The Hurt Locker (2008) Kathryn Bigelow

Two men, one has only days before he’s off rotation and out of the firing line, while the other is a new kid, a crazy kid, who just might get them all killed. It’s Lethal Weapon in Iraq.

About as unrealistic a portrait of struggle as you will find, if only for this: the Barrett M82 aka the M107, possibly the scariest sniper rifle in the world. This is a gun that can shoot through walls and masonry, that can stop an armoured vehicle, that will make someone explode. It is fear. It is in The Hurt Locker and it’s basic function in the film is to make the Brits look like idiots, and an American demolition team to appear bad ass.

Here’s how it works. British contractors have seized two of the most wanted men in Iraq. By contractors we mean men commonly, and incorrectly, referred to as mercenaries. These contractors could be ex-special branch, ex-soldiers, or, equally likely, ex-special forces. As they’re hit by sniper fire their commander grabs the M82 and returns fire, only to be shot himself. The Brits turn to quivering wrecks while the Americans man the gun and save the day. We are therefore meant to think the Americans must be bad ass, but hopefully most people will infer instead that it’s a really bad portrayal of the military.

Here’s how it should work. Everyone hides. They call in an air strike.

An Air Strike

The Barrett M82/M107

Half Life 2 (2007) Valve

Before we begin, a brief pause for all that is good about Half Life 2 … mmm … yes … now onto the problem. The problem, and it is a massive problem, is what we shall call “atmosphere: fail”. Let us unpack this into three categories, the impatient player, the sandbox player and narrative bottlenecks.

To begin, the impatient player. At the beginning of the game, the player is in a train rushing towards a station, we have time to test the controls and listen to the other passengers. If you’re impatient however, you will be jumping around the carriage, crawling, trying to punch the other passengers, anything to relieve the tedium of being stuck in a train car. No-one seems to notice or comment on your bizarre behaviour. Atmosphere: fail.

Second, the sandbox player. You finally exit the train, and are faced with an imposing policeman. There is also plenty of luggage stacked to the right. The sandbox player naturally picks up the luggage and finds he can throw it. He throws it at the policeman. As the policeman runs towards the player, the player skips through a handy turnstile. The policeman pulls up short, unable to comprehend how a turnstile works and evidently unwilling to pursue your mischievous self. He neither pulls out a handgun, or radios for backup. You stroll away, whistling; this ain’t such a scary place after all. Atmosphere: fail.

Finally, narrative bottlenecks. As you’re ushered forward in the game, you come to a room with an old friend. As he starts spouting exposition you’re trapped in the room with him, unable to do anything. You’re left to your own devises. Looking down you see a book. Looking up you see your old friend’s head. Book. Head. You pick up the book and throw it at his head. He keeps talking. You pick up other objects, you jump around, you crawl, you throw everything you can find, the air is filled with missiles, but still he keeps talking… Atmosphere: fail.

I have heard people call Half Life 2 atmospheric, it is not. It constantly breaks the atmosphere is seeks to create. If you give the player control during cutscenes, he or she will happily break whatever magic you have created. Don’t box in your players, don’t give them such an easy opportunity to undermine the world you’ve create, and don’t spend ten minutes explaining the plot when you could do it in thirty second blasts as the game rumbles on. The player does not want to break the atmosphere, he or she wants to submerge themselves into the world you have created, but if you leave him at the controls with nothing to do, he or she will start ripping down the world you’ve laboriously created. Atmosphere: fail.

Half Life 2: Episode Two (2007) Valve

The Spectrum was a games machine back in the 80s that loaded games from a tape. Often this would involve pressing play on a tape deck and then doing something else for the hour or so a game would take to load. I’m pretty sure I once mowed the lawn while waiting for a game to load, but I doubt it because I never used to mow the lawn. It was an awful time, hopefully never to be repeated: now joy is only a moment away as games load quicker than ever, throwing you into the action as quickly as possible.

The closest to emulating the frustration of Spectrum loading screens on a modern video game system is Half Life 2: Episode Two.

Things I did during Episode Two’s interminable cutscenes:

1. Went to the bathroom.

2. Had a shower.

3. Wrote this review.

If that weren’t bad enough, having been placed in control of my character for mere moments I’m now facing a loading screen. I am overstating the case somewhat but the case is well crafted and true: no game should make you wait around on the sidelines, all games should allow you to skip the cutscenes. I want to play, I don’t want to watch. Goodnight.

