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findmyrupertfriend · 6 years

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Strange Angel - “Augurs of Spring”

(This is a recap/review of the first episode of Strange Angel. There are spoilers, so proceed with caution!)

The first episode opens on an ancient hunting scene, beneath a bright red moon. The hunter (Wan Hu portrayed by Telly Liu) strikes against a large tiger. The scene is bathed in deep reds, with dramatic music. A whistle interrupts the action, and we are introduced to Jack Parsons (Jack Reynor). He’s on his lunch break, reading a comic, Amazing and True, The Path of the Hunter by Christopher Dexter. His boss orders him back to work, and we immediately discover Jack’s resistance to authority.

Turns out Jack is a janitor at Pueblo Powder Co. He steals some gunpowder on the sly and gets to work in his garage building his experiment, before driving out into the desert to meet his partner, Richard Onstead (Peter Mark Kendall).

Jack: “Ad astra…”

Richard: “Per aspera.”

(Per aspera ad astra (or, less commonly, ad astra per aspera) is a popular Latin phrase meaning "through hardship to the stars.”) Jack lights the fuse, and the rocket falls well short of their hopes.

Susan Parsons (Bella Heathcote) is at home reading the Bible, waiting up for Jack. She hides it in the mattress. Jack arrives home and fills his wife in, casually lying about the distance the rocket reached. Then he hits his wife up for more money when they’re behind on their mortgage. Nice!! (Blowing shit up is expensive, honey!!)

What’s even nicer is having sex with your wife while she lays still, looking uncomfortable as fuck. I didn’t quite catch this on my first watch, but thanks to Sydney, it looks like Jack pulls out before coming (because he never wanted to have kids, per the book. Susan gives Jack a sex rag to clean up. The whole scene shows their awkwardness and stiffness with one another. The music is also a little creepy here, just a piano playing simple keys before a slightly fuller sound. Jack hears a noise outside, and that’s when he sees Ernest Donovan (Rupert Friend) moving in next door.

Jack: “Who moves in the middle of the night?”

The next morning, Jack heads over to Caltech for a big meeting with Richard and Professor Mesulam (Rade Serbedzija). Again, you see Jack breaking rules, going where he is not allowed. Richard is clearly not happy with him and doesn’t think they are ready to present their proposal. However, Jack is not deterred one bit, maybe because Richard has his professional career at stake.

Jack: “Have a little faith, Rich. They’ll be naming buildings after us by the time we’re done.” (clever, eh?)

Professor Mesulam is not convinced and warns Jack and Richard about biting off more than they can chew.

Professor Mesulam: “Small advances needed before big ones can be made.”

Jack: “What if we’re not content to be someone else’s stepping stone?”

Jack continues countering Professor Mesulam, even minimizing the fact that he did not complete his undergraduate degree. Protocols just “weigh him down.” The meeting ends on the wrong note, so Jack returns to convince (exaggerating along the way) Professor Mesulam to observe their next demonstration. Much to Richard’s anxiety, the professor agrees.

The objective of the meeting was to get approval to build a functional rocket motor, but of course, Jack misrepresented their work as they already built one. Can you spell L-I-A-R?

Richard: “I just wish that you’d stick to the facts once in a while.”

After the meeting, Jack once again stretches the truth to Susan, who seems to be very much invested in her husband’s success. Next, the Parsons decide to walk over some banana bread and introduce themselves to their new neighbor.

Ernest answers the door with his lovely, calm goat in his arms. His oversized clothes and he, himself, look rather dirty. Ernest sports a semi-confused/bemused look on his face at the Parsons and all their neighborly pleasantries. Susan invites Ernest and his wife (who is not currently present) over for dinner. Ernest fixes Susan with a creepy smile, as if he’s slightly mocking them, and adds, “Well, that’d be swell.”

The next scene returns to the comic Jack enjoyed. He reads it out loud to his wife. The ancient hunter is naked in bed, surrounded by naked women writhing around him. Wan Hu is seeking more thrills, but is he is filled with “restless longing.” The comic is used to illustrate Jack’s own relentless pursuits in life.

Susan: “I know. This man wants to glimpse the sublime.”

Jack: “Yeah. exactly.”

Susan: “They could make that clear enough without all the lurid detail.”

Jack: “Yes, but then who would want to read it?” (ha-ha)

The couple waits for Ernest and his wife to join them for dinner, but Ernest had other plans it seems. He stands them up, and the Parsons are left to finish their awkward dinner alone with one another. There’s a lot that’s not being said between these two.

Jack is working in his shed again when he hears Ernest return home on his motorcycle. He crashes/slides into the garage. Jack helps him up and tries to engage a drunk Ernest in discussing why he didn’t show up for dinner. At first, Ernest just ignores him, walking off.

