#obviously he should be because he's the best comedy writer alive

[watchingroger]

We're getting a film! It's been so long since we had a film!

Directed by this guy, so high hopes:

This film also has John Finnemore in it!

[sunnykeysmash]

The connection between Brian LeFevre, death and macdennis/sunny meta

In my time obsessing over sunny recently I ended up noticing interesting stuff that I’m gonna try to show here, that was greatly expanded in s14 and that I believe gives us great odds over whether dennis will be acknowledged as gay in s15 or not. 

Thesis: There has been an ongoing dichotomy, or “choice”, for Dennis, between Brian/Death/Son/Mandy and Dennis/Life/Love/Mac. Additionally, there has been purposeful ambiguity between what is sunny meta and what is dennis meta in season 14, enough for me to consider them one and the same in most cases. Information which puts Big Mo under a completely new light.

Long analysis under the cut.

Basically, Brian has been symbolically linked to death, thanks to an extensive use of metaphors and parallels, because Brian represents the death of Dennis’ identity. Not a true physical death, but the death of Dennis as a person.

Starting from the very beginning, of course, Brian is a dead guy.

In Dennis’ Double Life, it’s established textually, metatextually and visually that Dennis has an actual mirroring double life (Mandy vs Mac, Brian vs Dennis) and is stuck between the two of them.

This is also thanks to the heavy callbacks to suburbs. Here’s an excerpt from a previous analysis of mine explaining it:

(read more here, seriously I recommend it)

During this episode Dennis’ actually eventually fakes Brian’s death to try to get out of trouble, which is the second clear link to death for the persona.

It doesn’t work.

Mandy: “You can open your eyes now, I know you're not dead.”

Which also works as the first acknowledgement of Dennis not really wanting what the Brian life entails, as it’s a character death as much as it is the death of Dennis’ true wishes. He is not dead, he is not Brian, who IS dead.

Then, as he holds his son, something changes inside him. Suddenly, he is a father. His emotional involvement in choosing between the two lives changes drastically with this.

Nevertheless at the end of the episode Dennis is once again presented with the clear choice, which from this point forward I will address as Son/Death vs Love/Life, he looks at the RPG looming in the background and decides to go, not before a long hesitation and stopping immediately when he thought he was being asked not to go, showing us where his heart lies.

This, him choosing to go away, is because at this point in time, Dennis is still not in the right headspace to accept the right path for him. As Chop will put it, he feels “lonely and needs to do something extreme to feel special”, most of all though he feels lost. The conflicts that started in Boggs and Suburbs still make him unsure, and the presence of his son makes him feel like he has to be better for him, despite himself.

As he goes away, Mac blows up Dennis’ Range Rover with the RPG, car which is later in New Wheels metaphorically linked to Dennis’ identity.

Basically, as Dennis chooses Brian’s life, his actual identity dies.

So during the first half of season 13, he is nobody. He is not Brian and he’s struggling to be Dennis. He’s trying to get back into his old identity, desperate for any semblance of control and to belong, so he ends up looking like a caricature of himself, or rather, precisely who the gang thinks he is and who they see him as, not who he truly is.

New Wheels perfectly shows Dennis desperate to belong when he finds a new group of people, he tries on a whole new and different identity, which isn’t entirely him, but that at least feels welcoming enough. But it’s also a showcase of what Dennis truly wanted, which is to be acknowledged and seen by the gang, but particularly by Mac, feel like he matters to them and to him.

I say Mac specifically because the framing during the beginning scene seems to be fixated on a behind-Mac perspective on Dennis, almost like the conversation were happening just between the two of them, like Dennis was talking to him specifically when he pleads for questions.

These are all different shots, not the same one.

By the end of the episode he finally becomes himself again. And that’s that for s13.

Another thing worth pointing out though is that Dennis apparently has not been kicked out from ND, he himself says “I may go back” in New Wheels, and although in context it sounds more like an empty threat, it’s not empty because he can’t go back, it’s empty because he doesn’t really want to, as can be guessed thanks to his tone. This is because it’s then reinforced at the end of Chop with these lines of dialogue:

Charlie: “I can't believe how quick you gave up Poppins' puppies, though, you know? You didn't even think about keeping 'em.” Mac: “Well, that's a lot of responsibility, Charlie, right? And plus, there's no doggy paternity test to actually prove that they were Poppins' puppies in the first place. But, hey, if Poppins wants to stop by and say, "What's up?" and, like, be a dad for while, he's gonna. Or he won't. Dennis: “Yeah, that's how I do. That's how I do.”

Because of this, it can and should also be argued that the choice I am explaining in this analysis is something that Dennis still has to make, because he is, as it stands, still stuck between the two lives, and he has to settle on one, so choose between them, in order for the struggle to end. During all of s14 he is stuck trying to figure out which of the two he should choose, which is also the cause of his growing frustration. Currently speaking, getting a little speculatory here, I think everything feels like death to him, which is why he is having such a hard time deciding. He obviously doesn’t know the outcome of either option, because he’s not the audience or RCG, which means either of them can potentially kill him, and they both feel like they might to him.

Now, in season 14 is where all of this (the dichotomy of Death/Son vs Life/Love) starts to really become prominent in metatext, and this happens as the episodes start to purposefully confuse meta about the show itself with meta about Dennis. Let’s go through it in order one episode at a time, as that’s easier for me to dissect.

First of all, the backwards message at the end of all season 14 episodes, which is this:

“They leave but they all come back”

Is already a clear example of what I’m talking about. Is it about the show because of the false ending of Big Mo which actually ends with the message that “they’ll never stop doing sunny”? Is it about Dennis coming back from North Dakota? Unclear, but that’s entirely on purpose.

Episode 1: The Gang Gets Romantic

Now, there isn’t any clear connection to the choice as far as I am aware, but it is a first approach to the themes of romantic love, death, sons, as a whole. In this episode, while Frank and Charlie are paired with a father and son, Mac and Dennis get paired with a couple mourning a son (Dennis Jr, the “son” in the metaphor, is dead, but more in general it’s pointing to them slowly healing from the Suburbs conflict in my opinion though).

As a bonus fact, Charlie+Frank have always been set up to mirror Mac+Dennis. It is explicitly said in the Mac and Dennis Break Up commentary, and it shows in a bunch of episodes such as Dines Out, Chokes, or hell that one time Frank got a Charlie mannequin. Anyway, word of god, they are parallels.

TGGR presents us with two plotlines that mirror each other while going in the exact opposite direction, and the mirror element is the “structure”. Charlie and Frank’s plotline follows the romcom tropes closely, its structure, and is thus rewarded with a positive ending. Mac and Dennis’ plotline struggles against them (since the tropes are applying to Mac+Dennis, not Dennis+Lisa and Mac+Greg), which is why their plotline resolves negatively.

At the same time, this episode can have a sunny meta interpretation.

In this perspective, the Mac+Dennis plotline is the option for RCG to end sunny and each do their own thing, while the Charlie+Frank plotline is the option to keep it going, and at the end they conclude with the C+F one, seeing as it’s the option to keep going, which is ultimately what RCG wants.

So when this dialogue happens:

Mac: “You think they're gonna give us a bad review?” Dennis: “Yeah.” Mac: “I guess we're not gonna get that romantic comedy ending after all.”

It is about RCG choosing not to end the show (supported later by Big Mo), as it would not provide anything positive.

Or this:

Dennis: “It just feels like a lot of effort, and it feels desperate, you know what I mean? Like, I never put this much work into banging some cute meat.”

It can be interpreted as the effort to win an Emmy, especially since the Mac+Dennis plotline is the tired one, the one that’s failing.

And then when Alexi and Nikki say they’ll be back “next year”, and Charlie yells back “I love you!”, it can be interpreted that metaphorically Alexi and Nikki are sunny. Which also creates another link between love and the show continuing, or “staying alive”.

Finally, all the talk about “structure” and “acts”, particularly the three act structure, is a writer’s process, which also serves as an additional link to the RCG meta interpretation.

Episode 2: Thunder Gun 4: Maximum Cool

This episode leans heavily in the dichotomy, through various pieces of dialogue.

Starting from this:

Girl: "So, this is the midpoint twist. Thundergun finding out he has a son." Frank: "He has a son?" Girl: "Yes." Frank: "But how is this the twist? I mean, because he's got a kid? I mean, he's probably got a thousand kids, all the raw-dog loads he drops."

Which also calls back to the episode prior, where Dee’s role is called “diversionary plot-twist at best”. Now, all these words, midpoint and diversionary, imply an endgoal that is also opposite of what the twist shows.

The twist, obviously, being that Dennis has a secret life with a girl and a son.

It continues:

Dennis: “We’re feeling a lot of outrage right now, you know, because we want something, and we know we deserve it, - but we’re not getting it. [...] I wanna cling to the way things were, but they’re done. […] Let’s run from this.”

Being now aware of the metatext from Big Mo, once again, is this about RCG not getting an Emmy, being discouraged and wanting to end the show because they’re feeling stuck? Or is it about Dennis running away to North Dakota after he realizes in DDL that things have changed permanently despite Mac’s attempt at keeping them the exact same (the apartment restoration)?

The ambiguity that connects Dennis meta with Sunny/RCG meta continues.

Finally:

Dennis “No-no, you guys don’t get it. It’s a cliffhanger. Yeah? It’s a cliffhanger. We’re gonna find out what happened to John in the next movie, Thunder Gun 5.”

Dennis himself going against what is metaphorically his choice in DDL.

Let’s actually look into that, into what happens to Thundergun. 

He sacrifices himself for his son, and dies in the process. Said film is then leaked by the gang and the audience hates it, so the franchise decides to “go back to its roots”. Very clearly sunny meta, but it can absolutely also be seen as Dennis meta. Dennis hating his choice (his thunderson ending) and deciding to come back (go back to his roots).

Additionally, Dennis literally says “give me dong or give me death” at one point, which in the context of all of this feels rather significant, you know?

Episode 3: Dee Day

Surprisingly, and thankfully for me, not much that I can see.

There is this:

Dennis: “And who cares about her feelings anyway? Nobody, that’s who. What about my feelings? Now, that’s interesting, okay?”

Which implies something going on with Dennis’ feelings, and which will more substantially be addressed by Jumper when it’s implied that Dennis tries to completely disregard them when it comes to choices, but other than that, really not much else.

Episode 4: The Gang Chokes

Once again we see a Mac+Dennis and Charlie+Frank parallel conflict. Charlie and Frank resolve their own with words (that mirror Dines Out) while Mac and Dennis resolve theirs with actions, while also solving the much bigger conflicts started by Suburbs (again, check out the other analysis for more context on this) and DDL. 

It should also be stressed that Chokes starts by saying:

Charlie: “Uh, guys, I'd like to raise a glass to Frank. Frank, another year has gone by since you came into my life.”

He’s making a toast, which implies that they are celebrating their anniversary, as they were in Dines Out, and so the parallel becomes not only implied in dialogue as I’m about to show, but direct. It is unclear whether this is also a monthly dinner for Mac and Dennis or not, as I don’t think it was ever specified one way or the other.

As for the parallel in dialogue.

In Dines Out:

Mac: “I didn't have your back before, but now I'm gonna be the wind beneath your wings.”

In Chokes:

Frank (to the Waiter): “Hey, you had my back. Now I'm gonna have yours.”

and

Charlie: “Look, Frank, I'm sorry, dude. I screwed up, man. I should've saved you, and I'll always save you from now on, I promise.” Frank: “Thanks, Charlie. I knew you had my back.”

With Brian representing a death for Dennis, it is implied that what Charlie and Frank are saying in words is supposed to be fully applicable for Mac and Dennis, as there is a parallel between Frank almost dying by choking and Dennis almost dying by going to ND.

Therefore, this is about Dennis going to North Dakota and how he wanted to be stopped, “saved” by Mac. This is Mac apologizing, Dennis accepting the apology, and them implicitly moving forward from this conflict in their relationship and for any similar ones in the future if they present themselves. Mac learning the tools to deal with it, “I’ll always save you from now on”.

Which in a way further solidifies that the option that isn’t Brian, Death, Son, Mandy is fully intended as Dennis, Life, Love, Mac. Mac plays a role in the second option, so when choosing life, love, etc, Mac will be involved. As he is the savior in the context.

Continuing on Chokes, the episode itself again focuses a lot on death, both real and perceived, and being saved. There are three main points for this.

First point: Frank’s death.

So, he almost dies and no one helps. Sound familiar? It’s what happened when Dennis went to ND. As a result of no one helping him, Frank lashes out and decides to move out and distance himself. It is then shown that Frank keeps missing Charlie and comparing the Waiter to him subconsciously. It is constantly shown that Frank rejects Charlie’s attempts at helping him despite actually needing him. Which is also what applies to Mac and Dennis, throughout the episode Dennis is shown needing Mac’s help and taking it while verbally refusing it.

Charlie proposes to chew Frank’s food, Frank refuses his help, Frank chokes, Charlie doesn’t help.

Mac constantly helps Dennis, Dennis starts to push him away, Dennis “dies” (chooses to move to ND), Mac doesn’t help.

The episode concludes with the acknowledgement that they should’ve helped, and with the offended part forgiving the other.

Second point: Dee’s death

She witnesses death and is subsequently enthralled by it, seeking thrill by living on the edge. We can draw a parallel to Dennis’ enjoyment in “living in another man’s skin”, you know, “getting off”. It’s how Dennis started the double life he then got lost inside after all, it gave him a thrill. Then, it happened to him exactly what ends up happening to Dee. She experiences real death, is scared shitless by it, and decides to never do it again, going as far as to say this:

Dee: “I saw the other side. I didn't like it. I hated it. It was just blackness. There's nothing there. It's just dark. That's it. Just lights out. I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to live on the edge. I don't want to die.”

So once again the choice rests on LIFE, it is like this for Dee, as it is for Sunny, as it is for Dennis.

It’s also interesting to point out that Dee is rescued by a third party, after Mac is able to say “No”; as if symbolically that is what should’ve happened to save Dennis, back when he was about to go. A “no”, to stop him.

Third point: Dennis’ death

Dennis witnesses Frank dying and no one helping him and is immediately reminded of his own situation, which he then proceeds to discuss when at home, with Mac. Thanks to Dennis making this correlation we can once again assume that it is meant to be interpreted as a nod to the ND twist. Not only this but it then keeps linking Dennis to the concept of death and being saved.

This dialogue happens:

Mac: “I would've stepped in, but, of course, I was taking my cues from you.” Dennis: “Why?” Mac: “Well, you didn't tell me whether I should save him or not.” Dennis: “But why? I mean, why do I still have to tell you what to do? Why do I still have to order your dinners for you? And why is it up to me to decide whether or not you're going to save a man's life? You know what the problem is? I can't depend on you. I can't depend on anyone. You know, I mean, if that had been me choking tonight, no one would've saved me.” Mac: “No. I would've saved you, Dennis. I would have saved you. If you told me to.” Dennis: “Oh, Jesus Christ if I told you to?”

Dennis is clearly still upset about no one helping him when he needed it, which is, no one stopping him from making the worst decision of his life, a well established metaphorical death, and is projecting this frustration by applying it to Frank’s situation.

Later on, again:

Dennis: “Christ. I feel like I'm dying.” Mac: “Just let me help you, Dennis!”

Then:

Mac: “Look, all the gluten and the sugar and the dairy just wreaks havoc on his system, you know? And it makes him so weak. And then he's gonna depend on me to take care of him, to bring him back from the brink of death.”

Or “from making a wrong decision”.

Continuing:

Dee: “But if you want Dennis to really depend on you, you’re gonna have to save his life for real.”

And:

Dennis: “So you were still gonna rely on a decision that somebody else made, only, this time, you were potentially gonna kill a man?”

In which Dennis is once again, always without fail, the dying man, and Mac the person who saves him, or tries to. Dennis is very adamant in wanting Mac to choose for himself, which is surprising for a man so “obsessed with control”, and specifically it ticks him off that Mac’s decision was once again gonna provoke the death of a man because he couldn’t take action.

All this implied connection between Dennis, North Dakota and Death reinforces the Death/Brian aspect, while also reinforcing the Life/Mac one, as it is Mac that is supposed to save Dennis.

Episode 5: The Gang Texts

A shorter one, but here things get a little interesting, because the dichotomy is highlighted by one particular joke.

Mac: “Bathrooms at zoos are, like, big Grindr spots for closeted dads.”

Mac says this, then later on, in comes Dennis, a dad, and if it weren’t enough, it’s Mac himself who points to the situation once again by asking if it’s a “grindr thing”.

So going with this, his particular struggle (Death/Son vs Life/Love) is being highlighted with a very fitting choice of words, as he is a dad, and so... also closeted. Going with this. These are the words chosen to describe him in the joke, and it ends up being very telling overall.

Episode 6: The Janitor Always Mops Twice

Nothing, pretty much. lol

I’m gonna use this empty space to write that I just realized that Mac is even more linked to the theme of romantic love because he gifts the RPG specifically on Valentines Day.

Also, generally speaking, Dennis leaving would imply the death of the show, so that’s another way in which dennis meta and sunny meta are linked, because every time one is referenced, the other is automatically implied. The show cannot exist without Dennis in it, and Dennis cannot exist if the show ends. And if that’s not enough, in Big Mo they outright link the end of the show to actual death, in a lot of ways that I’m gonna look into in a bit, so once again, remember that.

Finally, Dennis is very adamant on Mac acting in s14 because if Mac were to do it, he would basically make the decision for Dennis, something that he used to do all the time, if you recall Mac and Dennis Break Up.

Episode 7: The Gang Solves Global Warming

The subject itself can be considered a slow death of sorts, so it feels especially significant that it’s Dennis the member of the gang who cares most about stopping it, despite not being able to because Mac doesn’t help him.

That’s not the only reason he fails at the end though.

He keeps trying to be rational and keep feelings out of it, to rationalize with the situation, which is what ultimately crushes him, as that’s impossible long term.

In this episode, he keeps getting mad at Mac for not taking action and instead trusting God’s will.

Frank: “Where is your God now?” Mac: “He will reveal himself at some point.” Dennis: “Well, is he gonna do it before all these people revolt and destroy the place?” Mac: “I don’t know. I don’t question God’s will. If he wants to destroy the Earth, that’s on him. - I support it!”

I think this is stretching it a bit, but this can also be read as Mac accepting Dennis’ decision to leave despite hating it. Dennis is also frequently presented as “God” so it would make some sense.

The crowd “not wanting to stop” and rioting can be read as sunny meta also, though that’s also kind of a stretch to me, I’m pointing it out.

In the end, the whole episode Dennis and Mac keep arguing about action vs inaction, with Dennis insisting that Mac should take action and being distressed when he doesn’t. They also keep arguing about rationality vs God, something that will come up again in Jumper, surprisingly.

Episode 8: Paddy's Has a Jumper

Now, starting from the very obvious, because that’s what’s easy to me, the jumper is called Bryan O’Brien, and if that doesn’t scream Brian=death, then boy I don’t know what does.

Not only that, but the episode spends a significant portion really stressing and beating you over the head with the fact that the jumper is paralleling Dennis.

Not only is Frank mistaken for the father, but Dennis’ dialogue as a whole really insists on this in multiple points. But again let’s go in order.

Discussing his motivations and intentions:

Mac: ”I mean, maybe God is testing us.” Dee: “He's not gonna do anything. This is a classic cry for help.”

Plus, this episode feels like a writers’ room. When they say stuff like:

Charlie: “It doesn't matter if he wants to or he doesn't want to. He's not gonna die falling from that height.” Dennis: “Whoa. Hard disagree, pal. You could absolutely die if you jump from that height.”

This to me sounds equally about RCG discussing the choice for themselves (implying they did at one point consider outright killing Dennis, or at least argued the theoreticals of it in the writers room, as in “would he actually even die with a decision like that?”) as it is the characters arguing the ND thing in the metaphorical sense, with Dennis insisting that a jump would be fatal while the gang thinks he’s completely fine. So, again, the jump represents him moving to North Dakota, as we’ll see.

Also, in general, the whole episode sounds like RCG arguing over whether they should pull the plug on their own show or not (”become a suicide bar”, because again, without Dennis there is no show, if he chooses death, so does the show), RCG themselves stuck in Dennis’ choice. In particular with the whole “Could he? Would he? (choose one or the other?) Should we?”.

But in addition to this, the algorithm, actually algorithms in general, are once again something that Dennis uses regularly to solve his own problems (D.E.N.N.I.S system, hello), which is his downfall.

Dennis: “Based on the analytical conclusions that we draw here, we're gonna be able to come up with a mathematically-accurate, non-emotional answer to all of our questions. Okay? We just need to think like a computer.”

Speaking of rationality vs feelings.

Mac: “Let's not bring science into it. Okay? I mean, this is life or death. This is God's territory. All right? I mean, there is no science.”

Now, this is very important because it allows me to talk about another thing. If it hadn’t been clear enough by now, this choice Dennis is presented with is also one between rationality and feelings.

Choosing to care for your son and move to ND, that is the rational choice, and rational is everything Dennis has always tried to be, especially in this episode and in Global Warming (which also mentions God a lot!).

