Any Other Business: Part LXV

As the title suggests, so forth.

The Death of Patterson

What an emotional few days it was last week catching up with network television shows bowing out… Martin Gero has been on a veritable rampage killing established characters in the final (half a) season of Blindspot: Reade, Brianna, Keaton. But to then take out Patterson in a hail of thermite. Hoist on the petard of her own MacGyver’d cleverness, trapped in Rich’s own mini-Pompeii of a self-destructing server silo, incinerated in falling flames while Rich looked on at her slow motion death helplessly. I had to rewind this a few times to actually believe that they had really killed Patterson, the heart of the show, much as Joss Whedon had enraged fans when he killed the heart of his show Firefly in the resolving movie. I understand that Gero is building the stakes ever higher as Madeline Burke becomes ever more monstrous, but there is a point at which you simply tip into excess, and arguably Blindspot has long passed it with her unpunished supervillainy: did we really need this gut-punch?

The Death of Dean Winchester

And then just two days after Sky Witness had inflicted that trauma on us 4Music aired as a triple bill the final ever episodes of Supernatural. And Dean Winchester; lover of bacon, killer of Hitler, eater of pie, vessel of Apocalypse World Michael to kill Lucifer hopped up on Nephilim grace, Scooby-Doo aficionado, and occasional Batman; died on a sharp piece of rebar sticking out of a barn post… Who knows why exactly showrunner Andrew Dabb chose Medium as his model on how to end a series, but the influence was obvious.

Let Us Prey

Game of Thrones’ Liam Cunningham is a mysterious figure causing chaos at the police station of a small Scottish town in this gory Scottish-Irish co-production.

PC Rachel Heggie (Pollyanna McIntosh) has transferred to a small Scottish town, where her tightly-wound reputation precedes her. She instantly arrests local hooligan Caesar Sargison (Brian Vernel), and is surprised by the casual brutality of her supposedly religious superior Sgt Macready (Douglas Russell) and his unashamed leering at the teenage Caesar changing into prison garb. Her crude fellow constables Mundie (Hanna Stanbridge) and Warnock (Bryan Larkin) seem little better, ignorant of the police’s own call-signs when she reports a hit-and-run. When the apparent victim is brought in things get truly peculiar. He knows the darkest secrets of wife-beating prisoner Beswick (Jonathan Watson) and respected doctor Hume (Niall Greig Fulton), has a notebook full of names crossed out, and speaks of the reckoning to come at midnight. He has no name, only his suggestive cell number identifies him – Six (Liam Cunningham)…

The script by Fiona Watson and David Cairns plays this set-up quite straight. There are shades of Supernatural at play. Let Us Prey recalls the demonic Rio Bravo episode where the Winchesters were assailed by hordes of Lilith’s minions in an isolated police station, but it comes closest to Supernatural’s orbit in Six’s motivation. Six approaches Eric Kripke’s rendering of Lucifer as someone who lost an argument and is still determined to prove he was right, when he insists that forgiveness is an act of condoning and that the guilty must be punished for their sins. In fact Watson and Cairns at times seem almost to be riffing on JB Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, but that the dark secrets are being ferreted out by an equally dark angel. Everybody has a secret. They have been gathered together, for a purpose.

Commercials director Brian O’Malley makes his feature debut and his directorial control is admirable, and evident from the startling first appearance of Six landing on the Scottish coast in the midst of a crashing wave. His cinematographer Piers McGrail (Kelly + Victor, Glassland, The Canal) helps achieve a very precisely measured horror film that largely teases its gore rather than splash it about the screen, until the finale. Production designer James Lapsley renders the police station’s subterranean holding cells repulsively grotty, but there too many establishing shots of the most deserted town in Scotland. Arguably the power of Six has emptied the streets and filled them with crows, but it’s almost impossible not to think about budget constraints; and it distracts from the duels for power between Rachel, Macready, Mundie, Warnock, and Six as midnight approaches and the body-count rises.

Let Us Prey becomes increasingly outré, but the masochistic imagery of the fiery witching hour finale is certainly very memorable, and the gore and character arcs amp up pleasingly.

