Welcome back for the seventh instalment of the (supposedly) biweekly October Faction review! This was definitely a rockier episode following a couple of really stand-out ones. We got some new reveals (most pretty obvious, but they were there) and we got a lot of weird choices that might come back to bite the show in the ass. So with that in mind, spoilers ahead.
1. Presidio takes a sharp left turn into fascism
If this episode had a mission statement, it would be to make Presidio completely irredeemable, and in that it more than succeeded. Fred and Deloris develop a complete distrust for Presidio, alongside Moshe they discover a monster concentration camp and we see said a new side of Hannah Mercer and Edith Mooreland show, revealing their cold, ruthless utilitarianism. While I think it’s good not to have shows that worship shadowy government organisations, I think that sliding to the other end of the spectrum doesn’t help much either. Agencies like the CIA or Mossad aren’t equivalent to Nazis, but they aren’t angels. When you turn allegorical organisations like Presidio into unequivocal villains, it discounts the metaphor they draw and allows people to live with lesser evils like the CIA seeing as “they aren’t that bad.” I feel like I’m asking too much of this show whenever I ask for subtlety, but here I am anyway.
It was funny to see that Presidio’s agents became stormtroopers the moment they made a heel turn, spewing lifeless military-speak from their weirdly identical voices as they’re gunned down by our heroes. It comes off as a bit conceited from an episode all about newfound compassion, with Fred and Deloris being treated as if they have to choose between man and monster, rather than getting to ride the line between the two. Also every grunt on this show has the worst reaction time, it’s incredible.
To be fair, once you brush over the questionable story choices and just accept that Presidio are essentially nazi monster hunters, the presentation of it is well done. After all, every monster in this world looks really human (except for the one who was literally the devil), they can go out in daylight, have kids, hide their physical differences. One of them was literally just a guy with gills. So the show does a really good job of presenting the othering of monsters as a product of personal biases and ideologies, not their antithetical appearances. They’re shackled with latin names and biological codings that dehumanise them, it helps minimalist creature design send a message. I don’t think October Faction is breaking new ground, but I feel like the costumers and designers did a really good job of bringing subtlety to a very plainspoken script.
2. Why isn’t Maggie dead yet
I’m genuinely amazed that they didn’t kill off Maggie last episode, they had the perfect chance to get rid of her, but I guess she has even more in common with a cockroach than I thought. It was almost worth keeping her alive just so we could see Deloris very casually removing a kitchen knife from her stomach; but Maggie’s cliche, sardonic delivery of every single cliche, sardonic line is killing me. I don’t get why she’s playing hard-ball with everyone, her grand-kids are dead for all she knows and she’s hopped up on painkillers that Presidio are giving her, just work with somebody. I just want to see her have a single interaction with someone that isn’t useless and convoluted and full of endless posturing.
I think we could get some interesting interplay between her and the Octobernator if he does turn out to be Seth, seeing as she’s the one who sicced Presidio on him. Maybe seeing her with Samuel will be interesting, but things aren’t boding well given the track record. I feel like her learning Samuel is still alive was one of the weaker cliffhangers on the show too, it’s information we already knew as an audience, and learning that Maggie is shocked isn’t amazing, climactic information.
3. Moshe is here
Dayo Ade took “Nadir” by storm, showing off some really great acting and bringing life to Moshe, a character who just shouldn’t have worked as well as he does. I mean, he’s a character introduced at almost the end of the season with the most cliche backstory ever, yet he has such a magnetic personality that that’s all just forgiven since he’s such a great foil to Fred.
Also he’s just a regular vampire! Finally! He’s got spiky canine teeth, not some weird predator mouth, sure he doesn’t burn in sunlight but it’s a start! He also might be the least stealthy person ever, despite wearing full camo for the entirety of the last two episodes. In fact the camo’s part of the problem, especially when he has to sneak around in sleek silicon facilities. But I mean, he shoots a guy in the head out of mercy, even though they’re trying to be silent, he then carries a body out of the facility in broad daylight in a place that they’ve already emphasised is riddled with monster trackers and motion sensors. If he doesn’t get swarmed by Presidio agents next episode then he might just be the luckiest character on the show.
4. Cardboard Fred
Fred was like the anti-Moshe this episode, just the most emotionless, wooden performance ever. In every scene, Dayo Ade will be acting his heart out and J.C MacKenzie is just giving him nothing, I don’t even know why, MacKenzie’s performances were so strong at the start of the season, but when he figures out his kids are gone there’s practically no reaction. Deloris was screaming on the floor but Fred doesn’t even pause, same thing when he’s reunited with Viv and Geoff, nothing.
The curse spreads to young Fred too, who hilariously grapples with the weakest script of any opening so far. For one he might be the dumbest kid to ever sneak into a bar, as he very loudly talks about how he and his brother aren’t twenty-one, and then asks his brother to get his gun out so they can look at it. My favourite bit might have to be gill-guy announcing that Seth has walked into an ambush, dramatic music starts playing, the camera zooms in, and a SINGLE MAN walks out of a toilet. Great stuff.
5. Remember when Alice used to be a psycho?
Alice’s turn into maternalism this episode was unexpected. I feel like her shift from depraved killer to the symbol of a repressed culture is one with dangerous implications, but it could end up as a really well formed allegory if treated correctly. As always, Maxim Roy acts the hell out of her new role and does it perfectly, her introduction this episode was unexpectedly perfect. She’s never been the problem, her script has.
At the end of the day you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Alice murdered dozens and dozens of people, and even if you absolve the murders of monsters or soldiers, she has pretty regularly killed innocent strangers for no reason other than her own gain. So on one hand, if Harlow becomes the sympathetic figurehead to a marginalised people then this monster metaphor suddenly equates minorities to monsters and inspirational figures like Martin Luther King (or even a more controversial, separatist activist like Malcolm X) to an entirely violent figure like Harlow. But if the show paints Harlow as a total villain then it contradicts the extreme lengths this episode went to to humanise monsters. When the show denounces bigotry but still exalts in Harlow’s depraved violence it basically argues that while stereotypes are bad, they’re rooted in fact.
The only way I think the show can still skirt past these clumsy implications is if the show gives viewers a clear alternative to Harlow, another monster who embodies the good parts of Harlow’s philosophy without pairing it with violence; and to the show’s credit, it’s primed to provide this with both Moshe and the Octobernator being unequivocally good monsters, now it’s just down to the show to see if it can capitalise on this. Anyway, her stuff with Viv and Geoff was cool, I liked that she gave them even more evil twin energy and used a bunch of puberty metaphors even though they’re 17.
There are a lot of really weird choices and implications that the show is going to have to skirt around in these last three episodes. So I’m definitely interested to see whether it can stick the landing, for that and more, come back next time for episode eight: “Alice.”
