S01.E06: Surfacing

[Scarlett45]

Quote

Luke processes the incident. Cora has a realization. Will struggles with Stella's illness.

Air Date: June 10, 2022

[AngieBee1]

Overall I'm content with the ending of the story as I liked the characters for the most part. But I felt it was a bit too saccharin. I haven't read the book but after seeing the finale I read the Wiki entry for it and I think its ending was more in line with the general preceding tone of the show.

Frank Dillane was the MVP of the piece for me and Clémence Poésy imbued so much grace and heart into a thinly written character.

[blackwing]

On 6/10/2022 at 1:40 AM, AngieBee1 said:

Overall I'm content with the ending of the story as I liked the characters for the most part. But I felt it was a bit too saccharin. I haven't read the book but after seeing the finale I read the Wiki entry for it and I think its ending was more in line with the general preceding tone of the show.

Frank Dillane was the MVP of the piece for me and Clémence Poésy imbued so much grace and heart into a thinly written character.

I think this is the most relieved I have ever been to finish a season of a show.  Such a complete chore.  I found most of the characters to be unlikeable but especially Luke Garrett and his sad sack "I'm in love with you Cora" self.  He brought everything upon himself... he proposed to Cora at the party without ever even getting any indication that she was interested, she rejected him, he drank himself silly and wandered around a deserted tunnel without being careful, so yeah, he ended his own career.  

I was completely uninvested in Martha because we never got any full insight or explanation into her.  She isn't interested in men and she is in love with Cora?  Did they just share a bed together as friends or did they actually have relations?  If no past history, was Cora even aware that her friend wanted her romantically?  Cora was shown to be pretty clueless and ignorant of what other people thought.

I get Martha's desire for social change, but I didn't really care for the storyline with the housing, it just seemed thrust so out of place in this show.  I thought this show was supposed to be about the mystery of the serpent in Essex... why was I supposed to care about the housing situation of the brother and sister in that poor area?  And then Dr. Spencer buys the building to help them out and Martha is resentful because he is rich and thinks he is trying to buy her affection, even though she is (probably) not interested in men?  I guess he offers her a job to try and make a difference so she gets her happy ending.  I just hope he doesn't expect anything in return because he will be disappointed.

I found Cora completely irritating and couldn't stand the constant wide-eyed bug-eyed looks of alarm and apprehension and confusion or whatever it is she was trying to convey.  But I guess she and Will get together in the end.  Not even sure where she was at the end... was she digging for fossils in Essex?  Where are they going to live?  She's in London working with some kind of fossil society and he's still in Aldwinter at the church presumably.

I did mostly like (or at least didn't dislike) Will but that's only because of residual like for Tom Hiddleston.

The big fail to me was that in the end, the "Serpent" turned out to be a whale (I think?) that conveniently beached itself and died in the final episode.  So what is the explanation for what killed that girl in the beginning?  Was it supposed to be this thing?  A whale doesn't attack people.  Who or what killed that other dude (I can't even remember his name or what his role in the village was)?  Zero explanation.  Are we supposed to assume that the whale killed both of them?  And then deposited their bodies on land?

I am not sure if this show will be back for Season 2, they did seem to leave things open for new storylines that I assume would diverge from the book.  But even if it comes back... I really doubt I will.

[MaggieG]

I actually thought that the serpent wasn't the whale, the townspeople just thought it was and the serpent is still roaming the waters.

[blackwing]

52 minutes ago, MaggieG said:

I actually thought that the serpent wasn't the whale, the townspeople just thought it was and the serpent is still roaming the waters.

Hmmm, that's a good thought.   It could certainly be the plot of a hypothetical season 2.

The more I think about this, the more annoyed I am that we didn't get any answers.  I slogged through six episodes to find out who killed Naomi's sister and that man.  We saw something moving fast towards Naomi and her sister in the first episode.  Sister is found dead on the shore.  Did this whale take her underwater and drown her?  Then she washed up on shore?  She was found pretty far from the water I thought.  If it wasn't the whale, is there still something in the water?

Stella said "I have seen the serpent and it is dead".  I thought in the scenes of Will rescuing Stella from underwater, there was a hint of something in the water.  Was that the whale, or the serpent?  Her words that it is dead makes sense that she thinks it is the whale.

After everyone looks at the dead whale, after Frankie asks why people were afraid of it, Cora comments that people are afraid of what they don't know.  I would have thought that a better resolution of the story would have been that some villagers saw the whale in the water and didn't know what it was and were afraid.  The fanatical schoolteacher uses this as an opportunity to strike fear in the hearts of the villagers and says that their sins brought the serpent to the village.  He kills Naomi's sister to scare everyone into behaving piously.  He kills the man to increase the fear.  Then he is caught in the final episode.  

If the show was going to make this into a mystery... they should have added an actual resolution.

Also unexplained... why all the schoolchildren went into some kind of anaphylactic fit.  I think Luke tried to explain it away as methane gas or something.  But there should have been some definite conclusion and finding other than "OMG Cora is a witch".  Because she obviously wasn't.

