Caution: Spoilers through Season 5 below.

Last year, I wrote a (relatively) brief summary of the few animal-friendly plot lines found in seasons one through four of Lost. Animal advocacy issues are rarely addressed in the show, but look closely, and you’re bound to discover occasional gem: lovable Kate is a vegetarian, while show villain Anthony Cooper enjoys blood sports such as hunting. The Losties (understandably) took to hunting wild boar for sustenance early on, but the slaughter quickly ceased when they discovered the Dharma food drops. And who could forget Sayid’s memories of Amira?

While nonhuman animals didn’t much figure into the season five story arc, one episode in particular stuck with me. In fact, I meant to write about “He’s Our You” (Season 5, Episode 11) months ago, but somehow it kept getting placed on the back burner. With the final season of Lost set to begin tonight, what better time to revisit an old episode?

As I noted previously, Sayid’s story lines oftentimes revolve around the themes of forgiveness and vengeance, with Sayid struggling to come to grips with his strikingly violent past. As a soldier in the Iraq Republican Guard, he was captured, co-opted, and trained as an “interrogator” (read: torturer) by American forces during Operation Desert Storm. At the close of the war, his “skills” were put to use and turned against his fellow Iraqi citizens in the Republican Guard, where he was promoted to the Intelligence division and tasked with torturing dissidents and political prisoners – including his long lost childhood love, Nadia (as well as the aforementioned Amira). Torn between his allegiance to his country and his moral qualms, he helped Nadia to escape, but could not bring himself to go with her.

Once on the island, Sayid (somewhat reluctantly) put his interrogation skills to use several times (as if fate would not allow him a break from his past – even when stranded on a lost island!), first torturing an innocent but obstinate Sawyer, and later, a guilty but cunning Ben Linus. During the “A-list missions” and battles with the Others, Sayid proved to be a valuable military asset. After escaping from the island, Sayid reunited with Nadia, only to see her murdered not a year after their wedding. The rest of Sayid’s time off the island is devoted to hunting her killers down, one by one, and exacting revenge. This came with an uneasy alliance with Ben, on the premise that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” However, it’s still unclear whether the men Ben directed Sayid to kill had anything to do with Nadia’s murder – or if Sayid was being conned.

Flash forward to Sayid’s return to the island – circa 1977. Here, a lost and confused Sayid struggles with the reason why he’s been brought back to the island; what is his purpose here? After meeting 12-year-old Ben Linus, Sayid has an epiphany: if he was to kill Ben, then the young, innocent Ben would not live to grow into the evil, adult Ben that the Losties know and hate – and thus most of the (present-day) events in Lost would never occur. But can Sayid really murder a child in cold blood?

“He’s Our You” deals with Sayid’s inner struggle over this complex moral dilemma. As with earlier episodes, Sayid wonders whether he’ll ever be able to escape his past as a torturer and killer; are these merely things that he has done – bad things, of course, but things that can be left in the past – or are they what he is? To what extent do Sayid’s sins define him as a person? And, given the American occupying forces’ role in shaping his destiny, is Sayid a natural born or man-made killer?

In this episode, the audience learns that Sayid worked for Ben as a sort of “assassin” after Nadia’s death. We’re also (finally!) treated to flashbacks of Sayid’s childhood (whereas we saw many of the Losties as children in earlier seasons), including this particularly disturbing memory:

[Chickens clucking]

Title card: Tikrit, Iraq

MAN: [Pulling a boy alongside him.] [Subtitle: Come on! You are not a child anymore. Act like a man. You must kill one.] [Gestures toward a chicken coop.]

BOY: [Glances sadly at the chickens. Hesitantly:] [Subtitle: I...I don't want to.]

MAN: [Sternly] [Subtitle: You will do as your father asks.]

BOY: [Subtitle: No!]

MAN: [Subtitle: Listen to what I’m telling you! Come on, kill one of them! You will stay outside until you do!]

[The man leaves the boy standing in front of the chicken coop with knife in hand.]

