Jonathan Creek s2 ep3: The Scented Room
Aug. 24th, 2013 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cloudsinveniceThis week the writing mojo has not been with me, and since I'm currently encumbered by stomach pain, it comes without imagery. But teylaminh, as ever, brings screencapping flair (much needed in a fandom whose heyday predated the DVD era) in her recap: http://teylaminh.dreamwidth.org/3189572.html
The Scented Room starts gently enough. We see some children on a school trip, then a Harry Potterish little boy leafing through a beautiful pop-up book before replacing it on a dresser loaded with toys, some of which are still in their original packaging and appear untouched. (The dresser, by the way, is identical to the Belgian one that my dad's family lugged back from the Continent in the early part of the 20th century; I am always very WTF at seeing that thing on TV when this episode comes on.) He lives in a stately home - the same one the schoolchildren are visiting, there to be bored senseless by a guide who imagines that they'll be familiar with the illustrious scion of the house, a famed Times theatre critic.
A scene change that brings us to Bob Monkhouse's calves, which are being paddled enthusiastically by a masseuse. Apparently he is the critic in question, because he's talking wearily to a dictaphone about some awful play ("It merely confirms my long-held belief that quality theatre is too precious to be wasted on audiences.") Now, if there's one thing we know about critics in drama, it is that their demise is certain and brutal. Therefore, we will spend the rest of this man's time alive waiting for it to cease, and David Renwick knows this, because Sylvester Le Fley has more false alarms in the next few minutes than a smoke detector in a hospital doorway (and indeed, never actually dies). Meanwhile, Harry Potter is still wandering about being cute, asking his mummy if he can have a treehouse (a request that will later be fulfilled in the form of a portacabin with a lift: I had no idea there was a Brutalist school of treehouse design, but that's what you get with parents who can buy their son anything but their time and love), and being brushed off as she very deliberately prepares a sandwich with nettle and pepper for her husband, the critic. Cue screams, masseuse falling into the pool, etc.
The house turns out to be called Cicada Park. You never hear about cicadas here; I thought they were just an American thing. Idk. Anyway, the tour guide takes a small group of schoolgirls into a room, which is then locked for insurance reasons (at this point we are being hit over the head with the fact it's a locked room mystery) while she waffles a bit. The painting - an El Greco - is a bit ugly, but in a pedestrian way, rather than the horrors this show inflicted on us back in the very first episode when it decided to send up modern art. Were it not ridiculously valuable, you wouldn't expect anyone to want to steal it. But sure enough, in the time between the guide turning to leave with the first group of girls, and bringing the second group in, someone manages to cut the El Greco from its frame. Police are called, people run around yelling, and Le Fley gets beaned over the head with a heavy object, but lives. For now. Meanwhile, Harry Potter watches the commotion wearing a small, gentle smile and (to my perhaps overly suspicious mind) the air of a child psychopath whose designs are finally coming to fruition.
Cut to a park, where it's pissing down and a drenched Jonathan Creek is supervising his employer, Adam Klaus, in a David Blaine-like endurance feat: Adam is sealed in a coffin which will be lowered into a grave, to be filled by a waiting JCB. This being a Renwick show, an old lady comes by and attacks them because... she thinks they're grave robbers? I actually have no idea. Inevitably, Jonathan falls into the open grave at one point. After police have been called, the would-be avenger mollified and order restored, we join Jonathan, who's drying off in a comfortably appointed caravan overlooking the scene. Adam's there too, which suggests he's missed an essential detail about feats of endurance. You half want him to be exposed, but then, David Blaine and his stunts always rubbed me the wrong way... in any case, our two stories join up because Jonathan is crowing over the theft of the painting: Adam is one of a long line of entertainers to have been poorly reviewed by Sylvester Le Fley. Of course he is.
