Joel Fry-days: Drunk History: UK: Series 3, Episode 2 – “Murr and Jessica Knappett & Lydia Rose Bewley” (2017)

Okay, so this isn’t a full White Van Man situation where the pilot is “meh” and the second episode is fantastic, but this is a big improvement over episode 1. Although this one has a much smaller role for Joel Fry, it doesn’t have the same gross humor as the pilot, which is a relief.

Although, before I get started, a short airing of grievances: while there were other things I wanted to watch, like Fellow Travelers and the new Dexter shows, Joel Fry’s three episodes of Drunk History: UK were my primary reason for subscribing to Paramount+. After watching the pilot, I discovered that Paramount+ was missing two episodes of this series, one of which was this one. “Streaming rights issues,” apparently. Why would two episodes have different streaming rights than the rest of the show? No idea. Either way, I had to find this episode through alternate means, at which point I was so aggravated that I promptly decided to cancel my subscription, limiting myself to watching whatever I could fit in before my billing cycle ended. I don’t why, but tech issues make me so irrationally angry—I had to express my frustration in whatever limited way I could. Arghhhhhh!!!

Anyway…just two stories this time around. We learn about “John Tunstall & Billy the Kid” and “Elizabeth I & Mary Queen of Scots.”

James “Murr” Murray narrates the Billy the Kid story, telling us how he was hired to be the personal protection for shopkeeper John Tunstall and fought the local “cartel” throwing their weight around. There are amusing references to The Bodyguard, with Billy the Kid promising Tunstall, “I’m gonna be the best Kevin Costner you’ve ever had.” A lot of the humor in this drunken retelling comes from the American Murr’s difficulty with accents. Tunstall was British, and the story involves him feuding with a few Irish characters. Murr regularly starts their dialogue with an easy stock line to get him started—“Me Lucky Charms” for the Irishmen and “Pip, pip, cheerio!” for Tunstall—and he keeps up a running commentary on his accent struggles:

• “‘Hey!’ I can’t do an Irish accent. ‘Hey, mon!’ No, that’s Jamaican. Hold on, hold on….”
• “‘This is fucking nuts, man!’ It sounds Mexican, but it’s not.”

Jessica Knappett and Lydia Rose Bewley narrate the story of the two queens, which is where we see Joel Fry. I don’t think their tag team is as much fun as Murr’s—their narration is kind of mumbly, and they talk over each other a fair amount. But there’s still some fun stuff here. I like the observation that it was “a pretty frickin’ fit thing” for Elizabeth to be a virgin back in those days, and I chuckled at one of the narrators declaring Elizabeth was “a bloody prozzy, by which I mean Protestant!”

Joel Fry plays Gilbert Gifford, a honeypot who’s sent in by Elizabeth’s right-hand man to get incriminating evidence of Mary’s plans to overthrow her. He doesn’t appear until the tail end of the story, but this is very fun. Right from the start, he slides into Mary’s cell, proudly declaring, “Gilbert Gifforrrrrd!” with a double thumbs-up, hee! I get a kick out of how transparently Fry’s body language telegraphs that he’s a double agent. Gilbert segues straight from Mary complimenting his calves to stroking his beard as he asks, “But anyway, don’t you think you should be queen, though, Mary?”, and he turns to flash a grin at the camera while he’s getting the evidence he needs. I also really like how gingerly he sets Elizabeth’s inkwell on her desk so she can sign a decree.

As with the first episode, Fry’s talents lend themselves well to this kind of work. Even with only a few minutes of screentime, he delivers comedy, character, and plot movement with his lipsynced performance.

Y tu Luna también: Narcos: Mexico: Season 2, Episode 9 – “Growth, Prosperity, and Liberation” (2020)

*Episode premise spoilers.*

Penultimate episode time! All kinds of big stuff going down in this one.

The big day has arrived. Félix’s operation needs to go collect 70 tons of cocaine from Colombia and traffic it to the U.S., knowing full well that the Colombians will show no mercy if anything goes wrong. Speaking of which, Walt’s team knows about the shipment and decides that it’s the ideal time to strike—the prospect of catching the cartel with that much coke is mind-boggling.

The stakes are super high on all sides, so most of the episode is an all-but-literal countdown to the big clash. Will the DEA catch their white whale? Will Félix, Amado, and co. stay one step ahead? What will Calderoni, the DEA’s inside man, do to affect the outcome? The tension builds and builds until we reach the brutal climax.

Lots of interesting stuff for Félix today. As the big boss, he’s out of the direct line of fire while everything’s going down, but even if he’s not under the immediate threat of physical danger like some of his some of his men are, the mental weight of the whole operation is hanging heavily on them. Not only is he well aware of what Cali will do to him if he can’t pull this off, he’s staking everything on the success of this shipment. Even if the Colombians backed him into a corner to agree to it, he now needs to bring it home for his own sake, the ultimate power play.