[Smaller boy approaches from behind, lays a hand on the larger boy's shoulder. They look at each other. The smaller boy opens his hand to reveal a handful of chicken feed. The smaller boy enters the coop and lays the feed on the ground in front of him. A bird approaches, which the boy lifts into his arms. The boy snaps the bird’s neck while the other boy looks wincingly on. The smaller boy brings the bird out of the coop and offers it to the larger boy, who takes it. The MAN reapproaches the pair.]

MAN: [To the larger boy] [Subtitle: Good for you. You did it.]

BOY: [Subtitle: It wasn't me.]

MAN: [Subtitle: Well, at least one of you will be a man. [Approaches and bends down to look the smaller boy in the eyes.] Well done, Sayid.]

Transcript via Lostpedia; unfortunately, I couldn’t find a video of this individual flashback, but it is shown briefly in the recap video below:
 

Perhaps more commonly, pop culture depictions of animal abuse involve “pet” animals, such as dogs and cats (see, for example, The Butterfly Effect, in which a dog’s torture and murder is one of many pivotal/potentially life-altering moments in the narrative). And for obvious reasons: dogs and cats are familiar to us, such that we are able to see the animal on the screen (or in the latest undercover investigation) as an individual being, complete with a family, emotions and a personality, as opposed to an abstract, depersonalized object. So good on Lost for considering a “lesser” animal as one worthy of compassion and sympathy. (Even if it was incidental or accidental!)

Of course, this flashback doesn’t really “solve” Sayid’s moral dilemma, as it is open to multiple interpretations. While Sayid was, in fact, able to strangle the chicken with little display of emotion, this doesn’t necessarily brand him a born killer. His father is portrayed as “a hard man” who obviously valued an unemotional, detached, even brutal version of masculinity – and, consequently, tried to instill these values in his sons. Raised in another environment, Sayid might have become an entirely different man. Additionally, it’s not clear that he took any pleasure in ending the chicken’s life; and as an adult, Sayid struggles with his roles as a soldier, interrogator, killer and assassin. He rarely kills because he wants to (the obvious exception being his stint as Linus’s hit man), but rather because he feels as though he has to in order to achieve a loftier goal.

Likewise, is one the sum total of one’s past (mis)deeds, or is there always a chance for redemption and evolution? Sayid’s flashback shows that his history of violence is lengthy, but does not indicate whether it’s a fate he’s destined to continue in perpetuity.

Perhaps we’ll find out more in the final season of Lost (!squeal!). No spoilers, please, I probably won’t be able to watch it until Friday night!

Anyhow, on a lighter note:
 

Crossposted from V for Vegan.

Caution: spoilers ahead!

Normally, I’m not one for musicals (Little Shop of Horrors and Grease notwithstanding!). That said, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street struck my fancy right away. Now, I could attribute this to the film’s macabre, Gothic Victorian setting, or to the dynamic star/director duo of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton; and, while these are both ginormous positives, I’d be lying if I said that either of these is what compelled me to dabble in a genre I tend to pass up. Nope, as much as I love a Goth Depp/Burton vehicle, Sweeney Todd reeled this vegan misanthrope in with promises of cannibalism. Cannibalism is the shit.

Sweeney Todd opens with the titular character’s arrival in London. “Return to London,” actually: in a former life, Sweeney Todd was one Benjamin Barker (also a barber). But we’ll get to Barker’s story in a moment.

We first meet Sweeney Todd as he and a young sailor dock in a London port. Whereas Todd’s traveling companion, Anthony, marvels at the beauty of London, Sweeney will have none of it. His gloomy, sullen mood sets the tone for the rest of the film: shades of black, gray and blue, colored only by the red crimson of blood spilt.

No Place Like London

[Anthony]
I have sailed the world,
beheld its wonders
from the Dardanelles,
to the mountains of Peru,
But there’s no place like London!

[Sweeney Todd]
No, there’s no place like London…

[Anthony]
(spoken)
Mr. Todd?

[Sweeney Todd]
(sung)
You are young…
Life has been kind to you…
You will learn.

