#and of course because it was greta we had the mother and daughter bond

[dimdiamond]

Just watched Barbie (yeah I know super late) and (maybe) unpopular opinion but this movie was less about feminism (as you all kept talking about) and more about the ordeal and the beauty of life.

[princesssarisa]

I just reread Wuthering Heights for the first time since high school. Thanks to @theheightsthatwuthered, @wuthering-valleys, @astrangechoiceoffavourites and others for inspiring me to do it!

Here are some of the things that stood out the most for me.

1. I can’t believe how ambiguous all the characters are! “Morally gray” doesn’t begin to describe it. Even the most sympathetic characters are deeply, deeply flawed, yet just when a character seems unredeemable, they’ll show their capacity for love and altruism. It’s hard to say how Brontë meant us to feel about any of them. I won’t even touch on Heathcliff or the other leads: the example I’ll use is the short-lived yet important figure of Mr. Earnshaw. On the one hand, he’s framed both by Nelly Dean’s narration and by Cathy I’s diary as a kind, benevolent man. He takes in the homeless, orphaned young Heathcliff, raises and loves him as his own, treats his servants almost like family, is reasonably warm and indulgent to his children before his illness worsens his temper, and is very much loved by little Cathy in particular. After he dies and Hindley becomes the tyrannical new master, Cathy and Nelly remember his lifetime as a paradise lost. But he blatantly favors Heathcliff over his own children, sewing the seeds for Hindley’s abuse and degradation of Heathcliff, and during his illness, the disparaging way he talks to and about Hindley and Cathy definitely feels like emotional abuse, at least by modern standards. His harsh words to Cathy are especially heartbreaking given how clearly she worships him and it makes you wonder if her future arrogance is really a cover for self-doubt. But since Nelly depicts Hindley and Cathy as difficult and bratty from childhood, and both become truly toxic adults, maybe their father’s harshness is meant to be justified or at least understandable, and since Heathcliff was a poor orphan who faced who-knows-what horrors in his first seven years, we might argue that he needed more care and affection. But Heathcliff also becomes a toxic adult and Nelly implies that being the favored child made him spoiled and arrogant. And none of the above even touches on the theory that Heathcliff might be Mr. Earnshaw’s illegitimate son, which would definitely cast the latter in a less favorable light. Any claim of “This is how we’re supposed to feel about this character” can only fall flat, because there’s so much ambiguity.

2. The recent reviews by @astrangechoiceoffavourites of the 1939 and 1970 film versions point out something interesting: that in both of those versions, which only adapt only the first half of the book, Cathy (I) is more of the protagonist than Heathcliff. This insight raises a good question: who really is the protagonist of the book? Of course the traditional answer is Heathcliff. He’s the character we follow from beginning to end, whose actions drive the entire plot. But he’s not the viewpoint character; we mostly see him from Nelly Dean’s perspective, and Heathcliff sometimes disappears for months or years at a time from her narrative. Yet Nelly can’t be called the protagonist because she’s more of an observer than an active participant. I think we can argue that, at least in terms of plot structure, the two Cathys are the book’s real protagonists: Cathy I leads the first half, with Heathcliff as the deuteragonist/love interest, while Cathy II leads the second half, with Heathcliff as the villain. Of course this is debatable, but so is nearly everything else about this book.

3. I never realized until now what a perfect inversion Cathy II’s character arc is of her mother’s arc. There are so many parallels, but they happen in the opposite order. Just look:

** Cathy I is born and raised at Wuthering Heights, but as a young girl she ventures to Thrushcross Grange, meets her future husband and ultimately lives there./Cathy II is born and raised at Thrushcross Grange, but as a young girl she ventures to Wuthering Heights, meets her future husband and ultimately lives there.

** Both are raised by widowed fathers whom they adore, although Mr. Earnshaw is stern and critical to Cathy I while Edgar dotes on Cathy II; eventually both fathers die prematurely, leaving their daughters in a tyrannical new patriarch’s hands (Hindley/Heathcliff).

