#the way they’re genuinely questioning everything after finding out that reality tv is fake

[totaled-drama]

Screenshot redraw!! This scene is SO funny to me. They’re so silly

[darkpoisonouslove]

Disaster trio + Hollywood AU

So this got angsty and long again. Less shenanigans and more crushing reality (even when it’s fake) but the bond is still there. I hope this doesn’t deviate too much from anything you had in mind with this AU.

1. Griffin acts like her life depends on it. Because it does. Her roles are the only thing that allows her to pay for her mother’s treatment and she can’t allow herself to stop no matter how much she hates the whole lifestyle, the way she has to do it over and over again, put her entire emotional range on display for people’s enjoyment and be a fake every time she smiles at one of her costars she can’t stand but has to kiss for months anyway. She can’t lose her mother, too, after her father’s death crushed them both. It will be the end of her. Even when the roles are all that’s left of her and she clings insistently to them because at least they have lives. They have problems that get resolved in the end or they die. Either way, they have a better fate than the one she has to suffer and she plunges herself into them, researching and wearing the face of her characters like it is her own because she can’t stand looking at the mirror when the only thing she sees is a hollow where there used to be a smile.

2. Ediltrude is by her side, stepping in front of her the moment a storm approaches in the form of a pretentious director or a supporting actress that wants to tear her long hair out so maybe she’ll be cast in the leading role instead. She protects her from everyone that’s trying to make her horrible life worse and Griffin is more than grateful. It means so much. Not any less than when Ediltrude will do her nails and makeup, and her hair, and won’t let anyone come near her and touch her when they’re already taking her life’s energy. And she’ll make her laugh with her teases that can be downright offensive but are still a breath of fresh air when she knows they’re real. The only real thing among the flood of pretense around her. Just like Ediltrude’s aggression is when someone upsets her and the measures she takes to lift her spirits can be called violent in the literal sense since she’s gotten into a fight with a stylist or a production assistant on several occasions, some of them on a physical level. But strangely, bailing her out of the arrest is less of a headache than listening to people droning on and on about things she’s perfectly capable of pretending to care about - she’s one of the best actresses after all - but she simply doesn’t want to. She much prefers driving after a police cruiser to get her friend out of jail before heading home where Ediltrude has a few bottles of expensive alcohol stashed away so that they can celebrate bursting the bubble of whatever asshole has been giving them trouble that day.

3. From a professional point of view Zarathustra’s role in her career is unclear. She knows to get Griffin tea when she gets coffee for herself and her sister - and still huffs when she sees Ediltrude spicing her own drink with some liquor even though Griffin is more than used to the sight now and she only met them in college - and manages to order takeout that even Griffin finds not simply acceptable but delicious even if she would still prefer one of the home cooked meals her mother taught her how to prepare. And to be fair, Zarathustra would prefer them, too, but they spend about 16 hours at work every day and there is rarely time for her to cook, nor can she find the energy. But besides that, Zara is the person having her back. She is her emotional anchor in a way Ediltrude can’t allow herself to be because she’s afraid she’ll fall apart instead of help keep Griffin whole and Griffin can’t help but understand that. The twins lost their own mother when they were quite young - and that strained their relationship with their father - so talking about Emalyn and her condition will only bring up memories that Ediltrude prefers to keep buried under lots of makeup and a glass of whiskey in her hand that’s stuck there as often as the fake smile is on her face. But Zara is there for her, as tired and restless as she’s always been, but she listens when the burden threatens to shatter Griffin to pieces and she hugs her, the two of them soaking up the silent comfort they can exchange while Ediltrude’s laughter is heard somewhere in the distance, her fear of the silence echoing loudly in it but neither of them minds because they understand and besides, Ediltrude is their only reason to laugh truly nowadays. So they let her have her pretense when they now she hasn’t lost herself under the layers and layers of fakeness. Hollywood’s a place for escape fantasies anyway and they all went there willingly.

4. Griffin watches the twins fighting over the last pizza slice like they always do on a Saturday night when they manage to get home before midnight. Finally, they both concede and leave the piece to her and she takes it even if she’s not hungry anymore. She can’t remember when was the last time she had appetite just like she can’t remember when was the last time she felt the desire to get out of bed and didn’t have to force herself to do so and get ready for yet another day of her life that she’ll hate. It makes it hard not to hate the entirety of her life or at least the emptiness that is left in the place of what once made her bubbling with curiosity to explore what a new morning could bring her. She used to wake up way before dawn, impatient to get everything the world could offer. She still wakes up at dark but it’s because the alarm clock won’t leave her to sleep in no matter how much she’ll curse it in her mind or out loud, or even if she’ll break it by hurling it at the wall across from her. There’ll be another ring from an assistant when she’s late and then from a director when they threaten to fire her and she needs to get herself out of bed in some way, the picture of her mother on her nightstand the only thing helping her do it and not choose to lay under the blankets until she rots away while the picture of herself that appears on TV caught by some paparazzi makes her want to throw up what little of the breakfast Zara got for them she’s managed to choke down that morning. Yes, she hates mornings now. But she still stays up at night. She’ll be tired anyway but the magic of Hollywood is right there to help hide the fact that she’s half dead and she’ll make it through another day of being the ghost of a fictional character that has more life in her than her real life persona. So she takes her time at night and goes out on the roof of that big empty mansion she has that she can’t hope to ever fill when she’s so hollow herself but at least she gets a nice view of the stars. They keep shining even when she can no longer do that and she settles for housing the little happiness she can get from the sight of them before she heads back inside to get at least a little sleep so that she can scratch another day off her calendar and not make it stretch into an eternity that threatens to swallow her. Even Zara’s fallen asleep by the time she comes back in but their schedule is capable of causing even that despite Zara having a record in pulling consecutive all-nighters back when they were students with only coffee and food to get her through them. And Griffin knows it is time to go to bed and let the tiredness set in when it becomes clear even sleep can’t chase it away.

5. She can’t tell if the days when she gets to sleep longer are better or worse. She hates the idea of getting her “beauty sleep” when she has to look good for a premiere and she hates the fact that even more sleep can’t make her feel at least a bit better but at least she doesn’t have to deal with the world quite so early. That’s something. She supposes. And she gets to spend the rest of the day with Ediltrude and Zarathustra. Getting ready for the big event in question, of course. As if that isn’t a redundant phrasing when there are no small events in her life anymore, nothing to remind her she’s a person, just her job and the lack of personality she’s developed to keep her career floating when no one wants a beautiful woman with opinions and strength of character. Luckily, she doesn’t have any of that anymore. Just a few remains of the spirit that she once had tucked away where no one can reach them, not even she herself. But they come out sometimes, most unexpectedly, to brighten her night when she can’t see the stars from all the spotlights and there are flashlights blinding her as they capture the lack of light in her once bright golden eyes. Even when her sight has been hurt by someone’s selfishness as they thought they had the right to take a photo of her just because she was put on display like she’d never wanted to be, her heart can keep beating, even accelerate to keep up with the excited screams that come from the crowd, and specifically from the young girls that follow the social media accounts she never wanted. And it makes her grateful for that of all things because she can see they’re real. The excitement in their eyes, and the loud screeching as she does her best to give them a genuine smile. They’re buying the hoax she’s made to sell but at the same time they’re not. Not with how unapologetically authentic they are in their joy even if it is over the glamorous cover of the hellhole she’s stuck in. It’s still something genuine and she can only hope they won’t let their spirit die crushed by the frightening empire running on falsity that Hollywood is. She can only hope they’ll be her stars that refuse to flicker out and die no matter how much darkness their light draws to them. She can only hope that they’ll keep her own hope alive when she’s not strong enough to do that any longer.

[chooseywoozy]

America’s Most Eligible Bachelor: Season 10, Chapter 1 - Who Has What It Takes

(NOW PLAYING AS JUDAS)

You and hundreds of excited fans anxiously wait in line for the season premiere of America’s Most Eligible to begin filming… You grin at the strangers standing next to you.

Judas: I can’t believe we get to be in the live studio audience for the first episode!

Fan: Right?! This is a dream come true for a super fan like me!

Fan2: I don’t know about you two, but I’m here to get on TV, so stay outta my way.

The woman waves her arms and shouts to the security guard!

Fan2: Hey! Hey you! Where are all the cameras? Y’all are missing out on a star right here!

Security: …

Fan: What about you? Why are you here?

Judas: I’m here for love. I know I’m just in the audience for now… but with a little luck, that’ll be me on camera someday! And I’ve always thought there’s something so romantic about finding love in a hopeless place… Working together against all odds, stealing passionate moments alone during the chaos…

Fan: A good showmance can make or break a season!

Judas: Exactly.

Fan2: Ohmygod, look! It’s Carson Stewart!

She points to a well-groomed man as he emerges from a trailer…

Carson: Hello, yes, it’s me. Emmy-nominated host of America’s Most Eligible. Follow me to embark on the adventure of a lifetime!

The crowd cheers as the host leads the line toward the front of the mansion…

Judas: Carson! Over here! I was born to be on camera!

Fan2: And I’m your biggest fan!

Fan: And I’m… standing next to them!

The host stops in front of the main doors and turns to address the crowd.

Carson: I want to welcome you all to this lovely Miami beach house, the setting of Season Ten of America’s Most Eligible. Here, eleven contestants will battle it out all summer to prove they’re the most eligible date in America.

Fan: I. Can’t. Wait.

Carson: The cast will compete in sexy challenges, gon on exciting dates, and vote each other out of the house one by one. The last person standing will win the grand prize of $500,000 and a romantic trip for two!

Carson pauses as the fans erupt into cheers!

Judas: Talk about ‘happily ever after’!

Carson: ‘America’s Most Eligible’ is a very special title, one that we don’t hand out to just anyone. Our past winners have gone on to be authors, social media influencers, even entrepreneurs! But most of all, they’ve learned what it truly means to love and be loved.

Carson throws his arms out toward you benevolently.

Carson: And what better prize is there than--

Showrunner: Carson! Why aren’t you responding to the radio?

A woman pokes her head out the side door and glares at Carson.

Carson: But they said you wanted me to entertain the audience--

Showrunner: Well, I changed my mind. Get your ass inside!

Judas: I guess that’s the end of his speech…

Just then, the people around you start to scream and cheer!

Fan2: Look, they’re bringing out the contestants!

