#its like the writers committed suicide in that last episode

[gelloonnery]

SPOILER FOR THE FINAL TWO EPISODES

This is rant btw

I feel. Like. the Ending WAS what we wanted. It was kind offthe ending we thought we were gonna get, Fionna learns to appreciate her old world, Simon learns self worth and realises his flaws in his relationship with Betty and learns to live as himself and break the cycle of sacrifice

I just didn't expect it to be so. Straightforward and Spoonfed?? like simon just fully just TALKED about the narrative of his story. No visuals no nothing no nuances, like he just sits down and talks its like the writers went to tumblr and just read off one of the character analysis on here and just used it as dialougue??

Like what exactly made him realise his life was worth while, he was jsut about to commit mental suicide SECONDS ago and the only thing he realised was that he shouldve been more thoughtful in his relationship with betty, how does that correlate with him finding worth in his life?

Like i think it wouldnt have felt so out of no where if the last few episodes where they were going to diff worlds that showed that simon was valued as a catalyst of certain events in the AT timeline, were coupled with simon actually learning from those worlds, instead of him just being oblivious and still wanting to go after the crown

And the nova and casper thing was cute and i like the exploration of a new artstyle but did the story have to be presented that way?? Like it just told us what we already knew and in the end it wasn't even simon himself coming to the realization that his realtionship with betty is flawed, beth had to partially spell it out for him

Like did we need to go to shermy and beth's universe?? For Simon and betty's conclusion?? What was the point of going to that dimension it has nothing to do with their relationship

(I did like that alternate version of simon letting betty go onto the bus and even offering to join her on her trip that was cute.)

And all the universes they affected are just fine now?? Is farmworld finn dead or alive?? ARE FINN'S KIDS JUST ORPHANS NOW????

What was the point of it being set in Shermy and Beth's universe?? And simon just hacked out Fionna world like a hairball because he finally acknowleges that its not his responsibility?

I get the story their trying to tell I get what the narrative that their trying to say, and it IS the narrative that was what drew me into these stories in the first place. But the way it was presented was just ultimately so unsatisfying and weirdly complicated but also simple im just-

huh HUWH HUH WUHHH?????

NOT TO MENTION, WHAT IS UP WITH BETTY DOES THE BETTY IN THE BUSSTOP FLASHBACK TURNING INTO GOLB IN THE LAST SECOND HINT THAT SHE'S JUST COOL WITH BEING GOLB NOW LIKE THATS HER NEW 9 TO 5 I GUESS I MEAN. COOL GOOD FOR YOU GIRL?? LIke her fucking teleporting her fiance into her new apartment in the VOID and teaching him about the wonders of not dying is just a regular tuesday night i guess i MEAN SURE. THATS FUNNY.

did we overanalyze everything??? or did they just fumble the bag like i left those episode feeling like i shouldve been vindicated but i WASNT

[normalest-of-knees]

That.... was an episode. Technically.

Volume 9 Episode 9 discussion below the cut

Tw: mentions and discussions of suicide and how the show and characters were framing it

I may make another post or rb this to discuss the rest of the episode, but this mainly deals with the whole Tea thing

I'm-- I just-- what in the whole entire fuck was that?? Yes I saw somewhere it's supposed to be like a part 1 or 2 but.... Jeepers crappers, man.

So not only does WBY&J not react at all to what happened to Ruby last episode, tea or otherwise, but they just kinda run off, stop and... be sad??

They talk about how shit happens sometimes, then the crystal people show up and it's suddenly hugs and smiles??? Guys?!?!

Yang only reacts to Ruby being gone after she finds the wooden cocoon thing, and even then the others are quick to "It's not that bad. It's what she wanted." Like they haven't been ignoring/not noticing Ruby's severe depression and state of mind for the past few days now and that she didn't just barely blow up at them.

And something I want to address, is the show writers, and characters, and everything framed in the last episode made it quite clear that the tea was suicide. I saw a few takes saying "the tea clearly wasn't supposed to be about suicide. They wouldn't kill her off" etc. Etc.

And I want to say, no. Just, no.

The suicide thing fucking sucks, yes. But the show last episode and this one made it clear that Ruby drinking the tea was her choosing to commit suicide.

Do I think that this should've happened at all? Fuck no. This company has no goddamn clue how to write and talk about sensitive topics such as this, and they need to stop immediately.

But I cannot wrap my head around how anyone could've looked at what happened last episode and think: its just healing tea!

The show has done a terrible job of using an "unreliable narrator" or other such to convey information to the audience.

Ascension is like death, but not, but is! Jaune said its bad, but the Stars say it's good! The Cat said it's normal, but the girls think it's wrong or unnatural. The Stars dying is ok! Then it's even better than ok, because they're "better" now! Herb is new and better! Ruby will be... ?

The show doesn't properly or clearly make any information given to us make sense, and even with the knowledge that the Cat is supposed to be bad, we still don't actually know what's ok and what isn't when we look back.

Yes, Ruby is clearly going to be ok from what we saw this episode. But she still very clearly was not ok mentally, and was actually literally pushed towards taking her own life.

She said "I just don't want to be me, anymore." And then drank the tea, knowing at the very least, that she'd be remade and lose her memories, at best. At worst, it would outright kill her.

Even Neo, who likely knew less about Ascension than the rest of them, still was framing it to Ruby as suicide.

Then, when Ruby did it, Neo was distraught. Regardless of what happens to Ruby next, she's gone. And Neo now has nothing. To Neo, one way or another, Ruby is dead.

But that's the thing.

Regardless of what happens to Ruby, she viewed it as dying or not being herself anymore.

Doesn't matter if the audience knows better or thinks they know better. CRWBY, the show, the characters, everything, framed this as Ruby Rose taking her own life.

And what happens immediately after such a thing? Her friends and family run back to safety, in which I assume they're trying to head for the tree perhaps, and then they just stop and Jaune is sad.

Not even Yang or Weiss or Blake seem to really have a reaction, only until after they hug it out and see Ruby encased in wood at the tree. Suddenly it's real now. Suddenly it's different. And Yang does have a good reaction! She's panicked, crying, angry, desperate. That's her sister in there! Dunno where this reaction was before but ok, at least we got there!

But the others are quick to tell her that it's not that bad and it's up to Ruby now. Which, if they had conveyed Ascension to us in any other way, could be fun and interesting! But because it's this world's closest equivalent to death that we as an audience and the characters can compare it to, it makes it seem like suicide is a good thing.

Like it's just a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

No matter what happens next episode, and what becomes of Ruby, the framing was still that for her and the Paper Stars, suicide is good and gives you the power up/strength you need, and your loved ones just have to accept that and move on.

And that's disgusting.

[crazykuroneko]

When he lost control of his new human body Lestat felt awful about what he did and he tried to make amends for it. The writers made up a violent scene that never happened in the books and that was completely glossed over in the next episode, so much so that it wasn't even the catalyst for the murder attempt. Louis took him back and Lestat became even more abusive than before, so what's the point? And it makes even less sense if in s2 it will be revelead that's not what happened, cause it's even more obvious that they just wanted a shortcut to what they believe makes for a compelling TV show.

This will be the last ask I will answer on this because this has been going on for months, and if you still don't see what I'm trying to say after you read this then you won't ever see it.

Yes, it has never happened in the book because in IWTV book, Louis has never ignored Lestat for years and again IWTVbook!Lestat has never felt nor he needed to fear Louis would ever leave him. The show decided they would go with higher stakes the moment they made Loustat practically married. In the book, Louis' turning is an attack. Lestat attacked him, let him dying, showed him how awful a vampire could be, but despite Louis said he still wanted to die, Lestat turned him. There's no level of consent whatsoever there. Louis was too weak (physically and mentally) so he let Lestat did what he did. In the show, you have them go through a courting phase for months. They fell in love with each other since the beginning. Yes, Louis was half intoxicated and suicidal when Lestat offered to turn him, but he's still the one who reached out to Lestat. He did feel Lestat saw the real him. The consent is shaky, but compared to the book, Louis knew he committed into something with Lestat there. Ep 6 just proves he did see this as a marriage. So, no, they didn't "make it up", it doesn't come out of nowhere show-wise, and that violent tendency has been there in the book. Just because Lestat has never been in that situation in the book, it doesn't mean he isn't capable of doing that. (I could even argue book!Lestat could make worse damage if he's in the same situation with the same power as show!Lestat) It's basically like a math, really. They amped up the positives (making Loustat has even deeper relationship), so they needed to amp up the negatives. Otherwise we wouldn't get IWTV, but Twilight. And, this is what some people tend to forget; yes, the show is doing the books. yes, they use the books as the base of where the show would go. but the show is ALSO its own thing. Because that's the nature of visual media, it demands the story to be more visual, to be clearer, to be more intense. It's not just for Lestat as well, show!Louis is more abusive towards Claudia (the way he tried to invalidate her anger for Lestat in Ep 6, the fact he touched her in Ep 7. I bet it will only get worse from that despite Dubai Louis trying to hide it)

The show doesn't "gloss over" the abuse. It's Louis in Dubai trying to gloss over it because he doesn't like being called a victim. (And victims of abuse don't like to be called a victim is a thing. VC vampires don't like to call themselves a victim either) The show though? Oh, they don't let us to forget it for a minute. Heck, they literally put all injuries Louis had suffered right in front of our eyes. They have Claudia reminding us "three years ago". They has Claudia again said "when he hurts you again, and he will". Yes, this is Louis' narrative, but the show also tries to show you some things through that narrative so you can't take it on face value.

"It wasn't the catalyst of the murder attempt". Perhaps, but it doesn't mean it didn't lead to Louis okayed the murder. Louis was literally there in cuts and bruises, reading a book about marriage because he started to lose the meaning of what he has with Lestat after that; he sat there with Claudia in the park, watching Lestat going back to his mistress despite his effort to patch things up, saying, "I could see us become like him in a century or two" (I can't recall the quote completely, but you get the gist). What do you mean he meant by "like him"? Definitely not about becoming a cheater, it's about becoming a monster who is capable to hurt (mentally and physically) the people they claimed to love. And Louis wouldn't have come to that if that abuse didn't happen. Lestat's action made Louis lost any hope to go on living as a vampire, and by dragging Claudia back, Lestat unknowingly gave Louis a purpose to live longer: to see Claudia free even though it means he had to kill his own husband (or at least put him in the dump for some time). It's a whole chain of reactions.

I don't see they will say it didn't happen in S2. they only said they will "revisit" it. They'll probably do it by introducing another perspective. Or perhaps they will do say the dragging and flying part didn't happen. (That's the only part that I found meh because they went too soft on Lestat's murder compared to that. Idk, perhaps they assumed the gore from the murder party before it balanced it out 🤔, but my man deserves more, really. I hope they go physically harder on him in S2) But no matter what it will be, Lestat still threw him across the room and beat him to a pulp. No matter what, it's still abuse.

Lastly, I want to go back with "BUT he felt awful and tried to make amends" Yeah, i know right, by giving her an expensive rosary, as if money could solve everything (he's so stupid *affectionately*). And now in his own body, he found her beautiful again and had the urge to kiss her, even though he just raped her. Sure. That whole thing doesn't mean he's not a monster or abuser though. Or proves he's not capable to do it again (he did capable though. see: David's turning). I mean, I love Lestat. I imprinted on him. I relate to him on a lot of things, especially show!Lestat, and I will always have a bias for him. I'll always sit here, seeing parts of the show and scream, "Look at him, he is hurting. And he did try in the beginning 😭" But loving him doesn't mean denying his atrocities. Instead, we should embrace that. Every time someone going "but he is an abuser", we should go "and what about it?". To me, every one has the rights to like/love/dislike/hate any fictional characters, as long as they don't make it into anyone's problem 🤷‍♀️ (and hating a writer for doing her job is making it into someone's problem)

[onenettvchannel]

BALITANG INTERNASYONAL: French Antagonist Suspect 'Chloe Bourgeois' and Racist African YouTube actress 'The Virtual Celebrity' facing legal consequences on the double, attacking production team of Miraculous Ladybug on Social Media [#OneNETnewsInvestigates]

PARIS, FRANCE -- An update from a multi-talented racist female YouTuber, and member of the pro-LGBT named Faizah Mohammed Aruwa from Abuja, Nigeria in Africa, known as 'The Virtual Celebrity'; along with antagonist character suspect of a French cartoon show 'Miraculous Ladybug', who temporarily serves and resigned one Paris mayor 'Ms. Chloe Bourgeois' merely attacking and extremely harassed both show writers and creators combined on social media during 3 new episodes aired last year in August 2023, covering these controversial episodes titled "Collusion", "Revolution" and "Representation".

