#I keep rewatching season 2 purely for him and jesper | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

xiexiecaptain · 1 year

Text

Shadow & Bone rewatch deep dive commentary that was started on twitter and is being moved/continued here!

This is the post for EP 04: Otkazats’ya

[Episode 01 post] [Rewatch Commentary Links Masterpost]

((There WILL be spoilers mentioned for the books in the Grishaverse including the Crows duology & King of Scars duology! This is basically from the perspective of watching the show as someone who knows the books well.))

(Just a disclaimer that I’m picking up doing these commentary posts from here after season 2 is out! Just fyi, I might mention s2 stuff in these where it wasn’t mentioned in the posts for eps 1-3)

Omg not the captain singing the drinking song Nina sang to Inej in the hold of the ship on the way to Fjerda

I love how they just toss in background book details in new places to color in the world! You can tell everyone working on constructing this show was such a massive fan of the books and it warms my heart

As always, I’m just enamored by the linguistics and writing systems the show has designed and fleshed out for all the languages!! They make the world feel so lived-in!

Poor Mal. He really feels so powerless and helpless; even to people who are super devoted, sheer faith and longing can’t keep people going forever.

Boy is living on crumbs atm

Mean Girls (2004) voice: AND NONE FOR MAL ORETSEV BYE

These two are so pure i can’t get over it.

Thank you for giving Mal close relationships (even if they eat it soon) other than Alina!

NOT GENYA CALLING HER SUNSHINE-!!!

😭 😭 😭

YEAH ITS CUS HE WANTS TO FEEL OWNERSHIP OVER YOU ALINA

Yep yep giving her crumbs of vulnerability to draw her in.

Top tier manipulator shit.

Jesper’s hair and expression here I’m fucking laughing so hard

He looks like he just woke up from a week-long bender omfg.

Jesper, honey, I’m begging you, drink some water along with whatever alcoholic beverage is in that glass

LOVE LOVE LOVE how they find ways to weave the Crows’ plotlines into the S&B book plot.

Using the Winter Fete party as distraction was probably drawn from them using Hringkälla for the Ice Court job. But I suppose in the show it’s gonna be the other way around now which is funny. They’re probably gonna be like “Well, remember how we snuck into the Little Palace in Ravka because of their big celebration? Let’s do that with this job too!”

Very Beethoven/Bootstrap Paradox meta shit here and it makes me laugh

Kaz Brekker has never taken a day off in his entire life and it shows

LOOK HOW EXCITED THEY ARE

Even Inej is trying not to burst out grinning

Same you guys

I always get hyped as fuck for a heist!

You’ve heard of Chekov’s gun, but we’ve finally found Chekov’s bullet

The fucking barmaid’s face

I can’t

“Who is this strange Zemeni dude and why did he dump a goat in my arms and start speaking softly and mournfully to it in Kerch???”

Not him blowing Milo a kiss

I LOVE JESPER FAHEY AND HIS DRAMATIC BISEXUAL ASS

LYING THROUGH HIS GD TEETH AGAIN

Spinning his fake little sob stories

Manipulator 👏 Shit 👏

I do appreciate this way of trying to make exposition about the Black Heretic story more active

And making the scene serve several purposes at once (Kirigan trying to draw Alina in with his ~relatable outcast~ stuff, as well as giving the viewers the backstory)

Again, I’m just glad these three got to be on-screen. It gives Mal other people around him that matter. (Which does then help fuel/motivate his devotion to Alina as we go forward.)

That was really also one of the things that bugged me about book!Mal (Although, to be fair, it might be less of a writing issue than a personal one) but it sticks in my craw when characters are single-person focused. (Unless that’s, like, part of their character shit to figure out, them feeling lonely or co-dependent, etc.)

Like I do understand it’s kind of been “Mal and Alina against the world” since they were young. But they haven’t always been together since they joined the military. Having relationships that span back for a long, long time can be powerful, don’t get me wrong. But length of a relationship isn’t the only measure of its importance.

I think part of it was that we only got Alina’s POV and so Mal in some parts of the series felt very one-note, unmotivated, unbelievable, etc. Because all we got was what he managed to say to Alina when he was actually present and interacting with Alina (which didn’t happen for a large part of books 1 and 3.)

The lesbian skepticism on Nadia’s face-!!!

I will never, in my life, get over Freddy’s acting as Kaz acting as a stuffy fancy ~artíst~

CLEVER CLEVER CLEVER CLEVER

I LOVE THEM I LOVE THEM

Ok so remember when this was the first sneak-peek scene they released of the Crows and we got to see them in action together for the first time??

It reminded me of my thoughts about Freddy’s voice as Kaz.

