This probably concludes my every-few-weeks whining about this show.
X Company, 'Remembrance': for a show about a group of spies who were the Allies' secret weapon, its finale sure did hinge on whether the Nazi could get the job done.
Allow me to set the scene: the Nazis are having a party to present an award to a scientist who's thisclose to creating synthetic oil and giving Germany cheap, unlimited fuel. Faber is in charge of the scientist's security. Aurora has finagled an invitation from one of the Nazi bigwigs. The spies have hidden explosives and a syringe in some art pieces that will be on display at the party. The plan is for Aurora to set off the explosives, causing Faber to hustle the scientist to a designated secure location where Aurora will be waiting to inject the scientist and induce a heart attack.
Unbeknownst to Aurora, Faber's position as double agent was discovered in the previous episode. To cover his own ass, Faber told his superiors that he is actually a triple agent, and sold the story by betraying the Allies and getting two of the spies arrested at a prearranged prisoner swap.
At the beginning of the finale, Faber told his wife that, to protect themselves, they needed to "behave" for a little while.
"Behaving", as it turns out, means that when Aurora goes to retrieve the syringe from its hiding place at the party, it's already gone. Aurora has to scramble: she puts the moves on her bigwig Nazi escort so she can pickpocket some bullets out of his holster, then throws them into a fireplace to create the security threat that will get her alone with the scientist. But when she arrives in the designated secure location, the scientist isn't there. Faber arrives, though, and pulls a gun on Aurora, and confiscates the explosives she was going to detonate to kill the scientist in the absence of the syringe. And when his superiors follow, he gives Aurora up as a spy.
As Aurora is being dragged out of the room, she begs Faber to do the right thing, appealing to his guilt over his dead son (whom Faber murdered because Ulli had Downs Syndrome and the alternative was that he be sent to an extermination facility). It does the trick: Faber goes to the room where the scientist is, stands right next to him, and sets off the confiscated explosive, killing both the scientist and himself. Meanwhile, Aurora escapes--with her Nazi bigwig as prisoner--because Alfred and Neil took out the soldiers in charge of the bigwig's car (which Alfred identified because he saw Aurora and the bigwig leave for the party and noted the license plate) and had taken their places.
To recap:
--Sinclair was captured and then killed himself to prevent his interrogation in the penultimate episode. In the finale, he had zero bearing on the success of the final mission.
--Krystina made contact with the museum employee who gave the spies access to the art that would smuggle their supplies into the party in the penultimate episode. Her entire role in the finale was using the radio in the spies' safehouse.
--Neil's character arc came to a nice conclusion in the finale, when he fully embraced being a spy instead of a soldier to escape Nazi captivity. (He was assisted greatly by his captor being #GermanysWorstSpy--so opportunistic as to be INTENSELY STUPID--but the Nazis being dangerously capable enemies right up until the narrative needs them to be dumb so the good guys can win is par for this show's course.) Re: the final mission, he had no bearing on its success. He did kill a soldier and drive the getaway car in the aftermath, although he'd have done both those things regardless of whether the scientist had been killed.
--Alfred helped plant the explosives on the art in the penultimate episode, but his active role in the finale was remembering a license plate and garrotting a soldier. His magical memory/synaesthesia contributed to the success of the final mission in no way whatsoever.
--Aurora was quick on her feet and clever at improvisation, and she was willing to die to complete her mission, but she was strategically outmaneuvered by Faber and captured by the Nazis. Her major contribution to the success of the final mission was that she was able to verbally poke Faber's shame with a stick.
--The final mission would not have succeeded without Faber. Franz Faber, the Conflicted Nazi, completed the Allies' mission and Saved The Day.
I consider that an off-topic and unsatisfactory way to end the story of this group of Allied spies.
*~*~*
It's unfortunate that real world events took the turn they did 'round about November or so. The Good Nazi Trope is always problematic, but with racists, nationalists, and straight-up Nazis crawling out of the woodwork--emboldened by having their ideologies promoted to "legitimacy" via the Trump administration's political platform--being asked to sympathise with and root for a Nazi's Conflicted Nobility becomes downright infuriating. Is there drama to be mined in the story of a principled man being ground up in the gears of the Nazi machine? Yes. Is that story--with its Nazi antihero protagonist--going to feel particularly tasteful when current world events are reliving the lead-up to the atrocities of WWII? Not so much. Especially when that story does things like make the Allies look incompetent, turn the Polish Resistance into antagonists, and make the success of the show's climactic mission contingent on whether the Nazi will choose to do the right thing in the end.