Four years ago in March 2020, Faizah and the anti-Chloe basher fans have been boycotted, ranting, and plans to murder Chloe; especially the episode writers, French and English dubbers, and the only show creator himself (Mr. Thomas Astruc) by putting into justice for her on the spot.

In mid-October 2023 last year, she uploaded 3 new episode reactions on her own YouTube channel, 2 months after the actual worldwide airing. She does NOT have any of her defense from Ms. Faizah, despite of her dramatic anger, social media toxicity and brutally attacked online on the X Network (formerly Twitter) and video-sharing platform 'YouTube' (owned by Google's Alphabet). Faizah completely refused to apologize as part of our investigative report.

OneNETnews is the only online news organization to expose the worst, as the 5th Season of 'Miraculous Ladybug' becomes an absolute manipulative, cheating, relationship failures, and abuse of power in France that shocks you to the world.

Per during, and the near episode end "Revolution", Chloe declares a nationwide ban of superheroes affecting our media correspondents 'Marinette Dupain-Cheng' and 'Adrien Athanase Agreste'. She found out about that Chloe was reportedly akumatized, much allegedly disguise as a monarch. Ladybug and Cat Noir already de-evilized the akumatization, breaching the agreement from Ms. Cerise Bianca (formerly known as Lila Rossi).

Paris saved the evening, after a controversial Paris mayor 'Chloe' resigned that night, while some of its laws are already being lifted the next day. But Adrien's father 'Gabriel' forced him to move, in the early morning to be taken off via private jet from 'Paris, France' to 'London, United Kingdom', and become having a date with 'Ms. Kasumi Tsurugi' instead of Marinette, due to a mental breakdown and pre-determined relationship break-ups.

Ms. Marinette recieved her final video call, before she permanently blocked Chloe in their digital phone calls, despite for physical and online bullying for a long time: "I already know your little secret. I know because Adrien told me. I also know that he loves me, and there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing! You've lost any and ALL the power over us. You're the one who's ridiculous, Chloe. Utterly dogshit ridiculous. Enjoy your fucking trip asshole!", concluded Marinette.

Some time later… Marinette returns home, and possibly, she committed suicide a few days later if, Adrien Agreste failed to returned back home, yet supposedly to get married here in France, after ruin her life, because of forced jealousy of relationship, especially in addition with Chloe for a potential threesome dating.

Faizah realizes that, during her new reaction episode video of "Representation", trauma before suicide is a serious red flag, even after Chloe became the local French mayor and later resigned afterwards, which resulted to have a bad cliffhanger end. Our news team of OneNETnews was learned that these both perpetrators in the online, and the real-world, are less likely to have a safe space for Marinette.

All in all, the management of YouTube will soon terminate her channel 'The Virtual Celebrity' sometime later this year, and the antagonist fictional bullying character suspect 'Chloe Bourgeois' will face jail time on both of their countries in France and Africa. Faizah was charged with the upgraded online and several physical crime cases committed under the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2015, Criminal Code Act: Section 375, and the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act, in relation to Cyberstalking. Her fines as a female YouTuber like 'The Virtual Celebrity' is being sentenced to 9 years in the African prison, with a fine of NGN35 million (or U$D22,020).

While for Chloe, on the other hand, as we conclude our exclusive investigation… She was also charged by illegally become a local French mayor, online & physical bullying in school, severe psychological harassment & distress, and absolute cheating of relationship with Adrien Agreste, leading Marinette ended up suicide as a death penalty on her. Chloe is also sentenced to EUR30,000 (or approximately U$D33,500) with a 2-year fine. We can all agree that the actions of these individuals have both crossed the line and red-handed.

These scandalous relationship turn of events, in the controversial episodes of Miraculous Ladybug's 5th Season has left a mark on the lives of those involved. The online harassment and physical bullying carried out by the r*c1st YouTuber, and the antagonist suspect have devastating consequences: the possible suicide of the beloved heroin 'Marinette Dupain-Cheng'.

It's just that-real-world implications don't get any harsher than this, seeing online and offline abuse play out. Taking away to Ms. Marinette, symbolic of hope and heroism throughout the show, her impending death being a gut punch at least to say for international and French viewers.

Yet, it is a fact that the nuisances brought on by these incidents are now a part of France's history; likewise, the issue of public cyberbullying and harassment would need to be pursued relentlessly, if Paris has to build a more empathetic and responsible digital community in Paris.

EDITOR's NOTE: Mga ka-Serbisyo! If you or a loved one like Marinette Dupain-Cheng feeling emotional sadness, traumatically and psychologically harassed, commited, extreme mental issues, or attempting suicide in your specific country, call the Suicide Prevention Hotline by dialing +1800-273-TALK or 988 in the United States of America (U.S.A.) for National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL). For France, dial SOS Suicide at +331-4539-4000; For Africa, call SURPIN (Suicide Research and Prevention Initiative) at 09080217555 or 09034400009 (country and area codes must add before the phone number to call in). And in the Philippines, including Central Visayas, call the Crisis Text Line at +63918-873-4673 or text TALK 8527 for Globe and Touch Mobile subscribers. Or call the 'Tawag Paglaum Centro Bisaya' (TPCB) at +63966-467-9626, +63939-936-5433 or +63939-937-5433. English-speaking counselors are available to take your call in some specific countries. International standard charges apply.

FILE SCREENGRAB COURTESY: RTS1 Switzerland / TF1 France and The Virtual Celebrity via YT VIDEO BACKGROUND PROVIDED BY: Tegna

SOURCE: *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuGzOCy2_8E [Referenced YT VIDEO #1 via The Virtual Celebrity] *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvqukbFLZRk [Referenced YT VIDEO #2 via The Virtual Celebrity] and *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXjxd3ur30o [Referenced YT VIDEO #3f via The Virtual Celebrity]

-- OneNETnews Online Publication Team

[adamwatchesmovies]

Smile (2022)

Bits of Smile may be reminiscent of other horror films but they’re nonetheless effective and the way these are woven together makes for a strong, frightening, memorable nightmare. This sort of picture is the reason I hate the term “elevated horror”. This film is too gory, too violent and its scares aren’t subdued enough for the package to be “tasteful” or “classy” but the way it explores its themes of mental illness is inspired. 

As psychiatrist Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosia Bacon) begins treating Laura (Caitlin Stasey), a student who saw her teacher commit suicide and has since begun acting irrationally. During their sessions, Laura claims to see something coming for her. Moments later, she grins from ear to ear before slitting her throat. In the following days, Rose begins having the same sort of delusional episodes as her former patient.

If you’ve seen The Ring and It Follows, you’ll recognize their influence on Smile. I say if you’re going to take inspiration from another piece of art, it might as well be some of the scariest movies we’ve seen in the last 20 years. Smile is like those movies because whatever it is that’s latched onto Laura is now after Rose and will wear her down in only a few days. Until then, she's plagued by hallucinations. The thing can appear as a stranger or as someone she knows. The only giveaway that the person is actually “the entity” is that it will be grinning unnervingly.

What's unique about this film is that ultimately, it’s about mental illness. Flashbacks to Rose’s childhood tell us that she saw her mother commit suicide. As an adult, she works long hours trying to help others deal with their inner demons. You know the person she’s actually trying to save is her own mother. Knowing that her family has a history of mental illness and that she's made a career helping others deal with their delusions, what's the worst thing that could happen to Rose? Losing her mind and turning into one of her patients; the kind of person who grins uncontrollably while babbling about death before becoming a threat to herself and others. What’s even worse than that? Being perfectly sane while the rest of the world THINKS she’s crazy.

The thing that’s after Rose could be trauma, grief and guilt and the disastrous effects they can have on someone when left untreated. It’s also a literal threat to our heroine. Diabolically, the monster wants to do more than just kill Rose; it wants to get her to the point where she wants to kill herself. When she spots it in the dark, grinning at her, it’s obvious if the thing wanted her dead, it could take her out right away. That’s not what it wants. It toys with her, savoring each time our protagonist (and the audience) lets their guard down so it can show up suddenly before disappearing once more. Technically, these sudden scares could be called “jump scares” but I say they’re legitimate. We’re not talking about someone walking up and grabbing their friend’s shoulder while in complete darkness and with no warning. This is a supernatural being with an agenda.

We've previously seen stories about a mysterious supernatural creature that gets into your head and grinds away at your psyche in The Bye Bye Man and Slender Man films. The difference is that those movies were dreadful and this one is effective. Sosie Bacon gives a powerful performance. You like her. You feel her pain and dread what’s coming next as much as she does. Writer/director Parker Finn knows exactly how much information about the monster we need to know, and how much to hold back. When there’s gore, it’s there just long enough for it to hit you, and then it’s gone - like a bad dream.

Often, horror movies become less frightening the closer to the end we get because we’ve figured out all of the monster’s mechanics and we kind of know how we would beat it. Because of the way the story integrates Rose’s trauma into the monster’s agenda, the terror only increases the closer to the conclusion we get, leading to a terrific finale. It kept me guessing until the last moment.

I remember reading some comments about It Follows that were fixated on the unanswered questions it left. The person who wrote them became so frustrated they wound up hating the movie. If you need your movie to be obvious and clearly defined - to the point where it's overexplained and not scary at all - then Smile probably isn’t for you. This is a smart film that knows when to hold back, with many refined elements added to flesh out its heroine. Most importantly, it gets under your skin. (December 11, 2022)

[witchofthemidlands]

The Shannara Chronicles

This is it. This is the day I finally let loose the rant. I’ve finally been pushed over the edge.

First things first I love The Shannara Chronicles. My favourite book in the world is The Elfstones Of Shannara and this adaptation has been so good that it is my favourite show besides Arrow. The acting is fantastic, the plot was amazing and there are some brilliant characters that are so complex and well crafted. The whole first season is just so aesthetically pleasing.

However, then we were given a season two and honestly, I was so excited. I couldn’t wait to see how they were going to tell the story from that point on. Which is when things started to go to hell.

Honestly, I could accept the devastating loss of Amberle as despite loving her character so much and feeling a deep connection to her character. I knew that she was always destined to become The Ellcrys due to the fact that I know The Elfstones Of Shannara inside out and believe me Amberle becoming The Ellcrys in the TV show was a happy ending compared to how grim it was in the book. I swear to god Wil and Eretria actually had to watch as The Ellcrys basically disintergrated Amberle piece by piece so she could form the new Ellcrys. It’s still the most horrific part of my favourite book which is why I am glad that the writers of Shannara decided to just have her step into the tree and become one with it. I was also fine with this because Poppy Drayton still appeared in season 2 as The Ellcrys. That was well done.

Poppy Drayton’s moments in season 2 were honestly probably some of the only redeeming features of the season as it just went downhill from there.

Bandon. Bandon sweetheart what the hell did they do to you? His storyline just made no sense at all that’s what! So he’s apparently ‘evil’ now. Yeah right the only darkness that Bandon was exposed to was when he was forcibly trapped in his own mind by The Dagda Mor. The Dagda Mor. Now, Bandon deserved so much better. I just still struggle to understand his storyline I really do. If in season 2 it was made apparently clear and been canon that a part of The Dagda Mor had lived on in Bandon and was possessing him having still got an evil hold on his mind. That would have been a lot more believable that what season 2 did to Bandon. I’m ending the Bandon rant there. I don’t want to think about what happened to him at the end...