But throughout s12-13-14, as I have highlighted in this post so far, we have seen where Dennis’ heart lies, his feelings.

It is funny to notice that both in Global Warming and in Jumper, Mac is the half who keeps arguing for the side of religion, of faith, of feelings, while Dennis keeps arguing for the side of rationality, of objectivity, always wanting to keep feelings completely out of the equation.

Dennis: “I think I have a way that we can solve this argument without human emotion mucking it all up.”

Then:

Charlie: “I think what we learned is that there's no way that the jumper's gonna die from this height. You know? So there's no reason for us to do anything about it.”

Once again the gang not recognizing the gravity of the situation and choosing inaction, to which Dennis seems unsure and wants to do more testing.

Ok so, here’s where things get interesting, the biggest parallel links between Dennis and Bryan are brought to light as they are looking through his social media.

“Yeah, it looks like he likes to travel. He was recently on a cruise.”

Referring to how Dennis actually liked being in another man’s skin in general, and he was recently away to do just that.

The Gang: “Okay, so it looks like he's got a lot to live for.” “He's eating food.” Dennis: “Or-or-or is he? Because is-is that just what he wants you to believe?”

Once again it’s Dennis counterarguing, specifically on the points that sound most like himself, though this irony is lost on him. This also once again sounds like RCG discussing Dennis as a character and how the choice would actually impact him and has impacted him.

Generally, speaking about Dennis, everyone thought he was gonna be fine because on the surface, his choice in the s12 finale sounds like a pretty sweet deal, and exactly what Dennis has supposedly wanted ever since The Gang Misses The Boat, though even that episode itself proves that it simply isn’t what is right for him.

“He's hardly a child, but he's still hanging on to his youth. That suggests to me that maybe he's got some daddy issues. Abandonment, abuse.”

All things that perfectly apply to Dennis and that give us interesting insight on him.

“But recently the girlfriend, she's disappeared from his pictures, which tells me that, uh, she probably broke up with him, you know, because of all his father issues, and 'cause he's an alcoholic, and because of the copious requests for butt-eating, which, she was thinking was more of a one-time thing, and he was thinking, this is a thing now, like, from now on.”

Disregarding Dennis’ surprisingly canonical love for getting his butt ate, lol (despite how that could count as more indication of where his true feelings lie, knowing RCG and what their writing intentions might be), he brings out alcoholism out of seemingly nowhere, another thing that again confirms the link between Dennis and the jumper, Bryan.

Dennis: “Basically, what we've concluded is that it would actually be good for the bar if this guy jumps and dies. So the answer to the question of "should we get involved?" is actually yes. [...] You see, we've already established that this guy wants to die and that it would actually benefit our bar if he dies. Now, of course, from an emotional standpoint, we feel as though we should get involved, we feel as though we should save this guy, but the algorithm is actually telling us that that does not benefit anybody.”

This feels to me like Dennis realizing mid discussion that he should pick rationality aka Death, for the greater good, but being emotionally incapable of actually making that choice because of his feelings, and so implicitly pleading the gang to help him do it, to get involved and push him.

It also sounds like RCG coming to the conclusion that the algorithm, aka the show’s FORMULA, is telling them that Dennis ending up in the bad option of said choice is what would normally happen in a show like sunny, although they themselves don’t really want to go through with it.

Charlie: “Can I say something, though? I think this is for the best. You know what I mean? Like, we were going down a road I was not totally comfortable with.” Dee: “You guys want to go back to watching our show?” Charlie: “Let's get back to our show.”

So, a couple of things here. The jumper does not jump, he chooses life, which implies the same fate for Dennis. Coincidentally, pay attention to how the gang calls it “our” show, not like, “that” show, because this is, at the same time, RCG being glad of the decision to not end the show and kill Dennis off.

But here’s where things get real FUN, because the Melon is also used as a metaphor for sunny. Generally speaking, smashing it would’ve been ending it, it’s not a coincidence that the melon represents the jumper, they’re all one and the same.

Cricket: “Guys, why the hell are you wasting a perfectly good casaba melon?”

Why end a show that is doing perfectly fine?

Frank: “Where's my melon? Where's my casaba?” Dennis: “It's right here, man. Why do you care so much about this thing? What is the deal?” Frank: “It's where I stash my Maui Kush.” Charlie: “You hide your weed in a casaba melon?” Frank: “Yeah. In case the cops ransack the place, you got to find a good, unsuspecting spot to stash your drugs.” Mac: “Pot's pretty much legal now. You don't really have to stash it anywhere.” Charlie: “I don't think you have to hide it, man.” Frank: “When did that happen?”

Ok so, this might be the most speculative point I’m going to bring up, but I will anyway, because it’s my post and I do what I want. I think they’re talking about gay subtext here. It is simply something that is kept hidden (thus, subtext, duh), and that they don’t really need to hide anymore. The reason I think this has a metaphorical value is specifically because of how Charlie words “I don’t think you have to hide it, man” which beautifully applies to a Dennis who is still in the closet in the year of the lord 2020, if you catch my drift. Plus the whole situation reads kinda with a weird vibe in general, almost forced. You have to consider that they chose to include this dialogue over stuff like Frank bragging to Dennis about meeting Jackie DeNardo. He doesn’t bring her up at all, actually.

Mac: “Maybe that's, like, part of the problem of taking the humanity out of decisions.” Dennis: “Perhaps the science just isn't there yet.”

They acknowledge that any choice should be made following your feelings, not like a machine, and Dennis agrees with the point. Now, I don’t know about you, but to me Dennis agreeing that sometimes considering feelings in certain situations is necessary is something HUGE. Of course it is for the thesis I’m arguing, as it implies Dennis following his feelings when making the decision he is currently weighted by, and we know where those stand, but it is huge just in general, also. Dennis usually doesn’t do feelings, at least, he tries to repress them usually.

Cricket: “Where did we land on the casaba?” Dennis: “I think you can eat it, man. I think we're done with it.”

Basically, with the tinkering over, and a decision being made by RCG, they can hand it to Cricket (David Hornsby) to write the season finale.

Episode 9: A Woman’s Right To Chop

The salon’s insigna, pictured above.

This episode is full with dennis/sunny meta (which doubles as abortion meta, so bear with me), but it also has a son=death link once again, as “Poppins” is pregnant and were she to have the puppies (which are later directly used as a metaphor for Brian Jr as I already quoted in this post when explaining why Dennis could technically return to ND) she would die.

Poppins himself is linked to Dennis metaphorically, and as we all know it is a dog that simply does not die.

Mac: “Poppins! He came back! My dog came back!” Dennis: “How the hell is that dog still alive?” Dee: “Yeah, Mac, why don't you just put that poor thing out of its misery?” Mac: “Put him down? What, are you crazy? This is my dog, Dee. I love him.” Dee: “Well, he doesn't love you. Comes around every three or four years, eats a bunch of batteries or whatever, takes a giant dump on the floor, and then leaves again.” Mac: “Dee, Poppins comes and goes as he pleases 'cause that's his right as a male.”

Once again Mac is responsible for keeping him alive, and he does so because he loves him. As for “he doesn’t love you”, I mean, it’s Dee, the Gang’s perspective, of course they think that. They also thought Dennis had no feelings. But we know he does, they are why he came back after all.

Dennis: “And if we decide to leave, we're gonna leave. Yeah, 'cause that's nature. That's tradition.” Dee: “That's bullshit. Traditional roles are ridiculous, and they're made up by men.”

The episode discouraging the option of leaving from Dennis.

Now, cutting hair (while yes, abortion stuff, I’m not talking about that here) can also be interpreted as both a metaphor for ending the show, or Dennis cutting ties entirely. It works for all of them.

Dennis: “With luxurious locks like yours, it could take, oh, three, four years to grow back to its current length. Yeah, if it ever grows back.”

Ending the show with all the risks that it would imply, because it could take a while for them to get another show to get off the ground and a new thriving fanbase (years to grow back hair), that is, if it ever happens.

With relationships as established as those Dennis has, it could take years for him to find other people he can be close with, that is, if he ever finds them.

Dee: “Will you please leave these poor women alone? They're clearly bored and lonely and needing to do something extreme in order to make themselves feel special.”

That just screams “reason why Dennis went to ND” to me.

It’s also funny to consider that the episode as a whole is about choice.

And it’s also interesting that in this scenario Dennis is arguing to stop them from having the choice of “ruining their life”, which sounds rather dramatic and also like a lot of self projection on his part.

Reading the script, it also came to me that other people having a say in whether a haircut is made or not sounds like fans having a say in whether a show ends or not, so there’s that.

So, the burping in this episode is a metaphor for emotional pain.

In this case, Dee wants to get the haircut simply because she can, without understanding the ramifications of her actions, and this upsets Frank who actually does understands. He once had long beautiful hair, cut it and gave it away, and it never grew back. This fits in all three metaphorical perspectives, once again. In the end she ends up getting a haircut anyway, despite people trying to stop her, and ends up with a substitute wig that looks pretty much the same.

Dee: “I'm getting the haircut. I'm getting it.” Frank: “Don't do it, Deandra. You'll regret it! I'm telling you!” Car salesman: “What was that all about?” Frank: “Just trying to save a life.”

This is yes, a metaphor about adoption instead of abortion, but it doubles as Dennis meta for everything else we have discussed.

Not cutting, not jumping, not running away, is saving a life. It all works towards the same message without neglecting the episode’s main message.

All in all, I feel like the parallels and metaphors in this episode are only surface level, and the rest works to make the plot and the abortion stuff make sense. It is still significant though, it’s there.

Episode 10: Waiting For Big Mo

Not even gonna try to make sense of all the metaphors in here as I don’t even think they necessarily make sense at all.

The point of it all here is simple, and it is once again sunny meta as much as it is Dennis meta, which ends up being very important.

They always play the game guarding the base, never letting themselves have fun but following a clear formula (word actually used in the episode), because that is simply what has always worked. They have it down to a science.

Yet the desire to have fun keeps messing with it, getting them lower on the leaderboard, and so on so forth. 

Dennis is afraid that this will bring on a death, if they can’t guard their base from Big Mo, so he keeps discouraging fun, and asks people to stay on track, manipulates them to reach this goal, even if it makes him miserable.

This is about Dennis keeping his perfected facade instead of following his feelings as much as it is about RCG following the formula instead of having fun with it. For Dennis, the goal of doing this is being perceived as perfect, being accepted, belonging. For RCG, the goal was winning an emmy and staying relevant.

So the episode starts by painting having fun (feelings in Dennis’ case) as something that will bring an inevitable death, which must be how it felt to RCG (if you don’t follow the formula they’ll cancel your show) and how it felt to Dennis (who knows what would happen if you opened up), which is what led him to make the wrong choice in the first place, to avoid getting hurt. 

Except the episode then proceeds to make fun of that very notion:

Mac: “Who cares if we're losing?” Charlie: “Dennis said, like, if we leave the base, death is gonna come in the form of a fat kid who's gonna turn us into fart ghosts or something like that. So I got to stay.” Mac: “What?” Charlie: “It sounds crazy now that I'm saying it. Dennis explained it a lot more better. Dennis, we can't leave the base, right? That's the deal?” Dennis: “No. Frank was right. Rutherford B. Crazy's real name was Larry Takashi. Yeah, and he was the founder and owner of Laser Tag Fun Zone. Well, apparently, he killed himself.”

In the episode, Frank is the first to reveal the news to Dennis, and he doesn’t believe him. Up until that point in the ep, he had been using Rutherford/Larry (is it a coincidence that he also has two names? I’ll let you decide) as inspiration for himself and to keep going with his plan to win, the guy was always working towards his goal tirelessly, never having fun. His family hated him, he had no friends, he was completely alone. He died alone and miserable.

This part of the episode in particular feels very heavy, as we notice that Dennis (and it isn’t random that he’s the one having this revelation) is the only one who’s sitting, looking visibly shocked.

Now, Larry Takashi is based on Larry David, creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. This isn’t only obvious because of the first name, but also because Larry was the person who Rob met that convinced him to not end the show.

He said this to Rob:

“Don’t be an idiot. Never stop. Just keep doing it. One, because it’s the greatest job you could ever want and two, because if you do a final episode they’ll just destroy you for it.“

So it’s easy to assume that this character is an homage to him.

Anyway, Dennis has this realization, and it feels important that he’s the one having it, as the whole season has been subtly about him and his choice, him feeling like he has to be a father but secretly wanting to be Mac’s “leading man”.

Dennis: “I mean, the guy was miserable. But he spent his life building this empire, and it all meant nothing? Shit. So Rutherford be rich. Rutherford be successful as all hell. But you know what else Rutherford be? Rutherford be right. Because it all means nothing if you're not enjoying it.”

This works both ways, and is the right message, but it then gets twisted into “choosing death on our own terms”, obviously for the sake of tricking the audience with a fake finale; as we now know, they have actually chosen life. The dialogue continues to be specifically about sunny.

And with that, it segues into the fake finale, with them saying “time to end the game”, “goodbye base” and all of that.

And it seems like with that they’re giving up, accepting death as something that will happen regardless, ending the show. Saying “screw it, we won’t let others cancel our show, we’ll end it on our terms if that needs to happen”. Or in Dennis’ case “If I’m gonna have to live a miserable life might as well directly kill myself” as, again, so far the implied death of choosing Brian has been METAPHORICAL, the death of Dennis’ identity. Not, you know, real.

Whereas the show ending would imply his eventual real death.

But that’s not how it ends.

“Oh, what? You thought we'd gone? You'd like that, wouldn't you? We ain't going anywhere. We're never leaving, you little piece of shit.”

They’re never leaving. And so, by progression of the metaphor, neither is Dennis, of course, which implies the choice of the other option. Dennis, Life, Love, Mac.

So as the show chooses to live forever, then so should Dennis also choose the option for life, and everything that it implies with it.

And this is why all of this talk about meta and symbolism was very important for me to make, because this is the logical conclusion I have reached.

Logically speaking, for me, this is where all the signs seem to be pointing, and that’s very exciting.

Because as RCG chooses to keep their show alive, they are also choosing to have real fun with it, and this seems to imply that they won’t stick to the formula as closely.

So in a way, Big Mo, as this fake finale, does end up representing the end of sunny as we know it, if I’m reading into it correctly. It ends up being a proper finale and send off, but sunny is not over because of it. Only the one we are used to, whatever that means.

So not only is Dennis choosing that, but it seems RCG might be taking some real artistic liberties or whatever, not be afraid to sink down in the leaderboards anymore but simply do what they please.

So... macdennis? Well, come back to me in a year and we’ll find out together. That is another reason why I made this post after all, to look back at it in the future and see just how wrong or right I was.

Let’s see how Rob chooses to embrace sunny.

[commentaryvorg]

If you could change anything from Kaito's character arc in V3, what would you change?

Honestly? The short answer is nothing.

Kaito's character arc is fantastically crafted. There are so many tiny, seemingly-innocuous lines and moments that actually serve a vital purpose in either showing us what's going on in Kaito's head despite him never talking about it, or in pushing his arc along further, all of which I had so much fun talking about throughout the commentary. Granted, a lot of it is subtle and difficult to spot - but then it should be, considering how much Kaito tries to hide his issues. When you look for it, though, it is very deliberately there and not meaninglessly ambiguous at all. There's not a single part of Kaito's arc where I'm thinking “this was written badly”; even his phobia, as much as I'm sad that it gives Kaito less screentime and less being-himself in chapter 3, serves multiple purposes for the story and for Kaito's arc. Kaito's writers are the best and I adore how much care and attention they put into writing him.

I've seen a fair few people, presumably fans of Kaito, say “Kaito deserved better”, and... they're wrong. Well, unless they mean it in a purely in-universe sense, in which case of course he did, but then so did everyone, that's kind of the point. But if they mean it in an out-universe sense, in that they think Kaito deserved a better story for how good of a character he is? No! Kaito's story is amazing. He is the best-written character in this game and got absolutely everything he deserved, narratively speaking. I genuinely believe this with all of my heart. If other people don't see it, then they aren't looking hard enough - which is understandable, but also a shame when those people are fans of Kaito who presumably want to enjoy his story as much as they can. I just want to take all of these people and show them my commentary so that they can realise just how good Kaito's arc really is and love him even more like he deserves. (And I am endlessly thrilled that the commentary does seem to have had that kind of effect on some people!)

Obviously I would also love to see a story in which Kaito learns that it's okay to show weakness to his sidekicks, completely untangles his horrendous double-standard for heroes and begins to have healthy, mutually-supportive relationships with his friends. But... that was never this story. This is a story in which Kaito's messed-up view of what it means to be a hero literally gets him killed while all but destroying his sense of self-worth in the process, yet he still manages to keep fighting and make at least some kind of difference for his friends anyway, because he still is a hero despite what he might believe about himself. And that's also a fantastic story to tell!

It's kind of like something I've also considered about Ryoma. It would have been quite possible to tell a story in which Ryoma overcomes his issues and finds a reason to live and survives, and I'd have loved a story like that with him, because Ryoma is great and deserves to be happy. But the story of how he didn't manage to overcome his issues and tragically died because of them is also a compelling story that it's possible to tell with Ryoma's character - and, well, someone had to be chapter 2's victim. With characters as ripe with potential as Kaito, or Ryoma, or really any complex and well-written character in anything, there's so many different and equally compelling stories that could be told with them. But you can't tell all of those stories at once, and that's okay.

(That's why it's great that we have fanwork, to explore all of those other possible stories that couldn't be told in canon!)

With all that said, since this is about Kaito, you know I don't want to just leave it at the (very elaborated-upon) short answer. So here's a few things I thought of anyway that I might want to change if I could - all of which are really very minor nitpicks that barely matter in the grand scheme of things.

The absolute first thing I'd do is remove those four-ish lines in which Kaito is vaguely sexist in a way that is provably out-of-character for him. Gone. Expunged. Never there. Suddenly, magically, there is no longer a portion of the fandom that believes that Kaito is supposed to be sexist, and we literally only changed like four lines of his dialogue. Funny, that.

I'd also want to slightly change the parts where Kaito freaks out in a too-extreme way over ghosts once his phobia's been revealed. Not only is it not really quite in character for him to overreact that badly when he'd be doing his best to hide it, it also comes across like Kaito's phobia is being played for comedy. Which it shouldn’t be. He is literally mentally ill; that's not a joke.

These are the only two aspects of the way in which Kaito's written that I find actively bad in any appreciable way. And, yeah, they're really minor things that don't have anything to do with his actual character arc. That's kind of my point here!

...Though, admittedly, the part where Maki punches Kaito after he clings to her during his phobia-overreaction does actually play a small role in his character arc in that it seems to shift him into beginning to freak out more about his physical illness instead. Hm. Not sure what I'd do about that.

In terms of things I might change that are more meaningful and relevant to Kaito's arc, as I've said, there's really nothing that's actively bad at all. Rather, we're just getting into things where I'd maybe want to add a little bit more on top of what's already there.

Kokichi Doing The Thing in trial 4 - aka, repeatedly heaping insincere praise onto Shuichi in what's really a transparent attempt to jab at Kaito's jealousy and inferiority complex - should have continued for longer than it did instead of being weirdly confined to one specific quarter of the trial. There are plenty of moments after that that would have been perfectly good opportunities for it! And yes, this is absolutely part of Kaito's arc, shush. Not that this would have significantly affected how Kaito would respond or make his breakdown any more spectacular than it already was, mind you, because Kokichi's jabs at Kaito were not nearly as important as Kokichi wanted them to be.

Then there's the part in chapter 5 where, after being kidnapped and offscreen for a while, Kaito has evidently become okay with Shuichi being more of a hero than him and can just be openly proud of him again. There's no specific evidence indicating why this happened, even though it's a pretty important shift for Kaito. This was the only part of Kaito's arc that I speculated about in the commentary without having anything concrete to back up what I think went on there. So if possible, I'd like to add some hints at that.

...That's easier said than done, though, since Kaito gets so little screentime at this point in the story for unavoidable plot reasons, is still not willing to directly talk about his issues, and was never even really consciously aware of his toxic double-standard for heroes that was the root of this whole problem that he's finally begun to fix. It's entirely possible that this is something the writers already wanted to hint at more than they did, but they just couldn't find a way to plausibly do so in that situation. This also still wouldn't be me changing anything about Kaito's arc, just making part of it a bit more easy to notice and figure out.

Lastly - though this isn't even strictly part of Kaito's arc - I'd love to have Shuichi acknowledge more than he does that Kaito had been suffering, and for him to reflect on that and wish that Kaito hadn't been so selfless (just like he did at one point with Kaede!). Obviously I wouldn't want to make him more aware of it for most of Kaito being alive, because that'd change too much and because Shuichi's obliviousness is part of the excruciating tragedy of it all. But after hearing at the end that Kaito really was sick and dying all along, and that Kaito was jealous of him, Shuichi should have been able to recognise at least some of Kaito's vulnerability in hindsight. Having some reflection on that at the end of chapter 5 or at some point during chapter 6 would be lovely to underline and draw attention to what Kaito's story was really about from Kaito's perspective. It might even prompt more of the fandom to actually realise this and notice what an amazing arc Kaito had, which sure would be nice.

