Weren't bad though, were we?
Yesterday morning I woke up to my radio playing The Jean Genie, which made me feel slightly like I was having an Alex moment and had woken up in Ashes to Ashes. In a lot of ways, I'm still there.
As I've said once before, this comes with a lack of restraint warning. :)
Walking to work yesterday I was thinking of various articles I've read recently which try to explain the appeal of Gene Hunt. Some say it's because he represents life before PC, but I don't buy it. Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes make me nostalgic for many things, but not that. Others claim that he harks back to a time we secretly long for when, "women were women and men were men". Um, no. Believe me, when he's swaggering about in that coat, or squaring up to someone, I am as susceptible as the next person, but it isn't my inner damsel in distress that he appeals to.
I've talked a little bit about this before, but what I love about Gene Hunt is he is absolutely self-obsessed and utterly unselfish. It's an intoxicating mix. He is very much at the centre of his kingdom, but everything he does is done for somebody else. He is not always right, but his life is given to making the world all right.
The other thing is that he doesn't offload responsibility. Which isn't to say that he's responsible - sometimes the opposite - but that he never says, Well, I don't know what to do, someone else can deal with this. The bottom line is that he is always the bottom line.
So I was thinking that in the morning, not realising quite how much it would matter that evening. We'll come back to that.
Oh, show. Where do I even start?
I'd read enough speculation beforehand to know which theories made the most sense, but if what unfolded was not exactly a surprise, I couldn't have anticipated how undone I would be by the way it unfolded. The Acting. Everybody hits it out of the park, and then some. And what Phil Glenister does with Gene this episode is astonishing: I've seen it described as having to, in the space of one episode, unravel and put back together his character, and he does it with heartrending conviction.
It's wonderful, rewarding writing as well. Rewatching this episode alone there were so many things I didn't spot the first time, like Ray telling us that a drink will be the "only thing that'll be on my mind when my time comes," and the time on the Victoria Park clock. Last week Shaz told Ray and Chris they sounded like they were from 1953; I am so looking forward to going back to the beginning and finding all those moments embedded that I might have missed.
And then, even in the midst of all that, there was time for one more moment of sheer, unadulterated joy. The Quattro flanked by the pandas and Beat It could not have been more glorious. Nor could Shaz, completely owning that scene, and easily outshining a whole case full of diamonds. Nor could Gene and Alex, side-by-side, flanking each other like two storybook heroes in the shoot-out, cute as two buttons crouching down behind the Quattro together. And then Chris and Ray turn up to Chariots of Fire and I don't think my grin could have stretched any wider.
Oh, Quattro.
Whatever happened, I needed my beloved characters to go out as them. And they did. Remember when Ray and Chris were comedy sidekicks? No, nor do I. Two fledglings who've come so far, and this was such a fitting final flight. And Shaz, who made me sob, twice, this episode. Shaz, who knew better than Ray and Chris exactly where they were going at the end, and just tore me to pieces with that great, glowing smile.
Alex. Alex who always combined that ability to cut through bullshit with that great big heart, and never needed them more than in this episode. To carry my North and South analogy through to its end, I love that as Gene's empire fell apart around him, it was she who picked it up, who picked him up, and gave them both back to him. The chequered ceiling returning as she hit back at Keats with, "Don't you make him into a liar," made me punch the air.
Alex. Alex who lost her little girl, but became a mother to her team, Gene's other half in helping them grow up enough to let go, and helping him let them go. There's a sweet, sad parallel: they each have to help the other let their children go, this episode. I knew that Alex was not going to go back when she walked into that subway tunnel in Episode Four and was told she was staying, knew for sure when the others turned to her and she paused for that tiniest of moments and then assented, "Pub". And somewhere out in the future I want to think there will be a DCI Drake, a little girl who grew up not, like her mother before her, wanting to prove something because she wondered if her mother loved her, but because she knew how much her mother did.
Alex. Alex who came into that world believing they were all her constructs and this episode did the single bravest thing she could possibly have done. "You're Gene Hunt. You're their Gov. That's what I'm here for. Nothing else." It's not an All About Gene moment, for all it might seem that way. It's All About Alex, about who she is and what she sees and how much she is capable of giving. Because surrendering her reality to his is what stops that reality from tearing apart.
Alex. Alex who walked into Gene's world as his fantasy and left it his friend. They really did end up with a ridiculously epic love story in the end, didn't they? I loved every moment they shared this episode, the devastating scene at the farmhouse, the string of tête-à-têtes in his office, the lovely scene with the two of them sitting together on the office floor. And that last, gorgeous scene between them that broke me in about forty ways.
