Endeavor, "Lazaretto" (2017). There's a nuanced scene where Morse is taking the pulse of the staff at a hospital that is becoming the hub of several plot points, and is having a candid moment with a porter who is on break, smoking a cigarette by a loading dock. The porter offers an unexpectedly philosophical and sensitive assessment of his coworkers, suggesting that "everyone has their secret sadness." Morse asks him what his secret sadness is, and the porter replies, "flat feet." It's funny because it's terse, coarse, and decidedly un-nuanced. It takes us from the general to the specific in a manner this suggests a binding of humanity. But it's also funny in that it's elusive. Is the porter joking? Is the porter messing with Morse? We think that perhaps Morse has found a kindred spirit - someone who is on the periphery, can gauge from a distance, observe as an outsider-insider. But perhaps not.
I'm also chewing on whether there is another layer here in which the word choice of "flat feet" is echoing the derogatory "flat foot," and the porter is digging at Morse by saying that his secret sadness is being dogged by nosy policemen.
The first frame is about the politics, and subsequent class issues that arise therein, at the college I have been working at for a year now. Squidman echoing the unthinkingly authoritative demands that some groups feel entitled to make. The second frame, I think, has something to do with everyone's prediliction (particularly in contemporary society) to blame other people for problems that affect everyone, even if the problems are not anyone else's fault. Blaming. The third frame a dramatic pause before the flat feet punchline.
And, yes, that is John Thaw's Morse, not Shaun Evans' Morse.
Endeavor, "Lazaretto" (2017). There's a nuanced scene where Morse is taking the pulse of the staff at a hospital that is becoming the hub of several plot points, and is having a candid moment with a porter who is on break, smoking a cigarette by a loading dock. The porter offers an unexpectedly philosophical and sensitive assessment of his coworkers, suggesting that "everyone has their secret sadness." Morse asks him what his secret sadness is, and the porter replies, "flat feet." It's funny because it's terse, coarse, and decidedly un-nuanced. It takes us from the general to the specific in a manner this suggests a binding of humanity. But it's also funny in that it's elusive. Is the porter joking? Is the porter messing with Morse? We think that perhaps Morse has found a kindred spirit - someone who is on the periphery, can gauge from a distance, observe as an outsider-insider. But perhaps not.
ReplyDeleteI'm also chewing on whether there is another layer here in which the word choice of "flat feet" is echoing the derogatory "flat foot," and the porter is digging at Morse by saying that his secret sadness is being dogged by nosy policemen.
The first frame is about the politics, and subsequent class issues that arise therein, at the college I have been working at for a year now. Squidman echoing the unthinkingly authoritative demands that some groups feel entitled to make. The second frame, I think, has something to do with everyone's prediliction (particularly in contemporary society) to blame other people for problems that affect everyone, even if the problems are not anyone else's fault. Blaming. The third frame a dramatic pause before the flat feet punchline.
And, yes, that is John Thaw's Morse, not Shaun Evans' Morse.