leighlikesthing

[leighlikesthing]

Hey that Engame movie came out!

Let’s talk about Endgame.

I have to be honest with you, reader.

I absolutely loved it.

I’ve seen it twice now. And while I am sad that this chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is over; this big, dumb, beautiful chapter that kicked things off, I can’t complain about the send-off.

Well, I can complain a little.

The main idea of the Avengers doing a time heist, and going back to their own past is wonderful, and it made for some incredible moments. But I have to tell you that there are certain things that we didn’t get, that I will always want, and certain things we did get that I’m not so sure we needed, and things that I can live without.

But let’s start with the things that are beautiful about this movie:

Professor Hulk: I lost my whole damn mind when I saw Professor Hulk. I’m thinking about him now and I’m crying. It’s such a wonderful story beat, in all of this despair, to have Bruce pull himself together enough to figure his shit out and come to terms with both sides of himself.

Morgan Stark: And the fact that Tony and Pepper got to really be together. They’ve been one of my favorite ships since the first Iron Man movie. Yay!

The end of Tony’s story arc: Am I totally heartbroken that he died? Yes. Did it feel earned? Yes. Go back and watch Iron Man one and then watch Endgame. His character development is so wonderful. And while it hurts that this beloved character gave his life? It feels right.

Steven Grant Rogers: His ass, his sass and his ending: Mr. “I’d make you dinner but you seem depressed enough already.” Mr. “That is America’s ass.” Listen to me. LISTEN TO ME: Steve tried really hard throughout all of these movies to move on and live a life in the future. He did the best he could, because that’s what Steve does. But he’s never been happy. I’d argue that since waking up from the ice, he’s been in a slow slide through a nervous breakdown. His staunchness in the first Avengers movie, trying to be a good soldier was a suit of armor he tried on that didn’t fit. He works for SHIELD, and that feels wrong, and then it turns out it IS wrong. Bucky is back, but evil, and when you couple that with Peggy’s death in Civil War, it manifests as a nervous breakdown where he digs his heels in so hard that he destroys the Avengers and goes on the run. This man has been through so much. And through it all, he’s never been happy, or comfortable or okay. So he winds up in 1970, and stumbles into Peggy’s office, and...and there’s a picture. Of him. The way he used to be. The way he was when they met. 25 years after he crash landed in the ice, and this women that he adored, the first women who ever looked at him and saw his value and worth, still has his photo on her desk. Which means she’s thinking about him every day.

Listen to me: If his photo had not been on her desk, he would not have gone back. He went back because he saw that she missed him. She’d been married and had kids and still, she missed him.

Steve wanted to be happy. Steve, since coming out of the ice, has never been happy.

He has earned his ending.

The things we didn’t get:

Jumping ahead five years after the snap was an inspired idea. The entire theater gasped when those words appeared on screen. But we didn’t see much of what the world had become; in this state of moving on but not moving on. How did governments function? How did the world function? Was the President snapped? I wanted to know more.

Steve climbing the mountain on Vormir, and coming face to face with the Red Skull. Seriously. That was an after-credit scene or something. A Marvel short? A one-shot comic? Somebody write it!

More with some of the side characters. Harley showed up at the funeral, but had no lines. Peggy had muffled lines but no lines at the end. Where was Darcy? Where is current timeline Jane?

Now, I know that this was already an enormous undertaking of a movie. It’s one thing for a comics company to plan, and execute and market a crossover, it’s quite another for a movie universe to do so. So much money. So many schedules. So we were obviously not going to get every tiny little thing we wanted out of this movie.

Onto the things I’m not so sure about:

I applaud the writers’ attempts to tackle depression in Thor’s story. I think their hearts were in the right place, but the execution was a little...I think it needed its own mini-movie or something. In a huge story like Endgame there just wasn’t enough time to unpack Thor’s feelings in a delicate way. But I will say Thor and Bruce’s conversation near the start of the movie was really a beautiful touch. And I don’t really think they were playing Thor’s depression and state of mind for laughs. It’s just so unsettling to see someone fall so far that we, as people, laugh, because we’re uncomfortable.

Nat’s death was...unfortunately. Narratively, I get it. Death in these movies needs to have an emotional impact. For some reason the cliff on Vormir is somehow filled with women in fridges. Which just fucking sucks. It sucks. I think that Gamora’s death in Infinity War was a waste, but part of losing a battle is losing people, and she was an easy (a possibly lazy) target. Natasha’s death felt different for me. The Avengers were her family, and her whole life. She would do anything to reverse what had happened, including giving her life. It makes sense that she would tell Clint to go fuck himself and take the swan dive. Does Clint deserve to live? After he went around and murdered a whole bunch of people of color around the world? Nope. Would we have cared as much had he died? No. Is he known for winning fights with Natasha? Nope. So it’s hard to see another way around that that makes sense.

Fuck’s sake is time travel and alternate timeline work confusing. Damn. Not even the writers and directors can agree on this shit.

There is one thing that I can live without, in the aftermath of Endgame.

And it’s the toxic fan reactions, specifically to Steve’s endings, and in regards to Bucky.

If you’re a shipper, I’m sorry that it’s not canon. It’s a bummer for you. But like...them’s the breaks. Sometimes your ship isn’t canon. I have been in so many fandoms where my ships are not canon.  