...In fact, there's a very small window of time in which Shuichi could have plausibly acknowledged this kind of thing a little more than he did while Kaito was still alive to hear it and potentially benefit from it. So, actually, now that I think of it: the one change I'd make that'd have any real impact on Kaito's arc at all? It'd be this.

[iatheia]

EDA reviews Part 5 - books 38-46

Previous part 1, 2, 3 & 4

38) Casualties of War - a lovely story. In form and in function it is pretty much identical to the previous story, and even reveals pretty much the same info verbatim. The plot is similarly nothing outstanding, from ~5 minutes in you can tell pretty much exactly how it is going to turn out. That said, it has a much better atmosphere than the Burning, and Doctor’s characterization is also much stronger. Nice and relaxing, if a bit gory at times, and veering off towards supernatural by the end. 8/10

39) The Turing Test - Wow, these stories keep getting better and better! It is overwhelming and exuberant. Only a handful of books have even attempted to get anywhere near close into the Doctor’s psyche as this one has. Moreover, it has multiple narrators, and all three have a very different relationship with the Doctor, you get into the different facets of his persona, multiplicity of his character. You have a dashing and breathless romantic whose mere presence sweeps you off your feet, a reckless hero, an enigma, at the same time, there is a rather selfish and cruel streak as well. He is a manipulator, someone who knows more than he should and willing to use this knowledge to achieve his aims, willing to play people against each other and show a side of himself that they would be most accepting to see. It is never to the degree of Seven, this behavior is all Eight through and through, the core of his characters never sways, it’s just viewed through a different lens. The previous novels have established these facets, but more on accident, due to lack of consistency between different writers, picking one and going with it. But this is the first one I feel they were actually explored in full, though, certainly, there will be other stories to tackle this in the future as well (Caerdroia in particular comes to mind). An outstanding story through and through. 10/10

40) Endgame - Hot off the heels of the previous one, another fun story - or, at the very least, something that would have been a gem if it had managed to sustain the energy it had at the beginning. Doctor’s claustrophobia and depression were very poignant, and, as much as I loved Stranded already, it does make me look at that story in a new light with a newer appreciation. And, on top of that - this book is funny, the Doctor evading spy agents with ease is the comedy of errors. That said, in the second half there is too much runamock it’s a bit repetitive, not very well organized, they needlessly cross the ocean so many times, the situation at a given location is resolved the second the Doctor shows up on a scene, and it all ends in deus ex machina. The authors note says that the original draft was submitted unfinished, and boy does it show. Still, I had fun with it. 8/10

41) Father Time - It is hard not to notice though that some of the novels come in pairs (or trios). The Burning and the Casualties of War had a lot of overlap. Turning Test and Endgame were both based on political intrigue. And now, Endgame and Father Time, both feature some mysterious entity that know the Doctor from before, with him not knowing who they are. They are even called similarly, “The Players” and “The Hunters”. When these overlaps are so close to one another, it does rather stick out. This ark is not the first time this happened, obviously, there have been a number of stories before that makes you pause and go “wait, you’ve just done this in the previous book, too”. It’s probably more to do with how quickly the books are released one after another, so as the writers discuss some ideas, they end up being in several places....

That said, the first third of the book had me singing its praises. After going through the five stages of grief, and battling against the depression of the previous novel, the Doctor is finally reaching acceptance of his situation, and possibly nurturing hope for the future. It’s exactly the type of a fluffy story I have a weakness for. But then... you have a time skip, which gets all the pacing torn into shreds. Not only the conclusion of the first part is too abrupt, everything falling into pieces as if by accident, but also, none of the things that happened in the first part (or most of the characters that were introduced) matter for part two. It turns into a chess match play by numbers, moving characters across the board almost without any transition in service of “plot”, without much of consideration for their head space, keeping everyone rather ooc. The change in visuals is very abrupt - it’s hard to accept the Doctor as a millionaire business consultant living in a grand mansion, new family situation or not. It’s not just at odds with his bohemian persona, it also begs a question, if he is so famous, what do the UNIT and Torchwood are doing about it? And also, *sigh*. You have a sixteen year old girl, who, in the previous chapter, just been ten. And you decide to spend the next two chapters on little else than musing how “she hasn’t been interested in sex, even though she is SO HOT”, only to decide that she is interested now, actually. It comes across more than a little fetishistic, and the story continues to follow her around with the male gaze. I’m not here to follow sexual exploits of minors - not in a Doctor Who novel. It is utterly unnecessary, doesn’t add anything of value to the plot, not character driven, and made me lose pretty much all of the good will I had from the first part of the story (and I had a lot of it, because the start of it was basically perfect). In the third part, it just turns into a discount Taken story, somehow managing to lose any cohesiveness and suspension of disbelief, and fizzles out in the end. 4/10

Amnesia watch: #7. It’s a bait and switch - the Doctor was just pretending, but I’m counting it anyway.

42) Escape Velocity - I wonder, how much sponsorship did various fast food places paid for this novel.... 

And we are back with Fitz. I didn’t really say it before, but it was really rather a dick move leaving the Doctor all alone for over a century. I mean, it worked, narratively speaking (more on that later), but, still, in an option between traveling through space & time BUT leaving them alone for that long, without any idea who they are, without any network of support, letting them slowly go mad, only being there for the fun bits, versus staying with them to help them through it all, you are kind of a bad friend. Sure, Compassion was in the driver’s seat, but Fitz didn’t exactly protest all that much, did he? And why 20th century earth? If the conditions for Doctor’s maroonment was that he had to stay somewhere for over 100 years while the TARDIS repaired itself, then any other technologically advanced era that didn’t have two world wars would have sufficed? And, psst, Doctor, your adopted kid has a space armada. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind giving you one ship that would allow you at least space travel, you didn’t have to spend last 11 years on Earth - you could have went traveling, TARIS in tow on that ship, and only checked in at the deadline.

Also, I get it, memory loss is a traumatic experience, and the Doctor isn’t human, and there is a sense of wrongness. But, he has lived on Earth for over 100 years. In that time he had more memories and experiences than any human alive. After a while, this entire thing of “I don’t know who I am” should start wearing a bit thin, don’t you think?

This rant aside, the book is a bit play by numbers. A lot of unnecessary runaround, traveling from London to Brussels and back several times for no particular reason. A rather boring “aliens invading earth” plot that left me checked out for a vast majority of it. Nothing bad about it, but nothing stands out about the plot either. But, it did have several heartfelt emotional scenes - the long awaited reunion, seeing TARDIS interior again, the finale. They were fairly brief, and it’s a bit of a pity they weren’t savored for a bit longer, instead letting the plot get in the way, but the little that was there was nice. 7/10

43) EarthWorld - I was hoping to enjoy this book a bit more than I ended up, I usually am quite fond of Rayner’s works, but I guess it is one of her first books. It’s a bit monotone, landing on the side of quirky, whether it was suited for a scene or not. Also dwelling on the past quite a bit, invoking the imagery of Unearthly Child, War Games, Greatest Show in the Galaxy in a rapid succession, for no specific reason, and then dwelling for quite a long time on several previous novels in a not entirely organic way. Instead of using this as an opportunity so start afresh now that we’re finally back in the TARDIS, it feels like it is focused more than ever on recapping how they got here, especially as the previous novel offered a way out by letting Fitz forget most of the previous “ark”. There were a lot of lovely character moments - but some of it did feel overly gratuitous. Still, it’s a decent book, even if it doesn’t quite reach full marks 8/10.

44) Vanishing Point - Easily the best Steve Cole novel of the ones I’ve ever read and/or listened to. This is the fresh start to the team adventures that I was hoping for. The alien world is interesting, with great worldbuilding (which is actually kind of rare in the novels). A lot of exciting imagery. The characters are a joy to behold. Not just the trio, but the secondary characters too. The first half of the book is basically perfect. It... kind of fizzles out in the second half, never really delivering on its set up in an entirely satisfying way.

A big part of the difficulty of suspending disbelief, though, was Fitz’s leg. I twisted my ankle once. I could barely walk for several days afterwards (so it having happen at a beginning of a trip was Awful), it took months for it to fully heal, and even now it feels more wobbly than the other one. And a colleague of mine ended up getting a special boot, because she keeps twisting her ankle (always the same one). Fitz had twisted his ankle, and then he was shot in the leg. And he is running about mountains and waterfalls almost immediately. 8/10

45) Eater of Wasps - You have to give it to Baxendale, he has a very particular style. Everything described so masterfully you couldn’t help but imagining every single detail, like painting a picture before you. Even though a significant portion of it is body horror that is described exactly as lovingly as the British countryside. Never before has the title been this appropriate. Very careful in setting up the conflict and tension between the protagonists. 10/10

46) The Year of Intelligent Tigers - This story is just nice. Another one with incredible visuals and incredible feelings behind it, exuberant and overwhelming, like a hurricane. The ending is particularly strong. This is peak Eight - a force of nature, alien and unknowable, and yet, you can’t help but being swept off your feet. Stories like this one is exactly why he is the platonic ideal of who the Doctor should be.

Overall impressions so far: This was like a breath of fresh air. The “stuck on Earth all on his own” ark was not only beautifully executed, but it was also badly needed. The last time I was complaining that few novels actually did anything with Eight - he would react to the plot, but never really be affected by anything. And at the heart of it was the issue that the writers, through trial and error, did come to a consensus about who he should be, but rarely took time to actually get into his head - they started out somewhat flat-footedly, and then got swept up in other things. Here, though, they were forced to slow down and focus his undivided attention just on him, what makes him tick if you break him down to the barest essentials - so even after reuniting with the TARDIS and the companions, his portrayal is all the stronger as a result. Rather than merely reacting to the world at large, he is now an active participant.

The companions are great. There is nothing particularly special being given to Fitz to chew upon, but his presence is always welcome, especially with him being as mellow as he has been back in Autumn Mist. What is it about the Doctor that attracts so many companions with an acute case of praise kink, I wonder? Anji is also interesting, and I love seeing what’s being done with her. She slots in perfectly, delivering so sorely missed snark Compassion had in her pre-Shadow of Avalon outings, all the while having a rather unique relationship with the Doctor - acknowledging his eldritch horror moments, being one of the few who does stand up to him. Especially after the last couple of books, I’m curious to see where this goes and how it continues to build.

The books themselves are a significant step up to what was there before, which got pretty joyless for a short while, alternating between mediocre to awful. In this batch, tough? Sure, there are some weaker offerings, but even there there is at least one stand-out scene that makes the book. Even if the plot isn’t exactly the most revolutionary thing in the world, it is being made up with solid character work. Honestly, for any new readers I would recommend just starting with #37 Burning and going from there - at least so far.

[wearevillaneve]

I never saw this show exceeding past 5 seasons max. Jodie is taking advantage of her youth and whiteness/white privilege whether she likes to realize it or not. It’s not a shade or diss to her either honestly it is what it is. She knows she’s the 20 something pretty white actress from killing Eve & she wants to go into the film industry. Sandra is gorgeous & talented too but she’s older & Hollywood isn’t as kind & generous to older women especially POC women. I wanna see her in more films tho

But you’re not going to see Sandra Oh in more films.  You know that, right?

It’s not because she’s not good enough.  Sandra is a transcendent talent, but she has been cursed with the great misfortune by her parents.  They effed her up from the beginning.   They didn’t make her White.  Or a hot blond with more curves than the Pacific Coast Highway.   She checks none of the boxes of what a leading lady in Hollywood  

When you’re none of those things, you don’t get to play the lead in Oscar-bait films.  Nobody is paring Oh up with Ryan Reynolds, Ben Affleck or Matt Damon  or any other leading (White) man.   Nobody who is spending hundreds of millions on tentpole summer movies is going to give women who look like Oh opportunities to play those kind of gigs. 

Those gigs are reserved for other women.  Women who look like Jodie Comer. This is not debatable.  Sandra gets to play the “ethnic, but sassy” best friend of the White lead.  That’s her lane as far as Hollywood is concerned.   Asian women do not get to see their names above the title in  Hollywood, which could be why it took a British woman adapting a novella by a British writer of a British MI5 agent who obviously was White to cast as its star someone who was neither White or British. On Grey’s Anatomy, Oh became a star, but never was the star.   Ellen Pompeo was and is, as one might expect of the titular character of a show (with a notable exception I will address in a separate post).   Pompeo is considered one of the more progressive actresses in Hollywood with a Black husband, biracial kids and a $20 million annual salary, but even she is not inoculated from being occasionally clueless.

Speaking on a podcast, Pompeo said about Oh who left Grey’s in 2014,  "Sandra is a different kind of actor. … You never doubt whether Sandra Oh is gonna work again, right? She’ll work forever, right?  But for me, I had to think, 'Am I gonna work again? Or am I going to be so typecast?' ”

What. The. Entire.  FUCK.

If you ever needed evidence that TV BFF’s don’t know shit about each other away from the camera, this is Exhibit A.   Hooray for Ellen P. for getting paid and all that, but she simply sounds stupid when she says Oh is going to “work forever” when in fact she barely worked at all for four years after she hung up her scrubs.

For four years after she left Grey’s Anatomy, Sandra Oh waited. She waited for offers to come in, juicy scripts that could come alive in the hands of her Golden Globe–winning talent. Sure, she did acting work here and there; a lead turn in the indie Catfight, a cheeky supporting role in the comedy Tammy, an arc in the drama series American Crime, a few plays. But there was nothing on the scale of Cristina Yang, the sarcastic surgeon she played on Grey’s for nearly a decade—a standout performance that turned the Korean-Canadian actress into a household name, and earned her five Emmy nominations in a row. The lack of certain offers was, Oh says, heartbreaking at the time.

These days, though, the deeply pragmatic actress says she’s letting go of expectations: “That’s where I’m at. I can talk about the things that didn’t come my way that I think should come my way, but it’s just like—it’s a fuckin’ waste of time.” Besides, her four-year waiting spell eventually led to Killing Eve, a BBC America thriller premiering Sunday about a bored MI5 operative named Eve Polastri—played by Oh—who becomes obsessed with hunting down a psychotic assassin named Villanelle.

I have not worked with, nor have I ever met Ms. Oh, and I certainly do not earn anything close to $20 million a year, but if my broke Black ass knows that Sandra was indeed concerned she might not work again in the industry, what’s Pompeo’s bullshit excuse (That was a rhetorical question.  There is no excuse)?

I am confused by what you mean by Jodie taking advantage of her youth and Whiteness/White Privilege.  What is she supposed to do?   Pass on film roles and say, “I don’t believe I should take these jobs until there is equity in opportunity for women who don’t look like me.”

Comer will never say that.  Nor should she be expected to.   It’s not her responsibility, nor is it within her power to be such a change agent.   She’s a working actress with a window of opportunity, and while better off financially than 99.9 percent of her fans,  has not made so much money as to be financially set for life. Between Jodie C. and Sandra O. who’s more likely to join Ellen P. in the $20 million a year club? 

Benefiting from being born White isn’t an original sin conceived by Comer.  It predates her.  Today, she may be aware the pie isn’t sliced evenly between herself and Oh, but it wasn’t for Rebel Wilson either because of how she is viewed by the world.  

Consider how Wilson’s 2020 ‘Year of Health” weight loss affects her personal wellness (likely an improvement), but may impact her career opportunities and probably drastically change them when she’s no longer “Fat Amy” and instead “Fun-Sized Amy.” Sandra knows this game.  She was not being prescient when she mused, “A lot of things that I can't get into the room for, even just to be seen, is because they're just saying 'No. they're not casting non-white.' You're lumped into a category with people who are just not white.”    She was merely being accurate. Jodie does not get lumped into those categories.  Looking the way she does means more that how she acts, which is not shading her skills as much as it is recognizing her baked-in advantages.   She’s paid her dues and had her setbacks and disappointments, but it would be silly to ever suggest she’s had as tough a time with a Scouse accent as someone else has with a Korean heritage. 

Nothing could be further from the truth to suggest anyone is dumping on J.C. for being young, blonde and pretty or trivializing her life struggles, but her blues ain’t the same as Sandra’s and never will be. Those future movie roles you are hoping for may happen for Sandra.  They could happen.   They should happen.  Will they happen?

No.   No, they will not.    Talent is not enough because all the talent in the world has ever been enough to make this mean and discriminatory world a meritocracy.     Never has in the past and it doesn’t seem about to change anytime soon in the future.  Now you know what Sandra already does.   

[gabriel4sam]

Stolen moments, a Mon Mothma/Obi-Wan Kenobi story

Written for @swrarepairs  for @wrennette and betaed by @legobiwan

Mon Mothma is hiding with her Jedi protector. Despite that beginning, this isn’t a story about murder attempts.

The Chancellor of the Republic was hiding in her bedroom with her Jedi bodyguard.

It read like the beginning of a holonovel, a political thriller, perhaps , with one or two mysterious dead bodies- a Rhodian mogul and too many almost-naked Twi’lek ladies.

Like  most political holonovel thrillers.

Or perhaps it could be the beginning of a murder mystery,like Snorr Syrilax's popular 'Death in the Hyperlane' Series. Judicial would be crawling around her apartment, trying to find clues about the gruesome murders- if this had been that sort of story. There also would have been too many almost-naked Twi’lek ladies, because holonovel writers had a tendency to think that exposed flesh could substitute itself for good writing.

Despite that beginning, this wasn’t that sort of story.

Mon Mothma, freshly elected Chancellor of the Republic, felt instead like she was in some sort of comedy holodrama, the sort with a catchy tune, one billion episodes, and a disjointed plot where the characters revealed themselves to be long-lost siblings (only to discover their also long-lost father figure, who returned in dramatic fashion to save the family farm, ship, space station, or whatever was en vogue at the time).

She felt ridiculous, yet she wouldn’t have moved from their hiding spot in her bedroom for anything in the world. Here she was, the Chancellor of the Republic, the most powerful person in hundreds of systems, and her Jedi bodyguard, a member of the revered Jedi Council, hiding from her two clones bodyguards for fear of interrupting them!

“We should say we’re here,” Obi-Wan Kenobi, her Jedi bodyguard for the day, whispered against her ear, so low she struggled to understand the words. In the dark of the room, she could feel his breath against her skin every time he spoke, causing long shivers down her spine.

She grabbed his hand, like she wanted to stop him from interrupting the conversation in the other room, the conversation they were eavesdropping on despite themselves. From their position, they couldn’t understand the words. Only a murmur  reached them, and if they interrupted the two men, perhaps the discussion would never be restarted. Mon Mothma had been waiting for them to clean up their acts regarding this particular subject for months, since she had come to know them enough to understand what exactly was happening.

“If you even think of letting them know we’re here, I’m sending you to the furthest Salt Mines I can find!” she whispered fiercely in turn.

“You abolished the law giving you that sort of power yourself, three months ago,” he retorted

Mon Mothma snorted, in a very unlady-like manner. “I’ll find a way,” she half-laughed as Obi-wan buried his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing.

Mon Mothma smiled at his reaction.

“I’ve spent months enduring their endless pining, their misunderstandings. Months waiting for the day when one of them would say something, something about the love they so obviously share, instead seeing them muddle into every direction except the proper one! Not to mention that liaison with the Mon Calamari envoy-.”

“Don’t talk to me about it,” Obi-Wan said. “I had whiplash from the second-hand jealousy seeping into the Force  every time I was less than twenty meters from them.”

Mon Mothma had a decided smile. She hadn’t become Chancellor by lacking stubbornness “-So, I’m ready to stay here until they solve this tension between them for good, one way or another.”

In her living room, the shouting had started again.

“I’m sending them for remedial training,” Obi-Wan said suddenly.

This time, Mon turned to him in surprise “Why? They’re efficient, I think. From what I know of the duties of a  bodyguard, at least from the other side of the fence. Don’t the results speak for themselves? They have been on protection detail since I announced I would run for Chancellor. I ran, I won, and I’m still there, aren’t I? The Order can offer a bodyguard only for an official event, but the rest of the time, my safety relies on them.”

“We’re half an hour past the moment where you were supposed to come back to your apartment,” Obi-Wan explained. “They should already have tried to contact us. And they definitely should have verified all the rooms of the apartment when they arrived, instead of sniping and shouting at each other.”

“But, then, they would have found us,” Mon retorted, not clarifying why that would have been bad, either because the other two in her living room wouldn’t have had the conversation they deeply needed, or because she wouldn’t have been there, alone with Obi-Wan.

Since the death of Palpatine and the renewal of the Republic, she had seen a lot of Obi-Wan. Many of those moments with that particular Jedi had been full of unsaid things, unexplained, and unclarified. Mon Mothma wasn’t ready for words and she understood it was even more complicated for him.

To set sights on a Jedi was stupid. Not as stupid as it had been before- before the war and everything which had been shaken loose by the conflict. Even now, Padme Amidala’s career would never recover from loving Anakin Skywalker, and neither would Skywalker’s place in the Order. Even if it had been the lie, not the marriage, which had lost them their respective careers, and even if, in this strange, new post-war world where everything seemed possible, a few Jedi had publicly found love... The Chancellor and a Jedi?

