{"id":2754,"date":"2019-06-11T18:26:09","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T18:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/?page_id=2754"},"modified":"2019-06-18T23:59:09","modified_gmt":"2019-06-18T23:59:09","slug":"nos4a2recap1-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/movies\/movie-nos4a2tv\/nos4a2-recap\/nos4a2recap1-2\/","title":{"rendered":"NOS4A2 Recap | Season 1: Episode 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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THE GRAVEYARD OF WHAT MIGHT BE<\/h1>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
Waaaaaita<\/strong>honkinminute<\/strong>. Is Charlie T. Manx\u00a0the good guy<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

(Spoiler: No.)<\/p>\n

When I was a kid, my friends and I all agreed that The Punisher was the coolest superhero in the Marvel Universe, after Wolverine. Who didn\u2019t love The Punisher, the man in black, who knew who the bad guys were, slaughtered them indiscriminately, and rescued their victims? (And who also might fire a few thousand bullets every issue and never once accidentally clip an innocent bystander… no unlucky ricochets for The Punisher!) I think between The Punisher, Batman, and Rambo, we\u2019ve learned to celebrate the man of moral certainty who remorselessly obliterates the wicked, without any self-doubt or second guessing. Their willingness to act decisively to save the helpless\u2014children, for example\u2014is what makes them heroes. Right?<\/p>\n

Right?<\/em><\/p>\n

In a lot of my favorite stories, the villains operate according to personal moral conviction; they perform sickening acts, not out of hate, but out of love. Think of Walter White in\u00a0Breaking Bad<\/em>, for the finest portrait of villainy in the history of television. Mr. White wants with all his heart to look after his family\u2014to provide for his loved ones when he\u2019s gone\u2014and to prove to them he was good at something, not a failure, a\u00a0nobody<\/em>. He wants to perform some final magnificent gesture, both to earn their affection and prove himself worthy of it. His yearning to do something great, and his desire to protect his wife and son, become twin pistons in an engine of destruction that will shred a staggering number of lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"photo<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Olafur Darri Olafsson as Bing Partridge and Zachary Quinto as Charlie Manx, Season 1, Episode 2; Photo Credit: Dana Starbard\/AMC<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

So for me, the emotional anchor of episode two is when Charlie escorts gullible Bing Partridge to the Graveyard of What Might Be. In this cold and desolate place, one may glimpse the possible tragic futures of a thousand children, kids who reside in the care of parents who neglect and abuse them… kids who will be utterly destroyed if someone doesn\u2019t step in on their behalf. Charlie Manx has already rescued hundreds of them, taken them away from their monstrous parents, and brought them to a place where the childrenthemselves<\/em>\u00a0are the monsters: where the children are strong and free and happy and where no one can ever hurt them again. To me, he kinda sounds like The Punisher.<\/p>\n

Just remember: it isn\u2019t the Graveyard of What\u00a0WILL<\/strong>\u00a0Be. It\u2019s the Graveyard of What\u00a0Might\u00a0<\/em>Be. And as we saw in the first episode, Charlie has a pretty loose definition of \u201cabuse.\u201d Ultimately, perhaps, every mother is an unfit mother in Charlie\u2019s view. In Charlie\u2019s eyes, even participating in the act that is known to\u00a0make<\/em>\u00a0babies is a mark of moral failure. When The Punisher begins shooting people for jaywalking or speeding, we start to see him in a different light, nuh?<\/p>\n

I wanna note one other scene that (at least for this viewer) really popped, and that\u2019s Vic and Maggie together in the library. I love the tentative connection between Ashleigh and Jahkara in this scene\u2014 there are flickers hinting that, under the right circumstances, these two could be each other\u2019s Butch and Sundance, Bonnie and Clyde, Thelma and Louise. Can anyone be shocked that Vic gets skittish and flakes out on the promise of Maggie\u2019s friendship? Maggie is herself a bridge to some new life, a world where the impossible has been known to happen on occasion. And that\u2019s a bridge Vic isn\u2019t ready to cross, not yet.<\/p>\n