There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit
and the vermin of the world inhabit it
and its morals aren’t worth what a pig can spit
and it goes by the name of London…
At the top of the hole sit the privileged few
Making mock of the vermin in the lonely zoo
turning beauty to filth and greed…
I too have sailed the world and seen its wonders,
for the cruelty of men is as wondrous as Peru
but there’s no place like London!

[Anthony]
(spoken)
Is everything alright Mr. Todd?

[Sweeney Todd]
(spoken)
I beg your indulgence, Antony,
But my mind is far from easy.
And these very streets are
filled with shadows,
Every last one of ‘em.

[Anthony]
(spoken)
Shadows?

[Sweeney Todd]
(sung)
There was a barber and his wife
and she was beautiful…
a foolish barber and his wife.
She was his reason for his life…
and she was beautiful,
and she was virtuous.
And he was naive.

There was another man who saw
that she was beautiful…
A pious vulture of the law
who, with a gesture of his claw,
removed the barber from his plate!
Then there was nothing but to wait!
And she would fall!
So soft!
So young!
So lost
and oh, so beautiful!

[Anthony]
(spoken)
Oh!
The lady, sir, did she, succumb?

[Sweeney Todd]
(sung)
Ah, that was many years ago…
I doubt if anyone would know.

Here, Sweeney Todd and Anthony part company. Still singing contemptuously of “people who are filled with shit,” Sweeney wanders onto Fleet Street, and right into Mrs. Lovett’s Minced Meat Pie Shop. The proud (?) purveyor of “the worst pies in London,” Mrs. Nellie Lovett breaks into a song about pies made of “pet” pussycats and stray animals “dyin’ in the street,” all due to the high “price of meat.” As she prepares a minced meat pie for Sweeney Todd, we’re treated to gratuitous images of bugs crawling on her kitchen counter and right across the dough. The minced “meat,” which Mrs. Lovett scoops into a raw pie with a ladle, looks like slop – not fit for human consumption. Indeed, it takes hard liquor to wash the taste of one of Mrs. Lovett’s pies out of Sweeney’s mouth.

It’s during the next musical number that we learn of the fate of Sweeney Todd’s wife and daughter. Mrs. Lovett’s establishment, you see, sits right under Sweeney’s old apartment.

Poor Thing

[Sweeney Todd]
(spoken)
You got a room over the shop, haven’t you? If times are so hard, why don’t you rent it out?

[Mrs. Lovett]
People think it’s haunted.

[Sweeney Todd]
Haunted?

[Mrs. Lovett]
Yeah. And who’s to say they’re wrong? You see, years ago something happened up here. Something not very nice.
(sung)
There was a barber and his wife.
And he was beautiful…
A proper artist with a knife,
but they transported him for life.
And he was beautiful…
(spoken)
Barker his name was.
Benjamin Barker.

[Sweeney Todd]
(spoken)
What was his crime?

[Mrs. Lovett]
Foolishness…
He had this wife, ya see.
Pretty little thing,
silly little nit.
Had her chance for the moon on a string…
Poor thing!
Poor thing!
There was this judge, ya see…
Wanted her like mad!
Everyday he sent her a flower
But did she come down from her tower?
Sat up there and sulked by the hour
Poor fool!
Ah, but there was worse yet to come
Pure thing!
Well, Beadle calls on her all polite
Poor thing!
Poor thing!
The judge, he tells her, is all contright.
He blames himself for her dreadful plight.
She must come straight to his house tonight!
Poor thing!
Poor thing!
Of course when she goes there…
Poor thing!
Poor thing!
They’re having this ball all in masks.
There’s no one she knows there!
Poor dear!
Poor thing!
She wonders, tormented and drinks!
Poor thing!
The judge has repented, she thinks.
Poor thing!
“Oh where is Judge Turpin?” she asks…
He was there, alright!
Only not so contrite!
She wasn’t no match for such craft, ya see.
And everyone thought it so drull.
They figured she had to be daft, ya see.
So all of them stood there and laughed, ya see!
Poor soul!
Poor thing!

