Joel Fry-days: Drunk History: UK: Series 3, Episode 4 – “Kerry Howard and Joe Lycett” (2017)

This is Joel Fry’s last episode of Drunk History: UK, and I think it’s my favorite. He has a good-sized role in his story, and this is the best narrator he’s had. Really fun!

Again, just two stories. We learn about “The Great Train Robbery” and “Beatrix Potter & Peter Rabbit.”

Joel Fry is in the first story this time around, so I’ll quickly cover the Beatrix Potter story and then come back around to his stuff. It’s narrated by Kerry Howard, who did the Queen Victoria story from his first episode. There’s no gross humor this time around, but I’m still not really a fan of her narration style. The way she does character voices and stuff, it feels like she’s trying too hard to be funny, and part of the beauty of Drunk History is the narrator not trying to be funny. There are a couple good bits in here. I like the note that Peter is Beatrix’s favorite rabbit in her garden to draw because “the guy…the guy’s like Kate Moss. He knows how to pose.” And when Beatrix is trying to publish a paper she wrote on mycology, I’m amused by the sexist gatekeeper shooing her out of his office, saying, “Get, woman! Get! Get out of the science box.”

When I heard “The Great Train Robbery,” I assumed it was going to be about the famous silent film from the early 1900s. So color me surprised when our setting was “the swinging ‘60s”—I didn’t realize there was a real English train robbery with the same name (which I assume it got because of the film.) This story is narrated by Joe Lycett, who I think is the best narrator within these three episodes. His delivery is really fun, veering from ultra laidback to sudden bursts of energy where he just shouts out of nowhere. I especially love this line, from the police officer called to the scene: “They’re within thirty minutes of this location. Scour! I have foiled their plan, those fucking pricks. ‘Cause I’m a clever cat. Meow!” Ha!

Joel Fry plays Gordon Goody, a thief/hairdresser and one of the masterminds behind the robbery. He approaches Bruce Reynolds with the initial idea, and they assemble a crew to pull it off. He’s terrific throughout the reenactment—he follows the varying pitch of Lycett’s delivery throughout, cranking the intensity up or down on a dime as needed. Note: Lycett doesn’t always say who’s speaking with his dialogue, so as I talk about my favorite parts, I’ll put Gordon/Fry’s bits in bold:

One thing I always love on Drunk History is when the cast lipsync the drunken narrator’s verbal slips, and we get some fun instances of that here, like as Gordon cuts Bruce’s hair while they conceive the robbery. “Bruce says, ‘Literally all I can afford is this haircut, so I’m really hoping this is a good haircut, Gordon.’ And Gordon’s like, ‘Don’t worry about it, I’m very good at women’s hair—men’s hair.’ ‘What’d you say?’ ‘...Men’s hair.’” I get a kick out of Fry’s facial expressions as Gordon realizes the slip and emphatically corrects it.

And this exchange in the middle of the robbery is just hilarious. I love everything about it—the dry delivery of the absurd dialogue, Fry perfectly lipsyncing along as Lycett stumbles over his words, and the impeccable “you have got to be shitting” me facial expressions/body language:

“‘I can’t drive this train. The trains I’ve driven have been slightly different in the—kind of, in the buttons and stuff.’ And they go, ‘Well, it says go or stop.’ And he’s like, ‘I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know which one to press on that one.’ ‘Peter, surely, if you—if you’re—if you really think about it, probably go is the one.’ ‘Yeah, I mean that’s what they want you to think!’”

Oh my god, it’s so funny! The whole exchange plays out fantastically, with the perfect cap of Lycett finally announcing, “They press go, they’re going. Thank fuck for that.”

Side note: it’s interesting that Joel Fry plays white historical figures in all three of his episodes on the show. Drunk History has never shied away from racebent casting where appropriate—the first episode I watched of the main show featured John Cho as William Shakespeare!—but given that Fry made multiple appearances, it feels a little surprising that he didn’t play a Black person at least once. I wonder if the UK version of the show didn’t have as many stories about BIPOC historical figures.

All right, that’s it on Drunk History: UK! Final thoughts:

Accent Watch

Not applicable—he’s lipsyncing other people’s words.