Ander. Sweet, sweet Ander. How. How could they do that to him? How. I just... What happened with Ander broke my heart. He deserved more than that ending. He really did. He deserved so much more than what the second season gave him I mean the first mistake was putting him in a relationship with Catania. What even was that. That has got to be one of the most forced tv relationships in history and I’ve seen some pretty forced relationships on tv (Legends Of Tomorrow) (Wil & Mareth) I mean how? How did that even work out? To be fair I always thought it was incredibly unnecessary to kill the badass Commander Diana Tilton in season one. She was the only woman I could remotely see with Ander. Not Catania I mean what the hell? I’m guessing the writers just realised that the two did not have love interests and thought oh the smartest thing to do would be to put them together. No, it was not a smart idea. It was weird. However, the major issue with Ander is that someone actually thought it was a bright idea to kill the poor Elf off I mean seriously, who the legitimate fuck thought it was a good idea to kill him? I mean I swear to god that was one of the most pointless deaths I have ever seen on television in my life. I’ve come to the realisation that someone was probably most likely smoking something whilst choosing who to kill of in Shannara Season 2 because there was absolutely no reason whatsoever to kill Ander. Ander didn’t deserve that! He was one of the more complex and interesting characters in the whole show because Ander was real. He was flawed and he didn’t hide that he was a very realistic character who deserved so much more after everything he had been through in season one. After he had lost his entire family and the woman he loved. Ander deserved better, he really did I’ll let you all know that he didn’t even die in the books! He was one of those rare characters that actually lived! So why on earth did they feel the need to kill him in the show? His death brought nothing to the plot expect Mareth becoming Queen at the end. no one wanted that. I certainly didn’t. I just wanted King Ander. Was Mareth’s character seriously just created to replace Ander and Allanon’s characters? The only somewhat peace of mind I get when it comes to Ander is at least that he is at peace with Aine and Eventine now. Yet even still. King Ander Of Arborlon Deserved Better.

Wil. In the first season I loved and adored Wil Ohmsford he was a naive sweetheart and even though when it comes to Amberle I ship her with Allanon. I thought how they portrayed Amberle and Wil’s relationship was great. However, Season 2 Wil was just... honestly I don’t want to say anything too harsh as I love Austin Butler and Wil and he did an excellent job but Wil’s character just changed so much in season 2 and not just physically. I actually really liked his short hair it reminded me of Austin’s days in The Carrie Diaries. In season 2 Wil lost that spark he’d had in season 1 which is understandable seeing as he’d lost Amberle and that broke his heart and I could understand his depression from that and at first I was glad to see that his obsession for Storlock had gotten him to the place of his dreams but I slowly started to get annoyed with Wil when he began to blame Allanon for what happened to Amberle. Now I’ll warn you all now Allanon is my favourite, any character judges him and I get annoyed with that character. You should have seen my victory dance when Prince Arion was killed not once but twice in season 1. But seeing Wil be so against Allanon reallly upset me as Allanon has done nothing but try to do his duty to The Four Lands and try to protect Wil. Their friendship in the first season was lovely and honestly reminded me of early days Slade & Oliver from Arrow but the way he blamed Allanon for what happened to Amberle? That was not a good move. Amberle understood exactly what she had to do. She knew what her duty was an accepted it knowing the price. Wil starts blaming Allanon for all this and for not telling him earlier? Well I’m sorry Wil but whilst he may look like one, Allanon is not a god he cannot decide the fate of The Ellcrys for it and on the subjected of not telling Wil. Wil should remember that Amberle knew what she had to do but she chose not to tell Wil until the last moment. She did. That was her choice, not Allanon’s. So personally I do not think it was right of Wil to put the majority of the blame on Wil. Honestly, one of the best parts of season 2 was when Amberle basically roasted Wil in person for Wil’s lingering thoughts and feelings about what went down in the season 1 finale.

Mareth. When I first heard about this new character I was excited as she was a magic user and I immediately began to theorise if she’d be Allanon’s kid and I was happily surprised to find out that I’d guessed correctly when she revealed herself to be Allanon’s daughter. That first episode of season 2 I loved Mareth straight away she was headstrong, sassy and an all out badass. She also made harsh remarks about Wil. What’s not to love! However, when she suddenly ‘fell in love with Wil’ I began to lose interest in her because I was annoyed that she was just being made out to be another love interest for Wil. If Wil had spent the whole season getting over Amberle and finding his way back to Eretria slowly. I could accept that. That would have been good story tellling but putting him with Mareth? I just didn’t see that. The only reason I was interested at first because I thought haha Wil’s going to have to face scary ass Dad!Allanon but I didn’t even get that so nope. No interest what so ever in Mareth & Wil. It just felt increadibly forced and like ‘Wil has to be with someone so let’s choose the only female character not in a relationship’. The main reason I went off Mareth though is when I realised what her character was being used for and that was most likely to be Allanon’s replacement. Like, good luck with that and all. Malese Jow is an amazing actress and I love her and everything I’ve seen her in has been fantastic but, she’s not Manu Bennett.

Last but not least. Allanon. Now, Allanon is my favourite character he always has been ever since I read the books for the first time. I was ten years old when I first read The Shannara Chronicles. At primary school I had the job of sorting out books in our school library and seeing as I was always invisible I could stay in that library for hours and no one would even know I was gone and I did. I spent hours on that library reading the books I found on the high shelf. The Shannara Chronicles trilogy. Now, I was ten so I didn’t understand most of it. Not like I do now but the characters that I became attached to were Allanon and Amberle. Amberle was like a badass Disney Princess and Allanon was like Merlin. Kind and wise. Allanon was always my favourite from the very beginning. I always just pictured Merlin everytime I read Allanon and I felt a wonderful connection to Allanon’s Merlin like character. However, when I finished the trilogy. Allanon died in the final book and it broke my heart. I remember at the age of ten sitting in a chair crying when Allanon died. I’d felt so attached to that character. He’d taken all the characters on this wonderful fantasy journey. It was Allanon’s death that made me decide as a writer that I would never kill my main character because I could never put anyone else through the heartbreak I had gone through when my favourite character died. However, when Allanon died I came to this acceptance and told myself that if somehow one day there was ever a movie or a film of The Shannara Chronicles I would be prepared and fine and accepting when the eventually happened and Allanon died and sure enough when it was announced that there would be a tv show seven years later at seventeen I had remembered what I’d said to myself at ten and that I’d be prepared and accepting of Allanon’s death when it eventually happened. Then they cast him and all preparation went out of the window. Seeing as thanks to Arrow, Spartacus and The Hobbit, Manu Bennett had become my favourite actor. Initially it was a great thing. Despite not being exactly who I imagined as Allanon seeing as I always saw an old Merlin whenever picturing him in my head. My favourite actor was going to play my favourite book character can’t get much better than that but then I remembered. Allanon dies and if any of you reading this are Arrow fans and remember season 2 of Arrow when Slade was killed by the Mirakuru when he first had it you’ll understand what I mean. That scene traumatised me and he wasn’t even actually dead. He came back. I have rewatched Arrow hundreds of times but never that episode. For those of you who haven’t seen Arrow basically, Manu Bennett is very, very good at doing heartbreaking traumatic death scenes which is why when I knew he was going to be Allanon. All preparation I had for his eventual death went out the window and when it happened... I broke down crying exactly like I did when I was ten reading Allanon’s death yet it was a million times worse because it was actually happening on the screen. I just... I can’t even begin to describe my emotions surrounding that but I will explain my one of anger and that is due to the fact that he should not have died then! Not in the second season! I mean come on! It was trilogy for a reason! If they had done three seasons of The Shannara Chronicles, kept the stories similar to the books and had Allanon dying for Wil and Eretria and their kids at the end you know what? Fair enough. Fair enough but not like that!!! Not in the second season. Who the heck thought it was a bright idea to kill (in my opinion) the best character in the whole damn show. The best actor left and then expected it to get renewed? To be fair I’m kinda believing that when the writers went though with killing Allanon they probably thought well that’s not going to go down well. Let’s kill Wil to just to make things even more traumatic and horrific. The entirety of season two was just a tragic mess!

What annoyed me more was that they didn’t even use Allanon to his full potential in season 2. I swear he was in bed for most of an episode and barely in the first few (I don’t even want to think about him being tortured) the best thing he did was that awesome jump through the closing gates. That was badass! Now the lack of Allanon could have been due to the fact that Manu suddenly decided to return to Arrow which was just beautiful or because they just wanted to focus on Mareth and Wil seeing as Mareth was evidently intended to be Allanon’s replacement. The one redeeming thing they did was make the Warlock Lord Allanon’s emo doppleganger. That was cool and well done. I mean Manu VS Manu... I have very few words to describe how I feel about that. I was deeply satisfied I know that for certain as the more Manu the better but Allanon did not need to die at that point in the show. There was just no point for his demise at all and it just succeeded in reminding me of my childhood trauma of losing my favourite book character.

Allanon Deserved Better.

Allanon Will ALWAYS deserve better.

To conclude. The denial is strong. The Shannara Chronicles Season 2 simply does not exist. The first and only season of The Shannara Chronicles is the most spectacular season I have ever seen on tv.

[jadelotusflower]

Robin Hood Rewatch: 2x06 For England!

Almost at the halfway point of the season, and things are really ramping up - Allan is transitioning to team Castle, Robin is in full blown solider (assassin) mode, and Marian is (sigh) yet again under the threat of sexual assault. And of course, more silly disguises, but perhaps the less said about those hats the better!

Another opener, another one of the Sheriff’s contractors murdered.

How did the gang find Allan’s secret stash? They got to it first, so they couldn’t have just been tracking him.

The Pact is being signed for King Richard’s birthday, which is the 8 September - we find out later that Robin’s birthday is 14 October, which means the events of 2x06-2x012 take place over less than a month. I mean, if any of the writers cared about such things, which I suspect they didn’t. But from memory, it doesn’t seem preposterous - things are moving quickly as tensions are escalating. It also means that we’re a year on from the events of 1x08, which also took place on Richard’s birthday. It kind of works, even if they are living in Sherwood, the Land of Endless Summer.

Djaq’s face this entire scene. She’s the only one who doesn’t hurl accusations at Allan, just gives a sad shake of the head.

And...Robin’s off on his own again.

Marian’s new wardrobe, Guy clearly doing his shopping at the peasant woman’s Laura Ashley store we saw in 2x01. Other than the blue dress she’s holding, I don’t think she wears any of these, does she?

Guy makes it clear he’s actively pursuing her again, the suspicion of a few episodes ago conveniently forgotten.

Marian’s hairpins: useful as weapons and lockpicks.

Robin’s disguises: once again, a hood and an accent. “Be meek and obedient, my child” with a wink is cute, however.

I actually love the dress Marian’s wearing in these scenes, but we never really get a good look at it.

I wish I had more to say about Edward, but I don’t. He’s just there.

And it’s Wedge Antilles! Commander of Rogue Squadron, Red Leader, General of the New Republic himself. Denis Lawson great in this role.  I also very much enjoy him as Captain Foster in Hornblower.

Alright, so Robin at this point still doesn’t know that Roger of Stoke was intercepted (aka killed). I actually appreciate that this is a plot point that has been ongoing for several episodes.

Much has been in this outfit for most of the season (but this is the first really good shot of it) - it’s actually Robin’s vest that he wore early in season 1, let out a little at the sides. I really love the attention to detail here, in that the gang would of course be repurposing clothes, and that it’s Much in particular that would be getting Robin’s hand me downs.

It’s nice when we get to see how clever Will is - forward thinking about signing the gang up as musicians and making the instruments.

“They’re just bells.” John’s face! Then the payoff with the guards - “bells, mate” (ring ring).

Allan’s still got a bit of grey in his costume - he hasn’t fully made the switch yet. It does seem that Allan’s initial plan was to flee with his hoard, but when the gang found it first, he chooses to go to Guy for employment rather than leave Nottingham.

