Jericho 2x02

[vaznetti]

Still full of chewy things to think about. (I saw the Special Canadian early showing, which is why I'm posting now, so there are spoilers for the whole episode under the cut)

I am really hoping for a meaty Eric storyline. He is so angry at the world, and that includes the new government, and of course in that he's also right. But I also sort of wish that the new government was not quite so twirly-mustache-style evil: it just seems kind of over the top, especially the textbooks and the new constitution and the wrong flag. I mean, if I were planning a coup -- which I'm totally not, for the record -- I don't think I'd want to signpost it quite that clearly. And it takes some of the interest out of characters like Beck, for me: Beck will be interesting if he's going to change, and going to start to see what this government is -- which now that Ravenwood has shown up, is more likely to happen. But one kind of wonders why no one noticed before that the government has EVIL scrawled in giant letters all over its forehead. Or maybe that's just my take on it.

But I hope to see, in Eric, something of what Johnston Green would have told these people. (Jake, I suspect, will be the more effective resistance, at least so long as he keeps taking orders from Hawkins. And I really like Gray's plans for a quiet challenge: how we see him change his mind, see him listen, not just to Eric and Emily but also to the president himself.)

Speaking of Hawkins, Darcy looked very, very nervous and guilty, but is also a very effective operator: the whole thing with the phone was neatly done. And the Chavez plot was very coldly done: he did kill those soldiers, with what Jake gave him. And Jake did look for another way to do it -- via the journalist -- but that came to nothing. Everyone is playing hardball.

I was also reminded tonight of that scene early in S1, where Mimi has just realized that everyone she knows is dead, and stands there refusing comfort, because there can't really be any. I kind of liked that better than what we got tonight, where she shoves her grief away. Every now and then I am tempted to write the Mimi/Stan relationship as something very dark, because even though I don't think this is what the writers mean, it's possible to see something very creepy there. After all, Mimi is stuck in this town with no way to support herself and no network to help her: she has to do something.

Still liking it, despite the sad lack of Heather this week -- at least we saw Bonnie! -- especially for the political stuff, even as I roll my eyes at it.

Comments

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

You should totally write that Mimi/Stan fic. I for one would love to read it.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

But one kind of wonders why no one noticed before that the government has EVIL scrawled in giant letters all over its forehead.

Speaking as someone new to the show, but very old to the trope, I have to say that the textbooks were hilariously OTT and wrong. Because, #1, do you know how long it takes to write and publish a 4-color textbook, even in the absence of a nuclear war? #2, any town still standing has a school board, and that school board will remember state schooling standards -- which vary wildly by state. We're supposed to believe that all those standards and petty fiefdoms of control have all just been cheered away with some fancy rhetoric? #3, and all you aspiring authoritarian states I am talking to you: you have to outlaw the pop-culture representations that contradict your message before you start dictating that message in official channels. Between a grade-school textbook and a DVD boxed set of Welcome Back Kotter, I know who I trust.

I strive not to be resentful that the future of this TV universe appears to rest entirely on the cranky perversity of the state of Texas.

[se-parsons.livejournal.com]

Those textbooks already exist in four color form for the homeschool market.

I have read them.

They begin by talking about how government comes from God and the United States was right to destroy the Native Americans becuase they weren't using the land right. It goes on much like that. It would just be a reprint.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

[geek mode=on]

Perhaps, but who has the plates/PDFs? Even if you have the whole book in hand, it would have to be re-typeset.

And they'll have to be edited to reflect the United States of Paranoia, and Those 13 Colonies Had it All Wrong, and so forth and so on. (The show doesn't mention anything about Christianity; I have to imagine that's assumed-rather-than-spoken at present, because, even if you could cow all of California into nominal Christianity that quickly, doctrinal wars would immediately break out.) You could probably edit a crazy homeschool book, but you'd still have to do considerable work on it, that would alter pagination. Which means you need someone to re-lay the pages. If they're digital plates, that's one thing; if it's still old-fashioned plates, that's a lot of skilled labor to round up.

On the up side, who gives a shit about copyright permissions?

On the down side, finding a press with all its employees, with the capacity to run off that size of print run (at least a million), would be a gigantic pain in the butt. Some of the storage and distribution infrastructure could be handled by the soldiers running around, but my mind's eye is seeing a very, vrey frazzled project manager somewhere in there.

[se-parsons.livejournal.com]

Ha, true!

A lot of the major textbook manufacturers were nuked with Chicago, but I don't think they're the ones doing those homeschool books. I'd have to look into it.

There are a LOT of printing presses, though. And a LOT of people with digital capability, and Adobe publishing suite, well dispersed all over the country. If they could get the homeschool text files, they'd be able to edit that fast.

I wrote an TESOL textbook from scratch in under two months. So if I was just editing for paranoia...

I think you could whip it out.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

To my knowledge the only major textbook manufacturers west of the Mississippi would be production offices in SF, Thousand Oaks, and other places along the California coast. I'm sure there are a lot of smaller places here there and everywhere, but, I'm also sure that they're not used to producing stuff up to the standard of a national textbook, especially not at short-schedule.

Wouldn't it be awesomely hilarious if all the covers ripped off the books in the first week? Or the binding glue just up and died. You just know that the running headers are a complete mess, since nobody did a final check on them.

[vaznetti]

I strive not to be resentful that the future of this TV universe appears to rest entirely on the cranky perversity of the state of Texas.

My experience with TV world logic encourages me to believe that Texas will turn out to be something of a red herring, and that the fate of the world (or at least America) will end up in the hands of the ordinary yet plucky citizens of Jericho, Kansas, and in particular, in the hands of Jake Green and his closest friends.

Sometimes, this fictional universe does not cross its t's and dot its i's, at least when it comes to practical and logistical issues.

[cofax7]

But one kind of wonders why no one noticed before that the government has EVIL scrawled in giant letters all over its forehead. Or maybe that's just my take on it.

Especially since he has had to make a choice already. This government isn't the government he swore to serve. At some point he either independently chose, or chose to follow a superior officer who chose, to fall in with the Cheyenne-based government rather than point out that the legal president was some assistant secretary of agriculture in Columbus.

That moment right there was his Rubicon--and it's hard to believe the character as presented to us didn't recognize that.

I worry that Gray will just get himself killed. I mean, he goes into the lion's den to challenge the lion? But he doesn't realize, yet, how hardball this game is, I guess.

I was startled that Chavez didn't betray them. But I suspect that simply getting the news to Texas is not going to result in an easy resolution...

And yes, it was good to see Bonnie, even if Gail's absence keeps getting larger and larger lampshades hung on it. I suspect I missed the moment where Emily and Jake began living together...

Tomorrow, I think I'll make a Jericho post: I have questions.

[vaznetti]

That moment right there was his Rubicon--and it's hard to believe the character as presented to us didn't recognize that.

I agree, although I think it's possible that the character as we see him may be starting to have second thoughts, and that those second thoughts will be encouraged by the inevitable misdeeds of Ravenwood. (Inevitable in TV logic land, I mean.)

I worry about Gray a little, but for all his faults he really is quite a political operator, and provided he keeps his head, he may in fact be surprisingly effective. And he has a strong sense of self-preservation. The problem would come if he really didn't realize how serious the situation was, I think.