S01.E08: Chapter Eight: The Ecstasy of Life

[AnimeMania]

As London descends into chaos, Bea and her crew head underground, where together they face untold horror in a dangerous quest to locate the rip.

Release Date: March 26, 2021

[TrininisaScorp]

Whew!  We started watching on Friday night after The Falcon & The Winter Soldier (I have priorities, people), and thought we would give this a try.  Both my husband and I were hooked in after the first episode and finish it on Sat evening.

I was appreciative of the casting of representation across the spectrum, including the main cast.  I liked that POC were good and bad guys without discrimination. 

Bea was great. She could be rough, pedantic, and too worldly for her own good, but I thought the actress infused her with a genuine compassion for all people, which considering her terrible life experiences, makes her extra special IMO.  Jessie worked best for me when she was with her sister, otherwise I would have found her to be a little much.  That wasn't particularly the actresses fault, though at times she was a bit shrill, but the burden of playing the powered one.  The love of the sisters, not of the boys in their lives, being the true savior for them was huge.

I only knew Harrison Osterfield from being Tom Holland's buddy, and haven't seen him in any projects.  I thought he was quite good as Leo, and I found him close to worthy of Bea.  Though, there was always going to be an expiration date because of, you know, the Prince thing.  I do appreciate that he played the card of his marriage happening to save Billy.

I would love to have learned a bit more about Spike.  We know he wasn't in the workhouse with the other 3, and his primary motivation is Jessie's safety, but I wish we got a little more like we did with the other 3 kids.  Billy was so compelling; from moment one with the bravado of a boy and those awful scars all over him, I instantly wanted to learn more. 

The adult cast of Sherlock, Alice, and John were nicely done. Sherlock being broken without Alice read true, and though he failed the girls again and again, I found that when he did right by them, it worked. That actor's tortuous gaze was on point.  So, Alice created the Rip...I cringed at that, but I suppose if I were her, maybe I'd go a little mad too. 

I appreciate that in the redo of saving someone from falling thru the Rip, John let Sherlock go and helped Bea save Jessie.  I'm also liking the new relationship between a sad John and a sad Bea.  I thought both actors knocked it out of the park when she asked how to stop loving someone.  She's mature beyond her years, but still a teenager whose had her heart broken.  

The look and feel of the show was consistent sumptuous.  While I didn't mind the very modern music, I could have done without the electronica.  I think Bridgerton has probably been the smartest to take Vitamin String Quartet's stuff to infuse that modernism to the proceedings. 

I hope they get a second season because I enjoyed this world and these characters.  Maybe the plot is around finding Sherlock and Alice, though them being together for eternity in the Rip is ok?  And, find a way to save Leo from the marriage (though, his intended seems to be cool and not under any illusions)? 

[cardigirl]

I watched the entire series in pretty much one sitting. It's uneven in tone, but I liked the idea of it.  I thought the three adult leads, Sherlock, Watson, and Alice, were great, and the episode where Sherlock tells Bea about the first Rip was probably the best episode of the the series. The younger leads are fine, I just felt the emotion more from the three adult leads. 

The series definitely had a steampunk vibe to it, and the overarching theme was grief. But some parts of it were not woven in as well as they could have been. An example is the nun in the final episode, possessed, kills two people, and then is suddenly back to normal, and no remorse for the two people she just murdered. Okay. 

I liked the idea that grief for losing someone was driving the need to find the power to bring someone back from the dead. There was certainly a lot of gothic horror in that. 

I would watch a second series, as I love all things Sherlock and I think they've set up a nice premise for the Irregulars to be working with Watson. 

Edited March 29, 2021 by cardigirl

[tennisgurl]

That was certainly a wild ride, these are exactly the sorts of shows that I love to binge. A breakneck pace and crazy plot twists left and right mixed with some gothic horror and a steampunk aesthetic, a lot of clichés but its having a lot of fun with them. It was certainly a rather loose adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, at times it almost felt like it didn't need to even be a Holmes story, but it was certainly an interesting take on the story. I thought the growing relationship between Watson and Bea was a really good thread throughout the season. This version of Watson and Holmes were certainly very flawed, but it ended up working more than I expected to. It worked with the theme that grief and fear can warp a person and make them cross lines that they normally never would if they let it eat them. 