Maddy? Well, Maddy's in therapy, being asked if she's had any more erotic dreams about "you know who". She describes a dream of Olympian sexploits which, for some reason, took place onstage at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The audience were booing her and her (I note, still unnamed - apparently they're not going to bait and switch us with "actually, she's dreaming about George Clooney, not Jonathan" after all) partner and crying, "Bring back the juggler!" We never do learn any more, because at this moment a policeman bursts in to arrest the psychoanalyst, who is in fact not a psychoanalyst at all, but the sufferer of some sort of acting-out delusion that allows her to fulfil her need to hear others' sexual confessions. Having followed Maddy's love life for the past season-and-a-half, this would seem an only slightly above-the-mundane incident, but what tips the scene into surreal genius is that the three are now interrupted by a second therapist: "I'm very sorry; he believes he's a police officer. Whereas you actually work for the North Thames Gas Board, Mr. Gregson, remember?"
Maddy's unsettling therapy session raises the matter of a ghost from her past having returned, at which point I am on tenterhooks because the whole mother business from an earlier episode hasn't been referenced since. At a meeting with Jonathan and her publisher, Maddy mentions that she's planning something which will be good for her with regard to the ghost thing, but we get swept up when she offers to take Jonathan for a posh lunch - to Cicada Park, where she and Jonathan seem to have been expected. What, Maddy railroading Jonathan into an investigation? Never! And it's utterly coincidental that there's a £50,000 reward for any lead resulting in the painting's return...
By now, Mrs. le Fley has revealed herself as utterly obnoxious, and Jonathan's nursing an epic grudge against her husband. Which is why, having figured out the answer to the riddle in about five minutes flat, he announces that he's not going to tell them. Nor is he going to share the answer with Maddy, and this interesting in more ways than just "Jonathan's being a smug git; can't entirely blame him for wanting to get one over on a critic who eviscerated his show". We've previously noted that Jonathan seems to come from a moneyed background, and after the success of her original book, Maddy presumably isn't hurting for money either. But they're still both in fairly precarious jobs, and if the show were made/set now, I suspect that holding out for the sheer joy of winding Le Fley up just wouldn't happen - and it'd become a huge bone of contention between Jonathan and Maddy. Of all the things you expect to date shows - car models, fashions, people not being constantly glued to smartphones - it's funny to see the things that actually do in a post-recession world.
Oh, and it turns out (have we seen this before? I feel like I'd remember, but then I frequently get up and then forget what I was going to do...) Adam has a pet tiger. A cuddly-wuddly tiger! And we see him petting it and it has great big giant paws and TIGER! I'm sorry, but coherence is just not possible in the face of Adam's supremely ill-judged but adorable pet. Hilariously, we also learn that Adam is to be presented to the Queen and receive an MBE for services to entertainment/theatre/whatever, whereupon he'll be performing at Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, this turns out to be the perfect leverage for the Le Fleys to force Jonathan to divulge the mystery of the painting...
...while Maddy's publisher divulges the mystery of Maddy to a snooping Jonathan, who's got curious (jealous?) after seeing a name, Gordon Hill, written in her diary: "You never knew her father. Neither did she. Her mother was a wreck, lived on her nerves..." A false shoplifting allegation led to Mrs. Magellan's suicide (a reveal for which I could actually have done without Renwick's trademark quirky detail: she was accused of stealing bacon). Maddy, aged seventeen, was the one to find her. She ran away after that, and has been trying and failing to put it all behind her ever since. But the name 'Gordon Hill' in her diary actually refers to the street where she once lived, which is being demolished: and Maddy's decided to be there to see it happen. Jonathan arrives to distract her at an opportune moment (the hoped-for catharsis of seeing her old house demolished, Maddy tells her therapist, turns out to be "absolute bollocks"), which I think is the most touching moment between them in the series up to this point. It's only too bad that it doesn't last - they end the show talking over each other about completely different subjects, something Jonathan only notices when Maddy flings (plot-relevant) talcum powder in his face.
