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ekingston · 2 months ago

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So it’s 2019, because that’s what it said on the screenshot I used to create the gif, and you’re casually browsing Netflix, grateful to be alive in a world where COVID or an internationally devastating shift in political alliances are but distant echoes of a future that may never come to pass, and you happen upon a movie that’s just been added, called BREACH.

Your Netflix synopsis says: When a man turns up dead on the shore of a remote mountain town and a local girl vanishes without a trace, it’s up to a local detective to put the pieces together. But when she rescues an attractive tourist off the side of the road, the investigation takes an intimate—and dangerous—turn.

And you’re like, ‘eh, nothing I haven’t seen before,’ (though the LGBTQ label is interesting), but then the preview starts autoplaying and IS THAT KATIE MCGRATH?! And it IS. So now you have no choice but to sit through the trailer.

Nocturne by Blanco White is playing, calmly at first, swelling as it goes on. You’re presented with a wide shot of a towering dam, the camera slowly rising up the water-streaked concrete before breaching the top. An enormous lake BOOMS into view, jagged mountains beyond it, forming a serrated edge against the lightening sky. It’s early morning. Mist is rolling down the densely forested mountains and over the water.

(You wonder if this production used the same locations (or rather special effects) as Les Revenants did, and yes, it absolutely did, because I loved the atmosphere of that show and I adore mountain towns with enormous lakes and it is, to date, the most Hollywood version of non-Paris France I’ve ever seen.)

The wide shot narrows to a ground-level closeup of the pebbled shoreline, pulling slowly away from the water until we glimpse a piece of discarded police tape, fluttering on the breeze. The camera pans past a pair of sneakers and then a pair of uncomfortable-looking high heels, wobbling on the rocky beach. It’s a news crew, reporting live on the disappearance of a young girl. The camera pushes past them, staying at ground-level as it leads us into the woods, where we find the paws of a canine unit, splashing in a shallow mountain stream. There’s the sound of police radios, and then we see the boots of a police search party. We stop at a much smaller but otherwise identical pair of leather boots. The camera pans up at our detective—it’s Katie McGrath! Finally!

She looks amazing, obviously. For the sake of this miraculously being a supercorp AU, her character is a fair bit more acerbic version of our girl Lena Luthor, except we’re time traveling so she’s now in her early 40s, her dark hair greying slightly at the temples (let a girl dream), her jawline somehow sharper than ever, freckles proudly on display in the natural light. Her hair is hanging loosely over her shoulders, looking like it hasn’t seen a brush since she last laid down. Lena is wearing slacks, a wrinkled dress shirt and a men’s blazer that is slightly too large for her. She stares off into the woods, chin jutting, a muscle jumping in her jaw, her fingers absently playing with a pack of cigarettes.

CUT TO:

Early nighttime. A dark mountain road, lit sparsely, tall pine trees walling it in on both sides. We see over Lena’s shoulder, her hands on the steering wheel, as her cruiser’s headlights sweep over the shape of a woman, bent over the engine of her stalled car. The woman—blonde, mid-thirties, wearing cut-off jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt far too thin for the late hour—turns when the car appears, squinting into the light. It’s Kara.

Lena comes to a stop behind her and rolls her window down. She calls out, “You need a ride?”

CUT TO:

The dimly lit interior of a spartan living room. Lena dumps blankets on the couch.

Kara asks, “You sure this is okay, me sleeping here?”

CUT TO:

Daytime, and we’re at the sheriff’s office. Lena, wearing a clean-but-barely-ironed dress shirt, drinks coffee as if her life depends on it. Mike Matthews, the sheriff’s deputy, makes fun of Lena’s uncharacteristic hospitality.

“What was I supposed to do?” Lena asks him, as we see a flashback shot of Lena watching Kara over the rim of her coffee cup, earlier that morning. “Next town’s hours away.”

We see Kara maintaining eye contact with Lena for a moment, the corners of her eyes crinkling, as we hear Mike telling Lena, back at the office, “You won’t even let me stay at your place.”

“You had bed bugs,” Lena points out. Then she raises an eyebrow, looking away, adding as a casual sidenote, “Plus she’s prettier than you.”

WLWNESS/SAPPHICTROCITY/LESBIANANIGANS CONFIRMED.

CUT TO:

It’s evening, and we’re in Lena’s kitchen. Kara is making dinner when Lena walks in, feeding scraps to—and this is very important! but only to me—Lena’s dog. Did I mention this is actually also a crossover with Person of Interest, and for absolutely no other reason than I need Lena to have Bear the Brilliant Belgian Malinois? “I see you made a friend,” Lena says. It’s unclear whether she’s talking to Bear or Kara.