Judas: Oh, wow…

Fan2: That first guy is hot. I hope he makes it to the finale so I can drool over him all summer.

Fan: He kind of reminds me of Roger from last season. Don’t you agree?

Judas: Oh, I actually didn’t catch last season, other than the promotional posters. Besides… there’s no way Roger was as cute as this guy.

You smile and wave at the contestant. He catches your eye and winks. You sigh wistfully as the contestants are herded inside.

Judas: I wish I could be one of them…

Suddenly, the front door flies open again, and one of the contestants rushes back out!

Contestant: That’s it! I quit!

Producer: Whitney, come back! We can fix this!

A frazzled producer chases after the contestant as the crowd in line starts jeering at them.

Fan2: Looks like someone couldn’t take the heat.

Fan: But… the heat hasn’t even been turned on yet!

Fan2: I bet she’s just doing it to get more screen time.

Producer: Whitney, please! I’ll be fired if you leave now…

Whitney: I don’t care! I’m not spending one more second in this stupid house!

You watch as the producer follows the contestant around the corner…

Judas: She looks so sad…

Unable to simply sit back and watch, you jump out of line and chase after the producer.

Fan2: Wait, where are you going?

Judas: I have to help her!

Fan2: Why?

Judas: Because everyone can use a friend.

You wait until the security guard is distracted, then make a dash around the corner. You find the producer trying to comfort the contestant, who refuses to even look at her.

Producer: Here, drink some water--

Whitney: No! I’m not gonna let everyone push me around like that, Jen.

Judas: Hey… Jen, are you okay?

Jen: Me? No one ever asks about me…

Judas: I heard what you said earlier about being fired…

Whitney: And you believed her? Ha! Don’t you know producers will say anything to get what they want? And who are you, anyway?

Judas: My name’s Judas. And for the record, I think Jen’s telling the truth.

Whitney huffs, but Jen smiles gratefully at you.

Jen: Look, Whitney, I know the Confessional questions aren’t ideal, but I have to ask that kind of stuff to get the footage we need.

Whitney: I still don’t know how my personal life is relevant…

Jen: But… it’s reality TV! That’s the only thing that’s relevant!

Jen throws you a desperate glance, and you take a step forward.

Judas: Whitney, you have the chance here to be part of something special and amazing! And okay, admittedly it might be a little trashy at times, but that’s the fun of it! If you quit now you’ll always wonder what would’ve happened if you stayed… if you would’ve made friends, or enemies, or even found love!

Whitney: That’s true, I guess…

Judas: But most of all, reality TV is a reflection of who you are. There’s a reason we sit around the TV each week to watch our favourite reality shows… It’s because we see ourselves in them. All of our best and worst moments displayed for the entire world to see… and commiserate with. Reality TV gives people the chance to see the endless possibilities of their lives. And you get to be a part of it! All you have to do is say ‘yes’.

Whitney: Well… Yes! I’ll do it!

Judas: That’s the spirit!

Jen locks eyes with you and whispers…

Jen: Thank you. That was… really inspiring.

Whitney: But if I’m gonna come back, things’ll have to be different.

Showrunner: ‘Come back’? Ha.

The three of you turn to see the showrunner looming over you. She tosses a bag at Whitney’s feet.

Jen: Piper? What’re you doing here?

Piper: Your job, apparently. Whitney, you’re cut. I don’t want to see you on my set ever again.

Whitney: W-what?

But Piper’s already turned away from her, and after a moment, Whitney leaves.

Piper: Jen, you’d better find me a replacement Girl Next Door in the next five minutes, or I really will fire you.

Jen: I-- okay…

Piper turns her piercing gaze on you.

Piper: Who are you?

Judas: I’m Judas! I’m here for the live studio audience.

Piper: Congratulations. The civilian line is back that way.

Jen: Actually, Judas is here to fill Whitney’s slot! She’s totally got that Girl Next Door thing going on. Piper, you should’ve heard the speech she just gave. I’m telling you, Judas has what it takes.

Piper gives you a once-over…

Piper: I do like her look… But I’m not convinced.

Judas: Maybe this will convince you…

You wrap an arm around Jen’s waist and bend her backward…

Judas: Just go with it, okay?

Jen: Okay…

You kiss Jen passionately, making sure Piper can see everything.

Judas: Convinced now?

Piper: Jen, get her set up.

Jen: Yes, ma’am.

As Piper marches back inside, you turn to Jen, dazed.

Judas: Uh, what just happened?

Jen: I’m not entirely sure, but… Thank you, thank you, thank you! You definitely just saved my job.

Judas: Happy to help.

You turn to face the front of the mansion, taking in the moment…

Jen: Congratulations, Judas! You’re the next contestant on America’s Most Eligible!

Jen ushers you away from the waiting line in front of the mansion,

Jen: Welcome to the Most Eligible beach house. This is going to be your home for the next ten weeks, so settle in.

Judas: Wow--

Jen: No time for that. Everyone else has been in hair and makeup since 6AM. We’ve gotta get going.

Jen rushes you inside, then points at a spot under the staircase.

Jen: Stand there while I get your paperwork. And don’t move.

Jen disappears into the flurry of activity around you. You gaze in awe at the sprawling manor as cameramen, producers, and PAs hurry by you.

Judas: (What did I get myself into…?)

Voice: Watch out!

You turn your head just in time to see a giant light fixture falling directly toward you! You reach up to catch the light fixture right before it crashes over your head!

Judas: … I did it!

Voice: Now there’s something you don’t see every day.

You turn to face the person who warned you… and find a handsome man grinning at you! He helps your lift the light back into place, and your breath catches as his strong arms brush up against you.

Handsome Stranger: Thanks. Your quick thinking just saved the crew a few hundred dollars. Piper would’ve killed us if another piece of equipment broke before the season even started.

Judas: You’re welcome. I’m Judas, by the way. But you can call me The Girl Next Door.

Handsome Stranger: It’s nice to meet you. I’m Addict.

Judas: So… are you part of the crew?

Addict: Something like that.

As Addict looks around the foyer, he seems oddly… familiar.

Judas: Have we met before? I could swear I’ve seen you somewhere…

Addict: I doubt it. I definitely would’ve remembered you.

Addict crosses his arms and smiles at you.

Addict: So… you’re the new Girl Next Door?

Judas: What’s that look for?

Addict: Nothing. It’s just… I wouldn’t have pegged you for the type of person who signs up for a reality TV show. Sure, you’ve got the charisma and curiosity for it...But you seem way to genuine for this fake world.

Addict trails off, lost in thought… After a moment, he looks back at you.

Addict: Sorry, I didn’t mean that they way it sounded.

Judas: Well, it sorta sounded like a compliment…

Addict chuckles.

Addict: Then I guess I did mean it the way it sounded.

Judas: So… I’m ‘too genuine’, huh? Seems like you have the inside scoop on this place. Got any tips for surviving my first reality TV show?

Addict: What makes you think I have tips?

Judas: Call it a hunch. Come on, Addict… For me?

You bat your eyelashes, giving him your best puppy-dog look.

Addict: … Okay, fine! I give in.

You grin triumphantly, and Addict shakes his head with a smile.

Addict: That look of yours is deadly, Judas. Here’s Tip #1: Go to the beach whenever you can.

Judas: Really?

Addict: Have you seen the beaches around here? But seriously, take breaks. Living in the house and being on camera all the time is overwhelming. I’ve seen contestants crash and burn before the first night is even over.

Addict leans an arm against the wall, bringing his body close to yours.

Addict: Stepping out for a breath of fresh air is a must. In fact… If you want, we could sneak down to the beach right now. Take a break before all the craziness starts.

Judas: I don’t know… Jen said she’d be right back with my contract.

Addict: Trust me, she’ll be gone for another half hour at least. I’ll get you back in time. You can stand here waiting for her, or sneak out with me. I’ll even share a few more tips, if you want.

Judas: That does sound tempting…

You close your eyes, picturing the two of you on the beach… You grin up at Addict.

Judas: Let’s go.

Addict leads you out of the house and down toward the beach.

Judas: What about security? Aren’t they watching the set?

Addict: They’re so busy dealing with the live audience that they won’t even see us.

Security: Hey! You two! Where are you going?

Addict: Or not. Run!

You and Addict run away from the security guard as fast as you can!

Judas: This guy is quick!

Addict: But we’re quicker! Come on!

Security: I said stop!

Addict: Through here! We’ll be safe just past those trees!

The two of you duck behind a grove of palm trees.

Addict: We should be in the clear…

You wait in silence as the security guard bumbles past your hiding spot…

Security: Where did they go?

You can feel your heart pounding in your chest, and you’re acutely aware of how close Addict’s body is to yours… Eventually, you hear the security guard head back toward the house. You breathe out a sigh of relief and grin at Addict.

Judas: You didn’t tell me our little trip would include a cardio workout.

Addict: Hey, they say exercise is a good way to clear your head.

Judas: Consider my head cleared then.

You turn to take in your surroundings.

Judas: Wow…

Addict: You can say that again.

You turn to find Addict tossing his shirt aside and basking in the warm sun. You smile as you take in the peaceful expression on his face…

Judas: I guess I wasn’t the only one that needed a break.

Addict: Definitely not.

You take a few steps down the beach, trying to decide how best to enjoy your break…

Judas: Do you have any sunscreen? I wouldn’t want you to get burnt…

Addict hands you a bottle, and you motion for him to turn around.

Addict: What about you?

Judas: Mmm, you can rub me after.

Addict smirks.

Addoct: Okay, Tip #2: Never do what I’m about to do.

Judas: And what’s that?

Addict: Turn your back on another contestant. You’re just asking to get stabbed.

Judas: Duly noted.

You rub the sunscreen along Addict’s broad shoulders, savoring the feeling of his sinewy muscles beneath your fingers.

Addict: Mmm… that feels nice…

Addict looks at you with a smile as the two of you settle in the sand, the waves lapping at your feet.

Addict: I have to say, I didn’t expect the Girl Next Door to be so… spontaneous.

Judas: Hey, they’re the ones who decided I was the Girl Next Door. I had no say in the matter.

Addict: Yeah… I know what that feels like.

Judas: You do?

Addict sheepishly rubs the back of his neck. You consider him carefully…

Judas: Wait a second… You must be the Boy Next Door from last season! I knew you looked familiar.

