#kelli berglund now apocalypse

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March 2019 and August 2021. Two flavors of the L.A. apocalypse, part of a larger genre that also includes KISS ME DEADLY, REPO MAN, WILD PALMS, MULHOLLAND DRIVE, and SOUTHLAND TALES.

NOW APOCALYPSE, which came and went in 2019, was created by Gregg Araki and cowritten with Karley Sciortino. It follows four sexually frustrated L.A. 20somethings: Ulysses (Avan Jogia), a stock Araki protagonist (mostly gay, perpetually baked, effortlessly hot) who's been suffering disturbing apocalyptic premonitions and weird visions; Carly (Kelli Berglund), his blond, white, mostly straight bestie, a struggling actress and part-time camgirl who I think is supposed to be Sciortino's self-insert; Ford (Beau Mirchoff), Uly's tragically straight aspiring screenwriter beefcake himbo roommate; and Ford's girlfriend Severine (Roxane Mesquida), an autistic French "astro-biological theorist" whose mysterious top-secret government project is probably connected to Uly's frightening visions.

Allegedly inspired by TWIN PEAKS, NOW APOCALYPSE feels more like a redress of Araki's 2010 film KABOOM. The surreal mystery aspects seem to be trying to make a point about the city's predatory appetite for hot, exploitable 20somethings (underscored by the return of Araki regular James Duval as a tormented homeless man), but if you're expecting the show to pay off or even pay much attention to its own mystery, you'll be disappointed. On the other hand, if you're in it for the sexually fluid horniness (which occupies about 85 percent of the plot and most of Araki and Sciortino's apparent interest), the flashes of weird David Icke-style alien conspiracy nonsense are distracting, and Araki seems either oblivious to or unconcerned about the antisemitic roots of conspiracy theories about sinister "Reptilians." As a modern sex comedy, NOW APOCALYPSE is pretty good, although it's familiar territory for Araki (it's really similar to KABOOM and even NOWHERE) and lacks the bite of his '90s work. The part that ends up standing out is the unexpectedly sensitive treatment of Severine; Mesquida manages to make this abrasive woman (whose personality Carly likens to nail polish remover) seem like a real person, who's not without feelings despite her discomfort with emotional expression.

BRAND NEW CHERRY FLAVOR, created by Nick Antosca and Lenore Zion based on a novel I haven't read, wants very much to be the love child of David Lynch and David Cronenberg: a surreal supernatural black comedy, set in the 1990s, about a driven young filmmaker named Lisa Nova (Rosa Salazar) who turns to witchcraft after she loses control of her unsettling short film to a sleazy producer whose contract she hasn't read carefully. A weird Boyle Heights mystic who calls herself Boro (Catherine Keener at her deadpan best) agrees to curse the producer for her, which has unexpected consequences, beginning with the fact that Lisa now vomits up kittens at regular intervals. Meanwhile, the embittered star of Lisa's short film (Siena Werber) resurfaces to reveal the horrifying events surrounding the making of that film, and some extremely weird things are happening at Lisa's new apartment.

BRAND NEW CHERRY FLAVOR is frustrating because it almost works. It's full of interesting pieces (including a memorable if obviously derivative segue into Cronenberg-esque body horror) that don't quite add up and some spooky moments whose tension the story keeps failing to sustain. (While the showrunners have obviously seen MULHOLLAND DRIVE, their attempts to evoke a Lynchian nightmare-logic sense of incipient dread consistently fall flat.) The biggest issue is that the show can't make up its mind what kind of story it's trying to tell (is it a cautionary tale? a parable about the creative process?), which leaves the protagonist a cipher and many of the story threads going nowhere.

This is a common problem with modern media, especially in this generic vein: Deliberate ambiguity and creative indecision are not the same thing, and if a story lacks clear stakes and thematic direction, all the cool, creepy, intriguing bits in the world won't amount to much. Rosa Salazar tries very hard, but she's hampered by the writers' uncertainty about how we should feel about Lisa, and Manny Jacinto is wasted (literally) in a minor supporting role as her former boyfriend. The standout is Catherine Keener, whose flair for droll understatement makes Boro (who's both more and less than she appears to be) a memorable villain.

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Kelli Berglund on Now Apocalypse Season 1

as Carly on Now Apocalypse [S1|E1]

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Now Apocalypse (2019-2019) dir. Gregg Araki

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AVAN JOGIA & KELLI BERGLUND as ulysses zayne and carly carlson └ Now Apocalypse - Season 01• Episode 09

“You’re totally one of those people who gets a boyfriend and disappears, right?”

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Avan Jogia & Kelly Berglund in Now Apocalypse (2019) dir. Gregg Araki

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Kelli Berglund as Carly Carlson in ‘Now Apocalypse’

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Now Apocalypse 1 season 9 episode

Awwww, love these kittens. Why am I the only one who loves them soooo much?

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This guy’s a gnarly, 300 pound catfish.

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Gregg Araki & Karley Sciortino, Now Apocalypse, 2019

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Kelli Berglund in Now Apocalypse

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Now Apocalypse Cast poses for a portrait in the Pizza Hut Lounge in Park City, Utah on January 27, 2019

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Now Apocalypse (2019-)

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Now Apocalypse - 1.05 “Stranger Than Paradise” (2019) // dir. Gregg Araki

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“Gabriel is 43 fucking minutes late.”