Other Doctor Lives: Twenty Twelve: Series 2, Episode 2 – “The Boycott: Part 2” (2012)

*Spoilers for episode 1*

Part two of the season premiere works for me somewhat better than part one. The humor doesn’t feel as unsporting, and it focuses more on the absurdity of how the commission attempts to handle the crisis.

Algeria has issued a deadline: if they don’t come to some satisfactory resolution with the commission before midnight, they’re pulling out of the Olympics. The commission has found an idea that they think might work, and Ian and Siobhan meet with a leader in the local Muslim community to see if they can salvage this situation.

Basically, there’s one building in the Olympic Park that already faces the correct direction, so the commission is hoping it can be retrofitted and turned into the new shared belief centre. This way, it’ll have the requirements needed to serve as a mosque without the construction of a separate facility for Muslim athletes, which would cause other religious groups to cry favoritism. But of course, nothing goes smoothly, and the waters are immediately muddied by complications. Shoutout to the poor architect who’s brought in to consult with them and confronted with an onslaught of nigh-impossible competing visions. As he nears the end of his rope, he introduces himself as, “Mike Whittaker, emergency architect. Laughing in the face of physics.”

Siobhan immediately makes things worse by inviting a PR person from the Church of England to their meeting with the Muslim leader, although it turns out her blithely indifferent approach applies to all faith groups, not just Muslims. At one point, she’s arguing on the phone with a representative from the Archbishop of Canterbury, and when Ian corrects her on where Canterbury actually is, she drawls, “Well, it doesn’t matter whether God’s in Sussex or Kent, you know? Get over it.” We also get some amusing bits from Graham consulting his pocket computer—he’s trying to educate the rest of the commission on minarets but accidentally looks up “minotaur” instead.

Here are my picks for top David Tennant narration lines of the episode:

• “As the crisis deepens, the Church of England has issued a statement urging the Olympic authorities not to favor any one single faith over any other during the Games, including faiths that are insisting on their own mosque.”
• Love this, when Siobhan brings her Church of England PR buddy to the meeting – “Despite the public commitment to a multi-faith 2012, the situation has suddenly become much more multi-faith than Ian had bargained for.”

Joel Fry-days: Game of Thrones: Season 5, Episode 7 – “The Gift” (2015)

*Spoilers from previous episodes*

*CW: rape*

After a bigger showing for Joel Fry last time, he’s back to his usual few minutes of screentime. This is kind of a “catchup” episode, checking in on a number of different plots. It’s not quite “1-2 scenes per plotline,” but we don’t spend too much time on anyone.

As Jon leaves with Tormund to meet with the wildlings, Sam stays behind at Castle Black, where he struggles to keep Gilly safe from other members of the Night’s Watch without Jon there to back him up. Now married to Ramsay, Sansa is in a desperate situation and begs Theon to help her. Tyrion and Ser Jorah were captured by slavers in the previous episode, but there may still be a way for them to make their way to Daenerys: competing in the newly reopened fighting pits. In King’s Landing, the Sparrows have imprisoned Loras and Margaery, and both Lady Olenna and Cersei come to the sept to meet with the High Sparrow about it. Jaime and Bron’s rescue mission in Dorne isn’t going great.

• When I realized this was the “Sansa back at Winterfell” season, I wondered whether Joel Fry’s episodes included her horrific wedding night with Ramsay. Fortunately, we skipped over that one, but this episode has two Crows trying to rape Gilly. Afterwards, Sam and Gilly unironically recreate the circumstances that Shae found so unbelievable about the story of Tyrion’s first wife back in season 1.
• Even just hearing about Sansa’s circumstances, without having to see them onscreen, is horrible—“But he hurts me every night. All day, I’m locked in this room, and every night, he comes.”
• Lady Olenna is always a welcome sight. I enjoy her faceoff with the High Sparrow, and she has a good scene with Littlefinger too. I love her telling Littlefinger, “If I should meet with some accident here, at your broken little flesh market, they’ll never even find what’s left of you.”
• This episode marks the first appearance of Hannah Waddingham’s Septa Unella a.k.a. the Shame Nun. But even more a.k.a. Rebecca from Ted Lasso! Even though this is far from her most memorable appearance on the show, it’s the first time I’ve seen any of her episodes since watching Ted Lasso, so it’s kind of wild for me.
• Not much to say about the Dorne plot, except I like seeing Jaime in Dornish robes and Bron sings a lovely rendition of a bawdy tune while sitting in a dungeon.
• When Ser Jorah and Tyrion are sold to be sent to the fighting pits, the slave auctioneer (played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) really talks up the Westerosi knight, appropriating such impressive claims to fame for Jorah as wielding a flaming sword and “[killing] the great Khal Drogo in single combat.”
• Kudos to Tyrion for managing to stick with the only person he knows on the road to Meereen—even if Jorah kidnapped him, he’d prefer the devil he knows. Tyrion knows he’s a hard sell for anyone buying fighters for the pits, but he proves himself a solid investment.

Before we get to Hizdahr in this episode, a few spoilers from episode 5. In response to the Sons of the Harpy attack that killed Ser Barristan, Daenerys gathered the heads of all the Great Families of former slaveowners, feeding one of them to her dragons and leaving the threat hanging over the rest. But ultimately, she wants a solution that’s not killing all the oldest families of Meereen, and the one she finds is twofold: 1) reopen the fighting pits, the one thing that former Masters and former slaves might both want, and 2) form a political marriage with a prominent Meereen citizen, Hizdahr.

