Mikado

[Guest ModernDayMoriarty]

'The Mikado' is one of my favourite Season Two Episodes. Avatar is an interesting enemy but I will have to go against public opinion and say that I was dissatisfied by the fact he was never caught. I wouldn't have minded if was caught at a later date as I think it was right for the episode that he escaped. However, he never returns and that doesn't sit right with me. It just makes all the efforts everyone has made seem pointless and that may be the point but still... Avatar is of those section of enemies that really should be caught and punished. If he had recurred more often instead of Lucy Butler it would have been great (I like Butler but I really wanted Avatar caught). To have Frank snap and kill Avatar or have Avatar actually be the Polaroid Stalker would be have been my preferred route but it was already too late by then.

The best parts for me are the working in of 'The Mikado' itself and the interaction/teamwork between Watts, Frank and Roedecker. Roedecker is a character I usually don't like but here he works very well. Frank and Watts cannot simply dismiss him as they usually do because he is the only chance they have of stopping Avatar. The tension that slowly builds in Brian as he cannot trace Avatar and the look on his face when the second victim is killed are Millennium moments - He realises what Frank and Watts have known all along, this case is no laughing matter and the detachment that the Internet engenders does not last in the face of Avatar's pure evil. Until then it hasn't been 'real', you feel, for Brian. He has been wisecracking and joking his way through the episode as usual feeling in control as the case is 'in jhis court'. This shows him that it is and always was, Avatar in control.

The episode is brilliant for highlighting the casual complicity with which Internet users are almost accessories to this and many other less than reputable goings on. It also shows the deep convictions of both Peter and Frank as they both so desperately want to catch Avatar. The fact that Avatar wears a costume seems slightly over the top but that is part of the point I suspect. He goes beyond what people expect, further than they want to go and gives the lie to the saying 'What you can't see is more terrifying than what you can see'. It makes you confront youe own ability to handle such situations and if you can't, then you have just found out something about yourself that you probably didn't want to.