Lest you think I'm merely employing the popular mode of cultural criticism afforded us by such venues as Television Without Pity and so on, I really want to like this show. Seriously. I'm all about conspiracies and secret societies and paranormal macguffins and the like. But yes, I am rather snarky, I fully admit it. I don't mean to put anyone off, even though I do have issues with the way this show is written and acted.
But it is scored beautifully.
So I will carry on with the understanding that I might mock a bit, but it's done with potential affection.
Thanks to Wikipedia we've learned each episode is named after a part of a clock; which could be interpreted as either pretty clever or rather hokey. I'm choosing to believe (because I WANT TO BELIEVE) it is the former. It's the little things, you know. And each episode also corresponds to an hour - this time White Vincent relates a rhyme:
But sometimes one is not one, sometimes one is two.
So Harry Nilsson was right when he told us two was the loneliest number since the number one. I'm always happy when pop culture validates the wisdom I've accumulated through other pop culture.
We need a montage!
We last left our intrepid travelers Hank and Riley at the sub-sicle in the Canadian tundra, with the imminent arrival of the Child Born Of No Womb and I thought about how many Artic explorations have gone horribly awry and figured that statistically this one would also screw the pooch, as it were. And since the pilot is shot almost immediately after White Vincent shows up, well, yeah, except not. But Hank is awfully brazen for a paranormal journalist schlub, demanding to know where his wife is and saying stuff like, "It ends here."
(Uh, dude...we still have eleven episodes to go. Pretty sure this is not ending in the sub-sicle.)
And his wheedling for WV's life is effective, as Riley makes the Goddamnit Galliston, you're making me have FEELINGS! face as she squares off with her FBI-issue weapon.
(Standoff, not so much. But WV delivers a nice metaesque commentary on why it won't work while Hank discovers ANOTHER MAP IN A TIMEPIECE! I'm beginning to sense a pattern here.)
And as I predicted, events take a turn for the FUBAR as WV enacts an escape, leaving Hank and Riley stranded on the tundra as the sub-sicle returns to the frozen depths from whence it surfaced. But Riley has a satellite phone and Hank took photos of the Stopwatch of Significance, so all is not lost.
They return to a bureaucratic shitstorm, with Arron adorably wondering "Who pays these people?" as he is gladhanded from one agency to another (and their offshore call centers, one imagines).
Aw sweetie, we do! Which is why we get the government we deserve.
Cue Laila's sad-but-pretty theme as Hank returns, miraculously not dead or even frostbitten, with a declaration that despite all his previous insistence upon skepticism he's now embracing magical thinking because FEELINGS!
FEELINGS!
And then they all bond over their crazy ninja caffeine-fueled plan which we will call SCREW YOU FBI and solve the mystery. Followed by various expository bits involving both sides of the conundrum, as it were. We receive a crash course on apocryphal thinking and I'm confused as to the strength of Laila's clock-fu. Riley is revealed as a shorthand of edgy touches: knocking back the bourbon like the embittered, hard-drinking, tattooed, loft-living, listener of Bob Dylan she is as Rachel pays her a visit and says My Google-fu is strong, yes.
(Once again, yay for a nice subtle usage of licensed music.)
They have a deep conversation and Riley positions herself as useful despite Operation SCREW YOU FBI. And suddenly Hank is in India hot on the tail of WV and there's more apocryphal discussion stateside, as well as investigation into what I consider the interesting portion of this mystery: the discovery of Hank's doppelganger - a Nazi officer - aboard the sub-sicle. I liked WV's bit of dialog in the opener which basically stated: Kinda screws with your head, am I right?
Then there's a wonderfully (perhaps unintentional) comedic interlude with Nazi Collector Extraordinaire who is apparently recreating Hitler's secret bunker in his apartment, or something.
Riley saves Hank's ass again and they Mulder-and-Scully their way through the sultry streets of Chennai. There is discussion of another apostle and I think each episode probably focuses on each of the "new" apostles as well. The examination of Hank's doppelganger is, again, the most interesting part of the dramatic arc of this episode.
The "new" Thomas is cloistered in Chennai, and the encounter leads to ever-more questions, of course. There's a discussion of a love across time which will never die...especially Hank, the harbinger of doom with his FEELINGS! And those pesky Rosicrucians are at it again. Just then, WV, heralded by his creepy theme, shows up to
Running! Emotional torture! as Hank spots Laila with WV. And he becomes further aware of the cost of his particular Grail Quest. Was Hank's doppelganger the "new" Bartholomew, then? In the words of LOLcats worldwide, I haz a confusion. But Hank then interprets typical Indian waste management policy also as apocrypha and that may be reaching just a tad. It's easy to think the whole world's coming to an end when you're in a place both chaotic and odorous.
I think every episode should end with a tick tick tick.
*crickets*
Oh c'mon, that's totally a great idea!
Onto the score...
Musically, now that I've had some time to really soak up the scoring, I've noticed, of course, that there are separate motifs for:
-the clock (or maybe the mystery itself)
This is my favorite in that the chord progression reminds me a bit of "Prague" from Bad Company. It also relates to the opening title card/end credits sequence.
-Laila
-White Vincent
(Is it just me, or has anyone else wondered if there's a Black Vincent and he's the good twin?)
...and this is a standard scoring type of trope, certainly, but I appreciate that it lends the series as a whole a type of continuity. I'm still not sure if it's the composition or mix which keeps the cues from stomping all over the action, but it's all very tasteful. In this episode, the best cue is that of the "Standing Mother" scene, with beautiful ambient touches married to gentle piano and strings, then woodwinds. Lovely.
