if you're just here for the Rapier fights then here is a timestamp for the rest of you hi my
name is Jill Bearup I'm an actor combatant and come with me for a minute or two while I tell
you about my Lockwood and conspiracy at the end of 2022 I reviewed the fencing on the Netflix
show Wednesday and about five or six months after that I started getting a lot of comments asking me
to review Lockwood and Co and emails form emails you can see that they're not the same but that
they all use similar language right so to these people Hello friends I was slightly weirded out
by your strategic campaign but you were polite so you didn't trigger my "stranger has demanded
something from me on the internet therefore nope" reflex I may be a little bit petty like that the
more people rudely demand that I do something the more likely I am just not to do it it's
just mildly amusing when people demand stuff from strangers like they're entitled to it and then
they don't get it that being said asking politely doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to do the
thing either because many people have asked very politely if I'm going to review the fights in
Ahsoka and no not just because I don't have Disney plus anymore but because I already watched Obi-Wan
I've had enough of Star Wars spin-offs that don't really care but I thought to myself a couple of
weeks ago I've got some free time I can watch 5 minutes of Lockwood and Co and see if it's
any good so I did and then I watched the rest of the episode and then I watched the entire Series
so Lockwood and Co is a show based on a series of books by Jonathan Stroud about Ghost Hunters they
live in a world where since the problem began 50 years ago ghosts keep appearing everywhere and
they have a killer touch and there's a curfew at night because they mostly come out at night and
the only people who can see ghosts the only people who have talent tend to be children and young
people so they have to fight the ghosts Lockwood and Co was cancelled after one season because of
course it was it's Netflix but you know I I'm not as sad about that as I could be I'm sad for the
people who worked on the show because I would have loved to have seen what they did with the second
season and I think that they deserve to get paid you know twice however I am also cognisant that
Netflix tends to ruin things. I didn't care at all about The Witcher for example but people just got
madder and madder as the show went on about how little they cared about the source material and
how little they cared about the show being good supposedly so I wouldn't want that to happen to
me so I'm kind of okay with the fact that Netflix can't ruin this no incidentally while we're on
the subject of things which aren't related to the sword fighting in the show can I just say that my
favourite secondary character inspector Barnes my man is just trying to do his job while surrounded
by all these teenagers with special powers he did not sign up to be Professor X or deal with
all these raging hormones he just wants to do police work man he is the only sensible adult in
the room and I love him but yes the teenagers have swords back to the swords one of the Worldbuilding
elements of the show is that you can fight ghosts with salt silver and iron so they're all very
traditional so the agents I.E the teenagers who fight ghosts carry rapiers are they rapiers I mean
they're not not rapiers this is my stage combat Rapier it has a 39 in Blade there is also a 41in
blade available for this one as you can see the hilt is quite big and it's quite heavy this weighs
over a kilo all of the things which are called rapiers in the show have approximately the same
shape of Blade but they're much shorter they are perhaps more like the 90 CM blade um of my epee
but obviously the Rapier blade is much thicker than the epee blade the main thing that you want
to bear in mind is that the people fighting ghosts are teenagers while the definition for a Rapier
is a thin light thrusting weapon they're not actually that light the reason a Rapier is more
of a thrusting weapon than a cutting weapon is because the blade is so long you can cut with them
it's just not as efficient as thrusting rapiers are single-handed weapons but for single-handed
weapons they're relatively heavy I mean it doesn't seem like much to say oh it only weighs a kilo but
when the sword itself is a metre long that gets tiring pretty quickly if you're not used to it or
if puberty hasn't finished with you yet so having swords which are shorter in length so they're
easier to wield for you know teenagers not a bad idea at all the swords are also personalised which
I like Lucy has an acorn Hilt a bit like this one on my stage combat small sword though hers
is less fancy lockwood's has a swept hilt more in the style of this one his is extremely fancy and
George's design is quite simple and more geometric than the other two the golden blade which is what
Lucy calls this dud and he seems to like it I mean who among us hasn't adopted a cool sounding
