Discuss Glitch
Discuss → TV Shows → Glitch → General
Reactions to reanimated people
posted by write2topcatSTAFFMOD on November 29, 2017 at 3:57 PM
These are not zombies, they are people who have come back to life, risen from the dead, and have amnesia. In all respects they appear to be completely normal, except for having amnesia.
I find it strange that there are people in this show who are ruled so completely by fear of them. One cop, Chris Rennox, threw a girl (Kate) in jail because she was alive. She asked what the charge was and he admitted he didn't have a charge. He just jailed her cause he didn't understand how she could be alive. The crazy thing is, he knew Kate. She was the wife of his friend and fellow police officer, James Hayes. And Chris recognized her, talked to her, even helped her by calling her mother so Kate could hear her voice. Then suddenly he just kind of freaked out and threw her in jail. He more or less admitted he didn't have a reason for doing that. And I never saw any rationale offered in the show for why he decided to jail her.
Another cop, Vic, began killing the risen people because he didn't think it was right for them to be risen. Forget the fact that there is no law against people defeating death, there are laws against killing people who are not trying to maim or kill you. Later in the show we learn he was sort of possessed by some force or something from beyond. Vic had an accident, died, and was immediately reanimated. From then on he was on a mission to kill the risen (even though he was technically also risen at that point).
TV dramas are built on people over-reacting emotionally, trapped by the false dilemmas they devise and the poor decisions they make. This is how writers create conflict and tension in their stories.
SPOILER ALERT
That policeman named James Hayes who protects the risen people had to shoot the murderous cop named Vic who was trying to kill more risen people. He should have immediately called it in and given his statement, but instead he covered it all up, asking the risen to bury Vic in the bush.
Later he decided to tell his emotionally labile wife Sarah about killing Vic. If James had any powers of perception he would know she is too unstable and she talks too much to share that secret with. She advised him to tell his cop partner "as much as you can tell him". [Sarah told James she would do anything for him. But I doubt that means what it sounds like. Sarah seems like one of those people who wants to covertly direct her husband's life; to her that is what love is. She can rationalize going behind his back "for his own good" even though she knows he would not allow it if he knew.]
James told his cop partner Chris Rennox that Vic had gone batty over the risen and that he just took off. Later when his wife showed up at the station he says to her, in front of his partner, "it's alright, I told him".
There is a real ambiguous statement just begging to be misinterpreted.
Wifey Sarah may assume he has told him everything and then inadvertently spill the beans. Of course James seems completely blind to the ambiguity of his statement, and the almost certainty that Sarah will spill the beans about what he has told her.
James just makes idiotic mistakes and decisions as a matter of course. He is generally a good guy with good intentions. He is supposed to be a police officer. But actors rarely do a good job playing police officers. Real cops have been trained to manage their emotions, hold them in check, and think before speaking or acting. But 'actor cops' frequently are controlled by their emotions, sometimes behaving like teenage girls. And James Hayes behaves this way at times.
Writers routinely have characters like James make such mistakes in order to create conflict, tension, and drama. Overuse of this device can make shows almost unwatchable. Like the person who tells one lie, then must tell more and more lies in order to support the first, these characters create dilemmas with their stupid decisions and actions, and writers expect that viewers will worry about them getting caught. And we usually do. But I give up on them when they continually make immoral decisions and stupid mistakes. In season 2 episode 6 when the risen were hiding out at Noreguard pharmaceuticals from Sarah and that guy, why didn't James and the plant director issue an alert to all the guards to keep those two out of the facility? They rode up to the guard station and the guy gave his name and said he was going to visit his wife, who worked there. They knew just who he was and could easily have kept him out. This doesn't make any sense. The bad guys didn't overcome the security; there WAS no security. Another blunder. Also, for a cop, James can't fight very well.
Reply by lantzn
on December 9, 2017 at 7:46 PM
SPOILERS
I just finished Season 2 on Netflix.
