 (Old Passages): This is a much more important episode than it seemed to be on first listening. The Leitner stuff is ultimately a red herring, as we know, but the room that Silvana and co. find, the one with the fourteen passages leading to it? One of which is really dark, and another of which gives Silvana vertigo just to look at it, and another feels like the walls are closing in, and another feels fleshy and another is full of spiderwebs and another has a scary stranger in it and another makes Silvana feel like he's burning? Yeah. We know (or at least we've been told) that Smirke's efforts to balance the various Fears didn't work and were maybe impossible on principle, but I also feel like all this emphasis on mystical architecture is going to have more payoff than just the Panopticon. I expect we'll revisit these tunnels in S5.
36 (Taken Ill): Ewwwwwwwwwwwww. Also, hello Trevor and Julia, you monster-hunting maniacs. And also also, I note that Uncle George seems to know more than he's telling about the Corruption. Perhaps we'll hear more from him.
