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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Goof Week: Sports Goofy in SoccerMania: GoofTales Woo-oo! (Paid For for WeirdKev27)

Gorsh all you happy people and welcome back to Goof Week, my Weeklong Celebration of everyone’s favorite goofus.

And today we have a special treat, something nice and obscure but something that still has a vital place in Disney History. Welcome folks to Sports Goof in Soccermania!

So yesterday in my Goof Troop review I wished there had been another DuckTales episode with Goofy, you know maybe find out what happened to Peg, see Max and Roxanne again that sort of thing. Whelp SOMEONE must’ve hid a Monkey’s Paw around here somewhere because I got this special instead on comision. This is a VERY intresting little artifact as it came out only 4 months before DuckTales, was produced around the same time, and was written by Tad Stones, who would both go on to work on DuckTales and even more importantly create Darkwing Duck.

Not only that but it has some odd things attached to it: it’s the first major production starting Scrooge, as he had an educational short about him, the first animated appearance of the Beagle Boys and most important the FIRST time Russi Taylor would voice Huey, Dewey and Louie, something she’d do till her passing a few years ago. At the time of this article she has not been recast, though I personally vote for Cristina Valenzuela, who took over the role of Young Donald and frankly does such a good job with that voice I didn’t know if Russi had already recorded lines for Season 3 before her passing.

So what IS Sports Goofy in Soccermania you ask? It was a TV Special from 1987, again four months before DuckTales, that was later sold on VHS. My guess is Disney intended for this to become a regular thing like the Charlie Brown or Garfield specials, but my honest guess is with DuckTales MASSIVE success they wanted to put all the TV Animation resources into making more shows to go with it. The fact the special is essentailly a Scrooge story with Goofy in it and Scrooge and the Boys were now tied up in DuckTales probably helped the decision. So we only got one of these and i’m proud to share it for Goof Week. So join me under the cut to see what a Sports Goof is, what Scrooge sounds like without Alan Young or David Tennant andto see me refrence the film UHF because I likes it.

So we open with the titles which are neat and then open at the Money bin, we even get a great sign gag that looks like something Carl Barks would write.

So Scrooge greets his nephews the way he greets everybody.. with a canon to the face... though he backs of firing once he realizes it’s them. The boys ALL wear red this special so .. I guess Huey won and now rules all three bodies with an iron fist? So the Huey Hive Mind asks Scrooge for a donation, a standard Scrooge setup, ask the rich asshole for money, as their trying to help the local soccer program and they need a buck fiddy for a trophy.

Scrooge’s voice here.. is terrible. I do not like to bash voice actors, they are hard working talented people who do a lot of great stuff, often for less pay than they deserve, and this blog ALWAYS makes that painfully clear. And Will Ryan is not without talent: While he hasn’t done much i’m familiar with he did play Petrie in Land Before Time and was great in it. So while I don’t dislike him as a person.. he did an utterly DREADFUL Scrooge. He dosen’t really attempt to do a scottish accent despite the character still saying cannae at one point, and as for what accent he is going for...

His Scrooge just sounds like someone trying to do a “foreign” accent and failing. It just sounds weird and makes every bit of his dialouge aside from one a chore to sit through. And the dialouge isn’t bad dialouge, it’s a well written and animated Scrooge even with the lower budget than Ducktales, but the voice just ruins it for me. Even without Young and Tennant to compare it to this just blows and the fact it’s paired up with the iconic Russi Taylor voice for the triplets.

This being Scrooge he instead fishes a Trophy out of the bin that’s all banged up and dinky and shoos them out. So in natural Barksian fashion the trophy turns out to be worth a million dollars. So we get some reaction shots.. INCLUDING GRANDMA DUCK!

For DuckTales fans joining us who have ZERO idea who that is, since she sadly did not make it into the reboot and Frank did have ideas, Grandma Duck is Donald, Della and Gladstone’s grandma. She’s a sweet old country woman who lives on a farm and is in fact the one who sold him Kilmotor HIll, with her husband renaming it from Killmule hill. I like her a lot since she reminds me of my own grandma and like her she still works when she can. Donald’s cousin Gus loafs around and eats as her farmhand. As you can tell I like her a lot, agani because she reminds me of one of my grandmas so this was nice even if she was only around for 20 seconds of screentime.

This ends up in the paper and sends Scrooge through the roof, literally when he finds out.

Two notes before we move on: The bin has a unique really cool design , though I get why other productions haven’t used it: besides this one’s obscurity while cool it just looks a bit TOO nice for Scrooge. Even in 2017 while still damn cool looking it still looks practicle. This .. is not that.

This looks like MC Hammer built this. It still looks awesome bu tit’s just not Scrooge sadly.

The other is that his Butler is named Jeeves here, but looks almost exactly like Duckworth. Just feels weird is all.

Naturally the Beagle Boys happen upon the paper too and their leader, no name given has a plan: Enter legitmately and win the cup all legal like, which dosen’t sound like it lives up to the beagle code of no hones twork.... until he brings up theri going ot cheat their asses off.

