The Nevers review, Episode 3: “Ignition”

The third episode of The Nevers, “Ignition,” is full of fun details and appealing performances, but the over-arching story isn’t gelling like it needs to.

The problem with The Nevers is that the details are fun and even inspired, but the big picture is muddy and vague. There was a lot of that push and pull in this episode.

“Ignition,” starts with Amalia and Penance tracking down Bonfire Annie, one of Maladie’s thugs who abandoned her at the end of the last episode. I’m not 100% sure why she didn’t stick with Maladie, but I like the banter after Amalia punches her. “You said you going to speak,” Penance says accusingly. “We are, this is our language.”

Maladie is chasing the Begger King’s men away from an opium shipment on which both Penance and Amalia get high before the title card takes us out of the cold open. It’s funny, and the actors do a good job selling it, but I still don’t know what exactly Mary Brighton’s magical song is so important to the future of the Touched, no matter how often they try to put it into words. “You still feel it: Mary’s song,” Amalia tells Annie. “You know what a better world could be like.” It’s one thing to say that and another for the audience to understand what you’re talking about, and I don’t feel like we do.

The whole episode is like this, a mix of strong dialog and acting on the one hand and scrambling world-building on the other. For instance, there’s a good scene where several of the Touched confront a woman who’d been luring in lost Touched girls and handing them over to that creepy surgeon we keep seeing. She tells a disturbing story about killing her own Touched daughter. “It was so hard to hold her down like that cause she didn’t understand…I had to be strong, til she stopped, til she was free.” It’s powerful, but it segues right into an exposition dump about Lucy’s backstory, which sounds very sad but would be sadder if we’d spent any real time with Lucy before this. We just don’t know enough for this revelation to have much impact.

It’s also weird that we don’t have more specifics about how Maladie and Amalia know each other. Not even Amalia seems to know. We share her frustration, but it’s still frustrating. The show seems to be in a rush to get to wherever it’s going, but if it keeps tripping over itself like this I don’t know if people will be interested by the time it gets there.

And yet there are other things the show seeds really well. For example, we’ve known since the first episode that Lord Massen’s young daughter is Touched. I’ve been waiting for that to come up again, and we get a nice moody tease in “Ignition” when the guy installing the phone wire goes into Massen’s basement and almost comes into contact with…something…behind a locked door before the housekeeper shoos him away. Color me intrigued.

We also get to know Detective Frank Mundi better. He’s deeply in denial about being attracted to men, although it seems like Mary noticed, which is why she left him standing at the alter. They have a sweet scene where they reaffirm their affection for each other, although their romantic relationship is over. Meanwhile, Frank may still be attracted to Hugo, with whom he had an affair. I liked the bit during their talk where Hugo instinctively shrinks from Frank when he leans in; Hugo talks a good game but when the chips are down he probably can’t be relied on.

But let’s go back to Mary. “Ignition” establishes her as intelligent, kind and pure-hearted, the perfect ingénue. The episode’s big moment comes when she sings her song in a London park, using Penance’s amplifier device to make herself audible across the city, giving hope to every Touched person in earshot.

And then a guy with a gatling gun on his arm — I think he was working for Maladie in the premiere episode — shoots her through the chest…several times; there’s some seriously unpleasant overkill at work. It’s meant to be a shocking moment and it is a shocking moment, but it also seems like a waste of a character with potential. And it’s not even as shocking as it could be because we don’t yet know Mary very well. The whole thing comes off as more hackneyed than powerful.

That said, I did like the final scene where Bonfire Annie and several other of the Touched who heard Mary’s song find their way to Amalia. Perhaps hope can prevail.

I admire and enjoy a lot of what The Nevers is doing. I just don’t think it’s coming together like it needs to.

Episode Grade: C

The Bullet Points

• “My money is adorable.”
• It looks like Maladie’s bearded helper — she calls him “the Colonel” — can use his turn to talk people into doing whatever he suggests.
• There some pretty tasteless nudity in this episode. I don’t know why Maladie’s breast had to be exposed during her scene with Doctor Cousens in the carriage, and the scene with Hugo and Augie at the Ferryman’s Club seemed to be trotting out the T&A just because it could. There’s a gag about a naked Touched girl with a great internal clock, but it’s not nearly funny enough to justify the gratuity.
• Amalia and Doctor Cousens had an affair at some point. He’s grown tired fo “watching you throw yourself at danger like you think it’s gonna propose,” which is a fun line.
• The robot people stealing away Touched girls for Lavinia look pulled straight from Doctor Who. As Lucy aptly puts it, “Fuck a drumstick, he’s ugly.”
• Before Amalia makes it to the park to hear Mary sing, she fights one of the Begger King’s goons, a huge dude who can walk on water. It’s easily the coolest fight scene the show has pulled off so far.

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