Oh well. The fandom basically doubles as the Doomed Shippers of Jonathan and Maddy Support Group at this point, amirite?
teylaminh, as ever, brings screencapping flair (much needed in a fandom whose heyday predated the DVD era) in her recap: http://teylaminh.dreamwidth.org/3189572.htmlThe Scented Room starts gently enough. We see some children on a school trip, then a Harry Potterish little boy leafing through a beautiful pop-up book before replacing it on a dresser loaded with toys, some of which are still in their original packaging and appear untouched. (The dresser, by the way, is identical to the Belgian one that my dad's family lugged back from the Continent in the early part of the 20th century; I am always very WTF at seeing that thing on TV when this episode comes on.) He lives in a stately home - the same one the schoolchildren are visiting, there to be bored senseless by a guide who imagines that they'll be familiar with the illustrious scion of the house, a famed Times theatre critic.
A scene change that brings us to Bob Monkhouse's calves, which are being paddled enthusiastically by a masseuse. Apparently he is the critic in question, because he's talking wearily to a dictaphone about some awful play ("It merely confirms my long-held belief that quality theatre is too precious to be wasted on audiences.") Now, if there's one thing we know about critics in drama, it is that their demise is certain and brutal. Therefore, we will spend the rest of this man's time alive waiting for it to cease, and David Renwick knows this, because Sylvester Le Fley has more false alarms in the next few minutes than a smoke detector in a hospital doorway (and indeed, never actually dies). Meanwhile, Harry Potter is still wandering about being cute, asking his mummy if he can have a treehouse (a request that will later be fulfilled in the form of a portacabin with a lift: I had no idea there was a Brutalist school of treehouse design, but that's what you get with parents who can buy their son anything but their time and love), and being brushed off as she very deliberately prepares a sandwich with nettle and pepper for her husband, the critic. Cue screams, masseuse falling into the pool, etc.
The house turns out to be called Cicada Park. You never hear about cicadas here; I thought they were just an American thing. Idk. Anyway, the tour guide takes a small group of schoolgirls into a room, which is then locked for insurance reasons (at this point we are being hit over the head with the fact it's a locked room mystery) while she waffles a bit. The painting - an El Greco - is a bit ugly, but in a pedestrian way, rather than the horrors this show inflicted on us back in the very first episode when it decided to send up modern art. Were it not ridiculously valuable, you wouldn't expect anyone to want to steal it. But sure enough, in the time between the guide turning to leave with the first group of girls, and bringing the second group in, someone manages to cut the El Greco from its frame. Police are called, people run around yelling, and Le Fley gets beaned over the head with a heavy object, but lives. For now. Meanwhile, Harry Potter watches the commotion wearing a small, gentle smile and (to my perhaps overly suspicious mind) the air of a child psychopath whose designs are finally coming to fruition.
Cut to a park, where it's pissing down and a drenched Jonathan Creek is supervising his employer, Adam Klaus, in a David Blaine-like endurance feat: Adam is sealed in a coffin which will be lowered into a grave, to be filled by a waiting JCB. This being a Renwick show, an old lady comes by and attacks them because... she thinks they're grave robbers? I actually have no idea. Inevitably, Jonathan falls into the open grave at one point. After police have been called, the would-be avenger mollified and order restored, we join Jonathan, who's drying off in a comfortably appointed caravan overlooking the scene. Adam's there too, which suggests he's missed an essential detail about feats of endurance. You half want him to be exposed, but then, David Blaine and his stunts always rubbed me the wrong way... in any case, our two stories join up because Jonathan is crowing over the theft of the painting: Adam is one of a long line of entertainers to have been poorly reviewed by Sylvester Le Fley. Of course he is.