But let me say this:

“Til the end of the line” does not mean being joined at the hip forever and ever even if it’s bad for the both of them.

When Bucky said that line to Steve, they were eighteen, and Steve’s mother had just died. When Bucky said that line to Steve, he meant “You are not alone. I am here for you if you need me. Don’t count me out.”

And to try and jog Bucky’s memory in Winter Soldier, Steve repeats that line to Bucky, and he means the same thing. “You are not alone. I am here for you if you need me. Don’t count me out.”

The Russo’s have stated that Steve and Bucky talked before Steve left to return the stones. And you can tell in their goodbye scene. I’ve seen people complain about this not being included in the movie, but if you’re paying attention to body language, facial expression and intonation, you can tell that they talked. That missing scene would be a great fanfic, but the movie doesn’t need it.

Steve and Bucky are not those two punk kids from Brooklyn anymore. They’re both incredibly different people. People who have been functioning without each other since the end of Civil War. Steve’s been on the run. Bucky’s been in Wakanda. Are they still close? Yeah. Are they totally different people who don’t have the same expectations from each other that they once had? Yeah.

Steve’s decision to go and be happy in the past is not an abandonment. It is two grown men acknowledging that they live two separate lives. Bucky is happy in Wakanda. Steve hasn’t been happy since before he nose-dived that Hydra plane.

Bucky is gonna be fine. He has Wakanda, and Sam and an entire world to explore and experience. He’s healing nicely from his time as the Winter Soldier, and maybe the US Government will even pardon him since his actions were the result of being captured as a prisoner of war. Bucky’s gonna do great.

Steve Rogers has been a heartbroken mess since he ran out of that SHIELD base in Times Square and realized he wasn’t in fucking Kansas anymore. Everything he has done has been in response to what is probably an incredibly deep pit of depression, exacerbated by everything he’s been through. There is nothing in the present that will make Steve forget about all that he has lost.

So he went back.

Because he could do it, and because he knew he was missed.

Your mileage may vary in regards to what he did in this new timeline he created.

But watching fandom throw a ragey tantrum over a ship that wasn’t canon to begin with being sunk?

Not my favorite.

But this movie kinda is. I’m gonna go see it again. :)

[leighlikesthing]

“All we can do is our best. And sometimes the best that we can do is to start over.”

Movie studios who make make superhero movies have two goals: honor the source material, and make it good.

DC had succeeded previously in this. Tim Burton’s Batman films, and at least the first two Christopher Reeve Superman movies did these things well. They’re not perfect movies to be sure, but they saluted their source material happily, and were great popcorn movies.

And then...somewhere along the way...I don’t know. Something happened. Something got lost. The Batman movies stopped working, and then got super dark and gritty, and Superman Returns was...rough. It was like someone’s first draft that no one had bothered to clean up. Marvel did some low-budget 90′s movies (Captain America and a few others I think), which were just pure camp.

The X-Men movies that came out were more exposition than anything else. They spent so much time explaining what they were that it was more like a dull history lesson than the melodramatic action movie X-Men fans craved. X-Men 3 came out like nails on a chalkboard. The Early Spider-Man movies are...good. But not memorable. 

And then something strange happened. 

Marvel made...an Iron Man movie. Which was weird, because of all the characters to pick...Tony Stark seemed...unlikely.

But there it was. And it wasn’t just a good movie. 

It was a great movie. Funny, and exciting and oddly, full of heart.

And thus was born the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Which is crazy when you think about it. There are over twenty movies in the same continuity, which have introduced on-screen versions of both iconic and really obscure Marvel characters, and they’re all interconnected. They all take place within the same universe. 

And yes, some movies aren’t as good as other (I could go on forever about Avengers: Age of Ultron, and I’m not going to lie, Ant-Man and Doctor Strange were well-made but not terribly thrilling for me), but they are all important in their own way. They all make up this vast movie crossover world.

And it’s amazing.

Think about how many people it’s taken to make it as good as it is. Think about how much money has been invested in making movies that are entertaining, honor the source material, and are cohesive with each other (and yes there are continuity hiccups. Who do you think Kevin Feige is, the Watcher?). 

Don’t get me wrong. the MCU movies will not wind up on the Criterion Collection. They’re not high art. But they are fun, and full of heart. And for  general movie-going audiences, sometimes that’s all you need. 

For comics fans, it is bananas to see our favorite characters kick butt on the big screen. When the first Avengers movie came out, I nearly cried at seeing Captain America and Iron Man stand next to each other for the first time.

“Captain.” 

“Mr. Stark.” 

And yes, comics fans are finicky and bitchy and some of them don’t like women apparently (ugh. fuck’s sake), but we will go to see every single one of these damn movies. And now everybody gets to see what we see in these characters.

How shitty Tony Stark can be. How much of a cinnamon roll Peter Parker is. How much of a pain in the ass Steve Rogers is always all the time. How much of an absolute stone cold bad-ass Carol Danvers is. Now everyone knows just how dumb Peter Quill can be like...most of the time.

And it’s a joy.

