Review of the BBC's The Ink Black Heart, Episode 1

Thanks to a friend who shared a recording with me, I could take an in-depth look at this installment.  Like the previous five books, The Ink Black Heart was adapted for TV by JKR's company, Bronte Film and TV. Although the mammoth book has to be pared down to fit into four hours of TV programming, overall, I think this is a pretty good adaptation, at least judging from the first episode.  Perhaps my favorite part are the Easter eggs for the book fans. 

The Ink Black Heart picks up right where Troubled Blood left off, with Strike attempting to make up for his thoughtlessness on Robin's birthday with a make-up evening:  pony (not donkey) balloon, perfume and dinner out. A few differences from the book: this is apparently relatively shortly after the botched birthday, not a full year later. They are explicitly having dinner at an unnamed but smart restaurant, not drinks at the Ritz.  

Easter Egg #1:  Robin is wearing a round pendant, which recalls the opal her parents gave her for her 30th in the book. 

Easter Egg #2: The first line we hear from Robin in the restaurant is the surprising "How do you know about sheep diseases?" Though we are not told the nature of her father's profession, sheep definitely were the topic of conversation before Strike begins the story of Charlotte's stepmother. And only we readers know the reason for that!

I thought the missed kiss was extraordinarily well done. I actually liked the fact that neither seemed as intoxicated as they were in the book, and the surprise on Robin's face and the shock and disappointment on Strike's were obvious. A nice touch is the harried Strike running full-face into the pony balloon and having to bat it away as he hustles Robin into the cab. 

Strike looks equally shell-shocked the next day, tailing Legs and Groomer to the museum, and you can tell his mind is on something other than the job at hand. Part of the reason may be the painting at which he is staring. 

Easter Egg #3: The painting Groomer is schooling Legs on is Millais' Ophelia,  and he is telling her about the model, Elizabeth Siddal, whose "mother was a redhead" and who "married Rosetti" and "got her heart broken." The Rosetti husband in question is Dante Gabriel Rosetti, one of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (along with Millais), and brother and eventual grave-mate of Christina Rosetti, whose poetry is featured in the book epigraphs and whose grave is included on the tour Robin takes at Highgate. Elizabeth  is, in fact, Christina's sister-in-law who was buried with a book of her husband's poems and later dug up when he decided he wanted them back. Pez Pierce tells Robin this story at the cemetery. 

Given that Robin herself was described as a "Pre-Raphaelite beauty" at her wedding, we can imagine that the image of the drowned Ophelia is stirring up some unwelcome memories for Strike. I'll leave it to those better versed in Shakespeare (hint, hint, Kurt!) than I am to tell us if Groomer's line, "It's Ophelia's whole story" indicates a link of the Hamlet character to the storyline.  But it was a nice touch to cut from Strike viewing the painting to a shot of Robin, asleep in an office chair with her feet up in a similar pose. 

The Edie Ledwell actress's demeanor was exactly as I had pictured her, and her long frizzy hair and fuzzy black coat gave her the disheveled look the character needed. We got a great look at the soon-to-be-replaced CB Strike window as she enters the office. It is even clearer than in the book that Edie is seeking Robin specifically; she starts by asking why Robin's name isn't on the door.  The Midge actress was older than I had envisioned the character (age 47, 4 years older than Tom Burke!) but otherwise good. 

A major shift from the book is the complete absence of the moderator's chats, which is understandable as they would be pretty hard to depict on film. The bulk of the information readers glean from there is instead explained to the detectives by assorted characters: Edie herself, Allen Yeoman (who Robin visits to return Edie's folder) and the police detectives. Ryan Murphy's name is changed to Richard in the show. Ilsa and Robin have their chat about the near-kiss when Ilsa is helping Robin view the apartment, rather than in Bob Bob Ricard's, and there is no mention of a pregnancy. One nice touch is a small sketched cartoon Edie had made for Robin, which Yeoman delivered. 

Like a lot of readers, I was happy to get to watch a short clip of The Ink Black Heart cartoon,  I had envisioned something artier, like the Three Brothers animation in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but it was impressive nonetheless, especially given the size of the TV budget compared to the movie. 

Easter Egg #4: The cartoon opens with a shot of the famous pelican grave, where Edie was murdered.   

Money-grubbing uncle Grant is as nasty and greedy as you might expect; all he needed was a wheelchair and he'd have made a good impression of Mr. Potter (the one from It's a Wonderful Life, not Hogwarts).  Robin's Jessica Robins disguise is great, at least as good as her Bobby Cunliffe and the North Grove art collective was also very similar to the way I had pictured it, except for the lack of a tree-shaped spiral staircase. A nice touch was a candle-bedecked shrine to Edie Ledwell outside of it. The characters of Zoe and Tim Ashcroft are eliminated, but the Pez Pierce character is creepy enough to make up for it, both rude to the Inkheart who shows up for a class and leering at Robin, clearly enjoying posing nude for "Jessica."  The Anomie stained glass window was in the kitchen, and was beautiful.

The first episode closes with a lot of suspense, with Robin's first North Grove class and subsequent meet-up with Midge for a first look at Drek's game interspersed with Strike's tailing Wally and encounter with the Halvening recruiter in the pub. Having Midge sit next to her and coach her into impersonating her ex was a nice adition. Unlike in the book, Strike does not escape the pub restroom attack into a handy cab, but is tackled by the Neonazi in the street, and scares him off by pretending to be a cop calling for back-up. 

Easter Egg #4.5:  The main chatroom of Drek's Game also starts at the pelican grave. And a curiosity:  The first Worm character visible in the game has the handle "Fenrir97_Fear."  The same name appears on a skeleton with a black top hat in a background scene a bit later.  "Fenrir" of course, was the name of an evil werewolf in Harry Potter as well as a wolf from Norse mythology. No werewolves in Drek's Game, though. 

The characters have robot-style voiceovers in addition to the text communications (which is going to make it hard for our heroes to play in public without headphones) and Robin, whose "Buffypaws" character appears as a skeleton with some sort of black hat, has an encounter with Anomie almost immediately. Anomie's cloak is red, making him stand out against the monochromatic hue of the rest of the game. Unlike in the book, the quality of the animation is clearly inferior to that of the actual cartoon. The episode ends with him leading Buffy to a different part of the cemetery, confessing to Edie's murder and finishes with him  brandishing a knife and uttering a chilling "And you are welcome."

It was clear that this book, with a largely online mystery, would be difficult to adapt to the small screen, but judging from the first episode, the BBC met the challenge. I look forward to reviewing the rest.