NO JUST NO

[sevenswells]

FUCK YOU BEEB

I AM VERY EMOTIONAL ABOUT THE HOUR'S SEASON FINALE AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THESE FEELINGS

JUST CAN WE PLEASE STOP KILLING OFF BEN WHISHAW ON CAMERA? I KNOW BLOOD LOOKS GOOD ON HIM BUT SERIOUSLY I'M SO TIRED OF HAVING MY HEART RIPPED OUT OF MY RIBCAGE BECAUSE HE IS A BRILLIANT ACTOR THAT MAKES ME FEEL ALL THE FEELS AND I DON'T LIKE SEEING HIM DIE VIOLENTLY ALL THE TIME I CAN'T HANDLE IT ANYMORE IT'S TOO FUCKING MUCH

HECTOR AND MARNIE

MARNIE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, OONA CHAPLIN YOU'RE A FUCKING GREAT ACTRESS

ISAAC! ISAAC MY BABY ANGEL YOU ARE PERFECT, YOU ONLY HAD ONE LITTLE SCENE AND YOU'RE SO UNDERSTATED AND DISCREET BUT I SAW YOU MY DARLING, I SAW YOU SHINE THROUGH THE TEARS IN MY EYES

I DIDN'T REALLY CARE ABOUT LIX AND RANDALL'S STORYLINE TBH BUT PETER CAPALDI AND ANNA CHANCELLOR ARE SUCH GOOD ACTORS IT JUST KILLS ME, THEY MADE IT WORK JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE FUCKING LEGENDS, BOTH OF THEM

IN FACT I CAN'T WRAP MY HEAD AROUND HOW MANY INCREDIBLE ACTORS THERE ARE ON THIS ONE SHOW, WHY IS EVERYONE SO GOOD?? UGH GODDAMMIT BRITISH ACTORS YOU MAKE EVERYONE ELSE AROUND THE WORLD LOOK BAD

IF YOU SAW THAT EPISODE TOO PLEASE SHARE YOUR FEELINGS WITH ME I CAN'T COPE IF I'M ALONE IN THIS

Comments

[uwsannajane.livejournal.com]

HE CAN'T BE DEAD HE CAN'T HE CAN'T HE CAN'T NO NO NO NO NO. BEL NEEDS HIM. WE ALL NEED HIM.

(But really, he's not quite all the way dead at the end, so there's hope, surely? I refuse to totally despair. Because "Truuuue loooooove" ... yes, I'm going to The Princess Bride for comfort.)

BEEB IF YOU DO NOT TELL US RIGHT FUCKING NOW THAT THERE'S GOING TO BE A SERIES 3, I'M GOING TO ... I'M GOING TO ... SCREAM A LOT ON LIVEJOURNAL.

CAPALDI AND CHANCELLOR, HOLY HECK.

WEST AND CHAPLIN, HOLY HECK.

ISAAC, DARLING LITTLE ONE, LET ME AND SEVENSWELLS GIVE YOU HOT CHOCOLATE AND INTRODUCE YOU TO A REALLY NICE GIRL.

[sevenswells.livejournal.com]

>>But really, he's not quite all the way dead at the end, so there's hope, surely?

I DON'T KNOOOOOOW IT SEEMED SO FINAL, THE DRAMATIZATION POINTED TO A TRAGEDY BUT THEN AGAIN IF THERE'S A THIRD SEASON THEY CAN'T DO THE HOUR WITHOUT BEN WHISHAW CAN THEY I MEAN IT'S FREDDIE FUCKING LYON COME ON BEEB ONE MORE MIRACLE, CAN YOU DO THAT FOR ME? DON'T LET FREDDIE BE DEAD STOP IT JUS T STOP IT

ISAAC, DARLING LITTLE ONE, LET ME AND SEVENSWELLS GIVE YOU HOT CHOCOLATE AND INTRODUCE YOU TO A REALLY NICE GIRL.

YES YES YES THIS

THANK YOU FOR SHARING MY PAIN IN CAPS LOCK YOU'RE A REAL BRO ;____;

[falling-voices.livejournal.com]

I am baffled by all the people who're insisting Freddie is dead. Guys, he's awake, he's conscious, he's breathing (badly, but), he's talking — and Ben Wishaw has plainly stated that he'll be available for a third season if the Beeb decides to keep 'em coming, he's not dead. IT'S OKAY. EVERYTHING IS OKAY.

(Well, not really — Freddie is still in a very bad state and beaten bloody, Bel still has massive issues with commitment, Hector is still an alcoholic, Sissy is still in an interracial marriage in a very racist country (my heart broke when she said My dad wouldn't give me away fksldksldks), and, oh, THEY JUST BROKE A MASSIVE CORRUPTION STORY AND BROUGHT DOWN A HUGE NUMBER OF IMPORTANT MEN FROM THE TOP OF THE GOVERNMENT TO THE POLICE DOWN TO THEIR KNEES, which is going to have consequences, it can't do otherwise.)

Apart from Freddie and Bel, who I adored, adored, adored — as always — Marnie and Hector broke my fucking heart. BABIES, ALL. I'm not as invested in Lix/Randall as so many people on tumblr are, but their resolution was utterly heartbreaking nevertheless — that moment when Sissy finds Lix breaking down in the ladies', man. :(((

Oh, it was beautiful.