But the MCU as we know it is coming to an end. There will be more movies and TV shows, of course, but I don’t think we’ll ever see a lot of these characters in the same place again. Or we may never see some of  them again at all. I guess we’ll find out.

I’ll be seeing Endgame tonight after work. I won’t be posting spoilers for a few weeks, but I’m sure I’ll be writing furiously about it. I’m missing the Supernatural season finale for this, so that tells you just how serious business I am about the MCU (don’t worry. I’ll get up ass-early tomorrow morning and watch the finale on my phone. And I’m sure I’ll cry some more).

We’re in the Endgame now. I’ll see everybody on the other side.

[leighlikesthing]

Supernatural Rewatch Season 1 Episode 16: Shadow

Let’s talk about John Winchester.

This is the first time we see him with Sam and Dean, in the same room, in the entire series (outside of the pilot’s opening flashback). And you have to admit, Jeffrey Dean Morgan gives John such a presence. When Dean opens the door to their motel room near the end of the episode, and John is standing by the window, he takes up the whole room.

And from just that, we can see why Sam would feel stifled; would feel the need to get away, and we see why Dean would feel compelled to stay by his father’s side; to fall in line.

John might be, for me at least, the most frustrating character in the whole show.

@dettiot and I had a huge discussion about JDM’s performance here vs the stories we’re told about John in later seasons. We had to pause the episode to talk about it, because we went down the rabbit hole with this one.

For me, it’s hard to think about John as the teary-eyed father who missed his boys, who did the best he could to protect them and make sure they were safe while preparing them for a world where monsters exist...with a father who would abandon his son for stealing food and say “let him rot in jail.”

From what we’ve seen and heard in the first few seasons, those two people do not add up. And @dettiot was quick to point out that after 14 years of continuity, god knows how much turnover in the writer’s room, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan not being there to give his input on John’s character, there’s no way to make any of this make sense.

It’s just inconsistent writing done over the span of a decade plus.

If you watch season one, and then watch Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s performance as John in the 300th episode, the two performances match very well. A man grateful to have his family healthy and whole in one place, to sit down for dinner and the man who teared up at seeing his boys again after a long absence completely track.

Later in the series, Dean talks about John being checked out; an empty shell, bent on finding what killed his wife and keeping his boys safe no matter the cost (like Dean’s self worth and emotional well-being and Sam’s autonomy).

And we will see the more ruthless side of John turn up over the last leg of the season, specifically in Something Wicked, which is coming up fast. I’m certain that my header for that episode will read “Fuck John Winchester in the ear with a power drill” but for now, we’re focusing on Shadow.

John is complex to be sure, and so was Mary. They were two people who loved each other and their sons but were flawed, and didn’t do the right things. It’s the reason Sam and Dean are so close to begin with. Not only did Dean practically raise Sam, but they really only had each other to rely on. When you grow up in life or death chaos with an unstable parent, it can create an incredibly strong bond.

But it’ll also cause a lot of problems.

Shadow on the whole, is a great episode that really starts moving the plot forward. Season one will get more adventurous in the next few episodes. I’m stoked.

[leighlikesthing]

Supernatural season 1 episode 15: The Benders

The Benders, you guys.

So here’s the thing. On a normal basis, as striking as many of these early episodes can be, they don’t tend to climb all the way up to legitimately scary heights. Skin, maybe, reaches a more disturbing level. Bugs, at least for me, is nearly unwatchable just because of all the…

Well, all the bugs.

But the Benders.

The Benders will give you weird dreams.

The Benders might actually be the scariest episode of Supernatural ever.

Because the boys aren’t hunting some demon, or some monster, or some ghost.

No. The boys, by accident, run into regular old people, living in a big house in the woods, kidnapping people and hunting them for sport. Because it’s fun.

Dean says it best: “Demons I get. People are crazy.”

Oddly, this episode is set in Hibbing, where Donna is from, and i wonder if, when she lived in Hibbing, this was a creepy story she knew. Of people disappearing. Of the house found deep in the woods, and the abandoned cars.

Of the bones found in the house, used for whatever the hell. Meat probably stored somewhere for a harsh winter’s day when the old man Bender and his family would have needed a hearty meal.

That’s a conversation I would love to hear Dean and Donna have. Bros that they are.

The Benders themselves, Old man Bender, his two duncy sons and little daughter Missy, are horrifying. And gleeful in what they’re doing. And they know what they’re doing. I wonder where MIssy is now. I wonder if she got a shit ton of therapy and now lives a normal, but slightly broken life.

I wonder if she still kills and eats people.

Because they were definitely eating people. Dean jokes about it, but there isn’t any way they weren’t.

Now, the accents here are a little odd. Old Man Bender’s belongs somewhere in the deep south. Georgia. Did he get run out of a small town there and flee to the midwest with his family? Or is this just a thing he’s decided to pick up because the accent is 100% unsettling and it just creeps out their victims even more?

Also, dear reader, this is the first (but far from the last) time Sam goes missing, and Dean loses his whole shit about it. Keep in mind that John is still alive, and the last time Sam ran away from Dean, we’re told, however vaguely that the consequences were dire for Dean.

So yeah. Dean loses it, goes to the cops, and befriends one, who decides to help him find Sam, because ten years ago, her own brother went missing in the exact same manner.