Jack: “Hey. I’m talking to you.”

Ernest: “Eh, I didn’t feel like it.”

Jack: “You didn’t feel like it?”

Ernest: “I’m trying to find my true path. How can I do that talking about barbecues and lawnowers?”

Ernest looks incredulous when Jack tells him he’s never gone up to the oil derricks on the hill above their house. He persuades Jack to follow him, while Ernest sings, almost chants, really. It was described as dirge-like signing.

Ernest: “A ka dua…tuf ur…biu…bi a’a”

Jack and Ernest make small talk as they make their way to the top. They come across a mountain lion. Jack looks scared. Ernest looks…delighted.

Ernest: “Look at that. Step outside your yard, never know what you find.”

Ernest extends his right arm out, with index and middle fingers pointed at the mountain lion in the shape of a handgun.

Ernest and the mountain lion stare each other down. Ernest shapes his hand into a fist, and the standoff ends with the mountain lion walking away. Ernest continues on as if nothing happened, but Jack is still shaken. When Jack declines to move further, Ernest mimics a chicken, arms, body, voice and all. I totally snickered at this part, because now Ernest is the one goading Jack into taking risks, whereas Jack is always the one pushing the other people in his life to accept more risk. And what does Jack do? He runs after Ernest…

Their small talk continues, and Jack attempts to explain Newton’s third law of motion. Ernest is sharp and picks up the gist of it in a flash.

Ernest: “So there’s a part that’s trying to burst free, and another part that needs to keep it in control.”

Interesting…so is Jack the part that’s trying to burst free? And who is keeping him under control?

Jack offers to light Ernest’s cigarette. Ernest cups his hands over Jack’s and takes a deep drag while staring straight at Jack. The flame from the cigarette lights up Ernest’s face, and you can see his intense eyes. Ernest appears to be on the verge of leaning forward as he smokes, but Jack takes a clear step back from Ernest. Jack’s face looks hard, and this time he stares back at Ernest, suggesting he should head back home. Ernest’s face is covered in shadows now, but you can see some clenching of his jaw and the angles of his cheekbones. It’s an odd, intimate moment followed by more eerie-sounding music. (Can’t wait to hear that soundtrack!)

Jack and Ernest are now walking together on the street, presumably headed back home as Jack suggested. The street lighting and old cars lining the curbs are just beautiful in this scene. Here, you also see more of Ernest’s gait. He walks in an almost bow-legged and bouncy fashion.

Ernest: “You know, my teacher always told me there’s only two kinds of people in this world. The ones who want to follow the rules, and the ones that want to break them.”

Jack: “Oh yeah? What kind of teacher is that?”

Ernest: “Only teacher ever taught me anything worth learning.”

Jack: “Now you take all these houses here, (Ernest outstretches his arms to gesture towards the houses surrounding them.) with their walls designed to keep us out. Now why should we obey that?”

Jack: “Cause the law says we have to.”

Ernest: “Whose law?” (Ernest takes off running.)

Jack: “What are you doing?”

Ernest: (Ernest turns around and yells, wide-eyed.) “There is no law, beyond “Do what thou wilt!”

That Ernest jumped the damn fence into someone’s yard. This guy is full of surprises! And what does Jack do? He follows Ernest once again…

Jack finds Ernest at the bottom of a pool, and he won’t come out. So Jack jumps in to find a smiling Ernest.

Jack pulls him out of the water as laughter bursts from Ernest’s mouth. Of course, Ernest thinks he’s funny. Of course, Jack isn’t amused. I find it amusing because Jack is getting somewhat a taste of his own medicine. And who better to give it to him, than Ernest? Oh, but Ernest keeps pushing Jack further…quite literally, Ernest pushes Jack’s head under water until Jack frees himself. Ernest tries to pull him back in.

Ernest: (laughing) “You are gonna have to try harder than that.”

Jack elbows Ernest in the face and draws blood.

Jack: “Is that what you wanted?”

Ernest: “That’s what you wanted.”

Ernest is most pleased, wiping some blood on a finger and loudly sucking it off with his grinning mouth. Jack climbs out of the pool, and Ernest howls like a wolf, arms raised, almost chasing Jack out of the yard. But the whole incident was not for nothing. Being held captive under the water with the air bubbles rising gives Jack an idea on how to fix his problem with the demonstration.

Jack explains his plan to Richard at a bar. He just needs methanol, liquid fuel, to eliminate air pockets. Richard has access to methanol at Caltech but doesn’t want to budge, even when Jack enlists the help of two young ladies at the bar. Jack presents Richard as an up-and-comer to the ladies.

