Crime Fiction

Meaningless Millenials: Clique & Search Party

Robert5 Comments

Life can seem quite meaningless for millennials these days as we’re forced to jump through the increasingly outdated hoops of school all for the sake of one day getting an adult job. However, much debt later and those dream jobs tend to be unpaid internships or going the way of automisation. Meanwhile, Trump, Brexit, climate change etc etc…what do we do!? It’s no surprise then that this nihilistic turn ends up influencing popular culture. Two examples include recent mystery based dramas with Gen Y protagonists, Search Party (TBS) and Clique (BBC). For the former think Nancy Drew meets mid-twenties millennial malaise with a side of Gone Girl and the latter is a less funny Mean Girls meets The Secret History with Scottish accents. Both have meaninglessness at their hearts but for two very different reasons. Oh, and head’s up, there will be spoilers.

Search Party tells the story of Dory, not the forgetful fish, but a 20s something woman living in New York who lacks direction and purpose in life. Naturally, she goes looking for this by going looking for Chantal – an old college acquaintance who is now a missing person. Cue hunting for clues, curious suspects, intriguing red herrings and a whole cast of amazing characters – from her endlessly self-absorbed rich friends to a cult-load of ‘wellness-seeking’ weirdos. Dory’s 21st century world is exceptionally bleak but also very, very funny. Clique takes itself a little more seriously as young students and lifelong friends, Holly and Georgie, fall out over getting in with the in-crowd: four conventionally beautiful young women who have looks and banking internships to die for (literally in the case of one of them who kills herself in episode one). The characters here are familiar clichés: the charismatic lecturer who lures the impressionable young women in with her force of character (and questionable brand of feminism) and the attractive people who do glamorous things (e.g. take drugs, jump into swimming pools with their clothes on, have chauffeurs etc) but aren’t actually that interesting. However, what’s great about Clique is that it’s going all out to fail the Mechdel test – the male equivalent of the Bechdel test – as the guys are left to be annoying, peripheral characters and the occasional bare butt shot.

So both shows are full of selfish and sometimes vacuous characters, however, I’d say Search Party is knowingly presenting them as such in order to skewer them in parody. It takes a mirror to Gen Y’s obsession with selfies, celebrity and self-promotion, and reminds us that it’s all paper-thin (whilst also mistressfully weaving this trope into the denouement). Meanwhile, I feel Clique is being a little more earnest in its vacuity and trying to convince us that, like Holly and Georgie, we really should want to join the clique of coke-snorting, unpaid yet highly attractive interns who don’t say much of interest and are forced to work for/with complete chauvinists. But that’s the thing with cliques – cool from a distance but kinda disappointing once you’re inside. Although I’m not convinced Holly is all that convinced of the clique either so, with three episodes to go, there’s still plenty of time for biting, poignant cultural critique a la Search Party.

Interestingly, one thing lacking in both these tales of millennial woe are significant adult figures. Search Party has the odd wellness guru and disinterested, rich parent, whilst Clique has got the over-zealous lecturer and her weird brother but I feel both series are missing a trick because without adults who can the Gen Yers blame for all our problems? Let’s face it without the baby boomers we millennials wouldn’t be here. Without their inventions, businesses, advertising agencies and super-charged model of consumer capitalism where on earth would we go to struggle to find meaning and purpose? I mean if they’d invested in sustainable energy, steady-state economic models and put community before profit then Dory and Holly probably would have already found themselves and wouldn’t need to go on dangerous mystery adventures. Likewise, their friends would probably spend more time looking out for one another and not wasting so much time setting up faux-charitable initiatives to boost their fragile self-esteems or chasing the next high-functioning sociopath with a six-pack. And nor would everyone be stone broke and forced to pay too much rent because we’d have caps on renting or, who knows, maybe all housing would be social housing. And freaky wellness cults run by overly charismatic yet dubious people who wear too much expensive jewellery wouldn’t need to be invented because we’d all probably be quite happy sharing stuff and looking out for one another. Who’d need an exclusive clique when we’d all have community. Anyways, just a thought. Now quick, back to Instagram!

