The Crimson Field: Episodes 1 & 2

Last week I introduced the mini-series The Crimson Field; please scroll down to catch up if you haven't already read it. This week I'm writing (ranting) about the first two episodes. If you've seen the mini-series, please leave a comment and let me know what you thought about it!

Episode 1

Rosalie, Kitty, and Flora arrive at the British Army field hospital outpost after a long journey. The British Army nurses who welcome them are rather put out because these are civilian nurse volunteers with only a few months of training. They need help, but they want Army nurse help that is properly trained not civilian volunteer help that isn't! Kitty's immediately at odds with both Rosalie and the British Army nurse Matron Carter because Kitty has no patience for protocol, rules, or any other petty business, and she'll tell you so too. Flora also runs afoul of Matron Carter, who, in order to save face in front of Sister Quayle, punishes Flora by assigning her to wash/boil/roll duty with the used bandages. Relations and tensions are complicated between Sister Quayle and Matron Carter because Carter was Quayle's protege, but Carter got the promotion to Matron over Quayle despite the fact that Quayle, and she claims everyone else, expected to be promoted herself. So of course, Quayle is humiliated and bitter that her protege outshines and outranks her now.

Kitty's mouth gets her in trouble in separate confrontations with Rosalie and Carter during which Kitty lashes out with some cruel, truth telling yet insightful, if insensitive, straight talk to which Carter responds by dismissing Kitty and ordering her to return to Britain. However, a detour to make things right with Rosalie lands Kitty in a potentially life threatening situation with a dying soldier on the lam (or at least he's trying to be on the lam because he doesn't get far with his injuries). Kitty's ministrations to and compassion for the soldier earn her a stay of dismissal and maybe some respect from matron Carter.

Episode 2

The nurses get ready for a convoy bringing in more than 200 injured soldiers while Major Crecy and his wife struggle to deal with his life changing injuries. Kitty writes home asking for forgiveness, but she doesn't receive the reply for which she was hoping. Captain Hesketh-Thorne, a surgeon, tries to start up a flirtation with Kitty again, but she's having none of it. Also he's too late to the romantic sparks train because there are already some flying between Kitty and Captain Gillan, another surgeon and Capt. H-T's friend and tent mate.

My thoughts (with some rants thrown in for good measure):

Sister Quayle is on my last nerve before the end of episode 1; she's a bitter, conniving, scheming, moralizing, vindictive woman, and I fear what trouble she will cause when she realizes she no longer has passive control over her former protege because said protege got told by Kitty and is finally ready to cut the apron strings.

Kitty is an outspoken, independent woman who speaks the truth; consequences, tact, and others' precious feelings be damned. Despite her abrasiveness and stand-offishness towards the other nurses, I like her. Also it's obvious she's running from something, and it's all a facade to protect herself.

Captains Gillan and Hesketh-Thorne are the resident man eye candy. But H-T needs to realize he doesn't have a hope in hell with Kitty because Kitty + Gillan (and his typewriter) = 4eva

Back to Sister Quayle: she's an old stick in the mud, and Rosalie will regret being pulled under her toxic, wrong headed tutelage.

Sister Q and the supply sergeant are two peas in a pod. That sergeant is no good, and he's got everyone fooled.

Mrs. Weston is Mrs. Crecy!!! MRS. WESTON FROM EMMA(2009) IS MRS. CRECY. The whole second episode I know I know Mrs. Crecy from some other show, but I can't place where until I look her up on IMDb.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

In The Woods by Tana French

"What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective. Our relationship with the truth is fundamental, but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. It is the core of our careers, the endgame of every move we make, and we pursue it with strategies painstakingly constructed of lies ... and every variation on deception. The truth is the most desirable woman in the world and we are the most jealous lovers, reflexively denying anyone else the slightest glimpse of her. We betray her routinely ... This is my job ... What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this--two things: I crave truth. And I lie." opening lines of In The Woods chapter 1, pages 3-4 In The Woods by Tana French, an Irish writer, is an extremely well-written and well-crafted mystery novel. The downside is that this is French's debut novel, and her website (located at http://www.tanafrench.com/ ) does not off...

Broken by Karin Slaughter

Before I begin the formal review there are a few things I need to get off my chest in the wake of finishing this book; I'll do so without giving away too many (or any) spoilers. The OUTRAGE!: the identity of Detective Lena Adams' new beau; the low depths to which Grant County's interim chief has sunk and brought the police force down with him; agent Will Trent's wife, Angie's, sixth sense/nasty habit of reappearing in his life just when he's slipping away from her. Thank God for small miracles though because while Angie was certainly referred to during the book, the broad didn't make an appearance. One sign that I've become way too invested in these characters is that I'd like to employ John Connolly's odd pair of assassins, Louis and Angel, to contract out a hit on Angie; do you think Karin Slaughter and John Connolly could work out a special cross over? Hallelujah: Dr. Sara Linton and agent Will Trent are both back. There is no hallelujah fo...

Generation Kill by Evan Wright and One Bullet Away by Nathaniel Fick

Non-fiction books aren't really my thing; generally, this is how my relationship goes with non-fiction books: I see a really interesting one, I borrow it, I start to read it, and then I ditch it a chapter or two later when the dry, boring writing and non-existent plot fail to hook me. However, this a review of two non-fiction books that I read back to back after a five year old three article series that I dug up on the internet; it was written by Evan Wright and preceded his book Generation Kill , which is basically a book version of the article series that he wrote and published in Rolling Stone Magazine . Recently HBO adapted Generation Kill into a mini-series that ran sometime last year; I got the series on DVD and in the midst of watching it, I decided I wanted to get my hands on the book to read. In the meantime, I stumbled across One Bullet Away by Nathaniel Fick, the lieutenant of the platoon that Wright embedded with, and I read that book while I waited for Generation K...

A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Search This Blog