Meanwhile Scrooge tries bribing the boys with a giant trophy at their house... with Donald oddly absent despite Anselmo having taken over for Nash by this point. I know he was still a bit rough at the roll, but come on. It’s just.. weird especailly for reasons i’ll get into soon.

So Scrooge agrees to sponsor the boys teams so he can get the trophy back square, and is forced to buy a knew ball and here we FINALLY get Goofy. I say finally because this special is 20 mintues long and it takes almost a fourth of it for him to arrive. It’s just weird for him to not be in it for so long. I mean I don’t want THIS

Flashbeagle didn’t take a fourth of the special to get to Flashbeagle. It did take longer than that to get to the title track but when your sitting on THIS

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You gotta use it JUST right. Goofy here is not played by Bill Farmer, which IS odd as he did start playing him that year, but my guess is they weren’t sure if they were going with Farmer or the actor who played him in this special, Tony Pope, so they were trying out both as whoever DID get the role would have it for life. Disney takes the casting of the sensational 7 VERY seriously, as evidenced by the fact most cast changes are caused by death and unlike with Tony and Donald it’s clear Colvig hadn’t picked a succesor. I can also see why it’s a hard choice: while farmer IS excellent and was the right man for the job, Pope is still excellent in the role, bringing the warmth and energy you’d expect from Goofy and having excellent comedic timing that’s vital to getting the dog man right. I can see why this was such a hard choice, even if I also see they went with Farmer: Farmer just has slightly more energy to the roll. It’s a small diffrence and something that dosen’t effect the special, but it is a KEY diffrence and the reason Bill’s THE goofy to me even over his original voice actor Pinto Colvig.

Also I may of mispoke there... see it’s not Goofy in this special it’s SPORTS Goofy. No really every bit of dialogue refers to him as Sports Goofy. It’d be like if they refered to then CEO Micheal Eisner as Won’t Think Through Eurodisneyland Micheal Eisner.

So Sports Goofy helps them get a ball in an honestly awesome way and shows despite his clumsy manner, he’s damn cordinated, easily putting everything up and showing some real skill with the ball. So Moneygrubbing Scrooge decides Sports Goofy is his ticket to get the trophy back and recuits goofy as coach and star player for the boys team.

So Asshole Scrooge meets his team the Greenbacks.. which are a bunch of random animal characters with no real personality. They are a hippo, a goat, expresso the ostrich, a navy (blue) seal, an elephant in a beanie, a killaroo and a cheetah or leopard. But I have one question, really simple really easy one...

You need 11 players for a soccer team, thank you google. So they DID get that accurate. With Goofy and the Triplets you only need 7 more. THIS is why Donald’s absence is glaring: he’s just oddly not there when they needed 7 other characters but Elephant in a Beanie gets in there. And it’s not hard ot fill either: Donald , Daisy (Because duh), Gyro and Grandma Duck (Because both cameoed but I only mentioned Grandma Duck, though this is ALSO Gyro’s first apperance), Gladstone (who as it turns out had a cameo storyboarded that didn’t make it into the final product), Gus (Since grandma duck) and Scrooge’s butler since he was in an earlier scene anyway so why waste the character model. They could still play the same roll as easily steamrolled underdogs and it’d make more sense. It just baffles me that with such a deep bench to play from, they don’t use ANY OF IT in favor of the cast of Animal Soccer World.

The Greenbacks can’t play for greenjack, which worries Scrooge.. but Goofy is able to carry them to the finals, while the Beagle Boys make their way there too. We find this out.. via newspaper transition. We get a bunch of headlines telling us what happened instead of you know a montage because that costs money and they already spent 1.50 making this special.. they only have 50 cents left.

So the Beagles recognizing Sport Goofy is the only thing in their way plots a kidnappin. We get a gut busting scene of the beagles all hiding in Sports Goofy’s house with him being oblvious only to spring on him.

The next day with Sports Goofy a no show the team is bummed, even mor ewhen they find a kidnapping note from Don’tGetNotToLeaveEvidence Beagle Boys. Seriously give that to the officals.

So Asshole Scrooge tries to give a rousing speech... and it is a sight to behold and the one highlight of pope as scrooge... it’s why I picked it as the article image. That glitching isn’t me by the way: it REALLY does that. Coupled with the yellow eyes i’ts just fantastic. So the team decides to morosely play the game and Hivemind Huey boos scrooge for not having faith in him. Instead of again you know telling the officials. Maybe assimilating the other made Huey dumber. I

So the game begins and the Cheating Beagles cream the Give Up To Easily Green Backs, while Sports Goofy watches from the other Crime Beagles hideout. It honestly reminds me of UHF: a dumb well meaning guy whose vital to something succeding is kidnapped.. it dosen’t involve Weird Al dressing up as rambo but still. It also makes me want UHF but with the disney cast. Fethry as weird al, Donald as his best friend, Fethry’s girlfriend for the comcis as weird al’s girlfriend, Gyro as philo, Goofy as Stanley, and Pete of course is Stacey Keach. I could go on but you get the point. Someone draw this. Sport Goofy is a clever bastard and escapes by working one of his shoes off, taking a nearbye knife and cutting himself free.. and almost stabbing a beagle boy in the face but that would just make two. Sport Goofy escapes and the lunkheaded beagle boys chase after him IN THEIR CAR WHILE GOOFY RUNS AHEAD OF IT. Goofy, he can really move! Goofy, he’s got attitude! Goofy HE’S THE FASTEST THING ALLIIIIVEEEEEE. Sport Goofy makes it in time fo rhalf time, rallies the troops and it goes how you’d expect: They overcome the beagles blatant cheating, win the cup, the beagles attempt to cheat with a rigged ball backfires and they all get arrested. It’s by the numbers stuff. We end with Scrooge deciding to dontate the trophy instead (though in a great bit asking if it was tax deductible), and posing for a team shot> We get some awesome credits music and we’re out

