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jedibuttercup) wrote2004-07-26 12:14 am
jedibuttercup) wrote2004-07-26 12:14 am
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264 pages down, 134 to go ...
If you're not bored yet, more "Fellowship of the Ring" observations follow:
More food for my musings in these last pages. 'Chance', or the unseen movings of a higher hand, played a role again, several times. Bombadil says right out when the hobbits are dining in his house:
'Did I hear you calling? Nay, I did not hear: I was busy singing. Just chance brought me then, if chance you call it. It was no plan of mine ...'
And then, that very evening, Frodo dreamt of Gandalf's escape Saruman's tower, which the hobbits don't hear about until long after, when Gandalf speaks of Saruman to the Council on pages 250 and following. When did the wizard's imprisonment get shown in the film? I can't recall in detail at the moment, but it wasn't until later, if my impressions are right. Seems Frodo is occasionally something of a prophet. I wonder if he dreams of Gandalf's fall from the bridge in Khazad-Dûm as well? I suppose I'll see when I get to "The Two Towers", but it certainly makes that dream-sequence in the movie less of an artistic plot-device than I thought it was while watching it.
One can't forget, either, Frodo's wakening in the Barrow. Was it just because the sword would only stretch over the other three hobbits' necks, and thus the spell didn't settle so firmly on him? Or was it 'chance' again? If he hadn't blinked up out of the enchanted slumber and attacked the Wight-hand reaching to kill his friends, the Quest would have been over before it had even begun. Gandalf mentions it later on page 213:
'But you have some strength in you, my dear hobbit! As you showed in the Barrow. That was touch and go: perhaps the most dangerous moment of all. I wish you could have held out at Weathertop.'
Of course, the majority of Chapters Six, Seven, and Eight and later mentions of them were completely ignored by the movie. The journey through the Old Forest, the hobbits' stay with Tom Bombadil, and their adventures in the Barrow-Downs don't have a huge impact on the overall plot, so it's easy to see why they were left out, though some interesting things do pop up in them (see above). One additional observation, though - in the book, the swords the younger hobbits bear came out of the Barrow they were trapped in, while in the movie, they were casual gifts from Aragorn. I found this a very neat bit of visual abbreviation, as the Barrows were the burial-place of Aragorn's ancestors, the kings of Arnor. A nice nod to the history, even if Peter Jackson didn't intend it to be.
In fact, Tolkien left a hell of a lot of clues to Aragorn's identity before he ever even showed up in person. Back on page 57 Gandalf says: '... my search would have been in vain, but for the help that I had from a friend: Aragorn, the greatest traveller and huntsman of this age of the world. Together, we sought for Gollum down the whole length of Wilderland, without hope, and without success. But at last, when I had given up the chase and turned to other parts, Gollum was found. My friend returned out of the great perils bringing the miserable creature with him.'
Very interesting. He also appears to have been part of the group Gandalf talks about on page 59: '... there was so much at stake that I had to take some risk - though even when I was far away there has never been a day when the Shire has not been guarded by watchful eyes.' I can't remember the page number right now, but he confirms it at some point in Bree.
And now, the passage that caused me to dig those other two back up, from Bombadil's lips on page 142:
... Then he told them that these blades were forged many long years ago by Men of Westernesse: they were foes of the Dark Lord, but they were overcome by the evil king of Carn Dûm in the Land of Angmar.
'Few now remember them,' Tom murmured, 'yet still some go wandering, sons of forgotten kings walking in loneliness, guarding from evil things folk that are heedless.'
Strider's characterization is certainly interesting when he finally does appear, too. He treats the hobbits almost as equals from the start, and doesn't present himself to them as a man already King in his head. When they read Gandalf's letter and finally decide he's a friend, he says to them:
'... I must admit,' he added with a queer laugh, 'that I hoped you would take to me for my own sake. A hunted man sometimes wearies of distrust and longs for friendship. But there, I believe my looks are against me.'
From our reading in the Appendices last week it was pretty easy to pick out that Aragorn spent a deal of time in Rohan and Gondor under the name Thorongil when he was younger - between the ages of 26, a year after he first met Gandalf, and 49, if I have it right. He was a great favorite of Ecthelion, father of Denethor (the current Steward during most of the book), and won a great battle on Gondor's behalf against the Corsairs to the south. Denethor didn't like him, suspecting who he might truly be, and after the great battle Thorongil took off for other parts.