The thing about Nazis is, the vast majority of them DID NOT do the right thing in the end. Or in the beginning, or at any other point during the war. The Good Nazi Trope relies on an assumption of basic human decency that argues a false equivalency. Yes, Nazis are people and people are complicated, capable of good and evil in equal measure. But liking art and baby deer--or, in Faber's case, having breakdowns over the people you've killed and choosing to work with the Allies*--doesn't outweigh being a Nazi.
*It's important to note the following details about Faber's decision to turn double agent: 1) he was skittish about it from the beginning, and kept trying to put limits on what he was willing to do; 2) he wanted to back out almost immediately and had to be blackmailed into continuing to help the Allies; 3) when push came to shove he chose self-preservation over the Allies' agenda, advocated good behaviour over resistance, and nearly caused the catastrophic failure of the Allies' entire objective. And as for his contribution to the non-catastrophic failure of the Allies' entire objective: A) his own self-interest and willingness to "behave" put the mission in jeopardy to begin with; B) his decision to do the right thing was motivated by the provocation of his own self-loathing; C) he didn't have to die to kill the scientist--he had his gun, after all--but he blew himself up rather than live with the consequences of everything he's done.
Like. Those are some pretty mitigating factors in the "but he helped the good guys!" argument.
*~*~*
The very end of the episode was a montage of the spies' future endeavours. Alfred takes Sinclair's job running Camp X, which is fine, since he always should've been behind a desk rather than in the field anyway. Neil goes home to his niece, which is fine, he was getting burnt out in the field and needed a break. Krystina resumes her old job at Camp X, which is NOT fine, she is the MOST COMPETENT FIELD AGENT ON THIS GODDAMN SHOW, GODDAMMIT. And Aurora goes brunette and stays in the field, which I guess is fine, because at least with Alfred calling the shots he's intimately aware of the ever-present risk that some dude will compromise Aurora's professionalism and can take preventative steps to deal with that eventuality.
*~*~*
There was one thing I liked about the finale: WE FINALLY GET RESISTANCE!SABINE. Granted, all we get of her is 1) her objecting to Franz's assertion that they need to "behave" for a little while, and telling him that if all he's concerned with is his own safety and that of his family, he's not thinking big enough; and 2) a shot in the final montage of her arriving at Zosia's resistance camp with Anya. But I WILL TAKE IT.
I will take it and I will imagine the Resistance!Sabine spinoff in which Zosia's super polite but wary at first, because: former Nazi Wife. But Sabine wins her over, because Sabine wants to Get The Fuck In There And Do Some Shit. She spent so long being willfully blind, backing the wrong horse, waffling and doing whatever Franz and her father said was best; now that she's opened her eyes and is on her own, she wants to ACT.
There's a learning curve, of course. Sabine's whole life to this point has been upper-class and easy, and she gets frustrated and a little princess-y in the early going. "You think all of us came to the Resistance trained in guerilla combat?" Zosia asks her. "You think none of us had to learn about assembling guns and living in the woods and accepting the deaths of our friends, our family? You think the fact that we are fighting for our lives makes any of this EASY?" And Sabine listens. She puts up and shuts up and gets to work.
And when she goes on her first raid, she's terrified. She has to shoot a German, and her hand shakes so badly she only wounds him on the first shot and has to shoot again, but she gets the job done. And that night, back at the camp, she goes off into the woods and bites the strap of her rucksack to keep in her sobs.
But in the morning she's clear-eyed, clear-headed, and resolved. Because her country needs patriots to oppose the rot and evil that has grown in its core.
And Sabine Faber is a patriot.
(Wouldn't that be a more satisfying and helpful story to tell in the current political climate? I'm just saying.)
*~*~*
Overall, my opinion on X Company as a whole is as follows: excellent premise, consistently middling-to-poor execution. It wasn't the show I wanted to see, but it contained glimmers of that show, which kept me watching. (The other thing that kept me watching was a perverse desire to see just how not-the-show-I-wanted it could get. *hands*) On the occasions when it truly delivered on the promise of its premise, it was an absolute treat. I just wish those occasions hadn't been quite so rare.
Finally: this is just embarrassing. The AV Club is far from perfect, but sometimes I'd give my friggin' eyeteeth for a site with a comparable level of critical insight about Canadian TV. (It'd be nice if Canadian TV would pull up its socks and offer more Peak TV, too.)
