Welcome back to our weekly coverage of Syfy’s Deadly Class, friends! After last week’s momentous episode, the status quo feels a little shifted. For the most part, everyone’s back to school and engaging in classes, but rumors are filling the hallways and a new authoritative presence is making herself known to the students and teachers. Relationships are formed and shattered, and the cast is handled phenomenally. Also, Shabnam got late 80’s nudes from his Swedish friend in a chatroom.
Read on, and look out for SPOILERS.
1. Madame Gao makes her mark.
Deadly Class gets another villain to utilize in the once-before seen Madame Gao. Think Lin, but a whole lot more oppressive and terrifically more overacted. The opening of this episode has Gao dealing with the aftermath of “Saudade”, as she interrogates both Saya and Maria as to what happened with Chico. Considering Maria’s already fragile state post-last episode, Gao’s particularly rough with her, giving audiences a distaste for her right from the beginning.
Throughout the episode, more flame is added to her villainous fire. She sides with Brandy, a Nazi student, over everyone’s favorite Matthew McConaughey impersonator Master Zane, and lets her scar his head with the letter “A” whilst holding him down. She also likes to mess with Miss De Luca, telling her to stop favoring Saya in the class as people in their field should focus on the mission first, even at everyone else’s expense. She also bullies Master Lin, her apparent brother, into how he should teach the school. Madame Gao might accentuate every line she gets to my excruciating annoyance, but it’s hard to deny her screen presence.
2. Classroom antics.
After the free-wheeling, drug-riddled adventure of the last episode, it’s refreshing to see the students of King’s Dominion just… act like students. Of an assassination school, for context. I love Billy’s naivety in trying to teach Marcus how to work a relationship, especially as he tries to play hard-to-get with Petra to his own detriment. I also love that in a twisted conversation with Miss De Luca, Billy ends up in a risque, BDSM-esque situation with her, much to his surprise. It’s also kind of comforting to see Marcus mess something up again as, in his attempt to save Shabnam from being bullied by Viktor, Shabnam reminds him that now his tormentor will simply push harder and bully him in different ways.
We get to see more of Willie too, and not just watching him brood this time. The episode shows us Willie and Marcus’ part-time job in a comic retailer, which gives us plenty of chance for easter eggs. However, what it does give Willie is a chance to flirt with a potential love interest, Gabrielle, in the store. Sure, it does have a heavy-handed “Watchmen” reference (“You gonna show me the Alan Moore section?”), but it’s nice to see Willie in good spirits out in the open again.
3. King’s Dominion has good teachers again.
After the Henry Rollins-played teacher Jurgen (I still can’t get over Henry Rollins’ inclusion in this show, sorry) was semi-exiled by Lin, I was afraid that we wouldn’t get any more interesting or quirky teachers in the class moments. Thankfully, I was proven wrong. Master Zane gets to come back in an examination of Saya, Maria and Brandy’s skills in fighting off ninjas (of course). He elevates his character from being a slow-talking weirdo to the loveable, socially aware old guy, as he fails Brandy for being overtly racist and bullying Saya and Maria.
We also get Miss De Luca, the hand-to-hand class teacher, getting to show her power in interesting ways, especially as just recently mentioned with Billy. She’s a lot of fun outside of this, however, addressing the class in a standoff-ish manner and acting totally cool and aloof. It’ll be interesting to see how the two develop whilst working under Gao, but I hope they don’t lose their charm shown in this episode.
4. Maria, Maria, Maria.
Deadly Class now starts to get deep into Maria’s character in the wake of her killing Chico. It’s revealed to us, and a completely unlikeable Marcus later in the episode that she suffers from Bipolar. Not only this, but she has been off her medication for the last month as she thought her ‘stable’ relationship with Marcus would help her. Regardless, it’s hard not to admire her as she keeps her cool and puts up a facade at nearly every turn – whether it’s Gao interrogating her or the rest of her Cartel friends coming to her door, Maria keeps her massive internal struggle in check with a painfully clenched fist.
Continued belowThe terrifying animated origin scene this episode is devoted to her, too, and as usual, it gives us a whole lot of perspective and rationale for her actions. Having her entire family killed by Chico’s, who then saves her in a strange act of remorse, Maria has had to wear a mask for more than half of her life. It’s not surprising that it’s Marcus that tips her over the edge, either. Marcus, who can’t accept responsibility for his actions with Maria or deal with the fact that she’s mentally ill, constantly placing blame on her, and taking advantage of her in a moment of fragility as the two have sex for the first time in a graveyard. Maria puts up with a lot of shit from everyone, and her actor pulls it off her iron-like resolve phenomenally.
5. Fuckface starts to take action.
Chester, or his personally preferred nom de guerre Fuckface, isn’t one of Marcus’ nicer friends. The real culprit for burning down Marcus’ orphanage, the show has teased his psychotic villainy for almost the entire season now, and we see him start to become a true threat to Marcus. Of course, we get a token scene of his villainy about halfway through the episode. We see Fuckface stand in an alleyway with a camera, filming people and stabbing them seemingly at random. It’s terrifying as the first use of random, unwarranted violence in the show so far, violence that doesn’t have a rationale or motive.
Of course, these moments haven’t felt like true threats to Marcus and his gang. The show gives us a powerful final scene as Fuckface calls up Marcus at the academy, and reveals that he knows all his secrets, including everything involving his relationship with Maria. It’s chilling to see how much he knows, especially as he seems like an incompetent redneck on the surface, and everything is capped off as we find out he has Chico’s severed head, threatening to send it to the Cartel. Rest assured, we can expect big things to come from Fuckface as a villain from the incoming episodes.
That’s it for this week of Deadly Class. Did you have a particular favorite moment from the episode? Feel free to throw down in the comments! Otherwise, stay tuned next week as we see what Fuckface has in store for Marcus and his friends.
