King Charles and Queen Camilla have chosen a photograph of themselves taken in Rome for their official Christmas card.
The
photograph, taken in April during their state visit to Italy, shows the
smiling couple standing side by side on a garden path. The greeting
inside reads "Wishing you a very happy Christmas and New Year".
The
King - standing on the left - is wearing a dark blue suit and grey tie,
while the Queen is wearing a white and beige coat dress.
This photograph is their fourth Christmas card since Charles became King.
The image, captured by photographer Chris Jackson, was taken in the grounds of the Villa Wolkonsky, the British ambassador's residence in Rome. It was taken to mark the King and Queen's 20th wedding anniversary. The Queen is also wearing a lily of the valley brooch, a symbol of enduring love.
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The story of Vince Gilligan’s gripping new Apple TV show Pluribusexplores
the human condition through an inventive sci-fi premise that not only
keeps us guessing but forces us to think deeply about the nature of free
will, happiness, and what it means to be alive.
And, in Episode 6,
“HDP,” Pluribus also briefly becomes a massive James Bond homage.
Here’s what’s going on in the opening moments of Pluribus, and which specific 007 moments are getting referenced.
Warning! Mild spoilers ahead
After
the opening moments, in which Carol (Rhea Seehorn) confirms that the
strange milk-like substance is, in fact, made from human remains, the
title card rolls, and then, suddenly, we’re in Las Vegas. Koumba (Samba
Schutte), one of the few humans immune to the Joining, is living it up
in a casino, playing a high-stakes poker game against a man with an
eyepatch.
Koumba (Samba Schutte) goes full retro Bond.
Apple TV
For
several minutes, this scene plays out almost as a dream sequence. Are
all these characters acting of their own free will? Or is something else
going on? After Koumba defeats a character called TK, all the “Others”
are allowed to break character.
But before that happens, the Bond
references are plenty, some of which are buried in the credits of this
episode.
The man Koumba beats at cards (Francois Guetary), the one
with the eyepatch, is called “Blofinger.”
This is a reference to the
two famous Bond villains, Blofeld and Goldfinger.
That said, the
eyepatch and poker scene reference a game of cards that Bond (Sean
Connery) played against Largo (Adolfo Celi) in the 1965 film Thunderball.
Meanwhile, the Las Vegas setting, with Koumba living it up, so to speak, seems to reference the 1971 film Diamonds Are Forever, the only time James Bond ended up in Vegas.
(The 1956 book version of Diamonds Are Forever is much better, by the way.
But, obviously, the movie version is more iconic
Pluribus streams on Apple TV.
The musical score in this scene is full of suspicious guitars and low
brass and strings, reminiscent of so many John Barry James Bond scores.
And, one of Koumba’s companions, played by Anna Mhairi, is, in the
credits, named “Vesper.”
This is a reference to the character Vesper
Lynn, created by Ian Fleming for his first novel, 1953’s Casino Royale.
(The Vesper is also the name of a famous cocktail, which, at least in name, originates from that book.)
Koumba’s
Bond fantasy is, of course, eventually broken by the arrival of Carol,
who demands to talk to him about the grisly nature of the HDP. But, in
truth, the fantasy is broken before that, when many of the Others break
character after Koumba leaves, picking up broken glass, and generally,
resetting the world to the way it was before.
As a brief Bond send-up, it’s all pitch-perfect, but as part of Pluribus’s
ongoing themes, there’s something else interesting here.
Carol can
judge Koumba for his fantasy all she wants, but it’s also interesting,
considering she herself is a romantasy author, another kind of
titillating escapist fiction parallel with something like James Bond.
Only a few episodes previous, we learned that the Others put Carol’s
books on the same level of esteem as Shakespeare.
Clearly, with this
episode, they’re capable of doing the same thing with Ian Fleming.
There’s
a subtle sense of artistic democratization in all of this. Just as we
were able to laugh at Carol’s romantasy fiction in the first episode, Pluribus
does the same thing with Bond in this episode.
The show is clearly
making a comment on our various hang-ups and escapist ideas.
But, if you
lived in a hivemind world in which all of these things were okay, would
that make all of these things okay?
Or, is Pluribus suggesting something else: Perhaps the line between farce, good art, and bad art is simply nonexistent.
