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kainosite · 5 years

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Les Misérables 2018, Episode 3

Les Mis fandom: Andrew Davies is a scoundrel. What is he?

Me: ... Scoundwel.

The Good:

• I can’t believe the BBC actually filmed the “Now the people of this town can see you for what you really are” scene of a thousand Valvert fanfics. They know what the people want.

• The Thénardiers are still fantastic. Somehow the BBC has achieved the impossible feat of portraying them as loathsome abusers whom you hate with every fiber of your being, while simultaneously making them the fun comic relief you’re sort of rooting for in their capacity as the wacky crime duo. On Christmas Eve I wanted the Seargeant of Waterloo to burn to the ground with everyone inside it, except for Cosette who was out getting water, Éponine and Azelma who were playing on the swings and Gavroche who was out back playing with Chou Chou or something. I still grinned when Madame Thénardier cheerily reminded her husband to bring the pistol the next morning. Striking this balance is a truly impressive achievement that I’ve only seen equalled by the Dallas production of the musical.

Their family dynamics are also coming across very well, sometimes through very subtle touches. The differential treatment of Éponine and Azelma vs. Cosette and the way the Thénardier girls have been trained by all the adults around them to see Cosette’s abuse as a hilarious game, Gavroche being conscripted to fill Cosette’s role as household drudge once Valjean takes her, Mme. T slipping a bill out of Thénardier’s stash once he goes after Valjean – it’s all really good.

Their reactions to Valjean were good too. Mme. Thénardier was thoroughly unimpressed with this roughly dressed man she’d decided was a hobo and only reacted with hostility when he was kind to her little whipping girl, but Thénardier as the criminal mastermind of the outfit decided the moment he noticed Valjean paying inordinate attention to Cosette that he must be a pedophile and they’d stumbled upon a lucrative financial opportunity. I know some people don’t like this change, but honestly it makes a ton of sense. Valjean’s interest in Cosette is strange, and considering the usual clientele of the inn cheer whenever Mme. T hits the kid with the strap, the Thénardiers aren’t used to seeing other people regard her plight with compassion. Unlike in the Brick, this Cosette is a very pretty child, something discernible even beneath the dirt. And it’s Thénardier, so of course he thinks the worst. Valjean doesn’t volunteer that he’s representing Fantine (perhaps in this universe where he knows Javert is so fixated on him, he’s worried that would make him too easy to trace?), so really, what else is Thénardier meant to think?

• There are some priceless interactions between the protagonists and Thénardier: when he’s trying to haggle and Valjean keeps ignoring him and just repeating “How much?”; Javert’s baffled “Nothing!” when he asks Javert what Javert is planning to do for him.

• Javert and Gavroche’s preliminary encounter over the coffee cup was a nice, subtle touch.

• A+ hair analogy between Fantine last week and Valjean this week. A+ removal of the godawful ponytail. That prison barber in Toulon deserves the Légion d'Honneur.

• I’m enjoying Javert’s meteoric rise at the Prefecture and I love Rivette. “But Kainosite, you love every long-suffering lieutenant.” Yes, what’s your point? Javert deserves a long-suffering lieutenant and so do I. Although it’s hilarious how much Oyelowovert is Fanfic Javert, in his relationship with his subordinates as much as in everything else.

I also enjoyed Javert’s phrenology skull, which I hope he sometimes monologues at Hamlet-style. A black Javert might hesitate a little before going all-in on phrenology, but I do appreciate his commitment to cutting-edge criminology research.

• LMAO at Javert’s fanart commission.

• Valjean and little Cosette are adorable together, and I really appreciate how much time Davies devoted to just depicting them interacting and letting the relationship breathe. The strength of their bond is going to be very important later on, especially to Valjean, so it’s worthwhile to establish it now. And they were suuuuper cute. This adaptation tends to cut out Hugo’s humor sections, so it was nice to get a bit of relief from the grimness with endearing family time.

• I rather like Cosette calling people “nosy bitches”. I mean, who socialized this kid? The Thénardiers, that’s who. It makes her seem more like a real child and less like a perfect little doll designed to reward first Valjean and then Marius for fulfilling their roles as protagonists.