The whole episode took place between his first meeting Arwen in Rivendell and falling in love with her, when she came back from visiting her mother's family and saw him as just another young human, and his finding her again in Lórien, when she saw him suddenly as a great leader, almost as lordly and wise as an elf, and fell in love right back. Interesting sequence of events. At that time, Elrond said he would not give his blessing for their marriage until Aragorn was King of all the old lands of Arnor and Gondor. That role had not been held by any single King since Elendil father of Isildur, and not even in part by any Kings for a thousand years or so.
So why didn't Aragorn run back south and press his heritage immediately? He certainly had enough friends down there, Denethor notwithstanding, as Denethor didn't have the rule for another four years. Something, however, held him back for another forty years. Maybe it's like he said in Council on pages 241& 245 - 'I am but the heir of Isildur, not Isildur himself. I have had a hard life and a long ...' and '... it seemed fit that Isildur's heir should labour to repair Isildur's fault.'
Perhaps he did not feel his name should be pressed until Isildur's Bane should surface and be destroyed, removing the taint and temptation from his line; until then he just kept following in the bootprints of his Dúnedain forefathers. And then there's his exchange with Boromir on 261:
'Mayhap the Sword-that-was-Broken may still stem the tide - if the hand that wields it has inherited not an heirloom only, but the sinews of the Kings of Men.'
'Who can tell?' said Aragorn. 'But we will put it to the test one day.'
Diplomatic dissembling? Or real doubt and uncertainty whether he can carry the role destiny seems to have scripted for him? I lean toward the latter, but I suppose future chapters will prove it out one way or the other.
Anyway, at the point of his meeting the hobbits, though his real name is soon mentioned, the reader still doesn't know that Strider is the descendant of kings. More clues are soon dropped - on pages 189-190 he tells the hobbits the tale of Lúthien and Beren, their fate, and their descendants through Eärendil, father of the Númenorean line of kings. Then, on page 196 when Pippin asks him how he knows all about the former inhabitants of the broken lands they're travelling, Strider says: 'The heirs of Elendil do not forget all things past.'
And then on page 215 Gandalf tells the finally-wakened Frodo that Strider is not 'only a Ranger', he is of 'the race of the Kings from over the Sea'. On page 226, Bilbo names him the Dúnadan, or Man of the West. First among them, you might say, as far as the Elves are concerned. Still, there is no mention that he is, or would be should he claim it, the current King, though by that point the reader should be starting to guess. Especially since at some point on the journey Strider had actually shown the hobbits the shards of Narsil and quoted the verses about "the crownless again shall be king" that Bilbo wrote of him.
So. People who read the appendices first or are re-reading will know what's up, but first time readers won't know any of the aforementioned names, and still not be sure of his ancestry until page 240 when it is dramatically revealed to the Council. Though even I am picking up a lot more of the details this time through that I have before. Interesting how a few more years of education in literary analysis and an outside reason to go over it with a more critical eye are bringing much more to the surface this time around. I wonder what I'd pick out now if I went over The Chronicles of Narnia again? I read those at least as many times as the Lord of the Rings when I was little.
Back to the theme of 'chance': it snags Merry next, on page 170, whilst he was out wandering during the other hobbits' conversation with Strider. He saw a black shadow, and followed it; when Strider called the act brave, he said: 'Neither brave nor silly, I think. I could hardly help myself. I seemed to be drawn somehow.'
He got close enough to overhear one of the human spies (Bill Ferny) talking to one of the Black Riders. While the Rider noticed him afterward, and nearly did away with him before one of the Inn's employees found him, I wouldn't think it likely that the Rider was pulling him in to begin with; why would it want to be overheard? And indeed, it was Merry's eavesdropping that led them to switch rooms, and so they did not perish in the night.
Another interesting development came on pages 198-199, when Frodo lay half-dreaming due to his Morgul-blade wound, and imagined that '... endless dark wings were sweeping by above him, and that on the wings rode pursuers that sought him in all the hollows of the hills.' Yet another true-dream? Certainly the Ring-wraiths ride winged steeds in future books in search of him, but at that point in time, they were still all a-horseback.
Destiny sticks another couple of toes in the water during the Council. On page 236, Elrond says: 'That is the purpose for which you are called hither. Called, I say, though I have not called you to me, strangers from distant lands. You have come and are here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. Yet it is not so. Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world.'