Judge Turpin, coveting Sweeney Todd’s wife, had him imprisoned in exile on false charges. In Todd’s absence, he raped Mrs. Barker, who then – according to Mrs. Lovett – poisoned herself with arsenic. After Mrs. Barker’s tragic end, Turpin assumed guardianship of Barker’s baby daughter.

Upon learning his wife and child’s fate, Sweeney Todd devises a plan to exact revenge upon those who have wronged him. With the help of his trusty friends – a dazzling array of gleaming silver straight razors – Todd plots to revive his barber shop and establish a reputation as the most skilled barber in all of London, thus luring the Judge in for a shave – a shave dripping with “rubies,” that is. (Cue evil laughter.)

In the meantime, the story shifts back to Anthony, idly exploring the streets of London. Stopping to rest on a street-side bench, he spies a beautiful young woman across the way. Perched in the window of a foreboding, castle-like mansion, this Rapunzel-like figure sings a song of melancholy and sadness to the caged bird who flutters about next to her.

Green Finch and Linnett Bird

[Johanna]
Green finch, and linnet bird,
Nightingale, blackbird,
How is it you sing?
How can you jubilate
sitting in cages
never taking wing?
Outside the sky waits
beckoning!
Beckoning!
Just beyond the bars…
How can you remain
staring at the rain
maddened by the stars?
How is it you sing
anything?
How is it you sing?

My cage has many rooms
damask and dark…
Nothing there sings,
not even my lark.
Larks never will, you know,
when they’re captive.
Teach me to be more
adaptive.
Ah…
Green Finch, and Linnet Bird,
nightingale, blackbird,
teach me how to sing.
If I cannot fly…
Let me sing.

Mid-song, the woman notices Anthony noticing her, and her gaze shifts such that she appears to be singing to him. Abruptly, she vanishes from the window, as if interrupted by an intruder (her captor, no doubt). Inquiring of a nearby homeless woman, Anthony learns that “Rapuzel’s” name is Johanna – Johanna, ward of Judge Turpin, who

Keeps her snug he does. All locked up.
So don’t you go trespassin’ there or it’s a good whipping for you
or any other young man with mischief on his mind!

Later that night, lingering just outside Judge Turpin’s gate, Anthony vows to spring Johanna from her prison:

Johanna

[Anthony]
I feel you Johanna
I feel you
Do they think that walls can hide you?
Even now I’m at you window
I am in the dark beside you
Buried sweetly in your yellow hair
Johanna
I’ll steal you
Johanna
I feel you
Johanna
I feel you
Johanna
I’ll steal you

Like her companion the bird, Johanna is a prisoner. No, not just a prisoner: a toy, a plaything, a piece of property. After Mrs. Barker’s demise, Judge Turpin held onto the young girl, imprisoned her in a gilded cage, grooming her for marriage at a later date. (But not late enough: she is 16 years of age, if that.) Johanna is her mother’s “replacement.” She is not a companion, but a pet – like the flightless lark, she has been made slave to the whims of another.

While Anthony promises to rescue Johanna from her prison, he does not offer her liberation. Rather than free her, he intends to steal her: an illegal transfer of property, if you will. Things are bought, sold, traded and thieved; beings are not. Possibly this is just an unfortunate choice of words, forced by a need for rhyme (i.e., “I’ll steal you / I feel you”). Still, in the context of “Green Finch and Linnett Bird” – not to mention, Sweeney Todd’s half of the duo, in which he refers to Johanna as a “lamb” and a “pet” – Anthony’s use of “steal” over “free” or similar seems to be deliberate (and akin to Mrs. Mooney’s theft of the neighborhood cats). As a character, Johanna is never developed into her own person. To us, she’s only presented as the object of a man’s desires, be he her father, her suitor, or her guardian.