Which brings me to Gene.
In my mind Gene would have come into this world as that young lad, has lived through all of this to get to this point. If he was twenty-ish in 1953, he would be forty-ish in 1973 and fifty-ish in 1983; it makes sense to me that although in this world he's been able to be his fantasy self, he's still had to work to get there.
The first time you watch The Wizard of Oz as an adult, it's a different film to the one you know as a child. And it is extraordinarily moving, that story of four friends who journey to find the life they long for, and don't realise until they get to their destination that they found everything they wanted on the way there.
I loved so much that each of them, with their time cut short before they could live out the life they'd longed for, had been gradually fulfilling their dreams as they made their way through the world in which we'd come to know them.
And what about Gene? What was his dream?
To go back to The Wizard of Oz for a minute, I've read somewhere else a lovely analogy that says that if Alex is Dorothy, then like the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Gene is all three. The Manc lion, the man in the tin box, the scarecrow with his brain blown out and his memory buried. And I loved that when the world he believes in is left shattered and hollow, it's she that takes hold of him and says, you've still got the heart, the mind, the courage to do this.
Alex says that Gene makes them all feel safe. With my heart breaking he made me laugh, a lot, this episode, and I would have been lost without that. "My real name's Nigel Perkins." ♥
Keats is right when he says that Gene has made them all live his fantasy rather than freeing them to do their own thing. It does explain a lot. And this episode didn't stint on exposing Gene with all his flaws. But Keats misses something. Because Gene's fantasy isn't to be the gun-toting cowboy hero. It's to be the sheriff. To be the one that takes care of the others. To be the bottom line. To be that guy who never offloads responsibility, who is absolutely self-obsessed and utterly unselfish. In a lot of ways, his fantasy is all about enabling them to live theirs.
He doesn't get to go into The Railway Arms, not yet, not because he hasn't yet fulfilled his dream, but because he is fulfilling his dream. I don't doubt for a minute that there will come a day when he will get to go on in and drink that pint, but for now he is doing exactly what that young lad dreamt of doing, and doing it with bells on, and boots to wit.
I said a few days ago that Ashes to Ashes was one episode between being a good show and a great one.
Goodbye, great show.
As I've said once before, this comes with a lack of restraint warning. :)
Walking to work yesterday I was thinking of various articles I've read recently which try to explain the appeal of Gene Hunt. Some say it's because he represents life before PC, but I don't buy it. Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes make me nostalgic for many things, but not that. Others claim that he harks back to a time we secretly long for when, "women were women and men were men". Um, no. Believe me, when he's swaggering about in that coat, or squaring up to someone, I am as susceptible as the next person, but it isn't my inner damsel in distress that he appeals to.
I've talked a little bit about this before, but what I love about Gene Hunt is he is absolutely self-obsessed and utterly unselfish. It's an intoxicating mix. He is very much at the centre of his kingdom, but everything he does is done for somebody else. He is not always right, but his life is given to making the world all right.
The other thing is that he doesn't offload responsibility. Which isn't to say that he's responsible - sometimes the opposite - but that he never says, Well, I don't know what to do, someone else can deal with this. The bottom line is that he is always the bottom line.
So I was thinking that in the morning, not realising quite how much it would matter that evening. We'll come back to that.
Oh, show. Where do I even start?
I'd read enough speculation beforehand to know which theories made the most sense, but if what unfolded was not exactly a surprise, I couldn't have anticipated how undone I would be by the way it unfolded. The Acting. Everybody hits it out of the park, and then some. And what Phil Glenister does with Gene this episode is astonishing: I've seen it described as having to, in the space of one episode, unravel and put back together his character, and he does it with heartrending conviction.
It's wonderful, rewarding writing as well. Rewatching this episode alone there were so many things I didn't spot the first time, like Ray telling us that a drink will be the "only thing that'll be on my mind when my time comes," and the time on the Victoria Park clock. Last week Shaz told Ray and Chris they sounded like they were from 1953; I am so looking forward to going back to the beginning and finding all those moments embedded that I might have missed.
And then, even in the midst of all that, there was time for one more moment of sheer, unadulterated joy. The Quattro flanked by the pandas and Beat It could not have been more glorious. Nor could Shaz, completely owning that scene, and easily outshining a whole case full of diamonds. Nor could Gene and Alex, side-by-side, flanking each other like two storybook heroes in the shoot-out, cute as two buttons crouching down behind the Quattro together. And then Chris and Ray turn up to Chariots of Fire and I don't think my grin could have stretched any wider.
