After finding the last few episodes of Moriarty the Patriot to be a rather tepid affair, it was nice to see episode 16 just let the characters loose. With the scene already set and the Yard and the locals ready to go to war we wasted precious little time on re-establishing the Jack the Ripper Plot before Moriarty and his merry band launched into their offensive to de-escalate the potential revolt and take down the one using Jack’s name and killing prostitutes. That isn’t to say their plan was particularly good. It was showy and it was fun to watch unfold but realistically it just shouldn’t have worked.
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Basically their plan came down to give everybody else a Jack the Ripper to chase around town which would also cause the real group behind Jack the Ripper to gather. Then the would take out the real Jack the Ripper. I mean it isn’t as if half-a-dozen things couldn’t have gone wrong with that including the real culprits being smart enough not to gather at the commotion or even either the commoners or the yard still firing on the other sparking the revolution rather than chasing the old guy around for an hour.
Moriarty the Patriot denies reality – this plan will work.
However rather than continuing to take shots at the plan itself, there were some things this episode did very well. An no, that wasn’t show discerning supporting cast members given all the background characters continue to have about as much subtlety as a brick to the face.
Whether it is the commoners seeing a member of the Yard and contorting their faces to scowl in an exaggerated fashion or the idiotic way that the actual culprits dismiss the death of the weak as meaningless the writing of the larger cast remains incredibly flat. Though given Moriarty himself wasn’t particularly brilliant this episode I guess it stands to reason everyone else needed to be even stupider in order for his plan to play out.
But wait, I was getting to the positives. Such as the chase sequence itself. Now the old guy was newly introduced so we didn’t have a lot of a connection with him and yet he’s probably the best character we’ve met in a while. Admittedly, his stamina and agility are near to supernatural in this particular sequence but it was good that we got to know him a bit and that even he was feeling true exhaustion as he got close to the one-hour mark Moriarty and demanded from him. Still trying to figure out how you leap over multiple people while wearing an armoured cloak but let’s not dwell on the details because it just looked super cool.
It was also kind of cool seeing the rest of Moriarty’s extras supporting the old guy from the roof-tops by giving directions or taking out the weapons of snipers. Again, the combined efforts to take down the Gatling Gun leave me with an eye-brow raised at how ridiculous that was, but again we could forgive it just for being a really great moment. I do question their fitness given that old guy was running all over town and they always seemed to be keeping up with him while going over roof-tops, which one imagines would require significant athletic stamina. Just don’t think about that part.
However, the confrontation between Louis and William Moriarty and the gang responsible for the Jack the Ripper incidents was my favourite moment. While we had been told these two were trained, we’ve never seen either really in action before as Moriarty has usually stayed out of the direct action. Here however we see the two back to back and they have definitely got some moves.
With yet another player introduced into the story who is now aware of Moriarty’s identity there’s a chance this season of Moriarty the Patriot may actually pick up a bit going forward. I know that I enjoyed this episode a lot more than any so far since the story’s return.
Images from: Moriarty the Patriot 2nd Season. Dir. K. Nomura. Production I.G. 2021.
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Karandi James