Speed (1994) Jan de Bont

It’s important to spoil Speed in order to get at the messy guts of it all. So here’s the ending. Dennis Hopper has strapped Sandra Bullock into an explosive vest, he has a wad of cash, and he’s just gunned down the driver of the train he’s fleeing in. On the roof of the train is Keanu Reeves, Hopper’s nemisis. I can’t remember why he’s on the train rather than in the train. I’m not sure what he’s gaining from this, but there he is, clinging on and dodging onrushing obstacles. Meanwhile, inside, Hopper hahahas and explains to Sandra that she’ll die, and all the left over body parts will look like Hopper, and no one will suspect he’s escaped. I’m not sure about the logic behind this statement, since a man fleeing with cash isn’t the kind you’d assume would blow himself up. More likely you’d assume he’d flee with the cash and leave a mass of dead bodies behind him, but then likewise, I’m not sure what Keanu is doing on the roof.

So Dennis, he opens the bag of money, we assume this is the first time he’s looked. It explodes. Both the money and his face are coated in a purple paint; the money is worthless now. Of course, it should be worthless already; whenever ransom money is paid the serial numbers are counted and flagged, if anyone deposits the money the authorities will be contacted. He’s marked too, he has paint on his face, but worse, he has a crippled hand, so obviously crippled that anywhere he goes in the world, as soon as he removes a glove, he’ll stand out as an oddity.

Yet this infuriates him. He can’t use the money and his cover has been blown, but the money would be worthless already, and the authorities would find him reasonably easy to pick up as a man whose hand is so obviously mangled, yet this paint infuriates him. He fires his machine gun into the air, shouting at Keanu. We never know if Keanu hears him shout, one would suspect the sound of the train is too loud for any cries to be heard, but he does manage to dodge the bullets. Back and forth he rolls, and the bullets all miss.

So Dennis tosses the gun, and with a cry clambers up on top of the train. He brings with him the detonator for the bomb, the one strapped to Bullock. He wants to kill Keanu with his own hands, and he’s bringing the detonator, because if he loses he’ll drop the detonator and everyone dies. His mind is clouded; if he leaves now, Keanu will die in the blast, but instead he fights him on the roof, he fights the younger, fitter man, a man who can use both hands.

Dennis presents Keanu with a dilemma; he can let Dennis beat him to death, or, now that Dennis is close enough, he can overpower the disabled villain and take the detonator. Keanu, initially confused that Dennis would make such an obvious error of judgement, chooses the latter course, and in doing so, manages to decapitate Dennis.

As Dennis’ head falls from his shoulders we’re left with this: a continual mess of illogical behaviour, sewing together scenes that really shouldn’t be taking place, and this: a series of set pieces tied together with an absence of explanations. There is a place for the spectacularly dumb, and Speed is spectacularly dumb, but more importantly, Speed doesn’t bore you with ridiculous explanations, it doesn’t stare at Sandra’s chest for minutes on end, it just happens, scene after bewildering scene. It’s wonderful how it lacks pretension, how the female characters aren’t sexualised and how the leads are capable without bragging about it. As a loud, over the top action film, it’s amazing how quiet it is, and how willing it is to just get on with providing thrills. It’s crap, but inoffensive, faint but fitting praise.

Thank God It’s Not Christmas (1974) Sparks

Hugely delayed; for anyone having a horrible Christmas (yes, that delayed), let Sparks sooth you. For anyone having a bad day; thank God it’s not Christmas, eh?

Happy New Year xoxo.

Rainbow Six: Vegas (2006) Ubisoft

Vegas, baby! Vegas! Ra-ta-ta-tat! Bleurgh! Aeeeeiiii!

The newswires are alive, cash clunks in one-armed bandits as brains are splattered upon them; singers belt out tunes then their organs as they’re ejected from bodies: The Entertainment Capital Of The World is under siege!

Special forces are assembled, a plan is hatched, time to find a commander:

“Terrorists are attacking Sin City, and only you can save –”
“Er, Vegas, sir, they’re attacking that cesspool of vice?”
“Yeeeeeah.”
“I mean, I like fighting terrorists, but these guys do seem to have the right idea…”
“Soldier, innocent lives are being lost –”
“Really sir, innocent?”
“Well, somewhat sullied lives, but they have the right to life!”
“Yeah, so do I, and I don’t really want to put it on the line this time out, sir.”
“Well, okay, lets put on some Kenny G and hit the showers…”
“Sexy time!”