Murdering Nostalgia With Agatha Christie And The BBC: The Witness For The Prosecution

Robert1 Comment

The words ‘Agatha Christie murder mystery’ might conjure up images of posh people gathered together in a chintzy drawing-room sipping tea whilst some sleuth – normally moustache twirling Hercule Poirot or knitting Miss Marple – runs through all the red herrings before revealing whodunnit. These are cosy affairs where murder doesn’t involve much blood and good always conquers evil (normally after two or three deaths). A sepia toned view of the 1920s and 30s in Britain where the Empire is represented by a gruff colonel type who might drink a little too much and everyone else is having a whale of a time (apart from the corpses). All this changed last night when the BBC gave nostalgia a cup of poisoned tea and watched it die a grim and bloody death (spoilers ensue).

The writer Sarah Phelps adapted the Christie short story and play The Witness For The Prosecution for the BBC. It was a Christmas special except the only thing special about it was its relentless misery. The smiling, diamond encrusted mask of 1920s London was peeled back to reveal a world of grim austerity, inequality and chest infections. A world in which murder is a desperate and unhappy thing committed by desperate and unhappy people or, in this case, unapologetic sociopaths. The moral core of this story was a rotten one as people were left reeling from the effects of the First World War. Lovers, Romaine and Leonard Vole, were so scarred by the atrocities that they didn’t bat an eyelid when it came to committing and covering up the murder of rich heiress Emily French (played by Kim Cattrall  from Sex and the City!). John Mayhew, the coughing solicitor, guilt ridden after the death of his son in WWI, is spectacularly duped by the murderous couple (as are we the audience!) and proves key in letting them get away with it. He even gets Emily French’s maid hung for a murder she didn’t commit even though she did drown Ms French’s cat. Naturally, when he finds out what has happened he walks off into the sea. This adaptation reveals nostalgia to be a lie – the First World War was not great, wealth does not buy happiness and there’s often lots of blood when someone gets bashed on the head. Personally, I am glad the BBC killed nostalgia because it can be a dangerous thing.  Conniving politicians regularly use it to justify prejudice – if we vote Brexit we can take back control and Britain can be Britain again, free of foreigners and full of tea, oh, and wasn’t the Empire great despite all the slavery and oppression. Or we can banish the Muslims and make America great again. But the nostalgic myths they play on of bygone golden ages are just that – myths – half-hearted stories based on lies and a sprinkling of selective history. The past is no halcyon era of smiles and good fortunes it was often dangerous and unhappy.

However, it’s not just nostalgia that Phelps and the BBC killed it was also hope. The victims die painful and bloody deaths, the villains get away with it and the goodies get hung or drown themselves. There will be no saviour on a white horse or twiddling his little Belgian moustache. The closest we get to redemption is the brief smile on Mayhew’s face as he walks off into the sea, perhaps he has found peace after all, asides from the fact that he will soon be dead. However, there is one brilliant moment before killers Leonard and Romaine drive off into the sunset. Leonard mentions to his newly married wife that he’s worried she might get bored of him now that they’ve got all the money. “Don’t be tiresome, Leonard,” she replies curtly, leaving him with a worried look on his face – yup, the lives of murderous sociopaths might end richly ever after but I doubt they’ll end happily ever after. It seems this Yuletide adapation has a lot to teach us about our own times – 2016 was a hopeless year for the goodies and it really seems as though the baddies are going to get away with it. And I’m not sure 2017 is shaping up to be much better. Yet it is one thing to tear up our nostalgic views of the past but it is quite something else to offer any hint of a different future, a future in which there will not be wars, inequality will be no more and the villains might be held accountable. I feel this is beyond the scope of Sarah Phelps and the BBC, which is why we cannot let them get away with murder.

The Night Manager: A Slower James Bond

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The Night Manager, it’s the new John Le Carré adaptation on BBC1, a typical story of intrigue, spying and nefarious businessmen screwing the rest of the world over. If you’ve ever seen a James Bond film then it’s like that (sorry, spoiler alert) – big baddy selling weapons, objectified women who get killed by baddies and some dull, semi-sociopath spy caught in the middle of it. Except this time M is played by Olivia Coleman and she’s got a northern accent and a baby on the way. Meanwhile, if you’ve ever read one of my blog posts you’ll be able to predict my complaints: it fails the Latif and Bechdel tests so far (I’m on episode 3 and still asking myself why I didn’t stop at 1), there’s plenty of sexualised, female nudity and zilch sexualised male nudity (not even some side penis to compensate for all the side boob we get) and the protagonist has no charisma, genuinely zero, he doesn’t even register on the personality scale. To summarise, this is a boring yet glamorous waste of time. If you really want your fill of slightly-more-intelligent-than-James-Bond spy thriller (but still disappointingly chauvinistic) watch The Constant Gardener.

