3:24 pm - 02/21/2013
Channel 4’s six-part thriller Utopia aired its finale last night. Here are some of the questions it left us with…
Resolving a conspiracy thriller to the satisfaction of your audience while leaving enough plot in play for a second series is an unenviable task. If the recommission doesn’t arrive, people will be left wanting. Comments sections can fill up with splutter and rage. Facebook posts can descend into under-punctuated babble. To channel our collective curiosity about the world of Dennis Kelly’s Utopia then, we’ve gathered up these remaining questions about series one to see what answers the hive-mind can provide. In the words of Milner, “We have so much to do”…
7. What was the chemical diagram formed when all the pages of the manuscript come together?
Alice putting together the manuscript jigsaw was a great visual moment, but what did it really add to the unravelling mystery? A chemical diagram of sorts was uncovered, but if the secret to Janus was hidden inside Jessica all along, then what was the diagram's significance? Additionally, if the manuscript was just, as Milner says “drawings done by a mad man”, then why was The Assistant persevering with squeezing those five-digit numbers out of Grant? Had Milner kept Jessica’s true importance hidden from her decoy too?
6. Has Grant been proven innocent?
He may be disguised as him out of My Chemical Romance, but not too long ago, Grant’s face was all over the papers and TV as the suspect in a school shooting. The finale saw him running around a train station, hours after committing a bonafide murder, with little regard for being recognised. Does that mean he’s been cleared, or is he still the UK’s most notorious eleven-year-old?
5. Who was the skinhead scouser in the church?
He came in to the church in episode three swearing and pointing a gun (very much the Utopia way), before meeting a swift exit at the hands of Milner’s standard-issue firearm. Our best guess is that he was another Network stooge, one used as cannon fodder by Milner so she could gain the trust of the group.
4. Was that really Milner’s son dying of Deels in episode five?
We’re probably safe to assume it wasn’t, seeing as telling the truth hasn’t exactly been Ms Rabbit’s strong-point. The way she told it, Mr Milner (if he existed) worked at Corvadt (plausible) and contracted Deels (also plausible considering that experimenting on family members is de rigueur round Corvadt way), which he passed on to their son. The whole thing was most likely a ruse to play on Becky’s fears about her Deels triggering, and we can assume that Milner’s power is wide-reaching enough to be able to procure any number of wheezing children to aid her subterfuge.
3. Is Milner Jessica and Arby’s mother?
A trickier one, this. Utopia is full of one-parent families; Wilson and his dad, Becky and hers, Grant and his mum, Alice and hers… We’ve known from episode two that Philip Carvel was Jessica’s father, and from episode five that she shared that dubious privilege with Arby, but there’s been no hint of a mother for either. He may have been a brilliant geneticist, but Carvel would have needed a womb to house his two experiments. Did Milner provide that service?
2. Is Milner the Devil?
This still from last night's finale certainly suggests so, though we’d assume it’s more of a metaphor for her diabolical scheming than a clue she’s the honest-to-God devil. Imaginative though Utopia is, it remains in the realm of speculative fiction rather than out-and-out fantasy.
The Utopia Experiments graphic novel, as Becky reminds us in episode one, is about a scientist who makes a pact with the devil (or a 'Deel', if we're playing word games). That scientist? Philip Carvel, father to Jessica and Arby. That devil? Network head Milner.
1. Are Arby and Wilson really dead?
Quiffed henchman Lee was the first of the Network’s soldiers to fall, which he did after being shot by a recently blinded Wilson in episode one. It wasn’t until episode three that Arby confirmed his death when speaking to Letts: “Lee was killed the other day. Next to you he’s the person I know most. Why doesn’t that hurt me?”. Despite the wishful thinking of Utopia's viewers, Dennis Kelly more or less confirmed that the character was a goner on Twitter, telling a fan "I almost lost my bottle and left him alive, but it's no good holding on to things." But what about Arby?
We last saw Neil Maskell's Arby in his childhood bedroom at the facility once he'd handed Jessica Hyde the manuscript. After retrieving it from the air vent decorated with faces “to keep the devil out”, Arby was left in the burning building and never seen again. Did he perish in the fire he started? Did he manage to escape? Or did sibling Jessica go back for him? (After all, she had time to source that impressive-looking OB van before returning to the mansion, so could well have fitted in a detour to rescue her big brother. He is the only family she has left, remember.)
Finally, we come to Wilson Wilson, who succumbed to a second stab wound just days after his self-administered knifing. Along with Neil Maskell, Adeel Akhtar gave one of Utopia’s best performances, so if series two is a possibility, then doing away with him so callously seems a waste. We like to think they both made it.