** Cathy I initially loves the rugged, dark haired Heathcliff, who lives as a servant at Wuthering Heights; she helps to educate him and they wander the moors together. But as she spends more time at Thrushcross Grange, she absorbs its snobbery, treats him with increasing disdain (though she really does still love him), and favors the refined, prissy, blond haired Edgar, whom she eventually marries./Cathy II initially loves (or at least cares for) the refined, prissy, blond haired Linton, whom she eventually marries. Having been raised with Thrushcross Grange’s snobbery, she initially disdains the rugged, dark haired Hareton, who lives as a servant at Wuthering Heights. But as she lives at the Heights after Linton dies, she looses her snobbery and becomes increasingly drawn to Hareton; ultimately they fall in love, she helps to educate him and they wander the moors together.

** Because of the above, Cathy I’s story ends tragically, while Cathy II’s story ends happily.

It really is too bad that most screen and stage adaptations only adapt the first half and leave out Cathy II, because it seems to me that Cathy I’s story was always meant to be juxtaposed with her daughter’s mirror-image arc.

4. If I was ever half-tempted to believe the theory that Branwell Brontë was the book’s real author, I don’t believe it anymore. There’s no way a 19th century man, especially one who was allegedly a bit of a womanizer, could have written such nuanced, realistic, non-objectified female characters. Even male authors whose characterizations of women I respect, both of the past and of today, tend to have problems with sexualization, madonna-whore stereotyping, etc. But the women in Wuthering Heights are thoroughly non-sexualized three-dimensional characters: all of them flawed yet (arguably) all sympathetic, no better yet no worse than the men around them, all fully human.

5. The circumstances of Cathy I’s mental and physical breakdown are different than I remembered from high school. I was under the impression that Heathcliff married Isabella to hurt Cathy the way she had hurt him and that Cathy’s brain fever was caused by jealousy and heartbreak at being “rejected” for another woman. I think the screen adaptations tend to frame it more that way. But really, Heathcliff marries Isabella less to hurt Cathy emotionally than to gain power over her husband by gaining a claim to inherit his property and fortune. Nor is Cathy’s breakdown caused by jealousy (she knows Heathcliff doesn’t really love Isabella, after all), but by the conflict between Heathcliff and Edgar that the Isabella scandal triggers, which culminates in Edgar punching Heathcliff, making him flee for his life, and demanding that Cathy choose between them. It’s the crumbling of Cathy’s attempted double life with both men that breaks her, not rivalry with Isabella.

6. When I first started the reread, my dad suggested that I try to see if I could find more sexual tension between Heathcliff and Cathy I than I did in high school. But I didn’t. Their love is just as strangely, fascinatingly sexless as I thought it was. I suppose the question remains: did Brontë purposefully write it as sexless, or does it just reflect her own lack of sexual experience?

7. If I were to write the screenplay for a new film version of Wuthering Heights, I think I’d present it in anachronic order, similar to Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. Scenes from the first half would alternate with scenes from the second half. This way the second half would really be given its due, the mirror-imagery between Cathy I and Cathy II’s character arcs would be especially apparent, and the Hareton/Cathy II romance could be highlighted as a healthy alternative to Heathcliff/Cathy I. I would also make a definite point to de-romanticize Heathcliff, not only by portraying him as a tragic man-turned-monster and not downplaying his cruelty, but by leaving it ambiguous, as I think it is in the book, whether the love he shares with Cathy I really is romantic love or a strangely intense, codependent brother/sister bond. I definitely wouldn’t age them into young adult lovers on the moors the way most screen versions do; I’d portray them at their correct ages, just 12/13 when they roam the moors together and still just 15/16 when Cathy accepts Edgar’s proposal, and highlight that they were only truly happy together as children. That in some ways their love is always the love of two children, both in its selfishness and in its purity. Cathy’s ghost at the window would be portrayed as a child, as in the book, and if I were to show Heathcliff’s ghost joining her in the end, I just might have them both transform back into their 12/13-year-old selves. That could make for an interesting contrast with Hareton and Cathy II in the end: Heathcliff and Cathy I reunited as free, half-savage children, while their foster-son and daughter appear as a mature romantic couple embracing civilization and adulthood.

[eternityunicorn]

Remember Me? - Part Three

Author: eternityunicorn 

Genre: Romance/Drama/AU

Pairing: Elijah Mikaelson x OC

Warnings: Violence, Smut (*Smut chapters marked +18)

Summary: Set in TO Season 5 - Elijah Mikaelson didn’t know who he was, but he had stopped searching for answers. Instead, of trying to discover his true identity, he settled in a small village in the south of France, spending his days as a musician. Then a mysterious woman begins to show up, night after night, to drive him insane, when he refuses to return to his old life with her. However, his course is set as he learns more about the woman and the past he left behind, leading him down an emotional path of infidelity, betrayal, and heartbreak. Can he ever put the broken pieces back together?