It’s also an early hint at Valjean and Cosette’s unhealthy isolation and codependency. The principal tenant is actually fulfilling her duty of care here in a society without any proper system for child safeguarding. Cosette never seems to leave the apartment, certainly not to attend school or to learn a trade. There’s no family resemblance between herself and her guardian. (Incidentally, I’m impressed by how much Mailow Defoy really does look like the child of Lily Collins and Johnny Flynn. All the matching between the kids and their “parents” has been superb.) They give inconsistent stories about their relationship. And Cosette is, as previously mentioned, an exceptionally pretty child. The principal tenant should be worried - she doesn’t want Hector Hulot taking up residence in her building, and this pair are deeply suspicious. But they can’t perceive her attention as legitimate concern, just as an unwarranted and unwanted intrusion into their little idyl.

• Similarly, Valjean’s early worries that he’s isolating Cosette too much by denying her all contact with the outside world or other children her own age are a nice piece of foreshadowing, as is her blithe answer that the only friends she needs are Valjean and Catherine. Of course she’s content: she has food and warmth and security and the undivided attention of a loving adult. To a child whose previous experience of the world has been so traumatic, their isolation must seem like paradise. But this isn’t healthy and it isn’t sustainable, and the show is flagging that up early. In many adaptations Valjean’s Cosette Issues seem to come out of nowhere, so it’s great that they’re laying the groundwork here.

• The whole “For a dark hunt, a silent pack” sequence is very well done. There’s a nice piece of foreshadowing with the lamplighter hoisting up a candle as Valjean and Cosette are coming into Paris. (Most of the Parisian lamps are nice flickery ones, although you do occasionally see those peculiar white ones we saw in Montreuil.)

I also appreciate Davies cutting Valjean’s canonical “Be quiet or Mme. Thénardier will catch you and take you back” line to Cosette from the Brick, which was an awful thing to say to a traumatized child.

• Things continue to look right. The courtroom setup was really quite good.

The Meh:

• After watching the episode twice I think I finally understand what was going on with Javert at the trial.

His plan to entrap Valjean is no less incredibly stupid and risky than it was last week, but at least Javert has finally realized this. He looks increasingly worried as each convict gives his testimony and identifies Champmathieu because they’re getting closer and closer to the end of the trial and Valjean still hasn’t acted. Unlike Étienne in the 1952 movie, Oyelowovert has already testified and perjured himself, so he has no failsafe – if Valjean refuses to take the bait then Champmathieu is condemned in his place, the real Valjean is protected from legal pursuit forever, Javert’s perjury has real, long-term, perverse consequences, and Javert needs to find a new career. The shock we see on his face when Valjean finally confesses is relief and the shock of seeing a scenario he must have played out a hundred times in his dreams becoming a reality before his eyes, or possibly a consequence of him coming in his pants, not shock at the revelation that Madeleine is Valjean.

But there are few members of the audience who are keener observers of Javert’s face than I am. Most of those people are probably in the Valvert Discord chat, and none of them could figure out this scene on their first viewing either. We should not have to analyze Javert’s microexpressions to determine the answer to a question as fundamental as “Did Javert sincerely believe Champmathieu was Valjean?”

• On the whole the trial was bad but I did appreciate Brevet just yanking out his suspender to show the court. Although @prudencepaccard is gonna be mad it wasn’t checkered.

• The amount of time it takes Valjean to escape from Toulon is really of no great importance to anything. Maybe this Javert gave them specific instructions to search him with care so his files kept getting confiscated and it took him longer to file through his chains. We know the Orion incident never happened in this universe, so maybe it took two years for Valjean to spot a good escape opportunity. Who knows? Who cares? It has zero impact on the plot.

People concerned about the extra time Cosette was left languishing with the Thénardiers should direct their complaints to Brick Valjean, who faffed around in Montreuil for a month while her mother lay on her deathbed constantly asking for her, and only decided to go pick her up once he was under arrest and it would obviously be impossible. Davies’ sins pale in comparison to Hugo’s in this regard. At least Westjean tried to send someone to retrieve her.

• ‘Rosalie’? Okay, fine, but I’m not sure why this adaptation feels compelled to give everyone first and last names. Thénardier could just call her ‘Darling’.

• I know they also abandon Catherine in the Brick, but in the Brick Valjean doesn’t pause in their flight to pack the candlesticks, the objects that are precious to him, and Cosette doesn’t specifically ask about bringing her. Put the pillow under the blankets to fake out Javert like a normal person and let your child keep the one toy she’s ever had, what the fuck is wrong with you, Valjean?

On the other hand, the doll is made of dead people and it may be possessed, so perhaps this was just responsible parenting. I’m calling it a draw.

