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27 03 2008

Ashes To Ashes Finale

Posted by Alan in Television

Gene HuntWell, the finale of Ashes to Ashes has just aired, and I enjoyed it.   It dragged in places, and the Life on Mars season 1 finale felt better overall, but this did provide a really satisfactory wrapping up to the season.

The biggest shock for me was Evan not being evil.  A really well done red herring by the production team there.   I’d previously been wondering why we weren’t seeing much of Alex’s father, when we’d seen so much of her mother, and it became obvious tonight.  The minute I saw him properly in the court room I noticed straight away he was the clown, so from that point of view, keeping his appearances limited in the past episodes was a good move.

Overall, Ashes to Ashes has been a bit hit-and-miss for me.  Its definitely lacked Life On Mars’ instant grab factor, but over the last few episodes its picked up for me.  Saying that, I think a lot of it was just to do with the direction the show took in terms of Gene Hunt being a bit defanged and institutionalised, and Alex Drake’s very knowing, and at times very smug attitude towards the situation.  In this regard Sam Tyler was a lot more likable.  I don’t agree with the flack Keeley Hawes has been taking.  She’s done a great job with the character.

I’m definitely on board for season 2, and I was glad to see the finale throw open the question of Gene Hunt.   Now we know he’s not just a fictional character.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 22:34 and is filed under Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Ashes To Ashes Finale”
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  1. Angus Patrick says:
    March 28, 2008 at 10:39

    SPOILER - do not read if you want to know less…

    Well - I have just watched the last episode and mainly agree that it was not as hot as LOM was, and a lot of it is down to the “same trick” effect. However, I was screaming at the end of the episode at the TV because I cannot believe she didn’t spot the obvious - Evan IS evil - he is the “maggot that tore his world apart” that Alex’s dad referred to in his suicide tape. In other words, I believe, that Alex’s dad found out about the affair between Evan and Caroline and decided to end it all. There are several pointers (the scene where the Price’s are arrested - they are discussing how they will break up, the fact that Caroline is in fact leaving her husband with little Alex for two years, not just a sabbatical, and it was Evan who went to the Scrubs to get Payton out of jail). Why else did Evan “quit” his job?

    Well, its just my opinion, and I am possibly wronf - we’ll have to wait til 2009 to find out!

  2. Alan says:
    March 28, 2008 at 12:53

    While I’m no longer convinced that Evan is evil, I do agree that he was the catalyst to the whole situation. Like you, I’d gathered that Alex’s Dad had discovered the affair, and Alex’s parents were splitting up (hence why Caroline had wanted to take a taxi to the train station). Likewise, Evan probably had to leave the practice due to Alex’s Dad finding out.

    The question of what Evan was doing at the jail definitely remains though. It does suggest that he was the one behind releasing Payton, although we don’t know if he was just doing his job or not. In addition to this, he was on scene at the explosion very quickly, so I do think its up in the air and the writers could revisit the question of Evan’s involvement in season 2.

    Of course, part of the problem of taking Matthew Graham’s explanation of LoM at face value is that Alex couldn’t possibly know that her Dad was the one behind the bomb. So if we take Matthew Graham’s “its all in their heads” explanation, then in fact all these revelations are meaningless and we have to conclude that its all wild fantasy on the part of a dying woman.

    However, with the revelation that Gene was there in the past and is not as fictional as previously thought, I’m hoping that the question of where Sam and Alex are is being thrown open again.

  3. Pie Man 70 says:
    April 2, 2008 at 14:56

    I liked it. It had real tension and more than a little humour. The revelations were good and I do wonder where Alex will go from here. Even, perhaps not evil, I reckon it was partly the finding out about the affair that caused Evan to be “the Maggot” but was tehre more, something professional? Did evan quit the firm because Alex’s dad had found out about the affair or was there more? Was the suicide tape forced?

    Definitely still some open mysteries, the main one from the episode before where, as Shaz is dying she says “I don’t like clowns” could she see the clown too, if so what does that mean?

    I’m also beginning to believe more the wild theory that Gene Hunt is some sort of God of Justice. Aside from his cracking speech to the VIP (WHich I expect to see kicking about signatures in forums for a long time to come) there was also his comment to alex about “I was needed, so I was there” and I’m sure he’s said things like this to her before (one I definitely remember was “You can’t leave yet, I still need you here” or words to that effect from quite early in the series)

    I agree it hasn’t had quite the oomph of LoM, its a less fun era (Much as I love the 80s The Sweeney style era was just better) and Gene being much less the king of his castle.

    What has never been addressed properly is if they do influence that past. Did Sam rescue his girlfriend by getting her kidnapper put away for good, and did he really get the mobster put into an asylum as opposed to running an empire.

    I’d hope these become clear in Season 2 of Ashes

  4. Alan says:
    April 2, 2008 at 15:19

    The influencing the past is a big thing for me. Matthew Graham’s “Its all in his head” solution to Life on Mars completely invalidated some of the show’s bigger episodes for me as they no longer made sense (for example the guy trying to kill him in Season 2 episode 1 who he stopped in the past).

    I think one key thing from this season of Ashes to Ashes was when Shaz was brought back, she said that Alex was “her Guardian Angel”. Is this going to be significant, and Gene is a Guardian Angel?

    Another thing someone pointed out online: If (in the modern day) we accept the story that Payton was trying to blackmail Evan by threatening to tell Alex how her parents really died, why would he shoot her in the head?

  5. kookie says:
    April 4, 2008 at 15:13

    i really liked ashes to ashes. it was different to LOM in many ways, but it still worked. it was a great ending too. i still think it’s significant that alex saw caroline and evan together - did she inadvertently tip off her dad to the affair? maybe there is more to be revealed. i don’t think evan is evil, but alex’s father may have been. then again, maybe we’ll never know. i always though LOM would go back to Sam’s dad, but it never did. gene was magnificent, as always. i liked that he was the one to take young alex’s hand. when he told her that if there was ever any trouble she could call gene genie, did that mean something. i hope there’s more to this in series 2. layton will come back i think. maybe he will be a threat to molly in 2008 and alex has to stop him somehow. anyhow, great show. i love that ray is getting more interesting also. can’t wait for next year.

  6. Alan says:
    April 4, 2008 at 15:35

    There’s a key scene from the flashbacks (Alex hiding in a box of some sort) which is still to be explained, and I wonder if it plays into how her father found out about the affair. Maybe she did tip him off and ended up hiding during the resulting argument?

    Like you, I thought Sam’s Dad was more key to Life on Mars than he ended up being. I was convinced that he was supposed to arrest his dad, and to face up to what his Dad had done, in order to escape from the 70s. In that regard, I wonder if there’s a similar thread going through Ashes to Ashes. Seeing how Alex copes with the knowledge of what her Dad did, and his appearances as the clown will hopefully be key to her returning home.

    Or I could be wrong again ;-)

    They’ve definitely got to build on Gene’s message to the young Alex. It just seems too important to ignore.

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