NOTE: OC and original elements are from my up and coming novel series!

AUTHOR’S COMMENTARY: So, I wasn’t going to post a new update for this fic until tomorrow, but because of my lovely friend @inmylifeilovedthemall I decided to post the next part early. Hope you enjoy it!

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Before long, the Original was sitting in a cafe just outside the city limits with Antoinette sitting across from him. He had just finished telling her that Greta was dead, killed by Eternity, but that Roman had thankfully escaped unharmed. She looked mournful for the loss of her mother, but it wasn’t a deep, devastating sort that one might expect. It was a mild sort of mourning that one might feel for a complete stranger that died tragically. 

“Are you alright?” Elijah asked her softly, reaching across the table to touch her hand. 

“My mother brought this upon herself,” Antoinette replied quietly. “My mother did all these heinous things because of some deluded ideology that vampires need to be pure. She carried on a war that she could not win - that her followers will not win. Not only do they have your family to contend with, but....” She trailed off, looking down. 

“Eternity too,” he finished for her, swallowing thickly in speaking the other woman’s name. “Actually, I think that it is only her they’ll have to deal with since the Mikaelsons are scattered and unable to reunite. So, it is only her that will stand against them, and she will slaughter them all effortlessly, I’m sure.” 

Antoinette looked at him with an indescribable expression that resembled a mix of curiosity, worry, and jealousy. 

It was his turn to look away. Then Elijah confessed, “She told me something at Shiloh Place. She told me that we had a daughter together named Arianna.”

His fiancée blinked rapidly, “A daughter? But that’s not possible. Vampires can’t have children.”

He shrugged and finally returned his gaze to her face. “Apparently, with a little divine intervention, they can,” he sighed, then he spoke his thoughts rapidly from there without thinking, “If it’s true, then I have missed seven years of her life - of my daughter’s life! What kind of father am I, if I intentionally abandoned her? If I left her alone this entire time? I keep thinking about it and I can’t help but feel horrible. Not to mention, I intentionally abandoned my wife too, the mother of this miracle child, erasing them from my mind! Just what kind of man was I to do such a thing?” He scrubbed his hands over his face in frustration.

“I guess that means the wedding is off,” Antoinette smiled sadly, while playing with the engagement ring on her finger. “You’ll be going back to them - to her, yes?”

Immediately, Elijah realized what he had said and part of him wished he could take it back. He sighed heavily, “I-I don’t know. I love you, Antoinette. I do, and I still desire our future together, but this is my daughter we’re talking about. I left her alone, let her grow up without me, and I have no idea who she is. At the very least, I need to see her. I need to meet her.”

His fiancée licked her lower lip, still refusing to look at him. “If you go there, you’re going to get your memories back,” she murmured shakily. “You know that’s what will happen. We both do. Then you’ll forget all about me, because you’ll have your wife and your daughter. You’ll have your old life back and I’ll be nothing to you. These seven years will be nothing compared to the thousand with your family and the many with your wife. I’ll lose you. Forever.”

He didn’t know what to say to comfort her. In fact, he didn’t think that there was anything he could say to do so. He found himself to be very torn between his old life and his new one.

“Well, your daughter is probably at the Mikaelson compound in the French Quarter. Perhaps you can reach out to her somehow,” Antoinette suggested, after realizing that he wasn’t going to attempt to reassure her that wasn’t the case. “Maybe there is a way that you can see your daughter. Though, I’m afraid I can’t go with you. You and I both know that Klaus would capture me, then torture, and probably kill me, if he laid eyes on me because of what my mother tried to do to his own wife and child. I can’t risk being seen there. It’s too dangerous for me.”

Elijah swallowed thickly, knowing what he was implying would hurt her, as he reluctantly proposed, “He might kill you on sight, but he can’t do that to me. I could probably just walk in without too much of an issue, even if Klaus saw me coming. More so, if I explained to him why I had come, he’d leave me alone, I think anyway.”

His fiancée looked sad, but she tried to put on a brave face, “Then you have your plan of action and I suppose this is goodbye for you and I.”