Woman: “Caltech, huh? We don’t get to meet a lot of smart guys.”

Richard: “I’m not surprised.”

Wow. Richard is quite the wet noodle. These two have a push and pull relationship. We learn Jack and Richard knew each other as kids, with Jack beating up other kids who picked on Richard.

At the end of the discussion, Richard has an epiphany on inverting the launch and holding it in place.

Later that night, while Jack is sleeping, he hears a noise and walks outside. (The noise was our poor little goat bleating and being slaughtered off-screen. You can actually hear the blood flowing.) Jack sees Ernest walking from his backyard to his motorcycle, carrying two glass milk jars filled with some very red blood. Ernest wipes off a long, slightly curved knife onto a rag, hops on his motorcycle, and leaves. (He’s wearing a great, light-colored leather jacket in this scene, by the way. It looks filthy, but still cool.)

Jack follows Ernest to a gorgeous house in a very nice neighborhood. Jack watches Ernest walk into the home along with many well-dressed (well, better dressed than Ernest, that’s for sure) people. Jack approaches the house slowly, then moves quickly, peeking through a window to see two people pouring and mixing a glass jar of blood into a bowl of some kind? Maybe it’s a pot on the stove because you can hear the bubbling as the blood is poured and stirred (blech). Jack hears the singing, the same singing that came from Ernest when they walked up the hill. He follows the sound, climbing on top of a carport, up to the second story of the house.

Jack sees people standing in rows, as a man in vestments pronounces himself as “priest and king.” The man reaches for a knife, and Jack is clearly stunned. As the man approaches a naked woman, who he calls a virgin, he raises his knife. Jack yells out, causing everyone to stop and turn. It’s dead silent. Jack slides off the carport and falls onto the ground as people run out of the house. Jack makes it to his truck and speeds away as Ernest rushes out of the house, just in time to see his neighbor. Ernest has a sly look on his face. You know he has more games planned for Jack.

In the next scene, Susan is at work for her father (Virgil Byrne portrayed by Michael Gaston), typing up collection notices to delinquent borrowers while he dictates. He adds a lovely piece of scripture at the end of the note, and the irony is not lost on me.

Virgil: “As it is written in Psalm 37, the wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives.”

Susan’s father is quite over-bearing and strong-arms his daughter into coming for dinner on Sunday. He especially wants to speak to Jack about their delinquent mortgage.

Meanwhile, Jack and Richard are working on their demonstration. They have a nice little heart to heart, where Jack once again lies to Richard. He gives Richard a hug, and there’s a strange awkwardness. I wonder if Richard has some kind of repressed feelings for Jack - maybe…maybe not. But the hug was just a ruse to pickpocket Richard, getting his wallet, and impersonating him for some methanol at Caltech.

(There’s a scene on the comic with Wan Hu again while Jack dreams. This time, Wan Hu attaches rockets to his throne.)

Susan wakes Jack the next morning, and he hurries off. Jack and Richard travel along in one car, followed by Professor Mesulam. Jack speeds up in order to come clean on the methanol before the demonstration begins.

Jack: (to Richard) “Do what thou wilt.”

The demonstration gets off to a shaky start, so Jack floors the methanol to illustrate they could launch a rocket into the ionosphere.

Richard: “That’s enough.”

Jack: “You can’t know what’s enough til you know what’s more than enough.”

The readings show they achieved their objective, and the professor is impressed. While they celebrate, the apparatus catches fire. As it catches fires, Jack imagines Wan Hu.

Wan Hu: “If you never face down death, you’ll never glimpse what’s on the other side.”

Wan Hu lets a fiery arrow loose, but it’s really a piece of debris from the explosion. This time, Richard saves Jack by pushing him out of the way. And Jack laughs like a hyena…kinda like someone near and dear to our hearts.

While Jack is blowing shit up, Susan comes home from praying at church to find a note impaled by a knife, into their front door. Jack returns ready to celebrate, but Susan is shaken and shows Jack the piece of paper.

Susan: “What could it possibly mean?”

I really enjoyed this first episode. Jack is definitely an exaggerator and a liar of all sorts. For all the risks he is taking in his professional life, he is taking close to none in her personal life - yet. Susan appears to be...unhappy, yet she is a very supportive wife. They just both seem so repressed in their lives together.

Ernest is everything and then some, as we have gathered from various articles and interviews. I cannot look away from this character. I can sense he is absolutely a catalyst to change the Parsons’ lives completely, and I can’t wait to see more! Til next week...

#strange angel #augurs of spring #season 1 #strange angel recap review #ernest donovan #by: laura #hot damn #i am enjoying this too much #can't wait til next week

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