So, need this blog go on? Well, one thing I do find quite interesting about this series is it’s depiction of rich people. And we’re not just talking millionaires we’re talking the billionaire businessmen who sell arms and pull strings in national governments to get away with it. Yup, it’s the elite of the elite, those at the top of the capitalist military industrial complex. And the one in The Night Manager is called Richard Roper and is played by Hugh Laurie. And, curiously, he’s not very scary. He tells crass jokes, he flops around his villa eating brioche, he quaffs champagne, he does the odd deal, he dances with his much younger girlfriend (who is often to be seen naked unlike Hugh Laurie of course). Meanwhile, his rich friends have drinking problems, are insecure about how they look, cheat on their wives with their French au pairs, have complexes about their masculinity (and penis size no doubt), and genuinely do what insecure, entitled men do. Meanwhile, the wives look on as they try to ignore their husbands dodgy dealings whilst packing off bratty Tamara and Tim to boarding school.

And these so-called elites, the 1%, are the ones we’re encouraged to aspire to be like!? The only difference between these people and any other group of malfunctioning humans (which is most groups) is that when they negotiate over a contract that contract tends to be about weapons that may well be used in a war. When I fall out with my friends it’s usually over a round and the repercussions might be a split pint or two. For the 1% it’s whether British arms will be used to trash the next Middle Eastern country. So The Night Manger, whilst being a well-worn cliché of exotic locales and exoticised women has done me the favour of putting me off my dream to become a billionaire. The rich come across as pretty boring and Hugh Laurie’s attempt at justifying his lifestyle is also quite boring. After having said how great it is to be able to eat brioche whenever he likes and go skiing a lot he then says: “Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.” I mean, seriously, what a half-hearted attempt at justifying egoistic nihilism. The whole point of nihilism is that you don’t need to justify it, it’s just an excuse to be a complete wanker and not care about anyone else. Sure, Roper fits the bill but is a villa in Mallorca really the best he can do? Personally, I’d prefer some nice friends and not facilitating World War 3.

How To Get Away With Murder (Spoilers)

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I’ve just binge watched the first season of How To Get Away With Murder – a 2015 US TV series about a bunch of over-achieving law students who over-achieve a little too much when they murder their professor’s husband. Cue legal hijinks and shenanigans as their professor colludes with them to cover it up because she believes her husband was guilty of the murder of a sorority girl he was having an affair with (but can we be sure it was him!?). In many ways the series is very good: it passes the Bechdel and Latif tests with flying colours, it doesn’t pretend we live in a post-race and post-gender society where these things don’t need to be talked about, the core cast are conventionally attractive (if conventions are your bag) and Viola Davis as the kick ass Professor Annalise Keating is just scorching – she makes the series. However, I’m not so convinced it rates as a whodunnit – there was the odd twist or two but come the finale the surprise payoff just wasn’t big enough. So, following on from Professor Keating here are my three top tips on how to get away with murder, inspired by the Queen of Crime herself, Agatha Christie.

1: Characters Not Caricatures: If you’re going to make your core characters a bunch of spoilt, bratty law students then we need to like at least one of them. Unfortunately, the leads, whilst brilliantly acted aren’t particularly easy to sympathise with. We’re given occasional glimpses into their back stories – cue compassionless and snobby family dinners, overbearing fathers and threatening mothers-in-law – but we needed more. Without context and background the characters just become ciphers for each episode’s mini-plot (usually court scenes involving helping random guilty people get away with murder) and the series’ overarching plot – who really killed the sorority girl? However, despite their lack of depth what did make for compelling viewing was watching the leads unravel after they all colluded in and covered up the murder of the husband. Turns out being heirs to fortunes and at a top university count for very little when it comes to coping with the consequences of murdering someone. Of course, whether or not they get away with it doesn’t really seem to matter given they’re all such prats.