Final Thoughts:

This special is mediocre: There are only a handful of great jokes, it’s your standard “teamwork makes the dreamwork plot” that dosen’t work because our underdogs really CAN’T play without their star, and Scrooge’s voice hurts to listen to. Pope and Taylor are great and while Will Ryan is an awful Scrooge, he is a good Beagle Boy or five.

It IS worth a watch though. It’s riffable enough with the sometimes sloppy unfinished animatoin in the last part and Scrooge’s terrible voice, and it is still is a neat oddity for 90′s kids like myself to not only see Russi’s first thing as Huey Dewey and Louie, but to also see Scrooge and Goofy with vastly diffrent voice actors, as well as Gyro and the Beagle Boys first animated apperances. The fact this came just months before Ducktales makes it all the more intresting. So if your looking for a legit good Disney product.. this is shoddy at best if well meaning. But as a bit of disney history, especially only clocking in at 20 minutes so it’ sa brisk watch, it’s worth a look if your into that.

Next On Goof Week: We come on in To The House of Mouse where goofy becomes faster than a speeding punchline, more powerful than pete when his family has to wrestle him to the ground to take him to the doctor and able to make tall leaps of logic in a single bound. it’s SUPER GOOF!

So thank you for reading and if you liked this review give it a like and consider joining my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet. As a patron you’d get access to exclusive reviews, the patreon’s discord and to pick a short each time I do one of these shortstaculars. Donald’s comnig next month and the deadline is in only a few days to join up for said month so the clock is ticking. Even a dollar a month helps me reach my stretch goals so please i fyou can sign up today and if not, I understand and i’ll see you at the next rainbow

#sports goof #soccermania #goofy goof #goof #scrooge mcduck #ducktales #huey duck #the beagle boys #gyro gearloose #grandma duck #animation #disney #soccer #football

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jazy3 · 5 years ago

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Thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy: 16X18

Wow. So that episode was intense. I liked it, but it was not at all what I was expecting based on the information they released beforehand. First things first I'm glad that Meredith is back in the spotlight kicking some surgical ass! It is her show after all. I thought Meredith handled the pro-bono day well all things considered. She had things under control until DeLuca pulled Bailey away and then lied to Helm and had the entire schedule rearranged by saying it was on her orders. Up to that point everything was on track and being handled so if he hadn't done that everything would have been fine. I think she handled that situation as best she could. In the end, she accomplished her goal. She got all of the pro-bono surgeries taken care of and made a plan for the future. I thought her blackmailing Tom by proposing the new pro-bono surgery day once a month was ballsy, but also badass.

Tom shouldn't have told her where the money came from because now he's in her pocket for the rest of his life. It also worked to calm everybody down which enabled the doctors to treat all of the patients as needed. I was disappointed that we didn't get more scenes with Meredith and Hayes this episode because the set up kind of made it seem like we would. In the end they only really had two scenes. The one at the beginning where Hayes and Owen were cracking jokes about the fact that they need a pro-bono surgery day to do something that hospitals in most other countries do every day and then at the end where he brought her a tea and congratulated her and said that he finally got what Cristina was saying about the twistedness and she said it took him long enough and thanked him for his help.

This episode made me feel like I was grasping at straws when it came to them and that made me a bit sad. On the other hand, this episode established once again that DeLuca and Meredith are officially over never to rise again as DeLuca has zero interest in dating her or even being around her and Meredith’s primary concern is getting him the help he needs and repaying the debt she feels she owes him. I’m hoping now that DeLuca has ridden off into the unknown on his motorcycle and is out of the picture, at least for a little while, that we’ll finally start to see some movement on the Meredith and Hayes front.

As Meredith said to Hayes in ‘Snowblind’ DeLuca was one of her first. He’s the first man she said ‘I love you’ to after Derek died and as a result she’s having a hard time letting go, but knows that she has to do it. One, because the relationship was never meant to last because they’re not in the same place in their lives. Two, because he’s insecure about how much better she is than him at everything and can’t get past it. And three, because he’s clearly suffering from a mental illness that he refuses to acknowledge or seek treatment for and is lashing out at her and the other people trying to help him as a result.

She’s having a hard time letting go and that’s okay. It’s hard to let go when you see someone suffering especially when it’s happening right in front of you at the hospital you work at. But at the same time she’s also made it clear to others including Hayes that she is single and is moving towards being ready to start moving on with her life. I feel like Hayes is in a similar place with his grief and moving on from his wife’s illness and death and that’s why I like them together. They’re not ready yet but they’re getting there and they have the potential to be epic.

