Hey everybody, welcome to another week of old school goodness right here in Ye Olde School Café! This week we’ll keep going forward with the psychological thriller V for Vendetta! In the past couple of weeks, V has really ramped up the killing, and also slowly revealed what he may be striving towards as his endgame. Meanwhile, a young girl, Evey Hammond, has been sucked into the world of this mysterious man, who considers himself a freedom fighter. Let’s dispense with the small talk and get back to the action!
As Evey awakens, she realizes that she’s in a cell and is terrified of the sign outside (Norsefire slogan). She very quickly realizes that the cell itself is home to a large rat, as well. Suddenly, Evey is wakened, then taken to a room where her captors reveal that they know she’s been working with V. Over the next few weeks, we see Evey get her head shaved, endure countless episodes of torture, and seemingly lose her will. The one thing that keeps her from totally losing it is that someone in the next cell passes her a note through a crack in the wall. This becomes a daily occurrence, as Valerie tells Evey about her life, before and after she was captured. She explains that once the Norsefire party got control of the government, they started to weed out all the people that they felt were undesirable (a la Hitler). After weeks (or maybe longer) of this torture, Evey appears to not be so soft anymore. She seems to have been hardened by this whole experience. She uses the notes from Valerie, and also some of the things she’s recently seen, to motivate her to keep going.
One day, Evey is dragged out of her cell and put in front of a desk where a man asks her to sign a confession. She adamantly refuses, then the man tells the guard to take her back to her cell. He also remarks that in the morning she’ll be taken outside and shot. Evey’s reaction is one of impudence. As the guard takes her to her cell, he asks her to reconsider, but she tells him that she’d rather die. He responds by saying that if she isn’t afraid anymore, then she is free. He walks away and leaves the cell door wide open. This shocks Evey, and for a moment she doesn’t know how to react. She slowly moves towards the door and looks down the hallway. She sees the “guard” standing at the end of the hallway, but notices something different about him. He’s on a platform with wheels underneath it (a dummy). She then goes room to room searching for answers. She enters the room where she was just asked to sign the confession, and finds only a tape recorder and more dummies. She finds a room with props and disguises, as well as the rat that kept creeping around her cell, kept in a cage! As Evey reaches the final door, she slowly opens it, and then is treated to the shock of her life. The door leads into the main room of the Shadow Gallery (V’s home). V is standing in the middle of the room, and says, “Welcome home.”
Evey immediately goes into a tirade, telling V he’s warped and evil for doing this to her. He tells her that he did it because he loves her, but she won’t listen. She keeps telling him and herself that what he did was indefensible and horrific. He reasons with her by saying that she was living in a prison her whole life. She had her family taken away from her, the majority of her rights as a human being, and she, along with most of England, did nothing to stop it. And that’s why she was living in a prison. He tells her that he’s given her the means to escape, but she must do that on her own. She begins to have an anxiety attack, then V tells her that he’ll take her to the roof for some air. She says that she doesn’t want to be blindfolded anymore, and he replies that “all the blindfolds are gone.” As they reach the rooftop, Evey is scared because it’s raining, but V tells her that on a night five years ago, he also came to this same point in his life, as well. As Evey stands in the rain with her arms hoisted high above her head, V tells her to “become transfixed…become transfigured, forever”!
Well, that’s it for now, but tune in next week to see Evey, as she sees the world in a new light. Also, we’ll find out what V’s next move against the Norsefire party is, and believe me, it’s not to be missed!
Billy Dunleavy
billy@comicattack.net