Because the Benders ate him.

Guh.

I both love and hate a good cannibal episode. I think they’re terrifying, and I like, to some extent, to be terrified. The Benders feels very much like a “You want scary? We’ll show you fucking scary” in the same way that Russell T Davies wrote the Doctor Who episode “Midnight” in response to everyone fawning over Steven Moffat for “Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead.”

TV with something to prove, it turns out, makes for great TV, and I’m so glad that this episode holds up to my memories of it. It’s such a creepy, fast-paced episode.

Nothing but love.

[leighlikesthing]

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

So my roomie and I have been watching Cheers.

I don't really know what I was expecting from an 80s ensemble sitcom about white people in a bar. But jesus christ, I had not prepped myself for the toxic wasteland that is Cheers.

Toxic masculinity? Cheers got you covered.

Toxic, abusive relationship? Sam and Diane are great for that.

"You hit me."

"Yeah, and I wanted to hit you a lot harder!"

The second Sam said that to Diane I said "run!" Out loud. Because holy shit, no thank you.

If millenials are looking for the philosophical differences between themselves and their parents, watch Cheers. This was appointment television for millions of baby boomers, and Sam and Diane were lauded as a great romance, despite the fact that he lied to her and made her miserable on purpose nearly every episode. And despite the fact that we're not even sure if she actually liked him as a person, she put up with it.

He lied to her so many times that she strangled him with a telephone chord.

She drove him so nuts that he broke her heart on purpose. For fun.

That's just season 2.

Damn.

People in relationships fight. Obviously that's a universal truth. It happens. But this kind of abusive behavior, while it makes for compelling TV if you can stomach it, is not exactly a good example for what a romance should be like, even in the worst of times.

Don't get me wrong, Danson and Long sell the shit out of this toxic tug of war. A less talented cast would have been the death of this show.

Still.

Damn.

[leighlikesthing]

Someday I'll talk about my feelings on this show and the small fraction of fandom I was once apart of.

Someday. :)

In the greater scheme or the big picture nothing we do matters. There’s no grand plan, no big win.

requested by @saferincages

[leighlikesthing]

30 days of Supernatural day 19

Favorite gag reel moment.

[leighlikesthing]

[leighlikesthing]

Endings are hard

For nearly as long as I’ve been an adult, there has been Supernatural.

A friend introduced me to it when I was in college. I watched the Pilot, and I was completely hooked. The soundtrack, the writing, the acting...sure it wasn’t Shakespeare, but it was fun! And fun was something that I had a hard time letting myself have back in ye olde 2007.

I binge watched the first two seasons (stealing them from the internet. Don’t judge me, I was working retail, and DVD sets were pricey (but I bought them later)!), and jumped on when season three started, and from then on I watched it all live when I could manage it. Sometimes I didn’t have TV, or life got in the way, but it, for the last twelve years, has been appointment TV.

I can’t explain to you why I like it so much. Maybe it’s because it’s funny horror, and I’m a sucker for funny horror. Maybe it’s the sweeping stories, or the boys themselves. Maybe it’s the underlying themes about family. For a girl who has very little of her own blood relatives around, it’s appealing to watch shows about family.

Makes you feel connected.

Through multiple nervous breakdowns. Through teetering on the brink of being kind of homeless a couple of times, through joblessness other times, through going no-contact with my abusers, through falling outs and the deaths of friends…

There it was.

Every October, without fail, there would be a new season. 

This little show that could.

I caught the 2009 San Diego Comic Con panel. I lucked my way into the Nerd HQ panel with Jensen, Jared, Misha and Mark. I have some of the merch. Pops and a couple of t-shirts. The first five seasons on DVD. Somewhere I have the little lead Impala that came with one of the early box sets.

I’m sad that it’s ending. I’m happy we had it at all. I can’t thank the cast and crew enough for making this amazing, weird, bonkers, funny, sad thing for as long as they did.

One final ride. Restock the holy water, grab the salt rounds, the beer cooler and the cassettes.

Let’s go.

(And don’t forget the pie.)

[leighlikesthing]

Supernatural season 1 Episode 14: Nightmare

Nightmare is an episode I don’t remember much about, other than being a psychic kids episode.

Dean is never going to get comfortable with Sam’s abilities; ever, and that will bite them both in the ass later down the road. He discomfort will drive Sam to do all sorts of thing, including having sex with a demon and drinking demon blood in a misguided attempt to prove to Dean that his abilities don’t make him monstrous.

And I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that Sam is wrong about that.

But as we’ll learn over the course of the series, Dean is rarely wrong, if ever, and Sam screws the pooch a lot.

Getting back on track with Nightmare, this gives us the vision of Sam and Dean dressed as catholic priests. Not only does it fuel fangirl fantasies, it makes for some great gag reel moments.

Wait, what the hell is that gadget that Dean uses to case the house for ghosts?! I don’t think we ever see it again! That is some ghostbusters level bullshit! Dean is an engineering genius and no one can convince me otherwise.

Seriously, if Tony Stark knew that Dean Winchester was making infrared thermal scanners out of junkyard scraps, he’d snap him up in a heartbeat.

