final thoughts on “forever” abc
I thought Adam made for a really good villain to an especially kindly protagonist. IMO he qualifies as a “shadow” villain because he’s so similar originally to Henry--they both died the first time trying to protect someone--but over 2000 years he’s become a monster. “This is what becomes of a decent man,” Adam says - instead of the usual fear of death mortals have, Henry has this fear of the loss of self in time. Having all that you are grow thin the way Adam feels “thin” - like there’s an emptiness there where more used to be. To die in all the ways that matter while your body continues on, while you do things abhorrent to the person you were.
If a villain was one note evil and fully external (rather than an external representation of Henry’s deepest fear) then it would be - what, about him being brave in the face of physical danger? That poses no threat. Or the danger of losing those he loves? Time itself will do that - and it’s better to have time be the biggest enemy. Reminds me of what Michael’s mother said about time on Discovery: that it strips everything away from you.
Exploring the greatest fear of an immortal also means, in a much cooler way than usual, affirming mortal life: casting our eyes on how time itself is one of the dimensions where our limits within it are constitutive of our “selves” and losing those could be a horror too. It’s a deeper affirmation of life than the usual: you appreciate it more because it’s fleeting! thing.
I mean, that’s fine. But: you *exist as yourself* because you have dimensions in physical space *and* time which define you and without those you’d be be facing down the kind of terror Henry feels when he looks at Adam and what he might become.... good stuff!!
Mortality doesn’t just make me savor the moment because it’s fleeing, it makes me *me* instead of someone else. Gravity is pushing me down; it’s also holding me together, giving me the ground to walk on instead of floating in space. Time is killing me, it is also giving me the road to walk before me, and a certain me I recognize to walk it. Stripped of that, how would I float free? How would I still be myself? And for how long?
And, again, Adam is particularly useful for such a gentle hero because nothing short of hitting on his very worst fear/the potential future shadow self he is running from, would bring out his darker side - the resolution where he, as a doctor, can do something crueler than mere death to Adam was /kisses fingers/
Henry’s true enemy is time and his truest villain is the self he might become if he cannot make an ally of death and “kill” that future self from existing.
I wish the show had gone on longer! But what’s there is some good stuff.