#i josie have So many sister emotions that i spent that whole scene out of character going GOD she's so fucking SMART good for her

[highchalowwis]

turns out learning things about party members is good! a shocking twist!

[lexa-kom-skaikru]

Things have to be said about the Legacies Musical episode...

When this episode was announced as a tribute to TVD and TO’s music, I was super excited but, as soon as they came out saying it was actually gonna be a musical about TVD and TO, I had a feeling it was gonna be a shit show.

I am happy to report that it was actually better than I thought, although it had quite a few misses for me - but let’s start with the good.

Fair warning, this post is Anti-Handon

One of the things I liked about this episode was the Monster of the Week. I am honestly done with the format of a new monster every episode but at least this one was refreshing and it had me guessing his true intentions all through the episode. He was charismatic, funny and just interesting to watch. Plus, his initial sequence with MG was one of the funniest the show has ever done lol 

He did break Josie’s arm and for that he will never forgiven but at the same time he gave Hope some very much needed comfort and he got bonus points for that.

Another positive was Caroline’s ‘cameo’. I feel like it’s a long time coming and I don’t know why we didn’t get it sooner but it warmed my heart to see her help Lizzie going through all her insecurities of feeling like she isn’t as good as her mother or even her sister. My baby is a powerful witch who can do whatever she sets her mind to, but she needs a hug every once in awhile!!!!

Also, JASIE!!!! Jade finally came back and I swear to you, I screamed at THE scene. I am a Hosie shipper first and human second, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t lowkey ship Jasie. That whole scene hit so many key elements but, at the same time, it hit all those elements because they weren’t trying to rush Jade’s leaving - which I understand but it can’t go unspoken.

Now come the bad parts. Although the singing was amazing in this episode (Kaylee, Jenna, Danielle, Chris and Ben blew me away with their singing) the songs were very... meh. I was expecting something up to par with “Stepping Into the Light” that Kaylee sang in season 1 but it was just... not. Were they horrible? No. Will I listen to them again? Most likely not. Which is a shame because this is a Musical. You want your songs to be good and catchy and to stay with the audience after the show ends.

Another not good thing was how they dealt with Handon... AGAIN! 

Look, I am so damn tired of them breaking up one episode only to get back together in the next without ever fixing the problem of why they broke up in the first place. I . AM . TIRED! Not only was it rushed but it also made no sense with what they did in the episode. Landon spent the whole episode disregarding Hope’s feelings. Hope deliberately asked him to not write about her family. What does he do? He writes about her family. Then, not only does he write about her family, he uses one of Klaus’ letters for Hope, PRIVATE letters, to write a music for a musical that Hope didn’t want her family to be a part of. Only for Hope to have a conversation about her dad with the MOTW, that although made complete sense for Hope’s development in relation to her family but not at all related to the problem at hand with the musical, and all of a sudden she is okay to be in the musical that she has been condemning the entire episode - and, not only is she okay with the musical, she is so okay that she uses that moment to sing to Landon and make up... out of nowhere.

There was quite literally no talking about their MANY problems before reconciliation. NOT ONLY THAT! But a song that was meant to be an emotional song about her father, ended up becoming about Landon. They are really doing their best here to make Hope’s character all about Landon.

Legacies needs to learn how to stick with a story line and develop it and build on it, so characters can evolve from it. Every time they break up Handon, the very next episode they put them back together. If you want to break them up and get them back together again at least drag it out for a few more episodes, so it feels like them getting back together was earned and not given jfc.

Anyway, to end on a positive note... The best part of the episode was Josie telling Landon “you gave up on Hope, like, twice.”. Yes he did, Josie. YES. HE. DID. Call out the hypocrisy.

[digging-holes-in-the-river]

Last night I finished episode 15 in the new Twin Peaks. Here are some thoughts on the series so far (planning to watch episode 16 and the finale tonight):

I seem to be enjoying this less than everyone else is? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I’m watching the show. But I’m not as excited about it as all my friends are. This same thing happened with the eclipse. I think I’m just a big complainer who’s bad at appreciating things. :P

Part of my problem, as mentioned earlier, is that it’s just really slow-paced. And maybe this makes me an unsophisticated film-viewer, but I get pretty bored during the pauses. I get extremely bored during all the music scenes in the Roadhouse, but I can’t just skip past them, because something actually plot-related might happen. And, like, I am not a person who needs everything to be super fast-paced all the time. 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of my favorite movies. But I wish the new Twin Peaks went a little faster.

I was also frustrated, for a while, by how little character development there was. It seemed like we were shown all these new characters, but we didn’t actually get to see what any of them were like. Like, we spent a while watching Ray and Darya, but we never really got to know them as people; we never learned how they got involved with the evil Cooper, or what personality traits they have aside from “being a criminal”. (Hutch and Chantal seem to have more personality though.) We also saw Becky, at the beginning, but we didn’t learn anything about her other than the fact that she was in a bad relationship, so it was hard for me to care very much about her.

I’ve also had a lot of trouble keeping the characters and the storylines straight. Part of this, for sure, is that I’m really bad with faces -- I didn’t realize Dr. Amp was Jacoby for most of the show. And with so many random people appearing (like all those women in conversations at the roadhouse), it’s hard to keep everything straight. And there’s so many storylines -- all the main storylines, plus all the little snakes’ hands that may or may not be relevant to the overall plot. A million people have been trying to kill the real Cooper, and I assume the evil Cooper is behind all of it, but it’s been hard to keep track. Anyway, this seems like a personal failing on my part, not a failing of the show, and I think I’ll get more out of it when I watch it for a second time (which I presumably will someday).