As she moved to stand up, he grabbed her hand to stop her. “Goodbye? I’m just going to see my daughter. I still want to be with you, Antoinette. You are the woman I love. Just wait for me by the river. I’ll meet you there before sunrise and then we can go wherever you want in the world.”

Antoinette smiled slightly, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. “Alright. The river. I’ll be waiting.”

With that, she walked away, leaving Elijah to his mission.

Finding the Mikaelson compound was easy. All he had to do was compel the local bartender at a place called Rousseau’s to tell him where the place was at. From there, he moved at vampire speed to reach the establishment in record time. He did have his lady waiting for him after all and didn’t have time to waste. He needed to find his daughter, see her, and then go. 

With the stealth of a predator, Elijah infiltrated the compound, moving into the courtyard, only have a surprise waiting for him. Klaus was standing there with a blonde female vampire and a brunette male one; Rebekah and Kol Mikaelson!

“Ah, Elijah, welcome home,” Klaus greeted him with a wide, mischievous smile. “It’s about time you showed up. Had trouble finding the place, did we? With amnesia and all that, I’m sure it was quite the challenge.” Then he called behind him, “Are you ready, love?”

Eternity came forth, coming to stand in front of the hybrid and his siblings. She didn’t show any sort of emotion when she saw him. She remained cold and stone faced.

“What the hell is this?” Elijah demanded quietly, sensing a trap immediately.

“You are here, so that I can destroy the Hollow, as a piece of it resides in each Original here, you included, if that wasn’t obvious,” she told him clinically. “I cannot allow that evil thing to remain in this world, so I have brought the four Mikaelsons together to extract the spirit and wipe it from existence.”

He narrowed his eyes on her, feeling deceived, “So...wait. Our daughter? Was that just a lie to get me here? Does she even exist?”

Eternity nodded, “She does exist. She is here even. However, you’re not allowed to see her. At least, not as you are. If you want to see your daughter, you’re going to have to agree to having your memories restored. I will not let Ari see this...stranger, who will see her this once for curiosity’s sake and then dart off to some far off corner of the world with his new lover. I won’t let such a father that does not even know who she is, who can’t remember the day she was born or the first time he held her his arms or her first steps, near her.”

“You used her just to get me here,” he realized. “To pull me back into a life I don’t want.”

“I did, because it is the right thing to do,” she answered unapologetically. “The Hollow needs to be destroyed and I need to undo this madness you have put upon yourself in erasing your memories. I knew that the only way to get you back here was to tell you about Ari. I realized that not the bonds you shared with Niklaus or myself would suffice, only her. Now that you are here, I can save the world, along with my broken family, the very one you gave to me because you loved me...the very one you denounce, along with me.”

Elijah didn’t know what to think, except that he wanted to see his daughter and he would do anything to do so.

“You have to decide what you really want,” the ethereal beauty told him with finality. “Your daughter? Or your new existence...without her? You have until I finish the extraction of the Hollow to make your choice. Come.”

With that, Eternity turned gracefully and lead the other three Mikaelson siblings over to a more open space. He didn’t move immediately to follow, but eventually he went over to stand on south side of the pale woman, while his siblings took the north, east, and west positions around her. 

“Are you lot ready?” She asked the four of them rhetorically.

Then powerful woman stretched her arms outward and began to chant in a strange language that wasn’t of Earth. A mighty wind picked up around them and flashes of lightning lit up the shadowy courtyard with claps of thunder echoing off the walls.

Soon, a painful burning sensation welled up inside Elijah’s chest, forcing him to hunch over in agony. He vaguely noticed it was the same for the other three too. They all contorted and howled in pain as the evil energy inside them was drawn out. Then with a loud bang and a blinding flash of light, everything went dark. 

In his temporary unconscious state, he saw Eternity there, as he did every time he closed his eyes. She was smiling in the distance per usual and calling his name, beckoning him to come to her. There was also a little girl he couldn’t see the face of with the pale woman, giggling and playing near her. Yet, every time he dared to make that step toward her, he found himself unable to ever close the distance between them. There was always the same canyon sized separation between them, no matter what he did to try and get to her.

It was heart wrenchingly painful in such a profound way that he couldn’t stand it. 

