Noughts and Crosses season two

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I caved and I bingewatched the rest of it in one go. Oh man, an absolute punch to the gut, even though I knew full well what the ending would be. My sadness is uh, I guess also sort of tinged with happiness that one of my favorite books was done justice with the adaptation, which is a very odd thing to feel.

INCREDIBLY well done series with an absolutely amazing cast. Paterson Joseph and Helen Baxendale in particular killed it. (Hey, there’s a depressing stealth pun in there!) No idea when the BAFTAs are but honestly I hope this show gets the nominations piled on. Hey do the BAFTAs have a best set/costume design category?… they don’t. Well, they should make one just for this show then.

I keep hearing rumors there might be a season three after all and it’s not like they don’t have a lot of material to work with so I would love that if it happened. I’m still very happy with what we got though. Not HAPPY happy obviously, the final scenes were so heartwrenching I could barely watch them, but you know what I mean!

Noughts and Crosses 2×01

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The BBC’s release schedule for this season is… odd to say the least. It’s in a late-night timeslot which is inexplicable, especially since I imagine a lot of the people wanting to watch it are teens. AND the whole thing is also available to stream in one go BUT this is one of the few shows I think I’ll enjoy more if I take it slowly, so now I gotta dodge spoilers for the next six actually four as it turns out weeks. Booo.

I am hoping especially to avoid any spoilers about Cara, because she was one of my favourite characters from the book and here she is and I know FULL WELL what happened to her in the book, except I’m not sure if things will go the same way in the show? Enough of the story has changed that I think Cara might be spared this time around. I wonder if I’m right.

This continues to be an amazing show, with worldbuilding even better than the books, and I’m cross (pun not intended) that more people aren’t watching it.

Things I noticed while screencapping Noughts and Crosses

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A few little bits of background/worldbuilding stuff I thought was interesting.

The Nought hospital, and indeed the whole Nought world, seems to be absolutely plastered with ads about birth control/abortion/not drinking while pregnant.

Compare that to the Cross hospital, which has calming artwork and the like:

I wonder if the man behind Kamal there is the unnamed Nought cleaner who got killed in the explosion.

This has been pointed out before by other people, but all the default emojis in this world have dark skin.

Look in the middle of the newpaper there… publically flogged? Ouch.

Oh and even newspapers use derogatory words for people on their front pages. Thank god that doesn’t happen in reality. Oh wait.

Why oh why does Sephy, one of the richest people in her world, still have an ancient brick phone with a numberpad… (wait, unless that was a burner phone just for Callum, I can’t remember.)

I still really love the little moment of the Cross woman stopping at Danny’s memorial.

Other people have pointed this out too, but this alt-world seems to have almost no sexual discrimination, at least not in the high-up places of society. The team that come to rescue Sephy are lead by a woman, there’s woman SWAT officers… and of course the big statue that represents the country is a woman.

You can’t see it all that well, but the thing written behind Jude there says “Naughty crosses make cross noughts” which is exactly the sort of snappy slogan that would exist in this world, I dig it.

Man, what wouldn’t I give for an art book of this series…

(Screencaps are here.)

Noughts and Crosses, episodes 5 and 6

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The finale, already! And it is VERY different to how it goes in the book, hmmm. Okay technically we’re still only 3/4 quarters through the book but things have taken a fairly drastic turn. Some things to consider:

-If this adaptation is gonna stick with making Jude (at least somewhat of a) good guy then all of Checkmate (the third book) goes out of the window, hmmm.

-Obviously everything surrounding Sephy’s pregnancy has been moved around, so Callie could be potentially be born before Callum [THE BIGGEST SPOILER] even?

-I feel so terribly sorry for Meggie. But I suppose that goes without saying. It sort of seems like she’s lost Jasmine’s friendship towards the end as well, even though it was so nearly fixed.

-Okay so Kamal is much more sympathetic in this show than in the books, which just goes to show how absolutely horrible he is in the books. I can’t picture this Kamal telling Sephy “You are no longer my daughter, you are a blanker’s slut” though I suppose there’s still time.

