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michelles-garden-of-evil · 4 years

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Episode 18 Review: Making Biscuits

{ YouTube: 1 | 2 }

{ Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

{ Screencaps }

Early morning on Maljardin. Exhausted from a day of shock and disbelief at the arrivals of her mother and Reverend Dawson on the island paradise(?) of Maljardin, Holly sleeps on the couch in the château’s great hall. Quietly, a fully dressed Jean Paul descends the grand staircase and stops behind the couch to cover her with a blanket. “Hi, Dad,” she says. “I had a dream. I thought that-”

I know that she’s probably a bit creeped out, but, honestly, I kind of envy Holly in this scene. There are days that I wish that I could wake up to see Jean Paul Desmond at my bedside. I know he has all kinds of issues and personality flaws, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find him cute and charming.

She tells him that she was dreaming about waiting for her father at home. “I know the feeling only too well,” he responds. “ Sometimes you know when memories haunt dreams, nightmares can follow.” I know that he is probably referring to nightmares about Erica’s death and/or to that freaky dream sequence with Raxl from the end of Episode 5, but still, I have to wonder if he, like Holly, lost his father at a young age. They reveal a little about Jean Paul’s father in the third and final arc of the show, but I don’t recall them discussing the specifics of his death beyond one thing that would be a spoiler to mention at this point. It would have been interesting to learn a bit about Jean Paul’s father in the Maljardin arc, but, unfortunately, we don’t.

So gallant! <3

We cut to a scene of Dan waiting impatiently for Jean Paul at the French Leave Café while talking to Vangie. Mostly, this scene exists so that Vangie can elaborate on why Maljardin is so hard to get to. “That channel is a cross between a tide and a continual tornado,” she says. “It's full of rocks and shoals. Actually, it’s never even been properly charted.” (Except probably by one of the des Mondes.) This is the only new information we get in any of the scenes between Dan and Vangie in this episode; the rest is nearly all recap, so I’m going to skip over most of it.

We return to Maljardin, where Holly and Jean Paul are sipping coffee from some dainty little cups. Before leaving for the main island, he asks her to attend Erica’s funeral, but she is reluctant because her mother and Reverend Dawson will be there. He advises her essentially to suck it up and go--which, as she points out, sounds like something "the good padre” would say. And then this happens:

I...don’t think that’s the generator.

Holly goes running upstairs and, just after, Jacques reveals that it was indeed he who tampered with the generator:

Love Jacques’ sarcasm in talking about the importance of the Holly portrait and how Tim and Holly may be “finished” before it is. And yes, the good Jacques portrait is back!

Next, we get what has to be the single most painful line of dialogue that the usually witty Jacques gets on the entire show: “Dear me, it does pose a dilemma,” says he about the situation with the Holly portrait that Boring Artist Tim is painting. “Pose, portrait, dilemma. A little play on words.” He snickers, indicating that at least he thinks the line is funny. “But I assure you I'm not playing games.” As Paflad would say, “BADOOM, and indeed, TSHHH!“

After the bad pun storm is over, he tells Jean Paul to bring Dan back with him to Maljardin because “[Jacques wants] to be sure that he doesn’t work against [him].” Cut to the second Dan and Vangie scene, where they recap nearly all the most important events on the show so far. It’s not all recap, however, as we do hear Vangie’s interpretation of the King of Wands, one of the Tarot cards featured last episode:

Vangie: “This way, a man of immense wealth and prestige and power in the world.”

“Reverse him, and he becomes the traditional card of ill-omen, a devil himself. Jean Paul Desmond...or Jacques Eloi des Mondes.”

And now onto the scene featuring the Matt-Holly-Tim love triangle, which feels endless because I can’t stand this subplot. I’m planning on writing a post someday explaining everything that’s wrong with this subplot and exactly why it doesn’t work, but I want to wait until after I’ve reviewed at least three more episodes featuring it. Nothing important happens in this scene, but we do get these lines:

Holly: "I wish my mother was on canvas instead of always on my back."

Be careful what you wish for, Holly. Someday you could have a portrait of Elizabeth Marshall that speaks to you constantly and manipulates you into doing things that make no sense to other characters. (Not a spoiler.)

The best Tim line on the show, and it’s a line flub. Go figure.

After the seemingly endless Tim scene ends, we return to the main island, where Jacques possesses Jean Paul while he is meeting with Dan. (He takes Jacques’ suggestions an awful lot, and I’m not sure if it’s because he actually agrees or because Jacques is manipulating him and he finds it too hard to resist.) We start with this shot of Jacques with ever-so-mildly creepy lighting:

Not scary, but it successfully conveys the message that Jacques has just taken control.

This scene makes up for the mediocrity of the rest of this episode. Jacques is his devilishly charming self, impersonating Jean Paul and making a fool of him by behaving far too cheerfully for a man in mourning. When Dan questions him, he insists that he’s only putting on a brave face and inwardly grieving, but Dan remains suspicious.

