I've been revisiting old A Bit of Fry and Laurie episodes, so today,
I’m staying home for Stephen Fry.
Wrapping
Jodie Whittaker in Wired today. Overall,
I’d say this miniseries is pretty good rather than great, but I did enjoy
seeing how it all shook out in the end.
Louise
is caught between two unappealing prospects. Phillip and Manesh want her to
help see their scheme through till the end, which could land her in prison.
Crawford and the police want her to help secure the proof they need for their
investigation, which could have deadly consequences if Phillip and Manesh find
out. As the day of the big heist approaches, Louise has to decide whose side
she’s on and what she’s going to do.
This
finale is a little bit, “Holy plot twists, Batman!” For a three-part
miniseries, there’s a lot of story crammed into this thing, and the last
episode misses no opportunity to throw a curveball. Some of them are great,
some of them are “wait – what was
that?!”, and some of them feel like twist overload. Definitely keeps things
hopping, though, and I’d say the miniseries succeeds in making this bank fraud
thriller suspenseful to the end.
I
admittedly came away a little disappointed in the dynamic between Phillip and
Manesh. They’re both criminals, both opportunistic, and both dangerous when
crossed, but as we see more of them over the events of the series, Manesh is
portrayed as more dangerous than Phillip in a way that’s depicted as more
bloodthirsty. Phillip will sic his goons on Louise, show up creepily to
threaten her daughter, and throw in some hits himself if provoked enough, but
Manesh is pretty free with the knife-wielding and there’s a clear sense that
Louise is in worse trouble whenever she interacts with Manesh. Obviously,
there’s nothing inherently wrong with one criminal partner being more
threatening than the other, but the specific way Wired goes about strikes me as kind of racist in that the guy who
gets the most up close and personal with the violence is one of the few people
of color in the miniseries.
That
disappointment aside, I still like Louise, who manages to keep me guessing the
whole time. Stuck between Phillip-Manesh and Crawford, you can’t always tell
what side she’s playing for or why she’s choosing to do the things that she
does. She also takes her own initiative at times, going against what anyone
wants to instead do what’s best for herself. I liked that about her, that she’s
not fully a victim/patsy, not fully a hero, not fully a criminal. Her motives
are complicated, and so are her actions.
As
a bonus, this is the only episode where Louise and Ben are really in scenes
together, giving us a chance to see Whittaker act opposite Sacha Dhawan a good
decade before either of them showed up on Doctor
Who. I always love onscreen Who
reunions, and sometimes the retroactive ones are just as good!
Wrapping
up Wired:
Accent Watch
London
– pretty good, but you can hear a few Northerny notes at different points.
Recommend?
In
General – A cautious
yes. It’s not as good as I would like, given the excellent cast, but it’s
interesting and offers some nice surprises.
Jodie
Whittaker – I would.
This is a nice, meaty role for Whittaker to play, and she shines in it.
Warnings
Violence,
sexual content, language, drinking/smoking, thematic elements, and what reads
to me as a racially-insensitive characterization.
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