When he awoke, Elijah was laying on the ground where he had apparently collapsed. He heard the groans of the others and sat up to find his siblings all waking at the same time. At first, Eternity was no where to be found, as he got to his feet and looked around to spot her. 

His vision had cemented his decision for him.

Then Eternity came into view, looking rather weary as she was embraced by Klaus, Rebekah, and then Kol in their relief to finally be rid of the Hollow bad to be able to be together again without the world ending. They were all grateful and joyful that the ethereal beauty had saved them all from the dark entity. It was a touching scene, one that Elijah didn’t dare try to participate in. 

He waited awkwardly for her to approach him, which she did once the celebratory hugs were done being exchanged. She came to stand in front of him, gazing at him coolly and didn’t speak. Instead, she waited for him to give her his answer to her earlier ultimatum. 

“I want my daughter,” Elijah wasted no time in telling her.

Eternity’s expression softened somewhat. It wasn’t as icy as it had been before he’d agreed to her terms. She simply nodded and motioned for him to follow her. “Come this way,” she spoke softly.

The ethereal beauty lead him upstairs and down the hall into one of the bedrooms, where she proceeded to shut them away from the others. She turned to him, leaning against the door, while he watched her curiously. 

“This seems a little romantic, don’t you think?” Elijah quipped with a slight grin, trying to lighten the tense mood.

She gave him an unamused look, before she approached him, coming to stand mere inches away from him. He watched as she reached and rested her hands upon his chest, pressing herself into him slightly, while gazing at him with a swirl of different emotions that he couldn’t quite name or perhaps he didn’t want to.

“Kiss me, Elijah,” commanded Eternity softly, averting her eyes slightly as she did.

He hesitated, not quite understanding how his kissing her was going to undo the compulsion. At first, he thought that this was some kind of trick, that she was playing him. Yet, despite his amnesia, he somehow knew that she wouldn’t do that. He chose to believe that she was doing this out of some sort of necessity.

“Kiss me,” the ethereal beauty said again, more urgently. “Please, Elijah.”

Without hesitating further, Elijah threw caution to the wind and let his mouth descend upon hers in a sweet, but cautious kiss. 

Immediately, he felt the heat of energy upon his lips. He was mesmerized as the sensation spread over his face upward into his mind, yet he didn’t cease in kissing Eternity, even though the feeling was foreign to him. He grew slightly nervous over it, especially as it grew more and more intense, eventually making his brain feel like it was on fire. 

From there, the return of his memories was instantaneous. Everything came back in an swift flood of memories. The visions started from the beginning a thousand years ago and working up to the present day. 

He knew who he was! He finally remembered it all, including the woman he held in his arms.

Pulling his mouth from hers, Elijah Mikealson looked down at Eternity. He recognized the woman he loved more than anything for the first time since she started showing up at his bar in France. He cupped her face in his hands and grinned from ear to ear in his happiness. Unable to help himself, he peppered her face with kisses and then hugged her to him tightly, overjoyed to have his memories back and more importantly to have the threat to his family destroyed.

However, Eternity remained stoic, stiff and motionless. She didn’t seem to share in his joy. 

Concerned, he pulled back and gazed down at her. He found her head hanging down, concealing her face from his view. Then just as he was about to call to her, to ask her what was wrong, she looked up at him coolly and said, “You have met my terms. Come, I’ll take you to Ari.”

With that, she swept past him, opening the bedroom door and walking out without looking to see if he was following her.  He felt guilty and hurt as he watched her go, understanding why she was being so cool to him. He had acted horridly in his desperation to protect his family from the Hollow. A heavy sigh left him, as he followed her out of what was their bedroom.

Eternity took him down the hall to another bedroom, where she knocked on the open door to alert the person inside to her presence. She disappeared into the room then, as she greeting the occupant, “Hello, my little love!”

“Mom!” A young voice shouted excitedly, just as Elijah came to stand in the doorway. “You’re finally back!”

The Original watched as a young girl of nine with long, wavy brown hair hopped off her bed and went to his wife, embracing her tightly. Ari!

“Yes, my darling,” the ethereal beauty replied and then she turned to him, revealing the girl, “and as promised, I have brought your father home as well.”

Arianna Katerina Mikaelson was the most beautiful little girl Elijah had ever seen. She had grown so much in the seven years he had been away. She had she’d her baby fat long ago, was walking and talking as anyone else would, and she looked like a mirror image of himself. That was except for the curls and waves of her long brown hair, as well the large almond shapes to her sapphire colored eyes that were all features of her mother. 

