2.1 The Opposite Of Hallelujah After an eleven month hiatus, Defiance is back, and it’s no less mercurial than before. Calling The Opposite Of Hallelujah a story would be generally inaccurate, because almost none of what goes on is joined up in any way. What we get instead is a snapshot of the main characters, where the last nine months of Defiance time has brought them, and some subtle hints about where the second season might go. Niles’ cohort boss in E-Rep nastiness is the wonderful William Atherton as Viceroy Mercado. Atherton has made a good career out of playing characters that everyone hates, being the obnoxious bureaucrat Walter Peck in Ghostbusters, and insensitive reporter Richard Thornburg in Die Hard and Die Hard 2. Other than sneering at the townsfolk and Niles, he wasn’t given much to do so far, but I’ve got some optimism that we’ll truly revile this character in just a few episodes. The highlight of the first season was the Tarrs and already it looks like they’ll take centre stage again this year. With Datak living the high life behind bars in jail and Stahma taking a solid grip on the family business on the outside, sparks seem destined to fly when that odd balance is disturbed. I can’t mention her, without mentioning the reference to Kenya, whom Stahma probably killed, and suggests to Amanda that she should prepare for her not returning. That might be misdirection, but equally I’m confused that Stahma would ever leave enough of Kenya around to have this determined conclusively at any point. Personally, I’d like to see Kenya back. Because merging the characters of her and Amanda into one doesn’t work, and Mia Kirshner does sultry substantially better than Julie Benz. Giving Amanda a drug problem doesn’t suddenly make her a replacement Kenya, I believe. I’ll pass over Rafe, if you don’t mind, and finish with Joshua and Irisa, whose relationship looks destined to become strained this season. That’s probably down to the pretzel weapon that’s trying to take homicidal control over her mind. What really distracted me in their scenes was the art departments attempts to show how their CGI skills could reinvent Hollywood. I’m also curious how the Capital Records build could be on the coast when we’d just seen a long shot of the Chinese Theatre towards the Hollywood sign which was all land, and building is in-between? Terraforming is confusing isn’t it? Like how you can get from Chicago to LA by boat, I guess. Overall, I was mildly disappointed with The Opposite Of Hallelujah, because I expected something more dramatic to happen that would grab the audience to find out what happens next, and for the most part this was business as usual experience. As we get thirteen episodes this year, and not twelve as in the first season, I’d give them this one, but I really want to see some story arc development next week that isn’t so derivative of what went on before. Read Billy’s review of the season one finale, Everything Is Broken, here.