Also, more simply: Ashleigh and Jahkara are the rock and the roll of\u00a0NOS4A2<\/em>, and every minute they\u2019re together delivers a tremendous crackle of fun.
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Ashleigh Cummings as Vic McQueen and JJ Smith as Maggie Leigh, Season 1, Episode 2; Photo Credit: Dana Starbard\/AMC<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Now I don\u2019t want you to think this newsletter is\u00a0all\u00a0<\/em>fluff, so I\u2019m going to register a serious criticism of episode 2 here. Early in last night\u2019s episode, we caught a glimpse of Vic McQueen\u2019s comic collection and NOT ONE OF THEM WAS AN ISSUE OF LOCKE & KEY. I think we can all agree it was a glaring oversight not to include a sweet (possibly slow motion) shot of the comic I wrote for seven years, illustrated by my soul brother Gabriel Rodriguez. It\u2019s obvious to me that Vic is a classy, smart, discerning reader who would naturally seek out the absolute best in modern graphic novels. It just makes sense for her to have the complete\u00a0Locke & Key<\/em>\u00a0library, prominently displayed on her bookshelves\u2014it would\u2019ve been completely in character.<\/p>\n

(P.S. AMC, if you need copies for future episodes,\u00a0calllllll\u00a0<\/em>me, I\u2019ll hook you up.)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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ASK4U2<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Joel Harlow,\u00a0NOS4A2\u00a0<\/em>makeup and
\neffects artist<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
Joel Harlow is the real deal, one of the finest special makeup FX in the industry today, with the Oscar to prove it (for his work on\u00a0Star Trek\u00a0<\/em>in 2010, where he gave Zachary Quinto the full-Vulcan). He spread the plague in\u00a0The Stand<\/em>, unleashed any number of tentacled freaks in the\u00a0Pirates of the Caribbean<\/em>\u00a0flicks, and inspired countless fever dreams with his work on the Burton\u00a0Alice in Wonderland<\/em>\u00a0films. His sculpts and sketches are legend and\u00a0must be seen to be believed<\/a>. We were lucky to get him for\u00a0NOS4A2<\/em>, where he aged Zach through a hundred gruesome years, and deformed a variety of sweet-tempered children into grinning soulless freaks. Weirdly, Joel and I also have history. More about that in a moment.<\/p>\n

Joe Hill: Hey, Joel! Thanks for participating in this week\u2019s ASK4U2 feature.<\/p>\n

So Charlie Manx has been cruising America\u2019s back roads for a century, snatching children, and draining something crucial out of them\u2014their souls, perhaps\u2014to stay alive. In the process of slurping up their humanity, he himself pulls a Benjamin Button, aging backwards from creepy old coot with a mouthful of fangs to a svelte and charming young dude. Over the course of a remarkable and varied career, you\u2019ve crafted your share of monsters. Is it more challenging when the monster at the center of the movie is identifiably human?<\/p>\n

Joel Harlow: Absolutely! Visually it is far more difficult to create a character that resembles people one would see on a daily basis, such as an old man. It\u2019s much different than designing a universe of aliens for example, because you don\u2019t see those kind of characters in your daily routine, unless you have a very unusual daily routine.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the season We take Zach from age 40 to 135 with five separate prosthetic makeup designs, and though you have a bit of creative latitude with the last (135) stage, you really don\u2019t with the others.<\/p>\n

When designing and executing makeups such as these, subtlety and realism are the objective. Even though Manx IS a monster, visually I wanted him to appear as a normal man of the age he is playing. The menace comes when Zach infuses his performance into what we do externally.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hill: Right: that brings me naturally to my next question. How does the special makeup sell a performance … and, maybe more importantly, how does a great performance sell the makeup?<\/p>\n

Harlow: Firstly, we are very lucky to have Zach as our Charlie Manx. He is a fantastic actor who appreciates and embraces the need for physical transformation to effectively sell a character. When we designed this character, it was important to achieve prosthetic makeups that allowed Zach\u2019s performance to translate through. It would have been very easy to simply create old age characters ON him without taking into consideration his underlying anatomy. We tried to keep these prosthetics as thin as possible so the subtleties of his performance would translate.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, when everything is applied, it should feel like a tool for him to use in his characterization rather than a crutch. The flip side of this is, of course, no matter how effective the look of a character is, it doesn\u2019t live until Zach brings it to life. It was very impressive to see the nuances he brought distinctly to each age of Manx.<\/p>\n

For me, that\u2019s the Dr. Frankenstein moment … you spend months designing and creating a character, wondering what it will look like when it comes to life, then on that first day, you see it all come together… that\u2019s a great feeling.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Zachary Quinto as Charlie Manx, Season 1, Episode 3; Photo Credit: Zach Dilgard\/AMC<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Hill: When Charlie is done draining the souls out of “his children” they\u2019re monsters: there\u2019s nothing left of them except happiness and teeth. As a horror fan I love monster children… the only thing creepier than a nasty creature with a maw full of razor blade teeth is if that creature has a child\u2019s face. What was the process of developing their particular look?<\/p>\n

