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Wealth bequeath power for generations to come!

Fool Me Once (Miniseries, S01 E01-08; 2023)


The thing that piqued my interest is the apparent class difference that happens in the UK. It is common knowledge that European societies were separated based on their professions. Pretty soon, the professions were imprinted on their surnames. Weavers became Webbers and Webster, clerks to Clarke, shoemakers to Schumachers, scholars to Scully, tillers to Tyler, and the various Smiths and Taylors.

Specific surnames denoted aristocracy and privileged them to move around the royal family and stand a chance to pick a bone strewn by the monarch. Hanging around with the right crowd ensured prosperity and opportunities to venture out to exotic lands and further fatten the family coffers.

Talking about making an overseas trip and coming back rich, besides the Pirates of the Caribbean, we have, from the East, Robert Clive. Robert Clive owes much of his existence to India, and he had appropriated the word India into his name. Clive of India had amassed so much from political wrangling and military conniving. He started employment in the East India Company as an office clerk and, through his expert manoeuvring, overthrew one of the wealthiest rulers in India to bring home £25miilion in today's money. His status was raised to a Baron for his efforts in bringing in foreign exchange. His family was set for generations to come.

When the imperialist powers moved their mercantile prowess to the East, they tried to pigeonhole their subjects into similar divisions. They found this kind of 'divide and rule' helpful as it also created animosity amongst its subjects. The imperialists laughed all the way to their ship and their motherlands. Years later, from their lootings, they emerged as first-world nations, smelling of roses. Their subjects, even generations later, stay stinking as basket cases. They not only still had to look up to their former colonial masters but also be dependent on them for items of precise engineering.


That was what went through my mind when I viewed this miniseries. It is set in an obscenely colossal manor in the UK as the family comes to terms with the brutal murder of one of its sons. Things take a turn when a nannycam picks up the deceased on camera playing with his daughter.

Pandora's box opens many family secrets, under-table dealings, family dirty linen and shady family businesses involving Big Pharma and poor third-world nations.

Expect a Sivaji's 1964' Puthiya Paravai' kind of ending in this one!



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Location: Oxford, UK

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