Sam’s powers amp up here. It’s not just dreams now, it’s real time visions, Harry Potter style. And like Harry, his visions are coming from the bad guy.

Both boys are freaked, though Dean is holding it together, because someone has to.

The episode dives deep into what it’s like to have abusive families as it keeps going. Max,  the son and nephew of two of the victims in this episode, is a survivor of abuse, and the questions of what it would be like to have the ability to take revenge.

Dean and Sam argue about how to handle Max. And Dean is adamant about Max being in the wrong here, while Sam understands Max’s stance. That being beaten and mistreated as often as he was makes him sympathetic.

These are questions the show doesn’t ask too too often anymore. But it’s also indicative of where Dean and Sam are in their lives, and what they’re will to put up with and not put up with.

Does John deserve to die for the things he put the boys through? Is that the question here? Is Dean’s knee-jerk response to the idea of killing your family in response to abuse due to the very notion of killing John for hitting him (which we’re led to infer happened later in the show)?

Sam, on the other hand, wants to connect to Max. He wants to understand Max, because he feels that they’re similar because of their powers. But Max’ life is worlds away from Sam’s. He and John fought, obviously, but John never brutally attacked Sam the way Max’s father did.

The nail in this wild coffin? Max’s birth mother died the same way Mary Winchester did. The threads are starting to come together.

Max and Sam’s conversation moves the plot along, but it doesn’t convince Max not to kill his stepmother. In the end, Sam uses his mind mojo to free himself from a tight spot, we see a version of Dean die again, and Max ends it all by turning Dean’s gun on himself.

In the end, Sam owns up to being lucky that John wasn’t worse than he was. “A little more tequila and a little less demon hunting, and we would have had Max’s childhood.”

But the truth is that whatever anger John had, he likely took it out on Dean and not Sam, and we’re not sure how much Sam realizes it. And Dean even says as much here, except in regards to the present. “As long as I’m around, nothing bad’s gonna happen to you.”

Ouch, show. Ouch.

[leighlikesthing]

For real though, watch Farscape.

[leighlikesthing]

“Boy was Spielberg ever wrong. Close Encounters my ass.”

Farscape is on Amazon Prime.

I repeat:

Farscape

Is on

Amazon Prime.

It’s also 20 years old this year.

If you’re not familiar the Sci-Fi Channel’s first scripted show that aired from 1999-2002, let me introduce you to a floating prison filled with pansexual idiots.

Our premise: John Crichton, American astronaut, takes his tiny little ship out for a spin to test some theories that he and his partner in science and best friend DK have been working on. While doing so, John encounters a wormhole, and gets pulled through to a completely different galaxy, dropped into the middle of a firefight between a living ship full of prisoners, and their captors who are trying to take them down in space fighter jets (like X-Wings but called Prowlers). John winds up on the prison ship and escapes with the now freed prisoners, and four years of wild, sexy, puke-filled shenanigans ensue.

Or, as a friend put it when he caught it on Netflix a few years ago: “Drunk Man Yells at Muppets.”

It is the strangest thing in the best possible way, mostly due to the fact that the show’s hero winds up on the prison ship instead of with the uniformed, bureaucratic Peacekeepers (Think the United Federation of Planets- but with more murder, world-conquering and a “we were just following orders” attitude).

What this means is that there is room to tell more stories. When you’re a fugitive on the run, you can go anywhere. There’s nobody to tell you where to go or what to do. There’s no captain, or hierarchy, or sense of uniformed duty. You’re just a bunch of fuck-wits on the run.

And they were.

Possibly the best thing about Farscape is that it wasn’t ever afraid of anything. Very early on, it played with whatever style of storytelling it felt like. It played with every trope in science fiction it could get its hands on. We had alternate universes, clones, sex pollen, body swapping, galactic wars, flammable bodily fluids, space madness, the whole nine yards. It played with other genres like horror and comedy and romance as well and it used a concoction of CGI and practical effects which was probably expensive, but incredibly effective.

It made no qualms about paying homage to other shows. From lines about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to Monty Python and Max Headroom being sent up in the same damn episode, Farscape loved to drop all sorts of references. It didn’t shy away from uncomfortable camera tricks and made an entire episode that plays on aggressive lights and sounds to represent different dimensions. It even went animated for an hour!

Farscape is also the first show to ever be saved by an aggressive internet fan campaign. The show ran on Sci-Fi Channel (back when it was still Sci-Fi Channel) for four years before the plug was pulled, and in response, fans paid for an ad in the Hollywood reporter to champion bringing it back.

And it worked. We got a 2 hour mini-series that wrapped things up satisfyingly and sweetly.

If you’ve never watched before, give it a go. Season One can feel slow, but power through those growing pains and you won’t regret it.

[leighlikesthing]

On Loss

It is an indescribable feeling to lose a friend.

Sadness, obviously, is the pervasive emotion. But there’s also confusion, anger, frustration. There are a lot of ingredients that get dumped into the grief pot.

One of my oldest, closest friends died unexpectedly nearly a year ago. I had known him since I was about fourteen or fifteen. We went to high school together, we attended the same college, and we even roomed together for a while. After school, we kept in touch; through instant messenger and Facebook and eventually wound up in the same city again.