Sorry this is an image heavy post, but John’s tag is completely visible in this scene! Where was the continuity editor? Where was the director? I mean, it’s not craft service coffee cups, but jeez.

Is this the first time we learn that Marian’s mother’s name was Kate? Or that she’s even been mentioned?

Sussex. Sussex. Sussex? Sussex. SUSSEX!

For all of Guy’s talk earlier that he’s gaining more power, he can’t save Marian, and he can’t save Allan - his “power” exists only in exercising Vaisey’s will, he has none of his own.

I will however give him credit for the instinct to try and get Marian out of the castle - perhaps the only honourable thing he’s done so far, in that he thinks of her welfare before his own in arranging her escape without any promise of reward.

But...of course it doesn’t last. Now, Vaisey clearly has some kind of psychological hold over Guy, and the scene between them is incredibly creepy, as Guy seems almost hypnotised while Vaisey invades his personal space and gives slow deliberate orders. He makes no threats, his words are actually quite benign, but there’s a sinister undertone to the whole thing.

But still, Guy ultimately chooses Vaisey over Marian - as he will do again at the end of the season. He allows Marian to be chained at the wrists and taken to Winchester - and it’s interesting that Vaisey leaves him in control of this. At this point, Guy still could have facilitated Marian’s escape, Vaisey isn’t there watching to make sure he does what he wants, he let’s Guy make the choice, he’s so certain of his own control over Guy. Vaisey is such an astute judge of character (well, men - he always underestimates women), and master manipulator.

Meanwhile, Robin’s also making the choice not to confide in or seek help from his gang, instead taking up the role of assassin himself, and there’s a lot going on in that. We know Robin is the kind of commander who will always throw himself into the fray first, put his life on the line before those of his followers, and in a way it’s reminiscent of 1x02 where Robin made sure his men were safe on the other side of the portcullis before fighting off the remaining guards single-handedly. But we’re a way from half-showoff, half-deathwish Robin now - this choice is calculated (but still reckless). He sees his role as captain to protect his soliders, not the other way around, and he thinks its a suicide mission and doesn’t want to risk their lives.

He tells Edward “I have no choice” but at this point Robin has lots of choices. Because he should tell the gang what is going on, not leave them in the dark, he should seek their counsel, and accept their help. But he doesn’t, because for all the justification he’s cloaking himself in, he knows it’s a terrible thing and while he’s willing to bear the burden (after likely doing much worse in the Holy Land), he’s not willing to let the gang bear it with him. But also - he’s not willing to let the gang talk him out of it either, which they would certainly try to do. He’s in war mode and his only objective is to eliminate the enemy the most effective way he knows how - to turn off the humanity in himself and let the solider take over.

Allan, Guy, and Robin are again falling back on their old patterns - Allan to talk his way into the most advantageous position possible (and survive), Guy cede control to Vaisey (and further his ambition), and Robin to act recklessly (and protect his King). All of these cycles are self-destructive, and only really Allan will be able to break free from his by the end of the season.

Not the face of a rational man. If he’d talked things over with the gang first, things might have been different.

There are lines of Robin’s letter that are (inadvertent) foreshadowing - “but most of all for the life, for the love we could not have” and “I’ll see you in heaven.” Debatable whether Robin genuinely believes the latter (given he’s about to commit some mortal sins without the opportunity to repent), or whether he says it for Marian’s comfort.

Very lucky Robin didn’t aim for anyone’s head - but Vaisey would know he would go for the heart, the most effective kill shot.

CONDENDER, READY? GLADITATOR, READY? 3...2...1...

Both Robin (righteous anger) and Allan (seething resentment) are being unreasonable here. Robin: “You don’t have to do this” - and do what instead, exactly? Allan: “You should have given me a second chance.” Well, he did. It’s Allan who swings first, and wins, thanks to Robin’s distraction at seeing Marian in chains - but he doesn’t go in for the kill swing, and I don’t think he would have, actually.

Tar and fire - weren’t we here three weeks ago?

First John disarms Guy with his quarterstaff, then distracts him with the bells, then hits him in the groin. What a legend.

It bothers me when they all tell Much to shut up and it’s played for laughs. Really, this scene should have been the gang giving Robin the what for about going off alone and making suicide-shaped plans without them, but it also makes sense they don’t want to rub salt in the wound.

A dark end to the episode, a sign of things to come.

[shady-swan-jones]

The Penthouse season 3 Wish and Prediction lists

For the last few months, me and @moonlightsdream have done nothing but obsess over the penthouse and try to decipher every little piece of promotion they have given us. We could be the Sleuth Sisters. In response to her prediction list, I’m making my own. Let’s see if the writer agrees with us.

***Spoilers for penthouse season 1 and 2***

Predictions

They show us in the first ep how JDT pulled off the bomb trick

Jenny’s father is involved, and he’s worse than JDT

Logan is alive, but injured in the hospital.

There will be a two-year time jump in the first episode, next we’ll see the kids in college

The hera club criminals will be released after two years

Logan will stay hidden because they somehow put the blame for NAG’s death on him

The twins will be better people next season

Dr Ha is the one who will die in the first episodes

The airplane guy knows Su Ryeon but it’s not her first husband. He’ll help her

Oh yoon hee will play dirty but she’ll be on Su Ryeon’s side

Oh yoon hee will finally inherit the penthouse (I don’t want it, but it makes sense)

Shim Su Ryeon will kill JDT and make it seem like he committed suicide, just like he did to Min seol a, coming full circle from season 1.

The crazy nanny is on the villains side this time

Su Ryeon will physically harm seo jin, and there won’t be a redemption arc for her

Jenny’s dad has hidden money or the door to a safe inside hera statue and he’ll come back to take it

Bonus wild theory: Su Ryeon is pregnant, Logan doesn’t know but when he finds out he does everything to come back. (+2pts if it’s true)

Wish list

Su Ryeon kills JDT and the rest of the villains also die. I want blood

She and Logan and all their kids leave for the US and have a happy ending

They open an orphanage and they take revenge for abused/ neglected children

Oh yoon hee takes JDT’s company

JDT village becomes something eco friendly

The prize in Cheon Academy is named after min seol a

The bad trio of hera, kang mari et al are dirt poor with no influence in the end

Rona goes to italy to be a top soprano, long distance relationship with SH but they make it work

Ha Eun Byol goes abroad in a psychiatric institution to battle her mental health problems

Jenny apologizes to everyone, especially rona and becomes a good person

The hera palace is destroyed because such wealth makes everyone a worse person, and in its place a few small houses are built

Last scene: 5 years later, rona is having her solo concert, she aces and we see in the first line her people happily cheering for her: Su Ryeon, Logan and baby, SH with a big bouquet and couple ring, SK and Jenny. Evil has been defeated, the good guys live happily ever after.

Thank you for indulging me, this is all in good fun and based only on my imagination. I’m tagging more people to see what you all think about season 3. @vigilantewives @forgottenvip @fluffglass @booshi-hoon @rbluei @eva98-l @mchaelscofield @sumrissa @westallenss @classytrashystuff @aoillama @asiandramamania @pvperplxnes @haephestus-daughter99 @ladyindreaming @ipurple-k-bldramas @soominjiji-gifs @cassianandor and anyone else who wants to write predictions!

For crazy Penthouse theories: here and here

[shellyb04]

And here we are, all caught up. You'll notice I fell into a bit of a Chinese drama and historical hole for these last ones! I will try to post as I finish shows so I can give a bit more of a review. Enjoy!

A love so romantic (Cdrama)-Girl pretends to be a long lost granddaughter of the Gu family and falls for the Gu family heir. 8/10 Very funny. The last ten episodes get a bit annoying with dumb amnesia and such, but overall really funny main couple.

The Greatest Love (Kdrama)-An A-list movie star with a heart condition meets former girl group member and now most disliked celebrity. Against all odds, he falls for her. 9/10 This is extremely funny and a bit tropey, but it gets major bonus points for the ending. There's no crazy amnesia or unreasonable misunderstandings. Their dilemma at the end makes sense and wasn't dragged out for too long. There was a bit in the middle where she was trying to reject him that dragged for me and I didn't like the other girl group members very much. But overall, really fun.

The Rebel Princess (Cdrama)-A princess is forced to marry a general turned prince instead of her childhood sweetheart prince. They ultimately fall for each other and endure war, kidnapping, betrayal, and every other kind of misfortune that can happen in a historical drama. 9/10 This drama was refreshing because the couple was so amazing together. They were kind as well as cunning. They were the only characters not seeking power and I just loved the way they worked. It does get a little draggy during some of the palace politics. I also think some of the villians didn't think through their plans. But overall, the leads made the show. Although there are some genuinely heartbreaking moments and too many women committing suicide.

Love Script (Cdrama)- A CEO gets into an accident and believes he's a Prince from the Ming Dynasty. A psychologist is hired and she becomes part of the palace staff in order to treat him. But she begins to fall for him. 8/10 I liked all the characters. It's a really light show and there's a couple of plot twists that ultimately made the lead romance work for me. There were a few too many flashbacks and I found myself skipping through them a lot.

A Girl Like Me (Cdrama)- Ban Hua has three failed engagements, partially because of her blunt manner and explosive temper. She begins getting visions of the future and uses them to save her family from trouble, along with Rong Xia who has his own agenda...but will he be distracted by Ban Hua!? 8.5/10 I really liked this one. The story moved along rather quickly. I love that the Ban family are perfectly happy in their little sphere of life. They adore each other and simply want their family to be happy. The only real negatives are that I don't think some of the villain plots made sense especially toward the end and I thought the last two episodes should have wrapped up the story not made more characters power hungry and foolish. Overall, I really liked it, especially Ban Hua and Rong Xia's banter and courtship.

My little happiness (Cdrama)-An intern lawyer and a successful neurosurgeon who were childhood sweethearts meet again as adults only she never knew his name. Watch the duo fall in love. 8/10 This is a pleasant little ditty with no big problems. The relationship between the main girl and her best friend feels super real to me. I love both main couples. It's a simple sweet sappy love story. There's never any doubt how it will end so just enjoy the sweetness.

Oh! My Sweet Liar! (Cdrama)-Historical- A female painter infiltrates the home of a noble family to paint a copy of a precious item. When her escape goes wrong, she fakes a pregnancy by the family heir to save her life. They make a contract marriage so he can escape an arranged marriage he doesn't want. But there are secrets and plotting people throughout the family home. 8.5/10 I really liked the majority of the show. It was a bit slow the second arc of the show and really the last three eps could have been a bit more streamlined, but I loved the Li family. It was so nice to see the love between the family.

Shopaholic Louis (Kdrama)- A wealthy heir gets amnesia and is found by a poor country girl newly arrived in Seoul to look for her brother. The two fall for each other while searching together. 8.5/10 Super cute. I loved the main couple the whole way through. The side characters grew on me as well. It was a nice sweet story overall.

Love in Time-Cdrama- Writer and a CEO were friends in Jr high but had a falling out. Present day they enter a contract marriage. 8/10 A point bump for 30 minute episodes. The story was sweet and simple with a few pleasant turns. The last episode is a bit dumb. I would've rather just had more epilogue than a faked amnesia plot. I liked the side friendships, but wish the "villain" had a better motivation. Just " I loved him and worked hard for him so he should be mine" obsession got old. The tropes were in full display so avoid if you hate those.

Love and Destiny-Cdrama- A young immortal wanders into the wrong place and awakens the God of War. He discovers a secret about her even she doesn't know. The two fall in love, but bad things happen. Can they overcome destiny with love? 7/10- This one seemed to be a bit long at 60 episodes and it took WAY too long to get started. But by episode 14 or 15 I was completely into the love story and most of the side characters. The two "villains" were annoying but ultimately I understood their choices even if I felt they were immature. Overall, it's good, but a little too slow in some places and the last ten episodes could have given me some more couple moments.

