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Original poster

Black Earth Rising

69 replies

InfiniteVariety · 13/10/2018 17:31

Apologies if there's already a thread about the series -
Is there anybody else utterly captivated by this whilst simultaneously not being entirely sure what's going on?

OP posts:

Everincreasingfrequency · 16/10/2018 08:01

Oh good point SD - then he could have closed the garage door remotely. But didn't Gaines say 'there's no [key]' - I thought he didn't have the car key (so police would have worked out he couldn't have reversed in? Now I can't remember, darn it I'll have to watch that bit again!

SoupDragon · 16/10/2018 08:04

I think you're right that there wasn't a key. So how was the car running? My car has keyless start but a loud alarm sounds if the engine is running with the key out of the car.

I can't remember why he couldn't open a window now either. There are certainly a lot of holes in the suicide story!

SoupDragon · 16/10/2018 08:04

Actually, was it the other car engines that were running, not the car he was in?

PiggyPoos · 16/10/2018 10:54

Yes the handwrititen note. I'd forgotten about that. That didn't make any sense either though I rewound and freezed it three times.

PiggyPoos · 16/10/2018 10:56

Gaines was an excellent baddie shame he wasn't in longer

Everincreasingfrequency · 16/10/2018 11:26

What did the handwritten note say apart from in the event of my death let Michael know? And then was signed Fischer - reference to the chess play conversation the two had the previous week? And had the unpaid bill pinned up as well.

I assumed that Gaines was trying to let Michael know he'd been murdered because of the bill - that would explain why he was throwing up I suppose, if he knew he was about to get bumped off! He trusted Samson though - slightly out of character for Gaines?

PiggyPoos · 16/10/2018 11:51

Its all so confusing. I think I'd have let the bill go myself rather than be sick in a bin and get murdered.

Everincreasingfrequency · 16/10/2018 12:06

That would certainly be the rational response piggy!

I think the throwing up is also metaphorical, is it? - people are made sick by the horror of what happened.

Very snippy President last night! I've gone off the idea that Kate is her daughter - Bibi would have been nicer to her if she were!

calpop · 16/10/2018 13:17

Even more confused after last nights episode. is it about bringing guilty Hutus to justice or about in-fighting within the current Tutsi government?

SoupDragon · 16/10/2018 13:28

I think it's about everything!

As an aside, I don't trust that Rwandan politician with the gold rimmed glasses at all.

PiggyPoos · 16/10/2018 13:34

No me neither. Ahh looked very shifty during those birthday drinks also.

Everincreasingfrequency · 16/10/2018 14:35

Why was David so interested in that particular missing file - or was it just that that was the only one they couldn't find? Is it 'The Tape', do we think?

I agree Florence looked very uneasy at the birthday bit - is David coercing him somehow? Although he did help Kate discover why the witness was lying - which david would not have wanted.

Choccywoccyhooha · 16/10/2018 14:59

Yes the handwritten note is a bit of a conundrum. All I can think of was that it made Gaines realise that someone had overheard his conversation with Kate the previous week. In that conversation she said that she was his Bobby Fischer, and the note was signed by "Bobby Fischer." I'm guessing he knew it wasn't Kate who wrote the note, which would mean that he was being watched/bugger. (He was so arrogant I'm not sure that it would occur to him to consider that Kate was being watched).

I think that Kate's parents will turn out to be President Mundanzi and Patrice Ganimana, making her mixed Tutsi/Hutu. She was taken to England because Bibi would not have been able to bring up a mixed child and progress her political career, plus it would have put Kate in danger. Now, however, Alice is feeding Kate clues to help her future this out, so Kate herself will reveal the truth, bringing down Mundanzi with her.

I'm sure I'll be proved wrong but I'm sticking to the theory, and when I suggested it on the Guardian blog some posters other it some holes in my theory!

diddl · 16/10/2018 16:32

I'm really enjoying this-surprised more people don't seem to be watching.

PiggyPoos · 18/10/2018 16:31

Oh good spot Choccy.

He must have been scared to be sick but the mad bugger still insisted on insulting them.

PiggyPoos · 22/10/2018 22:53

That was an unusually easy to follow episode! 😂

feelsickallthetime · 23/10/2018 07:54

I loved the first couple of episodes but have given up confused. That might partly be because I've left too long between each episode so giving myself time to forget what happened.

Everincreasingfrequency · 23/10/2018 09:16

Sadly, I was confused! Who does Alice want to be prosecuted for the massacre of the Hutus in (then) Zaire - I don't understand what Patrice Ganimana's connection to that was? Or was Alice simply revealing that it was Simon Nyamoya?

Did Alice's husband give the tape to David? And why oh why didn't they make copies of it?

PiggyPoos · 23/10/2018 10:08

He was in the camp and I suppose escaped somehow?

I think Alice's husband is dodgy.

Everincreasingfrequency · 23/10/2018 10:27

Aha - Florence is working for David as well, is he? Florence was watching Frank come out of the bank as well - but so was somebody else, from the window.

So for the moment, could be either Frank or Florence who arranged for the tape to be nabbed - or both of them, of course.

diddl · 25/10/2018 08:20

So when David was listening to the tape-it was Simon Nyamoya giving the order?

What was the significance of the picture of David & Bibi in uniform?

That she was involved & this is all about him protecting her?

Everincreasingfrequency · 25/10/2018 08:29

I wondered about the photo - but concluded that it was a reference to the time that David loved Bibi, that Bibi alluded to earlier on. (Though think he probably still does love her, doesn't he?)

Not sure if it was Simon on the tape, but I think that he was supposed to have been involved - that was why Eve took the tape to the ICC. Though it was not on the indictment - she was going to use it as background, as far as i remember?

diddl · 25/10/2018 08:38

Yes I think that he is still in love with her.

But who killed Simon & why?

David was the one who told him to give himself up, Kate was sure that Simon was a hero who helped end the genocide?

But it's not the genocide but a "retaliation atrocity" that they are trying to get justice for?

I'm quite lost!

Everincreasingfrequency · 25/10/2018 08:48

yes indeed, who killed Simon - presumably someone who doesn't want the massacre in (then) Zaire to be exposed?

one thing occurred to me - if Kate was in fact rescued in 1997 from the Zaire camp, wouldn't it have been quite difficult to pretend (including to UK authorities?) that she had been rescued during the 1994 killings? there would have been unexplained gaps/anomalies in the story, surely? Not sure how that would have worked in practice.

diddl · 25/10/2018 08:56

So when Kate visited the church - I thought that she had been rescued somehow from a massacre there?

But that's wrong?

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