I found the storyline this episode with DeLuca and the suspected abuse and his breakdown nerve wracking and very difficult to watch. There were points where I had to look away it was so bad. The acting was phenomenal but man was that heavy. I agree that based on the girl’s behaviour and the behaviour of her supposed aunt that there is some sort of abuse or neglect going on, but I’m not totally sold on the human trafficking angle. Both the girl and her supposed aunt appear to be natural redheads which is a relatively rare hair colour especially in North America. This would make the trafficking rather easy to spot so I don't believe the girl is being trafficked in the tradition sense.

I do however believe that there is some kind of abuse going on and based on the scene at the end she's either been kidnapped or forced into some kind of domestic slavery. I hope we get to see some follow up on this and that the other doctors are able to save the girl and anyone else who may in danger. This storyline once again cemented just how sick DeLuca is. If you had any doubts about him possibly being Bipolar before this episode this one definitely sold it.

He had a complete breakdown to the point that the other doctors had to form a human chain around him in order to convince him to stop yelling, stop screaming, and get off a table in the middle of a hospital waiting room. He is not well and he needs help. I think this episode did a good job of showing that once again it’s not about whether DeLuca is right or wrong about a patient or a case it’s how he goes about it that’s the problem. He gets laser focused on one aspect or detail to the exclusion of everything else including his own safety and the safety of those around him.

He was right about what Suzanne had, but he went about helping her the wrong way. Had he told Meredith what they had found out and what he was doing everything would have been fine, but instead he rushed in and injected steroids into a patient without getting consent, informing the attending physician, or checking to see if they had restarted the drug regiment or not. He’s lucky that she hadn’t because if she had those steroids would have killed Suzanne. Similarly, he was right to go get the liver from Seattle Pres when Hayes needed it and bring it back in time, but he was wrong to go out into a blizzard in below freezing temperatures to get it without gloves on and then try to refuse care.

And this week it’s the same thing again. He was right to suspect that something was up and that the girl was in danger and he was right to alert the nurse and other doctors, but he went about it the wrong way. He pulled Bailey off a pro-bono surgery to get her to see the patient with no evidence or way to prove the abuse. He rearranged Meredith’s pro-bono surgery schedule by lying to Helm and telling her it was on Meredith’s orders to get his patient into surgery. Because he lied his patient didn’t get the surgery or the help she needed.

When he realized that she wasn’t going to get the surgery because he scheduled it without asking he then kidnapped the girl and cornered her in a waiting room when she wouldn’t answer his questions the way he thought she should. When other doctors tried to help he prevented them and started screaming for the woman’s arrest with no proof of the abuse. Afterwards when Bailey tried to help him he refused and quit his job. He told Meredith he would take the suspension if she convinced Bailey to call the Trafficking Hotline, but then didn’t follow up.

On top of that he’s actions have been so aggressive and erratic these last few episodes that it makes it hard for any of the other doctors to take his concerns seriously because he’s expressing them while clearly not being in control of himself. And this time it’s the patient that suffers the most. Meredith had the pro-bono surgery day schedule under control and running smoothly until DeLuca pulled Bailey away from her surgery which messed up the schedule and then lied to Helm and had the entire schedule rearranged by saying it was on her orders. Up to that point everything was on track and being handled so if he hadn't done that everything would have been fine.

If he hadn’t pulled Bailey away or reschedule everything to give his patient priority then the patient would have gotten the surgery because they would have been able to fit her in at the end and this would have given them a chance to talk to her alone and hopefully find out what was really going on. DeLuca dashed all of that when he pulled Bailey off her case and rearranged the schedule without permission. In the past, he took serious risks and got lucky because both of those patients lived. This time he didn’t get lucky. The girl and her supposed aunt left the hospital and now no one knows where they are.

As for the conversation between DeLuca and Meredith after he stormed out of Bailey’s office, I feel the same way I did about all of the other times. We’ve been here before. At the end of last season DeLuca took the fall for Meredith when she specifically asked him not to. He told her he loved her and then went to jail for her crime. Then she visited him in prison and told him she loved him and then took responsibility for her crime and got him out of prison.

We see the same behaviour here again. DeLuca is convinced he’s right about his patient so he does something extreme. He pulls the Chief of Surgery off a pro-bono case and when that doesn’t work he rearranges the day’s entire pro-bono surgical schedule by saying that he’s working on Meredith’s orders. He then kidnaps a patient and refuses help to the point that the other doctors have to make a human chain around him and talk him off a table. Following this Bailey suspends him and tries to get him some help, but instead of accepting it he refuses and quits his job.

Seeing this Meredith is once again concerned so she follows him out and tells him that she loves him and that she feels indebted to him because he went to jail for her and that this can’t be how his story ends and for him to please let him help her. In response DeLuca tells her that he doesn’t love her, he never did, and he isn’t her problem anymore. It’s the exact same behaviour that we saw at the end of last season.

DeLuca behaves erratically and does something stupid he was specifically told not to do. Meredith feels guilty and is genuinely concerned about him so in an effort to calm him down and get him to see things clearly and not do anything else stupid like she tells him she loves him. She says it to calm him down and to stop him from doing anything else stupid. That’s it that’s all.