Then on pages 239-240 we find out that Faramir dreamt several times that someone should go to Imladris (Rivendell) for counsel, and Boromir once; that is why Boromir is present. I found it interesting that Faramir seems to have dreamt it first, and most often, but that Denethor their father did not cave until Boromir, the favored son, also had the dream. Like Frodo's dreams seem to be, it too was prophetic in nature. I wonder if anyone would have come at all if the dream had come only to Faramir?
The episode with Bilbo's finding of the ring comes up again in Gandalf's tale on page 244: '... at last, as [Sauron's] shadow grew, Saruman yielded, and the Council put forth its strength and drove the evil out of Mirkwood - and that was in the very year of the finding of this Ring: a strange chance, if chance it was.'
A side-note, unconnected with the kingship or destiny threads I've been picking out: On page 252, Gandalf says, '... he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.' Interesting commentary on modern times, yes? Also Saruman's commentary, on why he wants to pretend friendship with Sauron, to nudge the world toward Knowledge, Rule, and Order: 'There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.' I.E., "the ends justify the means". How many people in the real world believe that kind of thing? Too many.
Oh, and how could I have forgotten this line, on page 262: '... despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt.' And no one can truly see the end beyond all doubt. I believe it's a Catholic concept that despair is a sin, and you can certainly see that Tolkien absorbed that lesson, but I tend to agree with him here; it's easy to get depressed and doubtful, but getting stuck in that dark viewpoint is a bad thing, as you never know when something might change. And I say that as a person who suffered from chronic mild depression (dysthymia, technically speaking) for years.
Hmm. *flicking pages* Now I'm stumbling over the appearance of Radagast the Brown: I'd nearly forgotten him. He's the reason Gandalf went to Isengard, by passing on Saruman's summons, but he's also the one who talked to the animals and sent Gwaihir the eagle to Gandalf; in the movie his role is abbreviated into a strangely-shaped butterfly/bat-thing. And goodness, was the Council dialogue ever cut up, as well. I don't remember Glóin airing much of the Dwarvish doings in Moria, or Legolas talking about Sméagol's escape from his father's dungeons, or Gandalf's long, long speech. Not to mention the fact that Glorfindel's role was completely cut out in favor of the lady of the piece. Arwen's really not much present in the books, is she?
*yawn* I think I'll stop there for the night, at the end of Book II, Chapter II. I intended to read all of Fellowship today, but I kept getting interrupted and distracted, and we'll only be tested on Book I tomorrow; I have until Wednesday evening to have the entire thing read. I'll just have to block out a great chunk of Tuesday evening for reading, as well.
Speaking of distractions, I turned on the Dead Zone at 10, even though I wasn't done reading yet, and the first thing that happens, Bruce and Johnny are out shopping. Bruce is criticizing Johnny's sense of style and starts pointing out trendy shirts for him; Johnny then asks, "What is this, Bruce Eye for the Psychic Guy?"
Methinks they are mining the long and fruitful tradition of dropping tiny slashy hints through a show to keep those with such opinions interested whilst not alienating those who prefer to see the currently-single boyz in het relationships. I mean, remember a couple of weeks ago when they were out a restaurant because Johnny wanted to keep an eye on the radio guy that was going to commit suicide, and when Bruce found out, he was all, you mean we're here working? Which means he thought it wasn't, as if the two of them go out to dinner for no reason all the time.
And then there's the fact that Bruce drops in all the time without warning, despite the fact that Johnny doesn't need his talents at physical therapy anymore. I'm surprised more people don't slash this show. Or maybe I just haven't found them. Personally, I'm not a slash fan when good het relationships are available, but honestly, I'd rather see Johnny with Bruce than Sara. Good grief, haven't they mined the former engagement for enough pain already? I like Walt. Sara's mostly happy with Walt. It should stay that way.
I was frustrated with most of tonight's episode as a whole. From the first moment the twins walked up and grabbed him, through their little scene making fun of his abilities, it was obvious they were setting him up for a fall, not actually intending to kill the woman, that first time. The obvious extension is that it for at least one of them it would be a cover for the real attempt, so no one would believe Johnny, like the Boy Who Cried Wolf. *rolling eyes* I suppose it was natural, though, for nobody to think of the possibility that someone could manipulate what Johnny saw when he touched them. And I certainly wasn't expecting the very end; they used the set-up tactic in reverse, and the guilty brother fell for it. Props for that, I suppose. I just hope next week's not as bad as the commercials make it look.
