Part 3 Orsiny
After all that fuss we find out the real secret surrounding Orsiny (or if you're really annoyed by the fact this was very slow, call it Arseny!) well okay not in this part but you knew it was heading there even if you haven't read the book. Borlu (David Morrissey) still on the search for Mahalia's killer and finding out what happened to Kat (Lara Pulver). He finally gets to meet with Bowden (Christian Camargo) along with Dhatt (Maria Schrader) and he tells Borlu he's being victimized. As he recalls being targeted by other people too. That he saw Kat before she disappeared and how invested she was in finding Orsiny. He leaves and Borlu says they can use that warrant how since he won't be at his apartment. When they arrive the door is ajar and there is writing all over the walls which Dhatt says isn't Ul Quomo.
Everything leads back to that dig again and there was quite a bit of repetition with the flashbacks and after getting onto a rip roaring start it seemed to fizzle out in the last 2 parts. Borlu was meant to be deported back to Beszel and happens to have dinner with Dhatt and her partner, Yallya (Kasia Koleczek) which he enjoyed seeing a different side to her, making her a little more human and like him in some ways; but at the end of the day she's still a policewoman and is getting her orders higher up. Just like him. As she later will say to him, she has a life. That being the difference between them both as he is dedicated to his work and finding out who killed Mahalia and what happened to Kat. Which makes it more personal for him but since he is a policeman with a conscience and hating this divide between the two cities. It's the people who suffer the most and in some ways reflected in him not being able to open his eyes when he sees those blurred lines.
Yeah going back to that dig whilst they are there talking with professor Nancy (paprika Steen) someone sends Bowden a bomb which explodes just as the shifts change and Tairo (Barry Aird) is saved. So Bowden becomes a target now as if someone was trying to remove his existence too as he knows too much.
More flashes to Kat and Borlu and how they met and got married, including their 2 year anniversary and including how she moved in with him beforehand. He was clearly besotted with her but she was more into that city and finding it. At their 2 year anniversary Bowden arrives with another woman friend and still Kat can't help but be taken in by him. It was if Borlu was just that consolation prize and she wouldn't end up with anyone but marrying a policeman would give hr some kind of freedom to carry on with her research. Even being known as a subversive. She is a lecturer at a Beszel Poly and even this isn't enough for her.
Borlu talks with Tairo after the bomb goes off but he doesn't give him his number. Instead Borlu follows him and finds Yolanda (Moryffd Clark) hiding out with him and some others. They believe Orsiny doesn't exist and it's all made up. Borlu wants to take Yolanda over to Beszel and they come up with this silly elaborate scheme to cross the border with her dressed as an Ul Qomo policewoman, with Corwi (Mandeep Dhillon) meeting her other side. As Borlu's still waiting to cross over there's gunshots and Yolanda panics and runs away and is shot doing so. Gotta ask why Corwi didn't put her in the car instead of hiding behind it. Well as said, that was pointless. Borlu turns back into Ul Qomo on the pretext of having left something behind and follows Corwi chasing the shooter. It's as if he can see everything but can't cross over when it would be so easy to do so. Finally he sees the shooter and takes a shot at him going through the membrane between the two cities and the bullet penetrating this membrane. For a second it looked like he had actually crossed over into the street and the next city.
As he doe so, he's approached by men, who must have been Breach.
As we get to Part 4 Breach.
Borlu is tortured as they try to get tot he bottom of how much he knows and also speaking of Kat. He's permanently removed from duty as Gadlem (Ron Cook) takes his badge and also is told not to fraternize with any other officers. Borlu meets Corwi who finally admits she's Breach Manifest. As she tells him all bout Breach in flashes and the case. Taking him to an apartment where he'll be safe with his things and also he's now a part of Breach too, so they can go anywhere and cross over and through the blurred lines of the city. Some people might be confused in the previous ep as Borlu fired his gun through the cross hatch, the disputed part of the cities. However they can travel freely and she plays him tapes and video recordings of their surveillance on Mahalia, Bowden and Kat. How they met that night and Borlu was following her, but he didn't go after her when she left Bowden. How Mahalia found the artefacts and substituted them for nothing. Seeing Kat on the last known footage of her and disappearing into Ul Qomo through a desolate part of the city. Which Borlu plays over and over. As he analyzes the footage and prints photos marking them on the map.
Corwi entered Sear and Co attempting to speak with Gorse (Robert Firth) but she was escorted out. Obviously Sears and Gorse - his company had a lot to do with all this. As did Major Syedr (Danny Webb) who has been reelected in what he calls a victory for purity. Borlu and Cowri retrace Mahalia's steps into how she got out of the dig with the artefacts and Borlu finds it was a building in one of the photos she had. Also she speaks about Kat on the recordings. Poor delusional Kat - my words! They find Mahalia dropped the artefacts through a hole in the ground and climbed down there herself. Here she followed the light but it only led her to Sears Corp. That's why she was killed, there was no Orsiny. As Borlu also finds the same. Gorse and Bowden met in India and must've come up with this elaborate hoax. As well as Gorse telling Borlu that no matter what happens they will just become the remnants of the US mining corps. They found metal in those artefacts which are abundant underneath the city. There was no invite from Orsiny and there was no city where people could escape and be free. Also Syedr was a part of it and he kills himself not being able to stand the heat as they say.
Borlu meets with Bowden telling him he can be free and Corwi has the call traced. Bowden tells him all about Kat and how Borlu couldn't save her this time, he should have but he wasn't there. She did what he saved her from and killed herself, just as she jumped from the bridge the first time round. Bowden telling Borlu he pushed her since he made her do it cos he took away who she was and well, it was actually Bowden and his non existent quest which got her involved in this. As Bowden approaches Borlu he can't go through with drowning him and Bowden stabs him in the neck with the knife. As Corwi shoots Bowden, Kat appears to Borlu and wants him to go with her. But he turns back cos he doesn't want the nothingness that she was attracted to and which led to her taking her own life. He turns back and survives
Corwi telling him they all breached once, they're not from here. SO he becomes a part of the very thing he spoke of in Part 1. Breach: they are just like you and me. And perhaps the ones who were level headed, some of them and keeping order. As Borlu is now able to cross into both cities freely. He sees Dhatt through the blur of the next street which is no longer a blur but blended in for him.
It was an ambitious production brought to life, can't help thinking it didn't have to be drawn out this long since the flashbacks were already shown quite a bit. As said, Orsiny was just a city to mask their mining operation and the US attempt to make money and get rich from other countries. Nothing changed there either then.
What it came down to is The City and The City just being your run of the mill crime drama, murder investigation. With Borlu narrating in film noir fashion, the events, what/who he is, the city he lives in, rules and what's happening to tie in the loose threads for us. At the end of the day he is just a policeman investigating a murder which was made to believe was alluding to a mythical city where there was no racism or hate and people could live as one, without the yellow/red divides of Beszel and Ul Qomo. yet it didn't exist and what he was left with, what anyone was left with was the everyday reality of greed, poverty, versus intimidation, purity and misguided politicians just making a name for themselves ind riving the masses to hysteria and with the threat of being caught and deported, killed or beaten.
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