kenny
how did kenny die?
shareStop reading NOW if you don't want spoilers.
Here goes:
Alistair lost netfuls of salmon due to the fact that seals were in the area and ripping open the nets. Alistair fears that he's financially ruined.
Gordon and Marjorie see an opportunity to profit from this loss, and Gordon plans to go out for the salmon in his ferry.
Kenny wants to help Alistair and decides to take Douglas's son's boat out and try for some salmon. Unfortunately, the boat has not made completely seaworthy, and it fills up with water. Kenny makes it to shore but collapses. He's in a remote area, and no one knows he's even gone out.
Eventually, the Abby and the others realize what has happened and set out on a search, even calling in the British Navy. Unfortunately, Kenny has died of exposure by the time they reach him.
It's a real knife-twist ending, too, because Kenny hallucinates during his ordeal, and you see scenes of his survival and being rescued. He also has conversations with numerous people he's loved -- Alfie, Abby, et al. The way it's set up, you at first think he's been rescued, and then the surreal nature of the encounters become apparent. It becomes more and more clear that it's all in his mind.
I was dumbfounded that they killed him off.
I was totally gutted when I saw this episode a couple of years ago. It seems as though there were lots of story threads left unfinished. Maybe Paul Kaye wanted to leave to try his luck in the movies or something? Having seen Blackball I think he would have been better off sticking with this show.
More spoilers:
I wouldn't say that. The writer, Tim Prager, has said on record that this was more or less what he planned all along.
The love story was never between Kenny and Abby - it was between Kenny and the children. For as long as the four of them were together, Kenny and Abby were both trapped - Kenny realised that at the end of the second season, when she said that she'd marry him for her children, but not out of love.
That's why he went to London to find her ex-husband - the man she really did love - and bring him back.
But even when he did that, and tried to leave the family together, Abby wouldn't give him the money to let him go. If you remember, that's why he went out to catch the salmon in the first place - he knew what they'd be worth.
When I see that moment when he dies, I can't help but finding it quite poignant. You can hear the rescue helicopter in the background, but when he says "I have to go", it's to his death.
The key's in those other words to Abby: "I loved you more than life."
I think he really did.
It's just my theory that maybe he could've held on, but he knew that he wouldn't get what he wanted in life (shown by the fact that his first hallucination breaks up when Abby tries to say "I love you"), and that the only way for her to let go and for all of them to move on would be if he didn't come back. If he did go back, he knows they'd never let him leave.
Listen again to that final dialogue between Abby and Robbie on the beach. It's all about possibilities and what life's been building up to. With Ida and Peter returning, and the Ronansay whisky business about to start up again, that's what that whole episode's about: new beginnings.
"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."
- Tom Clancy
Thanks Samanfur, I hadn't really thought of it as Kenny making a sacrifice for the good of everyone. It's a nice way to think of it anyway...well as nice as it could be.
One thing that isn't clear in my mind is how the situation with Ida and...oh I can't remmeber his name, the farmer type with the cap on...turned out. I seem to remember that it suggested he shot someone who was trying to take away Ida's son? Or was that part of the dream? I'm confused!
I just lump that whole business with Malcolm confronting Ida's ex-husband (who you may remember'd forced her to go into hiding because he was trying to take Peter away) as another of those possibilities that it's left up to the viewer to decide the destiny of.
If you remember, her ex-husband'd been spreading rumours that Ida was a prostitute. The most we ever saw was Malcolm arrange a meeting place and go there with a gun. We didn't se who the sole shot was fired at.
I know a lot of people who enjoy thinking up storylines for that lose end - as well as Heather telling Kenny in the hallucination that she was pregnant with his baby. After all, she was rather sick on the morning of the funeral, if you recall...
Again, they took the whole idea of endless possibilities to extremes as far as I was concerned. :)
"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."
- Tom Clancy
Oh right, at least it wasn't just me forgetting what happened! I'm not a big fan of loose endings or leaving it up to the viewer to decide - after all if I wanted to imagine a story I'd write it myself - when I'm being told a story I kind of like the storyteller to tell me what happened.
Thanks anyway Sam, you're a diamond ;o)
No problem. :)
I think you're not the only person who was thrown by Mr. Prager taking that affirmative approach to the ending, either. The clamour got so loud on the BBC message boards that that was why he actually came out and talked about his vision for the series.
"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."
- Tom Clancy
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You've mentioned the BBC message board. Can you send the link to topic about Paul or "Two thousand acres of sky"? There are so many themes on BBC drama message board, so i couldn't find what i was looking for. :) Thanks.
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