I do enjoy a good penultimate episode, and this one is pretty intense. It centers around a major call the watch is responding to, and as the characters face the danger, the issues that have grown between them are brought into greater perspective.
Kev isn’t in a good place with multiple people on the watch, due to personal conflicts that have boiled over in recent episodes. But when they’re called to the site of a multiple-car collision involving a tanker that’s leaking flammable material, Kev and the rest of the watch need to have one another’s backs and trust each other absolutely. As they desperately try to assist the injured before the tanker ignites, they’re also deathly aware that they’re in a tunnel and hundreds of motorists are caught in the backed-up traffic behind them – including Trish.
Obviously, this is a tension-filled episode. The watch has to deal with multiple ticking time bombs at once – severely-injured drivers from the accident, the leaking tanker, updates over the two-way radios on the evacuation of other motorists in the tunnel, even the overhead fans whose air circulation will feed the impending flames – and it requires everyone to be at the top of their game. While Kev and the other more prominent characters get the showiest (and foolhardiest?) displays of heroics, each firefighter on the watch is shown to play a critical role in the crisis.
I also like seeing occasional scenes back at the fire station, where other staff are listening to the chaos over the radios. Throughout the miniseries, the fire station has been portrayed as a comfy, familiar place, a space where the firefighters eat, joke, and unwind between calls, so it’s interesting to watch the support staff listen to these messages of their coworkers in danger, feeling powerless to help (I like one man leaping up and heading into the kitchen intent on making bouillabaisse, because all he can do is make them something sumptuous for when they eventually, hopefully, all return.)
Meanwhile, Trish is caught adjacent to the main action. Her situation for being there in the first place is an odd one, as she’s with people who mean a great deal to her but whom she doesn’t know very well (I won’t get into the specifics to avoid spoilers.) As such, it’s awkward and difficult, and even what seems initially to be a minor traffic delay increases the discomfort within the car. But as the situation intensifies and the danger grows, she’s bent on following Kev’s safety recommendations to the letter but feels unable to protect the people she’s with when her advice is crowded out.
I think Jodie Whittaker does a nice job here as an ordinary person thrust into an extraordinary crisis. Her personal relationships with firefighters give her a slight leg up on knowing what to do, but that doesn’t make it any easier to handle mentally or emotionally, and she wrestles not to fall apart in the face of what they’re up against. But I think in terms of acting, my favorite scenes for Trish actually come before the crisis, when she’s in the car trying to connect with these people. The go-to description that, for me, has often come to mind with this character is “self-possessed,” but in this circumstance, she’s really at a loss. Whittaker captures how much it means to Trish to get these relationships right while simultaneously fearing that she’s completely blowing it. It’s a very relatable kind of awkward, and she nails it.
One episode to go! Conclusion next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment