6
Just when I thought I had a tenuous grasp on where the series was going—the Turned fighting a widespread campaign of oppression led by Lord Massen, possibly assisted by Lavinia and Dr. Hague—screenwriter Jane Espenson and director Zetna Fuentes make my assumptions disappear as quickly as I would have eaten all of those delicious financiers. Instead, “True,” the sixth and final episode of this first half of the first season of
The Nevers, connects nearly all of our questions about Amalia into one sprawling episode that shifts our genre focus from steampunk to sci-fi. Was it ambitious to load in all this backstory and exposition, use a whole-new vocabulary of terminology, and explain the horror of divisive nuclear war and the potential of the Galanthi in about 35 minutes? Absolutely. Was it messy?
When
The Nevers first introduced Lord Massen, he seemed like your standard-issue, old-white-guy fearmonger. By using societal fear of the Touched to consolidate power around himself, and labeling the Touched and their turns as threats to national security, Lord Massen has been an enemy of Mrs. True, Penance, and the other inhabitants of St. Romaulda’s Orphanage from the start. He’s clearly working with other lords to plan some kind of consolidated action against the Touched; recall the paperwork they were reading through in last week’s episode “Ignition.” He has a decades-long friendship with Lavinia Bidlow, which perhaps suggests that he knows about her experiments with Dr. Hague and those human/cyborg things. I’m not saying he’s a good guy! But… does he have a point to be a little afraid of what the Touched can do? Especially now that whatever entity responsible for their powers is trying to make contact?