Divorce lawyer in love (Kdrama)- She's a tough as nails divorce lawyer and he's her office manager until she goes to far in a case and her license is suspended. Three years later she's the office manager and he's the lawyer and he sees his chance for some payback.. Enemies to friends to lovers. 8/10 It has its funny moments. I enjoy most of the "case of the week" stories. I thought the resolution to the main antagonist was a bit hand wavy, but overall, solid and enjoyable with mostly fun side characters.

The Sword and the Brocade (Cdrama)- A concubine's daughter marries a Marquis in an arranged marriage. She has to deal with conniving concubines, controlling mother and mother-in-law, as well as a family that doesn't want her around, and a rival family all while trying to continue her embroidery career. 7.5/10 Started out fairly strong but toward the end it felt really drawn out. I feel like the last two plots should have been more combined cause it really dragged the pace of the show down. The characters were good. I liked most of the characters a lot, but a few began to make weird decisions toward the end.

The Eternal Love (Cdrama)- Modern woman sucked to alternate past where she has to share her doppelganger's body. The two with the help of their maid try to figure out what's going on. But things are complicated as each soul is in love with a different prince.,-6/10 The story is okay, although the last four episodes are weird. Chemistry with the leads is fabulous. Really not great production quality. I couldn't get through Season 2.

Eternal Love/Ten Miles of Peach Blossom (Cdrama)- Bai Qian and Ye Hua are star crossed immortals who fall in love in three different but intertwined lives. 9.5/10 Started off slow, then got wonderful about ep 10, then pain and misery for a few eps before back to joy and falling in love and back to pain. But one of the best revenge scenes by Bai Qian! I sort of hated that basically every other couple seems doomed. I tried to watch the pillow book before this and just got bored. I may go back to it someday as I love that couple.

General's Lady (Cdrama)- independent noble sent to marry the "demon" general at the border only to fall in love with him. However there are factions trying to harm them. 9/10 Super light and sweet with lots of kisses. I got a bit bored a little past the middle of the drama when they went back to the capital. But the last several episodes brought me back around and I laughed out loud multiple times. Love all the couples throughout and how it showed there were multiple ways to be a strong woman.

[bitch-for-a-rainbow]

So there's a blanddcheadcanons post that says that "Kara is the mortal avatar of Rao" and I really don't like it, especially in the context of SG 3x04 (The Faithful). At best, as was pointed out to me by a friend with whom I discussed this post, the House of El is likely blessed and somewhat sponsored by Rao, which probably doesn't do much but produce Krypton's greatest heroes, given what the word "El" **means** in Kryptonian. I'm interested in your thoughts on this (pls post your answer).

    I reject the headcannon solely because if it were true it would mean Coville was right and I fucking hate that bitch.

     In all seriousness, though, this is an idea I've seen a lot and I'm not a huge fan of. I don't know much about Raoism beyond what appears in the show and that which can be inferred off of the show. One thing I would point out though is that El in Kryptonian (while obviously being intended to mean God by the original comic writers) can mean Sun or Stars, and since the Kryptonians in the show are, as far as I can tell, monotheistic, and worshipped only one particular star, the El family is not necessarily named God. It would, however, signify their enormous prestige on Krypton and contribute to the famous El pride (or rather, arrogance). I’m not sure it would necessarily have to mean anything more than that-- that the Els are a respected house who have produced a variety of successful politicians, civil servants, and scientists. And (this time reaching a little bit) that they are perhaps so old and respected that their house name was once a title. 

      There is a certain allure to the theory, for sure. Kara is a paragon character. She always, always does what she thinks is right, regardless of the cost, personal or global, and regardless of what other people might think of it. She has a very direct moral compass, and there are only a handful of times when she doesn’t follow it, all of which involve saving Lena. Ship who you want, but it is notable that Kara routinely prioritzes Lena’s life over that of others given the rarity of that happening otherwise. She never even considered breaking Rick Thompson’s father out of prison when he kidnapped Alex, and all he’d committed was bank robbery. Kara has lines she does not cross (though murder is clearly not one of them). She is a character that has seen some of the worst that sentient life is capable of, has seen more death and suffering than most people could imagine, and she came out of it with an all-encompassing desire to protect others. She lives to give people hope. Plus, the humor of having Kara-- the one person most offended by the idea of being an Avatar of Rao-- turn out to be an Avatar of Rao is great.

       But, I would also say that having Kara want to do good because she is the avatar of a benevolent god is reductive and not particularly true to her character. It is true that helping and protecting people is a large part of the core of who Kara is. But there is a difference between altruism and the self-destructive, bordering of suicidal desperation to save absolutely everyone that Kara practices. And to anyone who doubts the suicidal bit, I direct you to the season 1 finale where Kara literally goes on a goodbye tour because she thinks if she goes out to fight Non she’ll die. She still goes because she has hope, but that hope is that she can at least save Earth with her life. She doesn’t fight because she is certain in the ultimate victory of good and justice. She does it because she more afraid to lose another family than she is to die. Kara doesn’t become Supergirl and risk her own life because she believes in good, she does it because she can’t stand to listen to people suffer-- because she has suffered. To use Alex’s words in 1x13 “You fight everyday to keep people from struggling like you have.” Notably also in 1x13, Kara wakes up from the Black Mercy and her first words are “Who did this to me?” and then she goes after Non in what could arguably be described as a homicidal rage-- a rage that is fueled entirely for personal reasons, not the greater good of Earth (though that comes as an added benefit), which is.... not very befitting the avatar of a benevolent god. 

     A major part of season 1 is Kara dealing with grief and rage. She nearly breaks a guy's arm in episode 6 because he screamed at her for damaging his car, to hell with the children he'd almost hit with it. In season 3's Midvale flashbacks we see her first put both hands through a lunch table, then attack Jake when she suspects him for Kenny's death. She gets better at controlling it as the seasons progress, but during Crisis she very nearly melts Lex. Also not particularly godly of her. 

     Then there is the fact that so much of who Kara is is shaped by fear: fear of the government, fear of humanity, fear of abandonment, and fear of herself. In her civilian life, Kara is, for the most part, unnoticeable. She's polite, soft-spoken, doesn't wear a lot of bold colors or styles, and is often a pushover. As shown by her encounter with Red Kryptonite, Kara would not dress or speak the same way to people without the pressure of hiding her identity (though much of her dialogue is purely the loss of her "don't be an asshole" filter, some of it is stuff she had every right to say before and just didn't). I have always found that episode to be very interesting purely for the fact that Kara doesn't actually seem to be seeking harm on others so much as seeking their attention. Her argument with Alex is almost entirely about how much she hates having to hide and pretend to be less than she is. Kara drops Cat off the balcony and then catches her. She attacks the police when they point weapons at her but doesn't kill or even hurt them that badly, instead of destroying the car they're using as shelter. Red-K removed her inhibitions, made her angrier, yes, but if her goal was to actually hurt people, she could have done so-- would have done so, and with great ease. She goes to a public bar and uses super strength to smash bottles by flicking peanuts. Why do that at a crowded bar? Why not just flick potato chips at the windows in her own apartment?

      This is Kara at her absolute worst-- but does she seek out the DEO agents who shot her out of the sky? Does she go after Maxwell Lord or Non? No. She tries to make people pay attention to her. Her most shameful and hideous desire is for people to give her respect. (Admittedly, respect gained through fear, but still.). Kara's a nice person-- much, much nicer than average-- but a lot of that "nice" is just her avoiding conflict to avoid attention.

      Kara is a good person. Kara inspires people. But that is because Kara gets up every day and chooses to be good and to inspire. It's one of the reasons I enjoy Non as a villain so much-- he and Astra are Kara's narrative foils. They also remember Krypton and grieve its loss. They also were trapped in the Phantom Zone. But where Kara had the Danvers to convince her that some good people existed and would risk themselves just to help others, Non and Astra had Alura sentencing them to eternal suffering rather than helping them save their planet (through the means they thought necessary) and then landed on Earth and found it headed on the same path as the planet they'd just lost. Kara had people to help her grieve. Non and Astra were surrounded by misery. They lost hope. Kara discovered it.

     Kara is the Paragon of Hope because she has been hopeless. Because she has suffered so much, seen so much, and because she chooses to believe in a better future. She didn't have hope her first time in the Phantom Zone. She didn't even have hope for a while on earth. From what we can gather, Kara's choice to start actually believing in the future was a gradual shift that occurred sometime after Kenny's death and has lasted her ever since. For Kara, hope is learned. She chose to hope and she won't let it go, and to assign that incredible victory off to her being a God is an insult to her growth and to her character. 

   Now I personally thought “The Faithful” handled this concept very well. 3x04 is one of my favorite episodes of television in general, let alone in Supergirl. Season 3 is my second favorite season, and that says a lot for its good episodes when the bad of season 3 is so, so very bad (To say nothing of the episode to episode production value, we have the waste of Argo, Mon El’s return as obviously he’s grown he has a beard Mon El, and whatever the hell was going on with Kryptonian genetic engineering eclipse causing witches). To this day I don’t know why Kara had magic dreams. The show did nothing to explain it and I can’t imagine up a reason. 

     But “The Faithful” works because it highlights the whole paragon part of who Kara is. When you realize that every person in the room of Coville’s cult is a person she has personally saved-- that hits hard. Especially since only a fraction of the people she’s saved would ever set foot inside that building with the totally not-creepy, entirely wholesome way they deliver the invitations. (“Your daughter is special. She has been chosen. As have you.”) It works because it focuses on how the average human must view Kara, the ones who don’t see her argue with her sister over potstickers and crush her phone when she gets mad. It works because of how desperately hard Kara tries to be a human. It works because the writers know that we, the audience, do not see Kara as anything but a regular person with irregular abilities: a kind and remarkably devoted person, but not a god. 

[jupitermelichios]

On a more possitive note, I’ve started watching Sword Art Online. It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever seen (and the last film I saw in cinemas was Cats to give you context for the scale i’m working on here) and I kind of adore it in much the same way I love garbage like Smallville or Twilight. It’s so stupid on so many levels. You could challenge someone to write the worst anime, and it would almost certainly be better than SAO. It’s almost hypnotic how terrible it is.

No one should watch this terrible terrible show so I therefore don’t feel at all bad that I’m about the spoil absolutely everything, but honestly if you do also hate-watch this please come talk to me about how terrible it is. I don’t know anyone else who watches it.

Highlights of Season 1 include:

everyone is trapped in an MMO, and if you die in the MMO you die IRL. but if you were a beta-tester you’re probably fine because they just let them keep all their levels and items from the testing, so they’re all massively OP and everyone just accepts this as a normal and non-game-breaking thing

it’s a fantasy MMO but there’s no races, no magic system, no weapons except swords and maces, and not even an option to dual wield - literally all you can do in this fucking game is stand in front of an enemy and mash the attack button. I’m pretty sure they’re trapped there because the devs realised no one would play this post launch-day otherwise because it’s boring as shit

when the villain traps everyone he also just changs all their avatars to look like they do IRL for absolutely no reason, like actually none, he doesn’t even say he thinks it would be funny, he just does it and no one questions it and it is literally never mentioned again because this is the worst TV show ever animated.

in the second episode the main character deliberately witholds information about how to defeat a boss, indirectly causing multiple deaths. there is absolutely no reason for him to withhold it, he was just being a jerk because he doesn’t like people

in the third episode they reset his entire personality and he’s now a selfless hero pretending to be a lower level than he really is so people will find him more relateable and be his friend because all he wants is to help people. this is not a consequence of episode 2, they just decided they didnt like the character as he’d previously been written.

he makes some new friends who are all objectively terrible people who have decided for no season that the twelve year old who doesn’t really know how to play and keeps having anxiety attacks about the very real possibility of death has to be the guild tank. the MC is high enough level to be functionally immortal in like half the levels, but doesn’t tell anyone this he just lets them go on bullying this child

none of his friends survive that episode, in the game or IRL. which is also a christmas epsiode. a child dies in battle because she’s a terrible tank and then a man commits suicide out of guilt, so then the main character murders santa to try and bring them back from the actual dead but it doesn’t work because again, this is a video game and they are dead IRL, so then he walks off into the snow alone. Christmas!