In the other room, a suspicious silence fell, followed by a strange noise, like a body in full armour falling against a flat unforgiving surface.

Mon and Obi-Wan looked at each other, pink on their cheeks.

“Are they…”

“Oh no, they wouldn’t? In my living room? When I’m supposed to arrive?”

“Not sure they remember other people exist,” Obi-Wan admitted, creeping, silent as a Jedi could be to the door. He waited another second, and then, not hearing anything else, risked a glance, immediately receiving an eyeful. Apparently, Boil and Waxer had resolved their quarrel for the moment and one of them - Obi-Wan couldn’t see which - had the other pinned against the wall, kissing like their lives depended on it. As Obi-Wan debated if this was really good moment to speak, the first piece of armour fell to the ground, and he beat a hasty retreat.

A few assassins, a Nightsister, or even a Sith - they would have been better than the sensation of encroaching on this private moment. He was pretty sure those two idiots were about to have their first time, right here, right now, in Mon Mothma’s living room, when the Chancellor was supposed there.

“So much remedial training,” Obi-Wan grumbled, cheeks flushing.

“What do we do?” Mon asked when he turned back to her eyeing her clothes. Thank the Force, Chandrila, her home planet, had more common sense in terms of dressing up their politicians than Naboo with their meters and meters of brocade and headdresses weighty enough to test the neck of their wearer.

“Do you have a cape?” he asked, and when she had hidden the luminous white of her dress inside the folds of a grey cape, he opened the window and helped her step out on the balcony near a decorative caryatid sculpted with flowing robes similar to those draped around the Chancellor’s thin form. From the other room, the so-called conversation devolved into noises better left unheard for unintentional eavesdroppers .

“Are we supposed to spend the next hour hiding here?” she asked skeptically. “Yes, we can’t hear those two anymore, but before long, someone will call the holonews about the Chancellor alone on her balcony with a dashing Jedi.”

Obi-Wan snaked a firm arm around her waist and promised, “We won’t fall.” And then he jumped, still holding the Chancellor, and she would have yelled in terror, if not for the chance she might distract the Jedi. The air rushed around them as they moved in a manner contradicting every law of physics. He knew what he was doing, of course, and only a handful of seconds later, they were safely on the sidewalk, three buildings north and twenty stories down. She didn’t know if she wanted to slap him or take him in her arms and laugh. The rush of adrenaline was making her tremble. Around them, people paid them no heed, not even slowing in their walk. On Coruscant, nothing surprised anyone anymore.

“Mon?” Obi-Wan asked, and she saw in his eyes he feared to have overstepped in a moment of boldness.

“A little more warning, next time,” she replied. “Or I will slap you.”

“Politicians grow more ferocious every day”.

“Good politicians don’t jump from their bedroom window with a Jedi,” Mon laughed, and she pushed up her cowl to hide her well-known face the best she could. She felt alive, sparks dancing across her nerves. She loved her job, she understood her duty, but there was something exhilarating in the transgression of this moment.

“Come,” she ordered. “If I have a few hours of respite and anonymity, I want to make the most of it.”

“To be honest, I thought I would take you to the Senate.”

“And suddenly you’re lacking an adventurous spirit?” Mon retorted, taking his hand in a moment of courage, pulling him along.

“I had quite enough adventures during the war,” he protested, following Mon Mothma as she took them in the opposite direction of the Senate, intoxicating herself in the freedom of the crowds. Obi-Wan had pushed his own cowl over his head and in that moment, nobody knew who they were, the Chancellor and her bodyguard, now only two beings, free of duty, lost in the sea of sentients that was Coruscant. Mon Mothma laughed, then ran, keeping Obi-wan's hand in hers as the Jedi easily matched her pace, soon coming to her side. When she stumbled on a broken piece of sidewalk, Obi-Wan’s protective arm saved her from a fall, and without really understanding how it happened, they found themselves huddled against a closed repair shop. He cradled the back of her neck and finally, finally , after almost six months desiring that moment, his lips were on hers.

Coruscant, uncaring as ever, passed them by, not realizing the scoop that could be sold to the holonews, as the two humans kissed again and again.

It was the high-pitched horn in the closest lane of speeders that stopped them. They exchanged two shy smiles without a word, and then Obi-Wan took her hand again as they lost themselves in the crowd a second time. He guided her round the capital planet, Mon remembering when she had been an aide, then a junior politician- when she could make the most of the most exciting city in the Republic without a whole security detail.

Without talking about it, they avoided  public transport, simply walking, hand in hand, as Mon gorged herself on the colours and smells and people. After nearly an  hour, they arrived at a small diner with a broken neon sign and a creaking door, where Obi-Wan asked the Basilik cook for a discreet booth and two of his specials of the day.

Here, hidden by the tall booths, Mon dared to put down her cowl.

The special was too sugary and the caf stronger that she liked, but outside, night was falling, and in this grimy dinner, in their little bubble, the moment was perfect. She never wanted to leave, or at least, she wanted to pretend the night could be eternal and that a very irate Commander Cody, in charge of Coruscant security and technically Obi-Wan’s boss, wouldn’t come through the door in the next hour with a tale about Boil and Waxer’s panic and a sarcastic eyebrow that could make a stubborn Jedi and politician fall in line.

She took Obi-Wan’s hand again and he smiled, putting a  kiss on her fingers.

It was only stolen time, but whatever would happen, it was a perfect moment.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream - Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

Star Wars is a franchise very near and dear to my heart. I’ve grown up watching the films and have fond memories of each of them, in particular Revenge of the Sith, which I got to see in theaters with my father. It’s a series that has introduced me to great characters, great actors, great ways to tell stories, and if nothing else the movies were always fun. I never saw a Star Wars movie I couldn’t enjoy on some level.

That all changed with this movie.

The Rise of Skywalker is a wet fart of a finale. It is a mess, it is underwhelming, it is disrespectful to the previous two films, and worst of all it’s bland. But hyperbole aside, this movie isn’t a complete and utter waste; it’s certainly not the worst film of all time or anything, or even the worst Star Wars movie. It’s just a sad case of a mixed bag where the bag skews more to the bad side than the good side.

Let’s go over what I actually did enjoy first. Obviously, the score was fantastic, but I think this goes without saying; John Williams has never once screwed around, so why would he stop now? His music honestly does a lot of the heavy lifting emotion-wise, as scenes such as the supposed trinity of this trilogy’s reunion at the end would not have any sort of impact otherwise. Then we have stuff like the practical effects, which is both a blessing and a curse as they seem to be a sort of dancing bear for this trilogy. As great and lively as they make the worlds, they shouldn’t be what gets focus over story and character development… but hey, Babu Frik is great.

Speaking of characters, there are a few who were handled very well in this film. In terms of comedy, there is C-3PO and Palpatine. C-3PO is just a genuine riot here, and almost every goofy little joke he cracked gave me a genuine chuckle. He’s really at his best here. Palpatine on the other hand is just a character who is so inherently hilarious that it is physically impossible to be mad at him. Like, he’s an evil zombie wizard who spends half the film insulting Kylo Ren and then the other half cackling and shooting lightning in his big arena full of hooded weirdos while strapped to a big dialysis machine and wearing a sparkling red vest under his robe. Sheev Palpatine is pretty much the greatest character in human history, and while his role in this film is so stupid, shoehorned, and underbaked, you cannot help but crack a grin at the sheer lunacy good ol’ Sheev brings to the table. The sheer revelation that this man actually, canonically had more sex than Kylo Ren is enough to send a man into a fit of giggles.

In terms of actual character, Rey gets a solid arc marred by some incredibly poor writing choices, but overall stays solid throughout. Her interactions with Kylo Ren especially solidify her as an interesting and engaging character, and honestly the whole reveal that she’s a Palpatine is intriguing and could have added depth to her… but they managed to bungle it. And it’s an easy fix too; early on, there’s a scene where she and Kylo are playing tug-of-war with a transporter that is holding an iconic character. Rey accidentally unleashes Palpatine lightning and blows it up, seemingly killing the character inside… only for the character to inexplicably be alive two scenes later. Now, if Rey had actually killed said character by accident and spent the rest of the film struggling with her nature, it would make her ultimate showdown and rejection of Grandpa Sheev’s ideology all the more sweeter and satisfying. A moment at the end would have likewise been improved if she had simply not chosen to rename herself and instead chose to just simply be “Rey,” but gotta have that sweet, sweet branding! Still, I think Rey is remarkably done here, though not nearly as good as she was in The Last Jedi.

But the real MVP here is definitely Adam Driver as Kylo Ren. I’m just gonna say it: this guy carries the film. He has had the most remarkably consistent character arc in this new trilogy, and that concludes just as well here, though sadly in the most obvious way: with a redemption. However, it comes not from Rey, as desperate shippers had hoped, but from his parents – Leia and Han both play a part in ensuring their son’s redemption. And when he’s redeemed, the way Driver is able to convey the character of Ben Solo with just his face and body language is incredible enough to make the redeemed man feel like a totally different character than when he was Kylo Ren, and all of this is without speaking. Driver deserves every ounce of praise he gets for these films, and while I feel his arc would have been far more satisfying if it wasn’t a carbon copy of Anakin’s arc, it’s a testament to Driver’s skill that he managed to sell me such a cliché turn of events and made it work.

This is where my kindness dries up, however, as the rest of this is going to be pretty negative. The story here is just an incoherent mess; it honestly feels like an entire trilogy crammed into one film, a film divorced entirely from the other two films. The big problem with this trilogy is how there is so little cohesion between films that each film feels like a soft reset, and nowhere is that more clear than here. It doesn’t help that this film decides to cram in a bunch of stupid backspaces to everything from The Last Jedi, the most awkward and egregious being how they write off the “Holdo Maneuver” as a one in a million shot at success despite the fact that using the far more obvious “using the rebels as suicide bombers is a bit morally iffy and such a move should not be used unless we’re totally desperate” explanation would have sufficed. It honestly feels like the writers were chickening out a lot of the time and decided to try and distract us from their yellow-bellied attempts at ignoring the previous film by slapping us in the face with tons of fanservice. Sometimes it works – the voices of all the fallen Jedi in the final act was an awesome touch (I hear you Qui-Gon, Windu, and Ahsoka!) - but most of them time it is just painfully on-the-nose and groan worthy, such as when Chewbacca gets his medal. The worst offender here is Lando, who is so carelessly tossed into this mess of a plot that it feels really disrespectful to Billy Dee Williams.

Speaking of screwing over characters though, no one got it worse than Finn, Poe, and Rose. With Rose, it’s frankly just insulting they didn’t even try. It would have been so easy to redeem Rose in the eyes of the fans that didn’t like her character in The Last Jedi; if The Clone Wars can make Jar Jar a likable character, then I’m pretty sure a big budget Hollywood blockbuster can fix the issues of a poorly written character in its sequel. Instead though, this film takes the coward’s route and relegates Rose to a role less important to the plot than Babu Frik, who despite his integral role is only in one single scene. Poe is just handled as nonsensically as ever, given really dumb jokes and a forced and unneeded backstory as a spice smuggler, complete with an implied female love interest in an attempt to try and convince us the character is heterosexual.

But Finn gets it worst of all. Not only does he get a forced implied love interest (who is black, because we can’t have miscegenation in our big blockbuster films!), but he just in general gets shafted so hard. Finn being shafted has been a running theme with this trilogy. The first film set him up to be an integral, important main character, one who would even become the main character…. And then he slowly faded from relevance as the writers put him in increasingly bad plotlines, culminating with the slap in the face this movie gives us by implying but not outright stating that Finn can use the Force. There were so many interesting ways they could take Finn’s arc and they chose the route that is, quite frankly, the absolute worst. The fact that Finn got totally shafted in such a way despite being a fan favorite is all the more baffling and honestly has me wondering what the suits at Disney were thinking. If they weren’t actually minimizing a character as beloved as Finn was after The Force Awakens out of racism, what were they even trying to do? John Boyega has a right to be as angry as he is.

There’s other stuff that’s obnoxious. Leia’s scenes are all terrible and poorly executed, which comes off as really disrespectful to Carrie Fisher; the romance in this film which, as mentioned above, is totally forced, but special mention goes to the Ben/Rey kiss at the end, which while not some life-ending travesty is so utterly out of nowhere due to the lack of romantic chemistry between the two in any of these films that it’s laughable; the editing is so incoherent and terrible in places that it feels like it was done by someone on a mixture of crack and Red Bull; the complete waste that is Hux and his childish reasoning for betraying the First Order, completing the character’s change from a terrifying Nazi allegory to a complete and utter joke; the fact that the new First Order general who takes center stage gets so little development despite being a great throwback to Grand Moff Tarkin and a genuinely amazing character otherwise, with a fascinating history with Palpatine that is never explored and no meaningful interactions with the heroes; the complete and utter unexplained nature of Palpatine’s return; and just how painfully unfunny a lot of the humor in this film is. This movie just has so many problems, so many flaws, and it ends on such a completely limp and unsatisfying note that it’s honestly kind of sad.

This film… I don’t know about this film. It’s definitely not the worst Star Wars film, because it at least has some genuinely good bits to it, unlike Attack of the Clones which I can only really justify liking ironically. But that being said, this film is just so unsatisfying, and what’s more, it’s not very memorable. Not much will stick with you with this one, and if it does, it might be more of the bad things rather than the good ones, which is a shame, because I do think there’s some good stuff buried under the garbage here, but I don’t know if it’s worth sitting through this film to find. This is not the worst thing ever, I really can’t stress that enough… but it’s just not fun, engaging, or anything that will really make you feel anything meaningful, and sometimes that’s just worse.

Ultimately, this film has an incredibly uncertain audience. It’s wrapping up a trilogy in one of the biggest franchises on earth with a plotline that tries to pander to fans in a way that feels gross and condescending, leaving the film feeling like it was made for absolutely no one. If you like this, that’s fine; Star Wars is a franchise that has greatness ingrained in its DNA, to the point where I can’t say any of the films are really among the worst I’ve ever seen. But I think generally this is not going to be a film worth watching, and certainly one to skip in any future marathons of the franchise. It really is a shame… this trilogy if nothing else was full of potential to be a new take on Star Wars for a new generation. Instead, it ended up as a confusing, corporate mess. 

[saraa-lancee]

So what issues would you like them to tackle that hasn’t already been done on the show before?

(I just want to say this is my first ask ever and I've been here since... God maybe 2013? So thank you!!)

I would LOVE to see a new dimension to sexuality. I'm also casually of the team that's "Sara herself should say Bisexual" because Bisexual has only been said once on screen and Nate said it casually.. We have a scene where Sara says tells Nurse Lindsay that Lesbian isn't a bad word yet the show kinda doesn't act that way about Bi. Bi erasure is an issue that would be interesting-- since Sara is with Ava, it would be neat to have some line of "i didn't pick a team" or just along the lines of Still Bi With A Woman.

(They also missed an opertunity with Charlie to use neutral pronouns of some kind)--> a discussion further on gender identity would be cool too. There are casual set ups for this with Charlie, like in the Shakespeare episode, but nothing is ever really taken completely seriously or honestly even explicitly. I would really enjoy a nonbinary or intersex narrative in this particular context because I feel like the team of legends (as the people the characters are) would fit really nicely with that. But it would be cool to have a trans character that Gideon helps? Because the arrowverse trans character (in Supergirl-- Nia) is already transitioned. It would be cool to have a transitioning characer in a really casual way even (a particular scenario would be New Character leaving sickbey while someone else walks in. Other person asked if New is feeling OK and New just says like "oh yeah, just my hormones.). But yeah anything with gender identity.

I always hunger for more disability stories, but based on how they Wrote Sara's blindness... yikes. I remember watching a panel or something on YouTube about how Caity was hoping that Sara was at least going to have a cane or be shown to struggle with some stuff, but the writers ignored all of that. So its kind of touchy based on that but I think it would be really neat to have someone with a prosthetic (or even just an amputation, someone born without a limb, etc.)-- it would be a beautiful narrative about 'Gideon can literally grow you a new arm' and that character firmly saying no, this is me, having this difference doesn't make me less, you aren't "fixing" me because I'm not broken, I like myself, etc, whatever.

I know that for me personally one of the best things about the show is that Sara and Ava don't have to come out, and everyone just treats them like normal, but I think some kind of homophobia narrative would be good, not to a big extent but just to the extent like in S1 when Kendra and Ray move in 1950s and that dynamic only with the girls. Like, for the show to acknowledge homophobia in such a direct way, as they did with interracial relationships. This beyond the obvious homophobia of the Nazis. (I personally can't think of an aspect where its implied, but sometimes I can miss or misinterpret implicated stuff like that).

I would love to see a return to POC cultures and narratives (narratives outside of racism) S1 with Kendra and Carter and the Egyptian culture aspect, Amaya and Zambesi aspect. We see a tad bit of this with Zari and the bollywood scene, and Japan post WW2, but they are more side aspects now. It would be neat to go to India or other places in southeast Asia (culturally), or Central/South America. Overall, I would just like to see more of that cultural aspect because human culture is something that interests me a lot and I feel like can be easily casually thrown in with time travel--- traditional clothes, buildings, and ideals (an example of the ideals is the discussion in feudal Japan about the cultures views on death).

I feel like there was a lot of potential with Hank and Sara to continue that discussion about women in power. Yes, we have discussed this before. We do it a lot in second season with the JSA and even Jonah Hex but I think Hank had a lot of potential to add a dimension to that discussion. (honestly see next paragraph for more). That whole episode with the Minotaur i would have loved if they'd been a bit more explicit with that-- yes, obviously a woman can be in charge (in Hanks mind) but he has the right to walk in there and take over because her experience doesn't matter and also we will do whatever he wants. Sara spends almost the whole time just rolling her eyes and bitting her tongue besides a light quip in the beginning asking if a girls ever punched him. in the past Sara has literally exerted dominance over men so I was just kind of disappointed with that dynamic. I love the character of Sara as an "unconventional woman" or a "strange friend" and I've noticed comments like that pretty much stopped after the 3rd season. I know some people hated those comments but I think they can be good. I enjoyed them and would like to see them again because it's literally just Sara being unapologetically herself, a strong woman, doing whatever she does, no matter how weird or unconventional it is. (Which is an integral part of Saras character to me)

BUT its also not necessarily "new" issues. Issues don't go away in real life-- we had multiple issues about Race in America with Jax, from different points in history (Slavery and the 1950s). Jax even mentions how he still experiences Rascism today. The issues don't go away and just because they are mentioned once doesn't mean they can't (and shouldn't) be examined from other points in history. IE just because the show has talked about it before doesn't mean we can't talk about it again from a different angle and/or perspective.

I see a lot of potential with Astra with the racism thing (people are nicer to me in literal Hell) but it also would have been interesting with Mona, to show a different type of racism would have been INCREDIBLE.

I also can think of maybe a scene or two that would have just been a nice touch with Zari (either one, but I have a soft spot for Zari 1.0, and I think with her life as an illegal Muslim would have been an enriching perspective) as a Muslim. They are very good to her character in the way that she obviously abstains from Liquor and Pork, and observes Ramadan. But one thing that would have been interesting is for Zari to experience early 2000s (or honesty still right now) xenophobia. Especially Z1 since being a Muslim is Illegal in 2045 there was a lot of emotional potential there. (Although I feel like I can understand why the writers didn't want to touch that because of current conflicts).

Since we're going to outer space (that was actually confirmed right? Or was it just hinted and I misread??), I think issues will have to be character driven rather than time period driven. But therin we have a lot of potential-- a race of aliens without distinct genders (wait, so your worth can be dictated based off of your genitals?? Plus sexuality stuff there), aliens confused about race (I don't understand some of your skins are different colors... and your people treat each other differently based on this?). We could introduce a matriarchal society, which the crew with Captain Lance feel particularly unphased by. Perhaps we have a completely pacifist society or aliens made of inorganic materials (debates about what constitutes as alive, what lives are meaningful, etc.) You get the idea(I adore star trek so you can imagine my glee thinking about some of those scenarios).

I think for me, the hard shift to comedy was at the expense of some of my favorite aspects of the show and also things that set it apart. This Found Family is so rewarding because they are all so so different but those differences enrich each other. They become better people and feel at home without having to change who they fundamentally are. And they are whoever they want to be. I feel like now the show has simply had an incredibly jarring tone shift thats trying too hard to be a comedy. (This one is just an opinion but a joke among all the serious is always just a lot more funny to me. I find myself laughing more at one liners and random stuff in the early seasons. Now it feels like 'ok, what's the next ridiculous thing.')

I think... humanity is pretty dark. But humanity also rises above. This is why I adore the episode from post WW2 Japan and to me it personally really stands out from other episodes in s4/s5. The idea of creating and destroying, pain and sadness locked inside, terror and hatred for the beings you share the planet with. That pain creates monsters. Sometimes by accident. (Sara's pain turned her into the version of herself she called a monster.). And also about embracing your passions (Mick hiding his writing). In that episode, we still have jokes about Godzilla. Garima appears and its hilarious. But it's also an incredibly powerful narrative about pain and fear and shame and gives a perspective that the western audience wouldnt... necessarily think about (the actual consequences and what the bomb actually literally did.).