Oh, Quattro.
Whatever happened, I needed my beloved characters to go out as them. And they did. Remember when Ray and Chris were comedy sidekicks? No, nor do I. Two fledglings who've come so far, and this was such a fitting final flight. And Shaz, who made me sob, twice, this episode. Shaz, who knew better than Ray and Chris exactly where they were going at the end, and just tore me to pieces with that great, glowing smile.
Alex. Alex who always combined that ability to cut through bullshit with that great big heart, and never needed them more than in this episode. To carry my North and South analogy through to its end, I love that as Gene's empire fell apart around him, it was she who picked it up, who picked him up, and gave them both back to him. The chequered ceiling returning as she hit back at Keats with, "Don't you make him into a liar," made me punch the air.
Alex. Alex who lost her little girl, but became a mother to her team, Gene's other half in helping them grow up enough to let go, and helping him let them go. There's a sweet, sad parallel: they each have to help the other let their children go, this episode. I knew that Alex was not going to go back when she walked into that subway tunnel in Episode Four and was told she was staying, knew for sure when the others turned to her and she paused for that tiniest of moments and then assented, "Pub". And somewhere out in the future I want to think there will be a DCI Drake, a little girl who grew up not, like her mother before her, wanting to prove something because she wondered if her mother loved her, but because she knew how much her mother did.
Alex. Alex who came into that world believing they were all her constructs and this episode did the single bravest thing she could possibly have done. "You're Gene Hunt. You're their Gov. That's what I'm here for. Nothing else." It's not an All About Gene moment, for all it might seem that way. It's All About Alex, about who she is and what she sees and how much she is capable of giving. Because surrendering her reality to his is what stops that reality from tearing apart.
Alex. Alex who walked into Gene's world as his fantasy and left it his friend. They really did end up with a ridiculously epic love story in the end, didn't they? I loved every moment they shared this episode, the devastating scene at the farmhouse, the string of tête-à-têtes in his office, the lovely scene with the two of them sitting together on the office floor. And that last, gorgeous scene between them that broke me in about forty ways.
Which brings me to Gene.
In my mind Gene would have come into this world as that young lad, has lived through all of this to get to this point. If he was twenty-ish in 1953, he would be forty-ish in 1973 and fifty-ish in 1983; it makes sense to me that although in this world he's been able to be his fantasy self, he's still had to work to get there.
The first time you watch The Wizard of Oz as an adult, it's a different film to the one you know as a child. And it is extraordinarily moving, that story of four friends who journey to find the life they long for, and don't realise until they get to their destination that they found everything they wanted on the way there.
I loved so much that each of them, with their time cut short before they could live out the life they'd longed for, had been gradually fulfilling their dreams as they made their way through the world in which we'd come to know them.
And what about Gene? What was his dream?
To go back to The Wizard of Oz for a minute, I've read somewhere else a lovely analogy that says that if Alex is Dorothy, then like the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Gene is all three. The Manc lion, the man in the tin box, the scarecrow with his brain blown out and his memory buried. And I loved that when the world he believes in is left shattered and hollow, it's she that takes hold of him and says, you've still got the heart, the mind, the courage to do this.
Alex says that Gene makes them all feel safe. With my heart breaking he made me laugh, a lot, this episode, and I would have been lost without that. "My real name's Nigel Perkins." ♥
Keats is right when he says that Gene has made them all live his fantasy rather than freeing them to do their own thing. It does explain a lot. And this episode didn't stint on exposing Gene with all his flaws. But Keats misses something. Because Gene's fantasy isn't to be the gun-toting cowboy hero. It's to be the sheriff. To be the one that takes care of the others. To be the bottom line. To be that guy who never offloads responsibility, who is absolutely self-obsessed and utterly unselfish. In a lot of ways, his fantasy is all about enabling them to live theirs.
He doesn't get to go into The Railway Arms, not yet, not because he hasn't yet fulfilled his dream, but because he is fulfilling his dream. I don't doubt for a minute that there will come a day when he will get to go on in and drink that pint, but for now he is doing exactly what that young lad dreamt of doing, and doing it with bells on, and boots to wit.
I said a few days ago that Ashes to Ashes was one episode between being a good show and a great one.
Goodbye, great show.