More food for my musings in these last pages. 'Chance', or the unseen movings of a higher hand, played a role again, several times. Bombadil says right out when the hobbits are dining in his house:
'Did I hear you calling? Nay, I did not hear: I was busy singing. Just chance brought me then, if chance you call it. It was no plan of mine ...'
And then, that very evening, Frodo dreamt of Gandalf's escape Saruman's tower, which the hobbits don't hear about until long after, when Gandalf speaks of Saruman to the Council on pages 250 and following. When did the wizard's imprisonment get shown in the film? I can't recall in detail at the moment, but it wasn't until later, if my impressions are right. Seems Frodo is occasionally something of a prophet. I wonder if he dreams of Gandalf's fall from the bridge in Khazad-Dûm as well? I suppose I'll see when I get to "The Two Towers", but it certainly makes that dream-sequence in the movie less of an artistic plot-device than I thought it was while watching it.
One can't forget, either, Frodo's wakening in the Barrow. Was it just because the sword would only stretch over the other three hobbits' necks, and thus the spell didn't settle so firmly on him? Or was it 'chance' again? If he hadn't blinked up out of the enchanted slumber and attacked the Wight-hand reaching to kill his friends, the Quest would have been over before it had even begun. Gandalf mentions it later on page 213:
'But you have some strength in you, my dear hobbit! As you showed in the Barrow. That was touch and go: perhaps the most dangerous moment of all. I wish you could have held out at Weathertop.'
Of course, the majority of Chapters Six, Seven, and Eight and later mentions of them were completely ignored by the movie. The journey through the Old Forest, the hobbits' stay with Tom Bombadil, and their adventures in the Barrow-Downs don't have a huge impact on the overall plot, so it's easy to see why they were left out, though some interesting things do pop up in them (see above). One additional observation, though - in the book, the swords the younger hobbits bear came out of the Barrow they were trapped in, while in the movie, they were casual gifts from Aragorn. I found this a very neat bit of visual abbreviation, as the Barrows were the burial-place of Aragorn's ancestors, the kings of Arnor. A nice nod to the history, even if Peter Jackson didn't intend it to be.
In fact, Tolkien left a hell of a lot of clues to Aragorn's identity before he ever even showed up in person. Back on page 57 Gandalf says: '... my search would have been in vain, but for the help that I had from a friend: Aragorn, the greatest traveller and huntsman of this age of the world. Together, we sought for Gollum down the whole length of Wilderland, without hope, and without success. But at last, when I had given up the chase and turned to other parts, Gollum was found. My friend returned out of the great perils bringing the miserable creature with him.'
Very interesting. He also appears to have been part of the group Gandalf talks about on page 59: '... there was so much at stake that I had to take some risk - though even when I was far away there has never been a day when the Shire has not been guarded by watchful eyes.' I can't remember the page number right now, but he confirms it at some point in Bree.
And now, the passage that caused me to dig those other two back up, from Bombadil's lips on page 142:
... Then he told them that these blades were forged many long years ago by Men of Westernesse: they were foes of the Dark Lord, but they were overcome by the evil king of Carn Dûm in the Land of Angmar.
'Few now remember them,' Tom murmured, 'yet still some go wandering, sons of forgotten kings walking in loneliness, guarding from evil things folk that are heedless.'
Strider's characterization is certainly interesting when he finally does appear, too. He treats the hobbits almost as equals from the start, and doesn't present himself to them as a man already King in his head. When they read Gandalf's letter and finally decide he's a friend, he says to them:
'... I must admit,' he added with a queer laugh, 'that I hoped you would take to me for my own sake. A hunted man sometimes wearies of distrust and longs for friendship. But there, I believe my looks are against me.'
From our reading in the Appendices last week it was pretty easy to pick out that Aragorn spent a deal of time in Rohan and Gondor under the name Thorongil when he was younger - between the ages of 26, a year after he first met Gandalf, and 49, if I have it right. He was a great favorite of Ecthelion, father of Denethor (the current Steward during most of the book), and won a great battle on Gondor's behalf against the Corsairs to the south. Denethor didn't like him, suspecting who he might truly be, and after the great battle Thorongil took off for other parts.