• It’s not that I have any great objections to giving Simplice more screen time or letting the Mother Superior of the Petit-Picpus convent decide to shelter a convict, but there was no particular reason not to use Fauchelevent for the Fauchelevent plotline. It’s a small instance of a good deed being paid forward that underlines the main theme of the book, as does Simplice’s act of self-sacrifice in lying to Javert to protect Valjean. All of that has been lost and nothing has been gained in its place. (Also is Cosette just... “Cosette Valjean” in this adaptation? “Cosette Thibault”?)

The Bad:

• If Javert perjures himself to trap Valjean that is an incredibly big deal and we should see it. I accept that this Javert might do it: Oyelowovert cares about his career and about ruining the lives of criminals, not about the rules. If he can trap Valjean, superb. If Champmathieu ends up in the galleys because of it, well, he’s a filthy apple thief and he deserves it. Javert is subverting the course of justice in the service of a greater social justice. But this monumental deviation from his Brick characterization, this enormously consequential lie, should not occur off-camera, for fuck’s sake!

Also it’s not clear what reason a Javert who is happy to lie under oath would ever have to throw himself into the Seine.

• Why the hell was Valjean so hostile to the other convicts? He assumes they’ve been paid off, but... by whom, and to what purpose? By Javert, to entrap him? We the viewers at least know that can’t be true – Javert only found out about Champmathieu from the Prefecture, after Champmathieu had already been identified as Valjean. By the public prosecutor at Arras, who is desperate to close the case of a minor highway robbery that happened almost a decade ago on the other side of the country completely outside his jurisdiction? By the many enemies of Champmathieu the random hobo, who really want to see him go down for a felony? It makes absolutely no sense.

Possibilities that make more sense: a) the convicts are sincerely mistaken about the appearance of a guy they’ve not seen in eight years, b) they just wanted to get out of Toulon for a month and they’re willing to say anything to do it because Toulon is a hellhole, as the first episode made exceedingly clear, c) they know perfectly well Champmathieu is not Valjean and they’re lying to protect the liberty of their old comrade by condemning a stranger in his place. The whole dynamic of this scene – Madeleine, the respected mayor and factory owner, who’s been clean and well-fed and safe for years, yelling at these filthy men in their convict uniforms, Chenildieu with some kind of open wound across his forehead, quite possibly a lash mark – is deeply unpleasant. It makes Valjean look like a complete asshole and sets a sour tone for the whole episode.

• The entire trial is just off. Valjean’s off-putting and inexplicable hostility to his fellow convicts, Javert’s mystifying facial expressions, the audience who keep laughing at unfunny lines – the scene just doesn’t work, it doesn’t come together. It was at something of a disadvantage because I came into it having just watched the 1952 trial scene for the previous episode’s review post, which is the best ever adaptation of the Champmathieu trial, and any other version was likely to pale by comparison. But this one was particularly poor.

• I said last week we’d have to see what the series made of Valjean’s externalization of his emotions. Well, what it has made is an awful lot of shouting at everyone, starting with the poor convicts and continuing from there, and also an excess of violence. Valjean charges into the soldiers in Montreuil-sur-Mer and bowls them over, he threatens to knock Thénardier down and then to blow his head off, he gets Thénardier into a headlock and grapples with him. Even when Westjean is coming into the convent he has to practically break down the doors. Everything is violent action with him. It’s OOC to the point where it’s becoming a problem rather than merely a different interpretation of the character.

All this aggression isn’t even effective at making him seem dangerous! The thing he does in 1978 where he gently removes Javert’s hand from his collar is vastly more intimidating because it showcases his superhuman strength. He should have just plucked the gun out of Thénardier’s hand like he was taking it away from a child instead of all this undignified scuffling.

• Tumblr, a humble reviewer has failed in accuracy, and I have come to bring this matter to your attention, as is my duty.

I argued last week that Westjean is not a misogynist: he yells at everyone in his vicinity regardless of gender. Well, you were right and I was wrong. That menacing lunge he takes towards Victurnien while screaming at her, calling Mme. Thénardier “woman” and shouting at her to bring his supper, the way he bursts in on the nuns at the end – it all adds up to something pretty unpleasant.

• I have never in my life seen an adaptation that makes Fantine’s death so much about Jean Valjean’s manpain.

