S01.E04: Undertaking

[taanja]

19 hours ago, grawlix said:

Sorry to disagree, but Amalia says "when".  This is with HBO  closed captioning.

Mia culpa! Mia culpa!

I also went back and this time slowed it down and YES! WHEN not where.

So a time traveler?

 

[rove4]

Just got caught up with this show and I'm really enjoying it.  Amalia is a badass and the clues the show keeps dropping about her have me intrigued.  At this point she could be either a time traveler or an alien, not sure which I prefer at this point.  Does this mean though that the woman who was the real Amalia drowned in the pilot and her body was taken over by this time traveler/alien?  Love her friendship with Penance.

I love Penance and Auggie both separately and together. They are so cute in their awkwardness together. I hope that once Lavinia's plans come out, that he'll side with the angels...and not have to sacrifice himself to do it.

Maladie is all sorts of crazy and I'm here for it.  🤣

I'm glad that Bonfire Annie has joined up with Amalia.  I want to dress up as her for Halloween. 

I find all the characters compelling to some degree or another.  I can't remember the last show I could say that about. 

ETA: Just realized that the actress who plays Maladie also played Merida in Once Upon a Time.

Edited May 9, 2021 by rove4

[blackwing]

I'm still really confused as to what's going on most of the time.  I think this is the general summary:

Lady in the wheelchair is patron of a home for the Touched.  Amalia True and Penance Adair are the two central people who run this home.  Amalia can see the future and is possibly a time traveler.  Penance has some kind of electrical powers and invents things.  A crazy lady named Maladie is killing Touched.  Maladie works with a group of Touched including pyrokinetic Annie, who later changes sides and becomes loyal to Amalia.  Maladie kidnaps a woman named Mary whose turn is that her song can only be heard by Touched and is soothing to them.  It turns out that Mary was engaged to the police detective Mundi.

Lord Massen thinks the Touched are a problem and it seems he and his friends in the government are trying to get rid of them.  Mary is killed and Amalia suspects that Massen was involved.  It turns out that Amalia's trusted friend Lucy has been spying for Massen because he promised that he would rid her of her turn of vibration powers which killed her own child.

Meanwhile, Hugo Swann is some kind of hedonistic rich playboy who sleeps with anyone.  He runs a pleasure club.  Someone has framed him for Mary's murder.  He is friends with the brother of the lady in the wheelchair.  Brother is secretly touched, his power is to control birds and to see through their eyes.  Brother likes Penance but seems socially awkward and inexperienced.  

My questions:

1.  How exactly does Amalia's power work?  If she is indeed a time traveller as others have mentioned, does she know the future and that's why she is so good at fighting?  Does she know in advance what her opponent's moves will be and that's why she throws herself into a fight with such reckless abandon?

2.  What is the connection between Amalia and Maladie.  Are they some sort of alternate timeline forms of each other?  I note that their names use almost the identical letters.

3.  Who is the guy in the carriage that Amalia keeps meeting?  Why did he send that brute that walks on water to kill her?

4.  What is the purpose of Swann and wheelchair lady's brother?  Surely it's not just to show James Norton's butt.

5.  The girl who speaks in various foreign languages.  She obviously understands English but somehow cannot speak it.  Can she write it?  Why doesn't she just write down her thoughts.  Does the language which comes out of her mouth get chosen at random without any control?  If she could pick a more common language like French surely she would be able to write things down and more easily communicate her thoughts.  Or maybe Penance can invent a translator.

6.  In the other thread, someone was saying that Mundi is confirmed to be gay and that's why he and Mary didn't marry.  I missed this?

 

 

 

[WatchrTina]

5 hours ago, blackwing said:

1.  How exactly does Amalia's power work?  If she is indeed a time traveller as others have mentioned, does she know the future and that's why she is so good at fighting?  Does she know in advance what her opponent's moves will be and that's why she throws herself into a fight with such reckless abandon?