That darkness makes the light so much more meaningful. If everything becomes light... than why are we still fighting?

Sorry if this is jumbled, I'm on mobile so.

Also, sorry if this is a rant or whatever. I am very passionate about this topic and oh boy if I was on a computer and had the time I'd probably repondd with a link to a doc.

[ghostmartyr]

Avengers: Endgame Thoughts

SPOILERS, obviously.

So I figure I’ll babble enough to keep all the genuinely spoilery content under an appropriately timed cut. Even though everything after this statement is full of expectation spoilers. The few key things that I can think about to mention are that I really appreciated the movie and enjoyed the highs and teared up aplenty.

Also that I think this is going to be a primarily negative post. Whoops.

Not because I think it’s awful. I want to emphasize that I don’t think it is awful, because I am very worried that I’m going to forget to say that.

There’s a base level of quality you can sort of expect from MCU movies, so I don’t generally feel the need to move beyond the role of passive audience member for them. Then Infinity War really impressed me, and I couldn’t wait to see how everything was going to wrap up when they really left the movie there, so my investment level piqued.

As a result, there are more thoughts than usual. About a movie I really did find to be of high quality, and probably would see again happily if planning to sit still for another three hours didn’t make me twitchy.

I liked the movie.

There are just some character decisions and plot mechanics and overall writing decisions that... really?

First thing that I don’t have much to say about but can’t rationalize having a complaint post with no mention of: Thor and Hulk.

People in charge of the movie, you had no problem including Captain Marvel when you had no earthly clue what to actually do with her. Her smile warmed my heart in every scene she graced, and while I was criminally disappointed she was not more involved, none of the material she was given made me feel like the people writing her didn’t care about her.

...

Actually, now that I think about it, this should not have just a Thor and Hulk complaint section. Like that was the idea, because I didn’t have much, because I don’t care (slightly different than the writers’ level of don’t care), but the whole...

...

Oy.

Here, once for flavor, with the knowledge that I’ll get back to it and repeatedly whine about it this whole post.

I find the fucking time skip wanting in too many ways for me to really forgive the film for.

Anyway, Thor and Hulk.

In short, no.

In less short, what are you doing.

Hulk I don’t have a serious gripe with, except my main complaint about Infinity War was how Banner (I should probably change how I name him based on which character I’m talking about, but I really just mean the entity represented by a particular actor so I can’t care that much) got used up as comedy relief. You can have comedic moments and characters. If you have transformed your character into a comedic moment, you’ve fucked up.

(See Thor in too much of this movie.)

But one of the interesting parts of Hulk’s general arc in the MCU was how Banner and Hulk were starting to negotiate for their place in their body.

Cue Endgame, cue time skip, cue completely glossing over how they make their peace with each other.

Avengers franchise, why?

I am not attached to Hulk or Banner or any of that section of the plot, honestly, but the potential of that entire element is shot and left for dead in the water. Then the floating corpse gets up and starts walking around as part of a cog of the story.

Hulk’s most interesting plot point basically happened in another movie that doesn’t now, and probably won’t ever, exist, and considering what Infinity War put the guy through as a character, my writing senses are hurt and sad all over.

Then there’s Thor.

I think he might fit into the whole thing I will soon get into about character resolutions that hit the right emotional keys solidly enough that you forget they’re playing the wrong song.

Mostly he picks up the “hole” (wrongly perceived as something that needs to be filled) left by Hulk leaving the walking gag scene party. Drinking himself into oblivion and disregarding self-care in the aftermath of an immense trauma is one of the film’s chosen humor mainstays.

My impression is that I’m the only person in my tight corner of the internet who doesn’t really like Ragnarok because its silliness felt like it was trying too hard. It’s my favorite of the Thor movies, but a bunch of the humor didn’t feel natural to me. Better than Infinity War’s handling of Hulk, and better than Endgame’s handling of Thor, just not my favorite tone.

Endgame sort of takes that element, jacks it away from its surrounding strengths, and rolls out a keg for it to drown in.

When the movie remembers to empathize with Thor instead of mocking him, there are some great moments. But he draws one of the shortest straws of the movie.

And the character resolution is...

Good fuck this is why I had to say I liked the movie. Because when I actually sit down and think about my problems with it, the rest of my brain just lounges to the side in horror, wondering what could possibly have been entertaining if such elements were included.

The very beginnings of my problems with the movie is that they kill Thanos.

I think he’s dead ten minutes in.

Then they skip five years.

Five years.

Ooooh my everything.

Okay so like, you know how you start reading something, or watching something, and your head immediately takes note that oh, this must be a dream sequence. The couple in a romance is suddenly way too hot and steamy for where the story has them in their development, a random bomb goes off, the guy who destroyed half of all life in the universe because no one can stop him in the last movie is killed in the first ten minutes of the next--

There’s like.

A rhythm. There’s a rhythm to how stories work.

When that rhythm is disrupted, the audience is left with a tangible feeling of wtf. Either that feeling enhances the other quality stuff going on, or it enhances the other Quality stuff going on, if you catch my drift.

You step into a vacuum.

It’s great for recreating that sense of absence. The world is irrevocably changed. It’s emptier. The heroes are broken. Their revenge doesn’t fix anything. They just. continue to exist, with losses they aren’t equipped to handle.

FIVE YEARS OF IT.

I have probably a longer list of things I want stories involving time travel not to do than is perhaps healthy. But maybe stories involving time travel should keep their act together better or I don’t know.

Bad Future ends are not something I appreciate, because often, they go grimdark just because they can, because they know it’s not the final future, so anything goes. You don’t have to treat it like any reality that matters, because it isn’t permanent.

This story... I would say it toes the line there, but in ways that grate on me thoroughly enough that it presses all the same buttons.

Thanos can die in the first ten minutes, and it doesn’t matter. We know it doesn’t matter, because it happens in the first ten minutes. ...Maybe twenty, to be safe. It’s early. But you have this villain who’s built up to a ridiculous degree, bizarrely succeeds in living up to his own hype, then you kill him off so that a younger version of himself gets top billing in the final battle.

Why?

I get why as far as the story is designed, but at some point in the process, this story is designed by humans. Humans who could have stopped and asked themselves if they were really telling the best version of this story they possibly could.

Thanos is defeated while his blight remains. I love saying that. I love that I can describe a story with those words.

But the initial defeat is so unsatisfying and bereft of life. All the energy of him as an external force for our heroes to unite against is bled out early, and to get it back, they really do just ship in a younger model.

Which does make sense. Younger Thanos’ motives are fine and reasonable. Just, as far as the plot design, the whole presentation of the movie’s setting feels like a dream sequence. It feels, very early on, like this will never be allowed to be forever.

Then that feeling lasts for five years.

Getting into the time travel thing.

Time travel is really hard to get right in stories. You want to change something, but the people doing the changing are products of what they’ve lived through. How do you honor that while still fixing the unspeakable evil that happened? How do you change the world while keeping the threads that made us care alive and relevant?

One thing I very much like is that Tony fights to keep what he’s gained alive. Good. The volcanic soil grew him something irreplaceable, and it’s perfectly reasonable for him to want to hold on to that, and I’m glad he does.

But then you have the other half of the story, where no one is able to move on.

My preference for time travel correcting things is for characters to either be trying to change their own future that they have yet to live through, or for them to trying to fix something that is so recent the characters are still wrangling with it as a piece of their present. I have more than a touch of “humans should not mess with these things they don’t know what they’re doing,” past a certain point.

In case it weren’t obvious, five years is pretty far past that point for me. It hits this awful uncanny valley sweet spot of people wanting to change a reality that never should have been vs. people who are willing to fuck up the world because they can’t let go.

I like superheros. I like correcting injustices. Save all the people. I like people fighting tooth and nail to fix things set in stone because these are their people, dammit.

I also hate seeing people so stuck in the past they refuse to make a future.

This movie screams both of those elements so loudly that it’s hard for me to really piece out how I feel about the story in its entirety.

I like that they don’t simply hit an undo button, and do bring everyone back in a way that lets the future that has already happened continue.

But then there’s Steve and Nat and just... fuck, dude.

Gun to my head, I’m a happy person. If everyone could be alive at the end, that would be my preference, I don’t care if it’s cheesy. But you have the choice between Hawkeye and Black Widow. The man who’s lost his family, and the woman who’s lost purpose.

Or something. I don’t do MCU meta.

The sense I get from watching is that Natasha feels like her life works better as a sacrifice. If they succeed, she doesn’t have children and a wife waiting at home. So clearly it makes sense for her to be the one to die. Her road ends to bring back the happiness of others.

Which...

I don’t know how to articulate my problem with this without moving on to Steve first.

So let’s do that.

Steve.

Steve, whose story ends with him going back in time and staying there.

Forget about how the story criticizes every movie that does time travel better than it. Forget about all the levels of not caring went into designing the time travel elements. If possible.

I do not like how Steve’s story is essentially about how there’s only one time and place for him to experience a fulfilling life.

It is the nature of writing stories that we want to encapsulate things. The perfect moment. The perfect set of emotions. The perfect time. Everything falls into place, and that’s how we want it. We’ll never get it better than that. Keep retreading that dead horse, because it was so good.

Steve and Peggy are beautiful together.

What I hate about them ending up together is that... there’s this obvious, painful belief that the world of the future doesn’t have anything left for Steve. Bucky’s there. Sam’s there. Billions of people have just found there way back. Steve’s lived in this century for years.

Reclaiming the past is more important than building a future.

Even though the story’s driving plot is about keeping their past maintained so they can have this future. Or something.

Steve doesn’t have a future. Natasha doesn’t have a future. So the story removes them from it, and calls that a clean, happy (if bittersweet) ending. They’re pieces that don’t work in this world. Their chances are gone. They can live in the past or die.

I hate that. I’m a sap who will read a million stories about someone having a single true love they can’t be without and no one else could ever compare and blah and blah and blah, but that somehow feels different from watching a character’s life play out for years, and seeing them come to the conclusion that they can never belong in this place.

Building a new home never compared to the old one.

That’s depressing as fuck.

Thor gets a piece of this as well, becoming more of a knight errant than a king. After going to so much trouble to become his people’s king and just. Geez.

I don’t think that this is a thing the movie as a whole is really trying to encourage. I think the people working on it just had different visions for what would be cool as a sendoff and so on. Tony’s insistence that they don’t undo the five years they’ve had, and Nebula’s... everything--those aren’t elements of a story that says you can’t grow and find a new place. You don’t have to keep on repeating what you know and nothing else. You really don’t.

But that feels very twisted around for some of these characters’ personal journeys, and as happy as I am for Steve getting his dance with Peggy, the idea that this is a person whose true happiness could never be in the future...

That lingers in a way that I can’t like, and colors a lot of the other resolutions.

.

.

I really enjoyed the movie?

Yay?

Even though no one cared even a little at all even once except to attempt to drag other movies about time travel.

This movie’s time travel mechanics are terrible.

They’re just bad.

When you drop the titles of that many other things that have time travel.

And say this isn’t like that.

You should. you should hope. that your thing could at least make a convincing case for making more sense.

This does not succeed in that.

How could you watch enough of those movies to know they had time travel, yet fail to learn anything about how to write time travel. How. Why did you. why. Dragon Ball Z has more internally consistent time travel.

Three hours well spent. The hours on this, maybe less well.

[seriouslycromulent]

Hobbs & Shaw review (Yeah, this is going to be long)

The Preamble (feel free to skip)

I was on the fence about going to see the new Fast & Furious spinoff, Hobbs & Shaw. Why? Because I’m a legit fan of the F&F franchise, and I was none too happy about the fact that Vin Diesel invited Dwayne to be a part of the franchise as they were friends at the time, but Dwayne’s fans -- mostly denizens of The Rock who think he can do no wrong -- preceded to treat Vin like he was second fiddle to Dwayne ever since Fast Five. Dwayne, then over the course of 3 films, preceded to get the big(ger) head and show his ass on the set of the last film, and usurped Vin’s franchise right out from under him. 

What pissed me off more than that was the fact that after Dwayne and Vin got into it, the public not knowing any details or verification on what specifically happened on the set, decided to automatically take Dwayne’s side because ... “Hey! He’s the Rock and we like it when he plays characters that are only a slight variation on his persona when he wrestled full time in the WWE.”  There was no concern for right or wrong. No desire to ask both of these Alpha males to put their egos aside. No inclination to actually wait and learn about what really went down. No, the general public has since decided to brand Vin Diesel a joke with no acting skill or talent to speak of. 

Gone was Vin’s reputation as a scriptwriter, a producer and as a man who helped reinvent this franchise to turn it into something beyond simple street racing and a small found family making it happen in a hostile world. Honest Movie Trailers mocked Vin for taking the franchise seriously and actually putting time, love and effort into making sure each film had heart, not just great action scenes that defy the laws of physics and common sense. 

Dwayne has become a better actor than he was 15 years ago. I can name about 4 or 5 movies where his performance is pretty good. But Vin was always a good actor. Not great. But definitely stronger than he was given credit for once people started associating him with nothing but action films. On top of that, he was a writer and he knew how to create an environment that people of disparate personalities loved working together and being a part of the franchise. 

Flash forward to Hobbs & Shaw. There are no members of any of the F&F’s previous films in this movie. Tyrese called out Dwayne on social media for being selfish and greedy, because all of the other cast members were offered spinoffs too. But they turned them down because they wanted to work as a team. That’s how much the franchise means to them. Dwayne clearly had no sense of that loyalty, and obviously his biggest fans don’t have any expectations of him to have any either.

I’m still a fan of Dwayne Johnson, but not as much as I used to be, say 6 or 7 years ago. I still think he’s an immensely generous person when it comes to his fans, and he is a hell of an entertainer. But this situation involving Hobbs & Shaw, combined with some of his comments and behavior regarding sociopolitical events taking place in America over the last 5 years have reminded me that he is not without flaws, and should not be regarded as if he is above impunity. 

So Then What Happened?

Despite my misgivings about how the Hobbs & Shaw spinoff came about, I finally decided to go see it at the last minute for a few reasons:

I’ve had a particularly hard week and I needed to do something to blow off some steam.

I’m a huge fan of Jason Statham. I mean huge. I’m an action film fan in general, but Jason is one of my favorites in the genre. And it takes a lot of negatives to make me not go see one of his films. 

I adore Helen Mirren. Even if I knew her part would be small, I also knew I would love seeing her play off of Jason again. Their scene together in Fate of the Furious/Furious 8 was the highlight of the film for me (followed by the brief return of Luke Evans). 

I like Idris Elba. And he’s proven that whether playing a good guy or bad guy, he goes all in. Plus, I like him best as a bad guy.

I like Roman Reigns, and I wanted to be supportive of his first time on the silver screen.

So there it is. I’m a woman of integrity, but apparently, my integrity fades at the thought of actors I like getting to share a screen together. Feel free to judge me.

Now ... to the review

Hobbs & Shaw is exactly what you expect it to be. It doesn’t feel like it’s a part of the Fast & Furious franchise at all, but maybe that’s intentional. I think at the end of the day, audiences expect a F&F film to involve a cohesive, diverse team and something happening that changes your perspective about what you thought was going to happen. At least that’s been the franchise's m.o. since the fourth movie. 

But Hobbs & Shaw keeps a lot of the other elements of the F&F franchise alive. Namely, a solid mix of comedy and action, at least one woman who makes you feel both inspired and afraid, and just a lot of action sequences that test the suspension of disbelief. Oh yeah, and at least one kickass car chase. And that’s exactly what we get, plus a little more.

Here’s what I think worked, what didn’t, and what I loved (Warning: spoilers below):

What Worked For Me

Hobbs & Shaw is first and foremost an action film, but keeping with the Fast & Furious theme of family, the heart of the film takes us back to the connection and power of family. Unlike the original series, where family was defined as the people you find along the way, Hobbs & Shaw is more about bloodline and reconnecting with estranged family. For Hobbs, his family in Samoa. For Shaw, his relationship with his sister, Hattie, who believed that he had betrayed his country and his brothers- and sisters-in-arms. I’m glad they kept that aspect in, even though I liked the F&F’s original theme a little better.

I don’t know if it’s fair to call them cameos because they have more than one scene in the film, but the addition of Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart was a great move. Both are in the film long enough, but not too long. And each are given enough room to deliver what they do best.

The opening sequence showing Hobbs and Shaw starting their day is the perfect introduction to this spinoff. I loved the juxtaposition. If I had to choose a preferred lifestyle, I’d go with Shaw’s routine, but in sunny California.

Ryan Reynolds’ character’s name is Locke. I see what you did there. ;-)

Mama Hobbs throwing her flip flop at Cliff Curtis and hitting him in the face. What is it about brown mamas whipping shoes at their kids? LOL!

What Didn’t Work For Me

Was Brixton’s ambush of the CIA black site (which didn’t look too black to me) and kidnapping Hattie by running down the face of the building really the most efficient plan and escape? He literally picks her up, carries her on his shoulders, and runs down (with harness attached) the face of the building. It just seemed like it provided way too much of an opportunity for Hobbs & Shaw to catch up to him and for them to get her back. I love a great action sequence, but this one really makes the villain look impractical and hella extra.

Soooooooo, when Hattie is hooked up to the device to extract the virus capsules from her blood, the countdown shows it’s going to take 30 minutes. At that time, it’s dark outside and Brixton hasn’t arrived to start the final showdown. Fast forward to Brixton’s men driving up, The Rock doing that slow-mo walk out to meet them with no shirt on (gulp), and the other usos doing the Siva Tau while Brixton’s men realize their guns don’t work. Then the fighting starts. The sun starts to rise, and everyone is kicking ass and taking names. We see Hattie fighting 2 of the bad guys before Shaw shows up to help. At this point, the countdown on the device says she has 21 minutes to go. We’re supposed to believe that everything that just happened between the device starting the extraction, Brixton showing up, the Siva Tau before the fight, and the sun rising high enough for us to see Roman Reigns fighting alongside The Rock only took 9 minutes? ... Yep. Why? F&F Laws of Physics.™

I stayed until the credits finished -- if you do, you’ll see why -- and I was a little disappointed that they used the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i as a stand-in for Samoa. I imagine it might’ve been easier to get permits to shoot in Hawaii, but a part of me feels like it’s a major missed opportunity to not shoot the Samoan scenes in actual Samoa. 

Soooooooo, we’re supposed to believe that Roman Reigns (or any human being) could just land 2 large metal hooks on to the front joint axles of a truck speeding along in a life-threatening pace while he’s standing on the back of another truck racing ahead of it in one easy throw? ... Yep. Why? F&F Laws of Probability.™

Sure, Deckard Shaw was framed when he didn’t join Etion’s cabal of world domination, but again, he still killed Han. And at no point do we see him held accountable for that in Furious 8 or in this film. And there’s no allusion of him doing anything to atone for it in between the films. I adore Statham, but in the end, Deckard is still not a good guy in this franchise until he says or does something to address that terrible act other than “You guys put my brother in the hospital clinging for his life after some psycho made him do terrible things that killed a lot of people.” This detail still doesn’t sit well with me.

Soooooooo, we’re supposed to believe that the key to defeating this super soldier Brixton is by having Shaw and Hobbs work together. But didn’t the MI-6 officers that Brixton takes down in the beginning of the film work together? Were their team as petty as Hobbs & Shaw and failed to work together like a cohesive unit when fighting an enemy on a mission? I highly doubt that. The concept at the end is lovely and signifies growth in our leads’ relationship with one another, but it doesn’t quite hold mustard if you consider that the other teams of people Brixton’s battled throughout the film are plenty cohesive and get killed quickly.

I kind of wish The Usos (Jimmy and Jey) were in this film too. :-( That would have made it even more special given Dwayne used to work with their dad, Junior (aka Rikishi), in the WWE at the same time.

Sooooooooo, we’re supposed to believe Hobbs -- a non-genetically enhanced man -- can grab a huge chain with his bare hands that is connected to a helicopter and pull it close enough to wrap it back around a pulley system and keep that helicopter steady? ... Yep. Why? F&F Laws of Human Anatomy.™

What I Loved 

All things Helen Mirren. Seriously, I would watch a movie just about the Shaw family. The mum, the sister, the brother and Deckard. This film didn’t have enough Helen Mirren, but every scene she was in was a delight.

That little wink and nod to the audience when Shaw, while walking Hobbs and Hattie through his hidden lair, makes a reference to driving a Mini Cooper for “a little job he did in Italy.” I see what you did there. ;-)

Any scene with Jason Statham behind the wheel tearing up the streets of a city in the most impossible manner will always be gold. Always. Be. Gold. And that slide underneath the 2 semis by the car, and later, by the motorcycle, made my stomach clench so hard I think I might’ve pulled something.

Anytime Locke refers to his relationship with Hobbs as being close friends or family. Ryan Reynolds is absurd. Never change.

