#Unforgotten S1 E3

[docholligay]

Uh....no? I looked this up because it would have surprised me, and:

I mean, I am not spectacularly impressed by this either, but he would not go to prison.

Also, I hate to be all 'it was a different time' but you would be absolutely SHITSHOCKED by how much social and cultural and legal things drive people's behavior. I realize that you, Caroline, probably do not read a lot of history, but normalization is a very very very real thing, and it is fucking FOLLY to believe that you are above it. David Bowie was out sleeping with fucking 14 year olds and people still cream themselves because he was Jareth the Goblin King, you can at the very least believe he did not parse it in the same way we do now. I am not saying it is OKAY, I am saying that you also, Caroline, will do things that are not okay if everyone in your society is telling you its fucking fine. This is a TERRIFYING realization to have, I know, it gives many many people who get in-depth into history and are somewhat self-reflective an ABSOLUTE crisis, myself included.

All this sounds like I'm trying to make it okay, and I'm not, it is so much more complicated than all of that. Hate your dad if you want, Caroline, I think that's fine and fair, but boy are you getting on your Highed Horse like someone who's not gonna be caught out by their own child in 30 years.

[docholligay]

I am fascinated by the fact that the thesis statement of this show seems to be: You do not know the dark that hides in the hearts and pasts of the people you love and trust.

I mean, seriously, I think this is a very defensible statement: Robert cheated on his wife, Cassie's mother carried on a very long affair, Frank's kids had no idea he was a fucking East End Hard Man, Beth hid her skinhead past from both her husband and quasi-adopted son, whatever is going on with Eric and Claire here.

I mean...it's a dark thesis! I don't know that I think it's wrong, but I think it's dark, any second now I assume Sunny is going to be like, "Oh anyway, i'm casually a human trafficker, but in a cool laid back way" or something.

[docholligay]

I can't believe Sunny is being so weirdly gentle about it like he's trying to catch him out, again, I know this is just me (though seemingly also Eric here) but I have no interest in trying to skate around getting into a barfight as a kid.

Me, being asked about the barfight I was arrested for: Yeah, I fucking threw the first punch, what do you want from me? I was twenty one and bulletproof and short-tempered. Sue me.

[docholligay]

She's speaking to herself here, but she's also speaking to us, the viewer, and our assumptions. I am sure plenty of people have assumed Eric couldn't possibly have done it, ebcause he's in a wheelchair but frankly I assumed he was only quite recently made a wheelchair user. I didn't think it was a lifelong condition. Now, that's an assumption as much as Cassie's, with different problems behind it, as all assumptions hold, BUT, it was not one that removed him from being a suspect.

[docholligay]

It was a hostel in the UK in the 70s, I am putting the money right now that it did not have a fucking lift lol. Buildings in the fucking UK barely have elevators now. Up the stairs by hopes and dreams.

But can I make like, a suggestion, and can that suggestion be that sometimes disabilities are acquired, and there is a lot of space between the 1970s and now?

[docholligay]

Man, it's such a teenage thing, isn't it, to want to get back at an adult by blowing up your own life? It's the most boneheaded thing, but it is so so common. I also want to strangle him and tell him that it's ridiculous to let her past ruin his future. You need GCSEs. It's a thing. Even to join certain parts of the military (maybe all, but I only know what was directly relevant to what I cared about finding). You have a chance, however narrow because this is still England and society is still society, to do better. But, you can't let this ruin YOUR life.

ANd he has every fucking right to be angry do not misunderstand me, but she's right when she says he can never speak to her again, but do the damn GCSEs.

[docholligay]

OKay, he's definitely lying, and I know I'm a broken record here, but my dude you are digging your own grave and I am FASCINATED to see why we thought that was all necessary. I mean, to what point and purpose? DID you kill Jimmy, and DO you think that keeping them from talking to Joanna is going to somehow help your case? If you're still fucking around with her, I reiterate, THE MURDER COPS DO NOT CARE.

[docholligay]

It's interesting, sometimes, ho long we hold onto being mad at both the living, but also, the dead. There are dead people I'm still mad at, even though that is utterly absurd. Dead people cannot give a shit whether I'm mad at them or not, and holding onto it only hurts me, and yet, here I am.

But I also am a firm believer that it's very hard to let something go while you haven't let it out at all. To someone. I mean, I have gotten past shit by venting it at a well-compensated bartender, because I just needed SOMEONE to know. Pretending you don't care and that it doesn't bother you and that it's never bothered you actually does not work. You just get angrier and angrier and then you become a person nursing a grudge, and sometimes the grudge works its way so deeply into your skin that at some point, no matter how it burns you, you can't separate yourself from it.

So yes, be mad! There's no point in holding a grudge against the dead, really. Be angry and vent fire and let it go.

[docholligay]

I do love when characters within a work have a job that can involve something like this whether its a lawyer or a doctor or even  just a parent and child or siblings who work together. “Are we having this conversation in a personal or professional capacity?’ It just, much like the senshi/soldier v friend thing, a fun way to think about the different layers of relationships we have between people and how we navigate that.

[docholligay]

I hate this! So much! I hate that you can just make a deal to get out of trouble and we're all just fine with that!

But on the other hand, I am a pragmatist! This is how the world fucking works! The perfect is the enemy of the good and the good is the enemy of the literally accomplished!

There are two wolves inside of me, one is a person who lives and dies by her values and the other believes that the ends justify the means yes I have heartburn all the time and never feel good about myself, what of it?

[docholligay]

I gotta say, if someone I knew to generally be a completely laid back and easy going sort of person had such a massive panic attack that they ended up going to the hospital, there is no way that they could convince me that they were absolutely fine. Okay, so you’ve suddenly developed a panic disorder out of nowhere? This is the opposite of fine.

Ironically, I would be somewhat less concerned if someone I knew had a seizure out of nowhere, because believe it or not, that’s a thing that can completely happen. Happened to my sister, she had one seizure, doctors were like, ‘Oh yeah, brains are just like that sometimes” and my wife sees it pretty commonly in dogs, where they have one for reasons I guess and it never comes up again. Brains!

But inasmuch as I’m aware, panic attacks rarely arise out of nowhere unless you have aforementioned panic disorder. You may be fine as in “No lasting physical damage” and, you know, fantastic, but that doesn’t mean you’re FINE.

[docholligay]

This pub is fucking gorgeous, Jesus Christ, but I have been to London in summer and I do not for even five motherfucking goddamn seconds believe there is NO ONE sitting outside when I see SCRAPS OF SUNSHINE.

[docholligay]

Okay, not to play doctor here, but I feel like bolt cutter marks are the kind of thing that you would in fact see with the naked eye if you were used to looking at corpses for marks that might indicate how someone died or why.

[docholligay]

*googles ominously*

[docholligay]

I DO love this. The “I renounce the deceit and corruption of evil” right up next to her confessing to her husband the bad things that she’s done. Because that’s part, the beginning really, of renouncing something like that, right? Admitting it, and admitting it was wrong, and I’ll hope she doesn’t try to weasel out of it. She would rather have been a coward and let other people get hurt than be hungry and cold. It happens. It’s not meritorious, and it was a bad thing to do, and it’s cowardly. But, it’s also human. All those things can be held.

[docholligay]

~Sir Francis~ No, I don't believe he did it either, if only because it would be such a straightforward and obvious answer to the crime that in a show like this I can see how that would feel unsatisfying. I do enjoy that we get to watch his entire fucking world unravel, however, this is what you get for getting in bed with the titled and the government.