As far as I can tell, Amalia can see flashes of the future.  It's been implied that Amalia is something "other" -- someTHING that took over the body of a suicidal Londoner at the moment of her death.  It's still unclear to me if the entity-that-is-animating-Amalia's-body is an alien or a time-traveler (or both.)  I don't think she knows her opponents' moves in advance.  I think she has supernatural fighting skills (rather like Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and therefore she is able to kick the asses of the men who attack her.  I also think that she is sad and lonely due to her having ended up inhabiting that body and that makes her ruthless and unflinching when provoked to a fight.  She's not afraid to die.

 

5 hours ago, blackwing said:

2.  What is the connection between Amalia and Maladie.  Are they some sort of alternate timeline forms of each other?  I note that their names use almost the identical letters.

I don't think we know that yet.  We saw Maladie being loaded into a carriage bound for the insane asylum when the sparkly supernatural rain happened so I think we're supposed to assume that Maladie is a Touched human, but she's particularly dangerous because she is fookin NUTS (and her touch seems to be that she gets stronger each time she is injured -- as if each blow she receives charges a battery inside her.)

 

5 hours ago, blackwing said:

3.  Who is the guy in the carriage that Amalia keeps meeting?  Why did he send that brute that walks on water to kill her?

I *THINK* the guy you are talking about (IN the carriage) is an underworld crime boss and he's mad at Amalia because . . . no, I've already forgotten what his beef is.  I think at some point Amalia wanted to talk to him to find out if he knew anything about any Touched being kidnapped before they could make their way to the safe haven she created, and her inquiring about that offended him in some way.

As for the brute who walks on water, I think he works for the people who are REALLY behind the disappearances of the Touched, which I think is that cabal of British men we see plotting together at a table during one episode (with those cylinders that are red on one foot and green on the other and they seem to turn them over depending on what they are saying . . . or maybe it signifies their turn to talk.)  I think of those guys  as the embodiment of the established Patriarchy -- men who are offended by the emergence of a brood of super-powered Touched people in society -- people who are not only NOT upper class (for the most part), they are mostly women.  How DARE they have powers!  The sheer effrontery!

 

5 hours ago, blackwing said:

4.  What is the purpose of Swann and wheelchair lady's brother?  Surely it's not just to show James Norton's butt.

Wheelchair lady's brother is an example of a rare upper-class, male, Touched individual -- one who is hiding his gift because he can see what being openly Touched brings down on you (and -- I suspect -- because he does not trust his wheel-chair bound sister, presumably for good reason, even though she is outwardly a patron of the Touched.)   As for James Norton's butt (a.k.a. Hugo Swan's bare arse), I support any excuse for its being on camera.  (Okay that's just a joke but I AM glad that the casual flashes of nudity are not limited to the women, though clearly we've seen a LOT more bare female breasts than bare male butts in this show.)

 

5 hours ago, blackwing said:

5.  The girl who speaks in various foreign languages.  She obviously understands English but somehow cannot speak it.  Can she write it?  Why doesn't she just write down her thoughts.  Does the language which comes out of her mouth get chosen at random without any control?  If she could pick a more common language like French surely she would be able to write things down and more easily communicate her thoughts.  Or maybe Penance can invent a translator.

She's one of the Touched that has been given shelter.  Her "gift" (curse really) is that when she tries to speak English (which she clearly understands) it comes out in other languages all mixed together.  (This must also be true when she attempts to write, hence her attempt to communicate with drawings instead.)  This would be unfortunate enough were she just trying to have a regular conversation but, alas, she alone was able to realize that Mary's song was actually a message of great importance having to do with the source of Amalia's "otherness".  Specifically it seems to hint at the location of others who are like Amalia -- shattering news which causes Amalia to break down in tears.  Are the other "Others" trapped in that big, underground ball of blue glowing light that SOMEONE is excavating?  Are they somewhere else?  We don't know but I presume that is what we will learn during the last two episodes.

