BBC Little Women, Episode 2
Sep. 22nd, 2018 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerEpisode 2 of the recent BBC adaptation of Little Women is not quite as mind-bogglingly bad as episode 1, although possibly just because most of the badness is more of the same instead of a shock and a surprise.
Marmee continues to seem vaguely incompetent and overwhelmed when she is supposed to be basically a domestic goddess.
Amy is not quite as Evil as in episode 1 (on the other hand, it’s hard to match “burning your sister’s handwritten manuscript and then gloating about it while slinking toward her like a supervillainess”), but I think you will all be happy to learn that when the episode ends, she’s drawing a self-portrait: clearly already at work at the Dorian Grey portrait that will keep her sweet-faced and innocent even as she builds up a criminal empire.
Actually, the miniseries is clearly moving toward reforming Amy, and it’s actually made Laurie/Amy seem like a viable pairing - partly just by giving them more scenes together, although also through HEAVY FORESHADOWING like the scene where Amy is looking through Aunt March’s jewelry box, and finds Aunt March’s wedding ring, which slips through her hand and drops to the floor… and Laurie picks it up and gives it back.
Okay fine then. I see what you did there.
Just in case we still weren’t on board, they’ve also given Jo & Laurie zero chemistry: their bantering friendship here feels purely combative, like they don’t really like each other that muh. There’s one scene where Laurie kisses Jo (while Beth lies upstairs, possibly on her deathbed!), and Jo just kind of lies on the couch, totally unresponsive as he touches his mouth to hers, and it is the least sexy thing ever.
Given that total passionlessness, I’m not convinced they’re going to be able to sell Jo/Bhaer, at least in any romantic sense, because it seems like Jo is just not into guys or maybe not into sex at all. But Bhaer hasn’t shown up yet, so we’ll see.
The pacing is a little odd, but honestly this was probably inevitable with a three-episode series. Little Women could be neatly broken into two episodes, or four episodes - but three means that the break between the two halves of the story much inevitably fall in an odd place. Caswill chooses to put it at the end of episode 2, which means that the entirety of Good Wives is going to be crammed into one hour.
Marmee continues to seem vaguely incompetent and overwhelmed when she is supposed to be basically a domestic goddess.
Amy is not quite as Evil as in episode 1 (on the other hand, it’s hard to match “burning your sister’s handwritten manuscript and then gloating about it while slinking toward her like a supervillainess”), but I think you will all be happy to learn that when the episode ends, she’s drawing a self-portrait: clearly already at work at the Dorian Grey portrait that will keep her sweet-faced and innocent even as she builds up a criminal empire.
Actually, the miniseries is clearly moving toward reforming Amy, and it’s actually made Laurie/Amy seem like a viable pairing - partly just by giving them more scenes together, although also through HEAVY FORESHADOWING like the scene where Amy is looking through Aunt March’s jewelry box, and finds Aunt March’s wedding ring, which slips through her hand and drops to the floor… and Laurie picks it up and gives it back.
Okay fine then. I see what you did there.
Just in case we still weren’t on board, they’ve also given Jo & Laurie zero chemistry: their bantering friendship here feels purely combative, like they don’t really like each other that muh. There’s one scene where Laurie kisses Jo (while Beth lies upstairs, possibly on her deathbed!), and Jo just kind of lies on the couch, totally unresponsive as he touches his mouth to hers, and it is the least sexy thing ever.
Given that total passionlessness, I’m not convinced they’re going to be able to sell Jo/Bhaer, at least in any romantic sense, because it seems like Jo is just not into guys or maybe not into sex at all. But Bhaer hasn’t shown up yet, so we’ll see.
The pacing is a little odd, but honestly this was probably inevitable with a three-episode series. Little Women could be neatly broken into two episodes, or four episodes - but three means that the break between the two halves of the story much inevitably fall in an odd place. Caswill chooses to put it at the end of episode 2, which means that the entirety of Good Wives is going to be crammed into one hour.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-23 11:51 am (UTC)Actually, that may have been what I was thinking. Jo expresses it by shoving a cushion between them on the couch and gazing longingly at the door.