That leads us to this episode, where Dany and Daario are in bed together and he can’t stop asking questions about “the King of Meereen.” Further proof that I know I’m right to dislike Daario. My irritation for his jealousy, by the way, isn’t out of any allegiance to Hizdahr, who’s an interesting character played by a great actor but definitely not a “good guy.” No, my irritation is because his jealousy is so stupid. As Dany points out, “Don’t be ridiculous. My marriage to Hizdahr is political. I think he’s smart enough to understand that.” Every single time Hizdahr comes to the pyramid, Daenerys can barely restrain her “ugh, this guy” reaction. Daario getting all pissy about Hizdahr is equal parts absurd and pathetic.

We’re back to just one scene for Hizdahr, but although it’s a lengthy one, he’s not much of a focus in it. For the most part, he’s just present while other things are happening. Namely, he accompanies Daenerys to watch an early round at one of the “lower” fighting pits ahead of the Great Games, which will be held in Meereen’s illustrious arena. In episode 5, Hizdahr was grateful to survive Dany’s wrath but seemed apprehensive about the prospect of becoming her fiancee—I got a bit of an “out of the frying pan, into the fire” impression from him.

In this episode, though, it looks like Hizdahr is feeling pretty good. I don’t know if he’s less anxious about the Dany situation now that he’s no longer at active risk of Execution by Dragon, but he spent half the season trying to get her to reopen the fighting pits, and he’s clearly pleased to have gotten his way on that front. To further my anti-Daario agenda, Hizdahr doesn’t really seem to be flaunting his betrothal to Dany at all for his personal aggrandizement, and he’s not making any moves on her. As Dany says, he appears to get that this is entirely political.

Like I said, he’s not really the focus of his one scene at all. Hizdahr only has two lines, filling in Daenerys on the traditions related to the fighting pits—the rest of the time, he’s just watching the fight, not fully aware of the larger stuff at play until the end of the scene. But despite his limited presence, Joel Fry still does a nice job with it. Given the state Hizdahr was in the last time we saw him, it’s interesting to see how relaxed and happy he is now. He just looks so damn pleasant about watching men fight to the death. He’s completely absorbed in the “sport” of it all, only occasionally glancing at Dany to see if she’s having fun (spoiler alert: she’s not.) Just through his body language and nonverbal acting, Fry tells us a lot about Hizdahr by showing the good time he’s having here.

Y tu Luna también: Narcos: Mexico: Season 1, Episode 9 – “881 Lope de Vega” (2018)

*Episode premise spoilers, which includes a major spoiler for the end of episode 8.*

Penultimate episode, people! Things are going down in a big way. This episode gets intense, both viscerally and emotionally.

At the end of episode 8, Félix’s government pals arranged to have Kiki kidnapped. He’s now being held and tortured to try and determine what he knows. As Kiki’s boss Jaime confronts numerous barriers of bureaucracy and corruption in trying to search for him, Félix attempts to deal with the fallout from this unforgivable move.

Obviously, this is a dreadful turn of events. It’s been hanging over the show all season, since the pilot forewarned us about Kiki’s abduction, but it’s still brutal to see him tortured, to see his wife Mika full of fear and panic for him, to see Jaime coming up against brick wall after brick wall as he tries to convince any government agency or law enforcement operation to care about this missing agent.

Under those circumstances, it’s not surprising but still gross to get a serious copaganda moment. Jaime and the DEA guys are busting their asses to try and find Kiki, and the Mexican intelligence officer sent in to run point is blatantly shady as hell. When he’s replaced, however, the new guy signals that he’s the real deal when Jaime says, “Still waiting on the warrant [to check out some potential leads]” and the officer replies, “What’s a warrant?” Cue the jocular back-slapping and camaraderie, ugh.

Before I get into talking about Félix, I want to reiterate that I’m talking about Félix as a character, not Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo the real person. Also, I want to emphasize that I’m viewing this through the show’s version of events. Within the story, Félix is not responsible for Kiki’s abduction; once it’s been done, he signs off on the interrogation, but the initial escalation is portrayed as his government partners acting without his knowledge, and in fact against his express advice from episode 8.

So within that context, Félix is definitely concerned but trying to hold steady. In his mind, abducting a DEA agent is far more damaging than whatever intel he might have uncovered during his investigation, because now it’s bringing the full force of the DEA’s wrath down on them. But he says, “We focus on what’s ahead, not waste time on what’s done,” making his best efforts at damage control.

Félix is very much in character here, making a forceful show of confidence as he holds tight to the notion that steady, rational moves will save them. But the more the DEA bears down and the more his allies flail, the harder that is to maintain. He insists, “We manage the business. The only thing that keeps us alive,” and he coldly tells the DFS man in his pocket, “I’m getting tired of reminding you who you work for.” However, the cracks are starting to show, and the DEA’s crusade hits much closer to home than he’d like.

Diego Luna is fantastic in this episode. I’m continually impressed with his ability to project such authority in a relatively quiet way—Félix’s voice is rarely the loudest in the room, and he’s often surrounded by people who are physically larger than him, but he always makes his presence felt. And there’s a scene toward the end of the episode, a telephone conversation between him and Rafa, that’s just masterful. Luna cycles through numerous emotions, hiding just beneath the skin of calm self-assurance Félix maintains. So well done.