View Logs: Low Winter Sun S1 Episode 8

10/9/13

View Logs: Low Winter Sun S1 Episode 8

Episode Title: Revelations

So Episode 7 screwed up Geddes' character... but interestingly enough, episode 8 was actually quite good.  Honestly, everything was quite solid here and Geddes acceptance of corruption seemed a little more natural in this episode than the last.  Strangely enough, this episode almost felt like it should have been a part of episode 7.  It just seems like the writers thought they had too little material to work with so they try to fill up the series as much as they can with just filler side plots and scenes that either contradict character (to milk some drama out of the show) or don't develop them at all.

This episode actually had none of that.  I was even a little bit interested in Callis and his girlfriend's side plot for the first time since like... ever.

I'll tell you what's changed because this took me a while to figure out since Callis and his girlfriend still stayed the same static characters as all the other episodes.  So the series is drawing to a close and they have to tie together all the side plot line together (or else suffer the same issue as The Killing with that Seward plot line...)  but Chris Mundy actually tied it together in a way that made Callis' side plot interesting because it suddenly directly relates to Frank and Joe's ambitions.  That is how you make static characters interesting.  Character scenes with static characters are one of the most boring things ever on screen fiction and it's a common go to reason on why dramas are "boring" (where as only bad drama does this.)  Character scenes either develop a character, show a side that the audience hasn't seen before, or just shouldn't be there at all.  Low Winter Sun had a lot of character moments with Callis and his wife that are actually unnecessary on both a plot level and a development level.  That is why these two are just so uninteresting until the very end.

Back to Frank and Joe.  I don't actually understand why Frank assumed that Katja was dead when he found her missing.  I'm aware that I might have missed a piece of the puzzle but considering that I was able to watch all of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and not miss a thing that was happening... I really don't think so.  It just seemed a little weird that Frank somehow just "knew" that Katja was dead when she was killed right when Frank found her bed empty in that scene.

Again Chris Mundy... again with the sloppy moments... Which is a shame because the scene in which Joe threw Katja off the building was legitimately surprising.  After a million dirty cop shows, I'm just used to people getting shot very bluntly.  Joe throwing her off the balcony was quite different and actually makes more sense than shooting her.  It's a lot easier to make something seem like an accident if you don't shoot someone.  See these are the best plot twists.  Surprising during the experience.  Obvious in retrospection.  But unfortunately, the sloppy moments are just incessant with this show.

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