I don't think she really loves him though. I think she cares about him and is legitimately concerned about him for good reason, but I don’t think she really loves him. Here’s why: we’ve only seen Meredith say she loves him under duress. We’ve never seen her say it when DeLuca wasn’t in immediate danger or about to do something stupid. And the only two times she’s brought it up outside of that she’s been pretty clear about how she really feels. When Zola had to have surgery and DeLuca was a first class idiot who expected Meredith to leave she told her sisters that she thought she loved him and that she was just having fun.

The time after that she told Hayes while sharing a romantic moment in the snow that she was having a hard time letting go of the relationship because he was the first man she said ‘I love you’ to after Derek died and he was clearly not doing well. For DeLuca’s part I don’t believe he’s ever really loved her either. DeLuca became infatuated with Meredith very quickly. He decided that he loved her before they even started dating all because she expressed a romantic interest in him.

Which was all well and good until the magic wore off and his insecurities about never being able to measure up to her and Derek starting creeping in. He broke up with her multiple times in the following episodes and the minute Meredith starting showing genuine concern for his out of control behaviour he lashed out and tells her he never loved her and to get lost. That’s because he doesn’t really love her and he never did. He convinced himself he did, but you don’t behave that way towards someone if you actually do no matter how sick you are.

Meanwhile the drama with Teddy, Owen, Tom, Amelia, and Link continues. As we saw last episode Amelia and Link are back together and the baby is his. Amelia comes into the Attending’s Lounge and announces to Teddy and Owen, and Jo who just happens to be there, that the baby is Link’s and that she’s sorry for any residual harm the not knowing may have caused. Owen is happy for her. Teddy pretends that she is, but is clearly devastated by the realization that she just blew her life up for no damn reason.

Jo is happy for her too and tells her that she already knew because as soon as Link found out he sent her a bitmoji of a baby with his face on it that she can never un-see but wishes she could. Too funny! It was good of Amelia to do that and I’m glad she did. She cleared the air and now everybody can move on. The series of events that lead up to this will definitely be Teddy and Owen’s downfall. If Teddy had slept with Tom once out of panic and then come clean to Owen I think he could have forgiven her and they could have moved forward and gotten married.

But that’s not what happened because Teddy slept with Tom more than once. They began an affair and it only ended because Tom chose to walk away. As this episode makes clear Teddy had no intention of doing so. As she says to Tom the fact that the baby is Link’s doesn’t change how she feels about him. This is about more than just the baby. It’s about Teddy realizes that she doesn’t know what she wants. She got everything she ever wanted and then realized that she wanted what she had. As a result, I don't think that's something Owen will be able or should forgive. I hope she does tell him, but at this point it looks doubtful that she will. My guess is that the truth will come out some other way and bite her in the butt later on.

I really liked Tom’s speech to Teddy in the OR Gallery. This is why I like him as a character. He’s an ass, but he’s a good guy at heart. He knows she can’t walk away and he loves her truly so he’s going to do it for her. Because as Tom says he can be an ass, but he’s not that much of an ass and he draws the line at sleeping with married women which she’s about to be. And as a man whose wife walked out the door and cheated on him after the loss of their son he’s not going to be that guy to another man even to someone he doesn’t like. He tells her to go home to her fiancée and her kids and plan her wedding.

At the end of the episode Owen finds Teddy crying on a bench outside. She feels guilty because she spent all day treating a war vet with Amelia who is clearly suffering mentally and physically and she knows that Owen has been through hell and now she’s cheating on him with another man. But instead of coming clean and telling him what’s really going on and how she’s feeling she lies and says she’s only upset about her patient and decides not to tell him. That’s going to bite her in the butt for sure.

The case I found most interesting this week was of the wounded veteran that Amelia and Teddy treated. It raised some good points, gave us some insight into how both Amelia and Teddy are feeling about their romantic partners and personal lives, and provided a great feel good moment at the end. I’m really glad they were able to help him and his girlfriend feel better and get their lives back.

I'm glad that Levi and Nico broke up. They went from a hot hookup to a real relationship to a hookup again and Nico's been all over the map. First he said he couldn’t help Levi on his journey, then they started dating, then he shut him out after his patient died, then they got back together, then he told Levi he wasn't out to his parents so they went back to being a hookup and Nico stop considering Levi and his feelings in his decision making. To be honest I think they've been over for a while, but Levi didn't want to admit it. Jo asking Levi to move in surprised me, but not in a bad way. They could both use a friend right now and I'll be interested to see where that goes.

In other news, Jackson got totally served this episode and it was glorious! The humour was so on point and provided some much needed levity to an otherwise dark and intense hour. My favourite moment was when Jackson tried to invite literally everybody he knew to the game because he had an extra ticket, but he's spent the last season and a half being such an ass to everyone that no one wanted to go with him and he got served! To me Maggie was the MVP on that one.