Back on Fleet Street, Sweeney Todd’s plans are taking shape. In short order, he challenges the reigning town barber to a shave-off and wins handily, thus cementing his reputation as the most skilled barber in London. His victory does not go unnoticed; Turpin’s associate Beadle Bamford is in attendance, and promises to stop by for a shave. But wait – a hitch! Adolfo Pirelli – the defeated barber and purveyor of Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir – recognizes Sweeney from his days as Benjamin Barker. The first visitor to Sweeney’s shop, Pirelli also becomes Sweeney’s first victim: when Pirelli tries to blackmail Sweeney, the latter responds with violence, slashing Pirelli’s neck open with a straight razor. Unsure how he’ll dispose of the body, he stuffs Pirelli in a trunk for safekeeping.

Shortly thereafter, Turpin himself stops in for a shave. It seems that Bamford encouraged his benefactor to avail himself of Sweeney Todd’s services in order to, ahem, soften the heart of a would-be fiancé. I think you know where this is going.

Ladies and their Sensitivities

[Judge]
(spoken)
Walk home with me, for I have news for you
In order to shield her from the evils of this world,
I have decided to marry Johanna next Monday.

[Beadle]
(spoken)
Ah, sir happy news.

[Judge]
(spoken)
Strange, when I offered myself to her, she showed a certain reluctance.

[Beadle]
(sung)
Excuse me my lord
May I request my lord,
Permission my lord to speak?

Forgive me if I suggest my lord
You’re looking less than your best my lord,
There’s powder upon your vest my lord,
And stubble upon your cheek.

And ladies my lord
Are weak

[Judge]
(spoken)
Perhaps if she greets me cordially upon my return I shall give her a small gift.

[Beadle]
(sung)
Ladies in their sensitivities my lord,
Have a fragile sensibility.
When a girl’s emergent,
Probably it’s urgent,
You differ to her gentility, my lord.

Personal disorder cannot be ignored,
Given their gentile proclivities.
Meaning no offense,
It happens they resents it,
Ladies in their sensitivities my lord.

[Judge]
(spoken)
Stubble you say?
Perhaps at times I am over hasty with my morning ablutions.

[Beadle]
(sung)
Fret not though my lord,
I know a place my lord,
A barber my lord of skill.
Thus armed with a shaven face my lord,
Some eau de cologne to grace my lord,
And musk to enhance the chase my lord,
You’ll dazzle the girl until.

[Judge]
(spoken)
Until??

[Beadle]
(sung)
She bows to your every will

[Judge]
(spoken)
Perhaps you may be right, take me to him.

The next scene, a musical duet between Johanna’s father and her captor/rapist, is one fraught with tension and more than a little nausea born of perversity. In “Pretty Women,” Turpin tells Sweeney all about his “true love,” with whom he is “infatuated,” and to whom he is an “ardent and eager slave.” (As if.) Playing along, biding his time, Sweeney can only smile and harmonize with his adversary, patiently waiting for the moment when steel meets flesh.

Alas, just as Sweeney is about to slash Turpin’s neck clean open, Anthony bursts into the room, a burst of nervous energy interrupting the scene’s climax. Immediately recognizing the boy, Turpin jumps from the chair, ranting and raging about the company Sweeney keeps. He storms from the shop, promising never to return.

Sweeney unleashes his rage on Anthony and Mrs. Lovett in turn, treating each to a verbal lashing; Anthony runs from the shop, while Mrs. Lovett manages to calm Sweeney (but barely). With Turpin gone, Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett are left with the dilemma that is Pirelli’s dead body.

A Little Priest

[Mrs. Lovett]
That’s all very well, but what we gonna do about him?

[Sweeney Todd]
Later on when it’s dark, we’ll take it to some secret place and bury him

[Mrs. Lovett]
Oh yeah. Of course we could do that. I don’t ‘spose he’s got any relatives gonna come pokin’ ’round lookin’ for him.
Seems a downright shame…

[Sweeney Todd]
Shame?

[Mrs. Lovett]
Seems an awful waste…
Such a nice, plump frame
Wot’s ‘is name has…
Had…
Has
Nor it can’t be traced…
Bus’ness needs a lift,
Debts to be erased…
Think of it as thrift,
As a gift,
If you get my drift

Seems an awful waste…
I mean, with the price of meat
What it is,
When you get it,
If you get it…

[Sweeney Todd]
Ah!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Good, you got it!