Concerning Vic it appears there is some hire power (law of nature) bringing Vic and the others like him back after they have died, Vic in the car crash, Sarah giving birth and the guy (sorry name slips my mind) on the oil rig. So Vic really wasn’t just some guy who felt they shouldn’t be there. He had Vics memories but even in season 1 you could see he immediately changed after the wreck. And when you saw Sarah die giving birth it felt like the same thing, even possibly being Vic’s “executioner character” doing a swap into her. With Sarah though, this time around having the strong tie to a baby and feelings for her girl friend may have changed that that character. But even if she wasn’t the Vic character those things did change whoever/whatever it was.
The new understanding that possibly thinking of someone when the experiment is happening brings them back might bring Sarah back. Her husband was doing just that when William blew the naval whistle.
Yes about the stupid security and dumb mistakes people are doing.
Reply by write2topcat
on December 12, 2017 at 9:29 PM
Right, Phil, the oil rig guy had that conversation with cop James Hayes about the laws of the universe and him being there with Phil's memories and all that. So certain of the risen are sort of possessed by the "laws of the universe cop spirits", or whatever.
I am watching S2 E6 again now. The risen are at Noreguard (almost looks like No Regard) for their protection. James knows there are more "universal law spirits" out to kill the risen (though he doesn't yet know that Sarah is one of them) and the director of Noreguard has been alerted to the danger and knows that Phil is a killer. Sarah lets Phil out of jail and they drive up to the security gate. Phil announces he is there to see his wife, who works there. That should have triggered a lockdown of the facility. But apparently the "security" at the plant had not been alerted. I guess the threat of a spree killer targeting people at the plant didn't rate enough of a danger to alert security. Sure, Phil, come right in.
James's police partner Chris is more feckless than James even. He has just been assaulted by Phil, regains his footing and has him at gun point. Phil is standing there with his knife. At that range, cops are clear to simply shoot a knife wielding suspect without any further provocation. But Chris just stands there and lets Phil disarm him and knock him out. A real cop would have shot a known killer with a knife at that range if he even flinched.
Writers get away with writing stories this way because viewers get interested in the story and we are willing to go along with this stupid stuff so we can follow the story to the conclusion. But they really overplay their hands sometimes. It becomes almost comical to watch sometimes.
Reply by lantzn
on December 13, 2017 at 8:14 AM
Yes the suspension of belief is pretty much a part of most television/films. That’s why when something comes around that is so well written it is so refreshing.
Reply by write2topcat
on December 13, 2017 at 12:31 PM
True. Actually, in many cases, the suspension of disbelief required is no problem at all. All fantasy shows for example, and lots of action shows as well. They have to make the shows interesting enough to provide entertainment. Viewers like the 'wow' factor. But where it tends to irritate me is instances like we are talking about above; writers make otherwise intelligent people, and people with specialized training, making really stupid mistakes which the viewer knows would not happen in real life. That turns the drama into a comical fantasy. To me, it means the writers are either too lazy or poorly trained or skilled to create conflict in believable ways.
I get tired of transparent, agenda-driven, narratives. One of the main characters in Glitch, policeman James Hayes, is a sympathetic character with good intentions, easy for the viewer to get behind. But there is a trend in film currently to have lead male characters display a lot of emotional vulnerability, and this is also often overdone. James Hayes cries a bit too much for me. That can be forgiven I suppose since he is personally involved in a love triangle, and hates causing pain to either of the ladies he loves. But James frequently allows himself to be overcome by emotion and seems to consciously choose to be driven by emotions. That is, he shows no effort to manage his acute emotional reactions, nor to rely on his training and logic in his decision-making process at those moments. I lose respect for his character when I watch those scenes, and it is harder for the members of the risen group to see him as a leader or listen to him when he acts that way.
A man can intensely feel emotions and still speak to others without his voice almost breaking on the verge of tears with so much drama. And police officers are trained specifically to manage their emotions better than that. I think they wrote the James Hayes character so as to intentionally break with that traditional image of male authority figures.
I think this show was made with a young audience in mind, teenagers, and 20 somethings. The idea of smearing the differences between men and women is prominent among the social/cultural engineers and activists who write for film these days. And portraying traditional strong male leads as emotionally vulnerable fits well with that agenda.
But I still enjoyed the series overall.