 

5 hours ago, blackwing said:

6.  In the other thread, someone was saying that Mundi is confirmed to be gay and that's why he and Mary didn't marry.  I missed this?

Mundi (the cop) and Mary (she of the magical voice that could only be heard by those with the gift) were engaged to be married but Mary broke it off, presumably because she discovered that Mundi was gay (or perhaps she sensed it all along and finally decided to acknowledge what they both knew to be true.)  He apparently had hooked up with Hugo Swan at some point and then Hugo used that information to blackmail him but now, with Mary dead, it appears that Mundi is past caring about his homosexuality being revealed -- or at least he's figured out that Swan has more to lose than he does so he tells Swan to take his threats and fuck off.

 

Edited May 10, 2021 by WatchrTina

[blackwing]

21 hours ago, WatchrTina said:

As far as I can tell, Amalia can see flashes of the future.  It's been implied that Amalia is something "other" -- someTHING that took over the body of a suicidal Londoner at the moment of her death.  It's still unclear to me if the entity-that-is-animating-Amalia's-body is an alien or a time-traveler (or both.)  I don't think she knows her opponents' moves in advance.  I think she has supernatural fighting skills (rather like Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and therefore she is able to kick the asses of the men who attack her.  I also think that she is sad and lonely due to her having ended up inhabiting that body and that makes her ruthless and unflinching when provoked to a fight.  She's not afraid to die.

 

I don't think we know that yet.  We saw Maladie being loaded into a carriage bound for the insane asylum when the sparkly supernatural rain happened so I think we're supposed to assume that Maladie is a Touched human, but she's particularly dangerous because she is fookin NUTS (and her touch seems to be that she gets stronger each time she is injured -- as if each blow she receives charges a battery inside her.)

 

I *THINK* the guy you are talking about (IN the carriage) is an underworld crime boss and he's mad at Amalia because . . . no, I've already forgotten what his beef is.  I think at some point Amalia wanted to talk to him to find out if he knew anything about any Touched being kidnapped before they could make their way to the safe haven she created, and her inquiring about that offended him in some way.

As for the brute who walks on water, I think he works for the people who are REALLY behind the disappearances of the Touched, which I think is that cabal of British men we see plotting together at a table during one episode (with those cylinders that are red on one foot and green on the other and they seem to turn them over depending on what they are saying . . . or maybe it signifies their turn to talk.)  I think of those guys  as the embodiment of the established Patriarchy -- men who are offended by the emergence of a brood of super-powered Touched people in society -- people who are not only NOT upper class (for the most part), they are mostly women.  How DARE they have powers!  The sheer effrontery!

 

Wheelchair lady's brother is an example of a rare upper-class, male, Touched individual -- one who is hiding his gift because he can see what being openly Touched brings down on you (and -- I suspect -- because he does not trust his wheel-chair bound sister, presumably for good reason, even though she is outwardly a patron of the Touched.)   As for James Norton's butt (a.k.a. Hugo Swan's bare arse), I support any excuse for its being on camera.  (Okay that's just a joke but I AM glad that the casual flashes of nudity are not limited to the women, though clearly we've seen a LOT more bare female breasts than bare male butts in this show.)

 

She's one of the Touched that has been given shelter.  Her "gift" (curse really) is that when she tries to speak English (which she clearly understands) it comes out in other languages all mixed together.  (This must also be true when she attempts to write, hence her attempt to communicate with drawings instead.)  This would be unfortunate enough were she just trying to have a regular conversation but, alas, she alone was able to realize that Mary's song was actually a message of great importance having to do with the source of Amalia's "otherness".  Specifically it seems to hint at the location of others who are like Amalia -- shattering news which causes Amalia to break down in tears.  Are the other "Others" trapped in that big, underground ball of blue glowing light that SOMEONE is excavating?  Are they somewhere else?  We don't know but I presume that is what we will learn during the last two episodes.