And for 3 ½ years, we hung out multiple times a week, and we rarely went a day without chatting online or on the phone. There was a whole group of us. Of people who would sit on the couch in his messy house and watch movies or videos on youtube.

It was a little like living three seasons of Friends, if Friends had aired on HBO.

He had problems, and we knew it. But we didn’t know the true extent until after he’d died. Keep in mind, this was someone who was very open about most of his life. If there was a problem, or an issue, one of our number knew about it.

But the thing that killed him?

Yeah, we didn’t know.

And some of us feel like we should have guessed. We should have seen the signs; paid more attention.

But he didn’t want us to know. So we didn’t know.

It hurts that he’s gone; that we had to help clean out his house. That we had to attend his funeral, and this past weekend, go to the unveiling of his gravestone.

It hurts like hell.

But we get on with things. We keep moving forward, because there’s no real choice but to do so. This weekend brought the pain of loss from a low simmer to maybe not a rolling boil, but definitely a boil again. And that’s hard to cope with.

Coping will happen. The world will keep spinning, at least for now. And we’ll remember him.

All of the silly things he used to say, and the joy he got from playing with language in simple, but unique ways. His loud, ridiculous laugh. The little wiggle dance he used to do when he was trying to cheer someone up. The enjoyment he got from cooking for people (and he was not a very good cook. Do you know what it’s like to eat an anchovy and banana pepper hamburger? I do. It’s not good. He also used to make this crap shoot of a dish he called “Chicken Nonsense” which was literally just chicken and whatever veggies he had with whatever spices he was in the mood for that day).

I will miss his face forever. But the memories will keep me moving forward.

<3

[leighlikesthing]

Old Man Yells at Cloud: The Movie

I have to admit, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie I’ve disliked this much.

But here we go.

So I went to jury duty yesterday, and the first movie they played us was Hidden Figures. Which is a gorgeous time period piece, done well, but with the usual pitfalls of a movie about racism created by white people. It’s got a white savior thing going, that’s...not super great.

But it’s well-acted, and touching, and gorgeous. So sure.

And then…

And then they put in a movie called “Parental Guidance.” A 2012 movie starring Billy Crystal, Bette Midler, Marissa Tomei and Tom Everett Scott. 

It’s about a set of grandparents who don’t understand their adult daughter’s life, and so complain about it a whole bunch, and then try to change their lives to be more like their own.

Billy Crystal’s character gets upset and confused by the following things:

Social media

Technology

His grown child and her husband trying different, more sensitive methods of raising their own kids in an effort to not screw them up or make the same mistakes their own parents made.

A Yale educated speech pathologist using methods he didn't understand.

Car Seats

Healthy food

A woman who was not conventionally beautiful getting proposed to at a baseball game.

And the entire movie feels as if its premise is simply “Old Man Yells at Cloud.”

And I guess, if you’re an aging white man, whose life was previously great because the world catered to your needs and your sensibilities, it’s hard to come to terms with the world then moving on because you’re sensibilities are outdated and no longer applicable.

It can be upsetting when the world moves on without you. But it is important to recognize that your way of doing things is not the “right” and “only” way.

Which most baby boomer men don’t seem to get.

The movie is hard to watch. All of the beats that are supposed to make an audience laugh...don’t. Not really.

“Oh no! That man is proposing to his girlfriend, but his girlfriend isn’t the hot blonde on his right, but the curly-haired chunky one on his left!”

“Oh no! These parents don’t let their kids have sugar! And they’re trying a more touchy-feely approach to parenting then you did!”

The kicker? For all the meddling Billy Crystal’s character does, he doesn’t even like his grandchildren. The movie starts with him not wanting to spend time with them, or his daughter, and using a homophobic slur to describe his son-in-law.

He doesn’t want to be there, but while he’s around, he may as well “fix” their lives. Which sucks, but is very on-brand with a lot of men of his age I know.

And I’ll be honest, I didn’t finish the film. They cut us loose about halfway through and told us to go home. And I’m left wondering if Billy Crystal’s character ever gets told to shut the fuck up.

Does anyone ever tell him that maybe his daughter is raising her kids differently because she feels like maybe he didn’t do such a great job? Does anyone ever tell him that maybe he doesn’t know everything and to sit the ever-loving fuck down and let other people live their fucking lives in peace?

To her credit, Bette Midler is very charming. But she’s Bette Midler. She always is, so it’s hard to hate her, even when her character is willfully not listening to her daughter. 

If I ever find out how it ends, it’ll be sheer, morbid curiosity, and not anything to do with enjoying this film.

[leighlikesthing]

Route 666 Extra Thought

Can we talk about how excited Sam was to find out that his older brother had fallen in love with someone? 

He was so THERE for it.

I wonder if after Cassie dumped Dean for a second time, if he just hates her now.

Like if someone brings up Cassie in conversation, does Sam just get this look on his face like he’s going to tear apart the universe because someone dared to hurt his big brother? 

[leighlikesthing]

Supernatural season 1 episode 13: Route 666

Oh the racist monster truck episode.

I don’t have fond memories of this episode, I have to say, and not because it’s a lame plotline. To be honest, I don’t mind it all that much.  

No. I remember absolutely despising Dean’s ex-girlfriend, Cassie Robinson. 