Maddy? Well, Maddy's in therapy, being asked if she's had any more erotic dreams about "you know who". She describes a dream of Olympian sexploits which, for some reason, took place onstage at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The audience were booing her and her (I note, still unnamed - apparently they're not going to bait and switch us with "actually, she's dreaming about George Clooney, not Jonathan" after all) partner and crying, "Bring back the juggler!" We never do learn any more, because at this moment a policeman bursts in to arrest the psychoanalyst, who is in fact not a psychoanalyst at all, but the sufferer of some sort of acting-out delusion that allows her to fulfil her need to hear others' sexual confessions. Having followed Maddy's love life for the past season-and-a-half, this would seem an only slightly above-the-mundane incident, but what tips the scene into surreal genius is that the three are now interrupted by a second therapist: "I'm very sorry; he believes he's a police officer. Whereas you actually work for the North Thames Gas Board, Mr. Gregson, remember?"
Maddy's unsettling therapy session raises the matter of a ghost from her past having returned, at which point I am on tenterhooks because the whole mother business from an earlier episode hasn't been referenced since. At a meeting with Jonathan and her publisher, Maddy mentions that she's planning something which will be good for her with regard to the ghost thing, but we get swept up when she offers to take Jonathan for a posh lunch - to Cicada Park, where she and Jonathan seem to have been expected. What, Maddy railroading Jonathan into an investigation? Never! And it's utterly coincidental that there's a £50,000 reward for any lead resulting in the painting's return...
By now, Mrs. le Fley has revealed herself as utterly obnoxious, and Jonathan's nursing an epic grudge against her husband. Which is why, having figured out the answer to the riddle in about five minutes flat, he announces that he's not going to tell them. Nor is he going to share the answer with Maddy, and this interesting in more ways than just "Jonathan's being a smug git; can't entirely blame him for wanting to get one over on a critic who eviscerated his show". We've previously noted that Jonathan seems to come from a moneyed background, and after the success of her original book, Maddy presumably isn't hurting for money either. But they're still both in fairly precarious jobs, and if the show were made/set now, I suspect that holding out for the sheer joy of winding Le Fley up just wouldn't happen - and it'd become a huge bone of contention between Jonathan and Maddy. Of all the things you expect to date shows - car models, fashions, people not being constantly glued to smartphones - it's funny to see the things that actually do in a post-recession world.
Oh, and it turns out (have we seen this before? I feel like I'd remember, but then I frequently get up and then forget what I was going to do...) Adam has a pet tiger. A cuddly-wuddly tiger! And we see him petting it and it has great big giant paws and TIGER! I'm sorry, but coherence is just not possible in the face of Adam's supremely ill-judged but adorable pet. Hilariously, we also learn that Adam is to be presented to the Queen and receive an MBE for services to entertainment/theatre/whatever, whereupon he'll be performing at Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, this turns out to be the perfect leverage for the Le Fleys to force Jonathan to divulge the mystery of the painting...
...while Maddy's publisher divulges the mystery of Maddy to a snooping Jonathan, who's got curious (jealous?) after seeing a name, Gordon Hill, written in her diary: "You never knew her father. Neither did she. Her mother was a wreck, lived on her nerves..." A false shoplifting allegation led to Mrs. Magellan's suicide (a reveal for which I could actually have done without Renwick's trademark quirky detail: she was accused of stealing bacon). Maddy, aged seventeen, was the one to find her. She ran away after that, and has been trying and failing to put it all behind her ever since. But the name 'Gordon Hill' in her diary actually refers to the street where she once lived, which is being demolished: and Maddy's decided to be there to see it happen. Jonathan arrives to distract her at an opportune moment (the hoped-for catharsis of seeing her old house demolished, Maddy tells her therapist, turns out to be "absolute bollocks"), which I think is the most touching moment between them in the series up to this point. It's only too bad that it doesn't last - they end the show talking over each other about completely different subjects, something Jonathan only notices when Maddy flings (plot-relevant) talcum powder in his face.
Oh well. The fandom basically doubles as the Doomed Shippers of Jonathan and Maddy Support Group at this point, amirite?