I must admit that I found this Jacques line--cheesy as it is--pretty funny.

Jacques, of course, takes advantage of the opportunity to troll him. Why not? For the first eleven episodes, he stuck to aiding Jean Paul and mostly just did things that they both wanted to do, with just a few exceptions like killing Dr. Menkin and giving Alison romantic dreams about him. Since Episode 12, however, he has been regularly screwing with Jean Paul’s life, trying to undermine nearly everything he tries to do in some way unless it also benefits him. By now, Jacques is in control of Jean Paul even when he’s inside the painting and so he probably feels he can get away with anything.

Anyway, remember when Jacques fired Dan in Episode 15? Well, he’s re-hired now and invited to Maljardin. He’s also more confused than ever, particularly because Jacques (who he believes is Jean Paul) keeps making faces like this:

BISSITS FACE!

For those of you who haven’t read my review of Episode 4 or who don’t remember it, Bissits Face™ is the name I gave to the cartoonish faux-innocent face that Jacques likes to make, where he opens his eyes extremely wide and purses his lips in a very cute way. The name comes from its resemblance to the face my cat makes when he makes biscuits, or “bissits” as I call them in baby-talk. I know the name is silly, but it is a silly face and probably not one you’d make in real life if you genuinely wanted to appear innocent--which is further evidence that Jacques thinks that he’s smarter than everyone else (and is probably right).

If his wrists weren’t crossed, he’d look like he was getting ready to make biscuits on that table like a cat.

Meow?

Of course, this isn’t his only bug-eyed expression, and he does keep those gorgeous blue peepers open quite a lot. I think that Colin Fox intended for Jacques to look “crazy,” which would explain all the wide-eyed expressions he has him make. Crazy eyes are, after all, pretty much standard acting technique for playing characters who are mentally disturbed to some degree. There’s an old French actor named Gérard Berner whom I’ve nicknamed “Crazy Eyes,” because, in the two miniseries I’ve seen him in (La dame de Monsoreau (1971) and Le roi qui vient du sud (1979)), he played characters with anger problems and, when said characters got enraged, he opened his eyes so wide that you would swear they were about to fall out of his head. This scene from Monsoreau is a good example, as is the one that follows it (Berner is the man with the longish hair and the silver doublet). Obviously, the intended meaning of Bissits Face™ is “I’m pretending to be innocent” and not “I’m angry,” but it’s still the same technique.

Gérard Berner (right) as François d’Anjou in La dame de Monsoreau (1971), demonstrating the crazy eye technique in a very different context.

Anyway, after Dan leaves to get ready to sail to Maljardin, Jacques and Vangie exchange a few words. By this point, she knows for certain who he is and that he will bring death to the island.

A rare instance of the subtitles getting Vangie’s name right.

I really like this exchange, so, as with many other exchanges that I really like, I’m going to post a full transcription:

Jacques: "Did you hear it all, Vangie?" Vangie: "Enough to make me wonder if I shouldn't contact the newspapers and let them find out the kind of man you really are."

Jacques: "You wouldn't do that, because you're afraid of my...power." Vangie: "In this world...or the next?"

Jacques: "Next world?" *laughs* "What are you talking about? You've been playing cards too much. It's dulling your senses." Vangie: "My father is dead. I am now the Conjure Woman. My senses are greater than ever. There is evil roaming on Maljardin. It must be destroyed."

Getting nervous, Jacques?

Jacques: "Vangie! You and your witchcraft. It will be the death of me yet.” Vangie: "I'm after the Devil."

Yup, definitely nervous.

Jacques: "And he's after you!"

And then we have a marvelous little credits scene where Jacques sits down in the big wicker chair, looking enormously pleased with himself. He puts his feet up on the table in front of him, grins, polishes his ring, all while looking incredibly self-satisfied. I love this comment about it on YouTube: “I can imagine the director telling Colin at the end credits,'Ok Colin-Baby, now just sit there and look smug...that's it...more smug-more smug...annnnd got it!'”

Smug.

Smugger.

Smuggest.

This episode is typical of Wednesday episodes on this show: light on plot and heavy on recap and character interaction that may or may not be filler. The only important things that happen in this one are (1) Jacques brings Dan with him to Maljardin and (2) Vangie reveals to Jacques that she has become the Conjure Woman and therefore a powerful opponent. But neither of these happen until the final scene, so, in all honesty, one could skip over most of this episode without missing much save for Tim’s hilarious line flub.

Coming up next: Reverend Dawson holds Erica’s funeral and Holly discusses an interesting nightmare she had about her mother.

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#strange paradise #gothic soap opera #week 4 #episode 18 #ian martin #review #maljardin arc #bissits face #the blue suit of sexiness #crazy eyes #creative line interpretation #the damned holly portrait #jacques putting his boots/shoes on furniture #la dame de monsoreau #tarot #strange title i know but i couldn't think of anything better

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