Outrageous
I am perhaps not the best judge of this show. I might be a tad obsessed with the Mitfords. I have poured over everything these prolific sisters have written and therefore know their history. I know what came before and what came after so I don't know if someone who at the very least hasn't read Mary S. Lovell's biography from which this show is adapted would get it. Does Outrageous tell you enough that you understand the dynamic or are you like my Dad asking me questions every two seconds? But in fairness, my Dad asks me questions no matter what we're watching, I just knew all the answers this time around. On the other hand I might be the best judge of this show because I know they got it right. They chose the perfect inflection point in the lives of the Mitfords to show how this family fractured. How the fanaticism of fascism broke this family apart. And the thing is, you don't have to be a British family in the 1930s split by political ideology to understand this. Just look at America today, families are being torn apart, and not just because of evil policies by the government, but by political beliefs within families. This show isn't just relevant, it's so timely it's spooky. Bessie Carter is the perfect Nancy Mitford, she has her mom's hair, her Dad's nose, and the talent to match both. She's wry and exasperated, she is the voice of the audience wondering how her two beloved sisters, Diana and Unity, are drawn into Hitler's orbit. And, like a good sister, she tries to understand, she actually goes to one of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists rallies and she is horrified. How can people she love be drawn in by this hate. And I think the scene where Diana and Unity go to their first Nazi rally captures it all. It's terrifying. The fervor, the fanaticism, the fashionable branding. Really, the Nazis had the branding, which is why to this day the swastika brings such primal fear and hatred with it. But their expressions show how caught up these two siblings are in the Reich. Joanna Vanderham playing against type as Diana is luxuriously evil. She is genuinely shocked that people don't love what she stands for. As for Shannon Watson as Unity? She is sheer perfection. When reading about Unity it's hard to get a read on her because of what came after coloring her history. Unity was so split by her loyalties between her family in England and her love for Germany that she attempted to kill herself when war was officially declared. That hasn't happened here. Yet. God willing we get more seasons. But the enfeebled state in which her life continued after she put a bullet in her brain makes her be treated in a certain light by historians. She reads as developmentally disabled or autistic. She may very well have been autistic with her fanatical obsession with Hitler. She literally went to the same cafe Hitler went to day in and day out just for the chance of seeing him. And Shannon Watson plays this to Aryan superiority. She portrays that naivete combined with cruelty. A wide eyed innocence that publicly decries the Jews because it's what Hitler believes. She is someone you can totally see killing the family pet. Something this series totally baits you with. If this show has any faults it would be that, for the moment, they are downplaying how dangerous Mosley was, in particular the Battle of Cable Street which was handled so exquisitely in the reboot of Upstairs Downstairs, and there just aren't enough episodes. Six isn't nearly enough. More!
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