Harlow: The children are tough to do. Firstly, there is the very real obstacle of child labor laws. Obviously, these exist to protect children but it is something to really consider when looking at makeup application and removal and what can effectively be created without using up an entire shooting day. I could design the most elaborate character I\u2019ve ever done but if the application takes so much time, we can\u2019t film it, what\u2019s the point.<\/p>\n

You defined the most important aspect of these little monsters with the teeth, and fortunately that is a quick and very effective change. They remind me of a\u00a0Night Gallery<\/em>\u00a0episode called \u201cThe Doll.\u201d As a kid, it scared the Hell out of me!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hill: Pff. Child labor laws: so lame!<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the best gross-out moment in the history of horror?<\/p>\n

Harlow: Oh boy! There are so many. There have been a lot of unsettling blood\/guts sequences that are disturbing. I think for me however, it\u2019s the one sequence in They\u2019re Creeping Up On You from\u00a0Creepshow …\u00a0<\/em>not the explosion of roaches from E. G. Marshall but rather the moment when they spill out of his cereal box. For me, that did for eating cereal what\u00a0Jaws<\/em>\u00a0did for swimming in the ocean.<\/p>\n

I used to live in NYC when I was attending SVA. Our dorm consisted of three floors of a YMCA. I was basically roommates with cockroaches … I hate them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hill: What was the first horror film you remember seeing, and how did you react?<\/p>\n

Harlow: I don\u2019t know if it is classified as \u201chorror\u201d but I\u2019m sure I\u2019m not alone in saying\u00a0Jaws<\/em>. I saw the film as a child with my parents at a drive-in. There was something about, not just the impact of what the film was presenting, but the environment of watching it from inside a car that really frightened me. The isolation of being in a car in this vast lot with the unknown of what was just below the windows (as opposed to a theater where you can see your surroundings and feel more like you are all in this together with your fellow movie goers) really worked me into a place of absolute terror … so much so that, when Ben Gardner\u2019s head appeared, I threw up.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hill: Wow. My favorite film. I watch it every summer. What about you: favorite horror film? Favorite scary show?<\/p>\n

Harlow: Certainly\u00a0The Exorcist<\/em>\u00a0hits highs on that list but there are moments in a lot of films that I find genuinely frightening.
\nThere is a great scene in\u00a0The Messengers<\/em>\u00a0that comes to mind. Some wonderful atmosphere in\u00a0Prophecy<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Mama<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I think, for the moment though, the film that holds that spot for me is\u00a0Hereditary<\/em>. I watched that film in pieces while on set, probably the worst environment to watch a film in, and it still rocked me!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hill: Yeah,\u00a0Hereditary<\/em>\u00a0completely knocked my head off.<\/p>\n

Is there a monster you\u2019d particularly like to re-invent, some beastie you\u2019d like to try “your way”?<\/p>\n

Harlow: You know I\u2019m a huge Lovecraft fan. I\u2019d think any of his creations would be great. The problem, however, is that they are so amorphous that locking them down to a single design is difficult. The more humanoid, hybrid characters are easier to translate. I\u2019ve done several versions of residents of Innsmouth as well as my versions of Wilbur Whateley\u2019s twin and Cthulhu.<\/p>\n

In addition, if there was an opportunity to take a swing at a Cenobite, that\u2019d be cool … or, Judge Death from the Judge Dredd comics in 2000AD.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hill: To me, the “fast zombies” vs “slow zombies” debate is kinda dumb. The zombies in\u00a028 Days Later<\/em>\u00a0aren\u2019t really zombies… they\u2019re ordinary humans infected with a weaponized variant of rabies, right? So of course they can run. Instead of “fast zombies” vs “slow zombies” what do you think about “slow zombies” vs “Christmasland Kids”? Who\u2019d win that fight?<\/p>\n

Harlow: The Christmasland kids obviously.<\/p>\n

Firstly, they have all their faculties intact, with a heightened sense of calculated predatory instinct. They can appear innocent, catching you (or the zombies) off guard…. I guess the zombies wouldn\u2019t care…<\/p>\n

If one of the kids were bit, what\u2019d we get? Zombie Christmasland Kids?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hill: I feel like the Christmasland kids are probably immune to the zombie virus. Their blood is ice cold and doesn\u2019t really circulate, so how could the infection travel?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Asher Miles Fallica as Daniel Moore, Season 1, Episode 2; Photo Credit: Dana Starbard\/AMC<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Weird trivia: I was a production assistant on the TV movie of\u00a0The Stand<\/em>, adapted from my Dad\u2019s book, back in the 1990s… and you were a junior makeup FX guy working for Steven Johnson. It seems to me we bonded over a fondness for the same metal and the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. What were your first jobs like? What was the first special makeup FX work you did that made you particularly proud?<\/p>\n

