[7.7/10] I like this episode because John Adams fails. Nothing against the guy, but the M.O. through the first two episodes of the mini-series is that John doesn’t necessarily go with the flow or do what’s expected of him, but he succeeds nonetheless due to a combination of his talents and his principles. It’s interesting, then, to show him as the inflexible and blunt wannabe diplomat who tries his brand of direct confrontation in old Europe and finds it utterly useless. There’s something compelling and humanizing about watching one of our nation's founders fall on his face at an important moment.
It’s also humanizing to see the Adamses have to deal with their family’s separation, on both sides of the Atlantic. I like our interludes with Abigail here much better than the ones we got in the last episode. For one thing, her dialogue is better here. Her recriminations to John that love requires time as well, her comments to her daughter about men getting to have all the adventures “because we let them”, and her conversation with the surgeon general about her absent husband are pathos-ridden, witty, and sharp in turn.
The story here is less about the practical hardship of effectively being a single mother, and more on the psychological hardship of being apart from your loved ones with no idea what they’re doing or when they’ll return, which is more my speed.
We also get that from John’s side, which is its own brand of engrossing. It’s hard to watch him have to separate Nabby’s arms from a hug, or to see Charlie pout and refuse to give him a kiss before he goes, or send off John Quincy as another diplomat’s secretary. This episode is as much about the strain and toll on John’s relationship with his family as anything, and those moments are tough. Likewise, you feel his embarrassment and shame over his lack of success. He fails to write to Abigail not for a lack of care, but because he’s ashamed to write about how thoroughly he’s screwed this up, carelessly worsening the mental well-being of the woman who’s esteem he’s trying to preserve.
Boy does he screw it up though. I’ll admit, I got a lot of laughs out of watching a stiff like John Adams have to get by in the, shall we say, more colorful confines of the French court circa 1777. Watching him trip over himself, give side eye to his Parisian hosts, and step in it with diplomatic courtesies both social and more political, is unexpectedly entertaining. Tom Wilkinson’s Ben Franklin is still a hoot, the way he finally chastises and disposes of John for threatening the tenuous (if “cloudy”) American/French alliance is well deserved.
Likewise, John’s faltering efforts with the stone-faced Dutch is remarkably comic through the use of some great editing. You can see how, for all his knowledge and oratory, diplomacy requires a delicacy and tact that John just doesn’t have.
We also get a dose of action which, frankly, seems pretty unnecessary. The set piece on the ship to France, which gets attacked by a British vessel, serves to show us (and John Quincy) the horrors of war and modern medicine. I suppose it’s a reminder of the cost of what’s going on at the battlefield, largely abstracted here. But it mostly feels like an excuse for some meh-looking fireworks and something vaguely heart-pumping for the episode.
I also appreciate the show getting a little surreal as John becomes delirious between his illness and desanguination. The images frankly seem pretty random, but I always appreciate stuffy historical pieces getting a little impressionistic. His “final” words amid his illness being his wife’s name signifies how much she means to him despite the damnable choice he made to go to Europe for pointless negotiations.
That, combined with the great scene between Abigail and Nabby, shows how lost the two of them are without one another, each less capable and self-assured than they are when able to see and support one another. It’s a good psychological point to suggest amid John’s biggest failure so far -- that he needs Abigail, lest he spiral out with his bluntest impulses unchecked, and make an utter hash of things without her gentle guidance and her love.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2020-07-06T05:05:28Z
[7.7/10] I like this episode because John Adams fails. Nothing against the guy, but the M.O. through the first two episodes of the mini-series is that John doesn’t necessarily go with the flow or do what’s expected of him, but he succeeds nonetheless due to a combination of his talents and his principles. It’s interesting, then, to show him as the inflexible and blunt wannabe diplomat who tries his brand of direct confrontation in old Europe and finds it utterly useless. There’s something compelling and humanizing about watching one of our nation's founders fall on his face at an important moment.
It’s also humanizing to see the Adamses have to deal with their family’s separation, on both sides of the Atlantic. I like our interludes with Abigail here much better than the ones we got in the last episode. For one thing, her dialogue is better here. Her recriminations to John that love requires time as well, her comments to her daughter about men getting to have all the adventures “because we let them”, and her conversation with the surgeon general about her absent husband are pathos-ridden, witty, and sharp in turn.
The story here is less about the practical hardship of effectively being a single mother, and more on the psychological hardship of being apart from your loved ones with no idea what they’re doing or when they’ll return, which is more my speed.
We also get that from John’s side, which is its own brand of engrossing. It’s hard to watch him have to separate Nabby’s arms from a hug, or to see Charlie pout and refuse to give him a kiss before he goes, or send off John Quincy as another diplomat’s secretary. This episode is as much about the strain and toll on John’s relationship with his family as anything, and those moments are tough. Likewise, you feel his embarrassment and shame over his lack of success. He fails to write to Abigail not for a lack of care, but because he’s ashamed to write about how thoroughly he’s screwed this up, carelessly worsening the mental well-being of the woman who’s esteem he’s trying to preserve.
Boy does he screw it up though. I’ll admit, I got a lot of laughs out of watching a stiff like John Adams have to get by in the, shall we say, more colorful confines of the French court circa 1777. Watching him trip over himself, give side eye to his Parisian hosts, and step in it with diplomatic courtesies both social and more political, is unexpectedly entertaining. Tom Wilkinson’s Ben Franklin is still a hoot, the way he finally chastises and disposes of John for threatening the tenuous (if “cloudy”) American/French alliance is well deserved.
Likewise, John’s faltering efforts with the stone-faced Dutch is remarkably comic through the use of some great editing. You can see how, for all his knowledge and oratory, diplomacy requires a delicacy and tact that John just doesn’t have.
We also get a dose of action which, frankly, seems pretty unnecessary. The set piece on the ship to France, which gets attacked by a British vessel, serves to show us (and John Quincy) the horrors of war and modern medicine. I suppose it’s a reminder of the cost of what’s going on at the battlefield, largely abstracted here. But it mostly feels like an excuse for some meh-looking fireworks and something vaguely heart-pumping for the episode.
I also appreciate the show getting a little surreal as John becomes delirious between his illness and desanguination. The images frankly seem pretty random, but I always appreciate stuffy historical pieces getting a little impressionistic. His “final” words amid his illness being his wife’s name signifies how much she means to him despite the damnable choice he made to go to Europe for pointless negotiations.
That, combined with the great scene between Abigail and Nabby, shows how lost the two of them are without one another, each less capable and self-assured than they are when able to see and support one another. It’s a good psychological point to suggest amid John’s biggest failure so far -- that he needs Abigail, lest he spiral out with his bluntest impulses unchecked, and make an utter hash of things without her gentle guidance and her love.