Recommend?

In General – Slightly complicated question. The pilot is pretty yikes, but the two season 3 episodes I watched are great! I don’t know if it’s just the first episode that’s bad, or it took them a while to settle into things. Maybe start from the end and work your way backwards so you can stop if it gets awful?

Joel Fry – I would! Fry does a great job with the format, and his performances here are always funny.

Warnings

Smoking/heavy drinking, language, sexual content/references, strong thematic elements (including jokes about nonconsensual sex in the pilot,) violence, and strong gross-out humor in the pilot.

Y tu Luna también: Narcos: Mexico: Season 2, Episode 10 – “Free Trade” (2020)

*Episode premise spoilers, which spoils the end of episode 9.*

Season finale! This is the big one. Personally, if I’m picking favorite Diego Luna episodes, I’m going to go with one of the ones featuring Félix’s desperate dig-deep moments, but that’s as much my personal preference as anything. Luna is damn good in this episode, and he makes every moment count.

With Amado’s help, Félix was able to successfully bring in the 70-ton shipment in the previous episode, baiting the DEA with a massive bust only to turn the tables on them. Now that he’s pulled off such a power move, he’s done playing nice with anyone. Cali, Guerra, the plaza bosses—Félix is making it clear that he calls the shots, and anyone who doesn’t like that will deal with the consequences. A far cry from his federation days.

First of all, Our Flag Means Death fan that I am, I have to highlight Nat Faxon making a guest appearance in the stateside storyline with Walt, as a government type who’s eager to rubberstamp the DEA’s partial wins and move on. This character appeared in an earlier episode of the season, but I couldn’t place him then. Seeing him again in the finale, it suddenly hit me and I yelled, “Swede!” out loud.

This episode is full of great scenes and awesome moments, top-quality gangster shit. There’s a wild bust at the start of the episode, Chapo unknowingly kicking a hornet’s nest, and a devastating betrayal.

And rightfully so, most of the episode is centered squarely on Félix. The best scenes are devoted to his face-offs with various characters, including Pacho, María Elvira, and the plaza bosses. For I think the first time in the series, he’s able to leave a meeting with Cali with a swagger in his step. He’s all too aware that they planned on him losing their coke and using that as license to destroy him, but he neatly and ruthlessly sidestepped that grenade. Meeting with Pacho this time around, Félix has the upper hand and he knows it. “And your partners, have you talked this through?” Pacho asks when Félix is finally in a position to demand what he’s been after. Félix steadily replies, “I don’t have partners. I have employees.” There’s no frantic recalculating, no struggling to save face—Félix has all the power in this room.

But as has been true with Félix throughout the show, that power doesn’t come for free. The more he flexes his authority, the deeper the fallout. He indulges in revenge and throws his weight around in brutal ways, but it leads him to a tipping point.

Luna is excellent from start to finish, but I want to highlight a one-on-one scene he shares with Scoot McNairy. As with Kiki last season, Félix is really only in one significant scene with Walt, and it’s a doozy. It places them in a scenario where Walt should have all the power and approaches it as such, but Félix proves coldly impervious to everything he tries. We see it right from the start of their conversation, when Walt asks, “Do you know who I am?” and Félix replies, “No, not a fucking idea. But with that fucking accent, I’m sure I could guess.”

This scene is scary good, and I mean “scary” in more ways than one. You get a sense that this is a Félix who’s completely dropped his mask. Luna’s performance is quiet but chilling, and it’s fascinating to watch him toy with Walt.

The finale marks a turning point in the show. Much like the original Narcos pivots from Pablo to Cali in season 3, Narcos: Mexico changes direction going forward. Luna does appear in one episode of the third season, though, so I’ll save my final thoughts on the show until next time.

Other Doctor Lives: Elizabeth (1998, R)

I’ve seen this film before, but I’m revisiting it now for my Christopher Eccleston agenda. I’m not sure what it is—I’ve enjoyed my Other Doctor Lives forays into all the Doctors, including my pregame watches for Peter Capaldi and beyond—but for some reason, I get an extra little bit of joy seeing Eccleston be awesome in other projects.

