S04.E04: Men of Fire, Men of Smoke

[radishcake]

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When a footballer is brutally murdered, a key suspect is a man close to Drake's heart.

[mledawn]

First of all, Connor is basically the hugest kid that age I've ever seen, and secondly - Rose is losing her mind. Is it just lack of sleep to start, and then when she sees Susan it sends her over the edge? I might have to look at the transcript for this one...

[weyrbunny]

Cripes. I was too busy to sit and concentrate on this show in May, and suddenly June went by, too! I must need Amazon to release Ripper Street in December, like they did with S3. Anyway…

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Well, we know who the killer is now, the one from the season premiere. And it's not surprising, to say the least. I suspect that’s why the episode ends with a double cliffhanger. It needs a second twist, because learning the serial killer's identity is more of a "yeah, that figures…" moment. (At least it was for me.) Ripper Street is usually more interested in the how or why of a crime, so I'm guessing (hoping) the show will put its efforts into that instead.

The other reason I was underwhelmed by the murder was because it "fridged" another character to cause Drake pain and guilt. Not a wife this time, but a figurative son. Thomas' death was compelling and pitiful, even, but the episode was already guilting Drake over how he hadn't saved Thomas by sending him to the army. So, Thomas' murder felt like piling on. It's dissatisfying when the story mechanics are so easy to see.

The best line was Thomas calling Drake “black wings casting shadow over me”. References to monsters and animals have been seeded throughout S4, all hinting back to the golem, I think, and this was a provocative addition. And to say it about Drake…

I did chuckle at a few things here—it wasn’t all guilt and arguments, of course:

• Reid as the awkward third wheel during Drake and Jackson’s spat
• Rachel and Mathilda discussing “taking an axe to” Drummond’s virtue (oh, my!)
• Reid menacing Drummond with his “I know where you’ll be” comments

I also got a kick out of Rachel, Mathilda and Deborah all contributing to the Isaac Bloom investigation—a gender twist on the Reid, Drake and Jackson trio.

Oh, and on behalf of the fake rabbits bludgeoned for the sake of fictional forensication: HOW DARE YOU, JACKSON! I suppose he just got the rabbits from a butcher shop and refrigerated them to ensure accurate blood spatter—as we learned in ep 4.3, during the discussion on postmortem blood clotting. And, sure, Jackson has committed many, many crimes, but still… he bludgeoned bunnies!!

[Deanie87]

I am so obsessed with this show that I got some convoluted hook up to Amazon Prime UK just to watch and and am now re-watching via the ridiculous 6 pm airings on BBC America.  Its not like the channel has such a glut of fine original shows that they can't fit this one into prime-time.  Anyway, I didn't enjoy this season as much because the main cast of characters don't interact as much as I would have liked, and while I like some of the newer characters, I really miss the Fleet Street reporter.  

As for this episode, boy is that Susan a manipulator!  I can never really tell when she is being completely sincere, even with Jackson, but I can't help but root for them and their immoral selves.  I, too, cringed at the thought of poor bunnies being beaten, I"m just glad that none of it was shown.  Yikes. 

I did like yet another person yelling at Reid for giving advice on work and marriage.  When will he learn?

[raven]

On 8/26/2016 at 10:03 AM, Deanie87 said:

I really miss the Fleet Street reporter.  

I do as well!  They could have at least replaced him with someone interesting.

Sorry Susan and Jackson fans, they are getting on my last nerve.  They had NO plan other than hide in a tiny room?  I mean, that's not going to work.  Susan going on about "my boy" is annoying, as well as Jackson caving to her every whimper.  Yes, I know she wants her son back and only gave him away because she thought she was going to die but Jackson should have just taken him instead of giving him to Rose and Drake.  What did he think was going to happen, that Susan would just forget about him?   