As he does all this, Félix has also been trying to get closer with his ex-wife, María Elvira. He’s feeling nostalgic for the past, perhaps because he knows he’s dead if he fails, and maybe he’s trying to mend fences before it’s too late. The dynamic between them is interesting, because María Elvira knows exactly who Félix is and calls him out on his shit, even as she also starting to get pulled back in herself. Félix brings up his past transgressions, saying, “I haven’t forgotten what I did to you,” and she simply replies, “Neither have I.” He looks toward the future, pinning all his prospects on the success of the shipment, and says, “I’m almost there.” In response, she asks, “Where is ‘there’? And what happens when you arrive?”

As another bit of nostalgia, the episode opens on a flashback to the old days, before the series even started. We look back on a scene when Félix was still a cop, when life at home with his family was simple and Rafa was out in the greenhouse experimenting with sinsemilla. It’s wild to see Félix like this, and Diego Luna does a great job with it—his entire bearing is different.

It’s in stark contrast with his present, where he’s trying to convince María Elvira to give it another go while simultaneously having a harder grip on the cartel than ever before. When his judgement is questioned, he puts it plainly: “That’s right. You all rose with me. Without me, everyone is fucked.” We’ve watched Félix’s transformation so gradually over the course of the two seasons that it’s almost shocking to go back and see how he used to be. For Luna to play both radically different versions of the same character in a single episode is so effective.

Other Doctor Lives: The Forgiven (2021, R)

*Premise spoilers.*

Kind of an odd movie. I can see what they were doing with it, but it didn’t really move me.

While vacationing in Morocco, David and Jo get lost in the desert trying to find a friend’s swanky party. Driving through the dark, David accidentally hits and kills Driss, a teenage boy selling fossils. They arrive at their friend’s house, and while the party continues in a somewhat uneasy fashion, Driss’s father soon appears. He entreats David to accompany him back to his home as he lays his son to rest.

In movies, I think there are important distinctions between a character being “bad,” being unlikable, and being unpleasant. Plenty of morally bad characters are the type you love to hate, and plenty of unlikable characters are still entertaining or engrossing. Unpleasant characters, however, tend to give you a bad feeling when they’re onscreen. They’re not really engaging, and you don’t necessarily root for them to be better. The overwhelming reaction they evoke is, “Ugh, this guy/girl.”

Many of the characters in The Forgiven are unpleasant. And given the setup—a bunch of rich white people have a lavish, tone-deaf party in Morocco while the body of a dead Moroccan boy sits in the garage—they’re supposed to be terrible. David goes with Driss’s father because he basically has no other option, but he has zero self-awareness about the whole thing and actually gripes, “My, what a jolly weekend this has turned out to be.” While he’s away, the other guests dance, canoodle, do drugs, and debate which western country most deserves to be hated by Muslims (all while the Moroccan servants stand at the edge of the room waiting for instructions.) And it’s just unpleasant.

Plenty of strong actors in the cast. Ralph Fiennes fully commits to playing David, a boorish, bigoted alcoholic whose reckless indifference has thrust him into a situation he never could’ve imagined being in. Jessica Chastain’s Jo berates David for his callousness and bristles at his ignorant remarks, presenting herself in contrast to her openly distasteful husband. But she’s also very selfish in her way, and as the weekend wears on, we see more of that on display. I always like seeing Saïd Taghmaoui pop up in things—here, he plays Anouar, who comes along to help Driss’s father. As the main English speaker in the group, he’s chiefly in charge of wrangling David on the journey, and he’s David’s best bet for being able to recognize his traveling companions as full, living humans. The film also features appearances from Alex Jennings, who I always liked on The Crown, and Christopher Abbott, who I recognize best from Girls.

Matt Smith plays Richard Galloway. He’s the host of the party, along with his boyfriend Dally, and he relishes the chance to show off his fancy castle in the desert. He enjoys local delicacies and quotes the Quran during his toasts, the sort of posh white guy who’s gotten a bit too comfortable in the global south. He doesn’t automatically think he knows best—he relies a lot on his servant Hamid to help him gauge the temperature of a situation, especially when the dead boy’s father arrives—but there are definitely times when he’s overly familiar and makes his servants walk an uncomfortable line.

Richard seems to be one of the westerners who’s most genuinely disturbed by Driss’s death. He’s insistent about calling the police immediately, and he uses Driss’s name while other characters call him “the boy.” At the same time, he places a significant amount of his concern on whether this fatal car accident is going to ruin his party, and after David leaves, he basically orders Jo to enjoy herself. And although he fully suspects that David was drunk when hit Driss, Richard is also perfectly confident that he’ll avoid any legal consequences, because locking up rich white men for running over poor Moroccan boys Just Isn’t Done.

Smith is effective in the role, even if it isn’t very demanding. He finds what nuance there is to explore and digs into that.

Accent Watch

RP, super posh.

Recommend?

In General – I wouldn’t. Not that I’d explicitly call it a bad movie, but I didn’t enjoy watching it.

Matt Smith – A soft maybe. Smith does a good job here.

Warnings

Violence, language (including homophobic slurs,) drinking/smoking, and thematic elements.