8/19/13
View Logs: Low Winter Sun S1 Episode 2
Episode Title: The Goat Rodeo
This episode was more like it. Honestly, at this point it feels like Episode 1 was dragged out a little too long. And this episode probably should have been the pilot (with the important bits of Ep 1 edited in at the beginning). I also mentioned that the pilot played with moral ambiguity a little too quickly. This episode established who's what and where a little better. We know for a fact that Joe Geddes is dirty (question now is just how dirty) with a marvelous scene where he confronts Damon Callis (the gangbanger and budding drug dealer). It seems like Joe is trying to bury McCann's past. This actually makes sense now on why Joe lied to Frank about McCann killing Katia (Sinada in the UK version) and getting him to act against McCann. Dare I say, the scene in which this was revealed was better done than the UK version. But finally there's a clear motivation behind the cause and effect where in the pilot that got a little muddled.
I also have to say that this is the first show I've seen since The Shield where it shows the police work as sloppy. Danil waiting for hours on end with a dead body was surprisingly candid about how sometimes the cops just don't care about certain lowly drug crimes. Danil got a nice amount of character development as she is established as more of a straight shooter than her other counterparts (her confrontations with a store owner and Joe himself). This is marvelous as it sets up for any potential conflicts Danil will have with Joe and Frank.
It also seems that the show is ready to deviate from it's UK source material. The plot point where the coroner finds out that McCann's wounds were postmortem happens pretty late in the UK series. Here it's setup and resolved pretty quickly (thankfully similar to how Breaking Bad was very economical with its plot) and now there's a very real danger of being caught. Really, this made the confrontation scene at the end where Frank beats up Joe a lot more engaging as Frank has very real reasons to be enraged. So characters have cleared up but I have to say that there are times where the plot is still a little messy. On occasion, Frank would visit the supposed murder site of Katia to dwell on his actions and it's not really established that he does this somewhat regularly. In Episode 2, he randomly appears in this bloodied house and, if I hasn't watched the UK version, I wouldn't have known where exactly he was. It's ironic because the show likes to take it's time but it chooses to gloss over this setting when really this setting should represent an important theme to the story.
In the UK version, the place where Brendan supposedly murdered Sinada (and actually murdered the dismembered victim) represented a point of no return for Frank. It is symbolic of Frank's regret. Him cleaning the house was a way to visually show the character trying to clean up his righteous killing metaphorically and physically. In a subtle way, it was him trying to take back what he had done to Brendan. So considering that the house was a pretty central piece to Frank's character development in the UK version, Frank's visit to this house shouldn't really be this casually written in because the adaptation is still the same story so far.
So, episode 2 is a big step up from episode 1 but the writing is still not very tidy. The characters are aptly developed and the conflict is a lot clearer. But there are still some sloppy writing here and there that I would like to see smoothed out later in the season. So far atleast the show moves and develops faster than The Killing so maybe Low Winter Sun can be an apt replacement for Breaking Bad eventually. I will say that it's a good sign that the US show has gone through most of the plot points of the UK version already.