Who will save the City of Sin? A searchlight appears and wonders left and right, down it descends, until it highlights someone… it’s coming into focus… it’s… You! Not so special, but maybe, shucks, just maybe, you’re the right man (or woman) for the job… Let’s do this.

“But what do I do?”
Just send your comrades forward, mop up the rest.
“Oh, you mean, set up flanking manoeuvres, provide covering fire…”
Well, not so much… just, send them forward.
“And I…”
Just sit back and let them do everything.
“So I…”
Do nothing.
“Oh.”
Well, you’re not special forces trained, remember.
“So it’s a bit pointless me being there.”
Well, no, sometimes you need to heal them.
“Really?”
No, not really, mainly they heal each other, but you decide whether they do or not.
“So they’ll let their companion scream and die unless you tell them otherwise?”
Well, you’ve got to do something, right?
“How about I go forward and they cover me?”
Yeah, the problem is that when you get hit, you die.
“Oh.”
Yeah, they can’t heal you.
“Why?”
We just recommend you send them forward.
“That seems a little dull.”
Yeah, doesn’t it?
“So I sit and do very little?”
You can snipe people, but mainly you don’t have any elevation, and the enemy are hidden behind corners, so you won’t be able to even see them. Or you can equip a shield and shuffle forward, but you lose a bit of dexterity that way, and can still be killed; it doesn’t exactly feel heroic to shuffle around like a slug and then still die, but it is necessary at points, since your comrades desert you or are generally inept and you’ll have to handle things yourself.
“Can’t someone else do this, it is kind of dull, and it is only Vegas, and bar the slot machines, it doesn’t really seem interesting.”
You’re right, it’s not very interesting, but sometimes it’s cool, like when you have elevation and you’re sending comrades forward and sniping, or you’re behind something and you pop up, shooting people coming at you…
“Neat”
…but then they rush you and end up being right next to you, which makes it impossible to shoot them, for some reason.
“Oh.”
But you can blow up things, like doors…
“Like the SAS? Blow up a door, burst in and mow people down?”
Yeah, but mainly you just tell your comrades to do that and sit back and watch.
“It kind of sounds like my comrades get to have more fun than me.”
It’s exactly like that, yes. Oh, and people appear behind you when the only thing behind you is a room that you’ve already cleared.
“Like, they can go through walls?”
Actually, I imagine it’s a glitch.
“A what?”
A glitch, a programming error.”
“Wait, this is a program?”
Yeah, it’s Rainbow Six: Vegas, it has it’s moments, but overall, it’s kind of lacking.
“Wha… so there’s nothing wrong with Sin City?”
This is summed up in some of the cutscenes, where you’re basically stuck, hitting buttons to try to skip them only to realise they’re embedded into the game and there is no way to avoid them, or the way you can look away from someone who is talking to you and suddenly you can’t hear them because despite being inches away from their face, apparently, if you can’t see their lips, you can’t hear them properly…
“I’m a deaf mute in a video game? I’m confused.”
You’re actually in a review.
“Really?”
Yes, and we’re pretty much done.
“Because we’ve explained that it’s pretty much letting the computer do everything fun, and standing back and doing nothing, except for a few bits when the setup allows you do be more than an observer and thrusts you into the action?”
Yes, but the latter doesn’t happen enough.
“It’s not a bad game though, all things considered.”
Shhhh.

Sherlock Holmes (2009) Guy Ritchie

It’s “Don’t Ever Change”, episode 12 from series 4 of House, with action scenes and a villain who rises from the grave. “Don’t Ever Change” is the episode where House is trying to undermine Wilson’s relationship with Amber. House, Ho’mes, Wilson, Watson, Amber, Emily, got it? Fight!

In this episode House suggests that a religious conversion is a sign of mental illness. He calls Amber a cutthroat bitch, and likens her to a crack whore. In the parallel universe, Holmes makes the dreaful mistake of suggesting that Emily left her previous husband (she didn’t, he had died, gasp), and then he pays a clairvoyant to predict Watson’s relationship will fail; it’s like watching a romcom staring Sandra Bullock.

House naturally wins that round; but will surely fail when it comes to the action: but, oh-ho; Sherlock Holmes has terrible action scenes, oh-no!

