Monday, October 15, 2012

Pro Bono

Melodramatic Mondays
***

Recent poor reviews of her work result in a lack of interest from clients, convincing Belle to accept a booking that she normally would have avoided.

The review for "Job Shared, Job Halved" can be read here.

Most of Hannah/Belle's (Billie Piper) encounters with clients have been shown as a positive experience in the past, and this is the first episode wherein a session is inherently negative. Hannah has shown very little hesitation in regards to her lifestyle, and while she has glossed over the potential hazards that her occupation offers, here is an opportunity for the series to highlight the threat that a client can possess.

Hannah thinks back to her interview with Stephanie (Cherie Lunghi,) her madam, wherein it's claimed that Stephanie will keep Hannah safe, and be just like a best friend who happens to take 40% of Hannah's earnings and never gives her real name. The scene showcases how manipulative Stephanie can be, illustrating how constantly fake she is, determined to use these girls for her own means. Stephanie is a very interesting character due to the fact that both Hannah/Belle and the audience know next to nothing about her. Her motivations are clear, but her morality is questionable, and the laissez-faire attitude she appears to have in regards to her employees' safety is disturbing.

The strained friendship between Hannah and Ben (Iddo Goldberg) is slightly repaired in this episode, with Ben posing as Hannah's fiancé in order to get rid of Tim (Matt Smith.) The connection between the two of them is solidified during their marmite fight, clearly enjoying one another's company for the first time in a long time. The episode closes with Ben writing a good review for Belle on the web site, clearly pained from having to do so, perverting the good memories he has of being with her, but doing it out of friendship because he loves her very deeply.

Hannah/Belle needed to stick to her convictions when it came to not taking clients in the middle of the night, and Stephanie's manipulations about repairing her poor reviews, while true from a business standpoint, should not have been able to sway Hannah so quickly. With Lewis (Kevin Doyle) having been an issue in the past, and Stephanie having known about his anger and the threat he poses to her girls, it seems unlikely that she would have sent him to Hannah without providing a warning. It would be one thing to have Hannah/Belle meet Lewis at a second location, but sending him to Hannah's home knowing how dangerous he could be completely negates the procedure she has in place to keep her girls safe.

Lewis had an anger that grew out of control exceedingly fast, and it's a miracle that Hannah didn't have a bigger issue with him. This would have been a really good opportunity for the show runners to show the dangers of her occupation, and having him leave so quickly, so easily, is a waste of what could have been an intense narrative. It seems almost unrealistic that he wouldn't have pushed his luck farther, that he wouldn't have made more trouble for Hannah, and it's unsettling that Hannah seems unphased by the fact that he knows where she lives.

The acting in this episode is largely good, with a great performance by Doyle, who nails the slow-burning rage and implied danger of his character in only a single scene. Slightly wasted in this episode is Smith as Hannah's one-night stand Tim, doing well with the material he's given, but never offered the opportunity to display his range as an actor.

Susan Tully uses a number of nice touches in this episode, adding a glowing effect to the scenes of Hannah's day in the mark in an effort to lend it a dream-like quality, to make it seem ethereal because Hannah so rarely is seen out during the day; all we know of Hannah is at night, as Belle, and it's almost unnatural for us to see her during the day. Hannah's need to keep things organized, in an effort not to let Belle's life bleed through, is evident in her toiletry pantry, with bulk quantities of the products she uses as well as a clean facing to each in order to maximize efficiency and cut down on preparation time. The fact that Hannah grows bored on her first day off is questionable, as she must have done something during her days when she was working as Belle at night. Being unable to function as a normal human being during the day, one wonders if Hannah even exists as her own person, as it's proof only of the fact that Belle is the only identity that matters to her.

Written by Katie Douglas, this episode with many well thought-out ideas that are later undercut by moments that completely oppose the very concepts she had first brought up. The procedure to keep the agency's employees safe, having them check in when they meet with a client, is a smart detail that would easily be overlooked on television, but Stephanie purposely sending dangerous clients to her girls destroys whatever safety she had set up. It makes sense for Hannah to have been very shaken up after what had happened to her, dwelling on the possibilities of what might have been, but her first action is to have a one-night stand with a stranger. Her waking up next to him, having brought another potentially dangerous man into her home, brings into question whether she takes her safety in any way seriously. While Douglas writes Hannah as a flawed protagonist, she does have a good handle on Belle's voice, especially during her ultimatum to Stephanie regarding leaving the agency should the situation with Lewis repeat itself.

Belle's days with Stephanie's agency seem numbered now, as do Ben's days with his current fiancée if he continues to struggle with his lingering feelings for Hannah as he does at the close of this episode.

The review for "Passion, Reignited" can be read here.

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