we meet the best character in the entire show in episode 4, Rosalia, who has gone evil and started just straight murdering people because she’s sick of being an attractive adult woman who can’t get a date because she’s surrounded by lolicons who are only interested in the preteen characters (not a joke, that comes up, the show is firmly on the side of the lolicons)

in the same episode we get an extended bra and panty sequence staring an actual fucking child, like canonically this character is maybe 13 at best. this is one of only 2 occaisions when they feel the need to undress a character and it’s the fucking 12 year old, it’s so gross it reads like a parody of itself

literally every single named female character aged over 8 who talks to the MC falls in love with him after like 5 minutes (and in season 2 this includes his actual sister). he shows absolutely no interest in any of them (including his sister, thank god) until...

the main character gets engaged to a girl he only knows from an MMO after a virtual single date (he doesn’t actually win her in a PVP match but only because he looses the match, he 100% canonically tries to win her in a match, which she is apparently fine with). he then doesn’t bother to ask for her real name until the final episode, he just calls her by her screen name

(that’s okay though becuase it turns out that this moron of a love interest used her real name, on a local server, in a game where your character looks like you do IRL, because apparently getting doxxed is her hobby)

they then get in-game married off screen. there’s not even like a still of a wedding photo. nothing. the main character proposes and then the show immediately jumps to the honeymoon, it’s fucking bizarre.

they find a creepy child dressed all in white with no memory alone in the woods a week into their honeymoon who starts calling them mommy and daddy literally seconds after they first meet her, and they don’t suspect anything suss is going on and adopt her

for hilarity bear in mind the main character may only be 15 at this point (he says he’s only just turned 16 in the last epsiode, but his actual birthday is never mentioned), and his virtual wifu is 16, but no one ever questions the marriage or the adoption, even though ‘hey marriage in a video game is as important and meaningful as marriage in real life’ is an actual conversation people have multiple times. also they think the child they adopt is an actual IRL 8 year old who thinks these randos she met in an MMO are her mum and dad and everyone just goes with that like it’s a totally normal thing

a character called ‘Thinker’ agrees to meet an enemy faction leader for peace talks. the “peace talks” take place in a high level dungeon and he is told to come alone with no weapons and no fast travel. he does this. no one ever comments that his name is ironic, and in fact they seem to think that being betrayed and trapped in a dungeon with a boss is a totally unexpected turn of events Thinker could never have planned for

they take their new baby into the dungeon to rescue thinker, because they went to the jean grey school of baby rearing, and she imediately reveals that she’s actually a magical maggufin with infinite power, murders the grim reaper, and then dies. In literally the second episode she’s in

after she dies the MC hacks the admin account of the game, converts her corpse into an in game item, and saves to the local storage on his console, with the intention of bringing her back to life as a robot once they’re saved from the game. I’m not joking, that’s an actual thing that happens.

the fact that the main character can just access the main admin account and make massive game-breaking changes isn’t used again in that game and he never thinks to try and use it to force log people out or give himself infinite life so he can just rush the game and free everyone. nope, convert a corpse into an item and then never think about it again.

there’s an entire episode where all they do is go fishing. its the only filler episode in the season, and it immediately follows the death of a small child. it’s the most tone-deaf beach episode in writing history

it turns out this game, this game where they didn’t bother coding in any difference races, weapons, or any kind of magic system, was intended to have fully sentient AI therapists, because why the fuck not at this point honestly

oh also the game has PVP and you can trick the game into thinking a sleeping player is in PVP with you in order to actually murder a real person without it flagging in-game as a murder making the crime impossible for the real life legal system to investigate even though you just murdered a person. and they expect us to believe this game had actual beta testers. at least cyberpunk wasn’t played on microwaves you connected straight to your brain (also not a joke, the VR consoles canonically work by sending microwave radiation into your brain, no wonder VR never caught on)

the set up for the show is that they have to reach level 100 of a dungeon in order to win. At level 75, the writers got bored and the show just ends.

it turns out the power of love allows you to just break the fucking game and the main villain literally has a line about how ‘love allows you to remove debuffs, huh, we didn’t think to plan for that’ because again, there’s no metaphors in this show, everything is 100% literal including the fact that falling in love with another player means you’re immune to the paralysis status effect

power of love also allows you to very briefly become a poltergeist after being killed, but only for like 2 seconds. again not a joke or a metaphor, main character is killed but then gets to hang around as a ghost for a little bit to enable him to defeat the boss. he also doesn’t die in real life despite that being the entire fucking premise of the show, again because power of love.

the bad guy literally has no plan, he’s just doing shit for the sake of having something to do. His actions directly cause the deaths of more than 4,000 people, and it’s not even in aid of anything. they ask him why he trapped 10,000 people in an MMO and allowed them to slowly die, and he’s just like ‘huh, i forgot i did that, random’ and then just fucking peaces out

the fact that he committed one of the largest mass killings outside of war never really comes up again, as far as we know he doesn’t even go to jail. i think the show actually kind of thinks he’s a good guy, which is a fucking WILD moral stance to take on the deaths of 4000 completely innocent people for absolutely no reason

If this sounds hilari-bad but you don’t want to invest the time to watch a show which is objectively garbage, it has an abridged series which is famously better than the show it’s parodying (i’m dead serious, people have character arcs, the getting married after one date thing is properly addressed, the mc has to deal with PTSD because of all his friends dying in epsidode 3, they don’t immediately follow the death of a child with an extended fishing montage, the villain has an actual plan). It’s mostly actually pretty good, but this is the internet and it’s an abridged series, so while there are a lot fewer yikes moments than most it still has enough that I’m not comfortable recommending it without the caveat. that said I still enjoyed it a lot, although possibly not at much as pointing and laughing at the garbage that is the actual show.

[fudgerevelation]

actual last last post on this I pwomise cause I'm 99% sure I'm dropping the show

kinda fucking sucks to watch a character have an arc focused on abuse she's faced; watch a set up that clearly leading to the conclusion of "penny, a character representing choice, gets to remain with the friends she chose after making the choice abandon her abusive environment, and this is what starts the path to healing"; and instead just see the show pivot in the final 3 episodes and change its mind to go "actually the resolution to penny's conflicts regarding abuse are to change who she is as a person so she's more normal and palatable, despite having no real choice in the matter, then have even that be made immediately pointless as she, a character shown to be suicidal since episode 1 of this volume, successfully commits suicide minutes later."

like I really don't give a shit if they bring her back. they wrote suicide as a resolution to abuse and made it out to be heroic. there's no good way they can spin that going forward.

especially after just episodes before having the cast affirm to a suicidal penny that her death wasn't the answer and that letting an entire city fall was a worthwhile sacrifice to keep her alive.

especially after having a character song about the protagonist not seeing their martyr mother as a hero.

especially after never allowing penny to e v e r talk to someone about her own abuse or any of her other plentiful traumas.

skip letting penny vent to someone she trusts, skip letting penny try to reach out for help, skip letting penny escape ironwood and the rest of the atlesian military, skip letting penny spend time with a support system who accepts her, just go straight to "welp I guess suicide is the only way she can ever have agency"

feels fucking morally bankrupt to send out that kind of message just for a """shocking""" """twist""" that 12 year old angst fic writers predicted

[rablackauthor]

My Fave is Problematic – Wonder Egg Priority

(Image from https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/88759725)

On the Anime Feminist website, they have a regular column called "My Fave is Problematic," where the writers take turns exploring series they like that don't exactly fit the model the site typically recommends.  It seemed fitting, in that light, for me to borrow the title in order to write about Wonder Egg Priority, a series I don't expect to show up on AniFem's Best of 2021 list at the end of the year.

How do I describe Wonder Egg Priority?  That's probably the hardest task I've had with any anime series since Flip Flappers (coincidentally – or not – the series I most often find myself comparing this one to).  Ohto Ai is a fourteen year-old girl who is bullied for having heterochromia (i.e. her eyes are different colors).  Her only friend, Koito, committed suicide, causing her to withdraw from the world almost entirely, but one night when she's out by herself, she's offered the chance to enter a dream world where she fights monsters and protects girls who have committed suicide in parallel worlds.  If she protects enough of them, she's told, Koito will come back to life.  Along the way, she befriends three other girls, Neiru, Rika, and Momoe, who are also fighting to bring back people they've lost to suicide.

That's the Cliff's Notes version, which means it tells you absolutely nothing about the layers of complexity woven into the story.  I should also mention the production glitches this show went through.  The eighth episode wasn't ready in time and had to be postponed a week, which bumped the final episode completely off the schedule. We had to wait three months for another time slot to open up, and perhaps that's where things went the most wrong.  Three months is a long time for people to imagine their ideal grand finale.  The show had left a lot of loose ends – more on that in a moment – and people were waiting breathlessly to see how everything would tie together.  And then the last episode came along, and… it was just a last episode, probably not much different from the way it would have run on its original date.  That's not a bad thing, but it's not what people were expecting, and so for a lot of the audience, it fell flat.

And that wasn't all. As I said, the show left a lot of loose ends.  The finale only resolved a couple of them, and those resolutions weren't well-received. Wonder Egg Priority is a challenging story.  It deals with teenage suicide, after all, and isn't shy about exploring the pressures in a teenager's life that can lead to suicide.  The result is that you don't watch this show by yourself.  The ghosts of your own experience come along for the journey.  And that means we aren't all really watching the same show. Everyone's show is different.

Take one of the series major plotlines, involving Ai's teacher, Sawaki-sensei.  He's an aspiring artist who uses Ai as his model, and he's also connected to Koito's suicide in some way that Ai doesn't understand.  She walked in on Koito clinging to him and crying one day.  When Ai stops going to school, he's the one who comes to check on her, and that leads to him starting a relationship with her mother.  And to top it all off, he's Momoe's uncle, too.  That's a lot to untangle.

In the final episode, we get the answer, and it's an answer that doesn't sit well with a lot of the audience.  Koito did not actually commit suicide, but instead fell to her death accidentally while threatening to accuse Sawaki of molesting her.  If you came to this series with the ghosts of past experiences where men molested girls and got away with it by making the girls look "crazy" or "delusional," it's a huge slap in the face.  It's a slap in the face that knocks you to the ground, where a boot then comes down on your head.  I get that.

But I brought a different set of experiences to the story, a different set of ghosts.  I came with the memory of an old friend, a high school teacher falsely accused of molestation by a student.  My friend is a woman, accused by a boy, but the scenario was the same.  Fortunately for her, the legal system worked and she stayed out of jail, but she's never taught high school again.  I also came with my dad – not literally, as I'll never get him to watch anime (plus he's still alive, so not really a ghost).  I carry the memory of his nearly fifty years as a high school teacher and administrator.  He befriended hundreds of teenage girls over those decades, and never molested a single one. And despite what you might see on Law & Order: SVU, that kind of record is pretty much the norm.  It often feels like this society assumes that any man below a certain age who shows any kind of interest in a young woman is doing so with sexual intent, perhaps predatory intent.  That's no more acceptable than writing off girls as "crazy" or "delusional."  We are all individuals, not stereotypes.

Does Sawaki come off as creepy during the series?  Absolutely. He's supposed to.  We're viewing him through the lens of Ai's anxiety.  But it didn't take me long to suspect he was innocent.  Too many characters were invested in him, in too many different ways.  When Rika suggested that Sawaki was an abuser, it made me believe in him more.  Not because Rika was "crazy" or "delusional," but because having her give voice to what Ai was thinking is a pretty standard misdirection technique in the writer's playbook.  But it's the next-to-last episode, where Ai has to fight off the Sawaki-monster, that confirms it.  Ai says so herself – the monster isn't the real Sawaki, but instead is a manifestation of her doubts and suspicions.  At the time she says this, she already knows what really happened with Koito, even though we in the audience do not.  She knows what she's talking about.

Ai's acceptance of Sawaki is a crucial part of her growth in the story.  She decides to put aside her doubts and suspicions and believe in him, because she wants her mother to be happy.  What would it say to have her do that, only to find out that he's really guilty? What message does that send?

