Flesh and Bone Episode 8: Scorched Earth

Scorched Earth: Deliberate destruction of resources thereby denying their use to the enemy.

And now we enter into one of the most unsatisfying series finales I’ve ever seen in my LIFE. And, as always, all the trigger warnings because GOOD LORD THIS SHOW.

Morning, Claire wakes up to seeing her books thrown across the apartment and her shorn ponytail on the pillow. Irritatingly, they did NOT make her remaining hair look like it actually would if she’s cut it off the way they showed her- instead it’s a perfectly cute chin length bob, and not very short patch that would have been at the base of the ponytail. Basically, I’m super annoyed that they wimped out on this.

Claire reads the book that Romeo mutilated, then opens the window and calls him down. He wakes up in his bed made of a kayak and bottlecaps. She explains that she sees what he was trying to do with the book- she’s got to break her own chains and he is the hero because he saved Mia. She apologizes for yelling at him.

Romeo goes back up and pokes holes in all of his bottlecaps. In Pittsburgh, Bryan packs. His father yells from the living room where he’s watching old home movies of Bryan and Claire as kids, and of Bryan’s introduction to hypermasculinity. Bryan isn’t amused, and tells his father that he’s going to the market. His father does not notice the packed backpack. Bryan drives to the airport instead.

Paul and Jessica and Paul’s assistant walk to the theater, talking about how Kiira is MIA and Paul’s like “this is the best” and Jessica is like “THIS IS THE WORST” and Paul tells her that half their audience will be dead in five years so….I’m not sure what his point is.

The kids are on stage for an emergency rehearsal, and Daphne is like, “How am I supposed to be feeling?” and Ross tells her that she’s supposed to be sad for Kiira but she’s totally psyched and Daphne is like got it one, pretty boy. Daphne will be dancing in Rubies, and Claire will be doing all performances of Daikini. Cool. The Kilted Stagehand is messing with the ghost light, the stage lights can’t go up for another 15 minutes, so the kids are sent to warm up.

Paul sees Claire’s hair and the ghost light shatters. Paul freaks out and tells Claire that she needs to take breaths and everything will be fine (Claire’s like ‘yeah of course”). “I have complete faith in you…just do what you do, my darling, yes? Yes?”

Daphne is getting the Rubies costume altered, and going over her role with Ross, asking for clarification on movements and that she’ll need a bit of lift here and there, and then tells him that if he gets her through this, there will be an epic blow job in it for him. “We pull this off, it’ll be better than the best sex you’ve ever had. Trust me.” Daphne strips off the costume, and they run through a few more movements.

The pianist is talking with Mia, and Mia finally confesses that she has no idea what her life is now or how to not be a dancer. The pianist is like, you have maybe five years left in your career regardless. “I’ll never be a prima.” “You were never going to be prima.” “Who am I supposed to be now?” “You are a dancer. That is who you are.” She cries and they hug.

Romeo sews his bottle caps to a coat, to the background music of “Clare de Lune” by Claude Debussy, (aka “that piano music at the end of Ocean’s 11. Seriously, you Google that and you get Clare de Lune). He also smashes one of the message bottles and reads the paper in it.

Claire returns home and Bryan is in the entryway. She smiles and leads him upstairs. Romeo watches her return home, chars the end of a cork and smears the soot under his eyes. Bryan is very slow about going up the stairs, and slow about taking his coat off, while he stares at Claire’s hair.

She puts the ticket for the show on the counter, and Bryan’s like, tell me what happened. “I got everything I ever dreamed of…none of it feels real. I won’t feel real unless you see me.” She begins fussing about the apartment being a mess and maybe there’s a clean towel while Bryan considers his life and his choices, and then tells her that he can’t stay, he’s going now.

“Why did you come?” “BECAUSE YOU CALLED ME.” He’s done and Claire should be done and that’s what she wanted, so he’s going away-not to Pittsburgh, but Thailand maybe. Far away. He tells her that he’s been watching small children- girls- and thinking they might be his, and at least through all their dumpster fire-ness they created something good. Claire snaps and tells him that she punched herself in the stomach to cause a miscarriage and she wanted it to die- it’s a monster. “I never even looked at it.” “You said she was beautiful.” (Well no, she said “they told me she was beautiful” which is not the same) “It’s a monster because YOU’RE a monster.” Bryan leaves.

In her dressing room, Claire stares at the mirror and the glass ballerina.

Gala- everyone is in black and colors are not a thing. Jessica sees Sergei, and he summons her. He thanks her for the tickets and requests a picture with Paul. Now. “Indulge me.” Jessica pulls Paul away from other rich people to meet Sergei, it’s awkward.

The dancers are in costume plus warm ups, and Paul gives what he REALLY thinks is an inspiring St. Crispin’s Day speech- and maybe from someone who doesn’t abuse them, it would be, but he’s a petty despot.

In her hospital room, Mia works through the movements of the corps, while Daphne stresses. Ross runs over and calms her down, and as a last ditch “break the tension” move, reminds her of the blow job promise (I am, as you know, not impressed with Sascha’s acting, but the way he does it it’s very clear to me that this isn’t meant to be predatory, it’s tension breaking and reassuring. “I’ll get you through this, we have this.”). It works, and they KILL it.

At the same time, Kiira is having sex with her husband, who mutters that she’s going to be a wonderful mother, and she looks terrified.