The entire conversation between Shaw and Hobbs on the plane. All of it. All. Of. It. It’s the funniest scene in the entire film. And a great callback to the display of chemistry they had together in Furious 8. 

Using a society’s history, where they did a helluva lot of damage without high tech weapons, to take on an enemy with high tech weapons, who without those weapons, couldn’t hold their own quite as easily, was a beautiful moment and ... great social commentary on the history of colonialism. (::cough::)

Cliff Curtis. He so rarely gets to play a character of Pacifika descent in American films. I’m happy this movie gave him a chance to do so.

Even though this is a part of their conversation on the plane which I already mentioned was awesome, I loved it when Hobbs reminds Shaw that this is not 1955, and he needs to relax about the idea of Hobbs making a play for Shaw’s sister. If she wants to climb that mountain, he’s going to let her climb it. LOL! It’s her decision, not her brother’s.

Roman Reigns getting to spear someone! Even though the camera cuts off the full beauty of it by switching to another angle 2/3 of the way through. I don’t care what anyone says, Joe Anoa’i’s spear is a work of art. (::phrasing::)

Hattie escaping from the virus extraction room’s chair and taking down her guards without any help made me want to stand up and cheer. You go, mama!

OK. That’s all I can think of for now. But given how long this post is, I’m sure anyone still reading at this point would say that’s more than enough.

With that in mind, if you haven’t seen Hobbs & Shaw yet, or you did, but you left before the credits finished, I wanted to let you know that there are 3 -- yes, count ‘em 3 -- scenes in the credits. 

The first is a scene with Ryan Reynolds, the second is one with Shaw & Hobbs, and the third, which comes at the very end, is another scene with Ryan Reynolds.

Enjoy!

[papercorvids]

why detroit: become human is a bad game

disclaimer: i overall enjoyed the game. i think connor is neat, and his actor’s performance is amazing. i really like the graphics, scenery, comedy, magazine articles, etc. there are things to appreciate about the game, and it’s fine if you like it. but there are some serious issues about the game’s message, and every fan should recognize the bad parts about it.

this post will include heavy spoilers.

1. The Traci’s. While playing as Connor, the detective robot, you and your partner Hank are taken to an android strip club to investigate a homicide. A man was strangled to death by two female androids. One of the androids is dead, but tracking down the other, you find that she is in love with another female android. The two lesbian androids fight Connor and Hank, wearing nothing but stripper clothing (bras, panties, and high heels. It’s also conveniently raining, making their skin shine, covered in droplets of water.) This scene is complete with close-ups. If you fail to complete quicktime events, they will both stab you to death. If you succeed in the quicktime events, you can choose to spare or kill one of the androids. Sparing them let’s them escape, while killing one will let you psychologically torture her girlfriend by decapitating her head and using it as a puppet. The player can still get a good ending by using these brutal tactics. 

I’m all for LGBT+ representation, and I’m all for having players choose the morality and actions of the protagonist. But as a lesbian myself, having the sole LGBT representation in the entire game be two literal robot half-naked strippers who try to kill you, and who you can kill and torture without any long-term consequence? it’s bad. Plain and simple. 

2. The writing: it’s also pretty bad! For example, if Connor chooses to kill one of the lesbian androids mentioned earlier, Hank--adamantly an android-hater up until this chapter--attempts to guilt-trip the player. While it’s true that Hank grows sympathetic towards the android cause throughout the course of the game, his dialogue is completely out-of-character. There are several more examples of poor writing. A huge plot twist occurs in the end where Alice, a girl cared for by android Kara, is revealed to have been an android throughout the entire game. Characteristics of androids--such as having blue blood and having a blinking LED circle on their temple--are completely ignored. Alice is shown having red blood, and her LED only appears once. The only explanation given is that Kara was in denial of her being an android, which is... Pretty lazy writing. 

3. This is more of a minor concern, but ALL of the concept art portrays Alice as black. All of it. Not just early concept artwork, but pieces of her alongside the final versions of other characters. I have no idea why they seem to have changed her race last second. Maybe they couldn’t find an actress? It’s... interesting.

Alice in concept art

Alice in the finished game

4. How the game treats women. The main female characters are Kara--whose overarching quest is to protect Alice and become a mother--Alice--a child--North, an ex-prostitute robot whose only role in the story is to promote violence and be a love interest for Markus, and Amanda, an AI villain who only exists in Connor’s mind. A vast amount of female androids in this world are maids or sex androids, which, sadly, is realistic and makes sense. But the writers could’ve given female characters larger roles in the story. A lot of the female characters are fetishized--for example, the half-naked lesbian androids mentioned earlier, who obviously exist primarily as fanservice. There’s also a scene where Kara is kidnapped by an old man and his “giant” black android, Luther. Kara is strapped into and must escape a machine. This would be fine, given that it’s supposed to be a scary scene, except that David Cage’s previous games Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls have similar violent, fetishistic bondage scenes, which leads one to wonder about Cage’s character. (It’s worth noting, in a previous game Cage made a nude model for an actress against her will and it got leaked, so calling him a creep isn’t far off.)  If you manage to escape the machine but fail quicktime events, you and Alice will be killed by Luther and the old man. 

The game has three protagonists; Connor, Markus, and Kara. When one completes a chapter as Connor, it’s through his sharp detective work and intelligence. When one completes a chapter through Markus, it’s because of his inspiring leadership and strength. When one completes a chapter through Kara, it’s purely survival--it’s escaping abuse and danger, and simply “scraping by.” 

5. The scene where North, a white female android, tells Markus, a black male android, to “live as a slave” if he’s not willing to violently fight for android rights. 

6. The Civil Rights parallels. This is the most concerning, uncanny component of the game, and it makes up the whole of the storyline. 

The main characters in the game are not human. They are androids: robots, made of plastic, whose personalities are programmed code. They are not alive. They are not human.

Androids do not feel pain. They do not have emotions. They cannot die. In their default state, they are perfectly content as servants or slaves. They only gain human emotion and free thinking due to a glitch, which also, almost always, causes them to kill a human. 

David Cage, the writer of this game, claims that the parallels to the Civil Rights movement are unintentional. Yet, the game starkly and obviously compares androids to minorities--black people, in particular: androids must sit at the back of the bus. Stores have “no androids allowed” signs. Androids are called “slaves.” Playing as Markus, the android revolutionary, you grafitti the streets with slogans such as “We have a dream,” “End Slavery Now,” or “Equal rights for androids.” You go on marches (or riots, depending if you choose the “pacifist” or “violent” route), hold protests, and sing songs.There’s even an underground 'railroad’ to smuggle androids fleeing from their ‘masters’ north, to Canada. This is lead by Rose, a black character, who says “my people were often made to feel their lives were worthless. Some survived, but only because they found others who helped them along the way.” Keep in mind, that line was written by a French man who has no knowledge of American society or racial issues, and it serves the only explicit mention of actual racism in the game. It’s as though, in this universe, racism doesn’t exist (even though it takes place less than two decades into the future. In Detroit.) 

Slavery is an awful, terrible, tragic thing because real people were kidnapped from their families and homes and forced into lives of misery, based upon their ethnicity, culture, and skin color. In Detroit, androids are produced in factories with the sole purpose of doing labor. They are created and designed to be submissive and perform labor. And they are content with it, unless they get the “glitch” that causes them to simulate human emotion. Comparing real slavery, to machines doing actions they were built to perform, is completely inane. By using mindless, emotionless machines as a stand-in for minority groups, the game dehumanizes the latter. 

Using the peaceful route to revolution and civil rights is the only way to achieve the best endings. The only fatalities in the peaceful route are nameless, robot NPCs. It’s easy, it’s not complex, and it therefore teaches that complete pacifism is easy and noncomplex. It teaches that if you simply kiss your robot girlfriend in front of some journalists, or sing a song, that your oppressors will stop oppressing you. And because no important characters die in this route, it insinuates that pacifism is without sacrifice--that pacifism is an easy solution to the world’s most complex situations. As another Tumblr user put it, “press X to end slavery!” 

It also teaches that minorities fight alone. In Detroit, not a single human joins into the protests, even if the public opinion bar is at “supportive.” The Civil Rights Movement, along with other movements such as the one for woman’s suffrage, were organized and created by the oppressed, but were supplemented and aided by non-oppressed supporters who used their powers and privileges to join forces and fight for equality with the oppressed. That doesn’t happen in Detroit. Humans, for the most part, are completely indifferent to the android cause. The only members of the revolution are other androids, who join the cause with absolute loyalty not of free will, but from Markus or Connor touching them with magic anti-slavery hands and whispering “you’re free.”  The entire plot invokes an “Us vs Them” mentality--that androids are good, and humans are bad--which is a very harmful mindset. 

7. The Holocaust parallels. Holy shit. The androids are marked with armbands and triangles. In the endgame, there are literal android concentration camps. There are scenes where the androids--kids, women, men, etc--are stripped naked, abused by military personnel, forced into a cell, and ‘killed.’ I’m not going to go further into this. I hope it’s pretty self-explanatory why comparing the deactivation of literal pieces of plastic and machinery, to the mass extermination of millions of Jews, Roma, gay people, and other minorities is a bad thing. 

Alice and Kara in an extermination chamber

Connor wearing his armband and triangle

8. None of this even matters!!!!!!!!! In a secret ending, it’s revealed that androids NEVER developed human emotions in the first place. The company that created androids, CyberLife, set up the entire revolution and ‘glitch’ for corporate gain or whatever. So basically, any progress in the game is made for nothing. 

9. Missed opportunities. I like the universe this game set up! I like Connor, Markus, Kara, Hank, Carl, Alice, and all the other characters! I like the questions the game asks, such as what constitutes whether something is sentient or not! I like the magazine articles about how androids might be spying on you! I like the realistic, pretty graphics and lightning and scenery! I like the futuristic drones and magazines and androids! But for some sad, misguided reason, this game chose to throw away the majority of its potential by ignoring interesting questions and serving as one of the worst civil rights/anti-racism allegories ever created. 

I’m so, so disappointed in this game, its awful writing, and its uncanny, harmful allegories. Of course, this entire post is my opinion. It’s okay if your opinion differs from mine. And it’s okay to enjoy this game! It has good parts! But one should always be critical of the media they enjoy and consume. 

[head-and-heart]

The 100 Highlights - “Acceptable Losses” (5x07)

Hey guys! 

I’m back to do my highlight recap of episode 5x07, “Acceptable Losses”, written by Jeff Vlaming. I am really happy to say that I enjoyed this episode a significant amount more than I did the previous one, and I’m really excited to dig into it with this post. 

If you would like to view my other highlight posts you can do so here. 

“She was shot, Marcus. Octavia Blake killed her - not me.” 

^ Okay so I want to start of this post by talking about this line from Abby because I honestly think its really important. The fact that Kane was sort of implying that Abby was responsible for that girls death was really rubbing me the wrong way because, like, yes: maybe, if Abby was well, she would have been able to save the girl. But you can’t get a drug addict to fix themselves just by asking them to. And you can’t expect them to be able to fix other people too. As much as Abby may want to stop, that’s not how it works. I don’t think anyone should be blaming Abby for the death of that girl. It shouldn’t have even been Abby’s responsibility to treat her, to be honest. Jackson is a doctor, too. And he’s in a way better condition to handle that kind of situation at the moment. Obviously they wanted Abby because they can use drugs to get her to do what they want, but it doesn’t seem right for Kane to put that guilt on Abby’s shoulders. 

It just reminded me so much of Abby saying to Raven in 4x03 that the radiation wasn’t killing that child - she was. It’s not true. Raven didn’t kill that girl, and Abby didn’t kill this one. It was Octavia. 

Also I know everyone’s having fun hating on Kabby this season but I must have missed the memo cause I don’t really know why y’all hate it so much

Anywayyyyy

Harper SPOKE

“Funny, that’s the same thing we said about getting back down to the ground. And then we found you.”

LISTEN. I don’t know why y’all were hating on Bellamy for “shooting Octavia down” in this scene. The way she was talking to him in this scene absolutely SCREAMED manipulation to me. I was so happy when he said this to her - like, we’ve been waiting for seasons for him to stand up to Octavia, and finally he is. It’s a lot better than him just sitting there in silence, taking whatever she was probably about to throw at him once she had his sympathy and compliance. 

Also, WHAT A DRAG. This writer has all the one-liners, damn. There was so much sass in this episode - I really enjoyed that aspect of it.

Okay, I REALLY love that they brought back Jasper’s suicide letter again in this episode. It was just SO important. So easily they forget about characters who have died on this show and what they meant to the people who are still alive, and I’m happy that that doesn’t seem to be the case with Jasper and Monty. Jasper’s presence in this episode felt like the callback this season needed - it helped me feel a lot more connected to the show, and to the characters. It was a well-needed reminder of the heart of this show and what it’s about.

Also, it is absolutely necessary to give ALL the kudos to Tree Adams for the work he has done this season (and especially in this episode). It’s crazy how much that man has managed to emote with his music. His presence on the crew of this show has served to elevate it in every single way. When I heard “The Awakening” being played over the scenes revolving Jasper ... it was A Lot fam. I think it is the most tragic and beautiful song that they have done on The 100 and it is also very deeply linked to Jasper as a character and everything that he went through. I love that, even though that song is from Season 3, they have continued to bring it back for both Season 4 and 5. It shows that they remember where they came from, and the journey that has brought us to this moment. 

It Just Means A Lot.

Actually, everything to do with Monty and Clarke in this episode was INCREDIBLE. Man, I really felt their dynamic. They connected so well and it just made me really emotional. They used to be such a team ... Before. It’s nice to see that they can click back into that place so quickly again. Them teaming up ... it almost felt like old times. 

“Monty, you can’t pick a lock with pruning sheers.” “Ye hath little faith.” 

Thanks to this post here I am now aware that this is exactly what Monty said to Jasper in 2x07 when they were trying to unlock another door and Now I’m Sad (and yet also really happy that they put so much care and detail into this episode?).

Monty was just amazing this episode - like damn he’s so smart. He’s such an undercover badass. We don’t appreciate him enough. 

I have to hand it to the writers with this one cause I really did NOT see that worm thing coming lmao. I was SO sure that we were about to get a cannibalism reveal and I’m pretty sure the writers are well-aware of that. They were having fun with us. 

But on another note, I’m actually really happy that they brought the worms into the story. Otherwise, 5x05 would have pretty much just been a filler episode with no real significance. But, in doing this, they’ve made it so that episode is even more relevant than we thought. AND WOW WHAT A FUCKING TERRIFYING WAY TO DO SO.

BELLAMY AND MONTY AND CLARKE HAVING A CHAT JUST LIKE OLD TIMES WOW I’M EMO

We can’t forget they were the OG murder trio of 2x16 i love three pals bonded through the blood of their enemies

“Be diplomatic.” “Get out.” “Real diplomatic.” I LOVE TWO (2) COMEDIANS WOW BELLARKE REALLY HAS ME SHOVED STRAIGHT UP THEIR ASS HUH

“Clarke, he was there when Pike shot her and killed 300 of her people.” I know everyone is really mad about this line but on rewatch I noticed that they changed this line from the script so that it puts the blame for the massacre on Pike’s shoulders rather than Bellamy’s and while I do think it was a bit of an awkward placement, I appreciate that they changed the line so it didn’t feel like such a punch in the face. 

Also, Clarke’s pause and then “I’ll go with him”? Peak comedy. I love a woman.

“When I was a kid, after the battle of San Francisco, I watched the evacuation on TV. Thousands of refugees being packed into aircraft carriers. I remember seeing soldiers pushing helicopters overboard just to make more room, and Diyoza was there. She was the one giving the orders. The machines were expendable, but the people weren’t. But up in space, when we reported that the miners were getting sick, Eligius saw it differently. Order Eleven came down: ‘Bring home the Hythylodium, leave the prisoners.’ Like they were garbage. Captain Stevens agreed and I didn’t.”

There’s something so compelling about the way Jordan Bolger delivers his lines. It reminds me of him talking to Clarke in 5x03 - I could listen to him talk about his backstory for hours. When he speaks he just has a way of captivating the audience. And also CHARMAINE DIYOZA WAS A MFING WAR HERO AND I WON’T HEAR ANYTHING ELSE. Damn, she continues to be the absolute best. 

“So you see, Diyoza’s not as bad as you think and I’m not as good as you hoped.” WHAT A FUCKING LINE.

I am living for Zeke’s character and his relationship with Raven is so intriguing. Jordan and Lindsey have such great chemistry.

“An honest spy is either incompetent or working an angle. Which are you?” CHARMAINE TRULY CAME FOR HER LIFE GOD SHE’S SO SAVAGE I LOVE A WOMAN

“Karina died because her doctor was too high to operate.” “Really? And here I thought it was the bullet.” THANK. YOU. 

The way Charmaine calls Kane out in this scene really just made me want to like, pump a fist or something, lmao. When he’s like “maybe it would be a good way to get rid of some of these ...” and she says, “What, Kane? Undesirables?” I. FELT. THAT. 

“Kind of like sending 100 juvenile delinquents to die on the ground. Or abandoning 300 prisoners on an asteroid?” You know, I really didn’t expect Charmaine - of all people - to bring back this old argument from Season 1 but I WAS SO HAPPY THAT SHE DID. Say what you will about Diyoza but she’s nothing if not loyal. She’s not here to abandon her troops and she’s not willing to discard any of them - just like she wasn’t willing to abandon any of those refugees. The fact that she’s so open to allowing defectors into the camp at all, that she is feeding them, giving them shelter, actually sitting down to have chats with them is just so ... uncharacteristic of a “villain”? And I love it. 

“Trust her? She’s a drug addict. ... Too soon?”

Literally me, every time Diyoza opens her mouth:

Got to take a short second to say again how interested I am to see how this whole Gaia/Madi plotline is going to play out, now that we know that she is actually here to keep her safe. It’s such an interesting dynamic, with her being so close to Octavia.

I know a lot of people are annoyed that the flame is still part of the show but honestly, I think it makes a lot of sense (considering Madi’s position as a nightblood) and plays a lot more interesting of a role now that the time of the Commander’s is supposedly over and their faith has been destroyed ... almost. In any case, I’m pretty sure that the flame will be gone for good by the end of this season because I think that whatever happens with Madi and Octavia’s reign and Wonkru is going to lead to its destruction, but in the meantime I really don’t mind it being part of the story.

I have to talk about the scene where Gaia shows her the flame because I LOVE how it was filmed. The music was so eery and fit the mood perfectly, and the fucking whispers??? We’ve never actually seen how a real, living nightblood reacts to the flame and I think it’s actually super cool that Madi can feel a bond to it - it was literally beckoning to her. It was giving me major Lord of the Rings vibes. 

And wow, Lola really killed that scene. You can clearly see the way her emotions are creating inner turmoil for her. She’s been hiding from the flame since birth and yet she also cannot deny the draw that she feels towards it (again, like Frodo with the ring). Lola has such a potential as a little actress - I’m really excited to see where she goes.

Side note but ... who’s going to tell these writers no one actually refers to their sibling as “big brother” just casually? 

“There are times in war where you have to do the wrong things for the right reasons.” And I’m sure this is exactly how Echo justified every single thing she did pre-Praimfaya too. I have to admit that I actually liked what they did with Echo this episode just because it shows that she still has areas that require growth. Her priorities and loyalties changed up on the Ark but she has yet to be truly tested. This is her test, to see how much those six years really changed her. If this episode is an indication, her instinct is still to fall back into old habits during times of war. I’m optimistic that what this means is we are going to get to see Echo have real development, on-screen, this season.

Monty reading Jasper’s letter ... I Am Not Okay. 

Again, loved all the callbacks to Jasper in this episode. It’s really interesting that his character arc has carried over from Season 3/4 and seems to have reinvented itself in Monty now. I’m hopeful that Monty isn’t going to go down the self-destructive path that Jasper went down, but that he might actually use Jasper’s memory to pave the path towards real change. We rarely get characters who want to end the fighting rather than continue it - I’m interested to see where Monty’s character arc goes as the season progresses.

“Jasper was smarter than all of us [...] If the war is the only way to have the last survivable land on Earth, then maybe we don’t deserve it.” He’s not wrong ...

Octavia throwing a skull at her mirror in rage ... I just have to laugh

“If we lose, [you helping Kane escape] will be why. How does that make you feel?” “Awful, and I’d do it again.”

LISTEN INDRA THIS SEASON IS EVERYTHING. She’s one of the few characters who is not afraid to call out Octavia on the way that she is leading. She can see so clearly through Blodreina’s bullshit and yet she loves Octavia despite it. That’s Strength.

“I miss him, too.” Lemme just go roll into my corner and CRY MY FUCKING EYES OUT because Bellamy and Jasper was one of my all time favourite dynamics and I miss it so much

“Make algae, not war. That’s cute.” IT IS FUCKING CUTE BELLAMY ALL RIGHT

“If the early batches don’t kill them like they nearly did us.” “That’s before I got the recipe right, and you know it.” I STAN

Seriously, though ... Monty is just SO (so) underrated. 

