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Last nights episode of “A place called home” (APCH ) emphatically proved to me that this show is brilliant and is seriously underrated. It dealt with an issue or idea when done well is mind blowing to watch. For an example, Heroes season 1 had an episode called “company man” , where we got the background story of one of the main character by the time the episode ended ,how we looked at HRG had totally changed because we now knew how he had become who he is and understood him a bit better, it for me was the best episode of season 1.
Now in APCH the writers and producers have done a similar thing with the now man-child Sylvester. Sylvester has always been established as the predatory figure in the show, the quintessential SA thug (who kills without flinching, cause he has a family to feed) whose abrasive, aggressive and does not have a single soft bone in him. The irony is that Ronnie has played Papa Action another iconic heartless criminal, was forced to deal with “growing pain” issues in the privacy of a bathroom.It was pre poetry in motion cause for the first time the iconic sa thug image was shown to be someone with a heart, flaws and someone in need of some serious therapy in other words human just like you and me. I know Tsotsi tried to do this but Ronnie is the perfect foil for this lesson given his screen history
The episode showed that the veneer of Sylvester’s machismo and aggressiveness shields a child who misses his mother and is battling with feelings of inadequacy. I wonder what are the issues of all those hard core criminals, in our street corners. The most touching thing about last nights episode is the interaction between Cassius and Sylvester. As Sylvester was suffering from his “kidney stones” which seemed to actually work as a metaphor for his “psychological pain”. His minions, who are emotionally retarded human beings with only a capability of inflicting pain and taking orders could not relate to Sylvester being in pain nor know how to handle it. But Cassius a man who has gone through his fair share of growing pain could. The lowly street kid had to literally pull up the pants of the notorious crime boss when he could not do it himself cause he was in pain. The obvious pain of the kidney stones, the psychological pain of loosing his mother as a kid and being too weak to do anything about it . But now as a man he overcompensates for that by using violence and intimidation. How many of us SA men do the same, lash out in the world instead of confronting what is truly hurting us.Hide behind ego and violence when hurt or pained in any way?
The sub stories was that of Mhloti new found love affair and poor Siyabonga’s character getting himself entangled with the Jozi underworld that end in a tragic death. Which were very intriguing in themselves, but the examination of Sylvester’s character and the roots of the flaws in the man just blew me away. So the question is where to from now? Do we have a showdown between the two crime lords? Does Sylvester continue his life of self destruction in an attempt to be the provider and the man his mother never had? Or do everyone pretend like last nights episode did not happen and life continues? All will be revealed next week.
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