If you look a 1978, an adaptation that gives if possible negative fucks about Fantine, it still manages to make the confrontation over her deathbed a conversation between three people, in which she has agency and reacts to what people are saying and is present in some capacity other than that of an object to make Valjean sad. Someone compared Collinstine to a substitute Coin of Shame, and I think that’s really apt: Valjean is distressed and guilty because he’s failed to rescue Cosette, so he goes to Fantine’s bedside to sear the image of her despairing face onto his retinas in the same way he seared the imprint of Petit Gervais’s forty sous onto his palm. He’s punishing himself by deliberately upsetting her. For both Valjean and the camera, this scene is all about Valjean’s feelings and not about Fantine’s.

The person in this room with the biggest problems is not Jean Valjean, for pity’s sake. I like to see the man cry as much as the next fangirl, but this was vile.

• Valjean’s visit to Fantine on her deathbed is a stupid, irresponsible thing to do and a direct cause of her unhappy death in the Brick and in every adaptation where she survives long enough for Javert to turn up. Valjean knows he has no good news to give her, he knows that the criminal justice system will be after him sooner or later, he knows that having Fantine and Javert together in the same room is a phenomenally bad idea, and he has urgent business in Montfermeil, or if he’s resolved to stay in Montreuil-sur-Mer to await arrest then he urgently needs to designate some representative to go and pick up Cosette in his place. Instead he loiters by a sick woman’s bedside until Javert shows up and predictably traumatizes her to death. As a result, Fantine dies in misery and Cosette suffers under the Thénardiers for another year.

But in the Brick it was at least not an insane thing to do. When he left Arras he was not being pursued, and he reached Montreuil well ahead of the news about the trial. The magistrates in Arras were in two minds about how to handle the situation. Given Madeleine’s status, the widespread affection and admiration for him in the region, and the fact that he turned himself in, it’s not inconceivable that had it not been for his little Bonapartist slip in the courtroom, they wouldn’t have issued a warrant for his arrest at all and would simply have sent him a summons to appear at the Var Assizes to stand trial, or directed him to surrender himself at the prison in Montreuil rather than sending Javert after him. I’m not sure it’s likely, given that he’s a known flight risk and parole violator illegally occupying a public office and they seem keen to get their hands on his fortune, but it’s not inconceivable.

In this adaptation Valjean breaks away from the police in the street and leads them straight to Fantine’s deathbed. There is no fucking excuse for this. NONE. Brick Valjean was a fool to come at all and a bigger fool to stage a massive confrontation with Javert while he was still in the infirmary, but his mistakes were those of a man under immense stress who never bothered to think about Javert long enough to construct a working psychological profile of him. Westjean’s mistakes were the mistakes of a selfish asshole too caught up in his own feelings of guilt and shame to have any regard for the people he allegedly cares about and wants to help. Valjean is an extreme deontologist and his actions are always self-absorbed to a certain degree, because they’re fundamentally more about whether he can feel he’s done the right thing than about the actual effects of his actions on other people. (He and Brickvert have that in common.) But it should never get to the point where he’s actively harming people to this extent.

• Brickvert doesn’t seem to care for firearms much, and Oyelowovert looks like a jackass waving his two giant pistols around, but he’s a different character and if he’s decided they make him look cool then fine, I guess. But in that case he should not be intimidated by Valjean’s strength in the infirmary. You have guns, idiot! If he threatens you just shoot him in the leg!

Guns completely change the dynamics of this scene, as the Dallas staging of the musical conveys very well. The BBC handed Javert some pistols and then forgot he had them.

• In 1862 people would probably have found the implication that Catherine has Fantine’s hair to be sweet and charming, because the Victorians loved toting bits of their dead relatives around and hair mementos were so common that no one would have considered it weird. In 2019 it is CREEPY AND GROSS. I know there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism but we did not need to know that Cosette’s doll was made from the body parts of desperately impoverished and now dead women, really.

• Oh, so we’re flipping over beds when we fail to catch our favorite fugitive convict now, are we? Great, now everyone is yelling. FFS, Javert, I thought you were supposed to be the emotionally continent one.

• Where was Marius this week??? If Davies was happy to cut that leg of the stool out of whole episodes then why the fuck not just let Georges die when he’s supposed to and let Marius have a coherent character arc? It makes no sense whatsoever.

I’ve got to be honest, I was not a fan of this episode. But it did get Valjean and Cosette’s relationship right, and that is the most important relationship in the story.

#Sick of hearing people complain about this week's episode?#Come watch me complain about... last week's episode!#Because I write reviews in a timely manner #Les Misérables 2018 #Les Mis Adaptations #Les Misérables

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