Past Leigh says: Fuck Cassie Robinson.

And maybe that’s harsh. Dean told her the truth and she immediately broke up with him, and then she finds out he wasn’t lying by way of losing her father to a racist monster truck. She might possibly be the only girl Dean has ever really been in love with. He told her, voluntarily what they do, which, Sam yells at him for, because that was big rule numero uno when they were growing up. Don’t fucking tell people.

There is clearly complicated history between Dean and Cassie, and not the good kind. He comments that she told him he was “nuts” which I guess is understandable for the most part.

Sam teases Dean a lot about his interactions with Cassie, and Dean’s not here for it. He doesn’t want to talk about what his relationship with Cassie may or may not have been like, and it points to Dean having incredibly deep feelings, and not wanting to fucking talk about it because Dean and feelings...not a match made in heaven.

And that’s on-brand with what we’ve seen so far, and what we’ll see going forward. But we’ll never see Dean in love the way that he was with Cassie again. He cared deeply for Lisa in season 3 and 5 and 6, but their interactions don’t even come close to the passionate feelings Dean displays for Cassie.

That may be because he’s younger here, but we never see Dean feel this way again (though some viewers see this kind of behavior with his interactions with Cas).  

She lets him have it for being emotionally closed off, and he lets her have it for accusing him of being a liar and dumping him...which means it’s not terribly hard to understand why Dean is emotionally closed off. He WAS honest with her, emotionally and otherwise…

And she tossed him out on his ass.

And unfortunately the actress playing Cassie doesn’t do a great job here with this fight. Jensen carries the scene. He portrays Dean’s hurt well. Dean’s clearly angry that the second that Cassie thought that he could be of some use to her, she called him in, after calling him a liar.

And that’s where my hate of Cassie starts. She breaks up with him, Dean doesn’t hear from her for years, and the second she suspects otherworldly foul play, she calls him.

Yikes. That’s a problem.

She could have called him after the breakup. If she knows Dean at all, she knows that he’s going to take her at her word that he should get out of her life, so she would have had to have been the one to make that move. She could have called, and at least tried to talk it out.

Did she miss him at all?

Survey says, considering that they have sex in this episode, that yes, she did, but the emotions on her part feel less than genuine here.

Let me tell you, though.

It’s not a good sex scene. It’s not done well. It’s a little embarrassing.

Afterwards, Dean tells Cassie that he couldn’t lie to her. And she admits that she was looking for a reason to walk away from him. Which is a big red flag for me. But they agree not to make any more excuses not to work things out.

I see what Dean sees in her. Cassie is smart and resourceful and gorgeous, and a ballbusting reporter. She can clearly kick his ass, which he both enjoys, and probably needs to some degree.

But then we come to what keeps me from rooting for them. Dean seems really happy to have her back. They even have a heartfelt kiss in front of Sam. The boys save the day, getting rid of the racist monster truck, and saving the lives of Cassie and her mother.

And as they’re getting ready to leave, Dean mentions not making this goodbye permanent, and Cassie shoots him down.

And narratively, I guess I get that. The boys have bigger things to worry about. But...this turns Cassie unnecessarily into a dick. One that we never see again. This trashes every interaction they previously had in the episode for me. All that stuff about making it work and making no excuses...thrown out a window.

And to be honest, if she had looked him in the eye, and instead of her whole “I’m a realist” crap, said “I’ll see you again, Dean.” I PROBABLY WOULD HAVE SHIPPED IT.

But nope. That last interaction ruins Cassie as a character for me.

And I gave this a lot of thought, because I do worry sometimes, as a dumb white girl, if my dislike of characters of color stems from racism, but I don’t really think that’s what’s going on here. I want to like Cassie.

But that last thirty seconds just drives me nuts and makes it impossible.

The episode ends with Dean looking like someone ripped his heart out, and he decides it’s time for a nap, and he puts on a pair of sunglasses (possibly to hide tears from Sam), as they drive away from his asshole ex.

[leighlikesthing]

Supernatural season 1, episide 12: Faith

Faith starts out with Dean having a heart attack after taking 100,000 volts from a heavy-duty taser.

We know that hunting is a rough gig, and so far, the Winchesters have come out mostly on top through each episode. Here, we see that though they are the heroes, this gig can, and will get you extra, extra dead.

Hunts can go wrong.

Hunts can go very wrong.

It’s tough to watch Dean get electrocuted. Jensen does a great job here, and kudos to the make-up team in the aftermath for making this man look like he’s at death’s door. Which is fitting because his heart is too damaged for the doctors to help him beyond making him comfortable until he dies in about two months,

He deals with it...well...like Dean.

“That fabric softener teddy bear. I wanna hunt that little bitch down.”

He’s quickly accepted his fate; that this is it for him, and it’s indicative of someone who is ready to die. Sam’s confused as hell. He doesn’t get how Dean can be so calm and ready to go.

But this is what happens when you are deeply mentally ill and believe your life doesn’t matter.

Sam’s not ready to give up though. He goes looking for a way to save his brother. He even calls John, and gets no response.

Let me repeat, John Winchester’s son is dying. One of Mary’s babies is dying, and John does not bother to call back. I can’t remember if Sam brings this up later in the season. He may. It wouldn’t be shocking for him to throw that in John’s face, and he’d deserve it, too.

