Little Revolución Re-listen
Hey again! It's episode two of my epic Wolf 359 re-listen, which means:
Little Revolución
In which Eiffel hoards toothpaste, Hilbert and Minkowski get gas-happy and Command are, reading between the lines, the Actual Worst.
We open up with Mussorgsky's Night on the Bare Mountain, which I will always mentally link to my primary school, because for some reason they played it before morning assemblies a lot? (Which, in hindsight, was kind of weird.) Personal connections aside, though, it's just the right music to set the tone for this episode: big, bombastic and stupidly overdramatic.
What follows is a comedy-heavy episode, with slightly more fleshed-out versions of the non-Eiffel characters, which is nice to hear. Hera is sarcastic, Hilbert is suitably menacing, and Minkowski also sounds more like herself - and they all do things that actually advance the plot this time round! Yay!
That said, the star of the show, is still, without a doubt, Eiffel, who somehow manages to be even more ridiculous than last episode? This time round, we start in media res, after Eiffel has stolen the last remaining tube of toothpaste and is holding it hostage.
And okay. That in itself is a really funny idea. Of all the things to mutiny over, I love that it's something as mundane and low-key as toothpaste. It's just enough of a creature comfort to give the conflict stakes, but also... it's toothpaste, man. And it's one single tube of toothpaste!
But I think most of comedy in this episode comes specifically from the fact that it's Eiffel holding the toothpaste hostage. Which means we basically get to spend the whole episode watching him dig himself deeper. There's a sense of futility to his mutiny from pretty much the moment he mutes Minkowski at the beginning, and from that point on, the it’s just a question of "how ridiculous will this get, before Eiffel breaks?"
The answer? Pretty darn ridiculous, and it is 100% Eiffel's own fault. I mean, at every step in this episode he just escalates things. From bringing up hostages in the first place to his whole announcement, complete with dramatic music that I assume (?) he must have added to the message himself just to make it sound cooler, to barricading himself in the comms room, literally everything he does here is totally nuts.
It's enough to trigger Eiffel Protocol M - and I really, really want to know what all the other protocols are, and why they were invented - which means that when the log comes back, we have a shivering, miserable Eiffel, slowly being driven mad by random loud noises. Which, again, I love. Putting characters in some sort of extreme physical discomfort feels like one of Wolf 359's go-to beats, both for comedy (case in point, this episode) and for drama (hello, Pan-Pan, and Mayday, come to think of it), and it's fun to see it used for the very first time here.
It's also at this point that we get an insight into what Minkowski and Hilbert are planning, and honestly, I really wish this episode featured more of them working together, because the glimpse we get is so good! Hilbert just straight up gassing Eiffel! Minkowski asking if there could, possibly, be some pain! "Minimal risk of brain damage"!
The show, at this point, is still pretty firmly committed to the log format, though, and will be until... actually, I'm not sure when we stop just getting Eiffel's recordings. Is it as late as Season 2?
Either way, it means we do miss out on Minkowski and Hilbert having to work together, which is kind of a pity, although the episode works find without it. And in a way, it's almost funnier, because we're just as confused as Eiffel is, especially when the gas doesn't knock him out and gives him weird hallucinations instead. I mean, what is up with that? Did it just not work? Is is some weird psychological warfare tactic on the part of Hilbert and Minkowski?
In any case, it pushes Eiffel right to his breaking point, just in time for Hera to distract him while Hilbert dissolves the door hinges. Eiffel folds pretty rapidly after that, and ends the episode in the supply cl- sorry, in the brig. He honestly seems pretty resigned to his fate, as well. So at least he knows when he's beat.
And to be honest, I actually feel sorry for Eiffel here. The whole episode, after all, shows how space can slowly chip away at your sanity, messing with you in small, irritating ways until, inevitably, you snap - even before Minkowski and Hilbert go to work on you. Eiffel's overreaction to running out of toothpaste is funny, sure. But behind it lie months and months where, little by little, he's been deprived of all his creature comforts. It's small stuff, but I can totally see why it would, cumulatively, start to drive you nuts, until any little thing - even toothpaste - might just push you over the edge.
Even worse, Command had to have called this. There is no way they "accidentally" failed to pack enough toothpaste - because it's not like the Hephaestus is anywhere near the end of its mission. So Command must have known that this would happen, and either they didn't care, or they actively wanted it to happen, as part of some kind of twisted, gaslight-y psychological experiment, not unlike the Empty Man, later on in the season.
Either way, it means that by the end of the episode, we're left with a sense of the negative psychological effects of daily life in space, and, potentially, our first hint at how awful Command is. Not bad, for an episode that is, still, a comedy episode about Eiffel hoarding toothpaste.
Because it is still, at the end of the day, a comedy. Sure, there's some dark bits if you read between the lines. But it's also just straightforwardly lightweight and funny, and after listening to the end of the series, do you know what? That's actually kind of refreshing. We don’t get many straight-up comedy episodes after season one, so revisiting this one was pretty great!
Miscellaneous thoughts:
"Nothing is premeditated here! The very suggestion that I would meditate anything... I mean, it’s laughable." Hah!
Well their new brig is going to come in v e r y handy, v e r y soon
Aww, Eiffel asking if anything is wrong with the star. Just you wait, Doug...
Also I 100% fell for Hera’s misdirect the first time I listened to this and I don’t know it that’s because Hera’s good or because I’m gullible
“When in doubt, whip it out. "It” being hydrochloric acid.”