The masterminds behind the egg-world say they are looking for "warriors of Eros" who can confront "Thanatos, the temptation of death."  Those are Freudian terms, and there's been a lot of debate about what they're supposed to mean in this show.  Allow me to take a stab at it.

Every character in Wonder Egg Priority can be defined by what we don't know about them as much as by what we do know.  Sawaki, of course, is a riddle throughout the story.  Momoe has issues with gender identity, prompting speculation that she's transgender or intersex, but we never find out for sure.  And Neiru… well, let's just say that her situation never completely adds up.  Even Koito is an enigma.  You can't just write her off as "bad."  She's a troubled child who acted out on her issues, whatever they were, and it drove someone else to suicide.  But the same is true of Rika, and she's one of our "heroes," so what conclusion are we supposed to draw?  There are riddles no matter where you look.

But isn't that what life is like?  Everyone we know, no matter how intimately, has parts of themselves that are hidden from us.  There are even parts of ourselves that are hidden from us. What do we do about them?

What Wonder Egg Priority seems to be saying, to me at least, is that we have a choice.  We can give in to Thanatos and let our fears guide us.  We don't have to commit suicide or anything else that drastic.  We can just quietly slip away, deciding like Momoe that we've had enough and we'd rather go looking for a more peaceful life. Everyone does that at one time or another.  We all have our limits.  But there's another option – we can be a warrior of Eros, and choose to love.  We can choose to do hard things in order to bring good to others.  We can choose to stand up to our fears and uncertainties and believe in people, even when we don't have complete assurance that they're worthy of our trust.  That's the choice Ai makes.  That's the destination the story was aiming for.  Wonder Egg Priority leaves a lot of plot threads hanging, but it finishes the one that counts.  Ai has reached the end of her story – and the beginning of her next one.

Yes, my fave is problematic, but it is still my fave.  It won't be everyone's, and it will challenge fan and foe alike.  But if you're up for it, give it a try.

[abigailnussbaum]

The Handmaid’s Tale 4x01-4x03

After three seasons and change of The Handmaid’s Tale, I think the facts of the matter are plain: what started out as a wrenching examination of how life under a totalitarian regime wears away at the soul and sense of self, and how the only possibilities for rebellion or escape within that system are minuscule and often self-defeating, has become a grown-up Hunger Games with prestige TV writing and acting. Except that for some reason, the writers are bizarrely reluctant to pull the trigger on that, so they keep falling back on the forms of that first show, even though they’ve been hollowed out of any meaning. Which is how you get this stretch of episodes, in which June starts out on the run with the other renegade handmaids, ends up on the run with (only one surviving member of) the other renegade handmaids, and in the middle both commits an audacious poison attack against Gilead and gets captured and tortured into giving up her friends.

And before we talk about the substance of all that, it must be acknowledged that most of it is just incredibly stupid. It’s simply absurd that Joseph Lawrence hasn’t been executed (at the very least, you’d expect him to have gone under the knife; Janine’s former Commander lost a hand for raping her, after all). It’s simply absurd that Gilead wouldn’t kill June immediately, or at least after she’d lied to them for the first time. It’s simply absurd that the handmaids wouldn’t try to move out of the new safe house, knowing that June could give them away (remember when Alma was the Mayday contact and June was the naive one? Now she’s so passive that she has to be told everything). It is beyond absurd that Gilead’s reaction to a group of rebellious handmaids who have stolen eighty-six children is to send them - together! - to a compound in the middle of nowhere. And I don’t even know what to say about the idea that these same women would be transported with minimal security and restraint, or that a passing cargo train would be enough to ensure June and Janine’s escape. At almost every turn, the plot developments in these episodes feel like they exist to produce a cool montage or yet another opportunity for Elisabeth Moss to suffer beautifully, not as a meaningful exploration of totalitarianism and resistance.

Having said that, there is good material in these episodes, and especially their suggestion that in becoming a leader of the renegade handmaids, June has placed herself in direct contrast to - and yet also modeled herself on - Aunt Lydia. The scene in which she arranges a particicution of the Guardian who raped Esther is as chilling as it is righteous, not because the murder is wrong, but because she so clearly recognizes that the way to get the other handmaids to do what she wants is to use the rhetorical and emotional handholds that Lydia beat into them. It’s notable how she’s styled, and how she moves, in the season’s first episode - all in ways that seem designed to echo Ann Dowd’s performance.

Esther herself is a really brilliant addition to the series (and it’s baffling to me that she was written off so quickly - perhaps she’ll return?). She forces June to play multiple roles - the subservient Handmaid/Martha to Esther’s Wife; the stern but loving maternal figure to an abused child desperate for attention and care; most interestingly, the role of an Aunt, who earns Esther’s loyalty by directing her violence and rage at the right target. It’s also, of course, yet another reminder of what Gilead is actually about, and of the fact that just as women like June are considered a stopgap measure, so are women like Serena. The real Wives of Gilead are children like Esther, too young and ignorant to say no or have a mind of their own. And if the result is rape, trauma, and psychological harm, then so be it.

At the same time, these episodes are also about June the increasingly mythical figure, both inside Gilead - the Mayday contact at Jezebel’s who is awed to meet her and inspired by her to make a possibly suicidal stand - and outside of it. And they’re about the weight that it puts on Luke and Moira’s shoulders to love, from afar, a woman who is a hero of the revolution. It’s a nice counterpoint to the show’s mythologizing of June that they are allowed to express how frustrating it is to have to deal with the fallout of her heroism. (Though some of their complaints are hard to sympathize with; yes, Moira, June probably did not think about the fact that some of the children she rescued from Gilead would remember no other home and want to go back; does that mean she should have left them to become illiterate child-brides and brainwashed rapists?) If you’re going to do The Hunger Games, at least acknowledge that real-life Katnisses can be as exhausting as they are inspirational.

And look, for all my grousing, it’s not as if there isn’t a good story to be told about June, the renegade handmaid who turns herself into Gilead’s scourge. The show’s styling already works hard to recall WWII, and the references to slavery also abound. Both of those periods have no shortage of stories about awe-inspiring heroism from within the belly of the beast, and if The Handmaid’s Tale struggles with plotting stories like this (and if placing a middle class white woman at their center is a choice with some obvious drawbacks) that doesn’t mean they can’t be entertaining and inspirational to watch.

Which makes it all the more frustrating that the third episode winds us all the way back to where we’ve been so many times in the last three seasons, with June in the clutches of the Gileadean security state. A situation that is treated, yet again, as an opportunity for the show’s costuming and set-dressing departments to imagine yet another level of Gilead’s color-coded oppression. I thought Atwood’s The Testaments was a rather pointless return to the world of the original novel, but one thing it grasps, which the show never has, is that Gilead was never meant to look elegant or cool. Its outfits and neologisms were meant to come off as cheap and chintzy. The show, in contrast, simply loves inventing new and increasingly elaborate settings, and putting June in new outfits, whether or not this takes the story anywhere interesting.

There’s a bit of fun to be had in the fact that June is so clearly over Aunt Lydia’s sickly-sweet mind games, but in the end it feels pointless - just a way of getting Moss to play against some of the show’s heavy hitters again, repeating the same beats we’ve seen so many times before. And sure, Lawrence’s line - “Gilead doesn’t care about children. Gilead cares about power.” - is a good one. But it’s also something we know. I suspect it’s something June knows - the only reason she denies it is that she doesn’t want to accept that she’s going to have to choose between her compatriots and her daughter.

And in the end, we’re right back where we started, with June on the run, except now only with Janine (conveniently, the other handmaids are killed before they ask any uncomfortable questions about how they were captured; and Janine just happens to be the character least likely to question or criticize June). So it remains to be seen whether this season will actually take the leap and become the adventure show it has so clearly wanted to become, while clearly being embarrassed by that desire. Or whether we’re in for another season of pointless runarounds.

(I will say nothing about Serena’s pregnancy except that I’m a bit surprised she and Fred were still having sex. Otherwise it continues to amaze me that the show thinks we should still have any interest in her - but at least someone actually comes out and tells her that Nichole isn’t her daughter. I will also say nothing about the June and Nick of it all. My stance continues to be that June should take what pleasure she can get in her uncertain life, but if the show wants me to be invested in their romance, sorry, that’s where I get off.)

[mst3kproject]

Planet of Dinosaurs

This movie is blessed with some pretty cool stop-motion dinosaurs and absolutely nothing else, and it’s got a Rifftrack.  That’s… that’s it, really.  Press play.

The spaceship Odyssey suffers a reactor meltdown and blows up with only just enough warning for the crew to launch a single lifeboat shuttle.  Luckily, there’s a life-bearing planet nearby where the spandex-suited survivors can land, but unluckily, it turns out to be inhabited by giant reptiles, not unlike the prehistoric fauna of Earth!  There’s also a spider the size of a Yorkshire terrier, for no particular reason.

There’s not really any plot from there, it’s just bad actors shooting toy laser guns at plastic dinosaurs, interspersed with Rock Climbing. At last the characters manage to kill the inevitable T-rex that’s been threatening them, whereupon they declare themselves to have conquered this planet.

There are a few attempts at human conflict but they’re pretty watery.  The first possible b-plot has to do with the vice president of the space-shipping company, Mr. Baylor, who was along on this trip for some reason and is among the survivors. So they’re not just stranded on Dinosaur Planet, they’re stranded on Dinosaur Planet with their boss.  He’s a jackass and his secretary quickly gets fed up with him and quits, which doesn’t do her a whole lot of good since they are, as I mentioned, stranded on Dinosaur Planet.  The writers run out of things to do with Baylor about halfway through the movie and kill him off, to everybody’s relief.

The second involves the bearded guy, Jim, who’s starting to take issue with Captain Lee’s command style.  Lee is trying to keep them all alive and uninjured until help can arrive.  Jim doesn’t think help is coming and wants to go full caveman and start slaughtering things. It starts to look like he’s gonna foment a mutiny, but eventually he and Lee overcome their differences and come up with a plan to kill the T-rex.

Finally, of course, the survivors inevitably pair off in heterosexual couples.  Sure is lucky there weren’t more men than women or vice-versa.  Very fortunate nobody’s left with no-one to bone but someone they’ve never gotten along with.  Quite improbable that nobody on the entire command crew was gay.  When one member of one of these couples becomes a dinosaur victim, the other thoughtfully dies a few scenes later, not because he commits suicide out of guilt or something, but just by coincidence.

One thing the movie actually does pretty well is day-for-night.  It’s not great, in that you can still tell it was shot in the daytime through a filter, but they chose the right filter to cool down the warm tones of the sunlight, and had the sense to keep the sky out of shot.  It never looks like somebody just turned the brightness on your screen way down and called it ‘night’, and I’ve seen so much worse that I want to at least acknowledge their competence.

The other thing Planet of Dinosaurs does well is the actual dinosaurs, which are a lot of fun. They’re lumpy and out of date, but some real care seems to have gone into building the detailed puppets and their movements are fluid and sometimes very lifelike.  There’s a nice variety of them, too.  As well as the T-rex there’s a smaller therapod that might be intended to be an Allosaurus, a couple of little Ornithomimus­-like animals, a Brontosaurus complete with the wrong head, a Stegosaurus, a Centrosaurus, and some kind of ankylosaur.  In real life these are a jumble of Hell Creek and Morrison dinosaurs who never met each other, but eh, it’s supposed to be another planet, it’s cool.

Unfortunately, there are several points where the effects people try to show us something they probably should have implied instead.  I commend their ambition, but knowing your limits is a big part of making special effects work.  In the first episode of Walking with Dinosaurs, the Postosuchus attacks a Placerias… but we don’t see as much of this as we think we do because our view is blocked by the body of the prey animal.  They knew their CGI wasn’t up to making the attack look good, so they tricked us into thinking we saw more than we did.  In Planet of Dinosaurs, a character stabs an injured Ornithomimus with a spear, and it’s painfully obvious that the stop-motion creature was just superimposed on top.  They could easily have set up the shot so we didn’t have to actually see it go in, but they didn’t.