Take, for instance, Mrs. Mooney and her pie shop!
Bus’ness never better using only pussycats and toast!
Now a pussy’s good for maybe six or seven at the most!
And I’m sure they can’t compare as far as taste!

[Simultaneously]

[Sweeney Todd]
Mrs. Lovett, what a charming notion

[Mrs. Lovett]
Well, it does seem a waste…

[Sweeney Todd]
Eminently practical
And yet appropriate as always!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Think about it…

[Sweeney Todd]
Mrs. Lovett, how I’ve lived
Without you all these years, I’ll never know!
How delectable!
Also undetectable!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Lots of other gentlemen’ll
Soon be comin’ for a shave,
Won’t they?
Think of
All them
Pies!

[Sweeney Todd]
How choice!
How
Rare!
For what’s the sound of the world out there?

[Mrs. Lovett]
What, Mr. Todd?
What, Mr. Todd?
What is that sound?

[Sweeney Todd]
Those crunching noises pervading the air!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Yes, Mr. Todd!
Yes, Mr. Todd!
Yes, all around!

[Sweeney Todd]
It’s man devouring man, my dear!

[Both]
And/Then who are we to deny it in here?

[Sweeney Todd]
(spoken) These are desperate times,
Mrs. Lovett, and desperate measures are called for!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Here we are, now! Hot out of the oven!

[Sweeney Todd]
What is that?

[Mrs. Lovett]
It’s priest. Have a little priest.

[Sweeney Todd]
Is it really good?

[Mrs. Lovett]
Sir, it’s too good, at least!
Then again, they don’t commit sins of the flesh,
So it’s pretty fresh.

[Sweeney Todd]
Awful lot of fat.

[Mrs. Lovett]
Only where it sat.

[Sweeney Todd]
Haven’t you got poet, or something like that?

[Mrs. Lovett]
No, y’see, the trouble with poet is
‘Ow do you know it’s deceased?
Try the priest!

Lawyer’s rather nice.

[Sweeney Todd]
If it’s for a price.

[Mrs. Lovett]
Order something else, though, to follow,
Since no one should swallow it twice!

[Sweeney Todd]
Anything that’s lean?

[Mrs. Lovett]
Well, then, if you’re British and loyal,
You might enjoy Royal Marine!
Anyway, it’s clean.
Though of course, it tastes of wherever it’s been!

[Sweeney Todd]
Is that squire, on the fire?

[Mrs. Lovett]
Mercy no, sir, look closer,
You’ll notice it’s grocer!

[Sweeney Todd]
Looks thicker,
More like vicar!

[Mrs. Lovett]
No, it has to be grocer –
It’s green!

[Sweeney Todd]
The history of the world, my love –

[Mrs. Lovett]
Save a lot of graves,
Do a lot of relatives favors!

[Sweeney Todd]
Is those below serving those up above!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Ev’rybody shaves,
So there should be plenty of flavors!

[Sweeney Todd]
How gratifying for once to know

[Both]
That those above will serve those down below!

[Sweeney Todd]
What is that?

[Mrs. Lovett]
It’s fop.
Finest in the shop.
And we have some shepherd’s pie peppered
With actual shepherd on top!
And I’ve just begun –
Here’s the politician, so oily
It’s served with a doily,
Have one!

[Sweeney Todd]
Put it on a bun.
Well, you never know if it’s going to run!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Try the friar,
Fried, it’s drier!

[Sweeney Todd]
No, the clergy is really
Too coarse and too mealy!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Then actor,
It’s compacter!

[Sweeney Todd]
Ah but always arrives overdone!
(spoken) I’ll come again when you have judge on the menu!

(singing) Have charity towards the world, my pet!

[Mrs. Lovett]
Yes, yes, I know, my love!

[Sweeney Todd]
We’ll take the customers that we can get!