Harlow: When I first started, I was in NYC. One of my first jobs was working for Troma on\u00a0The Toxic Avenger 2\/3<\/em>. It was awful. By the end of it I was thinking, “if this is what the movie business is like, I don\u2019t want to be a part of it.” It had nothing to do with the conditions or hours involved.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, I met Gabe Bartalos shortly after and worked on\u00a0Basket Case 2<\/em>. That experience was great and we were working even more hours. The motivating factors that divide jobs have always been the work. If the work is rewarding and creative, I\u2019ll wade through Hell with a smile to do it, if not, it\u2019s difficult to find the inspiration to keep going.<\/p>\n

I always go back to Bootstrap Bill from\u00a0Pirates\u00a0<\/em>2\/3 as one of my very favorites. Granted it wasn\u2019t one of the first that made me proud but it set a new bar for me creatively.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hill: For those who don\u2019t have an unhealthy interest in gross-out makeup FX, Tom Savini is known as the grandfather of gore, the wizard who made zombies walk in\u00a0Dawn of the Dead<\/em>, and took off heads in the first\u00a0Friday the 13th<\/em>. Recently he celebrated his 70th birthday with a topless photo. Did you see that? That guy is f\u2019n ripped and looks younger than me. What are the chances he\u2019s an actual vampire? Who would win a fight, “fast zombies” or “Tom Savini”?<\/p>\n

Harlow: Because everything makes more sense when you inject it with a little Lovecraftian analogy. Tom Savini, Rick Baker, Stan Winston, Rob Bottin … as a kid, those guys were like the Outer Gods.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t surprise me he is ripped because those Gods don\u2019t age … and nothing can beat them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hill: Agree.<\/p>\n

Thanks for talking with me, man\u2026 and for your unbelievable work on\u00a0NOS4A2<\/em>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
ASK4U2
\nAUDIENCE ROUND!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
Joel Harlow has answered my questions … now it\u2019s my turn to answer yours! That\u2019s right, I\u2019m asking viewers to send me questions tagged #ASK4U2, and I\u2019ll pick one each week to answer in the\u00a0NOS4A2\u00a0<\/em>Recap newsletter. I\u2019m ready to answer all your knotty inquiries about the underlying themes of the novel, the psychological underpinnings of the characters, and my sense of how\u00a0NOS4A2<\/em>\u00a0fits into the larger tradition of both New England horror and the vampire mythos. Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

*checks Twitter*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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For me, the Beatles are one of the points on my creative compass, a true north. Their music is a triumph of imagination over despair, love over resentment, boogie-woogie over conformity… all things I hope are reflected to one degree or another in the show.<\/p>\n

(The other points of my compass might look something like Tabitha King to the East, Stephen King to the West, and Steven Spielberg to the South. I think Tom Savini is hanging out there in the SW quadrants, and Ray Bradbury is over in the SE…)<\/p>\n

And as it happens, “Here Comes the Sun” is my favorite of all their songs, the one song I\u2019d pick if I wanted to let someone know what The Beatles are all about. That said, I had no idea it would pop up in\u00a0NOS4A2<\/em>. I read several revisions of Jami O\u2019Brien\u2019s script for the first episode, but don\u2019t remember if she ever specifically said Chris McQueen would be singing “Here Comes The Sun” around the campfire. So that was a jolting, happy surprise. That said, the usage is entirely ironic. Midway through the song, Vic is forced to acknowledge to herself what she has probably known for a long time, that her beloved father is an abuser, a man who gets a bit loose with that right hand of his when he\u2019s drinking. If this scene had a title, it might be “Here Comes The Dark.”<\/p>\n

I feel like in some ways that one scene is the emotional core of the pilot. The first season of\u00a0NOS4A2<\/em>\u00a0documents Vic\u2019s hard road, crossing the distance between innocence to experience. The way is dark and treacherous, but if she hangs in there, maybe she\u2019ll find a little sunlight at the end.<\/p>\n

Yeah, maybe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"Author<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Author Joe Hill; photo credit: Gillian Redfearn<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE GRAVEYARD OF WHAT MIGHT BE Waaaaaitahonkinminute. Is Charlie T. Manx\u00a0the good guy? (Spoiler: No.) When I was a kid, my friends and I all agreed that The Punisher was the coolest superhero in the Marvel Universe, after Wolverine. Who didn\u2019t love The Punisher, the man in black, who knew who the bad guys were, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2758,"parent":2746,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2754","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2754"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2903,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2754\/revisions\/2903"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joehill.nl\/TheCollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}