Washed-out clay. Everything’s pale and dry. No warmth in the blank hall.
Only room with warm colours is the study. Even the bedrooms are stark. Uncomfortable to sleep or even move in. The coldness makes me physically uncomfortable. Exactly as cold, ugly and uncomfortable as any real-life small town.
Hall is just a flimsy model of a life-size hall, but we still get to move through it, shakily. Everything in this house, from the people to the objects, are shaky, flimsy replicas, but their tiny fragility is so real. We’re taken to their level.
The blue sky looks so strange against those miniature houses. Same lurching stomch feeling I get from collages.
Something about the way Bloberta cries outside her son’s door sounds weirdly detached from her clay body. She crumples, then instantly straightens when she sees him. Her husband.
I wonder how much Clay shooting Orel affected her. Maybe she’s not just crying because she hates her marriage.
For clay figures, the acting is so good. Something about their movements. Their jerky body language and lidded eyes.
You can even see their shadows move.
Bloberta’s languid voice contrasts with her listless life. Inside and out, she has nothing to do, nobody who cares. So she turns to machines. Damaging machines. It’s funny how drab and muted this episode stays, even when she is damaging herself so intensely.
Machines are her substitutes. Then a piece of cloth becomes her substitute. When she asks her doctor for the real thing, he goes cold.
Funny how that compares with Orel getting treated by Stephanie back in season one, gently letting him know when it’s time to go after something painful.
Doctor only helps if he can hurt. Once he can’t hurt, he isn’t interested. Most adults and authority figures in Moralton are selfish. Most of them.
Reverend Putty shows restraint. Bloberta shows up at his door offering everything he wants, but he says no. Would he have said no if she wasn’t Orel’s mother? Maybe not, but it shows he’s not such a bad guy. At least he’s trying to try, like Bloberta’s dad.
Like the other authority figures in Moralton, Putty isn’t suited to his role, and that takes its toll. But thanks to his friendship with Orel, he’s shown to put in some effort. Putty isn’t like Coach Stopframe, someone similarly unsuited to his role, but also someone who easily gets what he wants and is so self-satisfied that he discards people like Bloberta whenever he feels like it.
Bloberta finishes Stopframe’s drink after he leaves. Considering what we learn later about her relationship with alcohol, I wonder what that means.
Bloberta normally cleans obsessively as a substitute for alcohol, but here she’s drinking and leaving things untidied. When one of her machines damages a wall, she leaves it. Block and Shapey’s bedroom is filled with boxes and discarded equipment. She doesn’t care. Why put in the effort if she’s going to stay numb?