[Mrs. Lovett]
High-born and low, my love!

[Sweeney Todd]
We’ll not discriminate great from small!
No, we’ll serve anyone,
Meaning anyone,

[Both]
And to anyone
At all!

Possibly this is my favorite number in the film; Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett ogle the Englishmen and women walking the street, wondering aloud which bodies might yield the tastiest flesh – much like shoppers browsing the different “cuts” of animal corpse displayed in front of a butcher’s counter. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: nonhuman animals are no more and no less “meat” than are humans. We’re all made of the same yummy stuff – and we’re all a potential meal to someone else.

Of course, Sweeney doesn’t act on a secret agenda of animal liberation; rather, he’s just a bitter and vengeful man, miserable in his old(er) age – and can you really blame him? However, after the cause of and would-be/should-be outlet for his anger escapes unharmed, he begins to take revenge on all the men of London.

[Sung angry]
There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit,
and it’s filled with people who are filled with shit,
and the vermin of the world inhabit it.
But not for long…

[Morbid thoughts, sung]
They all deserve to die.
Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett, tell you why.
Because in all of the whole human race, Mrs. Lovett, there are two kinds of men and only two.
There’s the one staying put in his proper place and the one with his foot in the other one’s face.
Look at me, Mrs. Lovett, look at you.
Now we all deserve to die.
Even you, Mrs. Lovett, even I.
Because of the lives of the wicked should be made brief.
For the rest of us death will be a relief.
We all deserve to die!

In order to maximize the efficiency (and secrecy) of their “slaughterhouse,” Sweeney constructs a trap door in front of his barber chair. Once he’s slaughtered an unwitting victim, he simply tilts the chair forward, thus dumping “his” corpse down a chute to the basement below the building. There, Mrs. Lovett dismembers, processes and bakes the bodies into all manner of delicious minced meat pies, turning her shop into an overnight success.

Ladies and gentlemen,
May I have your attention, please?
Are your nostrils aquiver and tingling as well
At that delicate, luscious ambrosial smell?
Yes they are, I can tell.

Well, ladies and gentlemen,
That aroma enriching the breeze
Is like nothing compared to its succulent source,
As the gourmets among you will tell you, of course.

Ladies and gentlemen,
You can’t imagine the rapture in store
Just inside of this door!

You might even say the deaths of Sweeney’s victims are more “humane” than those of the ten billion land animals Americans enslave, torture, slaughter, process and consume every year. Unlike virtually all of these animals, Sweeney’s “meat products” lived truly free-range existences prior to their deaths, were not cognizant of their fates until the very end, and thus suffered very little in comparison to our “food” animals. “Happy meat,” anyone?

Anyhow, as Sweeney commences with the bloodletting, Anthony and Johanna devise a plan to run away together. Given that the plan unfolds in the context of a dark comedy, naturally, it’s doomed from the start. Foiled by Turpin, Johanna is committed to a mental institution. No, “mental institution” is too kind a word – an insane asylum. Desperate, Anthony turns to Sweeney Todd for help. Sweeney proposes a plan: Anthony should visit the asylum disguised as a wig-maker’s apprentice, in search of women’s hair to purchase for use in wigs. Once inside, he can escape with Johanna.

Happily, Sweeney’s scheme works – and yet, he does not live long enough to reunite with his estranged daughter. Anthony rushes Johanna back to the barber shop, hiding her in the empty room while he heads out in search of a carriage. Subsequently, the homeless woman – a constant in the story’s background – heads up in search of Johanna, who hides from the stranger in the same trunk that once held Pirelli’s body. (You’ve got to wonder what she thought of all that blood!) As the woman flits about the room, Sweeney bursts in; the two exchange few words

[Sweeney Todd]
(spoken)
who are you? What are you doing here?

[Beggar Woman]
(spoken)
Evil it is, Sir. the stink of evil from below! From her! she’s the devil’s wife! beware of her sir. She, with no pity in her
heart!
(sung)
hey, don’t i know you mister?

before he slits her throat, too. Down the chute she goes, a beggar no more.