This content is also available at http://serrico.dreamwidth.org/878672.html. Please comment at DW.
Allow me to set the scene: the Nazis are having a party to present an award to a scientist who's thisclose to creating synthetic oil and giving Germany cheap, unlimited fuel. Faber is in charge of the scientist's security. Aurora has finagled an invitation from one of the Nazi bigwigs. The spies have hidden explosives and a syringe in some art pieces that will be on display at the party. The plan is for Aurora to set off the explosives, causing Faber to hustle the scientist to a designated secure location where Aurora will be waiting to inject the scientist and induce a heart attack.
Unbeknownst to Aurora, Faber's position as double agent was discovered in the previous episode. To cover his own ass, Faber told his superiors that he is actually a triple agent, and sold the story by betraying the Allies and getting two of the spies arrested at a prearranged prisoner swap.
At the beginning of the finale, Faber told his wife that, to protect themselves, they needed to "behave" for a little while.
"Behaving", as it turns out, means that when Aurora goes to retrieve the syringe from its hiding place at the party, it's already gone. Aurora has to scramble: she puts the moves on her bigwig Nazi escort so she can pickpocket some bullets out of his holster, then throws them into a fireplace to create the security threat that will get her alone with the scientist. But when she arrives in the designated secure location, the scientist isn't there. Faber arrives, though, and pulls a gun on Aurora, and confiscates the explosives she was going to detonate to kill the scientist in the absence of the syringe. And when his superiors follow, he gives Aurora up as a spy.
As Aurora is being dragged out of the room, she begs Faber to do the right thing, appealing to his guilt over his dead son (whom Faber murdered because Ulli had Downs Syndrome and the alternative was that he be sent to an extermination facility). It does the trick: Faber goes to the room where the scientist is, stands right next to him, and sets off the confiscated explosive, killing both the scientist and himself. Meanwhile, Aurora escapes--with her Nazi bigwig as prisoner--because Alfred and Neil took out the soldiers in charge of the bigwig's car (which Alfred identified because he saw Aurora and the bigwig leave for the party and noted the license plate) and had taken their places.
To recap:
--Sinclair was captured and then killed himself to prevent his interrogation in the penultimate episode. In the finale, he had zero bearing on the success of the final mission.
--Krystina made contact with the museum employee who gave the spies access to the art that would smuggle their supplies into the party in the penultimate episode. Her entire role in the finale was using the radio in the spies' safehouse.
--Neil's character arc came to a nice conclusion in the finale, when he fully embraced being a spy instead of a soldier to escape Nazi captivity. (He was assisted greatly by his captor being #GermanysWorstSpy--so opportunistic as to be INTENSELY STUPID--but the Nazis being dangerously capable enemies right up until the narrative needs them to be dumb so the good guys can win is par for this show's course.) Re: the final mission, he had no bearing on its success. He did kill a soldier and drive the getaway car in the aftermath, although he'd have done both those things regardless of whether the scientist had been killed.
--Alfred helped plant the explosives on the art in the penultimate episode, but his active role in the finale was remembering a license plate and garrotting a soldier. His magical memory/synaesthesia contributed to the success of the final mission in no way whatsoever.
--Aurora was quick on her feet and clever at improvisation, and she was willing to die to complete her mission, but she was strategically outmaneuvered by Faber and captured by the Nazis. Her major contribution to the success of the final mission was that she was able to verbally poke Faber's shame with a stick.
--The final mission would not have succeeded without Faber. Franz Faber, the Conflicted Nazi, completed the Allies' mission and Saved The Day.
I consider that an off-topic and unsatisfactory way to end the story of this group of Allied spies.
*~*~*
It's unfortunate that real world events took the turn they did 'round about November or so. The Good Nazi Trope is always problematic, but with racists, nationalists, and straight-up Nazis crawling out of the woodwork--emboldened by having their ideologies promoted to "legitimacy" via the Trump administration's political platform--being asked to sympathise with and root for a Nazi's Conflicted Nobility becomes downright infuriating. Is there drama to be mined in the story of a principled man being ground up in the gears of the Nazi machine? Yes. Is that story--with its Nazi antihero protagonist--going to feel particularly tasteful when current world events are reliving the lead-up to the atrocities of WWII? Not so much. Especially when that story does things like make the Allies look incompetent, turn the Polish Resistance into antagonists, and make the success of the show's climactic mission contingent on whether the Nazi will choose to do the right thing in the end.