The dinosaurs are clearly what they spent their budget on, which was wise – as I said in my review of Twelve to the Moon, if you can only afford to show us one cool thing, best make it the one in the title. Sadly, when I say spent the budget I mean the entire budget.  The rest of Planet of Dinosaurs looks like it was made in somebody’s backyard using stuff from the garden shed.  The spaceship that briefly appears in the opening had a previous career as a vacuum cleaner.  When it ‘explodes’ it just flickers red and vanishes with no further attempt at an effect.

The costumes look kind of like if they made the original Star Trek series ten years later but on the same budget, with producers who didn’t think they wanted this to be a porno but preferred to keep the option open.  The designated Himbo, Chuck, doffs his shirt within the first few minutes of the film and never gets it back.  The blonde who goes for a swim and is eaten by some water monster was wearing a bikini under her uniform for some reason.  By the end, they’re all dressed in cartoon caveman garb and Chuck is still shirtless.

Besides the dinosaurs, the main effect we see is the laser guns, which are among the most ineffective sci-fi weapons ever committed to screen.  They fire a beam of very slow red light which does absolutely nothing to any of the dinosaurs, even when the characters observe that one has been injured.  I think this is supposed to show us that the animals are tougher than the technology, but for that to work we would have needed to see a laser used effectively, perhaps to destroy something blocking the path. Without that, we have no basis for comparison.

If this were all Planet of Dinosaurs did wrong, it would be a bad movie classic.  Even the abysmally bad acting has its funny moments. What ruins the enjoyment is the movie’s lack of a proper story.

Planet of Dinosaurs is supposed to be a Cast Away or Robinson Crusoe sort of a film, about unprepared people thrust into the wilderness and forced to survive as best they can.  Such a narrative doesn’t need an overarching conflict per se.  It can be a series of smaller survival stories strung together, but Planet of Dinosaurs doesn’t manage to do that.  The ‘plot’ with Baylor depends on him being a petulant fool, and the characters are not sufficiently well-developed for us to have any interest in the ‘love stories’ that don’t affect the overall course of events.

The rivalry between Captain Lee and Bearded Guy Jim turns on how to keep the rest of the survivors safe from the large predators in the area, particularly the T-rex.  Lee wants everybody to hole up on a rocky plateau behind a ridiculously flimsy stockade to keep the animals out, while Jim wants to hunt down and kill the dinosaurs, to teach them to fear humans as wolves do on Earth.  The main problem with this is that we just don’t see enough of the predatory dinosaurs to justify this treatment of them.

We see the T-rex fairly early in the film, and it fuels the humans’ decision to see high ground where they hope such a large animal will not go. The much smaller Allosaurus shows up at one point to make a woman scream, is ‘injured’ with a laser, and the T-rex then eats it.  And just before the climax, the T-rex breaks through the stockade to chow down on Baylor’s secretary.  In between these incidents, we do not see and rarely even hear about these animals.  If we’re supposed to imagine them constantly lurking around outside, the movie makes no effort to reinforce that impression.  The T-rex is treated as the Final Boss, but the movie just hasn’t earned that.

At the end we see the survivors a few years later.  They’re building a farm, making their own clothes, living off the land, and raising their children.  One of the women asks the other if she thinks they’re ever going to be rescued, and the other replies that she doesn’t think it matters anymore. The implication is that they’re now happy here.  This is really not a bad little denouement, and ends the movie on a warm, optimistic note.

If you want to see some ridiculous 70s mustaches and ugly 70s dinosaurs, you’ll probably have fun with Planet of Dinosaurs.  Unfortunately, the movie was a little too ambitious in some places and not ambitious enough in others.  If I’d seen it at the age of six I probably would have become immediately obsessed with it for the dinosaurs alone, but as an adult I’m afraid my standards are just a little too high.  Unable to afford to be good, and unable to commit to being bad, it’s just another meh.

[hexalt]

CW for discussion of suicide

- She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - What? No, I'm not. - She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - That's a sexist term! - She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - Can you guys stop singing for just a second? - She's so broken insiiiiiide! - The situation's a lot more nuanced than that!

There’s the essay! You get it now. JK.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the culmination of Rachel Bloom’s YouTube channel (and the song “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury” in particular where she combined her lifelong obsession with musical theatre and sketch comedy and Aline Brosh McKenna stumbling onto Bloom’s channel one night while having an idea for a television show that subverted the tropes in scripts she’d been writing like The Devil Wears Prada and 27 Dresses.

The show begins with a flashback to teenage Rebecca Bunch (played by Bloom) at summer camp performing in South Pacific. She leaves summer camp gushing about the performance, holding hands with the guy she spent all summer with, Josh Chan. He says it was fun for the time, but it’s time to get back to real life. We flash forward to the present in New York, Rebecca’s world muted in greys and blues with clothing as conservative as her hair.

She’s become a top tier lawyer, a career that she doesn’t enjoy but was pushed into by her overprotective, controlling mother. She’s just found out she’s being promoted to junior partner, and that’s just objectively, on paper fantastic, right?! ...So why isn’t she happy? She goes out onto the streets in the midst of a panic attack, spilling her pills all over the ground, and suddenly sees an ad for butter asking, “When was the last time you were truly happy?” A literal arrow and beam of sunlight then point to none other than Josh Chan. She strikes up a conversation with him where he tells her he’s been trying to make it in New York but doesn’t like it, so he’s moving back to his hometown, West Covina, California, where everyone is just...happy.

The word echoes in her mind, and she absorbs it like a pill. She decides to break free of the hold others have had over her life and turns down the promotion of her mother’s dreams. I didn’t realize the show was a musical when I started it, and it’s at this point that Rebecca is breaking out into its first song, “West Covina”. It’s a parody of the extravagant, classic Broadway numbers filled with a children’s marching band whose funding gets cut, locals joining Rebecca in synchronized song and dance, and finishing with her being lifted into the sky while sitting on a giant pretzel. This was the moment I realized there was something special here.

With this introduction, the stage has been set for the premise of the show. Each season was planned with an overall theme. Season one is all about denial, season two is about being obsessed with love and losing yourself in it, season three is about the spiral and hitting rock bottom, and season four is about renewal and starting from scratch. You can see this from how the theme songs change every year, each being the musical thesis for that season.

We start the show with a bunch of cliché characters: the crazy ex-girlfriend; her quirky sidekick; the hot love interest; his bitchy girlfriend; and his sarcastic best friend who’s clearly a much better match for the heroine. The magic of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is that no one in West Covina is the sum of their tropes. As Rachel says herself, “People aren’t badly written, people are made of specificities.”

The show is revolutionary for the authenticity with which it explores various topics but for the sake of this piece, we’ll discuss mental health, gender, Jewish identity, and sexuality. All topics that Bloom has dug into in her previous works but none better than here.

Simply from the title, many may be put off, but this is a story that has always been about deconstructing stereotypes. Rather than being called The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, where the story would be from an outsider’s perspective, this story is from that woman’s point of view because the point isn’t to demonize Rebecca, it’s to understand her. Even if you hate her for all the awful things she’s doing.

The musical numbers are shown to be in Rebecca’s imagination, and she tells us they’re how she processes the world, but as she starts healing in the final season, she isn’t the lead singer so often anymore and other characters get to have their own problems and starring roles. When she does have a song, it’s because she’s backsliding into her former patterns.

While a lot of media will have characters that seem to have some sort of vague disorder, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend goes a step further and actually diagnoses Rebecca with Borderline Personality Disorder, while giving her an earnest, soaring anthem. She’s excited and relieved to finally have words for what’s plagued her whole life.

When diagnosing Rebecca, the show’s team consulted with doctors and psychiatrists to give her a proper diagnosis that ended up resonating with many who share it. BPD is a demonized and misunderstood disorder, and I’ve heard that for many, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the first honest and kind depiction they’ve seen of it in media. Where the taboo of mental illness often leads people to not get any help, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend says there is freedom and healing in identifying and sharing these parts of yourself with others.

Media often uses suicide for comedy or romanticizes it, but Crazy Ex-Girlfriend explored what’s going through someone’s mind to reach that bottomless pit. Its climactic episode is written by Jack Dolgen (Bloom’s long-time musical collaborator, co-songwriter and writer for the show) who’s dealt with suicidal ideation. Many misunderstood suicide as the person simply wanting to die for no reason, but Rebecca tells her best friend, “I didn’t even want to die. I just wanted the pain to stop. It’s like I was out of stories to tell myself that things would be okay.”

Bloom has never shied away from heavy topics. The show discusses in song the horrors of what women do to their bodies and self-esteem to conform to beauty standards, the contradiction of girl power songs that tell you to “Put Yourself First” but make sure you look good for men while doing it, and the importance of women bonding over how terrible straight men are are near and dear to her heart. This is a show that centers marginalized women, pokes fun at the misogyny they go through, and ultimately tells us the love story we thought was going to happen wasn’t between a woman and some guy but between her and her best friend.

I probably haven’t watched enough Jewish TV or film, but to me, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the most unapologetic and relatable Jewish portrayal I’ve seen overall. From Rebecca’s relationship with her toxic, controlling mother (if anyone ever wants to know what my mother’s like, I send them “Where’s the Bathroom”) to Patti Lupone’s Rabbi Shari answering a Rebecca that doesn’t believe in God, “Always questioning! That is the true spirit of the Jewish people,” the Jewish voices behind the show are clear.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend continues to challenge our perceptions when a middle-aged man with an ex-wife and daughter realizes he’s bisexual and comes out in a Huey Lewis saxophone reverie. The hyper-feminine mean girl breaks up with her boyfriend and realizes the reason she was so obsessed with getting him to commit to her is the same reason she’s so scared to have female friends. She was suffering under the weight of compulsory heterosexuality, but thanks to Rebecca, she eventually finds love and friendship with women.

This thread is woven throughout the show. Many of the characters tell Rebecca when she’s at her lowest of how their lives would’ve never changed for the better if it wasn’t for her. She was a tornado that blew through West Covina, but instead of leaving destruction in her wake, she blew apart their façades, forcing true introspection into what made them happy too.

Rebecca’s story is that of a woman who felt hopeless, who felt no love or happiness in her life, when that’s all she’s ever wanted. She tried desperately to fill that void through validation from her parents and random men, things romantic comedies had taught her matter most but came up empty. She tried on a multitude of identities through the musical numbers in her mind, seeing herself as the hero and villain of the story, and eventually realized she’s neither because life doesn’t make narrative sense.

It takes her a long time but eventually she sees that all the things she thought would solve her problems can’t actually bring her happiness. What does is the real family she finds in West Covina, the town she moved to on a whim, and finally having agency over herself to use her own voice and tell her story through music.

The first words spoken by Rebecca are, “When I sang my solo, I felt, like, a really palpable connection with the audience.” Her last words are, “This is a song I wrote.” This connection with the audience that brought her such joy is something she finally gets when she gets to perform her story not to us, the TV audience, but to her loved ones in West Covina. Rebecca (and Rachel) always felt like an outcast, West Covina (and creating the show) showed her how cathartic it is to find others who understand you.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the prologue to Rebecca’s life and the radical story of someone getting better. She didn’t need to change her entire being to find acceptance and happiness, she needed to embrace herself and accept love and help from others who truly cared for her. Community is what she always needed and community is what ultimately saved her.

*

P.S. If you have Spotify... I also process life through music, so I made some playlists related to the show because what better way to express my deep affection for it than through song?

CXG parodies, references, and is inspired by a lot of music from all kinds of genres, musicals, and musicians. Same goes for the videos themselves. I gathered all of them into one giant playlist along with the show’s songs.

A Rebecca Bunch mix that goes through her character arc from season 1 to 4.

I’m shamelessly a fan of Greg x Rebecca, so this is a mega mix of themselves and their relationship throughout the show.

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I’m in a TV group where we wrote essays on our favorite shows of the 2010s, so here is mine on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, I realized I forgot to ever post it. Also wrote one for Schitt’s Creek.