Addict: Guilty as charged. Which is why I can say from experience that you’d better watch your back. That role didn’t exactly go well for me.

Judas: I’ll be careful.

You nudge Addict with your shoulder.

Judas: So why are you here, if you were on the show last season?

Addict: They bring past contestants back all the time for all sorts of reasons, like hosting competitions or talking about our experience on the show. It’s good for ratings too, since the audience already feels a connection to them.

Judas: Makes sense. But I have another question for you… Tell me… Why did you sign up for AME in the first place?

Addict: When I auditioned, I was a total romantic… hoping I’d make real connections with the other contestants on the show, maybe even find a partner… Plus, I knew it’d give me opportunities to travel to places and meet people I’d never get the chance to otherwise. But I was so naive back then…

Addict shakes himself and looks you in the eye.

Addict: Look, if you want a real tip, here it is… Don’t listen to your producer.

Judas: Jen? But she seems so…

Addict: Harmless? Yeah, they all seem that way. But they’re just looking out for the show. They want good ratings, not happy contestants.

Judas: Thanks for the tip. I’ll be on my guard! Man, this seems like it’ll be exhausting…

Addict: Which brings us right back to Tip #1: Take breaks and go to the beach whenever you can.

You smile up at him, feeling better despite the chaos of the day…

Judas: Thanks.

You gently rest your head on his shoulder. He shifts beneath you to make the position more comfortable… Finally, Addict checks the time.

Addict: I should probably get you back.

He helps you to your feet.

Judas: There’s just one thing I want to do first…

You lean in and press your lips to Addict’s… He immediately wraps his arms around your waist, holding you close. Your hands travel along his strong back up to his soft hair. Finally, you pull back with a smile.

Judas: Thank you for the break.

Addict: You’re very welcome.

Addict drops a gentle kiss on your nose.

Addict: Okay, now we really gotta get you back.

He slips his shirt back on.

Judas: Lead the way.

You and Addict walk into the beach house just as Jen steps out of the back office.

Jen: Sorry for the wait, Judas. Our lawyers are having a cow about the last-minute replacement, but I finally got your contract together!

Judas: I’ll be right there!

Addict: See? What’d I tell you? Right on time.

You grin up at Addict.

Judas: So? Will I see you again?

Addict: Something tells me you’ll be sick of me soon enough.

Addict drops a kiss on your cheek.

Addict: See you ‘round, Judas.

Judas: See you.

You smile to yourself as you make your way over to Jen.

Jen: Here.

Jen hands you the contract and a pen.

Jen: Sign this, and then we’ve gotta hurry! It’s almost time to start filming!

You sign your name and then follow Jen through the foyer…

Jen: So, we’re headed to hair and makeup first, but we’ll probably run into some contestants along the way. This is your first time meeting them, which means you need to start building your relationships with them.

Judas: Already? But the cameras aren’t even rolling!

Jen: Judas, the game started as soon as you stepped on set.

Just then, you hear a shout from the top of the stairs.

Contestant: Tally-ho!

You watch as one of the contestants slides down the banister in her cocktail dress. She jumps off the stairs at the bottom and turns to you with a grin.

Contestant: Hi! You must be the new presence I sensed.

Jen: Judas, this is Teagan, our Dreamer. Judas is taking Whitney’s spot.

Teagan wraps you in a big hug!

Teagan: My newest friend! I can just tell our auras will dance together.

Judas: I hope your aura knows how to tango.

Teagan: See? We’re kindred spirits already!

Jen: Not to cut this short, but we need to get Judas to hair and makeup.

Teagan: Bye, Judas! Find me later so we can compare natal charts.

As you continue to follow Jen through the beach house, you spot another contestant showing off by a row of windows.

Contestant: When you spend countless days and nights saving people from 5-alarm fires, it’s easy to build muscle.

Contestant2: Wow. I’m glad rescuing others from danger is such a good workout for you.

Contestant: Just another perk of being fearless!

Jen: That’s Bianca the Swimsuit Model and Zeke the Hero.

Judas: The Hero?

Jen: He’s a firefighter, and lucky for us, he’s really getting into character.

Zeke wraps his arm around Bianca’s waist and pulls her close.

Zeke: Hey, if you and me were in one of your fancy photoshoots together, I bet we’d really burn it up.

Bianca: Something would burn.

Judas: Hey, you’re getting a little handsy there, Zeke.

Zeke pulls back and glares at you.

Zeke: Who the hell are you?

Behind him you see Bianca mouth ‘Thank you!’

Jen: This is Judas, our Girl Next Door.

Zeke: What happened to what’s-her-name? She was smokin’.

Jen: Her name is Whitney, and she had to leave for personal reasons.

Bianca arches an eyebrow at you.

Bianca: Not that your look isn’t working for you… but it’s not really fit for a cocktail party.

Judas: Well, I didn’t exactly think I’d be on TV when I got dressed this morning…

Jen: We’re on our way to hair and makeup right now to make sure Judas looks perfect for her first Confessional. Be sure you’re both ready to start filming in an hour. I can’t have one of my contestants going home first this season.

Zeke: Don’t worry, Jen. We got you.

Jen rolls her eyes and leads you down the hall… Finally, you arrive at hair and makeup. The room is overrun with contestants and stylists putting the finishing touches on their opening night looks.

Jen: Normally we have professionals to help you with all this, but since Whitney’s time slot was two hours ago, you’re stuck with me.

Judas: That’s okay. I like your style.

Jen flashes you a quick smile as she tucks a strand of hair behind your ear.

Jen: Thanks. I know I’m not Hollywood-glamorous, but I do know how to make you look like a superstar.

Jen quickly gets to work.

Judas: So, what did you mean earlier when you were talking about ‘one of your contestants going home first’?

Jen: The other producer and I split you guys into groups. But don’t worry, you don’t have to work with my other contestants or anything. I’ll just be guiding you through the season to get the best storylines for episodes out of you and the others.

Judas: So… you’ll be producing me?

Jen: Exactly! Of the people you’ve met, Bianca, Zeke, and Derek here are all under my care.

Jen gestures to the contestant in the chair next to yours.

Derek: Hey. It looks like we’re on the same team.

Judas: The same team, huh? I hope we get to spend lots of time together.

Derek: I’m sure we can make that happen.

Jen: Derek you’re up for Confessional. Piper said she’s taking over my intro interviews while I get Judas ready.

Derek: Why didn’t you tell me? I do not want to keep Piper waiting.

Derek rushes toward the door, but stops to wave at you.

Derek: See you out there, Judas.

You nod as Jen runs a makeup brush along your cheeks.

Judas: So, what’s the deal with everyone flirting with me nonstop? I mean, I know I’m a catch, but they’re not exactly my type…

Jen: I’m glad you brought that up.

Jen puts down the brush to look you in the eye.

Jen: It’s time to give you some tough producer love. If you wanna win this game, you have to keep your eyes on the prize. You can flirt with the other contestants all you want. In fact, the more the better! But don’t fall for anyone. There’s nothing more ineligible than someone who’s taken.

Judas: So… get them to fall for me without falling for them? Consider it done.

Jen: Now that that’s out of the way… it’s time to find the perfect outfit to make a good first impression!

Jen digs through the racks of clothes until…

Jen: Ta-da! This is perfect.

Judas: Let me try it on… Well? What do you think?

Jen: Judas, you look…

You smile as Jen blushes and clears her throat.

Jen: You’re gonna be the hit of the night!

Jen puts the finishing touches on your hair….

Jen: And… you’re ready to go!

Judas: Let’s do this.

Jen: That’s what I like to hear!

Next, Jen leads you into a soundproof room with a couch and a camera.

Jen: Welcome to your first Confessional.

Judas: This is so cool!

You plop down on the couch and grin at Jen.

Judas: I’m really gonna be on TV, aren’t I?

Jen laughs.

Jen: Yes, yes you are.

Jen takes her place next to the camera.

Jen: Now remember, out there is where you get the other contestants to fall for you, but in here? This is where you get America to fall for you.

Judas: But if the other contestants are the ones who vote for eliminations, why does it matter if America likes me?

Jen: The viewers get a say in what goes on in the beach house through the audience vote. Every week, they’ll have some way to contribute to the game, whether it’s giving someone immunity or forcing them to wear a silly costume. Regardless, you want them on your side.

Judas: Got it.

Jen: Now, America likes a strong personality. The most popular are the Sweethearts, the Villains, and the Flirts. Each type of attitude has its pros and cons. It’s up to you what kind of contestant you want to be. Just remember, the attitude you choose now could have lasting consequences on your game later… Any questions?

Judas: Let’s get started!

Jen turns on the camera, then smiles at you.

Jen: First question… what makes you America’s Most Eligible?

Judas: Honestly? I’m not sure I am America’s Most Eligible… There are so many wonderful men and women in the cast. I just feel lucky to be counted among them!

Jen gives you a thumbs-up.

Jen: Next question… What’s it like knowing you’re the underdog in this competition?

Judas: They think I’m an underdog, huh? Well, we all know America loves an underdog. America’s history is full of Davids defeating Goliaths. Maybe if I work hard enough this season, I’ll be one of them.

Jen: Alright, we only have time for one more question…. What’s your take on love?

Judas: I think love is the best feeling in the world. Whether it’s romantic or platonic or familial, love is awesome.

You pause and look around the room, as if to check for eavesdroppers. You drop your voice to a whisper…

Judas: It’s actually why I’m here this season. I know a lot of naysayers claim you can’t find love on TV, but I believe in this process. And I’m ready to open my heart.

Jen: That was perfect. You’re a natural Sweetheart, Judas. I feel like we’re going to be best friends for life!

Judas: Are you sure? It wasn’t too over-the-top?

Jen: There’s no such thing as too over-the-top on reality TV.

Just then, Jen’s walkie-talkie starts to squawk.

Walkie-Talkie: Helloooooooo? Earth to Jen! Where are you? We’re about to start filming!

Jen: That’s the other producer. We’d better get out there!

You join the other contestants outside onstage.

Piper: Finally.

Jen: Sorry, Piper!

You hurry to take your spot between Teagan and Bianca.

Teagan: Your aura looks stunning tonight, Judas.

Bianca: Yeah, who knew you clean up so well?

Derek: I had faith.

Zeke: Looks like I’ll actually have competition for the camera tonight.