nickname given to us by someone who was trying to be insulting? it just it happens all the time
has not only the shiniest sword but also the one with the most comprehensive hand protection almost
as if he thinks that he might be fighting humans with swords more often than the others do I mean
who is the golden blade why is he here what does he want? uh the show got cancelled and he wasn't
in the books so we will never know now there are very few actual sword fights in the show which is
fair because it's only eight episodes long and mostly involves teenagers but there are 2.5 I
guess mostly on the show they fight ghosts with swords and so they just swish the thing around
and if you see something spooky looking stab it but in episode 2 someone breaks into Lockwood's
house a sword fight ensues and a lot of glass gets dramatically smashed but the fight while
a little hard to see which is a problem with the show in general it's not dark tonally it's just
dark is a really good encapsulation of the show it reinforces our character dynamics very nicely and
and it also tells you things that the characters themselves do not notice so we kick off the fight
with British quipping about tea "Can I offer you a cup of tea while you ransack my house? one lump
or two?" Lockwood chucks his torch at the Intruder who draws a Rapier oh my goodness are they another
agent I don't know let's find out Anthony Lockwood naturally can't resist a little moulinet on his
way to his fighting stance of choice which is to say a fighting stance that would be more efficient
if he had something in his other hand but you know what it looks cool it's fine the torch is
kicked back and there's another little flourish while he tries to bat it out of the way oh the
drama and Lockwood stabs straight in while telling Lucy to get out of there. the Intruder parries and
then immediately goes for Lucy who is running down the stairs Lucy is not a combatant right now she
is actively fleeing so that tells you something which may become important later in the series
something happens I don't know it's dark Lockwood stabs in the Intruder kicks him down the stairs I
guess Lockwood ducks because then the sword comes over his head and smashes some more glass there's
going to be a lot of that and there is a noise from the intruder did you catch it what does it
tell you cut away to Lucy who's down in the hall who has just heard George shouting for help back
up to Lockwood swinging wildly diagonally downward and then getting kicked in the chest again for
his trouble the Intruder dramatically picks up the sword via the medium of feet that's something they
like to do in this show and stabs for him again he parries I assume and then punto reverso stabbity
stab and she yells did you pick that up from the first time that we heard her make a noise? it's a
lady Lockwood digs in further with the sword until she comes at him backhanded at which point they
break apart and we have more of her gasping in pain and a shot of the blood on her gloves a beat
she comes for him again at which point we have a shot of Lucy rescuing George from the basement. at
the end of this fight Lockwood's going to say oh no he got away or similar like Sherlock Holmes he
ain't anyway now it's time for the unnecessarily fancy there's a parry and then I think a moulinet
and then a horizontal cut takes the sword right around his head so he can do another horizontal
cut puts the sword in reverse grip pointlessly as far as I can tell unless maybe it's because he's
in an enclosed space but as it turns out yeah you can't stab with your sword in reverse grip that's
really quite difficult so he has to go back stabs in again nice cupboard Lockwood gets body slammed
into a wall the Intruder tries to get him again he grabs the umbrella nice they make really good
use of found objects as defenses or weapons in the series and I like it and he does a double-handed
overhead Parry just in time for George to come in and throw a chain Lucy punches the Intruder in
the face swipes for her head there's a dramatic pose and then the Intruder runs away. very nice
serviceable fight great use of stuff I do love a bit of stuff and like much of the show it's
lit so I can generally see what's going on the fight makes good use of the space of which there
isn't necessarily much and it's a decent piece of character work too we know that Lockwood can hold
his own in a fight but he's not as Invincible as he thinks he is we can tell that he's a showman we
can tell that his assailant was a woman though he hasn't realised that yet it tells us that our Trio
are better together than apart and it also tells us that Lockwood is at least a bit selfless Lucy
is unarmed he tells her to run he is thinking of others as well as himself this is something
we call back to when they have their rematch with the golden blade so in episode 6 Lockwood and Lucy
break into a library during a party don't ask and they encounter this guy. he threatens them with
his fancy golden sword and Lockwood parries with a book Lucy kicks a chair or a stool or
