Welcome back to our Deadly Class coverage! This week, the show finally starts to settle into its own vision separate from the comic, and I’m super grateful that it does. We get more bizarre and interesting assassination/criminal style classes and we get some fun friendships developed. To top it all off and cement the show’s status as a part teen drama, we even get a school dance! If you fear spoilers, turn away and come back later, I promise we will still be here.
1. Welcome to King’s Dominion – but for real this time.
Coming out of this episode, I realized that one of the main reasons I enjoyed it was that it focused on the larger population of the school rather than just centering on Marcus. And that’s great! The episode explores the social cliques, or factions, or whatever they were referred to a lot more in this episode. This is mainly focalized through the hierarchy of the factions, which is really just everyone else lording over the Rats. The Rats, as you might have guessed by now, is Marcus and the other outcasts like Billy and Petra. The fact that they are rats is exemplified by the wretch-worth scene of Chico putting actual rats into their cafeteria lunches. The episode delivers satisfying revenge for the Rats later in the show as they proceed to shoot everyone at the ball with blowdarts tipped with intense hallucinogenics, set to a fantastic punk eighties soundtrack. It also shows the Rats sticking up and wreaking vengeance for Petra who was just shamed in front of the whole ball, and that’s the kind of camaraderie I can definitely get behind.
I should mention too that I’m still loving the “dark arts” style classes that pop up to drive the plot or teach Marcus a very specific lesson. The Poisons class returns with it’s suitably quirky and dated teacher returns (more on him later). Plus we get the addition of the Atypical Combat Class with a teacher who I had to really double check was not Woody Harrelson and a chilling Fundamentals of Psychopathy class where Marcus tries to bare his teeth to authority once again, a little more successfully this time.
2. Saya and Maria’s budding friendship.
I love that the show spent even a little time developing the friendship between Saya and Maria, outside of talking about Marcus. Both are really solid characters, Maria arguably more so because of her acting, but they have super enjoyable and infectious chemistry due to being each unique. Maria longing for a classical nuclear family with Saya rebelling against that and being badass forever is pinpoint perfect, and I really hope that what Chico seeded later doesn’t come to fruition down the line just to spite me.
On top of their discussion, they even get to see a bit of action! Maria tries to buy alcohol for the dance with a fake ID, with Saya trying to slip some out from behind her. It gets botched up, and the two end up knocking out the owner and robbing the story, and guys, it’s just such a fun scene. Plus it means we get to see the two of them tipsy and laughing at everyone else at the school dance, and who wouldn’t want to see that?
3. Less Marcus is Good Marcus
As I stated in the first thought, this episode focuses more on the wider world of King’s Dominion. That, of course, means we get to spend less time with Marcus’ dreary thoughts, and as it turns out, he’s much more palatable in smaller doses. We get to see Marcus and Willie’s relationship develop significantly as Willie starts off the episode not willing to even acknowledge him in public, to fighting off Chico for him at the ball. It’s a drastic turn of events, but the show builds up to it well, and Marcus genuinely seems way more pleasant when spending time with Willie, especially with them playing Punch Out!! at the start of the reference (All those counting the eighties visual references, take a drink).
Marcus still remains to be super dramatic and way too grim compared to everyone else at the school, however. His usual interior monologue is toned down in this episode, thankfully, and actually makes a little more sense as we see that it occurs when he’s writing it down in a journal. However, we see it especially when he has his little discussions with the Poisons teacher, making comments like “I’m shit at everything.” and “Talk is cheap, what do I know?” with his usual heavy dose of cynicism.
Continued below4. The grown-ups have problems too.
There’s a lot of the long game being played in this episode as we see Master Lin start to report to his superiors, alluding to goals and missions that are far beyond what we’ve seen so far. It gives the series a sense of scale and the plot something to build up to, giving a reason for viewers to stay invested in the series. I like that we also see a more human side of Master Lin in this episode through his interactions with Jurgen, the poisons teacher. Jurgen seems to be the fighter for the beaten down underdog, appropriate considering he is played by eighties Black Flag frontman and all around punk Henry Rollins. We see Lin oppose him in this vision of supporting the Rats, yet Jurgen starts to get under his skin and leaves him speechless by the end of the scene.
Eventually, Lin is tasked by his superiors to assassinate Jurgen, though we see a lot of humanity in Lin as he tries to scrounge for reasons not to do so. In the end, the two come to an emotional struggle aptly involving poisons, before Lin lets him go in a surprising moment of vulnerability. It sheds light on a character who was previously portrayed simply as the emotionless, cruel headmaster for the school, and he comes off much more complex because of it.
5. There is still a LOT of cheese.
If the dialogue turned you away in the first two episodes, this one won’t do much to change your mind. The quips and one-liners come heavy here, and surprisingly they’re not all from Marcus. When we see Marcus’ everyday life living with Shabnam in a dorm, we see how annoying he is already – pulling out lines like “They never suspect the old Shab-Attack!” with even the actor looking a little sweaty from delivering the line. Jurgen in his conversation with Marcus also pulls out some weighty metaphors relating to the higher-class being treated like royalty in King’s Dominion, though it feels a little more earned given his age and years of experience as an assassin.
When the Rats are revving themselves up for revenge in the bathroom after throwing up their rat-infested food, however, is the biggest mixed bag for me. One the one hand, it’s an endearing scene and kind of charming that they are working together. However, when Lex (who I still can’t decide if I like) throws a line to Billy saying “Soldier, are you prepared for war?!”, I couldn’t help but immediately turn away in shame.
That’s it for this week’s coverage, and I’m glad to say that Deadly Class looks to be finding its feet and increasing in quality, with this episode being my favorite to date. What about you guys? Let us know what you think in the comments, and remember to come back next week for “Mirror People”.