Anyway I’ve liked the show a lot more since episode 13 or so. I feel like we’ve actually gotten to know a lot of the new characters, and we’ve gotten more insight into what the old characters are up to (instead of just these brief unexplanatory glimpses into their lives). And it feels a bit faster paced now too. And it stopped doing all the stupid humor that I hate.

I’ll stop complaining now.

Thoughts on general themes:

So much of the show revolves around this battle between pure good and pure evil. I guess the original show had that too, with the black and white lodges, but I didn’t notice it as much. But in the reboot, there’s a lot more purely evil characters (evil Cooper, Richard, and all the criminals we’ve run into, where we haven’t learned anything about them except that they’re criminals). In general, I’m not a big fan of the Absolute Cosmic Struggle between Good and Evil, and I find purely evil villains kind of boring. I don’t believe in absolute good or evil; I think that, in real life, there are moral grey areas to everything, and even really serious criminals have understandable motivations behind their actions. And I mean, it’s not like the black-and-white morality ruins Twin Peaks for me. It’s just something I found striking, since it’s not a literary device I find very believable.

On the other hand, I love how ambiguous the entire show has been about whose side the supernatural characters are on. The black lodge is supposed to be evil, but a lot of black lodge inhabitants (like MIKE and the Arm) help Cooper, right? The Giant / Fireman seems unambiguously good but the rest seem more questionable.

I looooove all the scenes in the black lodge and other related places. My favorite black lodge character is the Giant but I also love the weird-noises girl with no eyes. (I wasn’t expecting them to find her at Jack Rabbit’s Palace. I was expecting them to find Major Briggs’s head. Will we ever find out what happened to Major Briggs’s head?)

I love that it’s not just the red room, and we get to see all these different supernatural places. In the original series, it felt like the red room was fairly small and self-contained. But now it seems like there’s a whole nother realm (or several realms) interpenetrating our own. It gives such a sense of bigness and mystery. There’s no way we can learn what all of it means in just the next few episodes. It would take movie after movie to explain everything (if it’s even comprehensible to the human mind). The show just gives this really strong impression that the universe is stranger and more complicated that we usually give it credit for.

ETA: How on earth can Diane be sisters with Janey without having noticed the weird similarity between Dougie and Cooper? Diane says she’s estranged from Janey, but she knows Dougie’s name. Is it possible that she’s never met Dougie or even seen a picture of him?

Thoughts on unresolved plot points from the previous series:

How did Audrey escape the bank? (I’m guessing evil Cooper went back, rescued her, and impregnated her with Richard? Though who knows.)

What happened to Windom Earle? I haven’t heard his name mentioned yet in the new season. (He wasn’t listed as one of the agents on the Blue Rose team, so what was his connection to Cooper and the black lodge?) Anyway what happened to him 25 years ago? I don’t remember the final episode well enough. Did he die in the black lodge? Did he get the power he was after?

What happened to Annie? Did she die? I heard some mention of Cooper returning from the lodge carrying her body, so I assume she died. (Did that happen in the final episode of season 2? I wish my memory didn’t suck.)

What happened to Josie Packard? Was she a doppelganger?

What ever happened to Leo?

Thoughts on specific characters:

I really like Dougie’s wife. I admire how strong and willful she is, and how she uses her willfullness to keep her life and her family from falling apart. She seems like a major source of stability, keeping everything functioning even despite Dougie’s gambling problems and tendency to disappear for three days. And she has a lot of balls, standing up to those money-collecting men who wanted $52k from Dougie.

Frank Truman is great. I love how patient he is (with his wife, with Andy and Lucy’s son, with Lucy telling him which line to press on the phone, etc.). His facial expressions convey a world-weariness and a frustration with all the things he has to put up with, but also, simultaneously, an enormous amount of affection for all the people he’s being patient towards. He just seems like a really kind, sturdy man. I’m glad Harry has such a good brother.

Gordon is so lecherous. He clearly respects Tammy Preston’s capabilities as an FBI agent but he also very clearly objectifies her. It’s unclear whether she’s bothered by it (or whether she’s into Gordon) because she has such a poker face. I feel like we know very little about Tammy Preston as a human being.

Albert is great.

Bobby is a police officer! I’m so proud of him. He grew up to be such a decent guy. (Did he ever confess to that murder he committed in high school? Does he still feel guilty about it, and like he’s hiding a really bad secret?) I take it his father’s death was what inspired him to turn his life around? I’m glad he and Shelley got married; they look really happy together. Also, Bobby is a really emotional guy. (This was true in the original series too, but I didn’t notice it as much, because his emotions were much more masculine-coded there. But in retrospect, he’s clearly always had really strong feelings that are hard for him to contain.)

James still hits on married women. Come on, James, seriously. (In the original series, he seemed like someone who believed in the Cosmic Power of Love, and that if he’s acting based on love of physical attraction, then it can’t be wrong or a bad idea. I’m not convinced he’s gotten over that.)

Where’s Donna? How’s she doing? I assume she moved away from Twin Peaks a long time ago?

Poor Sarah Palmer. :(

I was so surprised, in episode 15, to discover that Ed and Nadine were still together. I thought they got a divorce 25 years ago, and that Ed had married Norma! I thought Ed and Norma had been living together happily all this time. :(

How on earth did Audrey end up married to Charlie? She seems like she’s not doing very well.

ETA: Ben Horne has mellowed out! I mean, he’s clearly the same old Ben Horne, in terms of personality and mannerisms. But he turned down an affair with Beverly, and we haven’t seen any evidence that he’s still involved in organized crime.

I probably have more thoughts, but I’ll have to write them later, since this is all I could think of for now.