The actors were all really good, they sold the story when when the plots took some pretty wonky turns and some of the weirdly modern dialogue sounded forced. I also like that they employed a lot of colorblind casting and had a diverse cast, among both the good guys and the bad guys. The sisterly bond between Bea and Jessie as the strong emotional core of the show worked really well and the actresses had really believable chemistry. I think that the actress playing Jessie had the hardest part of the kids, its not easy being the "Victorian waif prophet" type while making it believable, but she pulled it off. The actress playing Bea really carried a lot of the show, I haven't seen her in anything but she has a great presence. 

Its never any fun when you find out that your long lost mom is the one masterminding the whole evil plot. I guess its hard to blame her, being stuck in some kind of magic Phantom Zone away from your family for fifteen years would certainly not be conducive to anyone's mental health. In retrospect it almost seems obvious, it was the most logical conclusion to the seasons themes of how when people hurt they can lash out and hurt others if they let their hurt destroy them. Plus, no body means no way are they not coming back, of course. 

I wanted to know more about Spike, I feel like he was the least focused on member of the cast. What we saw was really interesting but I wanted to know more about his backstory. How did he end up on the street, did his parents die? Leave him? How did he meet everyone else, who all met in the workhouse? I am glad that Billy got over his jealousy of Bea and Leo, and that they instead focused on his very unresolved trauma with his past and finding out about his family. Well Billy, your mom might have been a prostitute, but at least she didn't open a rip in the fabric of reality? I also thought his odd couple dynamic with Leo was fun, and the three guys all worked well together. 

Leo and Bea were cute in a super dramatic teen love kind of way, even if its obviously not going to work out. With him being a prince and also a real person who did not end up with a street girl he solved supernatural mysteries with. The fact that real life Prince Leopold would die at only thirty due to his hemophilia adds a lot of sad subtext to a lot of his scenes, especially his fears of bleeding to death and being broken. It also really made me go "just let the poor kid have some fun while he can, he doesn't have a whole lot of years left" several times when he kept having to get dragged back to the palace. 

Whoever decided that a bunch of ravens should be called "an unkindness" must be the same person who decided a bunch of crows should be called a "murder". Someone with a real flair for the dramatic. I would watch a second season of this easily. 

[ribboninthesky1]

This series was a mess.  I can't recall a series where I found 90% of the main/supporting characters annoying. At one point, I was actively rooting for The Linen Man. Spike was the only character I could tolerate, but he also had no purpose besides propping the other teenagers up. I kept watching mainly to see if his character would be further developed. Alas, no. 

The adult characters weren't much better. Alice, Sherlock, and John were all uniquely insufferable, so it wasn't just the teenage element.   

I FF'd quite a bit of this episode because they took FOREVER to do anything. The episode should have been 30 minutes, at most.      

[shrewd.buddha]

Well, we finished it.. That should be somewhat of a thumbs-up - -  tho maybe a weak one. 

The anachronisms were hard to deal with - and they seemed to get progressively worse as the episodes went on.  And I don't think Sherlock fans would be happy with the the liberties being taken with the character - especially his embracing all things supernatural - - and being a dead-beat dad. 

Even at the end, I still think this show could have been so much more fun if the angsty group of teenagers had been a ragtag gang of adolescent street urchins - - sort of a Sherlock Holmes meets Oliver Twist.  (But I did appreciate Leopold's bargain to keep Billy out of jail.)

Someone once said: For people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they would like.   
...that's how I would sum up my feelings toward The Irregulars. 

[waving feather]

I started out really liking Billy but his character got worse as the show progressed. When the guy from the work house was taunting him in the streets he could have just ran off. Like boy! 

Jessie was probably my favorite of the teens because at least her motivations and characterizations are consistent through out the series. 

Bea suffers from the Mary Sue syndrome and the writers want her to be all things that her characterizations are not 100% consistent. 

Leo is more interesting in the Palace scenes than when he is with the irregulars. Probably because he shows a bit more bite there.