Do you remember that bit in The Spy Who Loved Me, with Jaws, the bloke with the metal teeth? He’s not in Sherlock Holmes, but his likeness is, which leads to some boring, padded fight scenes as a man with no dexterity but apparently brutal strength shuffles along, losing fight after fight, and offering little or no threat to the brainiac.

Do you remember that bit in Out of Sight, where Jennifer Lopez shows she’s a badass by using a telescopic baton to break a potential rapist in two? That’s not here either, but a spunky maiden called Irene does do something similar but much less impressive, before undermining her apparent spunkiness by being captured and used as a damsel in distress, and then later putting up no fight as she’s knocked unconscious in the final battle.

Do you remember that bit in Goldfinger, where Bond is strapped to a table with a lazer beam aimed at his crotch? That’s not here either, but Irene does get hung by a hook, which is carrying her into a furnace, which doesn’t appear to be cooking any of the meat that it travelling through it; but Holmes leaps to the rescue and covers them both in a blanket, because a wet blanket is impregnable to fire, apparently.

Do you remember that bit in Sherlock Holmes where Holmes saves a girl from flames by covering her in a blanket that would, one suspects, catch immediately on fire burning them all to death? She’s then directed towards a rotating saw that cuts carcasses in two, but Holmes saves her by throwing offal into a hole by the rotating saw which has gears in it, the gears are overwhelmed by the offal. Yes, the offal. The same offal that would come raining down on the mechanism throughout the day from all the meat being butchered above, thereby causing havoc to the meat processing on a daily basis and obviously highlighting the ease with which said offal could stop said meat processing to anyone including, one would hope, the apparently genius villain.

Do you remember that bit in Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet takes a potion that makes her sleep but it seems like she’s dead? No one in the film does, leading to much head scratching when the villain up and leaves his grave. Oh my word, how could he have done it, despite it being at the heart of one of the most famous plays in the English language? This isn’t even a fight scene, but it’s worth noting.

I did like how Holmes talked us through a couple of his fights, explaining the thinking behind each move he was going to make, but I do not know why the fights needed to be repeated at full speed afterwards. Nor do I understand why a flying kick would be used in a bare-knuckle fight, but that’s a matter of taste, I guess.

Watch House instead. And then Lethal Weapon 2.

Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen (2008) Yūji Horii

Dragon Quest is popular in Japan, very popular, and two years ago Dragon Quest IV, this very game you’re reading about, was voted the 14th best game of all time by readers of Famistu, an equally popular Japanese games mag.  So, this’ll be great, right? Well, hold up a little. FIFA’s very popular in Britain, and that’s hardly had the best track record. Indeed, apart from a few good editions, it’s been thoroughly terrible most of the time. As for DQIV’s high showing in the readers chart, I’m sorry to say that being the 14th best game of all time still leaves it behind four other Dragon Quest games /and/ four Final Fantasy’s including their number one, Final Fantasy X, not exactly a good game itself, let alone the greatest game of all, which is not good news for something placing way behind it.

But perhaps all this means nothing to you, and you only bought a DS yesterday, and what’s a FIFA, or a Final Fantasy? So let’s start off more simply.

Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen, is a Japanese RPG, which means you’re given a little band of wizards and warriors to move around towns and dungeons, fighting randomly appearing monsters in turn based combat. Still with me? The plot, like the basic structure of the game is thoroughly similar to anyone whose played a Jap RPG before; it’s the usual tosh about an evil awakening and a young hero having to kick it’s face off, and that young hero is you. So far, so similar to a multitude of other Jap RPGs, but after a few minutes of play, you no longer control the young hero, and for the next four chapters, he’s pretty much out of the picture. Instead, chapter one of your quest puts you in control of a fat Scottish knight with a large blue mustache; aces. Indeed, the first four chapters put you in charge of four different groups of characters, all with odd accents and none of them the usual male teen the genre is populated with, and it’s only in the fifth chapter, when control returns to the hero, that you start to bring them all together and hunt down the big bad.

It’s an interesting twist, but most of the time DQIV doesn’t take advantage of these chapters to offer anything beyond what you’d expect if the hero was around the whole time, it’s still the standard RPG plot lines; revenge the father, save the children type hokum, and the usual grind; kill baddies to get the experience and money to buy better equipment and kill bigger baddies. All except Tokendo’s chapter; he works in a shop.

