S01.E07: The Unsea

[paulvdb]

Quote

The fate of the stag leaves Alina in an impossible position with Kirigan, whose connection to the Fold — and the power behind it — falls into place.

 

[Zonk]

So Alexander couldn't have broken thhose restraints like 5 seconds earlier and saved his girlfriend? K.

It was pretty clear that mommy only told half the story and that there was some tragic backstory behind it all somehow... Still he is a bit of a dick, isn't he?

[tennisgurl]

The day is saved thanks to our true hero...Milo the goat!

[Philbert]

On 4/28/2021 at 10:24 PM, tennisgurl said:

The day is saved thanks to our true hero...Milo the goat!

 

Milo is literally the GOAT....

[ZeeEnnui]

Goth Knight Rises! The opening scene was so good. So many layers from fear to heartbreak to I will fucking take your heads off with black smoke. Ben Barnes killed it. 

Was the small palace a small ruin back in the day? Damn HGTV, you are everywhere, even Ravka. 

This episode did a truly fantastic job in a short amount of time in giving us insight into the complicated relationship between Kirigan and Bhagra, the history of the Grisha, and the creation of the fold. Kirigan is the hot bad guy now, but it's not hard to see how he got pushed to his breaking point hundreds of years ago. 

Oh now, Mal suffers internal bleeding? Bullets of contrivance don't work but a couple of arrows of Alina makes a dumb but noble choice do? 

I think what annoys me about Alina is that she suffers from Hero-itis. Everyone from Gothigan to Genya has complex reasons for their actions. That doesn't make what they do right or defensible -- sending an eleven year old in as a spy to be sexually abused by the king is pretty freaking villainous behavior -- but you can see from their POV why they make the choices they do. That's what makes them compelling characters. Alina sees everything in black and white (and you'd think as an outsider she'd be more open to life's grey areas). Sure the General is eeevil -- that antler necklace is yikes. He couldn't have gone to Jared? -- but as we've seen his backstory isn't that simple. Baghra didn't give Alina the full picture. Of course, he has to be stopped but there is nothing more annoying in a  character than half-cocked self-righteousness. Genya's story is so maddening and sad (and so well-acted). Alina is just irritating here because she's sitting on top of judgment mountain simplifying Genya's trauma. 

On 4/30/2021 at 8:25 PM, Philbert said:

 

Milo is literally the GOAT....

Hell yeah, he is! 

[magdalene]

I don't know. Maybe it's because he is being played by Ben Barnes - I was even trying to find redeeming qualities in his Punisher character, ha, ha -  but is the Darkling a 100% irredeemable?  Going by his origin flashback story, they persecuted him so badly until he was pushed to the breaking point and finally snapped.   The antler necklace is horrible but I still think Alina is insipid and so annoying most of the time. I haven't read the books and I should probably have more sympathy for Alina. I just don't like her.

[Brn2bwild]

Did anyone else think of WandaVision when Aleksander created the Fold?

[ZeeEnnui]

15 hours ago, Brn2bwild said:

Did anyone else think of WandaVision when Aleksander created the Fold?

Oooooh, I didn't even think of that! Nice. I would be very onboard for a Scarlett Witch/Lord Gothigan crossover event.

[peachmangosteen]

On 4/24/2021 at 3:43 PM, Zonk said:

So Alexander couldn't have broken thhose restraints like 5 seconds earlier and saved his girlfriend? K.

Seriously! That was so stupid.

On 5/7/2021 at 2:40 AM, Brn2bwild said:

Did anyone else think of WandaVision when Aleksander created the Fold?

That was literally my first thought when I first saw the fold and then how it created just really drove it home.

I still like Ben Barnes (I just call the character Ben Barnes, it's easier) better than anyone else tbh. 

I was really hoping Mal would just die so I wouldn't be subjected to the Alina/Mal bullshit anymore but honestly it'd probably be even more annoying if he died.

[TrininisaScorp]

I'm with you guys.  Ben Barnes just knocks this out of the park.  He's obviously beautiful, but Aleksander is a complex character, yet in the wrong hands could easily be totally irredeemable and unlikeable.  On paper, Aleksander is bad news, and it can easily be seen as manipulation of a naïve young woman. But, I believe that he has feelings for her that are genuine, and I see the tragic road he is on.  That doesn't make his choices okay, but Ben adds so many layers to him.  The stag bones, though...gross. [full disclosure:  I felt the same things about his deeply f'ed up character in Westworld and his deeply f'ed up character in The Punisher...the man is very, very good at complexity where you wouldn't expect]

Personally, I don't get the Mal/Alina thing beyond a loving, deep friendship.  I don't see it. 

I would like to see more of Genya's story, but not as a device for Alina.  I think teasing apart her trauma is most compelling to understand who some of these character are even more.

Kaz and the crows are the best.  I could genuinely watch a show just about their exploits.  I get so excited when we cut back to Kaz, Inej, and Jesper.  The actors work so well together, and you feel their history seeping through their current dialogue, and that's pretty impressive. 

Milo is the most important goat of all time. LOL.  

Edited May 10, 2021 by TrininisaScorp

[SeanC]

Kirigan is easily the most compelling character on this show.

[festivus]

Heh, I just came in here to say that goat is the GOAT but beaten to it of course. Ben Barnes is doing his best, I'm just not into this part of the story. Maybe because I've only read the Crows books, but I'm really only in this show for them. I was hoping I'd care about the rest but Alina and Mal are just so boring. Otoh, that talk with Kaz and Inej was riveting.

