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S02.E03: The Cord and the Ax


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Bwah! That's a great way to put it, although I don't mind carrots. I'd probably go with celery. A little goes a long way.

I agree with you that on tv a person can always come back from the "dead" one way or another. Sukar came back from the acid bath of death so I like to think there's still a small possibility of life for Kenya.

Stahma is an enjoyable character. I like watching her play at being meek as she rules. It's nicely layered. I also have a huge girl crush on Jaime Murray from her Warehouse 13 days.

 

Ugh...celery is another one :)  Nicely layered is a great way to put it, and thats how I like characters, not all black or white, but shades of grey and beige.

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I figure we may see Mia Kirshner again, but it wont be as Amanda's sister. It will be Irzu being all "I found this dead body in my woods. Lets put some meat back on the bones, puppet this thing back into town and solve the murder by taking notes on who screams when their victim comes back from the dead". Wont be a true resurrection, due to not having a recording of her brain.  I would do this to have an exuse for Irzu to explain what it is doing with the actual resurrections, and because it would be fun to see  Stahma try to plot her way out of that one. 

Edited by Izeinwinter
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I don't care who that kid looks like, I bet Stahma gets her hands on him (for some reason, I'm assuming it will be a little boy) to turn him into her vision of what a perfect man should be.  For Stahma's taste Alak is too weak, and Datak is too quick tempered.

 

I don't know, between Rafe, Christie, and

crazy/hopefully badass grandmama Linda Hamilton being brought into the fold

I think she might have a tough time at that, though I wouldn't put it past her to try. Hell, possibly Datak will try to subvert her scheming in regards to the grandkid just to piss her off and maybe even show some growth past being a quick-tempered thug. THAT, I would love to see. 

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When the mayor said "I fancy Amanda," I couldn't stop laughing because I heard "I fancy a man, duh."

I did notice that the closed captioning screwed up later on and had him saying "I like your candor," when the actual line was "I like your can, dear."

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Well, there's dead, and then there's "head-on-a-stick" dead.*

* FarScape reference.

And Kenya wasn't chopped up, as far as we know. I'd prefer her to be real, not an Irzu puppet, but either way it would be fun to watch Stahma's reaction & how she frees herself from that situation.

P.S. @Loandbehold thanks for the warm fuzzies from the Farscape reference.

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And Kenya wasn't chopped up, as far as we know.

 

 

I thought the skull the one guy saw in hellbug country had a very familiar-looking zygomatic arch...

Edited by johntfs
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Mostly kidding, except that I can easily see Stahma taking Kenya's corpse out there and feeding it to the hellbugs for disposal.

Could be, although I felt like that scene was put in there as more of an "oh shit!" moment, and was probably the skull of another prisoner who thought he had "escaped" while the guard was peeing.  Like this is how Earth Republic is taking care of its enemies...

 

I remember the mayor saying to the BioMan to just "take care of them" like they had done something like this before.  

Edited by RealityGal
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Personally, I think Kenya is still alive & she'll show up again in the season's last episode. I think this is not going to be Stahma's year, she's going to have all sorts of troubles from what she did while Datak was in prison (including from Datak) & Kenya is going to show up so that Stahma will end up having to deal with whatever she did to her.

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It was, but she handled it poorly. The "night porter" should know better, and know how to handle an angry client. (That's the difference between Kendra and Amanda -- Kendra would have defused the situation and had a short chat with the porter. Amanda let it escalate.)

I thought she handled the situation poorly because she allowed the girl to get beat on with no repercussions.  I've never been a pimp before but I would assume part of the job is to provide some degree of protection to the girls.  Amanda lets her ho get punched a couple times and offered to buy the guy a drink.  The only reason she kicked his ass was because he attacked her. 

 

That bath scene was brutal.  I actually feel for Alak.  I was in a similar situation when I was a kid.  Nothing makes you feel more powerless than not being able to protect your mother from your father.

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But thats just my opinion, they could kill off Stahma and have Christine take over her place as the evil puppetmaster in that family.

That doesn't fly with me (YMMV) -- have we seen ANY trace of backbone or evil in Christie? She's been pretty much "Alak's girlfriend/wife/baby-mama" without a real personality -- one of the few on the show -- so it could be she has these qualities, but I don't see it, myself.

 

I thought she handled the situation poorly because she allowed the girl to get beat on with no repercussions.  I've never been a pimp before but I would assume part of the job is to provide some degree of protection to the girls.  Amanda lets her ho get punched a couple times and offered to buy the guy a drink.  The only reason she kicked his ass was because he attacked her.

That too. Kenya would have had "porters" that catered to violent tendencies, with safe-guards in place so nothing went too far. Amanda is a real rookie at this.

 

That bath scene was brutal.  I actually feel for Alak.  I was in a similar situation when I was a kid.  Nothing makes you feel more powerless than not being able to protect your mother from your father.

I'm sorry you had to experience that. No kid should have to go through something like that.

That said, what did Stahma think would happen if Datak was released? And frankly, considering that Datak let Alak do his thing where Mama was pushing him where he didn't want to go, I was a little surprised he was so quick to rescue her.