The thing about Nazis is, the vast majority of them DID NOT do the right thing in the end. Or in the beginning, or at any other point during the war. The Good Nazi Trope relies on an assumption of basic human decency that argues a false equivalency. Yes, Nazis are people and people are complicated, capable of good and evil in equal measure. But liking art and baby deer--or, in Faber's case, having breakdowns over the people you've killed and choosing to work with the Allies*--doesn't outweigh being a Nazi.
*It's important to note the following details about Faber's decision to turn double agent: 1) he was skittish about it from the beginning, and kept trying to put limits on what he was willing to do; 2) he wanted to back out almost immediately and had to be blackmailed into continuing to help the Allies; 3) when push came to shove he chose self-preservation over the Allies' agenda, advocated good behaviour over resistance, and nearly caused the catastrophic failure of the Allies' entire objective. And as for his contribution to the non-catastrophic failure of the Allies' entire objective: A) his own self-interest and willingness to "behave" put the mission in jeopardy to begin with; B) his decision to do the right thing was motivated by the provocation of his own self-loathing; C) he didn't have to die to kill the scientist--he had his gun, after all--but he blew himself up rather than live with the consequences of everything he's done.
Like. Those are some pretty mitigating factors in the "but he helped the good guys!" argument.
*~*~*
The very end of the episode was a montage of the spies' future endeavours. Alfred takes Sinclair's job running Camp X, which is fine, since he always should've been behind a desk rather than in the field anyway. Neil goes home to his niece, which is fine, he was getting burnt out in the field and needed a break. Krystina resumes her old job at Camp X, which is NOT fine, she is the MOST COMPETENT FIELD AGENT ON THIS GODDAMN SHOW, GODDAMMIT. And Aurora goes brunette and stays in the field, which I guess is fine, because at least with Alfred calling the shots he's intimately aware of the ever-present risk that some dude will compromise Aurora's professionalism and can take preventative steps to deal with that eventuality.
*~*~*
There was one thing I liked about the finale: WE FINALLY GET RESISTANCE!SABINE. Granted, all we get of her is 1) her objecting to Franz's assertion that they need to "behave" for a little while, and telling him that if all he's concerned with is his own safety and that of his family, he's not thinking big enough; and 2) a shot in the final montage of her arriving at Zosia's resistance camp with Anya. But I WILL TAKE IT.
I will take it and I will imagine the Resistance!Sabine spinoff in which Zosia's super polite but wary at first, because: former Nazi Wife. But Sabine wins her over, because Sabine wants to Get The Fuck In There And Do Some Shit. She spent so long being willfully blind, backing the wrong horse, waffling and doing whatever Franz and her father said was best; now that she's opened her eyes and is on her own, she wants to ACT.
There's a learning curve, of course. Sabine's whole life to this point has been upper-class and easy, and she gets frustrated and a little princess-y in the early going. "You think all of us came to the Resistance trained in guerilla combat?" Zosia asks her. "You think none of us had to learn about assembling guns and living in the woods and accepting the deaths of our friends, our family? You think the fact that we are fighting for our lives makes any of this EASY?" And Sabine listens. She puts up and shuts up and gets to work.
And when she goes on her first raid, she's terrified. She has to shoot a German, and her hand shakes so badly she only wounds him on the first shot and has to shoot again, but she gets the job done. And that night, back at the camp, she goes off into the woods and bites the strap of her rucksack to keep in her sobs.
But in the morning she's clear-eyed, clear-headed, and resolved. Because her country needs patriots to oppose the rot and evil that has grown in its core.
And Sabine Faber is a patriot.
(Wouldn't that be a more satisfying and helpful story to tell in the current political climate? I'm just saying.)
*~*~*
Overall, my opinion on X Company as a whole is as follows: excellent premise, consistently middling-to-poor execution. It wasn't the show I wanted to see, but it contained glimmers of that show, which kept me watching. (The other thing that kept me watching was a perverse desire to see just how not-the-show-I-wanted it could get. *hands*) On the occasions when it truly delivered on the promise of its premise, it was an absolute treat. I just wish those occasions hadn't been quite so rare.
Finally: this is just embarrassing. The AV Club is far from perfect, but sometimes I'd give my friggin' eyeteeth for a site with a comparable level of critical insight about Canadian TV. (It'd be nice if Canadian TV would pull up its socks and offer more Peak TV, too.)
This content is also available at http://serrico.dreamwidth.org/878672.html. Please comment at DW.