His daughter looked at him cautiously, but only for a moment. Then her eyes began to water with joyful tears and she immediately ran to him, to throw her arms around his neck as he crouched down to meet her. He embraced her tightly as his own eyes began to water. His emotions were so profound that he ached painfully, as he felt an incredible joy like no other that was marred by a deep regret. 

What had he done?

Elijah pulled back to take a good look at the child he had foolishly abandoned. She smiled brightly at him and it was infectious, for he was soon doing the same. “Hello, darling girl,” he murmured sweetly as he brushed back her hair and kissed her cheek. “I suppose we have a lot of catching up to do, but I must know: can you ever forgive me for being away?”

Immediately, Ari nodded her head rapidly. “Yes,” she said with a shaky voice as she tried to hold back her tears that nearly overwhelmed her. “You’re my dad. Of course, I can!”

The little girl embraced him again, giving Elijah the chance to look at Eternity, whom had silently watched the scene unfold before her. The immortal queen gazed at them with a tender affection that was marred by underline sadness and pain. Yet, she smiled at him as she moved past him to exit the room.

As both the Original and the girl pulled away from each other to stare at her with curious questioning, the ethereal woman spoke her parting words softly to them, “I’ll leave you two to your catch up and I shall return later.”

With that, she swept from the room, giving him time alone with their daughter. 

Once Eternity was gone, Elijah sighed heavily again as he watched her go once more, before turning his full attention to the little girl he hadn’t seen in years.

“Mom doesn’t seem very happy,” Ari commented with innocent worry.

“She’s just exhausted from destroying the Hollow and restoring our family,” he explained gently.

The nine year old looked at him in consideration. “No, it’s not that, although I'm glad that she has,” she said matter-of-factly. “She’s cross with you. She’s mad that you had your memories erased and that you left me without a father since I was already without her.”

Elijah smiled slightly, knowingly, “You’ve inherited your mother’s psychic powers, I see.”

Ari rolled her eyes and crossed her arms across her chest authoritatively, “I did, but I don’t need to use them to know why Mom is sad. I’m quite cross with you too, by the way.” Her expression became sad as she asked in a small voice, “Why did you leave? Why did you forget?”

His heart broke. He reached to pull her back into his embrace, holding her close in comfort as he quietly explained, “I’m so sorry, Ari. I left because I had to, in order to keep the Hollow away from your cousin, Hope. I forgot because I thought I was a danger to my family, to you, as I cannot stand aside when any one of them is in danger or in need of help, especially your uncle Niklaus. I didn’t mean to hurt you or your mother. I was simply desperate. We all were, to defeat a great evil that threatened our family - and the world, without your mother here to help us.”

“Yeah, she’s been away off and on all these years, you know,” admitted his daughter. “There was a war or something that kept her from home more often than not. So it’s mostly been just me with Aunt Freya and Aunt Hayley...Hope too.”

Elijah wasn’t all that surprised to hear this news. The war that Ari spoke of had broken out somewhere in space, just as the Hollow had awakened to stir up trouble in New Orleans. Eternity had wanted to stay and fight to protect her family, but her duty to her people elsewhere had put pressure on her to leave. He remembered telling his wife to go, to deal with the war. He recalled promising her that he and their family had could handle the Hollow until she got back. It had been with his blessing, she had reluctantly left.

However, Eternity hadn’t return in time before the conflict with the Hollow reached it’s peak and that had left the Mikaelsons desperate to save Hope from it’s evil, of whom had been possessed by it. They had done what they thought they had to, since none of them had any idea when his powerful wife would return home to save them - and the world. 

“I apologize for...everything,” Elijah told the little girl gently. “Neither your mother or I wanted to leave you without us. We were simply trying to do the right thing for everyone.”

“I know, Dad,” Ari replied, reaching to cup his cheek in her hand understandingly. “It’s okay. I get it. Heroes need to save the day.”

He smiled lopsidedly, “Well, I’m certainly not a hero, but your mother is. She’s the light of this family and saves the day often. I know she saves us all from a lot of misery and woe every day she’s with us.”

