by Jon Nyqvist
Aurora, who has risen to leadership within a ruthless league of assassins and bandits named the Ravens, faces the dangers of multiple challengers, as well as mysterious nightmares and painful memories that further weaken her hold of her position.
The opening episode was fantastic, if it did struggle a little to mesh the breathtaking chemistry and action of its first half with its more medieval second, but we've got two engaging leads in Jonathan and Aurora, and as this story is all about the hitwoman herself I'm looking forward to getting stuck into it. So! Let's press on.
We're watching news footage of the aftermath of the shooting at the church that left Jonathan, Aurora and a handful of thungs dead and gone, with Detective Gordon making a suspicious phone call to someone that further deepens the mystery behind Aurora - there's obviously something bigger going on here, which we'll hopefully learn more about in due course. Gordon examines Aurora's corpse and clearly knows who she is, but he's at pains to keep this quiet. Hmm! Aurora's unflattering body is our conduit back into the Afterlife, and Aurora has a similarly traumatic introduction to the world as Jonathan's as she finds herself underwater, pushing to the surface in the middle of a big, black sea...
There's a great little twist as we start Act One, however. Aurora has a vivid nightmare about Jonathan shooting her in the church gunfight (with a telling reference to 'trust' that hints at more backstory), before she wakes up in a bed - and it's almost a year later! It's an excellent little move, one that instantly gives the show a wealth of backstory to dip into and develop at its leisure. Aurora is greeted by a visitor who tells her 'another one is here,' and as the tired Aurora moves on into a large hall, it's clear she hasn't been sitting on her hands for the last eleven months - far from it, in fact! She addresses a room of thugs who she appears to be in charge of, with a figure named Trias stepping forward to challenge her. Seems they were lovers - although Aurora brushes it off as just a fling - and as the two fight it looks like Trias' taunts that Aurora's lost her edge is on the money. The fight isn't going her way, and she's getting a real paasting when she pulls a hidden dagger and stabs Trias in the neck, leaving him bleeding on the floor as an example to the others. Brilliant stuff. Aurora tries to recover, but is then forced to kill her assistant Liana when she tries to literally stab her in the back. Seems Aurora's weary features are making more sense now - she may be the ledaer of a powerful group of thugs, but the constant threats on her life are taking their toll. Liana's replacement Vergil arrives the next day, treating us to some great panoramic shots of Aurora's new domain, and he brings his new boss news of the death of Marius the Cutter, who as we know was taken out by our very own Jonathan last week. Vergil produces a sketch of Jonathan, leaving Aurora in a stunned silence.
Act II has our freaky dream of the week, with Aurora exchanging cryptic words with a small boy in the setting of the church once again. The boy warns Aurora that the darkness she surrounds herself with will one day consume her - and is he implying that she could turn into one of the shadowy ghouls that we saw pursuing Jonathan through the forest last episode? Very interesting - throws in a whole karmic angle to proceedings that really brings in a load of new potential for character development! Aurora shoots the boy and is literally consumed by darkness, having blamed the boy for what she's become (so who is he?), but realising that she has to find Jonathan again. We're treated next to a flashback of Aurora laying down the law in a shootout at a penthouse suite, with Nyqvist's cinematic treatment of action sequences again blasting off the page - it's a hundred per cent Matrix as she jumps, slides and dodges around, laying waste to anything shooting at her with consumate ease. Heck, there's even a shot labelled as 'Ultra Cool' as she strides forward through a shower of falling glass... before casually shooting the last surviving thug dead. Fantastic. Aurora strides into the suite - and finds a terrified mother and her child. The same child she had the freaky dream about. Aha! Aurora calls her employer to protest, but is told in no uncertain times that she has to kill them both. After some agonising, she finally shoots - but her own reflexes betray her, her shots all going wide and forcing her to run. Her spent gun clatters to the floor (another brilliantly visual moment), and the story becomes a little clearer!
Act III has Vergil telling Aurora that the Ravens (her merry band of goons) are combing the area for Jonathan, with strict orders to bring him in alive. Vergil heads off ( on 'his little horsie' as Aurora puts it), but there's a nasty surprise lurking in the shadows once he's gone - Trias! He's still alive and out for some payback.Relaxing in the bath, Aurora daydreams of speaking to a woman called Lynn about her failed assassination, revealing that Lynn was the woman who took Aurora in and turned her into an assassin - something she regrets, wishing she'd given Aurora the chance to be something more meaningful than a hired killer. Lynn sours the moment, sadly, by ratting Aurora out with an understandably cool view of her own survival, and the potentially cheesy Hallmark moment gets turned on its head. Nice work. Lynn gives Aurora a head start at least, and as Jason arrives to find Aurora gone, Lynn warns him that Aurora is now more dangerous than ever now that she's alone at last. It's a big character moment that doesn't even need Aurora around!
Act IV opens with Trias holding Aurora at knife point, but she uses the best weapon to hand - her body - to throw him off guard and then kick him square in the face. Gotta love it, especially as she leaps from the bath, grabs a robe and ties it round herself in one continuous motion! This time, however, Trias' raw strength gives him the advantage, and he brutally batters Aurora out onto the balcony before punching her over the railing and down into the water below. Vergil is out on his trek, approaching the village Jonathan was last seen in, when who should approach him but Marius! Thing is, we know he's dead, so this must be one of those evil shadow thingies that nearly made a meal out of Jonathan... does this mean they can take on human form? Aurora washes up on a beach, and another visit from Creepy Dream Kid warns her of the darkness inside her just waiting to consume her, before she snaps awake again, and we end on the creepy shot of Aurora finding a small patch of literally living darkness on her palm...
So, another good episode, this one benefitting from a more constant pace throughout, with the flashbacks to the real world fitting into the Afterlife action more smoothly than last week's two-sided affair. Aurora is an absolutely fantastic character - as well as possessing a dry wit and some Wachowski Brothers style kung fu moves, there's real depth to her character, from her upbringing and training to the guilt weighing on her soul, and the very real threat of her past sins consuming her in this new world. The time delay between her arrival and Jonathan's is also interesting - why did she get an extra year before he showed up, considering they died at the same instant? The actual story itself doesn't take up too much space - this is more of a character-establishing piece, and does its job well for that, but the focus is perhaps a little too heavily on Aurora's character instead of a standalone story for the episode. Don't get me wrong, what we get to see of Aurora is fantastic, it just feels like we're two episodes in now and not all that much has actually happened with the series - that said, there's a sense of things starting to build up, so now that our leads are established the next few episodes should start to pay off for all this set up.
And here's the line of the week:
AURORA
Good. You did specify that he was
to be taken alive?
VERGIL
I won't lie. The men had a bit of a
hard time with that one.
But I'm sure they wouldn't cross
you in any way.
AURORA
Right, 'cause it's not like they are
a bunch of murderers and thieves.
ZPM RATING:
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