James Bond Won't Save Us
We'll have to handle the Epstein issue ourselves.
The Epstein scandal has become a Lovecraftian monster of a conspiracy, its tendrils snaking into every facet of American life. It features a millionaire’s secret island lair, a shadow conspiracy of millionaires, billionaires, and politicians running the world between depraved sex parties, and an extensive blackmail ring targeting the world’s most powerful. The only question that remains is: When does James Bond show up?
This isn’t just a failure on a massive level of the world’s police, intelligence, and judicial institutions. It’s a failure on the level of the basic rules of genre we’ve been taught by every spy movie to come out in the wake of the first Bond film, 1962’s Dr. No. In the movie, the titular villain is a multimillionaire with a secret island lair running a worldwide conspiracy. His plot is foiled when the British government launches an investigation and, finding evidence that a crime is being committed, then does something about it. Since then, the Bond movies have served not just as entertainment, but a promise: Everybody gets punished, even the wealthy and powerful.
This is a scandal that runs entirely on B-movie logic; it even features a bit of comic relief in the form of the world’s first trillionaire being treated like the loser nerdy kid in an ‘80s teen comedy not being told where the party is.
The only question that remains is: When does James Bond show up?
Since then, we’ve gotten endless spoofs, rip-offs, gender inversions, and also Jackie Chan’s The Tuxedo. What each one has promised, and what the reality has failed to deliver, is that justice will be dispensed. That while evil is overly theatrical and sometimes needs a director to help it pull back on the acting, its weaknesses can and will be used against it by an agent of righteous justice.
The fact that the Epstein scandal continues to be so disorienting is not just moral outrage, it’s narrative shock. One thing that has been promised over and over by the Bond movies is that if there’s an evil conspiracy of world elites, everything will be wrapped up neatly with justice dispensed, strong drinks shaken-not-stirred, and a British model/martial arts expert cocking an eyebrow and saying, “Oh, James!”
Instead, we get a mysterious suicide. Suspects who remain free to run world governments. Names of the perpetrators redacted on millions of PDFs by the U.S. Department of Justice while victims continue to come forward. And citizens doing the detective work that once would have been done by the investigatory wing of a world power’s intelligence agency.
So, we come back to the question, “Where is James Bond?” The truth is this: You will die of old age waiting for him to ski off the side of a mountain flying a Union Jack parachute. He’s not even stuck in traffic on his way to Epstein’s Island. In real life, there’s only the wealthy villains, the secret island lair, and millions of PDFs to sort through while the world’s intelligence agencies do – nothing.
Ski chase and jump from The Spy Who Loved Me. If you’ve never seen this before… you’re welcome.
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