13 questions left unanswered by the Utopia finale
Channel 4’s six-part thriller Utopia aired its finale last night. Here are some of the questions it left us with…
Resolving a conspiracy thriller to the satisfaction of your audience while leaving enough plot in play for a second series is an unenviable task. If the recommission doesn’t arrive, people will be left wanting. Comments sections can fill up with splutter and rage. Facebook posts can descend into under-punctuated babble. To channel our collective curiosity about the world of Dennis Kelly’s Utopia then, we’ve gathered up these remaining questions about series one to see what answers the hive-mind can provide. In the words of Milner, “We have so much to do”…
7. What was the chemical diagram formed when all the pages of the manuscript come together?
Alice putting together the manuscript jigsaw was a great visual moment, but what did it really add to the unravelling mystery? A chemical diagram of sorts was uncovered, but if the secret to Janus was hidden inside Jessica all along, then what was the diagram's significance? Additionally, if the manuscript was just, as Milner says “drawings done by a mad man”, then why was The Assistant persevering with squeezing those five-digit numbers out of Grant? Had Milner kept Jessica’s true importance hidden from her decoy too?
6. Has Grant been proven innocent?
He may be disguised as him out of My Chemical Romance, but not too long ago, Grant’s face was all over the papers and TV as the suspect in a school shooting. The finale saw him running around a train station, hours after committing a bonafide murder, with little regard for being recognised. Does that mean he’s been cleared, or is he still the UK’s most notorious eleven-year-old?
5. Who was the skinhead scouser in the church?
He came in to the church in episode three swearing and pointing a gun (very much the Utopia way), before meeting a swift exit at the hands of Milner’s standard-issue firearm. Our best guess is that he was another Network stooge, one used as cannon fodder by Milner so she could gain the trust of the group.
4. Was that really Milner’s son dying of Deels in episode five?
We’re probably safe to assume it wasn’t, seeing as telling the truth hasn’t exactly been Ms Rabbit’s strong-point. The way she told it, Mr Milner (if he existed) worked at Corvadt (plausible) and contracted Deels (also plausible considering that experimenting on family members is de rigueur round Corvadt way), which he passed on to their son. The whole thing was most likely a ruse to play on Becky’s fears about her Deels triggering, and we can assume that Milner’s power is wide-reaching enough to be able to procure any number of wheezing children to aid her subterfuge.
3. Is Milner Jessica and Arby’s mother?
A trickier one, this. Utopia is full of one-parent families; Wilson and his dad, Becky and hers, Grant and his mum, Alice and hers… We’ve known from episode two that Philip Carvel was Jessica’s father, and from episode five that she shared that dubious privilege with Arby, but there’s been no hint of a mother for either. He may have been a brilliant geneticist, but Carvel would have needed a womb to house his two experiments. Did Milner provide that service?
2. Is Milner the Devil?
This still from last night's finale certainly suggests so, though we’d assume it’s more of a metaphor for her diabolical scheming than a clue she’s the honest-to-God devil. Imaginative though Utopia is, it remains in the realm of speculative fiction rather than out-and-out fantasy.
The Utopia Experiments graphic novel, as Becky reminds us in episode one, is about a scientist who makes a pact with the devil (or a 'Deel', if we're playing word games). That scientist? Philip Carvel, father to Jessica and Arby. That devil? Network head Milner.
1. Are Arby and Wilson really dead?
Quiffed henchman Lee was the first of the Network’s soldiers to fall, which he did after being shot by a recently blinded Wilson in episode one. It wasn’t until episode three that Arby confirmed his death when speaking to Letts: “Lee was killed the other day. Next to you he’s the person I know most. Why doesn’t that hurt me?”. Despite the wishful thinking of Utopia's viewers, Dennis Kelly more or less confirmed that the character was a goner on Twitter, telling a fan "I almost lost my bottle and left him alive, but it's no good holding on to things." But what about Arby?
We last saw Neil Maskell's Arby in his childhood bedroom at the facility once he'd handed Jessica Hyde the manuscript. After retrieving it from the air vent decorated with faces “to keep the devil out”, Arby was left in the burning building and never seen again. Did he perish in the fire he started? Did he manage to escape? Or did sibling Jessica go back for him? (After all, she had time to source that impressive-looking OB van before returning to the mansion, so could well have fitted in a detour to rescue her big brother. He is the only family she has left, remember.)
Finally, we come to Wilson Wilson, who succumbed to a second stab wound just days after his self-administered knifing. Along with Neil Maskell, Adeel Akhtar gave one of Utopia’s best performances, so if series two is a possibility, then doing away with him so callously seems a waste. We like to think they both made it.
it's so amazing
i still can't decide if i want a series two or not. the finale gave enough closure that it would feel complete if they didn't continue but still open-ended enough that a second series could be really cool.
Completely torn on the matter too.
i really hope wilson isn't dead because he's my favorite character, i think
i love your icon btw
Edited at 2013-02-22 03:03 am (UTC)
one of the only shows where the child actors/characters don't annoy the hell out of me.
alice is so cute I love her.
and I thought I would hate grant in the beginning but he's adorable too.