Admin aside, let’s crack on with the episode.
‘Pure as the Driven’, opened with a spot of traditional Ripper Street grit, as a Limehouse
detective by the name of Maurice Linklater is thrown from a window and impaled
on a nearby railing. I sincerely hope that nobody was eating their dinner at
that point. It transpires that the house belongs to a mysterious yet beautiful
(aren’t they always?) lady by the name of Blush Pang, of Chinese origin. Who is
she? What was Linklater doing there? How on earth did he end up with his leg
attached to the business end of an ornamental fence? Inspector Reid (Matthew McFadyen),
Sergeant Drake (Jerome Flynn) and Homer Jackson, “the American” surgeon (Adam
Rothenberg) set out to investigate, uncovering a shady drugs plot in the
process. Meanwhile, brawls break out down at H division for seemingly no
apparent reason and Long Susan (Myanna Buring) has run into a few issues with
her landlord.
Just another day in Whitechapel, then.
The dynamic between the three principals was pleasingly
well established from the off, with Reid touchingly referring to Jackson as “my
American”, whilst pulling once of his earnest faces, Drake hanging off Reid’s
every word whilst looking tough, and Jackson making sarcastic comments at every
possible opportunity and generally behaving somewhat recklessly. Other than
that, though, there really wasn’t much of an ‘in’ for new viewers. The overall
arc of the plot was clear enough, predictable even, but, as has all too often
been the case with Ripper Street,
individual scenes were over-complicated, hard to follow and at times downright
inaudible- whether you were a new viewer or otherwise. It was apparent
whereabouts it was going, it was just the journey there that was utterly incomprehensible.
To find a positive point upon which to hang one’s
bowler hat, the sets were as stunning as ever, with the jerky violin music
making up the score only adding to the sense of atmosphere. As always, there’s
a real sense of place to the London of Ripper
Street, echoed well in Reid’s passionate protectiveness of his patch. Joseph
Mawle was also fantastic as the authentic seeming Inspector Jebediah Shine,
Reid’s be-bearded district neighbour and delightfully evil villain. Unfortunately
though, the show as a whole tried a little too hard to appear authentically Victorian.
Again. The endless corsetry (from 15 minutes in, if anybody is interested)
walking hand in hand with the undercurrent of grubby prostitution, the
mucky streets and murky taverns are, again as always, a little too carefully put together, a little
too obvious for any of it to feel real. And that’s without me even mentioning
the ridiculously over done dialogue, and the apparently random, gratuitous
appearances of John Merrick, The Elephant Man, in case you hadn’t 100% spotted
the endless Victoriana, and still thought there was a chance you might be
watching Downton.
Some of the enjoyable parts of Series One were
present in this Series Two opener, the chemistry of H division, the sets and
camera work as well as the overall whodunit aspects in particular. Despite that
though, it veered between attempting to be Game of Thrones with some added
saucy scenes (perhaps the presence of Jerome Flynn caused some confusion?) and
trying to out-gore fellow local crime drama Whitechapel, which shares Ripper Street’s postcode if not century.
The cast can’t be faulted, especially if they speak up a bit, and the episode
felt rounded, even ending on a tense note to cajole us (I could certainly use
the encouragement) into tuning in next week.
It was just the bits in between that were the
problem, and unfortunately those bits accounted for far too large a chunk for
the hour long show to be much in the way of an enjoyable experience. And
without that, what is really the point?
Jen
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