In bursts Turpin, hot on Johanna’s heels. Sweeney is able to entice him into the barber’s chair for a second round; this time, Sweeney emerges victorious. He slays Turpin and disposes of his body down the chute, where it falls with a thud on that of the homeless woman. Johanna witnesses the murder – and Sweeney witnesses her witnessing the murder. Dressed in men’s clothing, Sweeney mistakes his daughter for a young boy, and threatens her with his straight razor. Before he can harm his “pet,” a scream arises from the basement, and Sweeney rushes downstairs to find Mrs. Lovett shuffling the two corpses around. (The reason for her fright? It seems that Mr. Turpin was still alive and kicking upon arriving in the oven room. No matter, Mrs. Lovett dispatched of him forthwith.)

Now stooping to get a better look at the homeless woman – his first and only female victim – Sweeney Todd recognizes a face from his past.

[Sweeney Todd]
(spoken)
“Don’t I know you”, she said… you knew she lived.

[Mrs. Lovett]
(spoken)
I was only thinking of you

[Sweeney Todd]
(spoken)
you lied to me

[Mrs. Lovett]
no, no, not lied at all
no I never lied

[Sweeney Todd & Mrs. Lovett]
Lucy, said she took a
poison, she did,
I’ve never said that she
died! poor thing,
come she lived, but it
left her weak in the
home head all she did for
months was just lie
again there in bed. should
have been in
Lucy! hospital, wound up
in Bedlam instead
oh my poor thing, better
you should think she
God was dead, yes I lied
cause I love you.
Lucy I’d be twice the
wife she was I
what love you. could that
thing have cared for
have I you, like me?
done?

As their final duet reaches a crescendo – and the pair inch almost imperceptibly towards the oven, door open, fire raging – Sweeney Todd hurls Mrs. Lovett into the inferno, where she melts into the flames.

Having dispensed of the “Devil’s Wife,” Sweeney kneels beside his own wife, cradling her body in his arms. Out of the shadows of the sewer, Mrs. Lovett’s helper boy/surrogate son Toby comes, straight razor in hand. In the film’s final moments, Sweeney meets the same end as that of his countless victims, including Lucy, his “reason and his life.”

Amid the morbid, cannibalistic comedy lurks a commentary on the corrupting nature of hate, violence and vengeance. Consumed by the need for revenge, Sweeney did not see the possibilities for redemption that lay before him. His wife and daughter were still alive, still in need of him; and while life could never be as it once was, they Barkers might still have (re)built their family. Man the destroyer, vs. man the nurturer.

Also part of this twist is the Devil’s Wife, Mrs. Lovett. While young Toby, suspecting Sweeney of mass murder, fears for his adopted mother, in truth Toby should have been terrified of the both of them. They fed into one another’s “black pits,” creating a monster. (Although I’m afraid that there’s no small amount of misogyny in the story’s suggestion that Mrs. Lovett – the “seductress” – corrupted Sweeney Todd. To the extent that it does, anyhow; I suppose it’s open to multiple readings.)

Of course, there’s also the unfortunate use of “vermin” to denote death, decay and rottenness. While rats do thrive in unsanitary environs, they do not create these conditions; no, I am afraid that that is the job of humans!

Nor does the film pass the Bechdel test or include any people not of European descent.

…for making the consumption of “land fish” socially acceptable!
 

 
Mmmmm!

In all seriousness, there has got to be, at the very least, a veg*n sympathizer on The Colbert Report writing staff. Stephen is just too well-versed on animal issues. The Sea Kittens campaign, for example, hasn’t received extensive coverage from the mainstream media (not enough T&A), and yet TCR is aware of the campaign – and even understands it. (Good-natured mocking aside.)

To sweeten the deal, Stephen signed off Thursday’s show with a spin on Bob Barker’s “don’t forget to spay and neuter your pets” signature line:
 

 
Video links: January 15, 2009: Tip/Wag – Monkey on the Lam and January 15, 2009: Spay and Neuter Your Pets.