Apr 05 2009
Kings — “Insurrection”
*SPOILER ALERT* Things go from bad to worse in Kings, “Insurrection”, as King Silas (Ian McShane) offers more of his lands in Gilboa in an effort of good faith of peace with Gath. These lands of course include David’s ancestral home, thus displacing his entire family and friends. David (Christopher Egan) ends up in the middle, being forced to choose between standing up for his family and standing by the King. Silas asks for David’s trust, and so David goes to try and stop an uprising led by his brother–unsuccessfully.
The protests over the land deal quickly get out of hand, while the King acts disinterested and unconcerned. He goes off fishing in the countryside while his kingdom seems on the brink of Civil War. In the meantime, his plotting brother-in-law William tries to get Prince Jack (Sebastian Stan) to be the new King when they overtake the government. Jack asks for something to sweeten the deal–control over the press conglomerate William has just purchased. He wants the power to keep the cameras on his father, to show all of the mistakes the press are usually ordered away from.
The insurrection soon leads to bloodshed, and the King’s daughter gets taken as a hostage. At the same time, the King’s handler Thomasina (Marlyne Afflack) takes a leap from her usual stoic acquiescence to tell the King he seems to have lost his heart and therefore his ability to rule as a fair king. It’s a wonderful scene, and we don’t know what his reaction will be to being spoken to so plainly. The King does snap into action, sending in the troops and snipers to kill whomever it takes to get his daughter out safely.
Desperate to save his brother, David gets the King to give him enough time to try and talk the rebels out of their hostage situation. David and his brother fight, and once they hit the ground, the King orders the snipers to fire. In the ensuing scuffle, one of the wounded rebels tries to shoot the King’s daughter, but David’s brother shoots him first.
The King releases David’s brother into his custody, though the caveat is that his brother will have to stand trial. As he feared, David gets disowned by his family for taking the King’s side. And David gets once again thrown for a loop as he realizes the King had the whole thing planned from the beginning–to let the coup happen and appear to let things slip in order to draw his enemies out. What the King doesn’t know, however, is that his brother-in-law was able to avoid capture by the police because of a tip from General Abner (Wes Studi) who feels the King has become weak. The plot thickens.
Back on the royal front, the King gets a new ally to buy out the press again and shuts Jack’s newly found power down. But when Jack protests to his father that every attempt he makes to stand out gets squashed, the King offers him a ministry position–a position that has all of the work and none of the glory because he’ll be the brains behind the face. Turns out that face will be the woman who bought out the news station. This should set up an interesting dynamic for future episodes.
At the premiere I hadn’t been entirely sure how Sebastian Stan was going to work out compared to powerhouse actors like McShane and the Queen, Susannah Thompson. I’d also been pleasantly surprised at how engaging Christopher Egan was, despite his doe-eyed prettiness. What has happend over the episodes, however, is I find myself ever more engaged by Stan. He has multiple layers of ego, lust, ambition, anger, frustration, and pain. He can appear ruthless and vulnerable all in one breath, and the audience is never sure exactly which way he’s going to turn. He hates David as an enemy, but is also jealous of him, and there might be a grudging admiration in there somewhere as well. That hasn’t quite been explored yet, but I’m interested to see where it goes.
I’m also ever more impressed by Marlyne Afflack as Thomasina. She’s this wonderful presence onscreen, wielding power from the shadows, ever watchful and careful and clever. She has a great rapport with Ian McShane’s King, and it’s intriguing to learn more about this intense relationship. Thomasina is intelligent, and efficient, and capable, but she’s not as icy as we would have thought originally. She does her job because she cares about the King and the kingdom and believes in what they’re doing. It’s a perfect end to the episode that the King brings up the fact that she spoke to him so candidly and said more than she ever has before. When pressed, she confesses she knows exactly how long she’s been in the King’s employ, “ten years, eight months…and some days.” We can see on her face that she knows she will be dismissed for speaking out of turn, but then the King tells her it’s time for a promotion. We then can see the joy in her eyes as she carefully tries to suppress any unseemly display of emotion. I’m looking forward to seeing more of Thomasina’s role in the future.
Read all of my Kings posts here.
Watch all the drama of Kings on NBC Sunday nights at 8/7c.
PHOTOS: Sebastian Stan, Ian McShane, Marlyne Afflack, and Christopher Egan in Kings, screencaps c2009 Universal Media Studios, NBC.