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That doesn't fly with me (YMMV) -- have we seen ANY trace of backbone or evil in Christie? She's been pretty much "Alak's girlfriend/wife/baby-mama" without a real personality -- one of the few on the show -- so it could be she has these qualities, but I don't see it, myself.

 

From all we knew of Stahma on her planet she was a subservient woman with no backbone.  She certainly knows how to play the role well.  It could have been her experiences and struggles that shaped her into the ruthless criminal mastermind that she is today.  Similar to Christie...when this baby comes, she will likely have to go through a lot.  Alak is their only son, both Datak and Stahma have every reason to want Rafe and Christie as marginally involved as possible with determining how that child should grow up.  That means that both are going to try to push each other, and Rafe and Christie out of the way so they can claim control of the child.  There seems to be nothing as important to Datak than continuing the traditions and the family name, and Stahma as well.  They certainly both seem to think that humans, and the human way is somewhat inferior to the Castithan ways. 

 

In short, I think Christie is going to go through a lot, especially if she gets alienated from her father.  And if she does become alienated from her father and starts to think more like a Castithan to survive in that household she may learn to become more like Stahma in order to get what she wants.

 

I'll agree that we haven't seen much from her, but why keep her around?  Why make her so pivotal?  Maybe its because in the future she will have to develop the strength to survive.

 

Or maybe they kill her off as she is giving birth.  Or maybe she just continues being somewhat useless - but I know....

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Rafe didn't care that Christie could have been with Stahma when the bomb went off. His gangster crap when his older son was murdered was reined in by Nolan but he certainly understands how threats to family members aren't just regular business. He didn't offer any advice or help. He's surely smart enough to understand that Alak can no more walk away from his family than Christie could from hers, because he'd no more accept it than Stahma or Datak. Either he's hoping Alak will end up dead as the gangster crap doesn't take no for an answer, or he's hoping to force Christie back home when Alak loses everything else. The trouble for Christie is that a father so indifferent to her welfare can't provide a refuge. Either she knuckles under to the in-laws or she learns to play the game. As portrayed so far, the character is more or less a cipher. Women have trouble getting good roles on TV in general, and I'm sorry genre seems even worse. (Stahma is "The Devil Is A Woman!" aka Dragon Lady, which would be okay if there were other kinds of strong women around, just for the contrast, you know?) So I guess she'll just orbit Alak, serving as the spoils of victory...unless she gets fridged for an Alak hero's "arc." At least Alak's dilemmas pose genuine choices, and offer a chance at real agency.

I'm just disappointed that Rafe is such a dick.

 

Irisa tried to have some agency but the episode used scifi to slap her down. Powerlessness before fate is one approach to tragedy. So this episode is very strong on evoking sympathy for her plight. But I'm not sure where they can go from here. She needs to talk to people (not exchange mystical oracular pronouncements, that's not talking to me) but she's very little more than sexy bad ass with mystic special snowflake powers. Sexy bad ass people don't talk much, or ask for help much, it's not cool. That's why she's never talked to Nolan. And talk to Tommy when he's dating Berlin? Very uncool, they'll have to split first I guess. 

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From all we knew of Stahma on her planet she was a subservient woman with no backbone.

We know that by time they were on the ship, she was strong-willed and capable enough to throw her husband out of the air-lock. (Or have him thrown -- either way.) That doesn't sound like a "subservient woman with no backbone" -- I think she just had to play a "tighter" game on her home planet.

 

I'll agree that we haven't seen much from her, but why keep her around?  Why make her so pivotal?  Maybe its because in the future she will have to develop the strength to survive.

 

Or maybe they kill her off as she is giving birth.  Or maybe she just continues being somewhat useless - but I know....

I really hope they don't go with the "died giving birth" trope. That would really reduce her to nothing more than a baby-making machine. Ugh.

 

 

As portrayed so far, the character is more or less a cipher.

That's the problem. Even Bertie has more personality than Christie. What does she love about Alak? Does she really notice the path he's going down? Ehh, don't know, don't care, let's have some creepy-sexy bath time. (Not that I don't appreciate creepy-sexy bath time...)

 

Stahma is "The Devil Is A Woman!" aka Dragon Lady, which would be okay if there were other kinds of strong women around, just for the contrast, you know?)

I'm going to disagree at least somewhat. As usually presented, the "Dragon Lady" is a leader who takes no guff from anyone. She uses sexy-times to tempt the hero, as well as the money and power used by her male counter-parts, but she is almost never portrayed as fawning to anyone. So Stahma is at least a bit of a departure from the trope.

As for other strong women, I think that Amanda and Kenya were both fairly strong women in Season 1. Both have been reduced, Kenya ultimately so. I hope that the path is for Amanda to regain her strength, to be the leader she was and can be.

As for Irisa, at least she tried to change her fate, although a shotgun to the head is a pretty drastic way to do that. I think that action may have forced the reveal that "Irzu respects all life" and that Irisa was not killing after all. In the end, she refused to be Irzu's "weapon". But the bad-ass who doesn't talk to the one guy she should be confiding in gets a little old real quick.

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But the bad-ass who doesn't talk to the one guy she should be confiding in gets a little old real quick.

 

At the end of the season premiere, the "bad-ass" was warned not to talk to "the one guy she should be confiding in" or she would be forced to slit his throat.

 

Edited by johntfs
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