I'M SCREAMING!
Who dafuq was he talking too?! I agree with the crowd that it was this dude because we have seen too much of him, yet I didn't even know his name until this episode - Jie. Don't let it be you, sir. I like you! You are the only one working while all these men are stressed about their guys.
Make this make sense! So they are friends or just friendly?
And why do I feel like the boss was acting off? He doesn't want those two to be together, like Eddie said, but why? Sir, you're sus! Did Rui's dad step in? Is this where all the money came from? I NEED ANSWERS!
Because Zong Yi lost all of his color. ALL OF IT! He started happy in the blue after having (horrible) sex with his man.
Then continued to give him all of his love.
(They are disgusting.)
So he gave his guy all of his color when they discussed their family trauma (OH MY GOD!!!!! WHY ARE FAMILIES SO SHITTY?!)
He gave away all of his love and color! Do you understand?!
Until he had nothing left.
Then Eddie and Chen Yi, my loves, the only time you were on the same page was when you were talking about the photo.
Cause y'all were at odds all episode.
GET ON THE SAME PAGE!
(Chen Yi smiled and my heart exploded)
How do I wait until next week? HOW, MONICA (the patron saint of patience)?
Someone knock me over the head too because I'm going to lose my mind waiting.
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Friendly reminder that the suffering and torment Xie Lian experienced actually made him LESS kind, and the lessons he learned as a result of that pain were that human life is meaningless and compassion is worthless and people don't deserve your help or care or love for them. Xie Lian had to backtrack and reject these new lessons in favor of the old ones he had already known in order to return to being kind.
Xie Lian losing everything he loved and knew, being stripped of his power, autonomy, safety, and community, and being ridiculed and humiliated, did not teach him anything worth knowing. He did not learn any valuable or important lessons from it. In fact, he needed to consciously decide that he wasn't going to let it change him and work to go back to the person he was before all that shit happened in order to avoid turning evil.
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Ghosts’ Larry Rickard Explains Why They Chose the Captain’s First Name
Photo: Monumental,Guido Mandozzi
It couldn’t be a joke. That was one rule laid down by the Ghosts creators when it came to choosing a first name for Willbond’s character. Until series five, the WWII ghost had been known only as The Captain – a mystery seized upon by fans of the show.
“It was the question we got asked more than anything. His name,” actor and writer Larry Rickard tells Den of Geek. “Once we got to series three, you could see that we were deliberately cutting away and deliberately avoiding it. We were fuelling the fire because we knew at some point we’d tell them.”
In “Carpe Diem”, the episode written by Rickard and Ben Willbond that finally reveals The Captain’s death story, they did tell us. After years of guessing, clue-spotting and debate, Ghosts revealed that The Captain’s first name is James. At the same time, we also learned that James’ colleague Lieutenant Havers’ first name was Anthony.
The ordinariness of those two names, says Rickard, is the point.
“The only thing we were really clear about is that we didn’t want one of those names that only exists in tellyland. It shouldn’t be ‘Cormoran’ or ‘Endeavour’. They should just be some men’s names and they’re important to them. The point was that they were everyday.”
Choosing first names for The Captain and Havers was a long process not unlike naming a baby, Rickard agrees. “It almost comes down to looking at the faces of the characters and saying, what’s right?”
“We talked for ages. For a long time I kept thinking ‘Duncan and James’, and then I was like ah no! That would have turned it into a gag and been awful!” Inescapably in the minds of a certain generation, Duncan James is a member of noughties boyband Blue. “Maybe with Anthony I was thinking of Anthony Costa!” Rickard says in mock horror, referencing another member of the band.
Lieutenant Havers wasn’t just The Captain’s second in command while stationed at Button House; he was also the man James loved. Because homosexuality was criminalised in England during James’ lifetime, he was forced to hide his feelings for Anthony from society, and to some extent even from himself.
In “Carpe Diem”, the ghosts (mistakenly) prepare for the last day of their afterlives, prompting The Captain to finally tell his story. Though not explicit about his sexual identity, the others understand and accept what he tells them – and led by Lady Button, all agree that he’s a brave man.
Getting the balance right of what The Captain does and doesn’t say was key to the episode. “It wasn’t just a personal choice of his to go ‘I’m going to remain in the closet’,” explains Rickard. “There wasn’t an option there to explore the things that either of them felt. That couldn’t be done back then – there are so many stories which have come out since the War about the dangers of doing that.
“We wanted to tell his personal story but also try to ensure that there was a level at which you understood why they couldn’t be open, that even in this moment where he’s finally telling the other ghosts his story, he never comes out and says it overtly because that would be too much for him as a character from that time.
“He says enough for them to know, and enough for him to feel unburdened but it’s in the fact that they’re using their first names which militarily they would never have done, and in the literal passing of the baton”.
The baton is a bonus reveal when fans learned that The Captain’s military stick wasn’t a memento of his career, but of Havers. As James suffers a fatal heart attack during a VE day celebration at Button House, Anthony rushes to his side and the stick passes from one to the other as they share a moment of tragic understanding.
“From really early on, we had the idea that anything you’re holding [when you die] stays with you. So it wasn’t just your clothes you were wearing, we had the stuff with Thomas’ letter reappearing in his pocket and so on. And the assumption being that it was something The Captain couldn’t put down, it felt so nice to be able to say it was something he didn’t want to put down.”
Rickard lists “Carpe Diem”, co-written with Ben Willbond, among his series five highlights. He’s pleased with the end result, praises Willbond’s performance, and loved being on set to see Button House dressed for the 1940s. He’s particularly pleased that a checklist of moments they wanted to land with the audience all managed to be included. “Normally something’s fallen by the wayside just because of the way TV’s made, it’s always imperfect or it’s slightly rushed, but it feels like it’s all there.”
Rickard and Willbond also knew by this point in the show’s lifetime, that they could trust Ghosts fans to pick up on small details. “Nothing is missed,” he says. “Early on, you’re always thinking, is that going to get across? But once we got to series five, there are little tiny things within corners of shots and you know that’s going to be spotted. Particularly in that very short exchange between Havers and the Captain. We worried less about the minutiae of it because you go, that’s going to be rewound and rewatched, nothing will be missed.”
The team were also grateful they’d resisted the temptation to tell The Captain’s story sooner. “We’d talked about it every series since series two, whether or not now was the time, but because he’s such a hard and starchy character in a lot of ways you needed the time to understand his softer side I think before you had that final honest beat from him.”
“What a ridiculously normal name to have so much weight put on it for five years,” laughs Rickard fondly. “Good old James.”
From Den of Geek
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