2: Red Herrings: The jilted lover, the heir, the jealous sibling, the conveniently placed lunatic, the rival in love and even the identical twin all make for great distractions from the actual murderer. A Christie novel basically involves tying the reader up in a tangled mess of string made predominantly from red herrings until the final reveal when the detective untangles the mess and the audience cannot believe it was that obvious all along. Again, HTGAWM let the side down by not having enough red herrings. It didn’t take too many guesses to figure out who really might have killed the sorority girl meaning the finale was a bit of a damp squib. Ideally, if the actual murderer is implicated at any point they must then be made to appear above suspicion, for example, “watertight” evidence needs to appear that puts them somewhere else at the time of the crime. Also, given point 1, it helps if we’re vaguely interested in the character who ultimately turns out to be the murderer, i.e. they’re more than a convenient plot device.

3: Hiding Things In Plain Sight: “Where’s the best place to hide a pebble?” asked the legendary Belgian detective Hercule Poirot to his stupid sidekick Arthur Hastings. The answer: “On a beach.” Likewise, the best place to hide a killer motive is amongst a whole load of other killer motives. It’s like a magician’s sleight of hand – we’re all looking at one hand whilst the rabbit or dove is hidden up the other sleeve, or something like that. Unfortunately, HTGAWM pretty much gave us all its possible motives on a platter without trying to hide the actual one. As with point 2 given that the who of the whodunnit wasn’t a huge surprise then the why of whydunnit, or indeed the how of howdunnit, needed to be more surprising.

Having said all the above HTGAWM made for compelling viewing – it was fast-paced, sufficiently twisty and full of great performances. And by the looks of the trailer for season 2 things are about to get even more twisted. Here’s to more back story, more red fish and even more killer surprises (but please don’t do what the promising series Revenge did after season 1 which was to become increasingly baffling and pointless). If the starter was medium let’s hope the second course is cooked rare.

What Morse And Lewis Teach Us About Love (Spoilers)

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After ten years the ITV murder mystery series Lewis finally came to an end and it has an important lesson to teach us about love. But to understand this we must go back to 1987 when the Inspector Morse series began.

Morse was a grumpy old man who liked classical music and alcohol, Lewis was his Geordie side kick who liked technology and his family. They worked at the Thames Valley Police and went around Oxford solving odd and overly academic murders. The relationship was often fraught but they always managed to catch the killer. This went on for 18 years until Morse died in the very final episode, The Remoserful Day. He’d suffered a huge heart attack and on his hospital deathbed he passed away. His final words to his boss, Chief Superintendent Strange, were “thank Lewis for me.” And so, after all that time, after all the arguments, the casual insults and the impatience it turns out that Morse was hugely indebted to his sidekick. Morse’s final moment captured his curmudgeonly character perfectly, the sort of man who could never quite admit to vulnerability or love, not even to those closest to him, and so he died without really having had the chance to thank those closest to him.

Five years later the Lewis series began. By this time Lewis had tragically lost his wife in a hit and run accident making him far grumpier and lonelier (like Morse). He also managed to lose his tech savinness (a little inconsistency of plot here perhaps). Fortunately though when it came to Lewis’ ending this year his was not quite as fatal as Morse’s. Instead he was faced with a choice: go on a six month trip to new Zealand with his new partner Laura Hobson (a pathologist who after many series Lewis finally hooked up with) or stay in Oxford working for the police to prevent them forgetting him and not renewing his contract. Lewis, after much agonising, opted for the latter. He feared losing purpose without a life dedicated to policing and would prefer to die on the job, much like his previous boss. However, he was forced to reconsider when his sidekick, Hathaway (now a Detective Inspector) said this:

“Do you love Laura? [dramatic pause] Then go. Show her that you love her, don’t assume that she knows. People make that assumption and it’s a mistake. Still, your decision.”

And so Lewis rethinks and decides to go abroad with the love of his life (and it turns out that he doesn’t have to worry about losing his job because Chief Superintendent Moody is very impressed at Lewis’ solving of the final case – something highly forgettable about parcel bombs, mercury and not particularly credible motives). So what does this teach us? That words and deeds are funny things. In Morse’s dying words he revealed something he had never really said before, that he cared deeply for Lewis. Whereas, it’s not words that prove Lewis loves Hobson, it’s his decision to go away with her. And we need both – we need both words and deeds to prove to those we love that indeed we love them. Sometimes actions, even though they’re enacted, need words to make them explicit, and sometimes words, however passionately said, need actions too. And the final lesson is that life is short, especially if you live in Oxford where people are grueseomely murdered on a regular basis. So don’t make Morse’s mistake and learn from Lewis instead – tell those you love that you love them and show ’em too. Cue cheesy but heartful Lewis theme song: