Previously on Hunderby: Helene found out she was pregnant with Dr. Fogarty’s baby, Fogarty fell into an alcohol-fuelled depression, and Edmond got laid, which directly led to Jeff nearly getting hanged to death.
Edmond wakes and snuggles up to the life-size stuffed Jeff he’s created, using that awful portrait he painted as the face. He kind of made him look like Lenny Kravitz in that painting.
Previously on Hunderby: Helene got a dog, Matilda died (with an assist from both Dorothy and Edmond), and Dorothy got her hands on Helene’s incriminating locket.
The funeral’s over and the family is sitting down for the reading of the will. Basically, Edmond will get everything if he and Helene have a child within the year. If there is no child, everything is to be sold and the money used to build an underwater memorial to those lost when the Bethany Rose sank. Dorothy isn’t mentioned at all. Ha!
Previously on Hunderby: Helene (who turned out not to be Helene after all but a stowaway named Elizabeth) washed up after a shipwreck and quickly married the local reverend/resident weirdo and went to go live in his creepy house with his super weirdo housekeeper, Dorothy, who still seems to be carrying a massive torch for the rev’s late wife, Arabelle.
If Danny Boyle’s odd Olympics Opening Ceremony extravaganza taught us anything, it’s that there’s a very particular brand of humour known as “British.” It’s quirky, and more often than not it’s dark. And when it’s done well, it’s great.
Hunderby is an excellent example of British humour. It’s definitely quirky—a gothic period black comedy—and funny, but not in a real laugh-out-loud kind of way. It’s funny in a cringe-inducing, uncomfortable, squirming, but somehow loving it way. It relies heavily on viewers knowing certain literary works (Jane Eyre and Rebecca) very well, or you’re going to miss some of the joke. It doesn’t talk down to us. It’s raunchy, and wrong, and although I’m not 100% sure yet, it may just be kind of awesome.
Let’s check it out.
