#also horns are supposed to be darker but in cc they are different than in the game which is weird

[dodecademons]

Meet my multiclass tiefling. She's ready to cause chaos whenever and wherever. Best to watch your pockets around her

[infobeanie]

CROW CILLERS S04E01: THE THIN BLUE JOSLYN

Season 4 opens with some pixelated flames. I don’t know what that’s about.

Season 3 opened with the introduction of Final Bloodmaster Alpha, who set the tone for the hypersaturated media overload that tied the various threads of that season together, while simultaneously threatening to uproot them entirely. But Final Bloodmaster Alpha got cancelled, and Lord Marrow, who took control after she got cancelled, got eaten by Lisa Simpson. So there is no overriding voice left, by this point, to give this season any proper sort of introduction. Just some pixelated flames.

The presentation here follows in the vein of the In-a-Dress gang’s commentary on “Fanfic of Horror II”, one of the last pieces created for s3. In the absence of authority, every voice is equal, and begins to speak with a sinister authority of its own. The voices, which started to become dislodged from their characters in the commentary for s3, are now the voice of the comic itself. We need no FBA-style commentator to guide us as we fall again into the screen, like the camera falling into the bed at the start of Mulholland Drive.

In this year’s credit sequence, we get glimpses of characters in their zones. In each zone - by which I mean an area of domestic energy, a space of one’s own - there is something both comforting and sinister: the unseen potentials of a boxed-up warehouse; a private moment in an empty mall’s food court; a self-imposed artistic exile; an absurdly lavish summer home; a room with some things in it. Everyone was looking ahead in last year’s credits, anticipating the next big thing; the momentum of upheaval generated during that season pushed each group of characters to a very different place. Hopefully with this season, we will have a chance to catch our breath, to take a step back and look inward, to see what these changes have brought.

The interstitial credits are pixelated. I don’t know what that’s about.

We’ve been here before. It seemed a lot more ominous last time.

There was also a lot more talking last time. Now, those voices have gone into hiding underground, except for the one that got eaten by the thing that is now hanging out at the mall with That Other Kid, whom we find is called Paisley. The situation is largely the same - girls taking advantage of an untapped subconscious wellspring of psychic energy in order to sneak into the mall after-hours - but everything is chill this time. There are no enemies to fight, no threats to respond to. There is time now to explore those shuttered storefronts. (For a direct ancestor to this scene in vibe and content, cf. “97″ of Wurtz’s ‘90s’ series, which I believe is in one of the Assorted Garbages.)

Meanwhile...

Suddenly we get the feeling we’re being surrounded by horses. Joslyn, still riding a high after her breakout performance as the Oracle, turns out to be a horse lord. In focusing on her backstory, a new narrative force begins to emerge, a balanced and accordant force to the unceasing voice of the media that agitated season 3 to a frenzy: the silent, creeping hand of the market. Not Adam Smith’s invisible hand, per se - something less humanistic, perhaps less human. Really it’s just another manifestation of what we saw at play last season, like a new Ynce Iche puppet formed out of the same raw psy-energy. The media is supposed to tell us what we want to hear. The market is supposed to sell us what we want to buy. That’s what they’re there for; that’s what we made them for. We’re supposed to be able to control it. But if there has been one consistent message in Crow Cillers throughout its entire run, it’s that control is a complex thing. The silent hand has a mind of its own. As do other, less silent hands.

More comparisons: Sour Gummy is the Psy Squad of this season. Psy Squad came out of left field at the beginning of s3 as a campy teen superhero show, and the season followed suit by adapting a pulp format for its overarching plot. The result was the most “comics”-style comic Cate Wurtz had ever written, a good-guy/bad-guy (or rather good-girl/bad-girl) conflict replete with origin stories and a dramatic final battle. The stylistic shift pushed Crow Cillers to its limits, but it was what was needed to properly process the new ideas that were going into it. Without the presence of Psy Squad to familiarize the reader with the language of fantasy/sci-fi tropes, it’s hard to imagine the Matrix episode (which marks the true, heartbreakingly hopeful conclusion of season 3) having the impact that it does. The question, then, is what influence Sour Gummy will have on Crow Cillers.