At first I was like “oh, hmm, he’s got kind of a higher, smooth voice as opposed to the way Kaz’s voice is described in the books” which is that rough gravely “rock-salt rasp.”

But as an iteration of Kaz (pluralism is my friend, you guys) Freddy’s voice for him is something I actually super love?

Like it’s a different sort of menacing. It can feel icy, if that makes sense. Like the higher register lends itself to his voice sounding cold, and the smoothness comes across as that kind of menacing sort of calmness. I dunno I just dig it.

I know we talk a lot about Inej’s knives (for good reason)

But dear saints I love Inej being invisible soundless sneaky.

I know she’d dislike me saying it, but honestly, she’s goddess material. This woman deserves to be lauded and honored at every opportunity.

What’s that meme again? “My idea of help from above is a sniper on the roof?”

Also, him waiting for the clock to chime to disguise the gunshot-!!!

Clawing my face off because I love my clever clever little thieves so much

[“Oh, and Inej,” he said as he led her out of the salon, “don’t ever sneak up on me again.”

The truth was she’d tried to sneak up on Kaz plenty of time since then. She’d never managed it. It was as if once Kaz had seen her, he’d understood how to keep seeing her.”]

Ok so we all agree that Kaz 100% did the same thing as with the magician he saw as a kid, right? Where he was obsessed with figuring out how the trick worked and unraveling it so he could learn to see what was actually happening?

Like [“Some people see a magic trick and say, “Impossible!” [...] And then there are the ones who stay awake, running through the trick again and again, looking for that skip in perception, the crack in the illusion that will explain how their eyes got duped; they’re the kind who won’t rest until they’ve mastered that little bit of mystery for themselves. I’m that kind.”]

INEJ WAS A PUZZLE HE THOUGHT ABOUT OVER AND OVER UNTIL HE FIGURED IT OUT

Oh, yknow, just reviewing stolen high-security floorplans in a public bar. As one does.

Lmao so basically my entire family hunts (northern woodlands, man) and I’m relatively sure my grandma has something that looks pretty much exactly like this

every friend group has someone like this in it

(in my experience said friend is usually a transmasc gremlin type)

fucking Mal just Very Seriously doing his Very Serious tracking while these two chucklefucks discuss selling literal shit in the background

knowing our beloved nina, the amount of sheer willpower she’s dredging up to refuse food is seriously impressive

she aint wrong, matty boy

ok so this is actually super interesting?? Because it speaks to Matthias having subtle curiosities/doubts about grisha and not fully understanding why someone would become grisha since he believes (read: was told) they weren’t just born that way.

In the books we never got to see Matthias speak to Nina alone until the shipwreck, there was always either other drüskelle and/or the other grisha captives on the ship (I mean there are other captives tied up here but they aren’t all shoved into a cage together so Nina and Matthias can have their own conversation)

I really like this little peek into Matthias trying to make sense of the indoctrination he was fed

yeah exactly, he’s trying to assuage his doubts about how “human” feeling Nina is because it’s gnawing at the indoctrination of dehumanization he’s been taught

Also, i love the camera work in this scene -- the lights are all hazy with lots of lens-flares and the shots are so so tight and close!

We’re putting two characters whose circumstances of birth and country and beliefs are so diametrically opposed together. But here they’re having a brief moment of connection where they each have a glimpse of each other’s humanity (in between all the vitriol.)

By cutting in close and having the rest of the “world” feel “out of focus” or “out of shot” it’s allowing this moment to feel like they can be two people for a brief moment rather than grisha and drüskelle. I adore it.

Yeah, see and then when they start talking politics about the Darkling, more of the shots have the camera pulling back a bit, because the “world” outside the two of them is shoving distance back between them

(Obv this is not an exact one-to-one this mapping of shots, but the scene in general does that and its really cool)

And then it pushes back in and gets more hazy again when Matthias has a moment of decency and offers Nina the bread without strings attached

mwuah! chef kiss!

ofc then it falls apart because these two are the most stubborn (affectionate, exasperated) people on the entire planet who can’t EXIST without taking petty jibes at each other

Just taking a moment to appreciate Calahan Skogman because he plays Matthias so incredibly well

I’m hoping so damn hard we get to see the Ice Court job adapted so we can see Matthias get let out of detention so he can go run and play with the other kids at recess

These are the faces of two exhausted parents at the end of a frustrating day with their excitable son and I’m living for it

LISTEN YOU TWO

AT LEAST JESPER IS COMING UP WITH IDEAS, STOP GLARING

Ok but this troupe leader, Marko, actually comes off as such a wholesome guy? I lowkey love his face??