The whole episode took place between his first meeting Arwen in Rivendell and falling in love with her, when she came back from visiting her mother's family and saw him as just another young human, and his finding her again in Lórien, when she saw him suddenly as a great leader, almost as lordly and wise as an elf, and fell in love right back. Interesting sequence of events. At that time, Elrond said he would not give his blessing for their marriage until Aragorn was King of all the old lands of Arnor and Gondor. That role had not been held by any single King since Elendil father of Isildur, and not even in part by any Kings for a thousand years or so.
So why didn't Aragorn run back south and press his heritage immediately? He certainly had enough friends down there, Denethor notwithstanding, as Denethor didn't have the rule for another four years. Something, however, held him back for another forty years. Maybe it's like he said in Council on pages 241& 245 - 'I am but the heir of Isildur, not Isildur himself. I have had a hard life and a long ...' and '... it seemed fit that Isildur's heir should labour to repair Isildur's fault.'
Perhaps he did not feel his name should be pressed until Isildur's Bane should surface and be destroyed, removing the taint and temptation from his line; until then he just kept following in the bootprints of his Dúnedain forefathers. And then there's his exchange with Boromir on 261:
'Mayhap the Sword-that-was-Broken may still stem the tide - if the hand that wields it has inherited not an heirloom only, but the sinews of the Kings of Men.'
'Who can tell?' said Aragorn. 'But we will put it to the test one day.'
Diplomatic dissembling? Or real doubt and uncertainty whether he can carry the role destiny seems to have scripted for him? I lean toward the latter, but I suppose future chapters will prove it out one way or the other.
Anyway, at the point of his meeting the hobbits, though his real name is soon mentioned, the reader still doesn't know that Strider is the descendant of kings. More clues are soon dropped - on pages 189-190 he tells the hobbits the tale of Lúthien and Beren, their fate, and their descendants through Eärendil, father of the Númenorean line of kings. Then, on page 196 when Pippin asks him how he knows all about the former inhabitants of the broken lands they're travelling, Strider says: 'The heirs of Elendil do not forget all things past.'
And then on page 215 Gandalf tells the finally-wakened Frodo that Strider is not 'only a Ranger', he is of 'the race of the Kings from over the Sea'. On page 226, Bilbo names him the Dúnadan, or Man of the West. First among them, you might say, as far as the Elves are concerned. Still, there is no mention that he is, or would be should he claim it, the current King, though by that point the reader should be starting to guess. Especially since at some point on the journey Strider had actually shown the hobbits the shards of Narsil and quoted the verses about "the crownless again shall be king" that Bilbo wrote of him.
So. People who read the appendices first or are re-reading will know what's up, but first time readers won't know any of the aforementioned names, and still not be sure of his ancestry until page 240 when it is dramatically revealed to the Council. Though even I am picking up a lot more of the details this time through that I have before. Interesting how a few more years of education in literary analysis and an outside reason to go over it with a more critical eye are bringing much more to the surface this time around. I wonder what I'd pick out now if I went over The Chronicles of Narnia again? I read those at least as many times as the Lord of the Rings when I was little.
Back to the theme of 'chance': it snags Merry next, on page 170, whilst he was out wandering during the other hobbits' conversation with Strider. He saw a black shadow, and followed it; when Strider called the act brave, he said: 'Neither brave nor silly, I think. I could hardly help myself. I seemed to be drawn somehow.'
He got close enough to overhear one of the human spies (Bill Ferny) talking to one of the Black Riders. While the Rider noticed him afterward, and nearly did away with him before one of the Inn's employees found him, I wouldn't think it likely that the Rider was pulling him in to begin with; why would it want to be overheard? And indeed, it was Merry's eavesdropping that led them to switch rooms, and so they did not perish in the night.
Another interesting development came on pages 198-199, when Frodo lay half-dreaming due to his Morgul-blade wound, and imagined that '... endless dark wings were sweeping by above him, and that on the wings rode pursuers that sought him in all the hollows of the hills.' Yet another true-dream? Certainly the Ring-wraiths ride winged steeds in future books in search of him, but at that point in time, they were still all a-horseback.
Destiny sticks another couple of toes in the water during the Council. On page 236, Elrond says: 'That is the purpose for which you are called hither. Called, I say, though I have not called you to me, strangers from distant lands. You have come and are here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. Yet it is not so. Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world.'