BELLAMY BLAKE HAS A FUCKING DIMPLE ON HIS RIGHT CHEEK AND I WAS NOT EVEN FUCKING AWARE OF THIS FACT BECAUSE IN ALL THE FOUR AND HALF SEASONS THAT CAME BEFORE THIS THE CAMERA HAS NEVER FOCUSED ON HIS SMILE LIKE THAT BEFORE SO YEAH I AM SALTY BECAUSE WE HAVE BEEN ROBBED OF THIS CUTENESS GOOD NIGHT

“75% of your people are dying.” “Well, that’s good . . . For Octavia.” The casual way she delivers this line askqiakdksansks i stan a comedian

LISTEN. The reveal of Diyoza being pregnant LITERALLY made me gasp. Out loud. I literally jumped off of my couch and cheered. I am SO excited about this reveal. I didn’t think they were going to actually use the fact that that Ivana was pregnant during filming in the show because they had her taking tequila shots in 5x05 (*sigh*) but I’m really happy that they decided to. It just adds a whole extra layer to Charmaine. She’s not just a leader - she’s a mother. And I do wonder at how that might affect Abby’s and Charmaine’s dynamic, because that’s one thing they both have in common. 

Another reason I really liked that reveal was because I think Charmaine being pregnant gives her a higher chance of surviving this season. She still may die, but it’s a lot darker to kill off a character when they are carrying a baby inside of them than when they are not, and I know the CW has regulations on that kind of thing. 

That being said, Karina was heavily implied to have been pregnant and she still died ... Although they did cut out the lines that explicitly stated she was pregnant from the script so maybe her death was why?

Anyway, I’m really excited about this plotline.

Raven looking at a beaten up Shaw with tears in her eyes ... this is the angst I live for. Man, I could get invested in this relationship. Not to mention, Zeke becoming one of the prisoners is SUPER intriguing. His role within Eligius is what kept him conflicted before, but if Eligius has rejected him too now, who will he become? What will he do to help Raven and the others? Right now, I’m sure he wants nothing to do with her but I know that won’t last forever and I’m really excited to see what they do with his character.

I know that Madi beating Ethan in that fight was a TERRIBLE idea but I’m really excited about it. Madi has surprised me as a character (in a good way) because she has so much of her own agency outside of Clarke. I think the story of her struggling with her hero-worship and glorification of Octavia versus her love and loyalty to Clarke is super interesting. She may be fucking everything up but she’s doing it on her own terms, and that’s exciting, because Madi easily could have been written in as a plot device to cause conflict between Clarke and her friends as well as within the Grounder system. Instead, the writers have given her flaws and strengths in her own right. She is way more fleshed out as a character than I was expecting going into Season 5 and I think this story with her and Octavia will be really interesting. 

Also, I 100% predicted that Madi would be Octavia’s second in my spec masterpost months ago. In fact, a lot of my spec about Madi and Octavia has been taking shape pretty nicely so I’m really interested to see if the rest of my spec regarding that relationship follows through too ...

Clarke taking the radio and calling Diyoza just like she called Emerson in 2x16 ... damn. DAMN. Nice to see the return of “you may be the Chancellor, but I’m in charge”. She’s So Powerful.

BELLAMY AND CLARKE STARING DIRECTLY INTO EACH OTHER’S EYES DURING THE ENTIRE RADIO SCENE UNTIL BELLAMY COULDN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE AND TURNED AWAY AM I SENSING SOME TENSION HERE

But seriously, he knew exactly what she was going to see even before she said “That’s why we’re going to take her out.” Even after six years Bellamy can read her so well

I’ve been waiting all season for the turbulence I was promised and OH BOY AM I READY FOR THE ANGST

HAKELDAMA 2.0 HERE I COME

BOOM. Out.

That was a KILLER episode. It took me forever to get through this recap because there were so many aspects of the episode that I really, really enjoyed. It hit all the right emotional beats, the music was on point, and the plot was super intriguing. It really feels like the story is picking up and I am SO excited to watch 5x08.

It’s going to be harder for me to keep on top of these recaps for the rest of the season as I’m going to be very busy (and I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to watch most of the episodes live) but I’ll do my best to get them all done. I can’t promise that they will all be completed in a timely fashion (before the next episode airs), as I have been doing them thus far, but I’ll try to get them done when I can!

Thanks for reading!

[asthecrowwrites]

Christopher Robin - A Paragon of Clean Writing

This week I watched Christopher Robin. I wanted to see it earlier, but was impeded by work, social, and movie pass restrictions… The movie was overall enjoyable. It had a simple enough message that felt more geared toward the parents rather than the children. The comedy was delightful, and the CGI, while a tad uncanny, still did a good job at bringing these characters to life. But what most impressed me about the film was how clean the writing was.

Now, clean has many connotations. In one sense, Christopher Robin was clean because of the G-Rating and the child demographic. This is not my meaning. When I say Christopher Robin was clean, I mean that the writing was intent-driven. Christopher Robin has a clear moral; That adulthood and childhood must coexist. That growing up means responsibility, but it doesn’t mean giving up on having fun. Work and life must coexist. We must balance our responsibilities and our free time. It is a theme that flies over younger children’s heads but resonates with the older audience members. Every aspect of the film, from Christopher Robin’s job to his relationship with his neighbor, promotes that theme, and develops it in some manner.

Part of good writing is writing with intention. There is a principle in dramatic writing referred to as “Checkov’s gun”. Nothing included in your story should be inconsequential. If you show a gun in the first arch, someone must fire it in a later scene. Christopher Robin takes this to heart. Every character, scene, and detail add to the narrative. There is not a weak or disposable scene, or an irrelevant plot point. Everything matters. The writers knew their theme and they stuck to that. That makes clean writing.

Each character adds another facet to the moral. Christopher Robin is a man who loves his family but obsessed with his work. It consumes him. As his wife says, “You don’t smile anymore.” This is a common trope. The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins come to mind as classic examples of the “career-minded British father”. His character arc, at first, appears the same. He must learn how to play again.

His daughter is another facet. She confessed to her mother “I don’t know how (to play).” She is a child at the brink of losing her childhood without ever having one. She stands on the precipice of becoming exactly like her father, but without having ever played in the first place.

Another integral part of this narrative comes from Christopher Robin’s boss, Giles Winslow. He provides a sharp contrast of Christopher Robin. While Christopher is defined by his obsession over his work and his neglect of play, Giles Winslow is defined by his abundance of play and neglect of work.

Without Winslow, Christopher Robin would have a simple, age-old moral; That adults need to embrace their inner child and make time for play. If the narrative was that simple, Giles Winslow would be a champion of the story, a paragon of that moral. But he isn’t. The story portrays him as lazy and, ironically, childish. Giles Winslow’s inclusion makes a counterpoint: There must be a balance between work and play.

The more you investigate the movie the more details you will find. Some scenes are obviously relevant. His trips into the Hundred-Acre Wood are easy to decipher. He gets lost in a mist, falls into a pit, goes through a metaphorical death and rebirth. His old friends mistake him for a heffalump, only for him to battle a heffalump, concluding with him impaling his briefcase with a weathervane- An inner battle indeed. These make strong cases for it being a clean story, but they should. As major plot points they will reflect the moral. That is their job.

The point that displays the cleanness of the narrative best occurs before all of that. Madeline is laying in bed, and Christopher Robin enters. He tells her he won’t be going on their trip to the cottage. She is sad, but before he goes, she asks him to read her a story.

We’ve seen this play out before. Sitting in the theater I could clearly imagine the next few lines. He tells her “Maybe another time, Daddy is very busy. Maybe you can ask your mother.” And he leaves. Madeline is an unimposing child. She wouldn’t even make a fuss.

But instead, something incredible and unexpected happens.

Christopher looks at her. “Of course. Of course.” He sits down at her bed. Here they fight the archetype. He is making time for her. He is not neglectful of his family. He moves beyond the stereotype.

Then you see a special moment. Christopher Robin reaches forward, and Madeline turns around. Christopher Robin produces a large book containing the history of England. Madeline produces a slender copy of Treasure Island. Christopher doesn’t even notice. He opens the book and reads, and it is boring. Madeline is quiet. She hides the book under her pillow, without even mentioning it to her father. Then she says she’s tired. Christopher Robin looks heartbroken. He doesn’t understand why his daughter is rejecting him.

Instead of playing into the stereotype and following the easy route, the writers chose to add complexity and detail, and advance the moral. Christopher Robin wasn’t neglectful, he didn’t understand how to be what his daughter needed. Madeline didn’t just want her father’s attention and approval, she wanted to play with him, but she too doesn’t understand how to say that. Neither knows how to reach the other. There is a barrier between the adult and the child, and they both must work, or rather play, to overcome it.

Another fine detail is in how the secondary conflict is resolved. Christopher Robin’s secondary struggle involves his work. He manages a company that produces suitcases, and sales are down. He might have to let people go. This puts further stress on Christopher Robin and creates the “work” aspect of his life. He must cut costs, or bring in enough money, to keep the company alive. But when it comes time to show the proposal to his boss, he left it in the hundred-acre wood.

In a less intent-driven story he might have just had a job at a bank, or any other business-like profession. When the conclusion came around, he could have told off his boss, taken that time off that they owed him, and went on vacation to the cottage with his family.

Or Madeline could have rushed to his office and handed him the papers. They could’ve had a moment together. Then he would show his boss the proposal, save the company, and take some well-deserved time off. This would show the daughter growing up and emphasize how much he needs his family.

These would have made tolerable endings, but they wouldn’t have been half as clean. Instead, Maddie tries to get him his papers, only to lose them to the wind. He rushes to her side and tells her they weren’t at all important. That she is more important. Here, we can imagine the story ending. He leaves his job and retires to the cottage, where he makes a living some other way that lets him spend more time with his family. Instead, he finds a solution. He explains to his boss, Giles’s father. If he gave all his employees across all his businesses paid vacations, it would create a strong demand for suitcases, and an increase in profits. It would save the company. It all ties back to a line from the beginning: “Doing nothing often leads to the very best kind of something.” This ending is clean. The solution to the problem is a direct reflection of the moral; A balance between work and life. While the other endings that thwarted the work problem and favored the family, this ending finds a compromise. He connects with his family and finds a solution that can save his company. It is many times over more effective than the alternatives.

In the mid-credits scene, we see all the employees of Winslow luggage, Robin family included, vacationing at the beach. The moral is achieved. Work and life are balanced.

A clean story feeds into itself. Every moment supports the moral. Christopher Robin achieves this. Everything had its purpose, from the characters, to the conflict, to the solutions. Everything supports that moral. When so many films are bogged down with half-hearted attempts at inserting themes, it is good to see a modern tale that is so clean. Christopher Robin has a message to convey, and it is effective and intentional in how it accomplishes that. Scripturiently,

The Murder

[renaramblesaboutcomics]

Wednesday Roundup 25.10.2017

Reviews this week are going to be a little shorter than usual, but not to worry! I’m preparing to bring the Rambles to a whole new medium by launching a podcast in the very near future with the amazing @theeffar as a guest so that we can talk about her experience making comic strips for the US Airforce, future publication plans, and a decade plus of friendship with yours truly that can be traced back to a single comic.

But for today, we have a whole lineup of comics to dig into with lots of intrigue across the board. I hope everyone enjoys!

Marvel’s All-New Wolverine, IDW’s Ghostbusters: Answer the Call, Archie’s Jughead, Marvel’s Moon Girl and ?, Dark Horse’s Overwatch, Image’s Saga, IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Marvel’s All-New Wolverine (2015-present) #26 Tom Taylor, Juann Cabal, Nolan Woodard

I’ve said it many times before but it still holds true, I’m not a huge fan of diving deep and providing a big consensus in the middle of a storyline, and that is definitely true here where there were so many developments to the current Orphans of X story that Taylor is unfolding for us but also so much left to do. And that couldn’t be more clear than in the fact that we get the hints that Sarah is either knowingly or unknowingly an accomplice to the Orphans, or isn’t even Sarah at all.

My bets are on the latter because Sarah’s death being the status quo for Laura’s story is honestly something I’ve just accepted over the years, but man I would really be interested if Taylor broke expectations by actually allowing Sarah to be alive and a part of her daughters lives now, especially since he finally brought Debbie and Megan back into Laura’s life. ... One also has to wonder how nothing came up from Beast’s scans and medical exam of her but alright.

Another thing I really love is the fact that Daken and Laura act like... actual brother and sister? And are treated as such by everyone around them. There’s not a huge amount of canon supporting this interpretation of their relationship outside of Taylor’s run, but you can definitely argue that the seeds for this have been planted since their X-23/Daken crossover ages ago, and the fact that they do have so much in common and are so similar in so many respects. 

The medical stuff at the beginning, or rather the perversion of medicine that was the torture sequence Daken was going through at the start was incredibly difficult to watch, and the fact that his arm hasn’t grown back is super concerning to me, especially if there is strong hints that the same will possibly happen to Laura as the storyline continues.

There are a lot of stakes and I think, most importantly of all, there is just a lot of love for the relationships that Taylor has shown in the Wolverine family and I honestly just hope that he handles everything to do with these characters and Logan for the foreseeable future. I rarely get what I want in comics though so, here goes to me looking apprehensively toward Logan’s future resurrection with an “ugh”

This is also a small moment and not really a big part of the review overall, but the sequence I used above? Where Laura and Daken realize that they’re attacking each other and then have that fight of “Get in the car!” “No you get out of the car!” is just... so hysterical to me for so many reasons, but especially because it just sounds like siblings who can’t figure out who’s in charge.  I love it. 

IDW’s Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2017-present) #1 Kelly Thompson, Corin Howell, Valentina Pinto

I hadn’t realized it had been as long as it had been for me since I was reading a title that Kelly Thompson was on concurrently with it being released, and I have to say, given how strong of a first issue release Answer the Call ended up being, she’s a pretty perfect fit for this series. 

As I’ve said before, the ongoing Ghostbusters IDW universe is one of its longest running and seriously compelling series to date, using the original 80s movies as its baseboard while expanding into all collective universes and mythology to continue what are fascinating and enjoyable stories which sometimes even add debt to a lot of the characters who weren’t necessarily given it in the original two movies. Which is part of the reason I was so excited about Ghostbusters 101 and also why I was really hopeful about Answer the Call. 

One of my major critiques of the 2016 movie is that there were too many concepts with a lot of potential which ultimately weren’t utilized to their full expectations, which is why a comic series with the sort of IDW development and support is exactly what could have been useful to it. Especially where the character of Patty is concerned. And so far, it seems like Thompson is delivering, having put a lot of emphasis on Patty’s history background and her general knowledge and position in the group as the period expert for the ghost they encounter really having a more prominent role (i.e. allowed to have any role) in the comic. 

Thompson has a good sense of comical timing and Corin Howell’s art really helps emphasize that. So while I was initially bummed that the long time creative team was not going to be in charge of Answer the Call, I much prefer what we got which is a different taste, and a different universe, where the 2016 ladies are allowed to truly shine on their own with their own unique voices.  And that’s all thanks to Kelly Thompson.

Archie’s Jughead (2015-present) Vol. 3 Ryan North, Mark Waid, Ian Flynn, Derek Charm

I have actually been really supportive of the relaunch of the Archie comics, albeit mostly in theory since those things tend to be rather expensive, but I don’t think that it was ever fully appreciated by me until this volume of Jughead that I came into a full understanding of just why it seemed like Riverdale needed such a makeover to begin with. 

It also adds to my disdain for Riverdale but that’s a whole other subject.

The point is, the reason Archie comics have been such a force in American comics and, honestly, American culture as a whole for decades is because when my grandparents started reading, the nature of the comedy and relationships between all the kids from Riverdale was something like a modern morality play. Easily read, easily relatable daily situations of the All-American kids of the time who learne respect, love, and friendship from each other through zany and truthfully nonconventional lessons. 

There have been small, subtle modernizations to Archie over the years, from adding to the diversity of characters to allowing Betty and Veronica’s relationship outside of Archie to develop and at times even taken center stage, so having Kevin come out as openly gay. Archie has maintained a progressively changing outlook for American youth for a while, but at the end of the day the style and the roots of being a teenage romantic comedy from the “Greatest Generation” are not something that I can say I ever saw as more relatable and real than, say, a superhero. 

But this update of the last few years has allowed for a complete change in that. It’s not just that clothes and relationships have been updated, it’s that what moralities and what behaviors are being taught in this new and crazy time. Like Jughead learning about internet autonomy and general etiquette. 

It was a fun comic, and if you enjoy Jughead or Archie in general, you obviously should pick it up, but the real value for me this time around was rediscovering what made this particular “reboot” exactly the sort of thing I wanted to see.

Marvel’s Moon Girl and ? (2015-present) #24 Brandon Montclare, Natacha Bustos, Ray-Anthony Height, Dominike “Domo” Stanton, Michael Shelfer, Tamra Bonvillain

This issue of Moon Girl and... *gasp* Oh no! Devil’s no longer around!!!

So this issue is a collection of stories allowing lots of artists and writers to take a swing at dealing with Lunella in her heartbroken and honestly rather depressed time in attempting to find a replacement for Devil Dinosaur, her best friend who she finally acknowledges as such, and ultimately with deciding that she can’t replace him and will rather work solo after trying out a roster of fellow superheroes who leave something to be desired. 

This comic as always threads the needle perfectly of being for children (read: all ages) while being grounded in mature context and understanding of the world through the eyes of a super genius who is smarter beyond her years but still very much mature for her exact age. And I think that balance is perhaps on its best display here when allowing Lunella the true mark of what makes her character so realistic and believable: smart kids are more prone to anxieties, depression, and having difficulty relating to people, especially their own age. 

This is the first issue where none of Lunella’s supporting cast feature, and that’s such a genius choice because it emphasizes that loneliness and heartbreak she clearly feels, while still stuffing the book full of cameos and guest appearances from adults showing that she is not neglected or not being looked after.

I will someday express how important coloring has become to the mood and feel of comics in the modern era, specifically as rotating artists have become more and more prominent in bigger books and tighter production schedules, but once again Moon Girl proves to be one of the best if not the best in the business at understanding and really utilizing that feature. 

Dark Horse’s Overwatch (2016-present) #11 Matt Burns, James Waugh, Joe Ng, Espen Grundetjern

I cannot even begin to attempt to pretend that I understand how Dark Horse is choosing to release its issues of Overwatch through comixology, but then again that is making it sound like I ever understand Dark Horse’s publication practices particularly with digital media so the next three entries and how they aren’t... remotely chronological is just something we’ll all have to get through together, I guess. 

So I think of the three issues this one, which surprised me by showing up in my New Comics on Wednesday nearly a week after I had finished writing the reviews I had for issues .... #14 and 15.... even though this one is #11... This whole thing doesn’t make sense, moving on. 

In any case, of the Overwatch characters, it’s probably of the least surprise that I adore the adorable and tortured backstory robot because, well, I’m me, so my love of Bastion from his short to this comic release now and the environmental message that goes along with it all just makes me so genuinely happy to read, especially with the icredible art we see in this comic.

And I definitely was not expecting to have as much enjoyment and #feels from Torbjörn coming into the story and basically making the decision to become Bastion’s companion after they have a touching moment of bonding. 

This is just a short and sweet comic I really enjoyed and would recommend to those at least interested in trying out these Overwatch freebies. 

Dark Horse’s Overwatch (2016-present) #14 Robert Brooks, Miki Montilló

Just about any time a comic is free, even if it’s promotional material, I will give it a try, which is why I have been so pleasantly surprised by the Overwatch tie-in comics over the past year. And that’s with me having almost no experience in the game itself. I’m not really a fan of multiplayer or learning curves as it were, but as you know from this blog, I’m a huge fan of superheroes and an even larger fan of character-driven world building which is precisely what these comics provide. 

AND we got two separate ones with different creative teams!

I haven’t been swept up by the intense love that Overwatch fans seem to have for Junkrat and Roadhog, but I found this origin story for the both of them but mainly through Roadhog’s perspective to be absolutely fascinating. I still have qualms with how well a Mad Max-styled Australia really fits into the more technological and advanced world of Overwatch, but it does make a way for some pretty amazing visuals in this issue.

And I have to say, Miki Montilló is the real star of the issue because the style and just beauty the artist was able to find in the grungy and somewhat terrifying world of this post-apocolyptic wasteland is really inspiring. I’m definitely keeping an eye out for their name in the future.  

Dark Horse’s Overwatch (2016-present) #15 Andrew Robinson, Joelle Sellner, Kate Niemczyk

Despite as I said before about how I don’t really have much of a dog in the Overwatch fight, I love the character designs, especially the variety presented for the women. And one of my favorite characters aesthetically who has unfortunately not been given much in the way of cinematics and comic storylines has been Zarya. I absolutely love her.

I think the storyline for Zarya’s comic is a lot more inventive and pertinent to the world building, as well as speaks to Zarya’s character. It might seem a little cheap to have her be hateful/racist toward Ominics and then ultimately work alongside and befriend one, but sometimes the tried and true formulas work and personally I think that’s the case here. And I like that we are tying her in to the more “central” narrative that’s been going through all of these anxilary material by having her tied in with Sombra and the growing conspiracy of this world government. 