-Oh hey there’s Stormzy! But even though his casting was a massive deal when it was announced, he’s not actually… in it much?

-Honestly if I have one complaint about this series it’s how sped-up the timeline is. It seems to take a matter of weeks for Sephy and Callum to fall into death-defying love? And that makes me buy the ending of the last episode a lot less, though it was nice and all. I don’t think there was enough of a foundation for Sephy to give up her family and run away with Callum, even with the baby involved. Especially not considering he had just kidnapped and imprisoned her and she’d just stabbed him.

-Alternate version of one of the final scenes:

SEPHY: I am not your enemy.

CALLUM: No, you’re worse. Standing by, watching, doing nothing.

SEPHY: Um I stood up to my horrible dad and my teacher and I got in a physical fight to defend you and if not for me Danny’s parents wouldn’t have seen him one last time and I stopped the police from harassing you AND I TRIED TO SAVE YOUR FATHER, YOU WERE THERE, CALLUM

…

I hope there’s at least one more season.

Noughts and Crosses, episode 4

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I actually had a dream about Noughts and Crosses last night, I can remember almost nothing about it but I do recollect a sort of crushing and depressing atmosphere. Accurate!

Jumping right in. Hey I’m impressed that just for a few seconds, they implied Sephy had died in the bombing and for one moment I did wonder (obviously that doesn’t happen in the book)

Ouch, the TV news announcing the names of the dead Cross doctors but not the dead nought cleaner.

Seeing Dorn get punched in the face was so very satisfying, man I hate him. He’s the sort of person who is interested in revolution only because it gives him an excuse to manipulate, abuse and hurt whoever gets in his way. (I hate that kind of character. And that kind of person, too, actually.)

Paterson Joseph is putting in another amazing performance as a terrible person, talking about erasing the same sort of people that his son is while still being a good father (on the surface at least) to his legitimate daughters. Ohh he’s skin-crawling. It’s amazing.

I was wondering if this series was going to go into the world beyond “noughts” and “crosses” (i.e. people who are neither African or white) because the books never really did as far as I remember. And they sort of touched on it in this episode because Ryan’s lawyer was an Indian woman, and we can see she’s in a pretty respected place in society even though Jasmine, a Cross, can’t get her name right. I wish they’d go more into it all though. What does the rest of the globe really make of or wish to do about Albion, because “we look absurd to the rest of the world?” raises all sorts of questions?

Aha, Jasmine’s character development is here.

Man, now that’s a downer ending… I remember from the books what happened to Ryan, and it’s not good. (I do sort of wish they’d done the almost-execution scene though, because that one of the scenes I wondered from the beginning how they’d do.)

Noughts and Crosses, episodes 2 and 3

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Let’s take a look on Twitter while episode 3 airs!

…Okay, let’s not.

The stuff about Kamal’s affair and secret child seems to be coming more to the surface, I remember that from the book! But I don’t remember it being as prominent as it was in this.

Still no mention of Lynette, I guess she’s not in this version at all? Ah well.

“Milk-faced” is exactly the sort of insult which would exist in this world. And damn, the more subtle things, Jasmine insinuating that Noughts are drunken rapists without using the word, the McGregors having to go through the metal detector at the passing-out ceremony while the Crosses walk on by, Jude’s remark about changing a Nought-sounding name to a Cross-sounding one to get a job… and that’s not even getting into the “strength in difference” speech.

Regarding Lekan, who I think is the biggest character without a book counterpart:

I know we’re not supposed to like him but he seems a little too much of a one-dimension villain I guess. He’s cruel, controlling, has no redeeming features whatsoever. I suppose I like to dislike him, maybe. But I can’t see where his character could possibly end up at this point?

(Same with Dorn really, but I’m pretty sure the version of him in the book is killed.)

Meanwhile, Jasmine comes off as pretty awful (if tortured) during these episodes, but I look forward to the character development which I know is coming.

That one Cross woman who stopped and prayed at Danny’s memorial… that was a small moment but a big deal.