Then on pages 239-240 we find out that Faramir dreamt several times that someone should go to Imladris (Rivendell) for counsel, and Boromir once; that is why Boromir is present. I found it interesting that Faramir seems to have dreamt it first, and most often, but that Denethor their father did not cave until Boromir, the favored son, also had the dream. Like Frodo's dreams seem to be, it too was prophetic in nature. I wonder if anyone would have come at all if the dream had come only to Faramir?
The episode with Bilbo's finding of the ring comes up again in Gandalf's tale on page 244: '... at last, as [Sauron's] shadow grew, Saruman yielded, and the Council put forth its strength and drove the evil out of Mirkwood - and that was in the very year of the finding of this Ring: a strange chance, if chance it was.'
A side-note, unconnected with the kingship or destiny threads I've been picking out: On page 252, Gandalf says, '... he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.' Interesting commentary on modern times, yes? Also Saruman's commentary, on why he wants to pretend friendship with Sauron, to nudge the world toward Knowledge, Rule, and Order: 'There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.' I.E., "the ends justify the means". How many people in the real world believe that kind of thing? Too many.
Oh, and how could I have forgotten this line, on page 262: '... despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt.' And no one can truly see the end beyond all doubt. I believe it's a Catholic concept that despair is a sin, and you can certainly see that Tolkien absorbed that lesson, but I tend to agree with him here; it's easy to get depressed and doubtful, but getting stuck in that dark viewpoint is a bad thing, as you never know when something might change. And I say that as a person who suffered from chronic mild depression (dysthymia, technically speaking) for years.
Hmm. *flicking pages* Now I'm stumbling over the appearance of Radagast the Brown: I'd nearly forgotten him. He's the reason Gandalf went to Isengard, by passing on Saruman's summons, but he's also the one who talked to the animals and sent Gwaihir the eagle to Gandalf; in the movie his role is abbreviated into a strangely-shaped butterfly/bat-thing. And goodness, was the Council dialogue ever cut up, as well. I don't remember Glóin airing much of the Dwarvish doings in Moria, or Legolas talking about Sméagol's escape from his father's dungeons, or Gandalf's long, long speech. Not to mention the fact that Glorfindel's role was completely cut out in favor of the lady of the piece. Arwen's really not much present in the books, is she?
*yawn* I think I'll stop there for the night, at the end of Book II, Chapter II. I intended to read all of Fellowship today, but I kept getting interrupted and distracted, and we'll only be tested on Book I tomorrow; I have until Wednesday evening to have the entire thing read. I'll just have to block out a great chunk of Tuesday evening for reading, as well.
Speaking of distractions, I turned on the Dead Zone at 10, even though I wasn't done reading yet, and the first thing that happens, Bruce and Johnny are out shopping. Bruce is criticizing Johnny's sense of style and starts pointing out trendy shirts for him; Johnny then asks, "What is this, Bruce Eye for the Psychic Guy?"
Methinks they are mining the long and fruitful tradition of dropping tiny slashy hints through a show to keep those with such opinions interested whilst not alienating those who prefer to see the currently-single boyz in het relationships. I mean, remember a couple of weeks ago when they were out a restaurant because Johnny wanted to keep an eye on the radio guy that was going to commit suicide, and when Bruce found out, he was all, you mean we're here working? Which means he thought it wasn't, as if the two of them go out to dinner for no reason all the time.
And then there's the fact that Bruce drops in all the time without warning, despite the fact that Johnny doesn't need his talents at physical therapy anymore. I'm surprised more people don't slash this show. Or maybe I just haven't found them. Personally, I'm not a slash fan when good het relationships are available, but honestly, I'd rather see Johnny with Bruce than Sara. Good grief, haven't they mined the former engagement for enough pain already? I like Walt. Sara's mostly happy with Walt. It should stay that way.
I was frustrated with most of tonight's episode as a whole. From the first moment the twins walked up and grabbed him, through their little scene making fun of his abilities, it was obvious they were setting him up for a fall, not actually intending to kill the woman, that first time. The obvious extension is that it for at least one of them it would be a cover for the real attempt, so no one would believe Johnny, like the Boy Who Cried Wolf. *rolling eyes* I suppose it was natural, though, for nobody to think of the possibility that someone could manipulate what Johnny saw when he touched them. And I certainly wasn't expecting the very end; they used the set-up tactic in reverse, and the guilty brother fell for it. Props for that, I suppose. I just hope next week's not as bad as the commercials make it look.