#i like to imagine the sheer chaos their relationship must’ve been before she figured it out

[a-bunch-of-queerness]

clark: *seductively takes off glasses*

clark: wow...

lois: *blushes and chuckles softly* what?

clark, trying to keep up his cover: you’re really fucking blurry.

[ravencromwell]

I wanna talk @wolf359radio, specifically their incredible juxtaposition of comedy with deeper themes, and their brilliant gamble about slow-building character investment. Because this is a podcast I feared I wouldn't like, but that became my motivation to become a patron of something for the first time, well before I was finished with season 1. So I wanna dissect precisely what they're doing so right on a crafting level. Mild spoilers up through the end of EP 11 below the cut.

I don't normally like what we've come to view as comedy. Primarily because it's come to be less about brilliant comedic timing on an actor's part and more about ridiculous physical/situational slapstick almost entirely driven by external factors. So when I heard that the first few eps of Wolf 359 were mostly office shenanigans in space, my stomach rolled and I almost ignored; but I'd heard that Gabriel and Sarah were fucking geniuses (yeah; pretty much perfect advertising), and I'd been recced it by two folks, so I figured I'd dive in.

Almost instantly, I was intrigued and on alert, because Zach's comedic timing was very reminiscent of something like Girl Friday for me, which I utterly adore. The humor derived almost exclusively from the way he chose to convey the monologue. And that brilliant opening patter monologue. By the time he started talking about the pizza delivery missing his hotel by a few thousand light-years, and calling Hilbert Russian Dr. Doom, I was clapping and cackling in sheer delight. And then, when you're like oh, that was a nice comedic moment in space, they slide that ending hook of Doug possibly discovering...something into place. And it's such an intriguing little hook, because all right, this was a false alarm, but you can't always be the boy who cried wolf with your hooks. So, clearly, they're setting up for a not false alarm. And then realizing Zach played Hilbert as well; I was just floored by his range and skill. Any show that netted this versatile an actor had to be something special.

So you're set up to have high expectations from the pilot, and then Little Revolución and Discomforts, Pains, and Irregularities form this incredible duology to further your investment. There're so many shows that cram character detail into the pilot. There's a frantic rush to have you be invested, to catch your attention with anything, that it becomes throwing paint at a wall and seeing what sticks. As much as making 359 on no budget those first couple years must've been an unmitigated nightmare in a lotta ways, this was their moon shot. No expectation, no profit margin, and by God if they were going to put in the work to make the thing, you were going to have to put in a little trust and time to love it. That created this marvelous, constantly expanding canvas, with this thrumming excitement on discovering which part of the canvas they were going to shade in or fill each episode. Anyway: I digress.

Little Revolución sets up Doug's melodrama and lays the seeds for the expanding family dynamic we continue to see throughout the season in one fell swoop. After all, if Hilbert and Minkowski are engaging in an extreme prank war, they can't be the figures of unremitting dread Doug's nicknames would make them out to be. And Doug, oh Doug. Zach's comedic timing and inflection continued to be stellar there, drawing me into stitches over Doug determined to die on his foolish hill. There were so many moments where dialogue and inflection melded seamlessly, and showed just how thoroughly Gabriel and the rest of the team understood how they wanted their words to resonate with the audience, and precisely what beats an actor would need to hit to get there. I'm thinking of something like Doug's explanation of the last time he was cajoled into accepting substitutions. It is obviously written to be amusing, and Zach utterly mines that potential. Even then, I couldn't imagine anyone else as Doug.

If EP 2 was watching Minkowski and Hilbert work together and starting to see Minkowski unbend, EP 3 made me fall in love with Commander Minkowski, and much of that was the way Emma sold the comic timing. Minkowski's sheepishness at avoiding the physical! Getting that moment of humanity from her, like unlocking a puzzle. And also in the best traditions of puzzles, really starting to realize that we're in the midst of an ongoing story. That moment when Doug says that he thought she was joking about the plant monster entirely spins the story around: he expects her to joke. As much as they often infuriate one another, there's also a comradeship. And then his nicknames start to feel more like snide sibling rivalry, glorious sibling rivalry. This's further strengthened by watching them work together against the plant monster. We expected Minkowski to be competent of course; Emma's usual no-nonsense tones guarantee that even if she weren't the commander. And we *knew* Doug had to be competent. But this; this is the moment we start to see it. And there again, the juxtaposition of serious and comedic elements. That they're not afraid to raise the stakes in the midst of what should be folks skiving off a physical utterly delighted me. The authorial confidence required to seesaw like that started to reassure me I was in very. very good hands, even if some of the genres employed weren't my usual fair.

