Tunnels

"You dying?"

"Yes - but I'm used to it."

This series is taking on aspects of a pavanne, a courtly dance, elegant and stately with the dancers separating and coming together and separating again...

Mostly, Xev and Stan end up together, while Kai is elsewhere (on the Lexx, on the twin planet, in another city), and that pattern is repeated here. Kai is 'procured' for Hogtown, while Xev and Stan follow Prince into the Escheresque labyrinth of the tunnels...
       Yes, Prince is back. If I'm right, so far he's been killed and reincarnated four times in seven episodes - the man (god? demon?) certainly leads a very busy life-after-life! And he proves himself both "advantageous" and "beneficial" - as per the dictionary definition of 'good' - to Stan, and to Xev, in the tunnels (and gets himself killed again while rescuing Stan. "Consider it a good will gesture"...)
       The tunnels... The tunnels are intriguing. Prince says that they are the dwelling place of those who don't have a city of their own, the worst of the bad, the "sick and truly evil", those who "kill for the sheer pleasure they exact from the act of killing" (sounds a bit like Duke - and Fifi - to me. Lyrical, too.) I think he's using terms that Xev and Stan will understand to stress the danger they face in the tunnels, rather than speaking from any personal conviction, but that's just my opinion. The 'doctors', and the dominatrix and her acolytes, are in truth no more cruel than Duke - or Prince, if the horrors of his city are his responsibility (and we have no reason to assume they are not.) The dwellers in the tunnels simply and without complicated rationalisation allow themselves to enjoy their pursuits without hindrance, purely happy to luxuriate in their pleasure.

In Hogtown, the opposite applies. The inhabitants still torture and kill, but have devised a quasi-legal way of prolonging the agony... Kai's speech, so familiar from the first series, ends so beautifully here (we all know what it's like trying to deal with bureaucracy...) - "I have killed mothers with their babies...... but it's been a while since I slaughtered a roomful of petty bureaucrats." It's wonderful, as is the apparent frustration he suffers trying to persuade the adjudication commission to simply invoke punishment number one and throw him off the edge of their city and to his salvation! (Back to Afterward)

A few small but intriguing things happen - almost in passing - throughout this episode. Stan piles up books to act as a ladder: nice imagery that - books helping the individual to gain a foothold and ascend to a higher level - except that Stan delays too long and is dragged back down by the first 'doctor'.
       The first time Prince rescues Stan, he hands him the knife that was to end the Lexx captain's life - and then turns his back. Even if Stan should try to kill him, he'll be reincarnated almost immediately. But, more tellingly, he also knows that Stan will not even try to use the knife. Stan just doesn't do treachery. It's one of the (admittedly few but nevertheless very important) things I admire in Tweedle.
       Prince insists on his personal integrity in making deals. He won't lie - it's "much more fun to tell the truth." (And do I agree with that statement! The reactions can be astounding! Anyone care to enlighten me as to why humans don't like being told the truth?) But interestingly, Prince also points out he's not trustworthy. So believe him at your own peril, and accept the responsibility for your own decisions. (I do so love an honest man. They're so incredibly rare.)

Wondering Allowed

There are 39,000 steps from the 'living' areas of K-Town to the bottom of the city. Xev counted them all. I suppose it was better than listening to Stan complaining all the way down...

I'm still puzzling over Prince's dying words to Stan - "I wanted you to love me, Stanley." Why? And in what way?

I've just realised (I really can be a little slow sometimes): I knew there was something unusual and particularly delightful about this series. 790 is still aboard the Lexx! I've been spared the much-loathed robot head! Thank you, Powers That Be(an). This is adding immeasurably to my (slightly stunned) enjoyment of the series... Back

Y'know, you only have to add an 'a' and Stan becomes Satan... Ach, ignore me. It's late and my mind is wandering off into some very strange pastures all by itself... Back

Only idle speculation, but did Mantrid originally come from Hogtown? The clothes are similar. Back