The ghost got the nod

With 100% of the votes I start my latest blog with a rave about Hex http://www.skyone.co.uk/programme/pgeProgramme.aspx?pid=5 . We are 2 episodes into the 2nd season of Sky One's occult/fantasy drama. It's been compared with Buffy, but it's cleverer, darker, more complicated and funnier than Buffy ever was. Where it does compare is that neither were afraid to have lesbian characters. In the case of Hex there is a twist. Thelma, who suffers the pain of unrequited love in the form of Cassie, was killed violently and unexpectedly in episode 2 of season 1.

But thankfully that wasn't the last we were to see of her. For reasons that I shall not go into she was prevented from entirely leaving this world and is now a lesbian ghost. Her unrequited love now even less likely to be requited. One benefit that this wise-cracking ghostie has found is that she can eat all the chocolate she wants without any impact on her ghostly shape. Alas she was murdered in a tasteless party dress and doomed to wear it for the whole of season 1. Season 2 at least brought a change of clothes.

So what makes Hex so good? Well the dialogue is fantastic for starters (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423668/quotes). The casting is terrific, and the complexity of the mythology/back story just draws you in. Season 2 has taken things further - new characters, massive plot developments and shock upon shock - at the end of episode 2 Cassie was killed. Tear jerking stuff as Cassie passed away with Thelma desperately trying touch her hand as she died. To kill the lead character takes balls, but of course there will be twists to come, and in the meantime we have an amazingly sexy new character in Ella to drive the plot forward.

There are so many nice touches with Hex that it is hard to articulate what makes it so good. Thelma discovering another lesbian ghost from the 1920's was superb. You've just got to love dialogue like:


Thelma Bates: So, what are you doing here?
Peggy: Actually my father used to own this place?
Thelma Bates: Oh. Sorry.
Peggy: I died here in 1923. I'd like to say my husband caught me with the scullery maid, but actually it was the flu. How about you?
Thelma Bates: I was ritualistically sacrificed by a fallen angel.
Peggy: Ah, the flu, too, eh?

Apparently Thelma is to get another love interest this season. Hopefully it will be done well - it has thusfar - Libertas said: "one of the best lesbian characters to have hit our TV screens in a mainstream programme in some time". But there is so much more to Hex than sexuality, although the ways of the flesh have been rather a theme in the show since Cassie was impregnated by a fallen angel.

Hex is part Omen, part Carrie, part Buffy, part Randall and Hopkirk, and totally brilliant. Of course now I've raved about it it will probably be rubbish from now onwards. The same happened with Moonlighting I recall.

Last Sunday as I watched episode 2 I actually found myself shouting at the tv trying to warn Cassie that Azazeal was nearby, I found myself holding my breath due to tension, and i had to fight back tears. What a show!