[magdalene]

On 5/10/2021 at 1:41 AM, TrininisaScorp said:

I'm with you guys.  Ben Barnes just knocks this out of the park.  He's obviously beautiful, but Aleksander is a complex character, yet in the wrong hands could easily be totally irredeemable and unlikeable.  On paper, Aleksander is bad news, and it can easily be seen as manipulation of a naïve young woman. But, I believe that he has feelings for her that are genuine, and I see the tragic road he is on.  That doesn't make his choices okay, but Ben adds so many layers to him.  The stag bones, though...gross. [full disclosure:  I felt the same things about his deeply f'ed up character in Westworld and his deeply f'ed up character in The Punisher...the man is very, very good at complexity where you wouldn't expect]

You should watch Ben Barnes in Gold Digger as the younger man involved with an older woman.

Personally I am rooting for the goat to get a tearful reunion scene in season 2.

[Linderhill]

sorry but Kiragan, despite being played by Ben Barnes, is an ass that deserves to die. period.

As for the crows, I like Jesper and Inej but Kaz can go to hell.

[KatWay]

On 5/24/2021 at 11:31 PM, Linderhill said:

sorry but Kiragan, despite being played by Ben Barnes, is an ass that deserves to die. period.

yup, if he looked like Voldemort and not like Ben Barnes nobody would try so hard to redeem his character. I thought Alina was spot on in her talk with him, actually, for all his blustering to Mal about how he was Alina's equal (and sorry but "at some point you'll die and I'll still be there so I win by default" isn't quite the mic drop argument he obviously thought it was), he has never treated her like an equal, but only as a pawn. He manipulated her from the start, he's ruthless and willing to do anything to anyone for his own goals. He may want a safe place for Grisha but he doesn't care about causing them pain as long as it's for his gain. Poor Genya.

[angora]

God, poor Genya. That's so horrible.

On 5/10/2021 at 3:41 AM, TrininisaScorp said:

I'm with you guys.  Ben Barnes just knocks this out of the park.  He's obviously beautiful, but Aleksander is a complex character, yet in the wrong hands could easily be totally irredeemable and unlikeable.  On paper, Aleksander is bad news, and it can easily be seen as manipulation of a naïve young woman. But, I believe that he has feelings for her that are genuine, and I see the tragic road he is on.  That doesn't make his choices okay, but Ben adds so many layers to him.  The stag bones, though...gross. [full disclosure:  I felt the same things about his deeply f'ed up character in Westworld and his deeply f'ed up character in The Punisher...the man is very, very good at complexity where you wouldn't expect]

Agreed - Ben Barnes is really great in this. I appreciate that the episode gives us the tragedy/injustice in Kirigan's past and helps to EXPLAIN the motivations behind his villainous actions without JUSTIFYING them. Similarly, he does seem to have genuine feelings for Alina in the midst of all his machinations, but that doesn't change the wrongness of what he's doing to her. I like that - as others have noted, the creation of the Fold was a WandaVision-like outpouring of grief and rage that wasn't intentional, and his obsession with gaining power/co-opting Alina's abilities/controlling the Fold is at least in part a reflection of his lingering trauma over the persecution he and his kind have suffered, but he allows that fear/rage/whatever to dictate actions that are incredibly destructive to others. Even if he's convinced himself that everything he's doing is to protect the Grisha from the non-powered people who fear and persecute them, he's hurting Grisha like Genya and Alina in service of that goal.

I felt for Alina when she was looking at herself in the mirror with those stag antlers. For someone who's always been marked out as different/suspicious due to her physical appearance, I'm sure it's a hard blow to see herself with these antlers sticking grotesquely out of her chest like that. And of course, it's also a visual manifestation of Kirigan's control over her - the way he's literally taking her power away, and probably a constant physical reminder of how she blames for herself for being fooled by him for so long.

On 5/10/2021 at 3:41 AM, TrininisaScorp said:

Kaz and the crows are the best.  I could genuinely watch a show just about their exploits.  I get so excited when we cut back to Kaz, Inej, and Jesper.  The actors work so well together, and you feel their history seeping through their current dialogue, and that's pretty impressive. 

God, yes. I especially agree about feeling their history - you don't need any childhood flashbacks of them holding hands in a field to know that the ties between them run deep. The conversation between Inej and Jesper was really lovely - I like that, as sad as he was to realize she was planning to leave, he didn't try to convince her to stay, and it was so sweet when she scolded him for his reaction making it harder than it already was. And the talk between Inej and Kaz was just everything, SO good! How is the will-they-won't-they with Alina and Mal so humdrum when Kaz and Inej are just electric?

[WatchrTina]

On 6/5/2021 at 9:15 AM, angora said:

the creation of the Fold was a WandaVision-like outpouring of grief and rage that wasn't intentional, and his obsession with gaining power/co-opting Alina's abilities/controlling the Fold is at least in part a reflection of his lingering trauma over the persecution he and his kind have suffered,

Was it though?  I thought the Fold came out when he deliberately uttered a spell -- one he was frantically looking for.  So while he may not have known exactly what he was conjuring I sure got the sense he did it on purpose (and not as some out-of-control magic-created, physical manifestation of grief.)  But I don't trust my recollections, having only watched once.   I'm going to have to re-watch this whole season in one go because I'm really having trouble following it / retaining the details.  I'm even confused by the references to character names that I see in the discussion here on this board because I've already forgotten who <insert secondary character's name> is.

All that being said . . . I'm having fun and the costumes and the cast are all just gorgeous.  Damn, this cast can wear the hell out of a hat -- especially the crows.  On the other hand, the stag horn "necklace" gives me the creeps.