something at him Lockwood throws the book at him and they run away. it's not really much of a fight
but it's a nice tense situation that sets up that this guy has a golden sword and he's a threat and
he's probably coming back and again use of find objects I love a find object in the sixth episode
they meet again Lucy is armed Lockwood is not. how does this one go down? teamworkily. things
we can tell about this guy I mean he has a golden sword you would expect him to be a showoff and he
absolutely is he just clears himself a little bit of space and then launches into the air to
attack Lockwood but Lucy launches herself through the air in like fashion to take the Parry because
she unlike Lockwood has a sword. callback! so the golden blade fights Lucy while Lockwood tries to
find himself a weapon I.E a big bit of wood I think golden blade boots her out of the way and
then fights Lockwood then Lucy then Lockwood again but he's now been given Lucy's sword and he picks
it up with his feet in a fancy fashion because we just like doing that Lockwood and the golden
Blade fight in a Rapier and companion weapon kind of style and then just in a Rapier kind of style
and just as it's all looking very serious because Lucy's Rapier gets cut in half oop she hits him
with a big bit of wood and they run away. what we see in this fight is that Lucy is not a sword
fighter she holds her own she's not incompetent but she doesn't quite have the precision and the
control that Lockwood or the golden blade do Lockwood though Lockwood we are supposed to
be impressed with and these two phrases are my favourite particularly because we get stuff that
you don't often get to see so we get a hanging Parry how often do you get a hanging Parry we
get a reinforced Parry we get yeah that okay so I can't watch anyone else do that now without
laughing because that was the move that loosened the lightsaber blade enough that when I flicked
it forward into to the next move it detached dramatically and um flew through the air I'm
still so glad that we got it on camera because you would not have believed how it went down if
we hadn't but yeah that was a moment anyway uh I like it regardless we learned that Lockwood
is a fencer we learned that the golden blade is a fencer but the ultimate takeaway is that Lockwood
and Co Are Better Together Lockwood ends up with a broken sword and then disarmed but don't worry
Lucy has recovered enough to smack this guy around a bit for you. I think it's supposed to tell you
something that Lockwood is good at fencing and not just ghost fencing because in the show I
mean ghosts don't have swords. the best thing you could do if you're swinging a large piece
of iron around is to be as swoopy and dramatic as possible because you're basically trying to
create a perimeter around you where the ghost does not want to materialise in case it gets you know
Iron to the face you don't need to be particularly skilled to establish a swooshy perimeter of pain
with a sword is what I'm saying. I don't know why the swords would need to be sharp in this instance
you could do just the same with an iron bar but you know the aesthetic we do it for the aesthetic.
all in all very solid fights generally better lit than some of the rest of the show maybe it's just
my computer but sometimes I just couldn't see anything would watch again good job but if you
have a movie or a series that you would like me to watch um hot tip don't just tell me about the
weapons because weapons are interesting but they will not get me to spend multiple hours
of my time on a show tell me why it's fun tell me why you like it because I think that's part of the
reason I never really liked The Witcher it wasn't fun and it didn't really want to be which is fine
but I like fun also why I didn't particularly care for Obi-Wan I mean it was all right but it
wasn't really fun and it didn't really want to be and this is why I don't want to watch
Ahsoka because I'm willing to bet that it's not fun and not trying to be I like fun fun is nice
I'm just saying anyway thank you for watching the last sword-related thing that will be happening
on the channel for a few months if you are not into fantasy heroine stuff please take my advice
and unsubscribe or uncheck the notification Bell and come back to us in late February maybe early
March because uh yeah I have to publish a book and move house kind of both of those things on
top of each other and so I decided that the most efficient way to do this was to make a bunch of
book related videos and then in December we're just going to rerun the entire fantasy heroine
short series plus a couple of bonus episodes until the book releases in February if that is
not your thing I completely understand but you might want to unsubscribe and come back to us
in a few months when I'll have an armour review or a fight analysis or maybe both but yes just
stab me now the ebook is up for pre-order, the paperback will be up for pre-order soon, all
book all the time stuff starts now as if it hadn't kind of started already, I will see you guys soon