The Sour Gummy girls feel nothing like anything else in this series; they live in a world on a different axle. Their struggle is not against the Crow, or against a supervillain ex-friend, but against their own icky insides, formed by the incoherent, grasping hands of nuclear family values and the deep web. This world is both less restrictive and much darker than the one inhabited by the Crow Cillers; they are able to roam freely, and make jokes about fucking Brecken, because the rules are different when you carry your enemy around with you in your head, or in your hand. The Order of the Crow dwindles in significance when you’re already invested in destroying yourself, or your lover, or there’s something inside you that wants to destroy the rest of you, or your lover, or you want to destroy that thing inside you, or have your lover destroy it, but it’s secretly the real you, or you’re worried that it is, or you’re in love with someone who’s into that sort of shit, but secretly you’re into it too, or some part of you is.

(Wait a minute - lesbians who eat each other? Used as a metaphor for partially internalized social darwinism?)

(???!)

(!!!!!!!!!!)

Actually, what Sour Gummy reminds me of most is COSM, intersecting as it does the realms of horror and pornography. And while the fact that COSM is an unfinished comic concerning a group of characters’ inevitable descent into utter devastation is somewhat disconcerting in what it implies about Wurtz’s approach to the subject material, I remain cautiously optimistic about CC’s ability to assimilate COSM’s vibe without being totally consumed by it. The Crow Cillers have been through a lot; by this point, they should be able to fearlessly face the burden of lowkey (or highkey) terror and shame that comes with intimacy. Right?

Because they are doing ok, is the thing. In a very real sense, the Crow Cillers are back, and they’re better than ever. We get a full page of purely gratuitous happiness, as ThreeFourOne have their first real reunion since Pistachio fled the Crow in the pilot episode. Their network is large enough to be genuinely self-sustaining now, unlike the tenuous support they were getting from Jill’s brother’s boyfriend’s ex-boyfriend at the start of s3. Emma’s even got a spiffy new outfit! After the tumult of the past year, there is finally time to change one’s clothes, to chill out, and explore all those secret rooms and passages. 

Ok, so maybe the situation is not so perfect. The kids are having fun exploring, but I have to wonder whether it would be worse if they found something dangerous, or if they found nothing at all - if they were truly alone in that labyrinth that could be their home; if the only voices left were their own, echoing off cold metal. They are there together, yes, but the place feels big enough to fill you with its emptiness. Wandering there feels like wandering inside yourself. There are doors that let you in and out, but never open. And there are trapdoors that you can’t come back from.

But if existential terror is beginning to set in, it’s doing so against a backdrop of action which has continued unimpeded since s3. The helpless hell-dress creature that followed Gretchen and Doris back from Ynce Iche is still there, and, enjoying it or not, they’re rearing it as one of their own. Vein has made significant progress on his developments, building on what must be very unstable soil. Marcus is going to get involved again, as is Elaine Jr. X, and presumably Vince, Elayne, and whatever squad they’ve mustered together. Surely Mr. Nail will be asking about that pool he was supposed to get at some point. All those plot threads from s3 are still there, now woven into a larger emotional tapestry. If the new thread that emerged with the Sour Gummy aesthetic can be controlled, if it can be reconciled with the Crow Cillers universe and used to make it stronger, than season 5 will truly be a force to contend with. We just have to survive this season first. 

QUESTIONS:

- I hope I’m not alone in feeling that the Harlyn/Psy Squad battle didn’t seem to signify a full-scale resolution of the PS arc. What is it that Harlyn saw in the Pit? How did it lead to her ascending? Why did she want to return there? What will happen to Jamie and Emma if they find any of this out for themselves?

- Is Elaine Jr. X more a part of Elaine Sr. or of Ynce Iche itself now? How does she feel about the colonization of YI? Where did she get her horn-accommodating hoodie?

- Where is Elaine Sr.?

- Is Brecken friends with Gaige?