Oh, Rose - probably never should have married Drake.  My take is that she had this idea about what a wife is supposed to be, which includes being a mother, and it didn't turn out that way.  She does love him but I remember her saying she didn't want to be a policeman's wife; I took it as more "any" kind of wife.  After years of working and struggling to survive, she probably felt at loose ends and wrongly thought that taking Connor in would fill her days in an easier way.  She had a little smile when he said "mama" because he saw Susan and Rose thought he meant her, before she glimpsed Susan herself.

I was saddened by Thomas's death, though I didn't like him blaming Drake for the way his life turned out.   What a depressing time to live in - Drake telling Thomas to just sober up and go on, well we know now that alcoholism is not waved away like that.  I did like Drake's one on one with Reid about respect; he made several great points about Reid basically doing his own thing and thought both handled it very well.

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I also got a kick out of Rachel, Mathilda and Deborah all contributing to the Isaac Bloom investigation—a gender twist on the Reid, Drake and Jackson trio.

Yup, that was fun.  I wish I could see more of the (probably) cut scenes with Mathilda and Drummond to see if they have any chemistry.  At least I found out she is 19 in this episode.

[Haleth]

As soon as I saw Ser Aliser Thorne I knew he was the murderer. That's the problem with good actors being type cast. 

[Neurochick]

On 8/28/2016 at 2:38 PM, raven said:

Sorry Susan and Jackson fans, they are getting on my last nerve. 

Mine too, I'm tired of both of them.  I don't get why Jackson let his son stay with Drake and Rose; didn't he know that Susan wasn't going to die?  I thought that was the plan all along. 

[weyrbunny]

On 8/28/2016 at 2:38 PM, raven said:

Yes, I know she wants her son back and only gave him away because she thought she was going to die but Jackson should have just taken him instead of giving him to Rose and Drake.  What did he think was going to happen, that Susan would just forget about him?

 

On 8/31/2016 at 2:01 PM, Neurochick said:

I don't get why Jackson let his son stay with Drake and Rose; didn't he know that Susan wasn't going to die?  I thought that was the plan all along. 

Yes, Jackson knew Susan wasn’t going to die (as long as his plan worked) and no, I don’t think the issue was Jackson expecting Susan to forget about their son.

There was a disconnect between Jackson and Connor in much of S4. Jackson didn’t forget about him, so much as leave him out of his impetuous escape plans. Why? Because Jackson’s instinct was to revert to the “guns and fast horses” (4.1) mentality that afforded them escape from Susan’s father and brought them to London in the first place. And that original relationship, where Jackson and Susan were first bound together by secrecy and conspiracy, consisted of only the two of them.

I don’t know how much Jackson bonded with Connor while at the prison either, since Jackson was trying to keep his distance. I’m guessing also that Jackson preferred not to be a single parent after Susan’s hanging. It would be a level of responsibility that interfered with both his work and criminal plans. And, Rose and Drake could take better care of Connor, simply because they weren’t criminals, they weren’t on the run. This was Susan’s rationale for placing Connor with them, just as much as it was Jackson’s for leaving him with them, I think.

The other reason Jackson distanced himself from Connor (and Susan) was the conspiracy itself. (I used “long con” before; conspiracy seems more fitting now.) Recall that Rose bitched at Jackson for not visiting Susan in prison, not comforting or supporting her. Well, he did of course, in secret. It wasn’t well-explored, but it was mentioned that Jackson operated like this to prevent their escape plans from being discovered. He knew that he would be the prime suspect, Drake’s first stop, at the first hint of trouble. And so to perpetuate the ruse that he wanted nothing to do with Susan, he extended it to Connor. Jackson and the show conveniently forget this detail every time they needed to interact with Connor, of course.

There are better, less-melodramatic ways that Ripper Street could’ve handled this, I’m sure. Rose used Mathilda as an on-call babysitter apparently—so might’ve Jackson—and hell, Deborah oversaw an orphanage. The Obsidian Clinic could’ve continued its progressivity by offering resources to single dads, even.