Berlin Station 3.2, first impressions [spoilers!] #richardarmitage

Continued from here. These posts will contain spoilers. PLEASE do not read them if you are not watching concurrently with the U.S. broadcast but still want a fresh look at them when the show becomes legally available in your region.

Also, I’m not sure about this post just because the place where I saw this episode removed it today. So I may end up password protecting it temporarily.

Reminder: HUGE SPOILERS. Read at your own risk.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

***

Last night, after seeing episode 3.1, I was wrestling with myself about liking the show or thinking it was a worthwhile use of Armitage’s talents or not. When the show is good, it’s okay to pretty good. And I am happy to see Armitage’s face on screen. When it’s bad (as, IMO, in this episode, quite apart from the ending) it’s not just enraging, it’s boring. Last season I spent a lot of time being angry about everything that was being wasted but this season I can’t imagine I’ll get together the energy to care. After seeing 3.2, I’m debating not resubbing to EPIX.

I just don’t buy that a spy show needs a rogue agent to work, so no, not interested in Torres, not interested in his backstory, not interested in getting involved in a story around yet another character (will they waste a whole a episode on this guy like they did on Yates?), not interested in what happened to him in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Syria. (I suppose it’s a consolation that BB Yates hasn’t been in these two episodes anyway, although I assume she will reappear.) Huge pieces of this episode — something like seven minutes or more — are filmed in such darkness that it’s hard to even see what is happening. Get over this style, directors, it’s really boring. There are also extremely long chase and fight scenes that I suppose are there for the boyz and the videogame generation but which I find tedious and get me to pull up Candy Crush until they are over. Not interested in the violence. I think a good story can get along just fine without showing in detail just how every single bruise is inflicted. Even in the parts of the story that are potentially interesting, the tempo is so slooooooooow. (I also have questions about the monotone “all Russians are evil” tone, but I won’t get into that here.)

In regard to this episode in particular, I agree that it looks an awful lot like Daniel’s bit the dust. At the same time — why devote *all* that time at the beginning of the last episode and this one to Daniel’s backstory if they were just going to off him permanently? And why put him all over the titles? It’s a waste of storytelling. It also creates a stupid red herring — insofar as now we will wonder what the Cold War-era backstory has to do with events in Estonia in 2018 — which would be pointless unless there’s more to it than we can see. We don’t know why Daniel was assaulted — is it because of his enmeshment in the Estonian situation with Henryk, or is it because of his awareness of the “Diver” situation? Rodion didn’t seem just to want to off Daniel, he seemed to want that picture, and Daniel seems aware that having the picture on him is a problem, as he gets rid of it. There’s the statement by the Russian in episode 1 that nothing will ever be over for them, plus there are at least three gratuitous points in this episode where the camera fixes on the image in that picture. (To some extent, this seems silly, insofar as presumably there’s a negative of the picture somewhere and so it’s not like destroying this one copy extinguishes the knowledge; the picture isn’t even very old). So part of me thinks there will be some way for the character, at least, to come back (maybe with his buttprint burned off, he’ll be played by another actor or something).

But honestly at this point, beyond showing me some very nice pictures of Richard Armitage, the writers have given me no reason to want or hope that Daniel Miller will come back. I just don’t care about the character as executed — but the way this show is written makes it hard to care about any of the characters, so maybe it’s just par for the course. Even so, given that I’ve said the end of two previous seasons that I’d feel no grief about Armitage being written out of the story, I still feel a bit of a twinge. The story had a lot of potential, and there are plenty of opportunities to show Armitage’s considerable talents, but the fact that after two hours of this season I’ve seen maybe two scenes that might merit a discussion of his acting suggests that the filming never got there either.

If he’s as dead as it seems, Daniel Miller will be ripe for some great fix-it fanfic. And: I will miss the pictures. And seeing Richard Armitage acting. So I do feel some paradoxical grief.

***

A little blow-by-blow snark, but less this time, as the light level in half of the episode made it hardly worth watching, let alone capping.

If you remember, the last episode had Daniel staying in Tallinn in order to try to keep the peace and protect Sofia Vesik. I’m not sure this reasoning is entirely plausible, but he also picked up that photo, so maybe he thinks the key to his own backstory will somehow appear in Tallinn (although I don’t know why that would be the case). But in any case, that’s where the story is going, so we all have to believe at least temporarily that he can actually influence the outcome of events in Tallinn.

At the beginning of this episode we see a scene — without frame, so we don’t know what the status of the information is — that implies that young Daniel Miller witnessed his mother’s execution.

Clear as mud, but that’s probably Diver there, seen from the perspective of boyhood Daniel.