“If that’s true about Mom, then you need to fix what’s been broken,” his daughter said with a wisdom that was beyond a nine year old...or at least, it should have been. “You need to go make up with her.”

Elijah nodded, “I know and I will. First, however, why don’t we go sit, so you can tell me what you’ve been up to all this time that I’ve been away.”

Ari grinned and agreed readily. She took him by the hands and lead him over to her bed, where they sat and talked, catching up on lost time. 

To Be Continued....

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Tag List: @elejah-wonderland @dendrite-lover @xanderling @hawaiianohana31 @esclisa @elizamonet @missnmikealson @elejahforever @freshsuitcasewinnereagle @lalabluues @lolelijahishot @x-memi12 @loulouisa @teekillerin 

[aion-rsa]

The Twilight Zone Season 2 Episode 10 Review: You Might Also Like

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This The Twilight Zone review contains spoilers.

The Twilight Zone Season 2 Episode 10

The Twilight Zone was always a little bit hokey and that is a part of its charm. It was often stylized, sometimes funny, frequently heightened and not always realistic. We can’t criticize it for that. But season 2 episode 10 ‘You Might Also Like’ is a melee of all of the above in ways that largely speaking don’t work at all; the humor doesn’t land, the story requires Bond-villain-style exposition for it to even make sense and the satire is heavy handed and mean spirited. A low point for a show which overall has had more hits than misses.

Gretchen Mol stars as Janet Warren, a wealthy housewife and mother whose husband and kids don’t seem to be in the picture. She’s suffering from black outs – moments where she hears strange sounds and wakes up in bed fully clothed with time missing. Meanwhile her social circle is obsessed with a new release – their ‘family’s egg’ a mysterious new…. something…. that will apparently make ‘everything ok again, forever’. Each family is appointed an ‘hour of fulfilment’ at which time they can collect their family’s egg – what is it and why would anyone want it? No one knows, and, well, just because ‘it’s coming out’, we’re told.

A satire on consumerism which imagines advertising is now so subliminal that it’s in fact beamed into our unconscious minds by aliens who want to kill us, it’s a very broad point to make, and also quite a basic one which sees humans as vapid machines, buying stuff to make up for the sadness and injustices in the world. A subplot around a stillborn child feels insensitive, heavy handed and out of place in an episode with no gravitas whatsoever.

That it’s venturing into Black Mirror terrority, aping Apple ads, doesn’t help either – it just reminds you how much more nuanced Charlie Brooker’s take on the subject would have been – though of course that show owes a debt to the original Twilight Zone. It’s also vaguely reminiscent of not very good Buffy Season 2 episode “Bad Eggs” though even that had a slightly less bleak outlook on the human race. Though to take “You Might Also Like” seriously as an indictment of consumer culture is perhaps unfair – the episode never really plays as anything more than fluff. If series one of The Twilight Zone was criticised for being too woke, there’s none of that here. In fact one ‘take me to your supervisor’ moment feels like it’s directly in dialogue with the social media concept of a ‘Karen’.

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The Twilight Zone Season 2 Episode 9 Review: Try, Try

By Ryan Britt

Mol and Greta Lee (the ‘sweet birthday baby!’ woman from Russian Doll) who stars as her judgemental frenemy, play for laughs in a heightened reality largely confined to Janet’s house and garden which takes place over a day. Meanwhile Janet’s alien abductions are a reference to the 1962 episode of the original Twilight Zone ‘To Serve Man’ and involved the alien race the Kanamits who in ‘To Serve Man’ purport to be saving the world with their advanced technology but instead are farming humans to eat. Now they’re using their superior intellect to destroy humanity altogether.

It’s a cute detail for fans of the original show who should get a kick out of finding out what the Kanamits have been up to all these decades and a not-funny-on-its-own joke about KFC works better with context. 

This episode is written and directed by Oz Perkins who made decent Shirley Jackson influenced Netflix movie I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House and understated but very effective horror The Blackcoat’s Daughter and it feels quite far removed from his other work which errs on the side of subtle and atmospheric. While it’s a loving tribute to the show that launched a thousand sci-fi anthologies it feels like it’s hewn to the letter of the original but perhaps not the spirit. It’s playful at its best but at its worst it’s a clunky story lacking tension or atmosphere that’s told rather than shown. That it looks like those involved had a good time with it doesn’t mean the audience will have the same experience. 

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