Derek: Huh, that’s odd… Aren’t there supposed to be eleven contestants? There are only ten of us right now.

You look around the stage at the unfamiliar faces…

Judas: Maybe there’s another last-minute addition, like me.

Piper: Attention people. We only have five hours of hard night for filming. That means we need to get all our shots before the sun comes up. We don’t want a repeat of last season, right Carson?

Carson: Right!

Piper: Now let’s get a move on!

A few of the contestants snicker as Carson jumps in front of the camera.

Carson: Welcome to a brand-new season of America’s Most Eligible.

The live audience cheers and claps.

Fan2: Wooohooooo!

Fan: Go Judas!

Carson: I’m your host, Carson. Tonight, our contestants will embark on a ten-week journey to be crowned the Most Eligible Date in America. After a summer of Challenges and Dates, romances and heartbreaks, only one will be left standing.

Carson dramatically turns to face Camera 2.

Carson: But in an America’s Most Eligible first, we have a twist before we even meet the new cast!

Judas: A twist? Already?!

Bianca: I swear, if we have to team up--

Derek: They did that two seasons ago. I doubt they’d reuse the same trick so soon.

Carson: As you at home know, we’ve been tallying the Audience Vote for favorite past housemate, and we have a winner! Contestants, say hello to your final competitor… last season’s Addict!

Judas: Addict?!

A silhouetted figure emerges from the house and walks onto the stage as the audience goes crazy! From across the patio, Addict catches your eye and smiles. You blush as you remember your afternoon on the beach… Addict shakes the host’s outstretched hand.

Addict: Hello, Carson. It’s good to be back.

Thoughts on the episode…

Wow. All I can say is that Piper truly is a crazy bitch. I mean, what a way to treat people. Especially poor Carson. I get running a tight-ship but Carson is clearly great at his job and treating him like the office dog and embarrassing him in front of the public and the contestants… bitchy move. He is an emmy-nominated presenter or whatever it was he said right at the start, he’s a hot commodity and if he chooses to leave the show won’t be the same. So show him some damn respect.

Addict is strange. But less strange than all the other contestants. I was thinking about ditching him for Derek who is very hot, but is giving me weirdo vibes. So unless any of the contestants I haven’t met yet catch my eye, Addict may be the one for me.

Fave Character of the Chapter: Jen

Least Fave Character of the Chapter: Piper

[reactingtosomething]

Reacting to The Good Place: “Dance Dance Resolution”

Eleanor’s Moral Continuity

The Setup: Find our reaction to the season 2 premiere of The Good Place here.

SPOILERS for episode 203 below!

KRIS: 

Well, that escalated quickly. (Said the guy who’s never seen Anchorman.) In The Good Place’s Chapter 16 — written by noted pun enthusiast Megan Amram (also on Tumblr) and directed by executive producer Drew Goddard (a Lost alum and excellent writer in his own right, who ran the first half of the first season of Daredevil and wrote the screen adaptation of The Martian) — Adam’s prediction about an alliance proves largely correct, Liz’s and my theory that Eleanor was actually retaining her ethical/spiritual growth proves (sadly) incorrect, and Eleanor and Chidi are confirmed as soulmates, even if Michael didn’t know it. PLUS: the returns of lava demon Todd, the Medium Place, and — thank you, universe — Janet’s reset button!

“Is that possible, Janet? Can you just chill out a little?”

“Dance Dance Resolution” goes Groundhog Day (I haven’t seen that, either, but I have seen the terrific Edge of Tomorrow) with an accelerated/abbreviated chronicling of Michael’s hundreds of attempts to engineer a perpetual torture machine that Eleanor won’t far-too-quickly outsmart. He hits rock bottom when the epically stupid Jason solves it first (“Yeah, this one hurts”). Eventually, when all the other demons go on strike and Vicky (f.k.a. Real Eleanor) brings him a list of their demands, Michael finds himself reduced to seeking advice from a man who died because he locked himself in a safe and thought he could still breathe because he brought a snorkel.

Meanwhile, in what might actually be the episode’s B-story (how did the rest of you read it?), Eleanor and Chidi overhear the truth from some of the striking demons on a smoke break, and flee to the Medium Place, where Mindy St. Claire is really tired of Eleanor and Janet showing up on her doorstep with various combinations of the other doomed souls. We get good gags out of Mindy being the only one who remembers any of the 14 previous visits, and hear a few of Eleanor and Co.’s failed plans to outmaneuver Michael. But this episode’s emotional power comes from Mindy’s revelation that Eleanor and Chidi have not only slept together several times, but once even confessed their love to each other. (“It’s like anti-porn.”) Shaken, Eleanor — who has just been really mean to Chidi, even for her — rallies the team for the 700-somethingth time (we see some versions where Michael gives up after just a few seconds) and delivers an ultimatum to Michael… but thanks to that aforementioned advice from Jason, he’s (still) one step ahead of them. He wants to team up. This seems to mean that Tiya Sircar’s Vicky has just become our season villain, which is a pretty glorious reversal of the dynamic she originally had with “Fake Eleanor.”

Surprising no one, I’m now even more invested in learning more about Janet, who is clearly so essential to the operation of afterlife neighborhoods that even through 801 resets Michael could never fully control her. (Does this mean that in “Tahani Al-Jamil,” Janet’s wild personality swings were also to some degree unintentional? I’d love that. They weren’t essential to making Chidi despair over the awfulness of his book and pushing him out of his comfort zone.)

Anyone have hopes, fears, favorite moments (I think I can guess one of Liz’s), or a lead on some coke for poor Mindy St. Claire? As a former fledgling Nietzsche scholar, I’m pretty happy that William Jackson Harper delivers what I’m convinced is only the third or fourth time an American TV show has correctly pronounced “Nietzsche.”

Click through for sports analogies from Adam, a philosophy digression from Kris, and a quality Twitter recommendation from Miri:

MIRI:

Well I’m officially done trying to predict The Good Place. (This is a lie, and I’m not even sorry. Feel free to mock me for how wrong I am in future.) We knew they would twist us again soon, but not this big this quickly. Damn, Schur & co. Just damn.

I have questions about Janet’s level of self-awareness. Or I guess accumulation/memory of previous resets? Her conversation with Michael as he’s about to reset her suggests she knows somewhat what has happened in the past. That may be due to him explaining it to her over the course of that attempt, but I’m not sure. Does Janet have the capacity to retain change even if she loses memories? Clearly Eleanor and co can, but Janet is not human. But is she a being? Does she have the ability to grow? (Sidebar: Perpetually in love with D’Arcy Carden’s performance. That sequence of falls!)

I genuinely love The Good Place’s relationship to absurdity. When you run 800+ scenarios, you’re going to get to some weird places and a two second farm reality joke is exactly what I never knew I needed from a tv show. They have a damn clam chowder fountain, which is insane but they play it as if it isn’t and that is what works so beautifully. Everything they’re doing is bonkers, but if enough people do the same bonkers thing with a straight face, it’s very hard to question it. That’s what worked in the demons’ favor in the first season, and I think what will work in Eleanor, Michael, etc.’s favor this time around. (I told you I was lying about the no predictions thing.)

Jumping back to the chowder fountain for a moment: Manhattan clam chowder would be more demonic to have around than New England clam chowder in general, but a (proper) dairy based chowder is more horrifying to have in a public fountain, so I believe they made the right call on that.

A few smaller thoughts to wrap up:

JUST realized that Mike Schur and Michael the demon have the same name and I don’t know what that says about Schur or about what Shur thinks of himself. It’s a good name in general, though.

I’m quite excited to see more from Vicky. She’s a really volatile mixture of blind enthusiasm and legitimate shrewdness, plus Sircar is just a joy to watch. 

How high is the demon to bad person ratio, y’all? Is it really this skewed or is this a gross misallocation of resources?

Highly recommend this delightful twitter

ADAM: 

A slight disclaimer: I have been a little busy with the move and without internet living like some early 90s sap. I'm currently at my local Starbucks writing this (Spectrum hooks everything up later today). Now back to the show.

It's hard God Damn work being this right all the time! I mean I figured that the team up storyline would happen later, but well played Mike Schur for just getting to the point (more on that in a minute). I watched the episode at a Holiday Inn Express in Kingman, AZ and I'm pretty sure Kris could hear me patting myself on the back from his apartment in Hollywood. It is a good feeling when you just nail a plot development or future storyline. I mean some could liken my figuring out the plot twist to Jason figuring out that everyone is was in the bad place. Okay, enough of the gloating time for more serious talks because I've got great news for everyone, especially Mindy St. Claire, I didn't forget the cocaine!

I will say that even though I called the team up angle, I did not expect it to happen at the end of episode two. The Michael storyline of nothing working and being blackmailed by fake Eleanor (or whatever you want to call her) did have a mid-season or end of the season storyline to it. After letting everything settle in now, however, it makes sense that Schur would pull something like this-this early on. If you look back to the end of season 6, and all of season 7, of Parks and Recreation he takes massive time jumps. Leslie had triplets and we never saw them except for short moments. He essentially did the same thing with “Dance Dance Resolution.” He showed that we can keep doing the same thing over and over again (ala case of the week) seeing how everyone figures it out. In a recent podcast interview he did with Andy Greenwald, he explained how he likes to dig himself a hole and figure a way out. This episode shows that he's crazy like a fox and like "The Good/Bad Place" anything is possible to happen. I like the fact that with this Groundhog Day kind of episode that Schur and Co. are saying that no matter the different variables that the outcome is the same. Ergo, even though these might be bad people they can still learn and grow to be good. Which then leads to the question of: What really makes a bad/good person? Kris, since you are the philosopher I look to you to answer that question. I will say that with the team up now happening that Eleanor and Co. will grow attached to Michael and vice versa (a bit of a stretch).  

Disclaimer: This portion is going to be heavy with sports analogies.

Eleanor, Chidi, and Janet have some very funny moments in this episode showing that they are getting more freedom to handle more of the comedy on their own (I touched on this last episode). The episode, however, truly belonged to Michael. “Dance Dance Resolution” felt like Ted Danson was playing iso ball. We never really truly got to see him shine, except only during last season's finale. This was his moment and he did not disappoint. He was essentially LeBron barreling down the lane where no one is going to stop him. His ability to set others up (his interactions with Janet and then Jason in particular) so they get their moment is great. How he can work in the scene is great and his comedic timing is on point that it just seems so effortless. I am curious to know how much direction is given to Ted Danson or if it's just give him the ball and get the hell out of his way.