[sevenswells.livejournal.com]

Well I hope it is okay, but since this season was written with more "classic" dramatization, it all seemed really final to me, written like a tragedy... and I just thought about this, but at the beginning of the season, Randall brings Freddie back because he thinks The Hour misses what he calls "the tick"; by the end of this episode, though, until the last minute, nobody can believe Freddie is going to be late for the show, Hector insists on it, because Freddie IS The Hour... but since he's not there, so they do the show anyway, and Hector handles it perfectly, and Randall comments: "There's the tick"... meaning they've outgrown Freddie, they don't need him for that special something he brings to the show anymore (the scene where Randall mentions "the tick" for the first time was in the episode recap at the beginning too, meaning it's actually a major point of the whole series; and there's a very strong correlation between Freddie and the news show; if Freddie becomes not essential to the show anymore, Freddie might as well die -- from a dramatic standpoint, I mean). Hector can be a good journalist now, and the real OTP in this show isn't Bel/Freddie or Bel/anyone for that matter, it is Bel/the news like Freddie himself said. I dunno, I'd really, really love it if Freddie could come back and not be dead, but from my point of view it seemed his story ended there, especially since the whole Bel/Freddie story is one of missed occasions and bad timing (in the immortal words of Taylor Swift paraphrased by the fandom: "theyyyyy are never ever ever gonna get togetheeeer") and it seemed like Abi Morgan made Freddie nickname Bel "Moneypenny" since the beginning only for it to be his very last word (which worked really well, was very clever because at first you thought he was saying "money" because he's so class-conscious and because of the Abe Lincoln quote just before, but then he says "Moneypenny" when he sees Bel's silhouette rushing towards him and my heart broke, fuck you very much Abi Morgan you are made of pure evil).

So, in sum: maybe they'll adress the "tick" thing in season 3 and the fact that they don't need him anymore if Freddie comes back, but then again maybe this truly is the end for him, marking the end of an era too. Whishaw also has this "tragic hero" quality to him, it seems he's just too raw and intense to be allowed to live, which I suppose is why he meets so many violent deaths onscreen, there's just something about him that calls for it I think, especially when he's the main character.

So anyway, I think there's a lot of grounds to believe that he's well and truly dead, but I'm still going to be overjoyed if there's a third season and Whishaw is announced to be in it (again, I tend to think: pah! The Hour without Freddie Lyon? Ridiculous!... but then again that's what literally happened in the episode, they did The Hour - the news show - without Freddie Lyon, and it worked, so now they can probably do The Hour - the BBC series - without Freddie Lyon...)

[falling-voices.livejournal.com]

These are all good points! But I, uh, still disagree?

Your premise is: they've outgrown Freddie, and the show can continue without him. But I don't think that's true — without Freddie, they couldn't have been able to do this show at all, because he is the one who went after Kiki, he is the one who pursued the story down to the very end, he is the one who made it happen to begin with. He wasn't there for the interview itself (and of course he didn't need to be, because Hector hasn't just now become a good journalist, he has been since s1, since he gave away his seat for Freddie to address the issues at hand in the first finale, since he confronted Sterne on live television — and that's who Hector is: the face of The Hour, the one who interviews and dissects and makes everything clearer to the audience, but Freddie is the one who finds the problem to begin with), but he was utterly essential to the story. Without him, there would've never been any story at all.

Really, I think that since s1, the entire point of the show is that it's built on three people: Hector, the face of the show, Bel, the producer, who holds it all together, and Freddie, the investigator, who's the pulsing brain, the beating heart. When Freddie dropped off the surface of the earth back between s1 and s2, the show went to shit, because it needs all three of them to function, to hold true. The real OTP isn't just Bel/the news, it's Bel/the news and Hector/the news and Freddie/the news; an OT4, if you will. In the end, this final show was something that they built together, all three of them: Freddie with Cilente and Kiki, Bel with Kiki and Rosa Maria, Hector with Sterne and Kiki. That's the tick (which Randall doesn't say he brought Freddie back for, IIRC — he said it to Bel: Let me see your tick, Ms Rowley), that's the trick: all three of them coming together to deliver a story. Killing Freddie would kill that.

The Moneypenny parallel is a good point — but I think it's more due to Abi Morgan not being certain that the series will be renewed and rounding up her symbolism cleanly than to a desire to actually kill him off. And, yes: Abi Morgan and Ben Wishaw have said that they're eager for a third season, so it's pretty clear that Ben Wishaw doesn't believe his character to be dead; there's an ambiguity, of course, but an actual absolute fact? Nah.

(I do agree that Freddie has been courting death since s1, though, that he definitely has a tragic hero type of personality, and that both stylistically and narratively it wouldn't surprise me one whit if he did die a death like this one. But considering 1. how the finale ended (with him conscious, I mean), and 2. the writer's and actor's common desire to continue the story, I don't doubt for a single second that Freddie is alive — whether or not he's going to be okay is the problem at hand, I should think.)

(Come to London already and we can hash this all out in person :DDD)

[sevenswells.livejournal.com]

(Come to London already and we can hash this all out in person :DDD)

Yes je veux bien :D C'est toujours OK pour qu'on se voie le 20 au fait?

[falling-voices.livejournal.com]

Oui oui oui! Mais je repars à Paris à 6h ce soir-là, donc ça te dit un déjeuner un peu tôt? genre 11h30/12h?

[sevenswells.livejournal.com]

Pas de souci, ça te dit de manger chinois? Je connais un bon petit resto pas cher du côté de Shaftesbury avenue. On se donne rendez-vous à 11h30 devant la fontaine de Piccadilly? (on garde contact par texto de touteuf si y'a un souci)
(à moins qu'il y ait un resto/coin que tu préfères, auquel cas je m'en remets à toi ^^)

[falling-voices.livejournal.com]

Je n'avais pas d'idée précise et j'adore ce quartier, donc chinois me va très bien. Picadilly, 11h30, bien reçu. J'ai hâte de te voir! <3