You wake up, go to work, and start serving customers. You never know when you’re supposed to stop working and collect your pay, and so you wait thinking something’s going to happen, except nothing does, it’s always just another customer, asking to buy and sell; it’s entirely up to you when you decide you’ve earnt enough money and quit for the day, just as it’s up to you when to step out of the daily grind and head out into the wilderness. At this point the game stops telling you what to do and you have to decide alone.

A strange thing happened to me at this point, it was so close to the daily grind of real life that I would rush to work each morning to get there on time, fearful of losing my job. Stranger still, I started feeling for Tokendo’s wife and kid, especially his wife, because she sends you off to work with a packed lunch every morning, and is so sweet when you return, and because Tokendo’s a tubby fellow, and the people in the village look down on him, but she doesn’t, even though she’s a pretty lass and could have anyone, she chose Tokendo. So even though I knew I had to leave the village to get on with the game, I started doing something odd, I would sneak out of the village in the morning, but always rush home with nightfall, so as not to let my family know I’d quit my job and worry about me or where their next meal was coming from. It was an odd moment.

When you do leave the village, Tokendo quickly becomes practically indestructable. In this chapter, and this chapter only, baddies drop loads of expensive items, which you can trade to buy all the best weapons and armour, and ultimately buy shops and take on giant civil service projects. With all the best weapons and armour you become god-like and stride around the countryside ending everything in your way. This invincibility makes Tokendo the lively heart of the game, a change of pace from everything before and after, because it’s no longer about grinding up levels, but trading and investing. The problem is though, when everyone comes back together, you don’t bother putting Tokendo in your party any more. Once everyone gets together, he no longer has the best equipement, and his lack of combat or magic skills means he’s next to useless, and as he’s side lined, so the game reverts back to type and you’re back to the grind.

And this is the problem with DQIV, because for all the nice touches littered throughout the game, underneath it all is one of the most grindy RPGs I’ve played. It’s all about levelling up, which wouldn’t be so bad if the combat was aces, but it’s not, is woeful. I will grant that at times it can be good. When you have your horsie with you (look out for her) it can be splendid, because you can trade in and out characters at will, which lends some tactics to the proceedings, fight someone who resists magic and you change your magicians for combat specialists, nice. Unfortunately, your horsie is not around all the time, so you end up picking four people who have the best spread of skills, which means that if you face someone who resists magic, two of your characters spend the entire fight twiddling their thumbs because they’re the magic guys and can’t help. It’s dull, and there’s nothing you can do, and it’s especially tedious when there are eight baddies to kill and with every one you kill they call in reinforcements so you’re close to tears wondering when it’ll all end as you repeatedly hit X and nothing else. It’s awful, although granted, it doesn’t happen that often, just often enough to make you flinch whenever you think of it.

And that’s without mentioning the random battles, which occur with irritating frequency when you’re trying to find your way through mazes or just backtracking to check something you should have made a note of, and you’d like to escape them but when you press run the baddies have blocked your way and so they get a free turn of hitting you to add to the torture of everything else. Once again, this isn’t always the case, but the scars are still fresh in the mind.

So here we have an RPG, and it’s had a go at being different, but it’s different within a very generic structure, including a traditional story, random battles and weak combat. Everyone should have a chance to live through Tokendo’s chapter, but most of the rest is hit and miss, and no better than the dozens of other similar Jap RPGs released every year, or those voted higher by Famistu readers. You will like this if you’re happy with more of the same, but with a slight twist, or adore fat underdogs and making them rich in the face of adversity. Tokendo is a star.

KG/AP/NGJ: A Lovingly Crafted Alternative Geneology: A Story

A dark room, furnishing tumbled in at odd angles, shelving bursting with cardboard cases, a desk before a window stacked with a glowing monitor and refuse that seems to be unfolding. Looking in through the glass pane we see the outline of a bed in the corner, a body writhing on top, one hand reaches up, fingers curling back and forth. We fall into his psyche and swim through clouds to a war torn battlefield, dead bodies hanging from crosses, impaled on spears, in the middle, crouched, our hero, all muscle, venom and spittle, before him a shadowy man in a cloak, sword raised to strike — betrayer — he whispers, swinging the blade down.