I would say to Kris and Liz that you are both correct that Eleanor keeps her ethical and spiritual growth. The reason is that even though yes she does lose her memory every time there is a reset, if you look at every reset she still does the same thing. She seeks out Chidi for spiritual/ethical growth. While she may not remember what happens she always tries to do the responsible or ethical thing. The question may be that instead of wondering what Janet retains with every reset, we might want to start asking what Eleanor and Co. retain with every reset. The characters’ memories are wiped, but how much are they truly retaining? Even when Eleanor and Chidi visit Mindy St. Claire for the 50th or whatever time, she explains to Eleanor that that is the first time Eleanor has told Chidi that she loves him. Even though they have had sex dozens of times before she never said told Chidi that she loved him. That would mean that even though their memories keep being erased their connection continues to grow stronger. This is going to be a storyline that Eleanor and Chidi are going to continue to grapple with throughout the show because with them trying to fool everyone Eleanor and/or Chidi is going to get jealous (or try to make the other jealous) while they are with their "soulmates." I mean let's be real it will be Eleanor trying to make Chidi jealous by hooking up with her "soulmate" and Chidi trying to get back at her, but failing in a miserable yet funny way. I really hope they stay away from a Will They Won't They sexual tension between Chidi and Eleanor.

Finally, I would have to disagree with the notion of Janet knowing and or retaining information. I think that Janet is just an actual computer trying to understand how the world works. I think that with every reboot I would compare it to a hard reset if someone formatted their computer. In the season one finale Michael says they stole a good Janet and reprogrammed her. She may have a backup drive that Michael does not even know about, which then, said backup drive will eventually be used against him by Shawn to retire Michael. I would also like to see Tahani get some more run. She hasn't had as much space to play as the rest of the co-stars. She has mainly just been involved in the B, sometimes C plot or the occasional runner.

KRIS: 

Since now two of you have asked, my leanings as a former-almost-philosopher are Aristotelian, which is to say that A) I’m generally more interested in character traits — virtues and vices — than in hard universal rules or in what you could call the “moral math” of utilitarianism/consequentialism; and B) I tend to think one’s character is shaped by one’s actions (as Chidi has explained to Eleanor), and that therefore one’s moral sense can be — indeed, must be — trained. As my existentialism professor Iain Thomson once phrased this view, “Aretē is a technē. Virtue is a skill.” (The Greek root of the word “technology” is “technē,” which can translate roughly to “skill,” but also to “science,” or even to “art” in the sense that (an) art is a practice. Which is why the website name Ars Technica is a little strange.)

Virtue ethics, then, may be the main ethic of The Good Place as a show. It’s worth nothing, though, that in “Dance Dance Resolution,” Chidi for the first time identifies himself as a specialist not in virtue ethics but in deontology, i.e., ethics based on rules and duties. (This explains his interest in contractualism and Scanlon’s What We Owe to Each Other, and also why he was so excited to have meals with Immanuel Kant.)

Appropriate response to a Kant superfan I’M KIDDING (mostly)

I’m not yet totally sold on Adam’s read of what I’m going to call Eleanor’s moral continuity, but I like it. (I literally applauded alone in my studio apartment when Adam’s prediction came true.) This brings me to my biggest… I don’t know if “concern” is the right word? But like I said last week, I’ll miss watching Eleanor grapple with her past dirtbaggery, which wasn’t just hilarious but often moving, and often a mirror. Think of when Eleanor’s boyfriend wanted to boycott that coffee shop. Dirtbag-Eleanor decided that because perfectly aligning all of one’s actions with one’s principles is impossible, we shouldn’t bother trying. As a specific scenario, this is something we all struggle with. And in general, the theme of “How Do I Be(come) a Good Person?” is creepy-targeted-Facebook-ads-level Pandering to Kris.

Vox’s Caroline Framke observed that this season reminds her of how Community changed a lot in its second season, shifting from a show “about college” to something supremely strange and toweringly ambitious, all for the better. I definitely don’t object to The Good Place undergoing a similar change, as seems to be the case not only in this episode’s structural ambition but in the increased focus on Danson/Michael. But while I do love Danson (who is everything Adam says he is), maybe because this is actually the first thing I’ve seen him in, I’m less invested in TGP as a Danson Delivery Mechanism than I was in its being — by circumstance if not by design — a show about women and people of color trying to find (or make) their place in the universe.

More importantly, the increased Michael focus is also what signals that TGP is no longer primarily about being a good person — though the team-up suggests it may still be about building a good community. And that’s a Schurian theme I love, partly because it’s an antidote to the distinctly American ethos of radical individualism: Americans like to believe in superheroes, in the Great Man theory of history, in “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” as the answer to everything, in the power of a single person to change the world through sheer will. But that’s not how the world works. It takes a village. This is indeed the point of Aristotle’s ethics, and of Aristotle’s Ethics, by which I mean the book Nicomachean Ethics, whose last chapter all but explicitly sets up his Politics, a work about how we organize communities to serve the ends of human happiness. An old classmate thought it was insane that political theory students read the Politics without necessarily reading the Ethics, and something like the reverse is also true: the goals established in the Ethics cannot be achieved without politics.

In The Good Place, Eleanor can’t become better if the world around her doesn’t provide conditions that make striving for goodness feasible. A key idea in philosophical ethics is that “ought implies can.” If a moral framework is going to make sense as a human project, and as something that can be enforced, following it has to actually be possible. In life this is what discouraged Eleanor from even trying to be conscientious about how she spent her money, and in afterlife it’s what Chidi agonizes over when Mindy reveals they’ve all been here before: “We are experiencing karma, but we can't learn from our mistakes, because our memories keep getting erased. It’s an epistemological nightmare!”

(For a much cleaner, sharper take on where this may all be going in a larger thematic sense, read Todd VanDerWerff on how he sees The Good Place as a self-conscious repudiation of Parks and Recreation’s optimism.)

ADAM: 

I think TGP is still about being a good person though. While yes there is a team up there still is the suggestion about what characters, mainly Eleanor, will do to figure out how they are good. Everything Schur has created deals with the optimism within not just people, but a community as a whole. This optimism is then brought forth by a conduit (Leslie Knope in Parks and Rec, Terry Jeffords in Brooklyn Nine-Nine) that shows everyone around them that they can either make a difference or can learn to be less selfish. 

Do you think that because Eleanor might retain some sort of "Goodness" that she then tries to make the neighborhood good? Do you think the Eleanor does retain some of the goodness that she has learned from all the resets (hence my theory on her telling Chidi that she loves him for the first time) that she, in fact, will help both Michael and the rest of the neighborhood become good? I don't see TGP as a repudiation to Parks and Rec's optimism, I see it as the optimism shining through the chaos within. Not to belabor the point, but even after all the 800+ resets Eleanor always seeks Chidi out to learn ethics/morality, as she feels guilty that she is not supposed to be in the "Good Place." She never deviates or goes down a different path. Couldn't you say that even in the chaos as a whole Eleanor and Co. still show resolve and that good can still shine through all through the chaos?

KRIS:

I'd like Lemon and/or Miri to take a crack at these questions, and I'll maybe come back to Eleanor when I close this out tomorrow morning, but I'll venture briefly that there's a distinction between the optimism of Parks -- Change for the better is inevitable, we're on the winning side of history -- and the specific, America-in-2017 brand of hope (or maybe that's not even the right word, but something hope-adjacent) that can be read into TGP, in which you try to change things for the better without assuming that you're going to succeed. In the case of Eleanor and Co., it's not like it can get any worse; there's nowhere to go but up, and thus nothing to lose by fighting even an unwinnable battle, but there is a toll on the conscience for giving up.

MIRI:

Point of clarification (because it matters to the questions Adam brought up, not just because I'm a pedantic ass)—I'm pretty sure this was not the time Eleanor said she loved Chidi. Mindy was showing her tape of another time. They overheard the striking demons only a few days into this reset, so they barely know each other this time. Which is why Eleanor was horrified to learn of the love—she doesn't feel that way about Chidi. Yet. And I think that goes to an important point—Eleanor's progress is not a straight line. She's evolved as a person overall, but she's still somewhat who she used to be and has her old memories. The circumstances of each reboot affect how she reacts somewhat. And that's realistic—no path to self improvement is simple or linear. She's going to have backslides and incremental progress. (Also I'd argue that she goes to Janet for help staying under the radar for her own safety and Janet brings her to Chidi. Eleanor doesn't go directly to him out of love or guilt. BUT she does find her way to him and is willing to learn from him over and over and over, which is what matters to me.)

I think that Eleanor's character has improved and that she retains some of that, but that the job is far from done—and that is the most important part. Each time she must choose to do better (not for the best reason to start, but still) and then work at it. Being good in a vacuum is easy and not particularly worthy of commendation. Eleanor is still on her climb out of dirtbaggery, she's just a bit farther along than in the first season.

Also: IT DID NOT OCCUR TO ME until Kris pointed it out that literally none of the non-demon protagonists are white dudes. That's amazing. I have come to expect Fremulon shows to actually look like the world (women, people of color, many things are garbage but not ALL things, etc). But damn, that is worth taking a moment to appreciate.

Also also, I would like to [again] direct you all to the twitter @nocontexttgp because it is a damn delight on my twitter feed and we all deserve that.

KRIS:

I wonder how much we should consider the question of Eleanor's moral continuity in the light of the sitcom "law" that your characters can't really change. Mike Schur and his collaborators (Dan Goor on B99, Greg Daniels on Parks) have pushed this law to its limits, but have they ever really broken it? Jake Peralta has grown up enough to be a worthy partner to Amy Santiago, but he's still definitely recognizably the Peralta of the pilot. Even the increasingly Woke Peralta is seen in season 1, when he punches out guest star Stacy Keach's old school detective for being homophobic. Leslie Knope started out kind of as a hapless Michael Scott clone, but she was never as outright awful a human being, and Poehler's sunniness lent itself to a different direction, so that Leslie became a hypercompetent moral authority, but she also retained her Too Much-ness and her blind love for and faith in her friends.

