“Back then, I could tell he was even more lost than I was” - Reena
The second episode of Charlie Jade is predominantly a character introduction piece, as well as the set-up of the protagonist’s main goal that will drive him throughout the show; to get home to his universe and to be with Jasmine again.
The episode starts with a heavy focus on the small blue stones that the little girl collects, the importance laid on these stones would of course become something that the show never got a chance to explain, due to its cancellation (and that Sawyer won’t even reveal the meaning of now, since he is hopeful that the show will return at some point).
Odd, askew (often diagonal) camera angels are here even more prominently used; I believe as a symbol (and subconscious effect) that everything in the Betaverse is not quite right for Charlie, and as he expected it to be (him of course expecting the Alphaverse and not knowing there was anything but). Again we have various hues of blue, importantly clearly distinguishing the Betaverse from the other universes by simple colour separation.
Several main players to the show are introduced here properly; 01 Boxer is shown to not only be a rapist, but also (possibly) a killer, Reena a complete innocent thrown into what she perceives as hell (reinforced by the flashback of her dead friend reading a biblical-like passage about these alternate universes), Essa and her hate filled relationship with 01 (Essa: “You’re a self indulgent sociopath who should be imprisoned”), Galt and his willingness to let 01 treat him in demeaning ways (often sexually playful; to add further degradation?), Lubinsky as the kind and unappreciated helping hand and guide to Charlie’s struggle.
Here, Charlie is shown to have a more vulnerable side to him than we saw in the pilot; at the loss of Jasmine, when he finds their empty and changed apartment, he breaks down on the spot and cries out for her. He is a little too persistent and un-accepting in the way he probes and asks questions of people – the man at what was Papa Louie’s house, the other Jasmine (Paula) at the bar – but then, just when would you drop all inhibitions about believing something ‘crazy’ and accept that you must be in a parallel universe, only marginally different from your own? Surely many would think it a Truman Show-esque trick that everyone around them was playing on him before they would believe the former?
By the end of the episode we have Charlie standing, panting (after having had Reena outrun him), with the effects of what he has seen and lost in this place alien to him showing vividly on his face.
A very different episode to the pilot, in that it focused far more on character development than action and cool set pieces. The ever beautiful soundtrack playing in the background (surely beginning to become addictive to fresh viewers and ears at about this point?) adds to the elegance of it all. An important and well-established character episode.
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