- SPOILERS! This post will be about the episode and asking for discussion in the comments. Come back once you’ve seen Ep1. And please all you Europeans who already have seen the full miniseries, no spoilers from past each episode! The plot seems linear thus far, so I think that will be very easy for you to do.
- I didn’t read the book. I definitely planned to read it before this came out, but I did not. So, I may ask some questions that book readers can assist me with.
- Last night, with 14 minutes left to go, right about when Elizabeth Debicki is sprawled out on the resort lobby couch in her robe like a hussy, a mouse ran out from behind my TV. We have been dealing with the “mice problem” for weeks now and that little fucker seriously needs to die. Needless to say, not only did I have less focus for the final 14 minutes, I basically got NO sleep because I was certain the mouse was in my bed and even had a dream that the mouse ran under my neck and got stuck under me and was squirming its way out. I just want you all to have context of this terror so if my recap is lacking or makes no sense, you can say, “This fucking mouse needs to die.”
Let’s begin!
Female Director
The first thing I noticed during the show open was that Susanne Bier directed it. She’s a Danish director who did Brothers (Natalie Portman’s in that) and the Oscar winning film In A Better World. So, essentially, we were in fantastic hands to start with and nothing could really go wrong.
Even more to the point though is what Jamie W. and I discussed in our Tom female gaze post about his prominent engagement in nudity. Susanne Bier makes sure the DP really focuses on Jonathan Pine’s face. It’s a little like when Josie Rourke admits that she wanted Tom to guarantee success for Coriolanus (super paraphrase there). Let’s just say, Susanne Bier is inherently all about giving us what we want, which is Tom’s beautiful face doing its beautiful work.
Tom’s Beautiful Face
It’s truly like a grand feast of succulence how much we get to see Tom in this episode. I’m assuming the book is written first person POV of Jonathan Pine because he is essentially in every scene except one and he talks A LOT without speaking. We see so much of Tom’s beautiful face in Ep1 that I seriously felt internal pain. I know that sounds ridiculous, but he’s so beautiful and it’s hard for me to look at truly beautiful things directly for a prolonged period of time. Luckily for all of us, someone at Yahoo! made this supercut of Tom’s face in Episode 1, so just rewatch it as much you need to:
The Score
You know me by now. Of course I’m mentioning this. It’s so Le Carré tonally. Done by Victor Reyes there’s just a quiet solitude to this score. I’m dropping it here for you to enjoy and I’m listening to it right now (of course):
Let’s Talk Plot
The plot for me was incredibly straightforward. I loved that it was set in the Arab Spring to start, and I felt an annoying first woman you meet in a Bond film energy from the second we lay eyes on Samira/Sophie. She’s very much going to die if this is a Bond movie. But it isn’t a Bond movie, so how would this unfold? I wasn’t sure, even though I didn’t think it was set entirely in 2011 and I knew we were changing locations at some point based on Tom’s twitter photos of the Matterhorn.
But I think EW recaps this opening plotline the best:
Sophie has dirt on Freddie, the kind of dirt that would be of interest to the British government. It’s her hope that the hotel guy, who was on a yacht that one time with a diplomat friend, can help bring down her terrible boyfriend. Sure, it’s a bad plan, but it’s the plan that involves Tom Hiddleston’s butt.
The one thing that was confusing to me, okay, no… there were two things, and maybe book readers can help here…
1. Was Russell Tovey’s character the one who told Roper about the leaked papers?
Was he Simon? I thought Simon was someone else? Anyway, he seemed like he was in the know about who had the papers and how they might get shared with Pine. Like he was a false friend to Pine. But I also kept thinking Simon (the guy Pine would go sailing with sometimes) was a different character that we never met?
2. Why did Olivia Coleman’s character call Pine directly at the Nefertiti hotel to tell him about Sophie’s imminent death?
I really thought in her scene she was calling Simon, since she knew him. But maybe that was code for there being a Night Manager at that hotel? I don’t know. That was confusing. Because when Pine is asking who she is, she urges him to go get Sophie to safety again and calls him “Mr. Pine”, but I don’t think he ever told her his name? That to me indicated there was some spy stuff going on between the two of them, but then when they finally meet face to face in Zermatt four years later, it appeared they’d never met before. Is this all to be revealed or should I already know this?
Fun fact: Olivia Coleman plays a character named Sophie in Peep Show, which is the first thing I saw her in back in the Otts.
Final Thoughts
All in all, I found this a compelling first episode and I want to see where it leads. I thought when Pine vomits after meeting the full Roper entourage it was particularly perfect as a reaction. Like he can’t even stomach their continued existence. The fact that he’s going to have to join them in live in that sense of nausea for a prolonged period is actually quite spectacular from a character standpoint. I’m pretty thrilled.
I loved hearing Tom speak different languages and that they didn’t bother to have Pine be able to really speak Arabic well, but he could understand it and obviously could read it. If he was on two tours to Iraq, the Arabic he picked up there would be quite different to Egyptian Arabic, so his ability to read it is much more logical than a speaking standpoint.
The details and cinematography of this show so far are living up to all the hype in a gorgeous way. The sets and locations make it easy to become immersed in the world, and that opening sequence with the Arab Spring was so visceral the way they shot it. I’m really looking forward to more of it.
I don’t have much to say about any of the acting, to be honest. I knew it would be excellent because everyone in this cast is someone I’ve seen in at least four other works (except Debicki who I’ve only seen in two things at this point). Hugh Laurie isn’t in a ton of this first episode, even though Roper’s presence is all over it, so I’ll reserve any gushing about his performance for later recaps.
Tom Hollander is one of my all time favorite actors and he’s always in Joe Wright films, which means I always am watching him just be spectacular. I was quite pleased to see him in this even though I knew he’d be there. He plays a baddie better than anyone. And after Broadchurch, I could not wait for Olivia Coleman in this. Wow, she’s something else.
Favorite Gif of a Scene
This gif has been living with me for awhile. I think it’s the most intimate I’ve felt with Tom in a gif before. So, I was pleased to see it lived out in the morning after scene with Samira.
It’s hard to really trust who Pine is, especially after Samira calls him out for having a changing of the guards personalities-wise, but I felt like in this moment he’s not playing any game. It’s a raw look at perhaps who Pine once was before everything that’s happened in his life and who he wishes he could be again, but no longer can. A small slice of innocence and honesty and intimacy. “What’s your real name?” This is the kind of acting Tom excels at seemingly without trying.