 

Mundi (the cop) and Mary (she of the magical voice that could only be heard by those with the gift) were engaged to be married but Mary broke it off, presumably because she discovered that Mundi was gay (or perhaps she sensed it all along and finally decided to acknowledge what they both knew to be true.)  He apparently had hooked up with Hugo Swan at some point and then Hugo used that information to blackmail him but now, with Mary dead, it appears that Mundi is past caring about his homosexuality being revealed -- or at least he's figured out that Swan has more to lose than he does so he tells Swan to take his threats and fuck off.

 

Thank you for all of these explanations!  But especially for the explanation of why Amalia was crying... I didn't understand what was going on there at all.

[Proclone]

21 hours ago, WatchrTina said:

 

 

She's one of the Touched that has been given shelter.  Her "gift" (curse really) is that when she tries to speak English (which she clearly understands) it comes out in other languages all mixed together.  (This must also be true when she attempts to write, hence her attempt to communicate with drawings instead.)  This would be unfortunate enough were she just trying to have a regular conversation but, alas, she alone was able to realize that Mary's song was actually a message of great importance having to do with the source of Amalia's "otherness".  Specifically it seems to hint at the location of others who are like Amalia -- shattering news which causes Amalia to break down in tears.  Are the other "Others" trapped in that big, underground ball of blue glowing light that SOMEONE is excavating?  Are they somewhere else?  We don't know but I presume that is what we will learn during the last two episodes.

 

I think one of the issues with Myrtle is that she can't read or write.  Which would definitely make sense.  Her family was poor.  True definitely mentions it in the next episode, but I also think they mentioned it when they first took her in.  Teaching someone to read who understands English but can't speak it must be very difficult so I imagine it's very slow going for whoever is teaching her.  So it's unclear if she could write out what she means to say in English or it would be equally jumbled.

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 5/10/2021 at 12:01 PM, blackwing said:

A crazy lady named Maladie is killing Touched.  ...

Lord Massen thinks the Touched are a problem and it seems he and his friends in the government are trying to get rid of them.  ...

My questions:

1.  How exactly does Amalia's power work?  If she is indeed a time traveller as others have mentioned, does she know the future and that's why she is so good at fighting?  Does she know in advance what her opponent's moves will be and that's why she throws herself into a fight with such reckless abandon?

2.  What is the connection between Amalia and Maladie.  Are they some sort of alternate timeline forms of each other?  I note that their names use almost the identical letters.

3.  Who is the guy in the carriage that Amalia keeps meeting?  Why did he send that brute that walks on water to kill her?

4.  What is the purpose of Swann and wheelchair lady's brother?  Surely it's not just to show James Norton's butt.

A few minor corrections on the summary:

Maladie does not seem to be targeting the Touched. She was willing to kill people who happened to be Touched like Penance, Mary and Amalia. But she is not singling out the Touched or anything like that. If anything, from what I understand, she was killing doctors and the like, perhaps in revenge for her own institutionalization or some such.

It's at least somewhat unclear what Lord Massen's intentions are toward the Touched. He seems to have a different agenda than the Purists, who simply want to get rid of them. My take is that he sees the Touched as a threat, but thinks of them as pawns of an as-yet-unseen enemy. Would he be OK with a second round of Touching that kept blue-blooded White guys on top? Probably.

To supplement the excellent answers already given:

1. Amelia's future-telling ability seems to come just in brief random flashes, and she seemingly can only perceive things that directly involve her. So in contrast, say, to Johnny Smith of the Dead Zone if you are familiar with that show, where he could deliberately trigger visions of other people's future or past by touching things, Amalia can just be going about her life and she sees what is going to happen. She seems to think her future flashes can't be changed (also unlike Johnny Smith, who could act to change what he saw in his visions).. It doesn't seem like she is able to predict her opponents' moves because of visions of the future. She's just that good as a fighter.

2. We are still waiting to figure out what the connection is between Amalia and Maladie. They apparently recognized each other and called each other by different names, Sarah and Molly and Amalia seems to feel at least some level of remorse for something that happened to Maladie in the past. What that is, and if it really was Amalia or some previous host, remains to be seen.