The news is on, talking about the missing girl. Lena turns it off before settling into a chair near the open doorway, her legs splayed wide at rest. Bear immediately settles at her side, chin resting on Lena’s thigh. We all kind of want to be a Brilliant Belgian Malinois, in that moment. Kara asks, indicating the TV, “You think she’s still alive?”

“Could be.” Lena digs for her pack of cigarettes and pulls a lighter from a kitchen drawer, probably shoving an old walkman she’s had forever out of the way to get to it, scratching the course hair between Bear’s ears before settling back down. “‘Course if you asked me last week, I may have told you something different.”

Kara turns off the stove so you can all stop worrying, and starts plating the food. “What changed?”

Lena pauses while she lights her cigarette and takes a deep drag, the blue smoke drifting through the doorway outside as Lena savors it, slowly breathing out as gays the world over are forced to reconsider the merits of smoking. Like yes, it kills you in terrifying, excruciating ways, but LOOK AT HER. Lena watches Kara intently, but doesn’t answer her question.

CUT TO:

We see Lena in her bedroom, late at night, flipping through case files. Her fingers (which, EXTREME closeup, EXTREME CLOSEUPS OF HER HANDS THROUGHOUT THIS ENTIRE PRODUCTION, hover over a grainy picture of a young white man, wearing a red baseball cap. His back is turned so we can’t see his face, though if you hated hard enough back in the day you may have a hunch. As the camera circles around the room, Lena is replaced by Kara, the bedroom now bathed in golden morning light. She’s looking through the photos too, her fingers shaking. We see her react to the photograph of the ballcapped man, before quickly putting things back exactly as they were.

CUT TO:

An evening shot of the lake, the water wrinkling in the breeze, softly lapping at the shore. We hear the sound of something large hitting the water.

CUT TO:

A pee break, actually, and you’re gonna go ahead and grab a snack while you’re up. There sure is a lot of water in this movie. Wait, weren’t you just watching a trailer? Why does it feel like an hour has passed? Is it the hands? How many times have you hit that pause button? What year is it?

CUT TO:

Lena and Kara are at the Lake Pub. It’s dimly lit and smoky. Lena drinks whiskey. Across from her, Kara stirs a glass of soda with her pinkie finger. They’re regarding each other so openly you genuinely start to feel a bit faint.

“You’re looking at me like I’m one of your suspects,” Kara says.

You disagree. That’s not what suspicion looks like. You’re sure, because you’ve seen Katie McGrath look at approximately 99.9% of her female costars this way.

Lena keeps her gaze level, unflinching and forward. “I look at everyone like that,” she lies.

A beat.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Kara says.

You’re feeling suddenly thirsty, too.

CUT TO:

Red and blue lights illuminate the deep indigo sky over the lake. A body is being dragged from the water as Lena watches, clenching her stupendous jaw. Seriously, how is she growing hotter all the fucking time if storybook-princess-turned-mesmerizing-murderess was her baseline?

CUT TO:

Lena, sitting in her parked car. She slams her fist against the steering wheel. (Don’t worry, no hands were injured in the making of this film.) It’s overlayed with imagery of a burial service, a US flag draped over the coffin, a pair of grieving women—one middle aged, the other a pretty 20-something brunette, surrounded by officers in dress blues. Lena is there too, looking dashing in her uniform, but also like she hasn’t slept in a week.

CUT TO:

Lena is standing in the center of her living room, rubbing her brow with her long, spatulate fingers. Kara is hovering in a corner a couple of feet away, cautious. “Just say it,” she whispers. “You think I killed him.”

Lena releases a breath that is half-huff, half-groan. “I’m not sure it even matters anymore,” she says.

“How can you say that?” Kara asks. When Lena doesn’t answer her, Kara steps closer and touches her arm. Lena turns as if she’s going to shrug Kara off, and the instant you begin to wonder what the hell this movie is supposed to be about, you stop caring because Lena abruptly pulls Kara closer and they kiss, urgent and rough.

You’re not sure if your ears are ringing or if the sound you’re hearing is a chorus of lesbians all over the world exploding into cheers & wild applause.

As the music builds to a crescendo, we see a quick series of images:

Lena presses Kara against her bedroom wall, Lena’s lips at her jaw, her fingers undoing the button of Kara’s jeans before they slip inside her pants; your life flashes before your eyes; Lena points her gun at someone, but we don’t see who; Lena’s fingers support Kara’s chin as she gently dabs at her bloodied brow with a piece of gauze; headlights illuminate a figure in the road, mirroring Lena picking up Kara, but this time the smiling man in the red baseball cap (again seen only from the back) is the one pulling over & rolling down his window.

The dam’s floodgates open, a roar of white water pouring through.

The music stops abruptly as we end on a final, long shot. Lena stands on top of the dam, looking down, the sky above her, the dizzying depths below. The camera falls away, down down down, until it breaches the surface of the water and sinks into the dark water beneath.