From the beginning Schur has been clear that The Good Place is intended as a heavily serialized show, so Miri's observation that Eleanor and Chidi seem to flee to the Medium Place relatively early into version 802 gets at a big question I have that this week's inevitable twist will probably prove I'm overthinking BUT STILL: Are we supposed to assume that Eleanor v802 has had roughly the same amount of moral maturation as version 1, that she’s had roughly similar experiences to what we saw last year? It seems like we have to say no, right? And if that's the case, this is on one level a pretty interesting commentary about network sitcoms: in a way it really doesn’t matter what happens to these people week-to-week, as it really didn't matter exactly who Joey was dating or exactly what Monica was yelling about on any given episode of Friends. But more specifically to the serialization of The Good Place, who/what exactly are we rooting for, if not for the Eleanor whose trials we followed last season? This reminds me, weirdly, of one of the big problems of Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse, in which the lead character was a repeatedly reset blank slate and we spent far too long knowing much more about her world than she did. (Echo actually figured out the truth by the end of the original pilot, but Fox wanted more weekly sexploitation, and forced the show into a procedural rut which eventually saw Eliza Dushku in bondage gear for like 30 seconds, apparently just for the hell of it.)

If Adam is right, then Eleanor's situation is something like "10 steps forward, 9 steps back" in every reset, and maybe last season did "matter" in-universe. But if Adam is wrong, then I guess what we're rooting for has to be in Eleanor's nature rather in her nurture -- maybe her fierce insistence on setting her own course, driven home as a fundamental drive with last season's revelation that Eleanor emancipated herself from her parents as a teenager -- and/or the very notion of moral perfectibility itself. Not perfection, but the potential for it. That is, we're rooting for Eleanor not because she becomes better but because deep down she wants to. I could live with that.

This isn’t relevant to my point, I just really wanted to include it

Lastly: I mentioned last week that I’m a little down on twist-driven storytelling as a concept or approach, but part of the reason it works so well here is that by going to the team-up so early — despite, as Adam said, having the feel of mid-season significance — the show is telling us it’s not “really” about the twist. Whereas something like Westworld builds really slowly and deliberately to a revelation that’s supposed to be earth-shattering, here the twist seems to be a means to a character-driven end, rather than the end in itself.

We’ll try to keep this up all season!

Facebook | Twitter

[babylon-bitch]

Just Friends ~ Looking Back On Memories (part 46)

Harper White is best friends with Luke Hemmings, they always have been. Not only is she friends with the rockstar, but with the rest of 5 Seconds Of Summer, as well as a really nice girl named Erika.

Harper has a few secrets, she can play all the instruments the boys play and many more. It’s a talent she has kept hidden, only very few people know.

What will happen to the six teens, wondering around the world together?

***

The airport is bursting with life, sleepy, busy, cranky, bored, uncomfortable, and happy people; somthing I can’t seem to feel anymore.

It’s pitch black outside, the lights inside this building remind of school, and I’ve been waiting for someone to pick me up for an hour. So with that, I’m not in the best mood and I’ve got a sore bum.

I’ve got week off from university, and my parents insisted that I come home for the week. I’d rather not, and instead forget everything around me by playing/creating music or going out to parties. Not sitting on my arse all week, looking at everything and being reminded of the memories of him.

He’s not even here, I haven’t talked to him in ages, let alone seen him, yet he’s controlling me and making my life hell, just by being him.

I haven’t spoken to Michael, Ashton, Calum, Erika or Maddie in ages, and I kinda miss them. In a way, I’m greatful I’m not in contact with them, I’d just get reminders of all these memories that I couldn’t handle. Plus, if I talked to any of the boys, they’d transfer everything I’d say, to Luke, and I don’t want anything to do with him.

Luke’s stopped talking to me, the last text I got from him was a day after we talked on the phone. I couldn’t be anymore greatful for that, I can finally get on with my life without looking back anymore. Most of my memories include Luke, most of them are good, and I sometimes have to remind myself that he’s not in my life anymore, then it all hits me harder than the last time.

I don’t think it’s ever gonna be possible for me to not think about him at least 500 times a day. He was such a big part of my life, so to not have someone have this big chunk of my heart is excruciating emotional pain. He never gave it back though, he tore it up and stomped on it, then expected me to either mend the shards myself or think I’ll be fine without that key piece.

I’m constantly bearing this heavy feeling in my chest, and I haven’t lost it ever since we were on that damn trampoline back in Australia.

“Harper?” Someone questions behind me.

Whipping my head around and see a girl who is around 14 or 15.

“Oh, hey.” I plaster on a fake smile.

“Hi! I’m such a huge fan, and I’m sorry if I’m bothering you, because it’s really early.” She apologises.

“It’s fine.” I chuckle.

“Can I get a picture?” She asks.

“Of course.” I agree and bend down slightly to get to her level.

I put on a fake ass smile and wait for her to take the picture. The only times I’ve smiled recently is when I think back on memories of Luke and I, but I usually end up crying after that, or when I’m watching tv or somthing.

“Thank you so much, I love you and Erika so much, even though I’m a little sad that you don’t actually make videos together anymore.” She sighs.

“Yeah me too, maybe we can make a video soon.” I shrug.

“That would make my year! Please you have to.” She begs.

“I’ll see what I can sort out.” I wink.

“I saw Luke’s post, and I’m so sorry. You guys were utter goals for many of us, it was such a shock to all of us.” She says.

“It was kinda a shock to me too, but it’s in the past and it had to happen.” You tell her.

“I should get going, my parents are probably expecting me, love you!” She grins and I wave at her with a small smile.

I wish I could brush all this off as easy as I brushed that off.

Sighing and turning around, making my way outside to get some fresh air. You would’ve thought that my Mum or at least someone would remember what time my flight comes in, but no, I had to call and text my Mum and my Dad multiple times to come pick me up.

I still don’t get why I have to be here, Angus and Josh don’t have to, so why me?

Sitting on my suitcase and rolling back and forth to find some kind of amusement. I can’t go on my phone or I’ll end up crying or just be in a really fowl mood. I had to hide the Twitter app, because that’s where I follow most fan accounts and post more.

It’s been so hard seeing his name everywhere, seeing pictures of him everywhere, being sent things about him, it feels like I’m poking a bruise every time I see these things.

I haven’t tweeted, posted anything on Instagram for weeks, I’ve posted videos on YouTube, but I haven’t dared to look at the comments.

Seeing the familiar short woman walk towards me with a big smile and sympathetic eyes.

“I’m so sorry we forgot what time your flight was, we thought it was tomorrow at 2:15 in the morning.” She apologises and pulls me into a hug.

“I slept a lot on the plane anyway so I’m not that tired.” I shrug.

“Again, sorry.”

“Where’s dad?” I ask.

“He’s still in bed.” She chuckles.

“It is 3:30, can you blame him?”

“True.” She nods and helps me put my suitcase in the back.

“Thanks.” I mutter and walk towards the passenger seat.

“How have you been?” She asks as she turns the engine on.

“Fine.” I say what I’ve rehearsed for the past couple months.

“So, your birthday is coming up soon…” She trails off.

“Oh shit, yeah.” I realise.

Am I really gonna be 19 in a few days?

“Got any plans?” She asks.

“No, I’m going back home the day after so I don’t wanna do anything too crazy.” I tell her.

“Okay, what do you want?” She questions.

Happiness? Self-esteem? Confidence? Mental stability?

“I don’t know, Mum.” I shrug.

“Well have a think about it, you’ve only got a few days.”

“Can I have an Ashley Purdy?” I ask.

***

“But I’m trying too hard again.” I sing. “Wait, no, get out of my head.” I scold myself.

Do you know how hard it is not to sing such great songs? I’ve had to delete all of their songs from my playlist, but somtimese I put a daily mix on and their songs come on and I can’t stop myself from not listening just to hear his voice again.

“Hey, Harper, I just got a load of film developed from the past couple of years, including some disposable cameras from your room, so if you want to have a look at them, they’re in a box in the living room.” My mum walks into my room.

“Uh okay, are there any pictures of, uhm, Luke?” I ask with a shaky voice.

“There’s a few, he’s been part of your life for a long time, there’s bound to be a few, love.” She sympathetically smiles.

I nod and stand up, I can’t let him do this to me for all of my life.

Walking into the lounge and being hit with nostalgia, but I try to reel myself away from getting sucked into those memories making me feel like it’s real but it’s just a false reality.

Who am I kidding? I’m about to look at a load of pictures from the past few years, I’m gonna choke on the nostalgia.

Standing over the box, I already get faced by his stupid gorgeous face.

“What? Gonna break my heart again? You’ve already done it, so how hard could it be to do it again?” I spit at the picture.

“What am I doing with my life? I’m talking to a damn picture of my ex boyfriend.” I bitterly chuckle at myself.

“You have no idea how much I wanna rip you to shreds but then stick you together again.”

“I really have to let you go.” I sigh and pick up a stack of pictures.

“The oldest ones are at the front and they go back to when you were 15 or 16.” My mum calls from the kitchen.

I nod, even though she can’t see me, and put the stack back, grabbing a stack from the front.

This looks like when I was 16, when I was at one of my lowest points, and to be honest, I’m walking along that edge of falling down a very deep, dark hole, whilst the Jaws theme tune plays, and it’s gonna take a really long time to climb out again.

I wouldn’t say I’m depressed, I haven’t given myself time to get there, I’ve just busied myself away from that sticky situation, but saying that, I might of fallen in that hole a long time ago, I just haven’t noticed, and I’ve mistaken this heavy feeling in my chest for heartbreak, not depression.

I even hate that damn fucking word.

Going through a few photos, they are just of my family or of the cat, then skimming past a few until I find some of me, not to sound vain or anything.

“Oh my god, I haven’t seen this in ages.” I chuckle.

It’s a picture of Michael, Luke, and I, we’re all wearing these funny sunglasses, paint and pen on our faces,  have customized shirts on and are in mid laugh. I think it was some fundraiser thing at school. I vividly remember drawing a dick on Michael’s cheek.

Taking a picture of the photo on my phone, which may not be very wise to do for the long run, but I don’t care much right now.

“Remember this photo?” I ask my mum with a smile when she walks past.

“Oh my God yeah, it took ages to get that paint and pen off your bodies.” She laughs.

“Luke and I spent about 2 hours in the bathroom scrubbing each others faces.” I smile at the memory. The first genuine smile in a while.

I have to post this, I need to share it with someone. Revealing the app again, not daring to read anything, but just clicking the small circle in the corner and attaching the picture, with the caption: ultimate throw back 😂.