It was EPs 4 and 5 that made me determined to watch through at least the rest of the season. Cataracts and Hurricanoes alchemized my liking for Minkowski into fierce adoration. And we continued to be exposed to more and more evidence that she and Doug's relationship was as sibling-like as it could be, considering the differences in rank. This's the first EP, too, where I realized Hera was very likely to steal my heart. Her concern for Doug was so well-acted. The way all the actors were able to spin, going from Doug and Minkowski bantering one second to deeply dangerous rescue the next was astounding. While I was coming to take for granted that the writing would veer, the spot-on casting, just how much these actors were starting to embody the versatility of the writing, get comfortable and play, took my breath away.

And then came EP 6, wherein I decided yeah Gabriel was a fucking genius. Because the juxtaposition of the dire and the hilarious actually *became a plot device* He whipsawed our perceptions of Hilbert madly throughout the episode. Had Doug's melodrama about the physical--which you could easily take in EP 3 as the clash of an overeager doctor with someone who. just didn't like doctors much--foreboded something more dire? And you really start to realize how *smart* Doug is here. Not just competent, but quick on his feet. The reveal at the end was so well-done; it would have been too early, too abrupt of a tonal shift, to pull us into true chaos. But Gabriel was starting to gradually give us a taste, and use the comedy as the tether to continue to ground us within the plot. Always bringing us back, centering us, like a skillful pilot starting to fly through mild turbulence.

EP 6 confirmed my deep Hera empathy. That moment when we see her show annoyance, and Doug acknowledge her programming for the first time. We start to see the gulf between them, but also the commonality. And again, we're whipsawing just a little, very gently, on Hilbert. The way he's slowly pulling back from the comedic elements, weaning us off gradually, while never entirely losing sight of them is so clever. Both the writing and the acting really show the understanding that to endure serious narrative often requires just the right proportions of levity mixed in. And again, we started to see hints of the serialized story from EP 1 by the end of 6, hints this will be the overarching plot. The way the show becomes comfortable tossing all sorts of genre elements about makes clear that very. very good hands should be revised to excellent. And then for anyone still watching but on the fence, there's no way to stop now with the mystery hook of the odd voices.

The way comedy is used in Sound and Fury is sheer perfection. How clearly uncomfortable Doug is lying, his desperate adroitness that fools no one--and the implication he knew it would fool no one-- had me in stitches. And we needed the levity desperately there, to balance out Hera's insecurity and vulnerability. Minkowski's insults would hurt far less if she were not quite so aware of her flaws, if she had not, I suspect, become far more sentient than she was intended to be. And with that comes a very human fear of not entirely belonging, of being dispensable.

I wanna skip now to 9-11, which isn't to say that the other EPs aren't amazing; they are! but much of what they do on a structural level are things done by the previous eps.

I loved seeing the core group functioning as a core group in these last few; we'd seen dyads before, but seeing that full puzzle snap together was marvelously breathtaking. I loved Emma's use of levity at the end of EP 9, because man oh man, that's where the writing really starts to preview a tenseness that's. well, my heart was pounding, let's leave it at that. That tone Emma adopted, of trying desperately to remain the straight-laced commander, but there starting to be real fear and vulnerability there, and then her just throwing up her hands and going yeah, I'm as pissed as them. popped the bubble of the tension so perfectly. And the writing, giving Minkowski that vulnerability: it makes this show feel so rewarding, like you're peeling back character layers like onion skin. Every moment you continue to be invested in the show will reward you with some greater revelation about these people you're coming to love.

And that just continues into the last two: Hilbert's gentleness in EP 10! contrasted with Doug's melodrama over the spider, which never felt campy and felt viscerally real for someone who regularly engages in melodrama over creepy crawlies. And Minkowski, being fierce gentle mother bear again; the best of Minkowski comes to the surface when her crew is under threat. Which was a theory from EP 4, but now we have it brilliantly confirmed.

And the juxtaposition of the droll with the dangerous in EP 11 was just masterful. The way Hilbert's thoughtful, almost mournful reflections about solitude and why we still fear it and Hera's wrenching struggle with not only not being quite human but with the folks she's closest to not quite understanding it were softened by Doug's brilliantly funny psych test was just enough. Just enough to ensure that those sections resonated, that there are still lines from both of them reverberating in my head a day later, without being crushing. Which leads me to another thought: the comedic elements are a herald of 359's underlying hope imho. Even in the midst of deeply bleak things, like Minkowski reconfirming Doug's unreliability that we'd almost forgotten about from EP 5 and that now seems to be a crew unreliability oh shit! is offset by that very gentle, fiercely human wish to send her best wishes and love to someone on their name day. That's the...not gentlest we've seen Minkowski, but perhaps the softest, and it made me a little weepy.

At any rate, there're my long, disjointed thoughts on 359, and how it does the brilliant things it does, at least so far.