Episode Three: Random Rewatch Observations
1. Sergeant Bryant mocks George Chambers for being startled by the sound of the ice when he himself is shown in his hammock in Episode One looking visibly disturbed by the same sounds. Bloody hypocrite.
2. Hartnell actually looks quite wary and unsure to me when he comes to collect Silna’s father’s things – does he just feel guilty for what’s happened, I wonder, or is he perhaps uncomfortable with death-related things after losing his brother? Or am I just reading too much into things?
3. There’s what looks like a rope ladder going down into the fire hole in the ice when they put Silna’s father down there, but it’s gone when Sir John goes down. Fitting and likely symbolic, given the episode title, I suppose - something about hubris and entering somewhere you can’t get back from.
4. An obvious one but they still set out a plate for Lt. Gore. Heart-breaking stuff!
5. Honestly, I’m here for Sir John most in the scene when he’s berating Crozier. Crozier’s first instinct when it starts seems to be to advance into Franklin’s little office nook, almost as if he’s trying to intimidate him, but Franklin drives him straight back out again. There’s a toughness to him that you don’t see anywhere else and everything he’s saying about Crozier is right. Even when Sir John and Fitzjames are alone together he still puts on the guise of benevolent father figure – it’s so interesting to me that Crozier seems to be the only one that gets to see that other side of him, that Crozier is the only one we see Sir John drop the act for. They truly see one another for who they really are.
7. “Our boy, Graham”. God he really does look on him as a son, doesn’t he?
8. Lovely little upstairs-downstairs scene between Messrs Diggle and Wall, echoing Crozier and Franklin. One man identifying an issue and wanting to find a solution, the other stonewalling him in response.
9. That line about the ship’s cat being more use as a small pillow is objectively hilarious to me.