After Rubies, Ross tells Daphne “that was better than sex, right?” Jessica brings a huge bouquet to Daphne. “Sergei sends his love. Now that he’s an official friend of the ballet.” Daphne basically craps her pants.

In Claire’s dressing room, her face is being done, and Toni walks in to select her wig. The stage manager calls 30 minutes. On stage, people are doing last minute warmups, and the five minute call is made. Claire’s dresser pulls her out of her sweatshirt and Claire goes up on pointe to warm up her feet only to discover glass bits in her pointe shoes. There are small cuts on her toes, and she looks at the rest of the company, and eats a bit of the glass. He lips bleeds and Paul sees her and she glares back at him.

The lights come up for Dakini, and it’s all the bits we’ve seen, only properly staged and costumed and lit. We watch Paul watching her (and I am super into Ben Daniels’ FACE right now, he has SUCH control). Anyway, it’s GORGEOUS.

Bryan walks along the river, and sees a giant white arch sculpture that he sits next to- it’s snowing, and he looks at the headshot of Claire he keeps in his wallet. In his pocket is Claire’s ponytail. Claire and Ross dance their pas de deux (I hope I can find youtube videos of this for you guys who don’t watch the show, because this is beautiful and I can’t recap dance for you in the way that expresses anything.) There’s a brief clip here in this NYT review.

Romeo finds Bryan- dressed in his bottle cap armor coat, and after some back and forth (“Don’t you know who are?” “Can it be you don’t know who you are?”) where Bryan finally snaps and asks Romeo if he has a death wish, Romeo stabs Bryan with a bottle shard. Bryan basically accepts that this is where his life should end, and Romeo slashes Bryan’s throat (“You are the dragon…I need to do the right thing”). He takes Bryan’s bag, carves a copy of Bryan’s tattoo in his own chest, and leaves.

Claire does her solo as Bryan dies, and the finale. There’s a standing ovation, Claire is presented with her bouquet and Toni comes out to thunderous applause. Paul glowers from the wings.

Claire walks outside and smiles into the falling snow. In her dressing room, with the wig off, she looks at two roses, and sits down to stare at herself in the mirror some more. Paul comes in, and creeps. He stands her up and they stare into the mirror and his runs his hands up her arms and across her face. “Tell me everything you’re feeling. Tell me.”

“No.”

RHG:

Okay, well.

Elyse: What. The. Fuck.

Okay, the part where we saw the ballet, that was cool. I liked that.

The rear was one huge letdown. First of all, I don’t feel like Claire changed in any way from the start of the series to the end. She’s still the vacant staring broken doll. She is now clearly dependent on her abuser.

And the whole bit where Romeo kills Bryan makes no sense either. I don’t really care that Bryan is dead but I don’t know why Romeo had to kill him. I wanted Romeo to be more; we saw this plot line coming from a mile away. I wanted Claire to be more. Basically this just fell so flat.

The dance sequence was the only good part. Sascha can’t act but he can dance and so can Sarah Hay. They did way better emoting during the dance than at any other point unfortunately.

At this point I’m not watching Season 2.

RHG: There isn’t going to be a season 2. That was it. It’s done. There’s no wrapping up of storylines (save Bryan). There’s just everyone in a bigger mess than they were in before (except maybe Ross).

The company is now part of Sergei’s empire. Daphne can’t keep her lives separate anymore. Jessica is now totally blackmailable. Kiira is now going to be trapped by her body in a different way. Mia…well Mia might be able to walk away better than she was before, but who knows. Paul? Paul will be deposed someday, and the harder he tries to hold on, the worse it will be for him. He was always going to be first against the wall, but how long the torture lasts is up to him.

I don’t think Claire is quite the same person- at the beginning of her time at ABC she wouldn’t have told Paul “no.” What happens between them now- she’s showed the world that she’s capable of greatness and she only needs to use him as a stepping stone, whereas he NEEDS her or his company dies. Whether she can use that strength to keep herself on an even keel and transcend beyond the ogre’s lair she grew up in? The show hasn’t given us that information. I am choosing to believe she can and she will.

I have heard rumblings that this was supposed to be a longer run and they got cut down in the middle of production, and that’s why there are all these overstuffed storylines that never had time to resolve. That’s not the only problem, but there’s an article on Vulture that conceives the whole series as a gothic horror ballet, much like Swan Lake or Giselle– the heroine at the whims of her masters, the most ineffective heroes, the supporting corps… I don’t totally buy it, but it works to an extent. Bryan basically allowing himself to be killed because he knows that’s the only way he can keep Claire safe from him… that was the only place he could end, and it was on a stage while she was on stage, and I liked that synchronicity.

Another thing that did happen here is that the shows directors and cinematographers all understand how to FILM dance so we as the audience get the whole picture, with close ups that don’t take away from anything happening on stage. SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE, PLEASE TAKE NOTE, BECAUSE YOU HAVE BEEN GETTING WORSE WITH EACH GODDAMN SEASON.

When this show was good, it was good. And it was good when it was about ballet. Cut out the Russian mafia and all related storylines, cut out the incest, and make it about the company and the efforts Sad Little King Paul goes to keep his petty kingdom and actually give us more dancing, and this would have been great.

So that wraps up Flesh and Bone for you, us, and the world. We’ll be back doing recaps for Agent Carter, starting January 19th.