Look how tear-stained and puff from crying it is?! This poor guy finally got to perform for royalty and thought his lifelong dreams had just been crushed and was sobbing into a mug of beer!

Inej entrusting Kaz with her knives DOES something to me, you guys

There is a fucking novel of unspoken words in these expressions I’m gonna gnaw my couch cushions in to piecessss-!

He’s so cute you guys I hope he still has a long and fruitful career even after all the fuckery that goes down at the Winter Fete

This whole scene has me gazing in adoration like a doting parent

Me to the person next to me, pointing, with a camcorder in my hand: Those are my kids!!! God, they’re so talented, I’m so proud of them!!

The fact that they made up entirely new playing card suits for this world-!!!

Honestly so much of what makes this world come to life in the show is thanks to how much AMAZING work the props and set people did???

They obviously loved and cared about the grishaverse so much, you can see in the sets and the costumes and the props how much work was put into making this world come to life and feel like a world that really exists with all its little bits and bobs and details!

That kind of worldbuilding minutia stuff just makes my brain go brrrrrr

Also I haven’t mentioned anything about the soundtrack yet but hot damn they’ve done so much to make it atmospheric but also do the A+ soundtrack thing of weaving musical themes for characters/groups

Ok tho Kaz 10000% could have gotten in as a performer too. Man’s got mad slight-of-hand skills he could definitely go in as a stage magician

It’s time for 🎶✨~Alina’s Emotional Mushroom Trip~ 🎶✨

Of course she was!

I feel like its super obvious that two orphan kids who’ve been through trauma and made a close connection would crave the stability of the life they have with a beloved friend, especially over an unknown where they would be alone and in a new place again having to start over???

I mean, she says she was thinking of Mal and not herself, but it’s both. Because him being alone would mean she would also be alone.

Alina was a scared little kid who had lost everything and was doing what she thought would keep everything she knew from being ripped away again.

I feel like in the books the dynamic of Darklina in the first book, it was obvious/deliberate that Alina felt very isolated at the Little Palace and so was kind of always steered back to the Darkling for scraps of affirmations or reassurances, plus the draw of their powers compounding this manipulation net the Darkling pulled her in by.

The dynamic feels different in the show, for a few reasons. I think Alina being aged up contributes to that. Also, we don’t get Alina’s interiority and descriptions of how her/the Darkling’s powers feel and pull her.

(Also Jessie and Ben have Very Good on-screen chemistry. And Ben Barnes is, well, Ben Barnes so the attraction-angle of the pull toward him is very believable.)

I mean, while Alina is aged up, she’s still a young woman. Her whole life she has overwhelmingly felt less than, invisible, and nothing special. And someone powerful is now telling her she’s unique and powerful and he’s the only one who understands her.

While Alina is still obviously manipulated heavily in the show, it feels less extreme? I don’t know how to word it?

Other contributing factors I think are her actually making closer friends at the Little Palace and that in the show we don’t see that extended period of time of her struggling and struggling and feeling like shit and powerless and “Other”-ed again. Also because we are shown that Mal DOES super care about her, rather than only getting her speculating and worrying.

And not only on Alina’s end is it different but I feel like the show we get shown more of Kirigan feeling helpless (something which is both authentic and strategic.)

Like I think its definitely real that he is struggling with these feelings of helplessness and futility in moving towards his goals.

But he is very deliberate in the ways he goes about showing it to Alina to make her feel like he’s letting his guard down with her and to garner sympathy with. As Baghra says towards the end of the season, giving Alina “a glimpse of the wounded boy.”

And it’s a huge credit to Ben Barnes that I feel that simultaneous nature.

Like in the moment, you do believe him in his pain and his loneliness. Because that is real.

But then you step back and realize he’s only showing it and showing it in such a way to weaponize it to cultivate those feelings of sympathy in Alina and keep her from seeing him as dangerous to her.

Ben Barnes’s performance really sells the Darkling so well. Because these things are all true: he has seen people die and is lonely and feels like he has to claw his way toward any change he can achieve.

But he is also playing bits of that up in very strategic ways in Alina’s presence to manipulate her.

(I always feel like I’m not gonna have more to say about the Darkling and then I end up writing a novel about it??)

”B-b-but-

Wait, was I the only one who believed we were actually giving them a fair trial?!?”

My parents’ walks to school, according to them.

Listen, I just love them

I LOVE THEM PUTTING TIME AND THOUGHT INTO SPRINKLING IN WORLDBUILDING

END ME

Listen all I can think about when I watch this scene is how this actor probably spent 9 hours in hair and makeup and wardrobe just to stand there, grab a stack of letters, shake his head, and walk away because he was a non-speaking extra and if he said “No” out loud they would have had to pay him the under-5-lines rate