Kara (voiceover, pleading, breathless): “If I go under, I’ll pull you down with me.”

Lena (voiceover, raw but full of conviction): “I’m a pretty good swimmer. And I have a feeling you are, too.”

CUT TO BLACK.

You blow out a breath and resign yourself to your fate. You hit the mute button, and press play.

Also I was proud of how this one manip turned out so I’m sharing the version that makes it marginally more clear that Kara isn’t randomly & uncomfortably touching her own face:

Like I said: SO MANY CLOSEUPS.

#also bear saves their lives probably.#mike matthews is the perp-slash-murdered man probably.#kara may have pushed him over the dam’s ledge in self defense maybe i dunno. not up to me i’m not writing it obviously #breach #supercorp manip #fic by ekingston #art by ekingston #animation by ekingston #by the way netflix realizes Katie McGrath brings all the girls to the yard and turns it into a series #it goes on for fourteen seasons. by the twelfth lena luthor’s hair has turned completely silver #bear never dies. lena and kara marry. then divorce. then reunite just before the show’s finale #the writing gets better each year as the show starts hiring new diverse voices #and learns to take itself less seriously #the final episode shows lena getting sworn in as the next president of the United States #the fans campaign to make it a reality

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2004hitalbumsevenswans · 9 months ago

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I really enjoyed Batman: Caped Crusader. I was worried (like everyone else) that Bruce Timm would push his Bruce/Barbara obsession, but they barely interact when Bruce is out of costume, and he’s all business as Batman. Barbara is (presumably) about the same age as Bruce in this adaptation, she’s a young public defender, who still lives at home with her dad. Commissioner Gordon is mentioned to have 30 years on the Gotham police force at one point. And the series is loosely based on Batman: Year One by Frank Miller, and has Matt Reeves as a producer. It’s definitely an interpretation of the early years of Batman.

The setting is vaguely and aesthetically set in the 1940s, mirroring the original Batman and riffing on DC comic stories and character interpretations from that time. Clayface’s story and appearance is based on the original interpretation of the character, which I really enjoyed - especially as someone’s who’s read the first couple years of the original Detective Comics/Batman stories. (There’s also a lot of great references to the Adam West show, and a couple of its themes are reimagined for this more noir story.)

I could see the series setting up something between Bruce and Barbara potentially, but their interactions are really blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. There’s a moment where Bruce’s is climbing back onto the Iceberg Lounge yacht and he uses a pick up line on her, which she scoffs at, then he proceeds to use the line on two other young women. There’s another moment that you could say is pre-flirting, or is at least setting up a foundation to further a relationship between the two. Where Barbara makes a comment about Batman letting himself into her office unannounced whenever he feels like it, and she tells him she needs a way to contact him, and he gives her the Batphone number. At this point I think you could make more of an argument for a Harleen/Barbara pairing than her and Bruce.

I think the characters would both individually need a lot more development to be in a romantic relationship. I’ll say this even though I know it will be an unpopular opinion: in this interpretation I wouldn’t mind putting Bruce and Barbara together. I know that’s practically sacrilege coming from someone who’s favourite character is Oracle but hear me out.

My main issues with Bruce and Barbara together (especially when it comes to Timm’s work) is the age difference. It’s often debated but Barbara in most iterations (including current comic canon) is around the same age as Dick, usually a couple of years older, 2-3 at most. Bruce is depicted as having at least 15 years on her, if not more. And most stories that have Bruce and Barbara together also fixate on her being batgirl. Then there’s the tendency to make a Nightwing-Batgirl-Batman love triangle which I don’t want to get into but I hate completely.

None of that is happening here. Barbara has her own storylines that are just as prominent as Bruce and Harvey’s. She’s an adult with agency and flaws and is just as fleshed out as any of the other characters are. I wouldn’t be surprised if the show takes a season or two to develop a romantic relationship between the two of them. Bruce is completely focused on being Batman and sees Bruce Wayne as a persona. He’s callous with peoples feelings (Harvey, notably) and is shown to struggle with smaller acts of empathy, opening himself up to people, and honestly, social skills. The last of which doesnt doesn’t affect him too negatively because he’s a rich and well known man in Gotham.

Compared to the Bruce Wayne of BTAS it was a smart choice to show a Bruce/Batman who struggles with people and emotions. It reminded me a lot of Reeves’ the Batman. In wider Batman media you usually see two types of depictions: a compassionate Batman (which is where I would place BTAS) or a more emotionless, be-stoic-and-punch-the-bad-guys-and-look-badass version that is usually just a male power fantasy.

This version of Batman sets up the foundation for a storyline that is relatively unexplored, and I’m sure they’re going to explore it more in the next season (which has already been greenlit).