I'm glad that he and Richard reconnected. I'll be interested to see what Jo changes her name to in the coming weeks and I'm glad that Amelia and Link are back together, that they're happy, and seem to be doing well. Amelia’s speech at the end about fighting for their dreams was really lovely. The promo for next week’s episode looks promising. It appears to be a standalone episode where Richard, Teddy, Maggie, and Hayes attend a Surgical Innovation Conference in LA where Richard is presenting on his PATH pen. According to the promo and episode description it looks like Richard gets distracted by his issues with Catherine and both Teddy and Maggie run into people from their past. In Maggie’s case it’s an old flame and things get steamy! Get it girl! After all of the BS that Jackson put her through I’m here for it!

It also rules out the possibility of another Maggie Riggs situation with Hayes and I am so glad! Every single person Meredith has dated as either been someone her friends and family didn’t like or had a thing with one of her sisters which drove me nuts! At this point they have established that Cristina, Amelia, Bailey, and Jo all like Hayes and enjoy working with him. Cristina sent him as a present for Meredith and both Amelia and Jo have said they like him and think him and Meredith would be good together and approve of Cristina’s choice.

We haven’t seen him interact with Maggie or Richard yet and for that I’m excited. Maggie deserves a hot hookup and Meredith deserves someone her friends and family like and whose not involved with one of her sisters, secretly married, or engaged to someone whose not actually dead. I hope that Maggie and Hayes get along and she gets his endorsement. I’d love to see Richard and Hayes get to know each other better and get along as well as none of Meredith’s previous love interests have ever made an effort with Richard or been close to him with the possible exception of Derek because he knew Richard from before, but in that case Richard was against him and Meredith dating from the start so I’m not sure that really counts.

Speaking of Hayes it looks like we’re about to find out more about him and I am pumped! According to the episode description being at the Conference brings back memories from him and we’re going to get to see him relive moments from when he met his late wife. I’m very excited about this. Hayes is my new favourite character and the scenes with him and Meredith bring me joy! I’m excited to learn more about his past, meet his wife, get more insight into him as a character, and potentially learn more about his kids.

Until next time!

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nellie-elizabeth · 7 years ago

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Grey's Anatomy: Beautiful Dreamer (14x19)

This show is always getting me to be emotional about stuff that I don't want to be emotional about!

Cons:

Ugh Catherine you are just the worst. Apparently there's some big secret about the Harper Avery foundation and Jackson didn't know about it, so he may have just ruined them all. Catherine is so entitled and she really needs to get off of her high horse and communicate with the people around her. I guess I should just wait and see what the deal is before I make too many judgments...

So, the ICE plot was bold, and daring, and mostly effective. I do question the lack of a certain perspective, though. I wish we could have had at least one person in the hospital tell Bello to just talk to the ICE Agent and go from there. I'm not saying that's the right thing to do, but having everybody immediately jump into crisis mode felt unrealistic, because I think a lot of people are pretty naive about how bad things can get. I also question the decision to send her to Switzerland to work with Cristina. Is that actually legal? They forged documents and just shipped her out of the country. How is that any better than fleeing up to Canada like Andrew wanted to do? Ah, well. Maybe we'll get more of this story moving forward. If so, then I rescind these complaints. But if this is really the end of Bello, then I'm a little disappointed in how that shook out.

Matthew and his baby Ruby are in the hospital, since Ruby has been having some problems. April hovers but doesn't go talk to him. She does, however, give a suggestion to Owen that helps him discover what's wrong with Ruby. Thankfully it's a small fix, and Ruby will be fine. We then see Matthew and April sitting together in the hospital chapel. I didn't hate this plot line at all, and I see how it was important to get this closure between them before April leaves the show. But it felt kind of lackluster after the power of April's cathartic moment with her dying patient, and it wasn't as charming as her endless apologies to everybody. It was just kind of... standard.

Pros:

I can't believe I'm actually going to admit to this, but one of the moments that made me tear up in this episode (and there were multiple) was Bello and DeLuca saying goodbye to each other. This was literally the first time I had ever cared about them, and it came during their big, dramatic, in the rain as the girl gets into the car to go to the airport scene. So cheesy, so predictable... so effective. When she tried to create distance by calling herself a crazy stalker, and his face scrunches up and he cups her face in his hands... just... ouch. That was some great acting, and I felt more pathos for Andrew DeLuca as a character in that moment than I have the entire run he's been on this show thus far. I'm suddenly really rooting for him to be happy.

The ICE plot line had so much going for it, and oddly one of those things was some excellent one-liners. Owen's reaction to the suggestion that they send Bello to Megan is incredulous: "You want to send her to Southern California, where she will be far away from immigration problems?" The ICE agent ends up having heart problems, and what starts as just Bailey stalling for time ends up with him needing immediate surgery. When Maggie tells him this, his reaction is: "I thought you guys were just stalling me!" and Maggie replies: "Right?! But... no." Great line delivery there.

Also, serious props to how much I could feel the fear and horror of the situation for Sam. Bello is immediately terrified, and everybody else wants to jump in and help as much as they can. Jo has a contact that can get Bello a new identity, DeLuca wants to drive her across the border, Meredith gets her in to a great hospital in Switzerland through Cristina, and Maggie forges her application essay. I like that the stakes felt very high, and nobody tried to belittle the seriousness of the situation. (That being said, see my note above. I think one skeptic might have been a nice addition, so we could see the full scope of reaction to this).