Not tagging either of them, just posting it, not expecting anything to come out of it, it’s just a picture after all.

Putting my phone down after I posted it on instagram too and going back to the pictures.

One of me and Erika, we were at a party or something and Ashton brought a camera out, so we took some pictures together, nothing too special about it, but we looked happy, despite me being so down that whole time.

After skipping a few, just of me and the boys and just Erika at the time, or of the boys alone. I go through a stacks or two, before I get to when I was 17, that was quite a good year, I had a budding relationship with Luke and made some good memories with even better people.

Picking up a new stack and leaning back on the sofa. Straight off the bat, I’m faced with a heart breaking picture of me and Luke. Luke’s looking at the camera whilst I’m looking at him, I’m not sure if I was waiting to see what he was doing or if was just looking at him randomly, but you can literally see the love in my eyes. We weren’t even dating then, we were still just friends.

Putting that to the back, then looking at the next one, it’s just of Luke, very candid, he is playing guitar, looking very determined/concentrated. It’s very Luke.

The one after that is another one of Luke and I, if I can remember correctly, I think we were at Calum’s house for a party in celebration for something. I’m pressed up against the wall, Luke’s forearm is above my head on the wall, his whole body is inches away from mine, and we’ve both got smirks on our faces. We’d probably had a bit to drink and were flirting a little.  

If only they knew what would happen to them.

Putting that to the back again and a small smile grows on my face when I see the one next to it. Luke and I are standing somewhere I don’t recognise, and our arms are wrapped around each other, Luke’s kissing my cheek but you can see he is smiling into it, he is holding my chin, and I’ve got a big smile going on.

Aw, so naive.

After a while of going through stacks of pictures, I didn’t know how big of a lump was in my throat when my Dad said hello to me.

I’ve early finished going through the age of 17, I’ve just put back a stack from halloween and a little after that.

Pulling out a new bunch, and my breathing hitches as I see the first one. It’s from the time we went to Dubai, where it all started; where all this mess started. The Sun is setting, the clouds are all pink, Luke’s standing beind me while I’m standing in front of him, and he’s kissing my head as I’m taking a picture of the sky for my Instagram.

I think the only person who knows that Luke was doing that to me whilst that picture was taken is the person who is behind the camera.

Going through a couple more, until I find another one of Luke and I. I remember this moment vividly, Luke is standing next to me, but facing me and he just whispered something in my ear, it was a stupid dirty joke that I can’t remember, then he laughed when I finally got it, and placed his hands on my stomach and back, pulling me closer towards him. Suddenly someone came up towards us, I think it was my Mum, and she said ‘cheese’ as Luke kissed my cheek, so he quickly whipped his head towards the camera, having a big grin on his face.

Looking at a few more until I realise I’m crying, seeing a few droplets splash onto the picture of Luke and I, he’s looking at me whilst I’m looking at the camera, you can see the love in his eyes.

If he loved me so much, why did he throw my heart away as if it didn’t matter to him?

Luke’s P.O.V.

“Has anyone seen Harper’s Twitter?” Calum breaks the silence.

“No?” I question.

“Go have a look.” He gestures.

I give him a sceptical glance before typing in her all too familiar username into Twitter, clicking on her profile and wait for it to load for a few seconds- the internet is shit here.

My breathing stops and a smile makes it’s way onto my face.

“Awww, I remember that.” I chuckle.

“I’m looking good.” Michael laughs.

“Nice hair, Mike.” Calum says.

“Where?” Ashton speaks up and I show him my phone. “Aw, look at these three cuties.” He cooes.

“Shut up.” Michael and I say in unison.

“Where was Calum?” Ashton asks.

“I’m not sure, but he definitely wasn’t there that day.” I shrug.

“It took me ages to get that shit off, how long did it take for you guys to get it off?” Michael questions.

“It took us hours, we were in her bathroom for hours, just scrubbing each others faces, arms, and legs. I think the process would’ve sped up if we weren’t together, half the time we were just messing around.” I laugh at the memory.

“Didn’t Harper draw a dick on my face?” Michael asks.

“Probably.” I smile.

I’m not sure when the last time I properly smiled and laughed was- probably when I was with her. It feels so good to feel happiness again, even better because she caused it, but it also feels bad because she’s no longer with me, and I can’t relive these memories with her.

That was one of my favourite things to do with her; relive memories. We have so many together, that there’s endless amounts of hours that could be spent reliving these memories.

I think that plays a big part in why this hurts so much, I’ve known her my whole life, I’ve got far too many memories of her for me to be okay with that.

***

“Oooooh, Australian air!” Michael excitedly says and runs off.

“What a child.” Ashton shakes his head.

“Yeah.” I agree.

“Hey, if you weren’t so sad, you’d be with him, most likely in front of him.” Calum points out.

“Shut up.” I mutter and go on my phone.

We’ve come back to Australia for a few days for a mini break. We’re all a little homesick I think, so it will do us all good, and to refresh our minds.

“Luke!” My mum grins and pulls me into a motherly hug.

“Mum!” I mock and wrap my arms around her shoulders.

“How have you been?” She asks pulling me back, keeping her hands on my arms.

“Alright.” I dismiss and she looks at me sympathetically.

“You have to deal with this at some point, Luke. You can’t just keep brushing it under the rug.” She tells me.

“I know mum, can we just go home? I’m tired.”

“Whatever, come on.” She gestures with a nod.

“Bye guys, I’ll see you later or something.” I say the boys and they all wave with a small smile.

We walk away from the airport, and head back towards the place where it all started.

We’ve been in the car for a while now, I’ve just had my headphones in the majority of the time.

“How does it feel to be back home again?” My mum asks as we turn into our road.

“Uhh,” I pause as we are coming up to Harper’s house, looking at her window, the sun shining in, making an orange tinge light it all up. Her car is still the on the driveway, I remember the times we would drive around if we were bored or couldn’t sleep, and just play really loud music, singing along together, we’d usually drive to a fast food place, and eat, talking about whatever comes to mind. I must be imagining it, but I could’ve sworn I just saw her or someone very similar walk past the window.

I really need to sleep.

“Luke?” My mum interrupts my thoughts.

“Oh yeah, uh, it feels good to be here again.” I nod.

“It’s her birthday tomorrow, isn’t it?” She points out.

“Yep.” I say and look at my lap.

“Are you gonna wish a happy birthday?” She gingerly asks.

“Probably not, uh, yeah, probably not.”

“What’s the worst that can happen, Luke?” She questions as she pulls into our house.

“I can’t do it Mum, I can’t bring myself to do it.” I dismiss and slam the car door behind me, before making my way to my room.

[secondsofhappiness]

THANK YOU so so much for posting your photographs from the village tour. You look so happy to be there. Can you tell us any stuff from the tour because so many of us can't get to go and I'd really like to know the things you said they told you about filming there. I hope you come back very soon ☺️

Aww thank you so much!

Of course, I’d be so happy to. I wish you could all go visit, as a really big fan it was rather special for me so I wish there was a way for us all to go.

I’m sure this kind of thing has been done before but I’m happy to post everything I can remember! I was like a school kid, I’m sure the tour guide thought I was an enormous nerd but I wasn’t the only excited one.

MY EMMERDALE VILLAGE TOUR REPORT ❤️

First off, I’ve visited quite a few TV sets with work and attended a few studio TV tapings but this place is something else. It’s so immersive. It’s little wonder the cast feel like it’s home, it feels so real and is absolutely cared for and feels extremely lived in.

It’s tiny in real life though. Not the village itself (I think the “set” is 11 acres they said but the houses. They look SO SMALL and everything feels dainty which was precious to me, the Woolpack specifically. It’s so iconic and yet when I saw it, I awww-ed :)

For those of you who are planning on going at some point, it might be a shame to know all this before you go as the tour guides seem to tell people the same stuff so I’d maybe not read - wanted to warn in case!

It’s a little long so be prepared!

Ok, so first off, for me the thing that struck me was how green it was and how perfectly the village fit into the surroundings. It feels VERY real and is so bedded into the grounds that they barely need to do anything to make it appear “life like”. There is a gardener (one lady!) who looks after all of the plants/trees and foliage. She has her work cut out as most of the greenery is real but it obviously reacts to seasonal changes so due to how far in advance they tape, she is sometimes up against it and has to glue leaves to trees or add extra flowers in or potentially has to replace or hide foliage with stuff to make it look dead. I spotted a few fake plants too, especially in tubs and pots. She keeps her equipment in Tall Trees (Marlon’s house) which is actually located behind the cricket pavilion over the “bridge of tears”. I did NOT know Marlon lived so far out of the village, actually the opposite side of the village to The Dingles. There are issues with grass though. Some areas get worn away and there was a rule on the tour not to stand on it because they’d be filming Monday etc. So all of the grass outside of David’s shop is fake and there’s also a patch of fake grass near the bus stop and the Thomas’ cottage (Mulberry).

There are things that are placed VERY differently to how they seem on the show which makes the tour pretty funny at first. The Sharmas is less then a 30 second walk from the factory in reality but Jai uses his car to travel there… haha. The Sharma’s house is definitely supposed to be elsewhere but in reality it’s right next to Wishing Well! Same with the scrap yard… it’s mega close to the village but Rob’s always driving there and giving Aaron a lift etc. Dude just wants to have Aaron in his car!

Also, hilariously, (someone who has done the tour can correct me on this if I’m wrong) but I’m almost certain that the road in from the security hut that allows you on site is the “Robron first kiss” road… which, if I’m right and let’s face it, we’d recognise that road anywhere, is a short walk from the village. So Rob’s whole “I’m stranded, save me Aaron!” thing becomes hysterically funny.

Butler’s Farm is set alone out of the village near a local pub and looks as quaint and is pretty much a working farm…!

The Dingles, Pollard’s house and The Scrap Yard are all set a little outside the village (a very short walk) and so aren’t on the tour. Home Farm also isn’t a set, external shots are filmed at a nearby estate which I always expected but when Declan set fire to it (ah happy memories) I presumed it was a set… and I was right! They did build a version or started to build a HF set but planning permission failed so, they set fire to it! SO THIS MEANS MY DREAMS OF A FULL HF FIRE ARE DASHED :( Dog is going to have to find a different method than knocking over a candle!

