The Regime: Midnight Feast

March 26, 2024 6:00 PM - Season 1, Episode 4

As Zubak learns the true location of Keplinger, the chancellor's biggest political rival, Elena attempts to do damage control in the wake of a tragic accident. As public sentiment against her continues to grow, Elena and Nicholas make a rare trip outside palace walls to meet with factory workers. Meanwhile, Agnes' loyalty is tested by an offer from an unknown source.

"I find that an extremely beautiful characteristic of Zubak’s, to stay loyal to a love, even though that love is what drags you down to the lowest place of your life. It is profound."

posted by computech_apolloniajames (4 comments total)

I want to like this show but I don't. I don't understand what story it wants to tell. Moreover, this is apparently a limited series, so the story it wants to tell should be even more clear?

It seems to be written with an ironic wink, but the show feels very serious most of the time. I dislike the oppressively blue-green color grading, which is probably intentionally nauseating.

I think the main actors are doing very well, and I imagine the script reads better on paper, but I'm not feeling anything watching this. Neither amusement (comedy/satire; "satire so dark you can't understand it, simpleton!" seems to be the take of IMDB reviewers who like it) -- nor stakes (drama). The show wanders into the violent so often that the small moments of levity (e.g. Chancellor talks with the kids) are eaten up by it. Zubak is a scary guy, and the acting is amazing here, but the strong focus on him implies this is basically a relationship drama? But also, not. It is probably telling that I assumed Zubak would be a secondary character, or even a character never seen again, as I watched the first episode.

The brief scenes with Zubak and Grant's character immediately brought a dramatic interest that I hadn't felt much up to that point; but now the latter be dead.

The recurrent trope of "person with power has Howard-Hughes type paranoias" is a boring way to constantly under(l/m)ine the personality of the main character. Her on-again-off-again lisp is also a boring trope. It's distracting, in fact, because trope rhetoric has unfortunately programmed into us that a minor speech impediment means the character is unstable/unreliable/unserious (or whatever). It's such a tedious way of attempting to undermine the character, or to gesture in the direction of satire.

Thanks for posting this show, was hoping there'd be more discussion. Maybe it's a negativity-avoidance thing, which I don't think is a fair expectation on Fanfare.
posted by sylvanshine at 11:51 AM on March 30 [1 favorite]

I'm finding it very interesting! It's not exactly 100% what I was expecting, and I don't love it uncritically, but I'm going to see it through to see how it ends.

One of my main quibbles is the intro music, it's too ZANY and WACKY!

Yes, agreed on Keplinger's character arc being so terribly short.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 10:11 AM on April 1 [1 favorite]

Oh man I assumed the occasional lisp was meant to imply some heavy poorly done Botox or filler, which may still be a boring trope at this point I guess, but I hadn't even clocked it as an "instability indicator" in itself.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:59 PM on April 4

One of my main quibbles is the intro music, it's too ZANY and WACKY!

The composer is Alexandre Desplat, longtime musical collaborator of Wes Anderson, if that explains anything.
posted by bbrown at 3:54 PM on April 5