There were also lots of smaller plot threads and moments going on throughout the episode, and several of them made me quite weepy. For example, Ollie dies. Richard is devastated. Catherine spends most of the episode actually being a good wife and comforting him. When Richard puts his head down on Ollie's bed and just starts weeping, I teared up again. Such a tragic story.

Kimmie decides to leave the hospital to spend her remaining time seeing shows on Broadway and living her best life. Obviously Alex is completely unwilling to let her go, so Kimmie finally has to leave without saying goodbye, although she does pass a "thank you" on through Jo. Jo comes to Alex, and tells him that she wants to have kids with him. Watching him care about Kimmie makes her want to have kids with him. And... she wants to take his last name. Why? Because she's never had the last name of anybody who's loved her. And... I cried. Seriously I think I'm hormonal or something because everything has been setting me off today. But I did. That's just the cutest, sweetest thing in the world. And I am SO bummed about Kimmie. I don't know if we'll see her again, but I sure hope we do...

The DeLuca siblings had some good moments - I'd love to learn more about them. I can't believe how much I'm interested in Andrew these days. And Arizona and Carina are really sweet as well. It's looking more and more likely that these two will get to ride off in the sunset as they depart the show, and as much as I'm going to miss Arizona, I'm happy that she'll have someone with her.

Maggie and Jackson finally hook up and get past the weirdness with April. I'm putting this in the "pros" section because their fight ended up being mercifully short, and now they're on the path to actually cutting out the bullshit. I'm still annoyed a little bit, but I'm willing to give these two a chance!

Finally, we see Owen sign up to try and foster a kid - leading to adoption eventually. This has been a long time coming, and I'm happy for Owen trying to go after what he wants after so long. He's always wanted to be a father, and I think he'll be really good at it. This show kills me with the giant ensemble sometimes, but the plus side is that there's usually a good mix of characters to enjoy, and I'm never bored!

8.5/10

#review #grey's anatomy #grey's anatomy review #greys anatomy #greys anatomy review #grey's #grey's abc #greys #greys abc

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clockworkopera · 7 years ago

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Story Arc of LoS and TDA...

After my post on analyzing books, I got this question from @anna-g-x: Hi, you talk a lot in posts about story arcs and climaxes and I was wondering if you could do a post explaining the events e.g. Inciting incident followed by ..etc that should happen in a good book, thank you

The story arcs that I refer to are part the fundamental elements of plot in a 3 Act Structure. There are lots of discussions about the merits of plot driven vs. character driven stories. In my opinion they go hand in hand, and a good story needs both. You can have the best character, but if nothing happens there’s no story, and if there isn’t a character you’re vested in then why care about the best plot. In YA it’s especially important that a character has an opportunity to grow and change, be challenged, face and overcome obstacles—this is twofold between external things happening to the character and internal things, personal struggles. LoS has a lot of different characters to follow, and everyone who has a POV is going to have a slightly different story arc, though there are times they converge. So, I’ll go through LoS using Julian as the example. Because Julian’s need to keep Emma and his family safe—the most important thing to his character, the story arc is going to reflect that.

These are my opinions of where things break down, and you can follow along with the chart:

Act 1: LoS begins by defining their routine—fighting demons at the pier. When they return Clary and Jace are there and we get the warning that things aren’t going to be staying the same. There’s no medicine for Arthur as the Centurions arrive to further upset the balance. Throughout all these external things happening, Julian still has internal struggles. He tries to juggle his frustrations with Arthur, the pressure of the Centurions bearing down, and most importantly his jealousy of Emma being with Mark.

Gwyn arrives to tell the Blackthorns of how Kieran is to be executed. It’s Mark’s ii (Inciting Incident) because he decides he can’t abandon Kieran and leaves for Faerie. Mark leaving for Faerie is Julian’s ii because he now has to leave the Institute and his family to the Centurions while he ventures to Faerie with Emma and Cristina to make sure his brother doesn’t end up getting killed. Kit’s ii is different since he has a different story arc. I think his is when Malcolm and his sea demons attack the Institute. Up till then he’s been full of disdain for Shadowhunters, but he discovers something about himself in the fighting, and then there is their escape to London after.

They leave for Faerie, and I like the Phouka as a literary device to remind us what is important for each character. For Julian, it is a solution to the parabatai bonds and this is essential to his character, because without breaking his bond, he can’t have Emma. He is told he will meet someone who will be able to break the bonds. When they get to Faerie, none of their weapons work. It’s Julian’s time to have second thoughts, yet they continue to the Climax of Act 1—the showdown with the Unseelie King and rescuing Kieran.

Act 2: There are more ups and downs (Ascending Action) for Julian. Rescued by the Seelie Court he now has to face the Seelie Queen all the while trying to hide his feelings for Emma. Meeting with the Queen he sees Malcolm is still alive, his uncle murdered, Annabel raised from the dead. More things going wrong with his life, even as the Queen tantalizes with the offer of the one thing he wants most in the world—a way to break the parabatai bonds, and the price. This temptation feeds into his ever increasing internal struggles. I think Annabel being raised from the dead would be considered a midpoint (big twist), because upon being reunited with his family at the London Institute he now needs to leave again to search for Annabel and the Black Volume. He doesn’t know what he wants to do with either of them yet, but he does know they need to be found. He leaves for Cornwall with Emma in search of Malcolm’s cottage. Being with Emma reinforces all of his internal struggles, raising the tension between the two of them as he can’t help but fantasize what a more ordinary life with her would be like.