3/5

Mark Pellegrino gets ambitious

INT.HOLLYWOOD OFFICE-DAY
DELANEY, an agent to the stars, well, minor actors, sits at his desk lovingly watering his potted plant while MARK PELLEGRINO, seated opposite him, complains…

PELLEGRINO: I just…it feels like I’m stuck in a rut, you know.
DELANEY: A rut? Don’t I get you roles in good stuff? Didn’t Capote win Oscars? Doesn’t Dexter win Golden Globes?
PELLEGRINO: Yeah, and I’m glad to be in good stuff but…I’m getting typed. What was I playing in Capote? The second-string killer from In Cold Blood. What was I playing in Dexter? Rita’s strung-out abusive ex-husband. I don’t want to become the go-to guy for down the bill vicious rednecks. I’d even shave if that would help…
DELANEY: Is this an ego thing? You want to be a regular now?
PELLEGRINO: No, it’s not a credits thing. I just want something, bigger, you know.
DELANEY: Bigger?
PELLEGRINO: Yeah, (mimes with his hands) BIGGER.
DELANEY: So, okay, bigger, okay, so you want something like Jake La Motta, something where you can bulk up like De Niro for the part? Be bigger-
PELLEGRINO: No, not physically bigger you idiot.
DELANEY: -Because I could still get you an audition for the Blob in Wolverine if you want to go full-on method to get attention.
PELLEGRINO: No, no! Not… (pause) Why do I keep paying you?
DELANEY: Some deranged sense of loyalty?
PELLEGRINO: (sighs) I don’t want to gain weight you moron, try to understand me. When I say bigger I really mean, loftier, you know. Some role where I don’t have to explain what my part was, and then have people go ‘oh’, and think ‘vicious redneck, I can see that’. I want a character whose name speaks for itself. I don’t mean get me Macbeth-
DELANEY: What’s Macbeth?
PELLEGRINO: (pretends he didn’t hear that) I just mean get me something that’s a bit classier than the seedy thugs I’ve been playing with distinction and sensitivity.
DELANEY: So, still a small supporting role, not a regular, but lofty.
PELLEGRINO: Lofty, you know.
DELANEY: Lofty, yeah, I getcha.
PELLEGRINO: So, do you think you can get me something lofty?
DELANEY: Sure, no problem.
PELLEGRINO: Good, good. Thanks Delaney.
(Exit Pellegrino)
(Delaney waits a few beats, dives into his desk, and emerges with a dictionary)
DELANEY: ‘Lofty’…

INT. HOLLYWOOD OFFICE-DAY
DELANEY sits at his desk lovingly watering his potted plant while MARK PELLEGRINO, seated opposite him, looks expectantly at him…

TITLE: 2 MONTHS LATER…

DELANEY: They’re so lofty they’re practically- (hits speakerphone switch) Janine what was that word again.
JANINE: (O/S) Non-corporeal.
DELANEY: They’re so lofty they’re practically non-corporeal.
PELLEGRINO: Well what are ‘they’?
DELANEY: Well I’ve got you a part in Supernatural.
PELLEGRINO: That’s the one with the two guys?
DELANEY: Yeah, the two pretty boys who drive around the country looking outrageously pretty while killing monsters with a surprising amount of gore for a network show so that it appeals to every demographic!
PELLEGRINO: Okay, that doesn’t sound over lofty though, what’s my part?
DELANEY: Lucifer.
PELLEGRINO: Oh cool! There’s name recognition for ya! No need to explain that part to people. Good going Delaney.
DELANEY: I thank you. I also got you another recurring role in another show.
PELLEGRINO: What show?
DELANEY: LOST.
PELLEGRINO: No freaking way!
DELANEY: Yes freaking away.
PELLEGRINO: Awesome! I get to ‘work’ in Hawaii. What’s the part? Is it lofty?
DELANEY: Oh it’s very lofty, you’ll be playing Jakob.
PELLEGRINO: Who’s Jakob?
DELANEY: He’s so lofty he’s non-corporeal. He’s, sort of, God, on the island.
PELLEGRINO: He’s God?
DELANEY: Yes. No.
PELLEGRINO: Well which is it? Yes or No? Because that would make just a teensy bit of difference to how I play the part…
DELANEY: He’s, well… Look they explained it down the phone and they weren’t particularly clear about it but just play it as probably being God, okay?
PELLEGRINO: Probably?! (pause) Okay, I can explain to people that Jakob is God and then go ‘I also played the Devil – Range!’ When do these two roles shoot?
DELANEY: Next few months.
PELLEGRINO: What, both? I’m doing them simultaneously?
DELANEY: Yes, that’s what I agreed to.
PELLEGRINO: Oh Christ, that’s going to get confusing. You’ve got me playing God and the Devil in two shows at the same time!
DELANEY: Well it shouldn’t be hard to remember which is which. If it’s hot as hell,
PELLEGRINO: Yeah?
DELANEY: Then you’re playing God.
PELLEGRINO: (beat) Not helping dude.
JANINE: (O/S) Did you want something else sir, because I’m still on speaker…
PELLEGRINO: (head in hands) About a million post-its with, ‘Please tell Mark which Ultimate Being he’s meant to be today’, please Janine.