'Am I Not Monstrous?' -- Ripper Street 2x02

Warning: Spoiler Alert

Hizzah!! It looks like there really will be a series three after all!! I'm so very happy about that, since I did not like the idea that there wouldn't be anything more of it. I so very much like this show.

I didn't like the idea that Merrick was killed, even if I knew from the preview that it was going to happen. I liked the idea that he was going to be added to the show, and not just cuz his character was so very sweet (and made me wanted to snuggle him for being such a good guy). Though, I will completely admit the fact that the scene where he was killed disturbed me more than a character in a show's death has disturbed me before. I can usually separate myself from stuff that happens to characters in movies, shows, or books (even if they're based on real people, cuz what happens to them isn't actually real), but this left me not feeling all that good afterward, and I know exactly what it was; it was having him say "no" to the inspector who ended up killing him, and the pleading tone in his voice ... the kind of pleading tone where you knew that there really was nothing that he could have done to stop it, and he was really begging the person not to hurt him. Yeah, it left me with an icky feeling on the inside.

So, Reid's wife has been written off the show. I'm disappointed that the writers went that way with her, since I would have liked to've seen more of her, as well as more of her working in the women's shelter. It's disappointing to only have Long Susan left from series one to represent the ladies, and it would have been nice to have at least one more of the ladies from series one who looked like she might have become something more than the Madonna or whore (and someone who was doing something good for the community and for the ladies in Whitechapel). Plus, it feels rather cheap to have the things that happened to her happen behind the scenes, instead of on camera (and to just have Reid tell us about it after the fact); cheap and lazy.

But writing her off the show also takes away the possibility that their daughter is going to be found again, and that was part of the dynamic of Reid's character in series one (his hope and faith that their daughter was still alive). Taking it away feels like they are taking something away from Reid and what motivates him as a person, but it also feels like they are just giving up on her after having all of series one filled with his faith that she was out there somewhere. Just cuz she wasn't the little girl that he ended up finding in the finale doesn't mean that she isn't somewhere else; she very really might be dead, but we still don't have the proof that she is (and until there's a body, there is hope that she could be out there somewhere).

Whatever else is going to happen in this series, I think that Reid is going to have a throw down with Abberline ... at least, I really hope that there is one, cuz that would be fantastic (especially after what he did to Merrick).