3. The person you referred to is the Beggar King. He is a crime boss who apparently has his fingers in all sorts of pies. We learned previously that he sometimes tips Amalia and the people at the orphanage as to the whereabouts of Touched people. But he also is tipping off other people too. Amalia pissed him off by demanding to see him. So it could be that he sent his bruiser to kill or harm her as payback. Or it could be that the bruiser was working a different angle on behalf of someone else.

4. The purpose of Swann IMO is a. to provide comic relief b. to give an excuse for HBO sexy-times. c. to provide another angle on the Touched beyond the "they're just regular folk" like the bulk of the heroes believe, "they're a threat" like Massen believes, "they're a charity" like Lavinia seemingly believes, etc. and d. to provide some LGBTQ+ representation

The purpose of Augie is a. to show one of the few male Touched b. allow Penance to have an adorkable (but probably ultimately doomed if Joss Whedon has anything to say about it still) romance c. to provide other dimensions and insights into Lavinia.

[MissLucas]

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

So it could be that he sent his bruiser to kill or harm her as payback. Or it could be that the bruiser was working a different angle on behalf of someone else.

If I got the scene between Massen and the Beggar King right it was Massen who had sent Odium a fake message in the name of the Beggar King ordering him to attack Amalia.  

[Hanahope]

Also one of the beggar king’s minions said he saw fire-Annie with 2 other women and described enough to identify Amalia and Pennance.  Since Annie attacked the beggar king’s drugs he might think Amalia was working with Annie so he attacked Amalia.

[l star]

This episode was much more hit or miss for me. The funeral ran too long and I don't care about the strike or the reporter (I get that that improves but that didn't make me care in this ep). Anything involving Hugo Swann makes me want to press fast forward. Similarly, Penance and Augie are cute as can be but not particularly interesting. Penance actually got on my nerves in her first conversation with Amalia. I get it- you think she needs to grieve. It was like they were having two different conversations and only Amalia's was interesting.

On the other hand, Myrtle and Primrose's conversation was precious. Myrtle's turn must be so frustrating. Harriet is obviously a very intelligent woman so it was nice to see her with something to do. I liked Nimble a lot. The conversation between Mundi and Maladie was good. The final scene between Amalia and Penance was cute. Everything with Lucy was sad but great. I understood why a promise to get rid of her turn would appeal to her. Hers is a source of tragedy. And she obviously felt very guilty about Mary. I didn't expect her to have so much anger against Amalia in particular but if she honestly believed that Amalia may have been the source of the turns, it makes sense. It was just sad coming right after Amalia's positive view of their relationship. I hope she shows up again.

I thought it was sad that from all of it, what Amalia took was that she had to be even more distant. She said she hated that she didn't know anything going on with the girls. That surprised me because I never really got that she was particularly interested in the touched as individuals. I guess it plays into her annoyed reaction when she played the buzzkill in the kitchen in the last ep. She does want to be accepted and involved, she just doesn't do it easily.

The conversation with Massen and Amalia was also great. I was surprised he went for the role playing idea but I guess he was as intrigued as he seemed. It also gave him a chance to get his jab in- blaming Amalia for Mary's death. Interesting that she didn't pass that along to the group. I think because she actually believed it. I wonder if she ever suspected anything or if she was truly blindsided by the killing.

I cracked up watching Bonfire Annie jump when Penance walked in at the beginning. She talked a big game but she moved quick when she thought she was caught. Makes me think of why she came to the orphanage at all instead of taking over part of the wharf like she'd planned. I think she wants the power but doesn't want to actually be in charge.

Was that the girl with the clock turn that Swann auditioned fixing the clock at the orphanage? It was just a quick glimpse, but it looked like her.

After hearing about Amalia's pain at being left behind, the message seemed hopeful. It seemed like a moment of catharsis for her too which was affecting.

Edited May 24, 2021 by l star