As most people know, most of the inside stuff is in the Kirkstall Road studio in Leeds but there are a few indoor sets at the village including the B&B, the church, the village hall, the vet surgery, Rhona’s cottage, Eric’s House, the pirate ship and the barns (I think they’re all of the interior sets at the village). They do have a Woolpack set that can be placed inside the village Woolpack building because they used it for the Live episode but it’s rarely required.

The Barns! Ok, so we’ve all been a bit confused about the barns on the show and which is which so one of my aims while I was there was to work that shiz out. First of all, it’s probably important to say that I got mega excited seeing the barn where Sarah died. It took me right back and it’s quite far out of the village and is the security hut to allow you onto the set. It’s quite bleak where it is so I can imagine in Winter it’s mega exposed.

The “near proposal/bread barn/affair barn” is just a random barn on the way into the village. It’s close to The Dingles and not far from the scrap yard etc but is just this little random barn… and is entirely separate but hilariously overlooked so you can’t exactly be inconspicuous! It’s a different barn to the one Charity and Ross got it on in and Sarah found Faith in as that’s a much smaller barn further out of the village. Hilarious how many random barns there are!

The graveyard is something I was surprised by! I thought they’d just put the graves out there when they needed them but nope, if a gravestone has been shown on the show then it’s an ACTUAL gravestone buried into the ground so there were so many recognisable ones - especially for long time viewers! Half the King family take up a corner…! Sarah’s is off by herself at the top (definitely felt super special seeing that!) and Val’s sits proudly in the centre at all times!!! We saw Ashley’s cross and apparently they use that cross for all characters so it just gets moved around hahaha. They’re apparently giving Ashley his own grave stone (obviously!) so it’ll be shown in the show at some point. The other random graves are actual gravestones taken from a graveyard in London somewhere as it was being “closed”… creepy. Some ex- crew who were heavily involved in the early success of the show have their own graves!

The village was built in 1997 but obviously had to be made to look worn in, old and imbedded. They used a yoghurt and manure mixture on the walls to encourage lichen to grow! They also used grinders on stone steps and other techniques to make the houses/stone work appear worn from use/weather.

The cars. I kind of got a bit excited as the first thing I saw was The Dingles van. Most of the cars are purchased by the show but some are actually the cars of crew members… apparently Cain’s BMW belongs to the cleaner! I was gutted I couldn’t see Rob’s Porsche but I was told some cars are kept at the scrap yard and as much as I tried, I couldn’t spot it. They had a car park near the drop off point that had character cars in it and I saw “the digger” hahaha, had a giggle to myself.

The fact that the buildings are either empty, shells or are used as make-up, costumes, toilets (Ness’ cottage is the toilets!) or prop storage, it means that obviously special effects are required to make them look lived in. That includes smoke from chimneys, interior lighting etc which is all via remote control. I found that incredibly cool. They all have entrance ways built onto them so when the characters are at their doors, it looks like it’s an actual house though, which is obvious but still a fun little detail.

Apparently the B&B has only one internal bedroom and so if they need to make it look there are more than one like if they shoot in a couple supposed to be used for guests, they just have to change the bedding and lamps etc to make it look different.

It’s hilarious looking at the size of some of the houses and wondering how the heck the families fit in ESPECIALLY The Bartons. It’s one of the smaller cottages and has like one room upstairs… haha

I actually didn’t get an answer to my question about The Mill and if any of it is on location at the village but from what I could see, the downstairs windows look dressed with pull down blinds and looks “used” but the upstairs looks blank. I’m not sure if the ground floor has an internal set (the tour guide didn’t know) or if it’s just got window dressings for external shots but either way it is HANDS DOWN the prettiest house in the village and has the most beautiful location. It looks so grand and cosy and I am biased because it was ALWAYS my favourite set when The Kings lived there and now my other faves are taking it over but genuinely, it’s mega pretty.

Another thing I found funny was the layout. I have been watching this show for nearly 22 years and I still got a shock when I realised where the village hall and church were in comparison to the rest of the village…! Hahaha. It’s so lame of me. I didn’t realise that the back gardens of the cottages that The Bartons and Vic/Adam live in back onto the village hall and that the hall and church is as far away, also the garage! How the heck did I NOT realise where it was?! I didn’t realise it was so close to the Woolpack… also the cricket pavillion is entirely NOT where I expected it to be and is also on a really steep bank. Rob and Aaron’s picnic and Gabby stripping off and all of the other scenes have NEVER made it look like it was on a proper hill! Camera magic, eh?!

And yes it is real beer/lager/ale that comes out of the pumps. The way they do it is, if a pint is being poured and scene requires the actor to drink it immediately, they’ll be drinking real alcohol but if not then their pint will be replaced by the fake stuff and if there are scenes where drinks are already poured, it’ll be fake and also if drinks are downed! That said, some of the stuff the actors drink is actually the proper stuff. Makes sense why some of them always have a swig as soon as Chas passes them it ;)

So! That’s everything I can think of. It’s probably massively boring but I thought I’d write it up anyone for those that are interested. If you can get to visit then I’d definitely recommend it. I found those moments of looking back up behind me to the empty village ESPECIALLY from the direction of The Mill Upwards towards the Pub and bus stop… that was quite special for me. It felt really strange as I’ve grown up watching these places every week night for most of my life and to stand there was surreal and all I kept saying to my friend was how pretty and peaceful it was and how homely it felt. Makes sense as it’s our lovely cosy crazy little show!

[wordswithwayman]

Interview w/ LA Comedian Andrew Polk

Andrew Polk is a LA based comedian originally from Ruston, Louisiana. I got to know Andrew while we were both living in New Orleans. He took me on my first comedy tour and taught me how to promote comedy shows. I got a chance to see him last week when he came through St. Louis on tour. We didn’t get a chance to podcast, but I sent him some questions. Hope you enjoy!

1. You moved to LA about a year ago, why did you move and how has it changed how you look at comedy?    I moved because you have to. I was always the "you don't have to move" guy, but it simply isn't a reality in the current comedy climate. I was becoming complacent, and stagnant in New Orleans because it's so easy to do everything there. You open for everyone, you can go up as much as you want, and you can easily be the best. It is a great formula to develop, but only to a point. Being in L.A. has taught me why people always complain about open mics. They're brutal, and often feel like the opposite of what you should be doing.

2. What is the biggest difference between NOLA and LA?    NOLA is tight knit in the way that you have to celebrate your co-workers birthday. L.A. doesn't give a fuck about you, which is freeing, in a way. I had a show in Hollywood for about 4 months with comedy festival level line-ups and a killer brand, and we couldn't get a soul in the door. In New Orleans, you could put up a guy with a wacky hairdo and fake credits and still get bodies in the seats. There's less friendship (I've found) in Los Angeles, but everyone is focused, and everyone is working towards something, whether it's being funny, or being the wacky sidekick on a sitcom. Seeing other people try is always inspiring.

3. How do you write?    I still have a real life, and a day job, and do all the regular shit that comics talk and write about before they get rich, famous, and awful. I take notes at work, I jot down stuff on my hand while driving, but I cannot sit down and write a joke. I'm fucking terrible at it. It reads like a guy who practiced telling a joke into a mirror over and over again. I have to be spontaneous, and I have to have an idea and an ending, which can be pretty hard to manage in L.A., where you want to do your best every single time you get up, because it isn't that often.

4. You caught onto the trend DIY touring in 2011-2012, what prompted you to book your own tours?    If you've listened to any podcast I've ever been on (you haven't) I've spoken about being in a band. I was a terrible musician, but I was great at marketing, talking to people, and designing shit. I was the first person to tour out of New Orleans, and I was really driven to do it because I was proud of what I had done and what I was doing. I was proud of New Orleans, and I saw a chance to take it on the road. Most of the venues on that tour were rock clubs, and DIY spaces, and it felt right. The question I got asked the most was "how did you do it?" and it was as simple as having a video and emailing venues. It's not like that anymore because it's pretty commonplace now, but it was really special. The kind of shit an old punk rock guy tells his grandkids and they just think he's an old, lying fruit.

5. We started at similar times 6 or 7 years ago and since then have seen a lot of comics quit doing stand up. Why do you keep going?    I'm jealous of the genuinely funny people that I know that have quit. I fucking hate comics. I really do. Being at a comedy festival now sounds like going to prison. There's nothing less funny than comedy math, inside baseball, punching up/down, boring gossip, and sucking fraud's dicks because they can get you somewhere. My twitter feed is sports, funny human beings (like, 3 comics), and pictures of dogs. I don't have a great answer for why I keep doing this, but I do come back to a quote I remember Maynard James Keenan saying, about his band Tool (this isn't a joke), it was "I don't think Tool was the best, but we were the best at it" -- I'm not the best at it, but I'm doing what I want to see other people do. If I quit, there's less hope that comedy will ever become anything other than boring people pretending the color of a politicians tie affects their life in the least.

6. Your social media game is on point, what’s your secret to staying relevant online?    I was at an open mic a few weeks ago, and my friend said he wanted to tweet something that I thought was very funny, and another comic said "you can't do that" only because it could have upset some people. I don't understand where that blockade came from. Who fucking cares? If someone wants to unfollow me, or mute me, how does that change my life in any way? I wouldn't want to work for a TV show that doesn't want the actual, uncensored me, and I would not want to pretend something shitty is good just in the hopes of getting on it. I guess my answer is I get fucked up a lot and don't mind saying "retard."

7. You are in Todd Barry’s book “Thank You For Coming To Hattiesburg”, how did that come about?    5 years ago I was pegged to open for Todd Barry in New Orleans, which probably had more to do with the poster I designed for the show than my actual skillset. Todd and I became friends, or whatever, because I didn't bother him and wasn't an idiot. Whenever he came through the South after that I'd ask him if he needed an opener and a car, and he usually did. Good guy, good book. Check it out!

8. What is your goal in comedy?    To get funnier each day.

9. Five years from now best case scenario, what does your life look like?    I either don't have any roommates, or they all died and their rent keeps autodrafting from their accounts. A dog would be nice, too.

10. Where can people find you on the inter webs?     I'm on twitter, snapchat, and Instagram @polksalad. Facebook is awful and I have everyone muted. If I don't like your statuses, it isn't personal, I just can't see anything on there, but add me there if you want. My website that I try to keep updated with the open mics I host sometimes is www.andrewpolkcomedy.com