After the death of King Henry VIII (and his son Edward VI,) his daughter Mary I becomes queen. As Mary’s health begins to fail, the Catholic queen’s abiding fear is that her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth will succeed her. When that’s exactly what happens, Catholic allies at court conspire against Elizabeth, dogging the young new queen’s every move. In order to make her mark on the throne, Elizabeth has to let all other desires be subsumed by it.

I am not up on my English monarchs, a fact I’ve admitted on multiple occasions, so I didn’t come to this film armed with the knowledge of how accurate it is. After I saw it for the first time, I looked up enough to confirm “not very.” So, with the understanding that it captures the overall feel and atmosphere of that era in England, and that it’s correct in the broad beats of Elizabeth’s early reign but takes a lot of license with the details, I enjoyed it as a movie if not as a history lesson.

When Elizabeth arrives at court, there are a few factors working against her. Again, she’s Protestant, which a lot of people virulently hate. Under Mary’s rule, Protestants were burned at the stake, and now the bishops are meant to accept a Protestant queen? She’s a woman, which is of course a problem for a lot of the men at court, and she’s unmarried, which makes it even worse in their eyes. Those who aren’t actively plotting to kill her are eager to marry her off as soon as possible—to gain a political alliance, to have a husband provide a tempering influence on Elizabeth, and to get her to pop out heirs and shore up the line of succession. And she doesn’t respect The Way Things Are Done. Aside from not placidly going along with her advisors’ marriage plans, she seeks the opinions of men who aren’t on her council, and she spends a great deal of time at court with her friend and lover, Robert Dudley. (Side note: reminder that I’m talking specifically about the film and not history, where Dudley’s precise relationship with Elizabeth isn’t known.)

Cate Blanchett earned her first Oscar nomination for this film, and it’s easy to see why. Elizabeth is thrown into an impossible situation that she’s ill-equipped for, and she handles it the best she can—sometimes hanging on for dear life, sometimes raging against the positions others put her in, sometimes clawing back her agency from everyone around her. She’s often unsure of her choices but plows ahead anyway, and it’s great to see the moments where she takes command and puts these tired men in their place. Additionally, there’s a real warmth and openness to Elizabeth for large parts of the film. Over the years, I feel like kind of an icy persona has built up around Blanchett and the characters she plays, and it’s good to see her playing something very different to that.

Joseph Fiennes plays Robert Dudley. This is actually one of two Elizabethan period pieces from 1998 in which he played the romantic lead, the other being Shakespeare in Love. While I prefer Fiennes in that film, he gets the job done well. The film also features appearances from James Frain, Kelly Macdonald, Emily Mortimer (seeing Bright Young Things alum in anything always makes me happy,) and Daniel Craig. Everyone is looking so young and lovely. Less happily, we also get Geoffrey Rush as Sir Francis Walsingham, one of Elizabeth’s few allies at court, and a ruthless one at that.

As for Eccleston, he has a prominent role here as the Duke of Norfolk, a prominent member of court and one of the chief forces opposing Elizabeth. He’s a shrewd character, openly showing allegiance in public while plotting in secret. The duke wants to keep Elizabeth under control until he’s able to get rid of her, and he’s not especially picky about how he might manage to do that.

Eccleston does a great job. The duke is intense and commanding, but in an understated way. He’s a very controlled man, and you can believe that Elizabeth might mistrust him but feel aggrieved that she has no concrete evidence as to why she does. He stays above reproach, keeping his voice level while his resentment seethes behind his eyes.

Accent Watch

RP. Again, very controlled, very “proper.”

Recommend?

In General – I would, provided you’re looking for entertainment and not a history lesson. This is a well-made film in which all elements work together to put forth the story it wants to tell.

Christopher Eccleston – Yes. Eccleston is excellent as the duke. It’s interesting to see how many darker characters have popped up for him on Other Doctor Lives. Nine was certainly edgier than most Doctors, but he’s also a character who radiates compassion and love. Seeing some of his past roles, it makes me all the more grateful that RTD looked at him and realized he could be an amazing Doctor.

Warnings

Violence (including religious executions,) sexual content, language (including sexist slurs,) drinking, and strong thematic elements.