Annabel finds him, and later they track her to the church where the Black Volume was used to raise her. There is a rip between dimensions, they fight off the blood demon Sabnok of Thule—they use a super rune to burn down a stone church (another obstacle). He’s angry Emma was put in danger, all his internal frustrations come to a boiling point and he and Emma fight in the cottage. She storms out only to meet up with the Riders. On the chart, I think the Riders would qualify as disaster, because it means the Unseelie King is using a group of super powerful near immortals to go after the entire Blackthorn family.

Once that fight is done, both Julian and Emma succumb to their mutual desire, a climax (fun pun) of their internal struggles to stay apart. Julian is flying high, he’s with Emma—but nope, because she confesses to him about the parabatai curse. (I know there are a lot of people in the fandom that don’t like Julian, but seriously can’t the guy get a break?)

Magnus brings them back to the London Institute where they try to piece all of these clues together. Then the Riders show up, a major fight ensues, an impossible battle against all odds, and everybody (convergence where everybody’s storylines match up in one place. Emma, Mark, Cristina, Kit—they are all there) is in danger of being slaughtered. But, Annabel comes and saves them. This is the Climax of Act 2. The Riders are gone and they finally have Annabel and the Black Volume.

Act 3: Falling/Descending Action. The function of falling action according to literarydevices.net: Audiences expect a low ebb after every great tide in order to give themselves a feeling of relief. This happens with falling action of the story or the play. In fact, it is the desire of the audiences to see the fruits of the labor of a hero or protagonist that satisfies them. If this does not happen, the audience stays unsatisfied, and the story seems incomplete. This, falling action serves as a rewarding element in a story or movie.

Julian makes a deal with Annabel to testify before the Clave. They have a plan. With Magnus’ help this is their chance to stop the Cohort, have Helen returned to the them. Emma doesn’t want to break all the parabatai bonds and Julian respects that, so they agree exile is their best option. The Blackthorns arrive in Idris to face the Clave. Robert agrees to the exile. But then Annabel is called to testify. Magnus is a no show. Questioning under the Mortal Sword breaks the last vestiges of Annabel’s fragile mind, and in the final pages a nightmare unfolds. The Final Outcome is the Resolution: Livvy is dead, Robert is dead, the Mortal Sword is shattered, the Clave is in chaos, and the Unseelie King has declared war and whisked Annabel and the Black Volume away.

I’m going to leave it up to the readers to say whether the resolution was satisfying. I will say this leads me into my next topic. LoS has its individual story arc, but it is also a part of The Dark Artifices overarching story arc. TDA overall could be superimposed on this same story structure with Livvy’s death being the midpoint (big twist).

The parabatai bonds, the Clave, Mark and Helen’s persecution, the Black Volume, the enemies of the Faerie Court, have all been a constant throughout LM and LoS: the rising/ascending action of the larger overall story.

What story structure teaches me about TSC as a whole…

The TSC series as a whole follows this pattern too…

I go chronologically in this example. TID set the introduction of the Shadowhunters in the Victorian Era. The first obstacle was Mortmain to be overcome. We move to TLH and we don’t know yet what ‘obstacle’ that series will overcome, but we do know that it is a vital puzzle piece to the overall TSC story arc. I have a theory thought that the climax of TLH will be the equivalent of Climax of Act 1. Moving into Act 2, TMI’s obstacle was overcoming Valentine and Sebastian and all the ups and downs in between. But the second Act is also about confrontation. And the Clave has its own confrontation with itself when it needs to decide whether to join Valentine. The Clave has always been in the background up till now, but it’s almost as if the Clave has become its own character with its own internal struggles and story arc in the series.

TDA continues the Ascending Action of the series as Emma and the Blackthorns work through their obstacle of Annabel and the Black Volume, the Unseelie King, the Clave, etc. This series again forces to the Clave to confront itself—who will Shadowhunters be? If this holds true I expect QoAD to have one hell of a midpoint plot twist.

TEC is another missing puzzle piece and I think (not sure because there isn’t a lot of info on it yet) the time frame will overlap with TMI and maybe TDA. Will it go so far as to help fill in the missing years between TDA and TWP? We know Magnus and Alec will have an obstacle to overcome.

And Cassie has said that TWP is the finale of the TSC series. That means that not only will TWP have its own climax, but it will doubly serve as the climax of the entire series. All of the series will somehow converge at this moment where there will be a seemingly insurmountable obstacle that Kit, Ty and Dru as protagonists will have to defeat.

It is very rare that an author has interconnecting series within a larger worldbuilding framework. And I think she might be a genius to have so many interconnecting parts follow this same overall story pattern.

#Lord of Shadows #The Dark Artifices #Story Arc #Julian Blackthorn #Cassandra Clare #LoS #TDA #TSC

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