The kid looks nothing like Daniel the adult, but probably Daniel the adult had a nose augmentation when he joined the CIA or something, in order to maintain his cover. Yup, that’ll be it.

This dream cuts across to Daniel, lying in the deserted Estonian countryside, presumably because he’s collapsed, though it’s not clear why he’d run out of town instead of into it.

Again, barely visible. Yet July is pretty sunny this far north in the northern hemisphere. Just sayin’.

In the five seconds before he observes a train passing, the sun comes up a good deal.

But what a face.

Bloody and unsteady, Daniel walks back into town and calls Val to tell her about the train — which he says had soldiers on it, not that we could tell this ourselves as it’s too dark — and that he plans to talk to Sofia Vesik.

His head is bloody, but unbowed.

Back in Berlin, Robert is showering.

Now we know why Orser never mentions Armitage in interviews — he can’t compete. If they’re trying to set him up as competition, he’s got a loooong way to go.

Shift to the office: he thinks someone’s breaking into his apartment.

Rear view of Valerie at work — would a COS wear a dress with such a high slit and no stockings?

Valerie, Robert and April have a teleconference with Torres which establishes that they can’t consider this a war situation (I assume — after having seen the whole episode — to explain why they won’t be able to intervene to help or pursue Daniel ever). Robert gives Torres a lead on the waitress (Maret). Their discussion articulates that Russia is following the same strategy here as it did in the Crimea. Sofia is about to introduce a proposal to give all Estonians the same passport and citizenship (interesting, I did not know about this situation at all), with equal employment and travel rights in the EU. Robert notes the Russians have to get in ahead of that resolution or their campaign won’t work.

Back in Tallinn, Daniel goes to Sofia’s place.

Would you let this man into your apartment?

Somewhat counterintuitively, she lets him in and glues him back together (he needs stitches but she uses “culinary adhesive”).

Not sure exactly why, but they forgot to blur this.

Then we get a return to Daniel Miller The Pragmatic, Patriotic American.

Love that profile again. I assume this is a prewar apartment, and they just have such fantastic lighting situations. Doesn’t he look great, framed against those curtains?

This exchange feels totally in character for Daniel — I’m reminded of the scene in series 1 when he’s talking to Ingrid on the roof of the Bikini Bar. (He’s trying to get Sofia to stay away from the Centennial celebrations that night in order not to inflame the situation further; she wants to solve the nationalities problems with her passport — I’m not sure why it needs a technological solution but okay –; he says that Russia won’t allow that to happen.) They agree [cough] to continue the discussion on her way to work.

In Talinn / Sopron, we see Torres try unsuccessfully to catch Maret the Waitress at work; then he sneaks into the office and gets an address off a personnel file.

At her office, Sofia gives a vague explanation of what her computer company does. Turns out that she might be able to help him identify his train. She introduces him briefly to her server guy, Paavo. It seems she can’t find his train.

Torres goes to Maret’s apartment, and masquerades as an AP reporter to get some quotes for his article about Henryk. The camera gives us a full shot of the flowers the little girl collected before, plus this — which didn’t mean anything to me but maybe does to Torres.

Is there a clue here? [ETA: the St George ribbon — thanks Anja.]

Basarov is standing guard behind the door but there’s no need for him to intervene. (Later we will find that Torres has deduced that Basarov is there, but I don’t know why unless it’s something in the frame above. Is that a scabbard, which Basarov has taken the knife out of?) Long sequence that we later realize is intended to show us the perspective from Maret’s apartment to the Centennial stage. Yawn.

Back at Sofia’s company, Tervik, Daniel is skyping with April. In order to identify the tracks they have to go back to paper maps from the 1970s!

Be still my historian heart — not every question can be answered by Google and Co.

Oh, but then Daniel *did* find it on Sofia’s software, so he decides to go out there.

In the COS office, Robert wants Torres’ file and Val won’t let him have it. They squabble about what let her and not him become Berlin COS. (It was the deal for Tokyo. To be honest, though, I am wondering how Robert’s son feels about that. Didn’t Robert want a transfer back to the U.S. not that long ago?) Robert and Val express guilt and worry about Daniel.

Back to trying to get Sofia to back off in Tallinn. She points out that Estonia can’t do anything to stop Russia doing anything anyway.

And Daniel is doubtful about the prospects of NATO doing anything to help Estonia. (Serv is somewhat more sanguine on that point, recent events notwithstanding.)

Daniel wants to keep the peace so NATO doesn’t have to get involved. (This is nuts. He has to know she has the much stronger argument. It must suck to work for the CIA, constantly convincing people to do things they are know are right.)

