Flashforward
Mar. 19th, 2010 08:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamflowerI wasn't sure that the return of Flashforward was going to continue to hold my interest, but this mostly Simon-centric episode was really gripping, and also led to some interesting thoughts about Dom and the characters he's played...
Cut for spoilers...
When I saw Dom on the Ellen Show a couple of weeks ago, he spoke about his roles, and said that after playing Merry, when he was offered his role on LOST as Charlie, he told them he wanted a character as different as possible from Merry, and that when he was offered the role of Simon in Flashforward, he said he wanted to play a very different character as well, and he was glad to be playing a bad guy for a change.
I mentioned this to my husband during one of the commercials, and he said, "Yeah, but really they are all the same. He got all beat up when he was Merry, and he got all beat up when he was Charlie, and now he's this guy and he got all beat up."
He was being funny, but it made me blink, and then I got to thinking how *similar* the characters have been, rather than different.
Merry Brandybuck (movie-verse Merry only, here) was a bit of a smart-aleck, and yes, he was very young and innocent and likeable. He was definitely and without a doubt one of the Good Guys. But in a pinch, when those he loved were threatened, he had a violent side-- we get to see fierce Merry at several points in the movies: in the battle with the cave troll, at the breaking of the Fellowship, shouting "DEATH!" before the charge of the Rohirrim (and in the EE during the battle as he fights from the front of Eowyn's horse), striking the W-k, and of course, as he and Pippin are the first to follow Aragorn into battle at the Black Gate. All of these moments of Merry as fierce warrior were motivated by threats to those whom Merry loved: Frodo, Boromir, Pippin...
OK, now Charlie Pace. I remember him mainly and mostly from the first couple of seasons, though I kept watching till they killed him off in Season Three. He's certainly not innocent, though he can be a likeable smart-aleck, and he was in a very grey area between Good Guy and Bad Guy at the beginning, especially when he was in the grip of his addicition. But we get to see him being really fierce in the story arc about Claire's kidnapping in the first Season, when he goes after, and then finally kills, Ethan.
Flashforward: Simon Campos is a Bad Guy. A classic Bad Guy. He's clearly a smart-aleck, but not terribly likable. We know from the beginning that he can be fierce and violent. But until last night's episode, we don't know why. Now we are shown that he can be likable-- and we are also shown that his violence is being directed at those who are threatening his loved ones. He's still a manipulative bastard, and he's too easily murderous to be a Good Guy, but we see he's not the main Villain. At any rate, we also see, that like Merry and Charlie, Simon can take a goodly amount of physical abuse and still bounce back...as my husband pointed out, LOL!
BTW: I liked the use of Janet as Simon's foil in this ep. She's proof against his dubious sexual charm, but she's also observant of the affection he has for his family and perhaps will be in a position to realize what's behind some of his behavior-- but as we saw, she's no one's fool, and his efforts to evade her surveillance were only briefly and incompletely successful! I also was pleased that my first hunches that Dom was the mysterious "awake" person at the ballgame were correct (even though it had not seemed possible).
I'm not sure how I feel about the element of the "religious windowasher preacher", and while I liked that Nicole questioned him, I think some of her questions missed the point (although they were certainly in keeping with her character's guilt complex). I do like Nicole's mother. As my husband observed (fondly and truthfully in his case-- he's been a gero-psych nurse for years) "crazy old people are so much fun".
I'm beginning to think that Mark is going to serve the same niche Jack did on LOST: main character who is annoyingly self-absorbed, but you can't really ignore since he's at the middle of the plot...
Cut for spoilers...
When I saw Dom on the Ellen Show a couple of weeks ago, he spoke about his roles, and said that after playing Merry, when he was offered his role on LOST as Charlie, he told them he wanted a character as different as possible from Merry, and that when he was offered the role of Simon in Flashforward, he said he wanted to play a very different character as well, and he was glad to be playing a bad guy for a change.
I mentioned this to my husband during one of the commercials, and he said, "Yeah, but really they are all the same. He got all beat up when he was Merry, and he got all beat up when he was Charlie, and now he's this guy and he got all beat up."
He was being funny, but it made me blink, and then I got to thinking how *similar* the characters have been, rather than different.
Merry Brandybuck (movie-verse Merry only, here) was a bit of a smart-aleck, and yes, he was very young and innocent and likeable. He was definitely and without a doubt one of the Good Guys. But in a pinch, when those he loved were threatened, he had a violent side-- we get to see fierce Merry at several points in the movies: in the battle with the cave troll, at the breaking of the Fellowship, shouting "DEATH!" before the charge of the Rohirrim (and in the EE during the battle as he fights from the front of Eowyn's horse), striking the W-k, and of course, as he and Pippin are the first to follow Aragorn into battle at the Black Gate. All of these moments of Merry as fierce warrior were motivated by threats to those whom Merry loved: Frodo, Boromir, Pippin...
OK, now Charlie Pace. I remember him mainly and mostly from the first couple of seasons, though I kept watching till they killed him off in Season Three. He's certainly not innocent, though he can be a likeable smart-aleck, and he was in a very grey area between Good Guy and Bad Guy at the beginning, especially when he was in the grip of his addicition. But we get to see him being really fierce in the story arc about Claire's kidnapping in the first Season, when he goes after, and then finally kills, Ethan.
Flashforward: Simon Campos is a Bad Guy. A classic Bad Guy. He's clearly a smart-aleck, but not terribly likable. We know from the beginning that he can be fierce and violent. But until last night's episode, we don't know why. Now we are shown that he can be likable-- and we are also shown that his violence is being directed at those who are threatening his loved ones. He's still a manipulative bastard, and he's too easily murderous to be a Good Guy, but we see he's not the main Villain. At any rate, we also see, that like Merry and Charlie, Simon can take a goodly amount of physical abuse and still bounce back...as my husband pointed out, LOL!
BTW: I liked the use of Janet as Simon's foil in this ep. She's proof against his dubious sexual charm, but she's also observant of the affection he has for his family and perhaps will be in a position to realize what's behind some of his behavior-- but as we saw, she's no one's fool, and his efforts to evade her surveillance were only briefly and incompletely successful! I also was pleased that my first hunches that Dom was the mysterious "awake" person at the ballgame were correct (even though it had not seemed possible).
I'm not sure how I feel about the element of the "religious windowasher preacher", and while I liked that Nicole questioned him, I think some of her questions missed the point (although they were certainly in keeping with her character's guilt complex). I do like Nicole's mother. As my husband observed (fondly and truthfully in his case-- he's been a gero-psych nurse for years) "crazy old people are so much fun".
I'm beginning to think that Mark is going to serve the same niche Jack did on LOST: main character who is annoyingly self-absorbed, but you can't really ignore since he's at the middle of the plot...