Ripper Street Recap: “The King Came Calling”

Ripper Street Recap: “The King Came Calling”
Original Air Date (BBC): Sunday January 13, 2013
Series 1 Episode 3

by C.S. Kane:

Ripper Street offered another blood soaked plot this week. The opening scenes intersected butchery with a man spewing bile and vomit on the street. Ultimately he loses his life and it is dramatically pronounced that “King Cholera” has returned. We are then taken to the riverside where Inspector Reid (Steven Macfayden) and Inspector Resller (Patrick Baladi) of the Metroplitan Police are discussing an unrelated case of a butchered woman. Reid is adamant that it is not the work of “Jack” and the two have a brusque conversation highlighting the tensions between London’s different jurisdictions. However, as illness begins to sweep Whitechapel and the surrounding areas Inspector Reid and Inspector Resller join in an alliance to try to discover the cause of the rising deaths.

Captain Jackson (Adam Rothenberg) earns his salt by performing a gruesome autopsy with the aid of, the particularly squeamish assistant, Hobbs (Jonathan Barnwell). It is discovered that the illness the man was afflicted with was in fact brought on by intentional poisoning. The poisoning brings with it hallucinations, gargantuan volumes of vomiting and diarrhoea. The question arises as to how it has been administered to so many. Jackson utilises emerging technology and methods such as the Marsh Test to identify this in a series that is continuously highlighting the progression of science and intertwining it with the police procedural systems used by the characters.

This episode sees Emily Reid (Amanda Hale) take a more prominent role in the storyline. Thanks to her charity work she too comes into contact with the darker side of Whitechapel. In her bid to find a benefactor for a women’s shelter she encounters local business owner Mrs Gable (Penny Downie). Emily falls victim to the horror of the poisoning in a fantastically shot interchange between herself and Mrs Gable wherein the old woman is seen to be grotesquely menacing in Emily’s hallucination. Later she sees her lost child and sinks deeper into the illness giving her husband even more impetus to find the culprit.

The poisoner sits in a tiny lamp lit room full of chemicals and poisons. On the wall there is articles about Jack the Ripper and in a ritualistic way the brutal mages of the Ripper victims are crossed out. There is a recurring emphasis on the prominence of the newspaper and I was interested to see the W.H. Smith cart literally set out. The dissemination of information, the presence of the press at murder scenes and the sensationalisation of stories, which some historians have looked upon as the birth of the tabloids, are all evident in Ripper Street.

The series is growing in terms of themes and plot. Hopefully, we shall soon see the development of the characters and learn more about the things that drive and define them. Again, I am looking forward to the next episode and on another note a tipping of the hat is in order for the special effects team who succeed in creating visceral and at times repugnant scenes.

C.S. Kane is a writer of horror fiction and a DarkMedia contributor. Kane has a penchant for the paranormal and is a true a sucker for Sci-fi. Interests include reading, writing, watching movies and enjoying good food. Keep up with the darker side of life by following Kane on Twitter at @CS_Kane and via the blog: www.cskaneofficial.blogspot.co.uk