The senior has always said that the return time of British drama is very mysterious, and there are often dramas that drag on for several years, in fact, some American dramas are the same...
At the end of last month, the fourth season of "Ice Storm" finally began, more than three years after the previous season.
"Ice Storm" is a series of FX, and after Disney acquired Fox, FX's drama also went to hulu network broadcasting.
This is not the reason for the production of Ice Storm. After the third season, series creator Noah Holly said that the series would be shelved until he had a good idea.
Who knew that this delay was two years, and when Noah Holly was busy with the final season of "Legion", "Ice Storm" was postponed to this fall.
The idea for the series comes from the 1996 film of the same name, Ice Storm, which was produced by the famous Coen brothers.
The movie "Ice Storm" is a work full of black humor, which can be experienced from another translation of the name "Stupid Thieves Flying in the Sky".
In the movie, the male protagonist is a car manager who wants to borrow money from his rich father-in-law to build a parking lot. But the father-in-law did not pull out a dime, so the male protagonist thought of a way to find someone to kidnap his wife, and then asked for ransom... The plan is not as good as the change, accidents continue to occur, and this matter is getting bigger and bigger, and finally it causes a bloody case.
Coincidence, absurdity, violence, Ice Storm perfectly continues the style of the film. Tell one story per season, and one shot is three seasons.
By the fourth season, Noah Holly seemed to want to do some new tricks, showing the audience a history of gangster fighting.
Kansas City, Missouri. The power here is constantly being handed over, Hebrew, Irish, Italian, black. History is surprisingly similar, they go to war, they trade truces for peace, they raise each other's children to keep the peace, they break the peace for more profit.
Beginning in 1900, the gang wars in Kansas City stopped, and those in power changed from Hebrews to Irish, and from Irish to Italians.
By 1949, blacks wanted to share the cake from the Italians, and the story began.
This history of gangster changes seems very different from "Ice Storm", in fact, this season is still a path with the previous one, cutting into the story from small roles.
In this season, the entry point is an ordinary family. The father runs the funeral home with his mother, while the daughter attends school.
There are also several characters closely related to the family, including their neighbor, a cruel nurse, who arbitrarily takes the patient's life.
The fugitive duo, the older one is the mother's sister.
The usual rhythm of Ice Storm runs out these seemingly unrelated characters, like dominoes, and then an unexpected event occurs, causing the dominoes to collapse one after another.
Accounting for these roles is also intended to elicit a larger entanglement of interests behind them, the Fada family (Italians) and the Cannon Gang (blacks).
For the Truce between the Fada family and the Cannon Gang, the Fada family has always been very dissatisfied. "We are the Roman Empire, and they are just blacks born in wooden sheds."
The Cannon Gang knew that an armistice would help them grow, but they were not content with it and kept asking for more territory.
The Italians were just beginning to arrive, and the Negroes had long been part of the land, like wind and dust.
The gangster story is the immigrant story of the United States. At the beginning of the episode, the screenwriter borrowed the mouth of the little girl and asked a question, if the United States is a country of immigrants, how can a person become an American?
He came to this land with an American dream, but found that he and his companions did not enjoy their rights like Americans, but were regarded as heretics.
So they worked with their compatriots for protection and power.
Of course, this means stepping on the feet of the next generation of immigrants.
These gang wars in Kansas City are just fighting for one thing, for their rights.
In Kansas City, the melting pot of crime, the Americans were eventually forged.
Although the pattern is the same as before, including the deceptive "This is a true story" at the beginning of the film.
From the current point of view (has been broadcast for four episodes), this season of "Ice Storm" is so different from the previous one, the creator Noah Holly seems to want to use a dramatic story to show the immigration, race and other hot topics in the United States.
This also makes this season a lot less characteristic of "Ice Storm", that is, black humor, and the absurdity and fun of this season are much weaker. Even in this season, there are no characters who are a bit silly and silly before.
Of course, the actors in the fourth season are still as stable as ever, creating many roles that impress the seniors. For example, the Irish rabbi who lured a wolf into the house and led to the destruction of his own family.
In terms of data, although the reputation of the fourth season is still good, the decline in the number of viewers is very serious, and the number of reviews on Douban has not exceeded 2,000 in January. For comparison, the third season has more than 20,000 reviews.
However, the only thing that disappointed the seniors in the fourth season was that it was not so "ice storm" in style.
It's also a crime drama that's well worth watching, not only with a fascinating story, but also with great performances by the actors.