In Berlin, Robert is working his other channels for info on Torres and discovers not just his postings, but that he’s in Tallinn for “wackevac,” I assume this means an attempt to take pressure off him because he’s emotionally unstable. Robert writes “psych evac” on his legal pad. Then he gets some more info on his screen that causes him to swear, stand up and put on his jacket.

In Estonia, Daniel is now near Turba. While on the phone with April (who expects a date with the son of a Nigerian scientist), he locates the train track. April identifies a medium range ballistic middle complex from the Soviet era somewhat west of him.

In Berlin, the toxicology report on Henryk’s hair is back. It doesn’t suggest that he was poisoned, but they discuss the possibility that he was poisoned with foxglove — aha, so that’s why all the shots with purple flowers. It provides the same agent as the heart pills he was taking. (I thought this was interesting insofar as they mentioned one of the medicines my dad takes. No worries, I’m not going to overdose dad with digoxin.) April is skeptical that this is a Russian move, but Robert and Val tell her the “Crimea playbook” requires “absolute secrecy.” (OK?)

Switch back to Estonia — Daniel identifies and enters some sort of abandoned secure facility with Russian warning signs on it. Warning: at this point, with half the episode to go, the story tempo slows way, way, way down.

Of course, there’s a trapdoor he can’t get into.

So Daniel pauses to call Esther. Cue vulnerability. He misses her. He announces his plan to get her / their relationship vetted. It turns out the opening sequence was his dream (not a flashback, in case that matters). And he thinks he knows who Diver is.

Easier to let his guard down over voicemail than in a conversation.

Next, Daniel visits a kiosk to be seen.

Plot point: Daniel sends the picture to Esther.
Picture: Gratuitous thumb shot.

Picture: Gratuitous jeans shot. I know these aren’t the sexiest jeans ever but I like seeing Armitage in real people clothing.

Picture: gratuitous shot of Daniel smoke. Armitage fumans, incomparable. He doesn’t seem interested in the smoke, though, as much as in trying to alert people that he’s there and poke the bear a little. It’s interesting that they subtitle all of his remarks to them in Russian except a key sentence — I guess because they pretend not to understand Russian? I don’t understand it either except that I wondered if the last word in the sentence is “Crimea”. And the men react with sort of hostile expressions.

In Tallinn, Sofia is announcing her reasons for wanting a unified Estonian passport, when the fire alarm goes off. Rodion suffocates Paavo the Server Guy, does some malware trickery, and then sets off the C02, which is supposed to hide the murder.

And then the episode slows down even more as Daniel goes to hang out with a group of druggies (as we find out later, sniffing the dregs of rocket fuel) to get more information.

Daniel says, in response to one of them, “My country’s bleeped.” ?? Really? Wasn’t he just toasting “to America”?

In Tallinn, Sofia discovers the sabotage, and also that a huge misinformation campaign about her proposal is underway. In Berlin, April identifies that campaign as the work of Russian bots. In Tallinn, Sofia insists on speaking that night anyway. in Berlin, April is out on her date with the Nigerian, who seems to be under some kind of supervision by an ominous large guy.

She tells the standard American “Ausfahrt” joke, which would be less funny if it weren’t such a frequent, bordering on universal, American experience in Germany.

In the office, Valerie is watching the TV news and calls Torres to tell him to secure Sofia before going after Basarov (who, he informs her, has a clear line of sight from Maret’s apartment to the Centennial stage — this feels a bit like last season’s preparations to assassinate the political candidate whose name I have forgotten).

Back in Turba, it turns out the druggies are aware of the trains and the Russian soldiers, because the soldiers are preventing the druggies from using the installation’s basement. They volunteer to show Daniel what they’re talking about. Cut back to Talinn: Sofia is approaching the stage; Torres intercepts her and brings her back to her car. He runs toward Maret’s apartment. In Turba, Daniel re-enters the installation. In Talinn, Torres enters the apartment seconds to late to stop some sniper fire on the stage of the event. In Turba, the druggies show Daniel how to get through that trapdoor. Daniel calls Berlin to tell April he’s got a lead and will be in touch in twelve hours. He descends into the silo and discovers soldiers.

and seriously, this is what I see on my screen.

He has to knock someone out in order to get a picture of this:

which is stacks and pallets of something.

He gets out, but he’s attacked as soon as he gets above ground. Candy Crush time. One of the thugs looks at his passport.

Back in Tallinn, Sofia is worried the shots were for her, and Torres is pleased he was right about what was happening. They drive away.

In Turba, we see Rodion’s face. They douse Daniel in a flammable liquid and set his body on fire with a cigarette lighter. I guess this is necessary so we really believe he’s dead?

~ by Servetus on November 29, 2018.