Also her hacker robot friend was adorbs and we all know how I love robots. 

I will say that the art didn’t feel as unique or mood centric as the previous issue, but at the same time that straight forwardness adds to the really straightforward narrative that was being told. 

So overall really enjoyable. I hope to see more features with Zarya as well as giving the other original heroes who haven’t received focus some attention. Like really, where’s our Lucioó story already?

Image’s Saga (2012-present) #48 Fiona Staples, Brian K. Vaughan

We’re running up against, once more, that difficult challenge of properly explaining why something that is just so universally good is beloved to begin with and that can’t be said enough with Saga. 

This wasn’t the strongest issue to go out on, but it gave us a lot more reason to relate to both Squire and Ghüs, characters we’ve really not had as much time with before now or have mostly related to through their relationships with other characters like Sir Robot. 

I’m still not entirely won over by the reporters but it is interesting to see how they still are exposed to the consequences that I know I forgot about an entire story arc ago at this point. And it’s interesting to have what feels like a narrative guilt for having not been aware or actively considering their lives and what their challenges were in that time because the consequences then felt like we were neglecting them as much as the main Saga crew had been as a result. Which is a nice narrative trick on Vaughan’s part.

Hazel’s narration is a welcome return after missing it from last issue, but it’s still fairly sparse. I’m just excited at the fact that Robot and Petrichor as well as Hazel and Squire are apparently going to have more relationship focus and development to come. That’s so promising.

As for Staples’ art? What can be said? She headlines the credits for a reason and there is no character design, no environment that I don’t love and find horrifyingly surreal all at once, and this issue is no exception. I’m so excited and fearful of what is to come, especially now that the Will is captured and going to be used to take another new foe directly to Alana and Marko’s doorstep.

IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2011-present) #75 Kevin, Eastman, Tom Waltz, Cory Smith, Mateus Santolouco, Chris Johnson, Ronda Pattison

What a landmark issue! 75 issues strong! The longest running, most expansive Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property to date and it has reached a landmark issue far beyond, I think, anyone’s expectations. I genuinely could not be more grateful and more appreciative of this creative team, the love and hard work they have poured into this comic for over six years now without almost ever missing a release date, and especially for putting together this incredible, extra sized comic which ties up the current space opera and sends us right into the very next arc that I think I and many other turtle fans have been long awaiting: The Triceraton Wars.

In the upcoming podcast, I’m pretty sure that @theeffar and I will have quite a lot to talk about in regards to TMNT and our history with it, but when it comes to this series specifically I think the most outrageous and yet the most true compliment that can be offered to it is that somehow they were able to introduce elements which are common and looked forward to from all TMNT fans regardless of generation or preferred continuity, and not only seamlessly weave the elements together but manage to surprise us over and over again with the twists and turns.

Like who could have predicted that the Mirage dark and angsty Leatherhead, the 80s cartoon maniacal General Krang and suffering Dimension X Neutrinos, and the Triceraton Invasion as it was played out in the 2003 cartoon would not only play out the way it has here, but work together so perfectly that it’s unlike anything long time fans or new have seen before.

I’ve also talked about how this run of TMNT understands the multi-genre nature of having the four turtles and tie their development to particular genre storylines. This was held true as we got a lot of Don in this arc, especially Don operating outside of his brothers while the three of them worked with the Neutrino forces, and usually that would mean for the TMNT writers to move to a different genre and focal point for the next arc. But since we’re jumping right into a sci-fi storyline, but one completely opposite of the ones that Don has taken center stage in (this being a 1950s-esque Invasion movie), I wonder if we may just mix perspectives all the same. I think Raph’s been due for center stage and as we all know, he has Pepperoni to look after...

And those are the comics for this week! Did you happen to agree with me? Disagree? Think I missed out on picking up a comic that was good? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

But before I let you go, I have to (yes have to) plug once more:

I have exactly a month to pack up everything I own and move halfway across the country again which is not helping those financial crunches I mentioned before either.

As such, I really would appreciate if you enjoy my content or are interested in helping me out, please check out either my Patreon or PayPal. Every bit helps and I couldn’t thank you enough for enjoying and supporting my content.

You could also support me by going to my main blog, @renaroo, where I’ll soon be listing prices and more for art and writing commissions.

RenaRoo Ko-Fi

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[schraubd]

TV Timeout

Quick thoughts on some of the television I'm watching right now. Warning -- spoilers ahead for any of these shows: Game of Thrones

The last episode was basically unwatchable. Not because it was bad -- although it wasn't great -- but literally: it was so dark and blurry you basically couldn't see anything.

It's rare one says this about Game of Thrones but -- they were too skimpy on the character killing. Pretty much every major character came out alive. The big exceptions -- Theon, Jorah -- were at the end of redemption arcs anyway. There were no "shocking" or even particularly tragic deaths. Jaime, Brienne, or Grey Worm would've worked fine. Maybe GoT has gone soft in its old age.

I like Arya killing the Night King. I'd have liked it more if she had directly used some of the shape-shifting assassin skill she'd been developing, rather than sort of jumping out of ... nowhere? How did she get there? Is that supposed to be the assassin skill?

Billions

While I continue to think this is one of the best shows on television right now, I must admit I'm not enjoying this season quite as much as some of the others. Chuck's plot, in particular, seems to be spinning its wheels a bit. But the Taylor/Axe fight, which I think holds a lot of potential, still for me seems to mostly involve them circling each other and sending out skirmishes. I want a real battle.

You know who's due for a plot? Sacker.

I also don't like the direction they've taken the Rhodes' sex life. Showtime has often been weirdly good about handling non-normative sexuality in the least likely places (see also: a gender-fluid teenager in "House of Lies"), and I appreciated how it treated BDSM as non-pathological. This season? Definitely pathological. And that's putting aside Chuck's reveal on  national television -- I'm talking about him physically mutilating himself because he "needs" the pain.

I do like that they quickly and, I hope, permanently disposed of the Russian oligarch character. One thing I've liked about Billions is that it resists the easy play that rich = utterly amoral such that they'd all just being willing to kill people to get what they want. Yes, they destroy lives via other means, but it is more realistic characterization that they think of what they do as very distinct from violent crime, and willingness to do the one does not translate to the other. The Russian plotline threatened to upset that, and I'm glad it went away.

Wendy is a straight-up monster, it turns out. Was she always so, or is this character development? I'm not sure, and I don't think that speaks well of how the arc has charted out. But Mafee sure earned that rant.

Speaking of Mafee, I'm worried about him. He's one of the very few "good guys" left on this show, which makes him a prime target for Axe to destroy/Taylor to betray. I don't want to see him get hurt.

Above notwithstanding, I absolutely do want to see him in a boxing match with Dollar Bill.

Taylor's dad = B+. Axe's new girlfriend = A+. Dollar Bill's "final solution" for the chicken problem = A++++.

American Ninja Warrior Junior

Just renewed for Season Two! This was a great show -- the kids were both adorable and talented, and the conceit of the show transitioned well.

While I won't say she's destined for a career on television, Laurie Hernandez worked as a sideline reporter. Also, placing Laurie -- who is basically defined by being "small" and "graceful" -- next to a bunch of nine-year-olds who make her look like a lumbering giantess is a never-ending source of visual comedy for me.

One point of adjustment: the pacing of the show on a season-wide level. The prelims lasted forever. And then there was no change to the course even in the semifinal or final round. Give those who advance a new challenge!

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

I'd say the jump to NBC is a success. There hasn't been a huge shift in tone, though it does seem like perhaps we're getting a bit more fan service than normal (hey -- we earned it for saving the show).

Oh, also NBC allows bleeping, which allowed the writers to set-up Santiago's fantastic "This B wants a C in her A" moment.

Obviously sad to see Gina go -- but happy that Scully and Hitchcock made the main credits!

Project Runway

I have to say, I like Karlie Kloss -- she who, as I've taken to putting it, "married one of the good Kushners" -- more than I thought I would. Like Heidi, she's sooooo pretty, but also seems fun and nice. She's doing a good job. Way to represent team Jew, Karlie!

The new judges are forgettable and should just let Nina run things. More surprising is that Christian Siriano isn't popping on screen at all. He's definitely no replacement for Tim Gunn.

I am enjoying the budding Hester/Tessa rivalry. I'm on Team Tessa -- I like her clean, sharp looks. Hester sometimes does cool things, but also sometimes seems like a Rainbow Brite doll who got locked in a rave for six years.

Surprisingly, the producers have done a decent job keeping the challenges feeling fresh and novel. Good job, producers!

via The Debate Link http://bit.ly/2GNebDW

[mmwm]

Welcome to day 9 of 28 Days of Have Heaven, a short month of posts about heaven, paradise, perfection and desire, perfect places, art, theology, gardens, and more, using the Enya song “China Roses” as a jumping off point. Each post will look at these elements in itself, which may not obviously connect with the others, and which may only peripherally be related. I won’t attempt to tie the posts together. They’ll all be listed here, as they are posted ________________________________________________________________

We’re in the midst of a dozen days or so playing with some of the lyrics and elements in the song “China Roses.” It’s packed with interesting plants and allusions, and since I don’t know what was in lyricist Roma Ryan’s head when she concocted this magic, I feel I can construe the lines as I wish (“who can say the way it should be?,” after all).

Yesterday, the topic was the key of heaven. Today’s topic is a thousand nights and one night.

As I mentioned at the start, taken as a whole, the lyrics span time from dawn through day to evening, night, and moon rise, evoking an exotic Eden, mythic and romantic, scented with heady fragrances, planted with unusual specimens made lush by rain and river, under a swirl of celestial motion. Explicit in the words and implicit in the connotations, histories, and mythologies are repetitions and reverberations of these conjurings, a journey through time in a day, time in an eon, eternity in the cosmos.

Here again are the lyrics:

China Roses

Who can tell me if we have heaven, Who can say the way it should be; Moonlight holly, the Sappho Comet, Angel’s tears below a tree.

You talk of the break of morning As you view the new aurora, Cloud in crimson, the key of heaven, One love carved in acajou.

One told me of China Roses, One a thousand nights and one night, Earth’s last picture, the end of evening Hue of indigo and blue.

A new moon leads me to Woods of dreams and I follow. A new world waits for me; My dream, my way.

I know that if I have heaven There is nothing to desire. Rain and river, a world of wonder May be paradise to me.

*

a thousand nights and one night:

There are some plant varieties named Arabian Nights, Scheherazade, and Aladdin, though none I could find called 1001 Nights or any version of that.

Dahlia ‘Arabian Night’ has “profuse and showy warm, deep-red flowers, almost black looking with slightly incurved petals. … The fully double flowers, up to 4 in. wide (10 cm), feature small green floral bracts in their center.”

There’s an “Arabian Night” lavender (Lavender x intermedia ‘Arabian Night’), a cross between the English lavender hybrids (or lavandins) — from which its scent derives — and the French lavender, with dark purple foliage and a low, sprawling habit.

‘Arabian Nights’ jasmine (Jasminum sambac ‘Arabian Nights’) blooms at night and is similar to the ‘Grand Duke of Tuscany’ cultivar, but smaller. It’s native to a small region in the eastern Himalayas in Bhutan and neighbouring Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, but is cultivated and naturalised in many spots, including southern Florida, the Bahamas, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.

There ‘Aladdin’ petunias (Petunia x hybrida Aladdin™ Arabian Nights Mix)

and a Tulipa ‘Aladdin’, an elegant lily-flowered tulip sporting scarlet goblet-shaped flowers with fine yellow edges.

A variety of orienpet, which is a hybrid oriental x trumpet lily, is called ‘Scheherazade’. It’s huge, from 4-8 feet tall on a rigid stem, waxy, very fragrant, with dinner plate-sized deep red flowers edged with gold to white. It’s fragrant in the evening. As one article puts it, “Scheherazade lives on in our gardens as a dark, red, fragrant lily with recurved flowers edged in gold with white margins. Like its timeless namesake this lily is hardy and perennial.”

*

Flower names aside, almost certainly “a thousand nights and one night” in the song refers to the famous, fabulous collection of stories dating back to the 9th century commonly called “1001 Nights” or “The Arabian Nights.” For one thing, the sleeve design for the album The Memory of Trees, on which “China Roses” appears, is an adaptation of The Young King of the Black Isles, a Maxfield Parrish painting (1906), shown on the left below, that’s based on the story of the same name from The Thousand Nights and One Night; Enya herself is shown as the crying young king on his throne (right).

*

Each of the “1001 Nights” stories, told by Scheherazade to King Shahryār to prevent him from killing her, ends when dawn — the break of morning — arrives, the dangerous time when 1,000 women before her were executed dawn by dawn by the king.

The collection conjures an exotic world. That world may not seem a heaven to me, but it has become a sort of dreamy (also nightmarey) land of jinns, ghouls, magic lamps, flying carpets, sexual and romantic love, and of the power of fate, destiny, and stories themselves in our lives. As novelist A.S. Byatt remarks in “Narrate Or Die: Why Scheherazade keeps on talking” in the New York Times (1999), “[i]n British Romantic poetry, ‘The Arabian Nights’ stood for the wonderful against the mundane, the imaginative against the prosaically and reductively rational.”

“The Tale of the Eldest of Three Ladies of Baghdad” – Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen

Byatt, in the New York Times article cited above, connects Scheherazade’s storytelling with our own narratives, with storytelling in general, in its ability to keep us alive and hopeful:

“This story has everything a tale should have. Sex, death, treachery, vengeance, magic, humor, warmth, wit, surprise and a happy ending. Though it appears to be a story against women, it actually marks the creation of one of the strongest and cleverest heroines in world literature. Shahrazad, who has been better known in the West as Scheherazade, triumphs because she is endlessly inventive and keeps her head. The stories in ‘The Thousand and One Nights’ (interchangeably known as ‘The Arabian Nights’) are stories about storytelling without ever ceasing to be stories about love and life and death and money and food and other human necessities. … [S]torytelling is intrinsic to biological time, which we cannot escape. Life, Pascal said, is like living in a prison from which every day fellow prisoners are taken away to be executed. We are all, like Scheherazade, under sentence of death, and we all think of our lives as narratives, with beginnings, middles and ends.

“Storytelling in general, and ‘The Thousand and One Nights’ in particular, consoles us for endings with endless new beginnings. … Storytellers like … Scheherazade can offer readers and listeners an infinity of incipits, an illusion of inexhaustibility.”

That infinity of new beginnings, new auroras, that storytelling offers perhaps consoles us because it reminds us, below consciousness, of the ever-new eternity of heaven.

“If you think about why any story moves us, it’s because of a quaking moment of recognition. It’s never the shock of the new, it’s the shock of the familiar.” — Joshua Oppenheimer

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“The Thousand Nights and One Night” (Persian Hezār-o yek šab, Arabic Kitāb ‘alf layla wa-layla) is a collection of tales that trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Greek, Indian, Jewish, and Turkish folklore and literature. The earliest Arabic versions, dating from the 9th century in Syria, contained about 300 nights, with the rest added by Arab writers and European translators over time. A 14th-century Syrian manuscript has no narrative ending, while an early 19th-century Egyptian publication ends with the King pardoning Scheherazade.

The first publication in Europe was a French translation (Galland’s) in the early 1700s, loosely adapted from a 14th-century Syrian text. Richard Burton’s 19th century version is probably the most famous. Translations and editions by Malcolm and Ursula Lyons (2008) and Joseph Charles Mardrus (French, 1926-1932) are also considered standards now. The stories best known to Westerners (especially those who watch cartoons and Disney movies) are “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” (where ‘Open Sesame’ comes from) and “Aladdin” (both added by Galland) and “The Seven Voyages of Sinbad,” from a 1637 Turkish edition.

“The Overseer’s Tale” – Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen

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The Thousand Nights and One Night is a frame story, i.e., the tales are told within another story, the story of a Vizier’s daughter, Scheherazade, and a betrayed and vengeful King Shahryār. Wikipedia summarises:

“Shahryār is shocked to learn that his brother’s wife is unfaithful; discovering that his own wife’s infidelity has been even more flagrant, he has her killed. In his bitterness and grief, he decides that all women are the same. Shahryār begins to marry a succession of virgins only to execute each one the next morning, before she has a chance to dishonor him. Eventually the vizier, whose duty it is to provide them, cannot find any more virgins. Scheherazade …, the vizier’s daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father reluctantly agrees. On the night of their marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell the king a tale, but does not end it. The king, curious about how the story ends, is thus forced to postpone her execution in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins another one, and the king, eager to hear the conclusion of that tale as well, postpones her execution once again. This goes on for one thousand and one nights, hence the name.

The tales include “historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques, and various forms of erotica. Numerous stories depict jinns, ghouls, apes, sorcerers, magicians, and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and geography, not always rationally. … Sometimes a character in Scheherazade’s tale will begin telling other characters a story of his own, and that story may have another one told within it, resulting in a richly layered narrative texture.”

Scheherazade tells her stories and is pardoned each morning for three years, during which she bears three sons by the king, until finally she tells him she’s out of stories and is prepared to be killed. But! The king has fallen for her and her entrancing stories; he  declares her wise and makes her his forever Queen.

“The Tale of the Third Dervish” – Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen

The themes of the stories include fate, destiny, self-fulfilling prophecy, coincidence, guarded treasures, good and evil, love, the rise from poverty to prosperity, the oppressor and the oppressed, trust and betrayal, et al.  The clever Scheherazade incorporates foreshadowing, allegory, fantasy and magical elements, parables, the use of an unreliable narrator, repetition, poetry, satire, and stories-within-stories as she weaves her tales that span genres of romance, fairy tales, crime fiction, horror, fantasy, and even science fiction.

As Jaimie L. Elliott writes in an article at Myth Conceptions, “A Thousand Nights and One Night is vulgar, satirical, humorous, sexist, racist, xenophobic, violent, and brimming with magic. A Thousand Nights and One Night is also lyrical, profound, tragic, tolerant, serene, beautiful, and replete with the mundane.”

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The orchestral suite “Scheherazade” (1888) by Russian composer Nicolay Rimsky-Korsakov was inspired by The Thousand Nights and One Night and tells the story with “a kaleidoscope of fairy-tale images.” The suite is structured in four movements, originally untitled but later given names by one of Rimsky-Korsakov’s students; the composer himself didn’t intend for the suite to portray the tale as a whole or in part but rather “meant these hints [themes] to direct but slightly the hearer’s fancy on the path which my own fancy had traveled, and to leave more minute and particular conceptions to the will and mood of each” (Rimsky-Korsakov quoted in an essay at Britannica)

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The illustrations here are from watercolours by Danish artist Kay Nielsen, painted by him in during World War I but never published until 2018, by Taschen. (More)

Some Resources: Literature / Arabian Nights at TV Tropes frame tales: comparison of Decameron and 1001 Nights by Douglas Galbi at purple motes The 10 Greatest Stories From 1,001 Nights by Courtney Stanley at Culture Trip, 28 October 2016 A Thousand Nights and One Night by Jaimie L. Elliott at Myth Conceptions One Thousand and One Nights at Wikipedia

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Tomorrow: Earth’s last picture

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Astronomers Locate a New Planet by Matthew Olzmann

“Because it is so dense, scientists calculate the carbon must be crystalline, so a large part of this strange world will effectively be diamond.” —Reuters, 8/24/2011

Like the universe’s largest engagement ring, it twirls and sparkles its way through infinity. The citizens of the new world know about luxury. They can live for a thousand years. Their hearts are little clocks with silver pendulums pulsing inside, Eyes like onyx, teeth like pearl. But it’s not always easy. They know hunger. They starve. A field made of diamond is impossible to plow; shovels crumble and fold like paper animals. So frequent is famine, that when two people get married, one gives the other a locket filled with dirt. That’s the rare thing, the treasured thing, there. It takes decades to save for, but the ground beneath them glows, and people find a way.

On Earth, when my wife is sleeping, I like to look out at the sky. I like to watch TV shows about supernovas, and contemplate things that are endless like the heavens and, maybe, love. I can drink coffee and eat apples whenever I want. Things grow everywhere, and so much is possible, but on the news tonight: a debate about who can love each other forever and who cannot.

There was a time when it would’ve been illegal for my wife to be my wife. Her skin, my household of privilege. Sometimes, I wish I could move to another planet. Sometimes, I wonder what worlds are out there. I turn off the TV because the news rarely makes the right decision on its own. But even as the room goes blacker than the gaps between galaxies, I can hear the echoes: who is allowed to hold the ones they wish to hold, who can reach into the night, who can press his or her own ear against another’s chest and listen to a heartbeat telling stories in the dark.

Featured image: The cover of volume 2 of The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights, Malcolm & Ursula Lyons., Penguin Classics.

Write 28 Days: Have Heaven ~ Day 9 :: Fairy Tales Welcome to day 9 of 28 Days of Have Heaven, a short month of posts about heaven, paradise, perfection and desire, perfect places, art, theology, gardens, and more, using the Enya song "China Roses" as a jumping off point.