A yell and he awakens, shakily staggering up, one hand on his brow. He looks straight at us — I have betrayed them — and bows his head. He thinks back, and knows he has failed, for all his awards, his popularity, something gnaws at him, he is the last one, and he has only survived because he was broken. He recalls how he was taught; that if a game is broken it is a bad game, and yet he loves these games. He casts his eyes across the room and feels solace from them; they are broken but their ambition is not. They push the boundaries of the form, but in doing so you can see tears forming, the graphics ripping, the system choking to a halt. If ambition is a fault… but a game that stutters, that can draw a yard and falls into mist, this is a fault, and he has championed them all.

It was not like this once: his mind is filled with images of the past, playing in the yard, sketching in a notebook, but most of all, reading that sacred text, the one that never let him down, whatever might happen, gods and politicians could come and go, but here, within its pages, truth glowed forever. This game was good because the mechanics were good, left didn’t send you right, bullets didn’t kill you if they hit some invisible field around you, there were no slippy slidey ice worlds — however good the graphics looked, whatever the audio, it was these mechanics that made the game, that allowed assessments to be right or wrong, and inviolably so.

He shudders and recalls how things changed, how the mighty were destroyed, their bodies smashed and cast aside, their words ignored and buried forever, and he feels to blame. They had taken him under their wing, they had taught him their ways, and had set him free as the walls around them crashed upon their heads — only he survived, only he — and how had he repaid them: by forgetting. It was hard though, so hard: in this new world a dodgy 3D camera didn’t mean the game was rubbish — so you might fall off a ledge just because the screen was twirling around your character at the wrong moment… crumbling design was the price to be pay to sustain grand ideas… some polish may be lost, sure, but underneath, these games were still beautiful…

Sitting at his desk he thought awhile — can it really be true, did I betray them — and he cannot agree, he’s seen games with terrible combat that reached giddy heights elsewhere, that allowed an adventurer to truly choose their own path, that’s given him a whole world to explore… but how can those games be good, when the combat is so bad… it makes no sense to him, and in the glow of his monitor we see him lost in thought.

…. eureka …

It is a small moment, but a grand one, a new way of seeing things… no longer would games have to be examined as if under a microscope, a blade poised above ready to tear into flesh whenever an error was found, games would have a new judge, sure he would lay them open, but only to revel in all the possibilities therein, sure a game might have faults, but look instead at everything open and joyous therein — no longer would we need to be critical of all the faults — a game need not start at 100 and lose marks, instead it would gain them, for everything beautiful about it… all we would need is a new way of showing these games, of displaying their wealth, like postcards, postcards written from within the game world illustrating every amazing avenue within…

Suddenly his awards seem to blaze anew, and the whole room filled with light — EUREKA — he screamed, no longer was he the dog who had buried his master, but the man who had understood the new world, and how to survive within it… now it didn’t matter — all the faults in the world didn’t matter because now there was a new way of looking at games, one that asked what they offered, not how they failed, that cared so little for the faults that people could patch a moment later in time — he relished the idea that he was now on stable ground, that from now on there would be no uncertainty — he had seen other people writing the same way, thinking the same thoughts, and now he could unite them — postcards from within the bowels of the game, a call for others to join him and to dance, oh to dance, to the same enthralling sights and sounds.

Freedom from the oppression of the old, a new way of seeing things. New.

The Thick Of It S03E03

“I feel like I’m in a therapy group run by my own rapist.”

At fucking last, someone gets a nose bleed and they’re told to tilt their heads forward. Un-be-fuckin-lievable how many TV shows and films suggest, bizarrely, to put the head back: as Malcolm explains, that’s a good way to choke on your own blood as it’s forced to flow up your nasal cavity and down your throat. It’s like the deranged notion that a pistol shot will blow a lock apart when the ricochet would probably kill you; that’s why they have breaching rounds for shotguns or battering rams, a big fat padlock is just a mass of metal that’s pretty resistant to another mass of metal being shot at it.

A weaker episode than the two preceding ones, mainly because Malcolm resorting to fisticuffs isn’t particularly realistic, despite his huge resources of rage: if you’re going to lose it over such a minor thing you would definitely lose it every episode for the car crashes he’s had to sort out. (Of course, in real life anyone could lose it at any time for reasons we’d know nothing about, but on TV, in movies, the audience need a big sign, you’ve got to say “here’s the big swirling shit storm that’s pushed them over the edge” for the audience to accept that someone would act out of character.) As for the series though, so far, so good. It’s about politics, swearing, that kind of thing.