Dean, for his part, decides that he doesn’t want to die in a hospital, and checks himself out in a hoodie of sadness. The next time we see Dean wear a hoodie will be many, many years later, when he’s much older and much more comfortable with himself as a person, and does things like wear gym shorts.

Sam calls his bluff on being ready to die, and drags his big brother to a faith healer in Nebraska. And it’s tough to watch all of these devoted people show up to be healed. In the real world, we know that faith healers can’t change scientific diagnoses. If you are terminally ill, and your number is up, praying may provide comfort, but rarely does it provide a cure.

We also get another good guest appearance, this time by Julie Benz as Layla. Formerly of Buffy and Angel, she plays a sweet believer here, and it’s strange to see her in a role like this, after seeing her as a centuries-old evil vampire bent on destruction and chaos. But it’s a nice turn for her. She does really well here, and she and Ackles have some nice chemistry.

Dean gets picked out of the crowd quickly for being a loudmouth, and gets asked to come up. He resists, because...well…

Dean doesn’t think he deserves to live, and his reticence makes him seem like he doesn’t want to. I’ve long held the belief that somewhere in his teen years, Dean either attempted suicide, or gave it some serious thought. Traumatized and emotionally abused, if not physically, it wouldn’t be a big jump to think that there was a time that he at least contemplated ending his life.

Last episode, we saw him show some regret over never getting away from their father. He felt there was no way out. Well, there is a way out. He just may have either decided against taking it, or someone stopped him before he could.

“I didn’t pick you, Dean. The lord did.”

We find out later in the series just how true that is.

Dean gets healed, his heart at least physically made whole again.

Another funny thing to note is that on previous watches of season one, I always perceived it as being a very Sam-heavy season; that Dean’s character took a backseat to Sam’s grief and premonitions, and that’s just not true. Dean gets the spotlight way more than I remember, and this is a big one for him.

Sam’s got big destiny. An overarching story that will encompass so much soon enough. Dean’s got these intimate little moments. These looks at who he is that bring us closer to him in a way that we won’t get for Sam for quite a while yet.

Also, this is our first Reaper episode, which will become a huge thing in the not-so-distant future.

Sam wants to put this all behind them now that Dean is better, and not look a gift horse in the mouth, but Dean can’t do that. He saw a reaper, so he and Sam go digging for answers.

Legrange tells Dean that he was chosen by god. “A young man with an important job to do that isn’t finished.”

Oh, babe. Oh no. Oh Dean.

Layla, we find out, has a brain tumor that will kill her in about six months, and the question of why Dean deserves  to live over her is asked point blank. Dean’s inner monologue is clearly “I don’t.”

The boys figure out pretty quickly that lives are being traded; that Roy Legrange’s power is healing people at the expense of other people’s lives. And Dean is pissed. Someone died to save him, and it’s the last thing he ever wanted.

Dean surmises that Roy has his own personal reaper working for him, and we get some good ol’ BOC. I’m not even mad that “Don’t Fear the Reaper” is so obvious. It’s a great music cue.

Dean and Sam argue about how to handle stopping Roy. Dean suggests killing him, which Sam puts the kibosh on immediately as “we don’t kill human,” which will change as the seasons go on. They decide to try and break whatever spell Roy is using; Sam goes to the Legrange house, while Dean heads back to the tent.

And it’s hard to watch Dean stop Roy from healing Layla. She’s a sweet person. She doesn’t deserve to die, but neither does the person the reaper was going to kill in her stead.

It’s funny, because I keep coming back to the Steve Rogers quote from Infinity War, with both Scarecrow and Faith:

“We don’t trade lives.”

Oh, boys. You will.

The Reaper goes after the replacement victim anyways, and Dean figures out that it’s not Roy doing this, but his wife Sueanne. Dean stops her in time, and knows that he’s probably on Sueanne’s hit list.

He tries to explain to Layla that this is not the answer to her problem, and to her credit, she doesn’t read him the riot act, but she does wish him luck in that “I never want to see you again” kind of way.

Sam and Dean regroup, and realize that Sueanne is killing people she thinks are immoral. They contemplate letting Layla get healed, but Sam pushes Dean to do the right thing here. Because they don’t trade lives yet, and they’re not god.

Dean distracts the cops, Sam goes to stop Sueanne, and he succeeds before Layla can be cured and the reaper can take Dean. The reaper goes after Sueanne in revenge, and it’s a nice bit of karma for all the people she’s killed.

It’s interesting to note that this episode isn’t brought up later on, when we learn how wrong things can go when reapers don’t do their jobs, or aren’t allowed to do their jobs correctly. I’m surprised we aren’t told later that the people who weren’t supposed to die caused a ripple effect.

In the end, Dean and Laya have a good conversation about belief and faith.

“It must be rough to believe in something so much and have it disappoint you like that,” Dean points out.

“If you’re gonna have faith, you can’t just have it when the miracles happen,” Laya tells him. “You have to have it when they don’t.”

We never see Layla again. I like to think that her doctors found a way to save her. Barring that, I like to think that Dean went to her funeral and paid his respects.