Review by Alexander von Limberg
I could repeat my comments from last episode, but I won't do this. In a nutshell: it looks awesome, but the story and most characters are mediocre. I still enjoy it but it's certainly not great.
Let me talk about something else instead. Tolkien's work and Jackson's adaptation have always received their fair share of criticism regarding ethnic and racial stereotypes. One example is the problematic Wagner-ish portray of dwarfs. I won't go into this. Enough was said about this. In this show, they added Hobbit "ancestors". Hobbits were never funny and a a big fat Irish stereotype. Now they added this element of "migration". How could you not think that they are inspired by Irish Travellers? The Harfoots have other traits allegedly ascribed to their culture: they too love music, gather around campfires, organize themselves in families and live at the edge of society in relative poverty. It's like costume artists were fans of The Kelly Family. I'm not even saying that only negative stereotypes are reverberated: the Harfoots are too likable to immediately incite prejudice and discrimination against Travellers. But I wonder why they always do that in this franchise? Why do they often use a discriminated ethnic or racial group as a template and why do they choose to portray them in a very stereotypical way? They could have designed this people very differently very easily. Who's next? Gypsies? Pygmy peoples? Sámi? Eurasian nomads aka "horse people"? It doesn't really bother me though. (I'm not a snowflake and I realize that fiction is different from reality). This was mostly an academic remark. But I think, it was worth to be mentioned. Instead, very interestingly though, the show is (totally unfairly) criticized by some for including (as in: inclusion) black actors. Really? It makes you think whether "our" value system is well calibrated.
PS: I knew it. Yolandi Visser is one of these weird, otherworldly, pale elves. These guys are elves, right?
loading replies
@alexlimberg This was really insightful and I liked reading it, thank you for taking the time to write this comment!
- Absolutely loved this episode! They took their time with the whole hospital sequence and it was perfectly done, not a dull moment!
- Richard Coyle (Dr. O'Donnell) stole every scene he was in! What a presence!
- It is a bit unsettling that Paul's nurse fit his type exactly
- Great speech from Stella to Tom about handling this wife's recovery and being there for her
loading replies
@tago1987 I thought the same about the nurse!
I feel like they totally changed Janine’s personality from the pilot to this episode :( like that new storyline with her boyfriend??? So unnecessary and it’s so out of character of her to have a boyfriend like that, like if Janine doesn’t take Ava’s bs for the kids, why would she tolerate a bf like that??????????
loading replies
@aars26 I felt like that as well!