[Scarlett45]

This was an INTERESTING experience. I think that this suffered from an adaptation problem and trying to shove too many plots in a mini series. 
 

Martha and Spencer could’ve been interesting. Martha accepting that Cora wasn’t in love with her, could’ve been interesting. Cora falling in love with Will but wanting her freedom, Will wanting to nurse his wife and feeling guilty, could’ve been interesting. Cora and Luke could’ve been interesting- an attraction and an opportunity for social advancement (him), an attraction and opportunity to be the dominant one in the relationship (her) could’ve been interesting. But we got none of that. Like nothing. 

On 6/14/2022 at 8:57 AM, blackwing said:

He brought everything upon himself... he proposed to Cora at the party without ever even getting any indication that she was interested, she rejected him, he drank himself silly and wandered around a deserted tunnel without being careful, so yeah, he ended his own career.  

I’m no fan of how Luke acted with Cora, but I don’t blame him for that. Many people have walked home from a party after having had too much to drink, gotten on public transit intoxicated just trying to get home (he was walking through the underground to take the train home). Being robbed and attacked wasn’t his fault- the dude had his wallet, no need to hurt him. 

[paramitch]

I liked it in the end. This was a nice ending. It was a little jarring, given the high drama of everything before this, but... it was nice.

I liked where Martha and Spencer ended up, and was glad Luke managed to have a brighter work future despite the hand injury. I was touched by Spencer's care for him even when he was at his lowest and meanest, and also liked Martha's scenes with pretty much everyone. 

I'm a sucker, so I was glad that things ended well for Cora with all of her admirers, even though she was inadvertently so cruel and clueless to each in different ways, which I actually found believable. I still don't get why the show strongly implied she had had sex with Martha then backed away from that, and I felt for Luke when she so cluelessly asked him to LIVE with her platonically.

I admit I was background-watching some of this when my attention flagged, so I still have so many questions:

• So what was the twisted Vicar hiding? Why was he sobbing mysteriously in the church when Will found him?
• What actually happened to the girl who died in the beginning?
• What actually happened in the classroom meltdown? Was it the fumes as implied?
• Why did the drunk's daughter run away to make people think she died (after getting all creepy and nailing rodents to that cross or whatever)?
• Why didn't we ever learn WHAT ritual Will's daughter and the drunk's daughter were doing together that they were convinced caused things -- and why?
• If the vertebrae piece Cora found was just a whale vertebrae, why didn't that scientist realize that ASAP?
• Had the fishermen of a fishing village somehow never seen a whale before?
• How did Will not know his wife was sick? I mean... how? It was a respiratory disease. Even if she hid it by day there's no way he wouldn't have heard her hacking away involuntarily every night.

I liked this in the end, but I do think it had definite problems and wasn't always well-adapted or clearly filmed.

I thought the performances were great (better than the script), and I did think the location was lovely and the costumes absolutely sigh-worthy.

I'd give the whole thing a 6.5.

On 6/9/2022 at 11:40 PM, AngieBee1 said:

Frank Dillane was the MVP of the piece for me and Clémence Poésy imbued so much grace and heart into a thinly written character.

I agree -- I thought both were really terrific. Dillane especially brought so much to what could have been a cliched or far less likable character.

On 6/14/2022 at 10:04 AM, MaggieG said:

I actually thought that the serpent wasn't the whale, the townspeople just thought it was and the serpent is still roaming the waters.

I kind of had that feeling too. Honestly, I was a little disappointed when Will and his wife didn't actually encounter a benevolent plesiosaur under the water that rescued her in the nick of time! (I may have been a big Nessie fan as a kid, so sue me.)

On 6/18/2022 at 8:06 PM, Scarlett45 said:

Martha and Spencer could’ve been interesting. Martha accepting that Cora wasn’t in love with her, could’ve been interesting. Cora falling in love with Will but wanting her freedom, Will wanting to nurse his wife and feeling guilty, could’ve been interesting. Cora and Luke could’ve been interesting- an attraction and an opportunity for social advancement (him), an attraction and opportunity to be the dominant one in the relationship (her) could’ve been interesting. But we got none of that. Like nothing. 

I’m no fan of how Luke acted with Cora, but I don’t blame him for that. Many people have walked home from a party after having had too much to drink, gotten on public transit intoxicated just trying to get home (he was walking through the underground to take the train home). Being robbed and attacked wasn’t his fault- the dude had his wallet, no need to hurt him. 

Yeah, I'd agree there was a lot of rich potential here between the characters (let's face it, we basically had intersecting Love Rhombuses) that was wasted on the silly histrionics of the creepy villagers.

I still liked it. But it was disappointing -- it had some lovely moments but it could have and should have been better. I'm a little sad that so much talent was so wasted here.

[Scarlett45]

5 hours ago, paramitch said:

I still liked it. But it was disappointing -- it had some lovely moments but it could have and should have been better. I'm a little sad that so much talent was so wasted here.

I agree. Everyone was so talented but the writing was poor.