I was surprised at the lack of adult themes in the show, it was marketed for an adult audience but could easily fit into a PG13 rating, but that was probably on purpose. I was impressed they managed to have so many strong, fleshed out storylines in only 10, 30 minute episodes. But I wouldn’t expect anything less of Bruce Timm, or some of the other names I recognized attached to the project in various ways (Greg Rucka, JJ Abrams, Matt Reeves, and Ed Brubaker).

While there are a lot of critiques of Timm I agree with, I generally enjoy his work and the care he puts into it. I love Greg Rucka and was really excited to see that he wrote the episode that was more Renee Montoya centric. And while I have my issues with Ed Brubaker, I do enjoy his work.

While the series is visually and technologically based around the 1940s, the politics are more modern. Harleen asks Renee out on a date and she talks about it with Barbara openly. I saw one review call the show “race blind” which I would not agree with. Most of the racism is implied through euphemism (the scene with Lucius Fox and Gentleman ghost), but it’s still felt as a point of friction for multiple characters, it affects how they interact with the world around them. There’s also a line spoken by either detective Flass or Bullock that implies no one in the GCPD wants to follow Renee because she’s gay. It’s cut off before the last word, but again, the meaning is implied.

An issue I always had with the Timmverse is its depictions of female characters. They always feel less real than their male counterparts, less important and less visually stylized. All the important (read: desirable) women have the same body shape. They’re thin and extremely, unnaturally curvy. I’m aware that these characters are supposed to evoke that 50s comic pinup imagery but I always thought it was a bit much. Male characters - even before the animation downgrade in BTAS season 4 - were always way more unique from each other than the female characters. That wasn’t something I felt with Caped Crusader. The three most prominent female characters (Barbara, Renee and Harleen) were all different from each other, with different heights, body shapes, hair and clothing styles. They also all had 3 distinct personalities that were built up through the series. I would argue that the show was as much about the “supporting cast” (characters like Harvey, Commissioner Gordon, Renee and Barbara) as it was about Batman.

Overall I was really impressed by the show. I was disappointed with how short it was. I hope that Renee’s personal life gets a focus with the next season, and I hope they bring back Greg Rucka to write it. I love how he wrote her in Gotham Central. I was a little annoyed that they introduced the Joker at the end of the series (as a peak into the next season). I think he’s too over saturated as a character, and sometimes his introduction into a Batman story takes over everything else, and he’s depicted as Batman’s Moriarty. I do have hope that this won’t happen in Caped Crusader, because it seems that villains will be reoccurring, but there’ll be a large cast, just like in BTAS. That aspect did remind me of the way characters were introduced in those early Batman comics, it really has the same vibe. I also really really do not want Harley to be involved with the Joker in any way. Please keep her as a separate character, this new interpretation of her is great as is, he doesn’t need to be involved.

I would also be interested to see if the show develops Barbara’s character into Oracle. I could see that happening with the introduction of the Joker at the end of season one. Maybe they’re going to rework the Killing Joke? I couldn’t see them having her as batgirl, but I would be interested to see how they worked Oracle into a world with 1940s technology. I’m thinking back to her as Oracle in the Doom that Came to Gotham, and how clever that was. I’m sure they could do something just as interesting with her here. Something more supernatural feels like a long shot, because Timm usually sticks to the more “realistic”, street-level versions of Batman, but they did introduce Gentleman Ghost. So it’s a possibility.

One thing I did think could have been better was some of the voice work. Not the voice acting itself, but the design. It felt too polished alongside the score and the animation. I wish the voice acting had been more atmospheric, had more depth. It felt too clean. Hamish Linklater was great as Bruce/Batman. Following Kevin Conroy is no small feat, and Linklater’s performance felt reminiscent of Conroy without sounding like an impression. It was quiet and unassuming, yet strong.

I’m not usually someone who watches things more than once, but I’m definitely going to be rewatching Caped Crusader soon.

#m #my post #dc #batman #batman: caped crusader #batman caped crusader #batman the animated series #this is a bit ramble-y but it’s just stream of consciousness #didn’t even touch on how they introduced dick jason and Stephanie as orphans in the nocturna episode #that was a v cool interpretation of her also #I hope those 3 will be back in some capacity - maybe as recurring characters who help Bruce act more compassionate #he volunteers w Leslie or has to fund/save her orphanage and that starts off either wayne enterprises or his philanthropy #I noticed they didn’t include Tim Cass or Damian #I think they’ll do something special for Tim bc he was such a large part of TNBA #idk for Damian but it would be interesting if they introduced Talia #I wonder if they’ll do a time skip?#I’m still holding out hope that they have cass as batgirl but that’s a bit of a pipe dream #dc comics #barbara gordon #Bruce Wayne #harvey dent #Harley Quinn #renee montoya #jim gordon

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